Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  This is going to be interesting, he thought, tilting his head to look up at the vaulted ceiling overhead.

  “Welcome back, friend,” Brern’s voice said suddenly. “Nice of you to join us.”

  Raz looked around. Avonair was moving again, slowly pushing himself up onto his elbows between Brern and Carro.

  “Wh-what happened?” the man was mumbling, clearly bewildered to find himself somehow on the floor. “H-how did I…? Why did I…?”

  He continued to look confused, gazing down at the ground around him, before looking up. Instantly his gaze snapped onto Raz again, who hadn’t moved from his place with Gale by the door.

  “Oh, Laor’s saggy b—!” the man began to shout, paling again and looking at once like he might faint for a second time. The master-at-arms, though, clapped a hand over his mouth, silencing him.

  “Master Arro is travelling with Carro, Dolt,” Brern said firmly. “For that reason, I would appreciate it if you would do him the respect of not announcing his presence to the whole of Cyurgi’ Di. Now, on your feet! You’re coming with us.”

  “C-coming with you?” Avonair stammered as Brern removed his hand from his mouth, though the man’s eyes never left Raz. “Wha—No, I have to stay here. The gate—”

  “Will stand an hour or two without you watching over it,” Carro finished for him gently, using his staff to pull himself to his feet. “For the moment it’s important we keep my and Raz’s return quiet.”

  Avonair was still stammering his denials when Brern hauled him to his feet, spun him around, and started leading him to the right, along the north hall. Carro waited for Raz to retrieve Gale’s reins, then indicated that they should follow.

  “I take it I’m to meet the council, then?” Raz asked him as they fell into step beside each other.

  “You are,” Carro said with a nod, the steel of his staff clinking gently with every other step against the stone beneath their feet. “It seems the best course of action, and I have to assume Talo would have done the same.” He looked momentarily sad, but shook it off. “Pilgrims and travelers aren’t usually required to meet any of the Citadel’s highest ranking Priests or Priestesses, but I hope you don’t take offense when I say you don’t fall under the ‘usually’-category.”

  “The whole situation doesn’t fall under the ‘usually’-category, Carro,” Raz muttered as, ahead of them, Brern turned Avonair with a firm hand and led him through a tall door along the left side of the hall. “Have you been thinking about what happens now? What happens next?”

  Carro sighed. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

  “And?”

  “And I have no more solutions than I did yesterday, or the day before. I’m hoping and praying the council will have something to add, once they hear our news.”

  Raz frowned, but said nothing. They’d reached the door through which Brern and Avonair had disappeared, but as Carro went for the handle he paused.

  “Leave Gale here,” he said, glancing back at the horse. “He won’t be able to manage the steps down. Can you carry Reyn in?”

  “The steps?” Raz asked with mild trepidation as he pulled Ahna off his shoulder to lean her against the nearby wall, then moved to start freeing Reyn Hartlet’s sleeping form from the saddle.

  I’m developing a phobia… he realized in half-amusement, thinking of the mountain stairs they’d only just left behind.

  Carro nodded, but said nothing, waiting until Raz had untied the young Priest completely, sliding him off Gale’s back and into his arms.

  “I’ll be back,” Raz told the stallion gently. “Stay put.”

  Gale bobbed his head as though in understanding, bending down to snort at the wall and floor. Raz moved around him and nodded to Carro, who opened the door and walked inside, holding it wide behind him. Raz stepped in sideways, intent not to smash Reyn’s head or legs into the frame or wall, and so didn’t get a good look at the room until after the door had closed behind him.

  When he did, he gaped.

  For the first time, Raz glimpsed a hint of the wonders he had initially imagined the greatest of the Laorin temples would hold. While the comfort and warmth of the hall had done something to offset the sense of foreboding that had gripped him upon seeing Cyurgi’ Di’s high walls and looming towers, this room whisked what remained away in a blink.

