Wings of Wrath

by C. S. Friedman

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Quickening

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Reckoning

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Raves for The Magister Trilogy:

  For Feast of Souls: “Imaginative, deftly plotted . . . Readers will eagerly await the next installment.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Friedman’s storytelling acumen and her ability to create unforgettably complex characters make this series opener an essential addition to any library’s fantasy collection.”

  —Library Journal

  “Well-fashioned and often absorbing. A good start to the trilogy.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Powerful, intricate plotting and gripping characters distinguish a book in which ethical dilemmas are essential and engrossing.”

  —Booklist

  For Wings of Wrath: “Beautifully written . . . set in a casually grim world where cloak-and-dagger political intrigue is necessary for survival.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The author of the ‘Coldfire’ trilogy offers moments of both beauty and horror and characters who find themselves questioning their deepest beliefs.”

  —Library Journal

  “Wings of Wrath is an excellent second volume of a trilogy, and a solid work in its own right. It is an emotionally charged, sensual, and thought-provoking novel . . . I think Friedman is on the way to another standout trilogy.”

  —sffworld.com

  Novels by C. S. Friedman available from DAW Books:

  The Magister Trilogy FEAST OF SOULS WINGS OF WRATH

  The Coldfire Trilogy BLACK SUN RISING WHEN TRUE NIGHT FALLS CROWN OF SHADOWS

  Other Novels: THE MADNESS SEASON

  THIS ALIEN SHORE

  IN CONQUEST BORN THE WILDING

  Copyright © 2009 by C.S. Friedman. www.csfriedman.com

  All rights reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1464.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Printing, February

  eISBN : 978-1-101-19665-6

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

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  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Betsy Wollheim

  Amazing editor

  Priceless muse

  Beloved friend

  Acknowledgments

  BY FAR, the best part of researching any book is getting to sit down with experts in various fields and hear them talk about the stuff they love. Special thanks for this volume go to John Woodson, whose love of traditional climbing was as infectious as his knowledge was impressive.

  Thanks also to my reading team, who really worked their butts off on this one. That’s Carl Cipra, Kim Dobson, Paul Hoeffer, Zsusy Sanford, and David Walddon. Couldn’t have done it without you guys! Also Fonda Nichols, Steve Rapaport, and Beth Tobin for additional reading support.

  Special thanks to Joshua Starr for all his help, especially with the map.

  Last but not least, thanks to all the wonderful people at Sylvan for helping to keep me sane while I finished this manuscript . . . Emily Habermeyer and Elise Nicely for being the best bosses ever, and all my students (especially the writing students!) for filling my heart with joy and pride. You guys work so hard that it inspires me to do the same. Keep it up!

  The High Kingdom

  Prologue

  THE GODS were coming.

  The boy pressed himself down against the hot ground, clinging to the mountain with blackened hands. Broken bits of lava and clumps of ash came loose beneath his fingertips, searing his skin like hot coals, but he hardly noticed. His attention was fixed upon the view overhead, in particular those few places where the thick clouds parted and the sky itself was visible.

  They were coming soon. They must be.

  They would not refuse the offering.

  Beneath his vantage point, in the vast gray bowl of the caldera, a half dozen girls whimpered in pain and terror. They were small things, his age or younger, and bright red blood streamed from cuts on the backs of their legs. The priests had decreed they should be hamstrung before being cast into the caldera, lest they do what the last group of sacrifices had done: flee to the lava pit at its far end to throw themselves in, rather than embrace their destiny. The gods were not pleased when the offerings died too quickly. And when the gods were not pleased the Sleep came, and children died, and crops stood untouched in the fields until they rotted for lack of strong men to harvest them.

  The girls were terrified, of course, and the boy winced as one of them screamed, unable to see which one it was, trying not to wonder about it. The Land of the Sun was a small place and he knew the name of everyone in it . . . but once a girl was chosen to be sacrificed she gave up her former name and identity and became only Tawa, a hand-maiden of the gods. It was too terrifying to think of them as anything else now, to remember that the girls who had once run with him, jested with him, and played “show me yours and I will show you mine” in the shadow of the great mountain, were set out like lambs for the slaughter, awaiting the gods who would devour them.

