“Athers forged it, Amelia requested it, but Gillis … he did not know,” Verandert said.
“Pauloce deserved what he—” Athers began, but Verandert silenced him by holding up a finger.
“Pauloce was useful. His death marks disruption, disunity, and chaos in his lands. Could you repair what he has built over a lifetime?”
Athers made a choking noise and backed slowly away from Verandert.
“We are as a tree, we Mordenari. We bow to the seasons and do not weep when the winds take our leaves,” Verandert said. Gillis’ eyes stung from tears. Verandert took another step toward them.
“We do not weep when those leaves must be burned,” Verandert said. “Nor do we weep when the tree rots from within, and the fire must take the whole forest to allow for new growth.”
Verandert tilted his head and extended a hand to Athers, who took it and stood. Athers’ jaw quivered. Verandert caressed Athers’ cheek.
“Verandert, please,” Athers said.
“We will not hang you for all to see,” Verandert said.
Athers relaxed slightly at this, his mouth slightly open and his breath held. Then, Verandert raised his dagger and plunged it into Athers’ neck with a flash of blue light. The surge of Momaentum was so great that it blinded Gillis and left his skin tingling. When his sight returned, Athers’ life was flowing from him on the steps below. His blood ran down the stairs in wide pools, and the now-frozen Hearing Oil clattered away step by step until it was lost in the darkness.
“No, we did not want to hang Athers for all to see,” Verandert repeated. “For they cannot know. You understand, Gillis. A Dreyen’s betrayal cannot be public. He must be erased.”
Gillis’ voice was too thick from tears to speak for a time, so he swallowed and said, “Verandert, please don’t kill me this way. Let me speak my last words. Let me hang.”
“I have not decided what to do with you yet,” Verandert said. He wiped the blade of his dagger on his robes. Gillis looked down and saw his own robes were wet with Athers’ blood. The choking sounds of Athers’ breathing had stopped; he was dead.
“I did not know. I did not know,” Gillis said, rocking back and forth slightly.
“Athers forged the writ, and so he dies. The girl, too, will die. But you who did not know,” Verandert said, “what becomes of you?”
Verandert held his hand out to Gillis, but Gillis shook his head with his gaze fixed on the stairs, prompting Verandert to seize him by the chin and drag him upright. The sluggish dripping of Athers’ blood echoed around them.
“I have always been faithful. Always,” Gillis said.
“I know. More faithful than most. More faithful than my own High Monk. So, I give you a choice: after the cleansing fire, rise from the ashes. Or choke on them,” Verandert said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Amelia. She has left my Monastery with the two prisoners. You will find her, travel with her, and when the time comes you will deliver her to me so you can watch her die. Then, with your sin repaid, you will begin the journey to being my new High Monk.”
“Thank you, Verandert.”
“If you cannot do this—if you fail me—you will die as well.”
Gillis sank to his knees and held Verandert’s hand with two of his own. A hollow, choking feeling pressed on his throat, and every breath felt too shallow to sate him. Amelia had done a terrible thing. Her forging of the writ was a wound, an insult to the Monastery. He cursed himself for being blind to her deceptions; cursed her for being so far from who he’d thought she was; cursed the blood that dripped down the stairs from Athers’ body and made bile rise in his throat. Gillis stood and nodded with slow gravity to Verandert, almost a bow. He did not speak a word, but his meaning was clear.
She would die.
Part 3: The Casting Out
Chapter 13
Amelia held the vial, now filled with frozen blue liquid, with a shaking hand. It took three to kill Pauloce. Excuses do not forestall judgment. But first, give me the vial. Verandert’s words were the last thing to come through the vial before it had frozen solid. Now, there was only silence. Her mind leapt ahead to the worst—the three of them in cells, in ragged white robes, waiting to be hanged. Then their robes would be taken to that tree. Her head began to spin.
“How did you do that?” Roos asked.
He was peering over her shoulder at the vial.