  The consecration room of the citadel was less ‘room’ and more ‘theater.’ As soon as Raz entered behind Carro he found himself on the top tier of a series of rectangular marble seats that dipped down and inward with every level, like a geometric funnel towards the very center of the chamber. It would have reminded Raz of Azbar’s Arena, in fact, were it not for the brightness of the place. In the very middle, at the bottom of the seats, a large, flat platform of dark marble rose a half a foot off the floor. Gold lined its corners and edges, making the whole thing look like some ornate box, and atop it, towards the very back of the dais, a massive silver brazier, tarnished by time, was filled to the brim with white, boiling flames. Above their heads two identical braziers hung suspended in the air, supported by nothing at all, drifting and floating around each other in a lazy circle on the current of magic that seemed to keep them eternally suspended. The walls of the room were not stone, Raz saw, but carved panels of some dark wood, depicting sceneries and stories and portraits of half-a-hundred varieties. More gold lined the joints between these works, and as Raz looked up, following these lines as they crisscrossed each other over a perfectly domed ceiling, he was briefly reminded of the songbirds some of the nomadic families used to trade for in the port city of Acrosia, brought from the distant Imperium in little gold cages for the pleasures of the Southern aristocracy.

  “Down this way.”

  Raz pulled his eyes away from the expanse of the ceiling in time to see Carro waving him along, already marching down the tall steps to the very center of the room. On either side of them the others were already seated, most of the Priests and Priestess stripped down to thin underclothes, their robes laid out over the stone to dry under the spells of warmth cast over them by their owners. Brern had marched Avonair to the bottom of the room and plopped him down right in front of the dais, upon which the master-at-arms himself was taking a seat, lowering himself with a sigh like a tired old man. He looked up, watching Raz descend with Reyn in his arms, sizing him up slowly—as Raz had noticed him doing several times over the course of the morning. He had the sense the Priest was attempting to witness in him what it was Carro—and apparently Talo—saw.

  “Set him here,” Carro said, indicating the empty slab beside Avonair. Raz obliged, bending to ease Reyn’s still form down gently. As he did he saw the gatekeeper’s eyes widen when he finally made out who the sleeping Priest was.

  “Hartlet?” he demanded, sounding bewildered. “What in Laor’s good name happened to him? Is he dead? What—?”

  “Priest Hartlet bit off more than he could chew,” Brern interrupted—something Raz was starting to understand happened frequently when it came to Dolt Avonair. “He picked a fight he couldn’t win, and was lucky enough to make it out alive.”

  Avonair’s eyes just grew wider, and his gaze rose slowly from Reyn to Raz, who still stood over the man. Raz saw him put the pieces together one at a time, and he turned away before the gatekeeper found the courage to start bombarding him with questions.

  “What now?” Raz asked Carro, moving to take a seat beside the Priest who stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up.

  “Now we wait,” Carro replied, his eyes on the room’s single door. He didn’t sit, despite the weeks they had spent on the road. He looked anxious, as though he half-expected something terrible to come in after them.

  Raz shrugged, then leaned back, resting his shoulders against the edge of the seats behind him, kicking his feet up onto the black dais. Crossing his arms over his chest, he decided to pass the time by studying the wood carvings that made up the walls and ceilings.

  It was about ten minutes before
the first knock came, and the sound pulled Raz away from an enthusiastic examination of what looked to be a battle between five armies beneath the shadow of some great mountain. He looked around just as Carro raised his voice.

  “Enter!”

  At once the door opened, and the woman Brern had sent off—Kahsta—poked her head into the room.

  “I have Priestess Petrük and Priest Argo,” the woman called down the stairs. “Should I have them enter, or wait for the others?”

  Raz heard Carro curse under his breath, and glanced at the man in time to see that the expression on the Priest’s face said very clearly that these were not the first individuals he was hoping to hear from. He had just started to reply—likely asking that they remain outside—when a tall, sour-faced crone of perhaps seventy brushed passed Kahsta.