  Food. The priests never called them that, but that was what they were. Everyone in the Land of the Sun knew it, though no one ever said it aloud. A man could offer up his daughter to be a bride of the gods and feel there was honor in the act, but once he admitted that she was little more than a herd animal being staked out for slaughter, that honor died a cold and miserable death. The flowers woven into the girls’ hair ceased to be bridal circlets, no longer crowns of communion but simply a macabre garnish; their cries were no longer the songs of welcome a virgin bride might offer to a majestic and powerful bridegroom, but simply squeals of primitive, overbearing terror.

  Little wonder none of the villagers ever stayed behind to see if the sacrifice was accepted, the boy thought. The illusion of sanctity might not survive such close inspection.

  Suddenly the clouds overhead seemed to stir. The boy drew his breath in quickly, which made the sulfurous smoke burn his nostrils and set him coughing. He shut his eyes tightly as his chest spasmed, tears streaming down his soot-blackened cheeks as he struggled to keep silent, lest the gods who were surely approaching turn their attention to him before he was ready. And perhaps mistake him for a sacrifice.

  Then the fit passed, and the last cough was swallowed, and he opened his eyes aga
in.

  And they were there.

  They clean were—so clean!—cool, clear colors against a blazing sky, ice against fire. Their wings were like the finely veined wings of insects, but broad beyond measure, and so strong that every stroke raised whirlwinds of dust and ash from the ground beneath. Their bodies glistened like the ocean at moonrise, with sparks of blue and purple and colors that the boy did not even know the names of playing across their skin. Their wings were sheets of blue sea ice that cooled the smoky wind with every stroke, and they slid through the filthy sulfurous air like seals through water, poisonous clouds frothing in their wake.

  The priests taught that any man who looked upon the gods directly would perish. The boy stared at them despite that warning, naked in his hunger to witness the magnitude of their power, to understand it, to possess it.

  One by one the vast creatures dropped out of the clouds, banking low beneath the hot smoke as they glided over the caldera. The girls had stopped screaming now. They still trembled in fear, and one moaned softly in pain as the broad wings beat the smoky air into whirls and eddies all about her, but otherwise they were eerily still, transfixed by the sight of their winged bridegrooms. Even from where the boy crouched he could feel the sheer power of the gods’ presence, and it made his blood run cold with fear . . . yet at the same time it stirred his flesh—strangely, uncomfortably—as if he were watching those same girls bathe naked in a hot spring. Unable to move, he watched in silence as the creatures swooped low over the girls, one after the other. The young brides appeared to have forgotten their pain now, and lay back to the last one upon the hot earth, arms reaching out to welcome the creatures as one might welcome a lover. It was a grotesque scene to be sure, but also fascinating, and he could not look away from it.

  None of the gods had noticed him yet, or if they had, they did not deem him worthy of their attention. Had any of the boy’s people ever seen the gods like this, ever been this close to them without being offered as sacrifice? For the first time since leaving home, he began to think he might really live long enough see his plan through to the end.

  And if it worked . . . if it worked . . .

  He didn’t even dare think about that.

  One of the girls was dead now, it seemed, but he could not tell what had killed her. A great god with wings of cobalt and amethyst had swooped down low, as if it intended to strike her, but then pulled up suddenly to join its fellows in the sky, letting out a cry as it did so that filled the caldera. There had been no physical contact; he was sure of it. Yet the girl was strangely still now, motionless in the way that only dead things are motionless, as if all the living strength had been sucked from her limbs. So silent had her death been that the other girls did not even realize she was gone. Or perhaps, in their efforts to offer themselves up to their bridegrooms, they simply did not care.

  And then the boy saw what he had been waiting for.

  It sat astride the back of one of the gods, a rider more insectlike than human at first glance. Its limbs were sheathed in a blue-black substance not unlike the skin of the great beast itself, making it hard to distinguish where one creature began and the other ended. Lesser wings from the god’s upper body were wrapped backward around its rider, creating the illusion of a glistening chrysalis. Even as he watched, the surface of that cocoon slowly parted, its occupant revealed like a locust in season.

  The boy’s heart skipped a beat. For a single moment the world seemed frozen in time.

  So the legends are true.