“I didn’t. Verandert did.”
“What does it mean?” Choson said.
“Death,” Amelia said. Her voice felt weak in her throat, but she kept it from wavering. “Most likely if they are not dead now … they will be soon.”
Roos and Choson watched her in silence for a moment.
“No matter. We need to move on.”
Amelia turned away and continued her descent with the others in her wake. They were near the bottom of the eastern side of the mountain, where it was skirted by dense woodlands. The ground was not so steep that they had to climb with their hands, but steep enough that the loose rocks they stepped on threatened to pitch them forward and down the slope. The only sounds were the wind and the scrape of the shifting rocks. As they walked, Amelia’s mind raced. I mustn’t get ahead of myself. They may not be dead, she thought. I put them up to it. I’m the one Verandert wants. But he had said, “It took three to kill Pauloce.” He meant to kill all three of them, surely. Well if Athers dies, it’s his fault. I warned him of the danger. But Gillis had not been warned. If he died it was her fault entirely. A rock shifted underfoot, and she stumbled.
It was not her fault Verandert had found them out so quickly. She had not meant for any of this. Tears came to her eyes, so she drew in a quivering breath and blinked them away.
They soon came to the foothills that rippled out from the mountain, and took to the tree cover where it was thickest. The day waned, and long shadows of the trees gathered around them until darkness came. They stopped in a small clearing, where Amelia lit a smokeless fire. Roos leaned close to it despite the sparks that it threw up and dragged a stick through the grey water that leaked from the fire in place of smoke. They did not eat or speak for some time. As Amelia stared into the fire she heard in her mind the terrible joke about the cock and the farmer, smelled the hot-rock soup Gillis had made, and asked herself why those recollections had to plague her. She had no way of being certain of what had befallen him. She slipped far into the memories, trancelike, and she was at times transported to the same smokeless fire in Pauloce’s lands, where she had been waiting for Gillis to come in the dark to her camp. Then she felt Choson’s eyes on her, shook herself slightly, and returned to the present. The creaking of the trees and snapping of sticks in the fire were suddenly loud, as though her reverie had dampened all other sounds. She could not tell how long she had been away.
“You think them dead, then?” Choson said.
It felt like a blunt object had struck her chest. She found that she could not answer.
“How did you know him?” Choson said.
“What?” Amelia said.
“The bald one.”
Her mouth was dry, as though she had not drunk a drop all day. She moved her thick tongue back and forth and felt around for an answer. “He saved my life.”
Choson nodded.
“They may not be dead,” Amelia said. “Just in … just in grave trouble. It’s me Verandert wants.”
The others looked away at her words.
“Gillis had no idea it was forged,” Amelia said, mostly to herself.
“Perhaps we will never know,” Choson said. “It is best to look forward, not back.”
Roos nodded. They were silent for a time.
“Min-Yu,” Amelia said. “How do we begin to look for her?”
Choson spoke for a time of what he had learned in his time spent among the slavers. Min-Yu’s band was one of the largest, and they were generally seen in the north of Gweidor, and in the south in the Veldenlands, but the trail they took between th
e two kingdoms was unknown. In fact, the mystery of her hidden path was a great part of her notoriety. None knew if they passed the narrow way between the east of the Monastery mountain and the sea, or the vast way to the west. In all the tales of Min-Yu there was talk of magic erasing her trail, and of patrols that silenced or enslaved any witnesses to their passage.
“What I never heard was how the King was involved,” Choson said, slowing down and looking hopefully at Amelia. “I have never learned the answer to why I was sent to Yiseyo’s village. I had hoped you might …”
“The Mordenari control every crown,” Amelia said. “You were likely sent away at the behest of some Ghost who heard that you, Captain of the Guard, insisted on asking about Momaentum. It is unrelated to Min-Yu. She is certainly a lone rogue. It was only poor fortune that she attacked the village when you were there.”
