Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle Book 3)

by Adam J Nicolai

  "You thought you had already surrendered your family, because your parents were dead. You were still suffering from their loss—you're still suffering now. But you had a new family, one which you never should have left. They could have healed you. Made you whole. The Preservers could not. To them, your wounds were potential. They wanted to exploit them, not heal them.

  "Look." Again he gestured at the practicing students. "Look how old they are. I haven't asked them their ages, but the youngest is over twenty. We took orphans and children who wouldn't remember their families so we could indoctrinate them. We were told it's easier to write the Teachings on an empty mind than a full one. But I . . ."

  Seth waited, stunned. He couldn't remember another time when Retash had hesitated.

  "Your wounds made you valuable. Your training was designed to amplify their pain, to forge you into a weapon. Kajiik. Do you know the word?"

  Sentence by sentence, Retash pummeled him without landing a punch. This was the finisher, a blow with the potential to knock him senseless. "Yes," he said, numb. "Preserver-assassins." A paradox of terms. "But they're not real. It goes against everything we―"

  "They are real. And you were to join them. Your unparalleled skill coupled with your lack of interest in the Teachings made you a prime candidate. Jokan saw it. The Elders saw it." He nodded. "I saw it.

  "But I didn't allow it."

  Seth froze as the truth finally revealed itself. "You didn't send me home to study."

  "No. I expelled you, and told the Elders you deserted."

  "You―" The words caught in his throat, mangled by disbelief. He felt the heat rising to his face—anger or shame or surprise, he couldn't tell which.

  Then he ignited with incandescent rage.

  You took my life away, he realized. Twice.

  You stole the only thing I ever excelled at.

  You made me an outcast.

  You gave me no choice.

  You made every decision for me.

  The words shoved and jostled each other, jamming up before they could reach his tongue.

  As if he hadn't just admitted to stealing everything, Retash went on.

  "That life would've destroyed you. I knew it. They knew it too, but they didn't care. They would say my compassion was a weakness, and maybe they'd be right, but I acted on it. I wouldn't let you become an assassin."

  "You were too late," Seth growled. "I already was."

  Confusion flickered in Retash's eyes, an instant of rare vulnerability. Seth poured all his hate into it; hurled his words like javelins.

  "It was a friend of mine. A girl from Southlight I'd known my whole life. She was a murderer herself. She deserved to die. I stabbed her through the back.

  "She thought she had talked me out of it, and I stabbed her through the back."

  It was an admission, but he launched it like an accusation. He expected to feel powerful when he finished. Dangerous.

  He didn't.

  "The ravenhead from Wolfwood," Retash said.

  "Yes. We lied to you about her. She wasn't just a witch—she was the first witch, the one who caused the Rending. Because I didn't stop her earlier, she grew stronger. Strong enough to kill a score of men with a whisper. She melted them. When the others tried to talk to her about it—that's all they ever do, is talk—she could see no wrong in what she'd done. No wrong. She called it defense. She would have done it again. Watching their families weep didn't move her. Nothing moved her."

  The words were all loose now, blasting out of his mouth in a torrent of rage.

  "She said it was the only thing she could do. The only thing! As if there weren't a dozen of us there who could have managed the entire crowd by ourselves. As if we hadn't come out of worse situations a thousand times without slaughtering a score of townsfolk.

  "And she did it because I let her. I'd known for months she had to die, but I held my hand. I trusted her cousin to handle it, I trusted my sister to handle it, but I knew they couldn't do what had to be done. I waited too long, and she committed a massacre.

  "I should have done it long ago. I should have done it the first night I saw her chant. Or maybe even earlier, when we were kids. She never could have opened the book, then—there never would have been a Rending.

  "I was the only one who knew what had to be done. Murder came easily to me. I didn't hesitate. So you failed, Master." He packed the term with mockery. "I was already a killer. You threw our lives away for nothing."

  Retash absorbed his attack without flinching. "This murder," he said. "You're sure it was necessary?"