  “Out of the way, girl,” the woman snapped, not even looking at the younger Priestess as she scanned the room. “Who are you to ask whether or not I have permission to enter? I received my staff in this very place thirty years before you were even a poor idea.”

  The woman caught sight of Brern, then Carro, and her brows shot up. As a short, heavy-set man with a kindly face stepped into the chamber behind her, the Priestess Raz assumed now to be Petrük started down the steps at a shockingly brisk pace for her age.

  “al’Dor?” she demanded, sounding an odd combination of disbelieving and annoyed at the sight of him. “We didn’t expect you’d be fool enough to climb the mountain. Where is Brahnt? Has he already gone off to relieve Jofrey of the High Priest’s mantle?”

  “Valaria,” Carro said, his tone even, “if you and Behn could take a seat, all will be explained in time. We should wait until—”

  “Until what?” Petrük demanded scornfully, still moving down the steps. “The others arrive? A dramatic demand to celebrate your return, summoning the council. And whose damn horse is that in the hall? What idiot would have led that animal all the way up—?”

  She stopped moving so suddenly, for a moment Raz thought the woman might trip and fall headfirst down the stairs. She had, of course, finally caught sight of him, and her sallow blue eyes were frozen, transfixed by his own. Raz didn’t bother standing up, or raising a hand in greeting. He’d decided at once that he didn’t like this narrow, abrasive Priestess, and he hoped the black glower he gave her conveyed the dislike without doubt.

  It must have, because when the woman regained her sense, she opened her mouth and shrieked.

  “Valaria!” Brern’s hard voice cut across her scream. “Control yourself, woman!”

  Petrük’s raspy screech cut short at once, but she still stood, pale and still, staring at Raz.

  “What in Laor’s name is that?” the man who had followed her into the room—Priest Argo, Kahsta had said—demanded, pointing unashamedly at Raz.

  “That, Behn,” Carro shot at the man angrily, “is Raz i’Syul Arro. He’s a friend, and I highly suggest you stop pointing like some damn child.”

  “Or what?” Argo demanded, sounding deceptively hot tempered for his gentle features.

  “Or you’ll find yourself relieved of a hand, Priest,” Raz growled, lifting his feet from the dais and leaning forward, flaring his neck crest slowly.

  “It speaks?” Argo demanded, his offending hand dropping more out of shock than anything. “Lifegiver’s mercy.” He turned on Carro. “Is that a sword it’s carrying on its back? What did you bring into our home, al’Dor? If you’ve welcomed a killer into our midst, I’ll—!”

  “You’ll do nothing, Argo,” Brern spat at him, getting to his feet. “Master Arro is a guest, as per my wishes and Carro’s. It’ll be up to Jofrey to cast him out, if it’s to happen, and you certainly won’t have shit to say when—!”

  “Jofrey?” Petrük asked him shrewdly, tearing her eyes away from Raz to look at the master-at-arms. “Jofrey, you said. Not Talo?”

  Brern stopped talking at once, seeing his mistake. Raz suddenly felt a lurch of distaste for Valaria Petrük that took a moment to place. She was clearly astute, intelligent and perceptive, and yet bore a distinctly cruel, pretentious air.

  Tern, Raz realized suddenly, gritting his teeth at the thought. She reminds me of Quin Tern.

  “Valaria, we will explain everything,” Carro was saying, sounding increasingly impatient. “If you could just sit down and wait, the others can’t be long behind you.”

  As though on cue, there was a second knock at the door. Kahsta, who had remained standing at the top of the stairs, turned and pulled it open at once. The two men Brern had sent off, Vance and Loric, strode in one after the other. They glanced about the room briefly, then moved to join their comrades among the stone tiers, leaving the group behind them to file in. Six in all, the men and women of the council each bore the white robes of the faith, making them look for a moment like a congregation of bright, flowing ghosts. Some carried staffs at their side, others nothing at all. One pair clutched a half-dozen heavy bound tomes between them, as though they had been interrupted amidst their studies. At their head, a small man with a grey beard that reached his collar stood taking in the room from behind a pair of clear spectacles with sharp, tired eyes. They flicked first to the Priests and Priestesses of Brern’s group, then to Brern himself, Dolt Avonair, Reyn Hartlet’s sleeping form, and on to Petrük and her companion, Argo. After this they paused and grew wider when they fell upon Carro.