“I … I see,” Choson said. “The Mordenari reach as far as my cousin. Jun was right.” His voice caught for a moment. “Is there anything that can be done?”
“Not about the King. Finding Min-Yu would take a miracle, and she is just one Mordenari. There are networks surrounding the King—it’s simply impossible,” Amelia said.
“Then our way is clear,” Choson said. “We find Min-Yu … looking forward, and not behind.”
“Forward we go,” Roos said, and thumped Choson on the back.
“If the rumors are true, and Min-Yu passes east or west of the Monastery … it would seem Verandert is either particularly blind, or that he allows her passage.”
“He would never allow it,” Amelia said. “If she truly passes these ways, she is arrogant indeed—confident in whatever magic hides her.”
“All the better for you, correct? Knowing that she can hide so well from Verandert,” Choson said.
“She’ll hide just as well from us. It’s just that I know of no such magic that can hide the trail of a slaving group, along with their slaves,” Amelia said.
“We should dress as common folk, easy targets to the slavers. Let them find us, not us find them,” Roos said. “Then you free us with magic.”
“I think not. Even I cannot break chains once they are on.”
“What, then? We wander aimlessly?” Choson said.
“I just need to think on it,” Amelia said. “I need time.”
“We do not have much.”
“I know,” Amelia said. “I want to find her just as much as you.”
“Do you truly?”
“Yes.”
“We are together on this?”
“We are.”
“And what happens after we find her, assuming we live?”
“As I have said, we will part ways. I have my life to live out and you will have your vengeance, or you won’t,” Amelia said.
“Do not betray me, killer.”
Amelia snorted. “Do not threaten me, Captain.”
Choson clenched his teeth so that his jaw muscles showed in his cheeks, and he looked away from her.
“Choson, what reason have you for this mistrust? She freed us,” Roos said.
“She also imprisoned us.”
“And you attacked me,” Amelia said. “Let us put this nattering to rest. There is no need to speak in terms of trust or mistrust. I have no reason to kill you. If I so wanted, you would be dead already. If I wanted to extract everything you know, I have my ways and they are not gentle. Forget trust. We will simply be on the same path until we find her, and then we will part.”
Choson set his jaw again, harder, then nodded. Roos turned and smiled grimly at Amelia. A sudden curiosity about the giant seized her.
“Roos,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Why do you travel with him in search of Min-Yu? Why go through all this for Choson?”
“Well. The story is long.” Roos frowned for a moment and scratched at his beard. “He is teaching me to fish.”
Amelia snorted through a half-smile. No-one spoke for a time.
“Will you tell a story of the bald one?” Roos said. “It is the way of my people to speak of fallen warriors. It is healing.”
“No. No, I don’t want to speak of him anymore,” Amelia said.
Roos nodded and fell silent. She stared into the flames, watching the liquid smoke drip from the center of the fire. Her throat tightened, and as she strained to keep her face inexpressive, a rumbling came to her ears and her eyes began to sting. She excused herself, left the fire, and staggered, trembling, out of sight of the others. Her vision shimmered, and she snapped both hands to her forehead, collapsing on the ground, her mouth agape as she pressed the tears from her eyes.
****
The next day, Gillis prepared as he would for any writ, but he did not permit his mind to wander. He focused solely on the tools he would need and the methods he would employ. What was it he had thought on the day of Beldas’ death? One did anything to play the part. In playing this part, any crack in a calm façade would be his undoing. Verandert was wise. The task had been chosen perfectly to prepare Gillis for the work of the High Monk. Gillis would be tested, perhaps beyond his endurance—beyond his abilities—but not beyond his resolve. His loyalty to Verandert and the Laws were unshakable.
He moved through the hallways with no conscious direction and found himself in his room, holding the tracking cloth that Amelia had given him at Pauloce Keep. When he held it up by his forefinger and thumb, it pulled steadily to the east. As long as she kept it on her person tracking her would be nothing. The true challenge was the story he would have to invent to gain her trust. What impression would she have if she had heard Verandert’s words up until he froze the vial? Verandert had implied the three of them would be punished, which was true, but Amelia would think Gillis and Athers both were dead. The story must then be of Gillis’ unlikely escape from Verandert’s grasp.