  "We tried everything else, and she just grew more dangerous. It was the only answer."

  "'The only answer,'" Retash repeated, considering. "You sound just like her."

  iii. Angbar

  He had already lost one home, in the Kesprey. Now he was losing another.

  Harth had made no preamble, no equivocations or pleas. He explained the King's demand, read the declaration, and said: "Now you have to choose." He fixed his eyes on the student closest to the left wall. "Rebecca."

  The girl flushed. Angbar knew she was sweet on Harth—the whole school did. Hel, half the girls her age probably were. This isn't the right way to do this, he thought, but he was still too new to Syntal's school and too dizzy from losing his place in Lyseira's church to say the words. He was an outsider here—again. Maybe he always would be.

  "I . . ." Rebecca glanced once at Ben, an apology in her eyes, then back to Harth. "I'll go with you."

  Harth gave a curt nod. Rebecca came up to join him. "Belline."

  "Ben, I suppose." She took her place at his side.

  "Kirk."

  "I . . ." Kirkus looked back and forth between Ben and Harth, his distress plain. "I don't . . ."

  "Wait," Takra snapped. "Wait, wait, wait. This is wrong."

  Harth sighed. "We didn't ask for this, Takra. We don't have time to argue."

  "Well, we have time to talk, at least. I won't do this the way you're doing it. I've worked with both of you. I appreciate both of you. You walk in here, tear everything we've worked on these last months in half, and demand that we choose a side. How are we supposed to do that?"

  Kirkus nodded, relieved; a chorus of agreement rippled through the crowd.

  "These new schools are supposed to be different. Separate charters. So what are we actually signing up for? We need to know what you're thinking. It'll be hard enough to leave either of you behind, but it might be a little easier if we have some idea what we're getting into."

  "I think that's a fine sentiment," Ben said, "but we've only just gotten the command. I had planned to work that out with my fellow students. I assumed writing our charter would be the first thing we'd do."

  Takra scoffed. "We have new students coming in here every day! Or we did, until this newest blizzard started up. You'll never get it done if you let every person who walks in the door throw in two heels. And besides, the charter is the main thing that will influence my decision. Probably others' too. What if I join you today, and realize I like the direction of Harth's school better?"

  A collective murmur, a round of nods.

  "Take Kirkus. If I know him, he'll want a school with a dedication to excellence and a willingness to help new people, just like I would. For my part, I'd like to see some basic tenets ratified that we've already established here: an openness to the public, a dedication to help all who come through the doors―"

  "A reading program for the poor," Angbar called, his heart leaping. Maybe this isn't about how I don't belong anywhere, he thought. Maybe this is about making a place where I do.

  Takra pointed at him. "Exactly."

  "I can't imagine we'd disagree on any of that," Ben said, glancing at Harth. "I could certainly commit to it."

  "I'd like to be part of a school that keeps a public library of spells, where all students have access to all the spells," Takra went on. "We already have people writing their own custom chants, and that's great—but we'll be str
onger as a whole if those works are shared with the whole group."

  Ben nodded. "Of course. Goes without saying."

  Harth raised a hand. "All right. Good points. I'm glad you brought them up.

  "Because I'll be doing things differently."

  Angbar looked at him in surprise.

  "I've been thinking about this for a while, actually. You all know I encourage you doing your own research. In fact, I could see my school requiring you to do that as a sign of mastery. And I think it's good to share the knowledge that comes out of that—runic definitions, anchor parameters, things like that. But I don't think anyone should be required to share the spells they create. In fact, I think it would be better if everyone kept a few to themselves."

  A round of surprise. Clearly no one had expected that.

  "And to go one further, I don't think it's such a bad idea to turn a coin at this." He locked eyes with Takra, challenging her. "The public good is wonderful, but we'll all be beholden to the King. If he wants us working for public welfare, he can order us to. We have powers that until now, no one without a cleric's chain has had at their command. It is grueling work, taxing in mind and body, and dangerous. We have every right to ask compensation for the danger."