  Then they finally shifted to Raz, who finally decided it was time to stand up.

  If this man registered any surprise at Raz’s presence, it was well masked. Several of the men and women behind him weren’t quite as composed, however, instantly breaking out into gasps and hisses of shock at the sight of Raz’s massive fur-and-steel-clad form rising in what he assumed to be something of a sacred room. The Priest at their head, though, gave no hint of such disquiet. Instead, slowly, he began to descend the stairs, eyes moving once more around him before settling on the Priest waiting for him in the center of the room.

  “Carro,” the man said warmly, extending his arms and smiling an exhausted sort of smile that no less expressed the pleasure of one friend greeting another. “I’m glad to see you safe. I didn’t think we’d come across each other for some time yet.”

  Carro smiled in the same weathered way, accepting the embrace. “It’s good to be home, Jofrey. I wish I came bearing better news.”

  At that, the man—Jofrey—took pause. He looked around one last time, like he were searching for something, his eyes lingering on Raz only a spare moment.

  “Carro…” he started quietly, as though afraid to know the answer. “Where is Talo?”

  There were a few seconds in which Raz witnessed Carro fight mightily to control himself. He battled the emotions, but one after the other they played across his face like a story. He said no words, but as his features twisted into a mask of grief, tears began to spill from his eyes uncontrollably. Once again he couldn’t seem able to get the words out, and Brern stepped forward, moving to stand beside the pair, putting his free hand on Carro’s arm.

  “Carro, let Arro and I explain,” he said softly.

  Raz saw Jofrey’s blue eyes flick over to him briefly once again as he registered the name, but otherwise the man didn’t move. For several seconds Raz watched Carro’s heavy frame wracked by silent weeping, and he hoped the Priest would nod and let him step in.

  He was surprised, therefore, when Carro shook his head stiffly.

  “N-no,” he said through his tears. “Not… n-not this time.”

  He paused and took a heavy, shaking breath, closing his eyes. For a moment more he stood there, obviously struggling to gain control of the grief. Slowly the shaking stilled, and he took another breath, standing tall.

  When he opened his eyes again, he met Jofrey’s gaze evenly.

  “Jofrey,” he said. “Talo Brahnt is dead.”

  XXX

  IT TOOK a long time for the room to settle after that. There were cries and gasps of “No!” and “How?” and other var
ious denials. Most of them came from the younger Priests and Priestesses who had formed Brern’s group, while the older, more life-worn members of the council mostly just exchanged dark, mournful looks. Eventually Brern managed to calm everyone and get them seated about the dais, the council and Dolt Avonair in the front two rows, the others in the back.

  Slowly, heartbreakingly, Carro told the story. He left out no details this time, introducing Raz after reaching his and Talo’s arrival in Azbar, and allowing him to explain his connection to the former High Priest. The men and women before him listened in rapt stillness, drinking in Raz’s words with alternating reflections of astonishment and unease as he spoke. Many were disconcerted by him, he could tell. Frightened, even, their hands twisting nervously, their bodies tense and quick to react with every move he made. And yet they listened, voicing no argument or disbelief. In light of the news he and Carro bore, the council of Cyurgi’ Di chose to accept this strange character among them, at least for the moment, and by the time Raz’s recounting trailed off the Priests and Priestesses were hunched forward on their stone seats, aching for the rest of the story. Carro resumed the tale as Raz sat himself once more upon the gilded stone, speaking of his and Talo’s failure to end the violations caused by the Arena, their return to Ystréd, and how they had met up with Raz for the second time.