It was as though he was sleepwalking as he moved through the passageways of the Monastery. His heart was pounding and his breaths came in short gasps, and his feet were moving as though someone else was controlling them. There was no thought in his mind of where he was, or what time of day it was. His damned wandering mind repeatedly returned to the same few things: to Amelia smiling from the food he had made, to Amelia trembling under Pauloce’s knife on that cold table, to Amelia gently holding his hand as she mended the broken fingers. He came to the prison cell where the two captives had been. The bars on the window had been melted away. He scowled at them, at the idea that Amelia had found yet another way to use her enchanting talent to break Monastery rules. I was going to guide her, he thought, fuming. I was going to show her how to be wise. But she spat in my face. Still the images of Amelia smiling and healing his hands came to him, but now they were bitter and cold. She would have no secrets from him before the end. He would discover all of it, from her motives to how she was captured by Pauloce. None would ever deceive him again as she had.
She was a traitor and he would watch her die.
****
On the first day in the densely wooded foothills east of the Monastery, Amelia and the others did not find so much as a simple walking trail, let alone a wagon-rutted thoroughfare fit to accommodate a force of slavers. The next morning, upon climbing trees to survey the land, Amelia could see the distant eastern shore. Judging it against the way they had come from the mountain behind, it seemed it would take a handful of days to find whatever of Min-Yu’s trail there was to find. Amelia, with her long practice in reaching into the flow of Momaentum, could easily sense that the land east of the Monastery was much more potent than those to the west—as though the vast energy drawn to the mountain flowed downhill to the sea. If she were Min-Yu, she would take advantage of the Momaentum in making a concealed path, even if it were closer to the mountain.
The trees themselves were covered in lichens and moss, and in the morning they had all borne heavy dew drops. There was hardly a bare patch of ground, but plenty of marsh and mud and brambles. Roos’ fur boots were matted and caked with mud that dried by
midday and looked to Amelia like clay clogs.
They spoke little, but soon decided it was a vain hope to think they could stumble on Min-Yu’s wagon trails east of the mountain. She would surely have chosen to travel between the kingdoms on the western coast, as far from the Monastery as possible. Little else mattered to Amelia for the moment except that they keep moving.
In the early afternoon of the third day, Amelia fell into step beside Choson.
“I won’t help you when you meet her,” she said.
“I will not need help.”
“You won’t be able to kill her alone, either,” Amelia said, then jerked her head at Roos, who was out of earshot behind them. “And he would only be a hindrance.”
“Again I say, I will not need help.”
“Are you going to clap her in irons and ask that she come nicely to a Gweidorian prison?”
“I am going to decide my next action when I meet her.”
“She’ll likely put the two of you in wagons with the other slaves.”
“I will try to not let her.”
“Don’t you understand? If you get caught or killed, you help no-one.”
“I help no-one if I do nothing.”
“You are a strange man,” Amelia said, shaking her head.
Choson held a branch aside so that Amelia could pass. “I failed Jun, and he died. I must face his killer, and the killer of those in Yu Village. It matters not whether I succeed or—”
Amelia stopped abruptly and bade Choson to hush. Roos came up beside them, and the two men stood watching Amelia. She had felt something strange brush up against her senses, with the faintness of walking into a single strand of spider’s silk, but she could not tell how she had felt it. It was surely magical in nature. Had she heard it? She tilted her head, held her ears close to nearby trees and patches of brambles around them. Choson and Roos exchanged perplexed glances. Amelia hushed them when they tried to speak. It had not been a scent, or a sound, or something she had seen out of the corner of her eye. It was something outside of the usual senses, but if it was magical, it was not Momaentum. That only left one other possibility.
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