  "So you think the Church is right to charge for healing?" Takra demanded. "To let people die of redwarts and starvation if they can't pay?"

  "I can't cure anyone of redwarts or starvation. My powers aren't life or death, and they don't come from Akir. You're comparing horses and cattle."

  "Not life and death?" Takra threw back. "Without chanters, the sleigh bringing wheat to Colmon would never have gotten there. The town would have starved."

  "And you had to take weeks out of your life for that trip. You could have died on the way. You don't think you deserved to be paid for that? How do you think either of these schools is going to pay for food or rent? Paper, even." He turned back to the crowd. "The Arwah won't charge for everything. But there'll be a standing expectation of payment, and I'll be negotiating with the King and every one of our other patrons for it."

  Arwah. Angbar knew enough First Tongue to recognize the word. It meant "first of many"—like the omen of the first drops of rain before a downpour. The word gave him a chill. Did he just come up with that on the way home?

  "But how can you―?" Takra cut herself off, fuming. Then she pushed purposefully through the crowd to stand next to Ben.

  Harth's face was unreadable. He blinked his gaze away from her. "And one last thing!" he called, fighting to make his voice heard over the crowd. "The King's declaration implied this, but in the Arwah it'll be explicit: we're here to fight. We'll be going to war. I won't say our enemy will be the old Church or the Fatherlord or even any particular house. Our banner flies with the King's—his enemies are our enemies, and the Arwah will fight them."

  Now the students' murmur had a bit of heat beneath it. Confusion gave way to argument. The crowd started shifting as a few of the chanters started moving in one direction or another.

  "We'll also fight the King's enemies!" Takra called. "Of course we will! But there's more to all this than just making war and getting rich! There has to be!"

  "Picture the city a year from now," Ben offered. "Ten years from now. The whole kingdom. Chanters need to be accessible to the people. We have to show them we aren't dangerous—we have centuries of the Church's hate to overcome."

  "We have to look out for each other," Takra went on. "How can we do that when we don't even share our ideas? If you like how the school has been run up until now, if you felt at home here, come with us."

  In less than twenty minutes, the entire school divided. Thirteen to Harth's side, seventeen to Takra and Ben's. Angbar tapped Takra's shoulder, and the girl gave him a tight, grateful smile when she saw him.

  "Good," Harth said. He hid the pain in his eyes when he saw Angbar, looking quickly away. "Good. Tomorrow we'll find the remaining students and have them choose as well. Ben, I think you and I should do that together."

  "Agreed," Ben said.

  "Good," Harth repeated. "Then . . . Arwah, come with me. We have a charter to write."

  Few students slept that night. Angbar joined a dozen of them in the common room an hour before dawn, watching the old grandfather clock. They made small talk in the dark about the new schools and the missing sun, the King's commandment and the gall of Lyseira's church. As dawn approached, though, it became a gallows conversation: fragile and furtive.

  The long hand reached its zenith, then crested. The short hand crept to the symbol of the rising sun, then past it.

  The darkness remained absolute.

  Of the other score students in the city, only three came for classes. Ben, Takra, and Harth received them and gave them their choice. Two went with Ben and Takra. The other declined to continue her studies, and returned home.

  An hour later, Harth and Ben left to speak with the rest of the students who had stayed home. They were gone all day. Angbar tried a few times to throw himself into his studies or to make conversation. He couldn't. The blackness outside the windows crowded its way into his thoughts, congealing them and dragging him down. He could think of nothing else. He wondered what Lyseira was doing, or Iggy.

  He thought of Syntal's cold grave, buried beneath a mountain of snow.

  iv. Seth

  One day a student died. He listed suddenly to the side while listening to Retash lecture on emptiness and impermanence, his training insufficient to meet his body's needs.

  Some of his peers wept. Others maintained their stoicism. Two of them carried his body outside to bury it in the snow beneath a sky the sun had forsaken—the same two who had found Seth, when he first arrived.

  Seth leaned against the wall and watched. When Retash called a break to the day's lessons so people could wrestle with their grief, Seth called, "What is the point of this?"

  A hush fell over the room. All eyes turned to him.

  "This . . . stupid silence posing as meditation, this fake fighting. The sun is gone, now. You're all dying. You're accomplishing nothing. What is the point?"

  "What's the point of anything?" Retash returned. "What was the point of coming here? Did you come here seeking a point? Or did you just come here to condemn?" The man kept his voice level. His questions weren't angry. "Condemnation has been my life's work, Seth. I'm tired of it. I'm done with it."

  The rebuke took Seth aback, at first. Then he forged onward. "Done with it?" he demanded. "It's all you know! You've been condemning me since you first laid eyes on me!"

  "No doubt." Retash nodded. "No doubt. That's what I told you. You're damaged, as damaged as I am. That's as much my fault as anyone's—more, maybe. But I don't relish it. I would take it back, if I could."

  "You told me I sound like a murderer!"

  "And you took that as condemnation?"

  "Of course I did!" You were my teacher. He wanted to rage; it took every fiber of his self-control to contain himself. The last thing in the world I still trusted.

  "Then I apologize to you again. I didn't intend it as judgment—merely as an observation. Maybe it's as you say. Maybe I've condemned so long I don't know how to do anything else. I accept that. But it might be possible, at the same time, that where no judgment is intended, you hear it all the same. Maybe it's not me judging you, but you judging yourself. It that's true, you'll hear it everywhere. From everyone. A filter laid over every word you perceive."

  Seth pointed a finger. "Don't you twist this around! How dare you! You haven't been there, you haven't seen what I've seen."

  "I haven't," Retash agreed. "I only see you as you are now."

  More condemnation. More judgment. From birth to the compound to his time with his sister, he had failed at everything.

  His restraint shattered.

  "I'm not like her!" he shrieked. His arms stiff and thrust behind him, the scream seizing his body like a lightning bolt. "I am better than her! I never slaughtered innocents, I never worked witchcraft!" The
word left his lips in a spray of spittle.

  "M'sai."

  "She was a witch! She was a murderer!"

  "M'sai."

  "Yet you hate me!"

  "I don't."

  "Yes, you do! You do!"

  "M'sai."

  Seth snorted like a bull, chest heaving, eyes darting. "I tried other things first. She never tried anything else. I tried to talk to her. I tried to talk to the others. She didn't try to talk to anyone. She never listened. She only wanted to kill."

  "M'sai."

  And in the end, you made a decision about what had to be done, just as she did. His own words, not Retash's. Condemnation from within. You acted without consulting anyone, just as she did. You declared yourself the law, declared there were no other options.

  "There were no other options!"

  "M'sai."

  There was trial. Expulsion. Execution, even—as a function of law, rather than personal vendetta. But you decided on one way—the way of murder. Just as she did.

  "I'm not the same!"

  "M'sai."

  "Sehk'akir, it's not the same thing!"

  "You keep saying that," Retash said. "Why don't you believe it?"

  Because it's not true. Because I am as much a killer as she was—I just didn't have the same power. If I'd had it, I'd have used it. Maybe not in the exact same way. But the first time I felt I knew best, the first time I found a way to justify it, I would have done the same or worse.

  Silence struck him like a slap.

  The only difference between us was the power.

  Did he really believe that? Was he certain?

  Did it even matter?

  Retash spoke. "As you said, Seth, we're all dying. We won't survive forever. The only question is how to spend our remaining days. Maybe there is something you can learn here, if you can stop hating yourself long enough to learn it."

  He wanted to sneer. He wanted to beg. He wanted to die. "And what is that?" he asked, desperate.

  Retash shook his head. "I don't know. I told you I don't have the answers. Everyone here is on their own path. But I can share what little I've learned.