  The creature seated on the back of the god was a man. Not one of the boy’s own people, no, but similar enough that he could not mistake it for anything but a human being. The rider’s skin was pale, unlike his own, a strange and unwholesome hue that reminded him of clotted milk. His hair was long and matted with dirt and oil, and his close-fitting armor appeared to be slick with oil as well, so that every beam of light that fell upon him caused dark rainbows to dance across its surface. It was a chilling image to be sure, but it was also undeniably a human one. And that was what mattered most.

  Girding his courage, the boy drew in a deep breath. Now, he thought. Now is the time.

  He stood.

  His legs were shaking, more than they should have been even from his strenuous climb. For a moment he thought he would not manage to stand at all and the landscape swirled dizzily about him; then, by sheer force of will, he made the world stand still and forced his shaking legs to bear his weight. What other choice was there? The gods were watching now, and if he showed any sign of weakness in front of them he might as well just cast himself into the caldera along with the other sacrifices and let them devour him.

  When he thought that he had his legs securely under him he drew in as deep a breath as his constricted lungs could manage, shut his eyes for a moment to focus his spirit, and then let out a cry no living creature could miss. Wordless, it echoed across the caldera, and into the fuming clouds beyond it.

  The gods did not stop their circling, but he knew that they had heard him.

  Opening his eyes once more, he looked for the one that had a man astride its back. That one alone had not come low to feed, but was circling high above the others. Had it seen him? If he cried out to it, would it hear his words? The volcano beneath him rumbled and the fragments of pumice beneath his feet seemed to shift slightly in response. Did the gods speak in sounds, like animals and men, or did they use volcanoes as their mouthpieces? So little was known about them!

  Then the rider’s eyes fixed on him—undeniably human, maddeningly scornful—and he knew that he must seize this moment or lose it forever.

  “Take me with you!” he demanded. “I would serve the gods!”

  For a moment it did not seem that either the human or his mount had heard him. So he yelled the words again, even louder.

  The mountain rumbled again beneath his feet. A whiff of hot sulfurous smoke stung his nostrils.

  “I’m strong!” he cried out. “I have survived the cold of the ice and the heat of the testing stones! I’ve hunted the sea lion and faced down the snow bear! I am brave enough to face the anger of the earth—”

  To come here, he wanted to say. Brave enough to climb the Mountain of Sacrifice and stand here before you with no weapons, no armor, nothing at all to protect me from the gods’ wrath save my own stubborn belief that I can be of value to them.

  The man’s eyes were cold, unblinking. Like a lizard’s.

  Then he turned away.

  The boy howled in rage. It was an animal sound that welled up from the primitive part of his soul without human urging or sanction. One of the girls looked up to see what the source of the noise was, then quickly turned her attention back to the winged bridegrooms. Did she recognize him as a boy she had run with, played with, shared secrets with? Or did she see only a soot-blackened animal howling hoarsely at the sky, as a seal might howl while some predatory beast crushed the life out of it?

  Then the talons of one of the gods closed around her and she was jerked off the ground, her neck snapping backward with an audible crack. Apparently the gods did want fresh meat after all.

  Not one of them acknowledged the boy’s presence.

  Not one.

  “Take me with you!” he screamed, his voice hoarse with frustration. “I belong with you!”

  The gods were rising now, heading back toward the clouds. Several held small girls clasped in their talons, dangling like broken dolls. The sacrifice had been accepted.

  The single rider glanced back at the boy, then turned away. His mount circled higher and higher as the glassy wings folded back around him once more.

  “TAKE ME WITH YOU!!!”

  Then the breath was knocked from the boy’s body as something hit him hard from behind. He would have plummeted down into the caldera had not sharp claws grabbed hold of him; with a suddenness that left him reeling, he was jerked off his feet and into the air. Fragmented images from the world below swam in his field of vision, disconnected, unreal. Whirl
pools of poisonous smoke. Blue-black wings that beat the air above his head, driving the ground down and away, stroke by stroke. In the distance, beyond the Land of the Sun, he could now see a vast field of white stretching from horizon to horizon. It had no end. It knew no mercy.

  I will serve you, he promised the gods. Better than any other. You will see.

  The gods did not answer.

  Beginning

  And it came to pass that the First Kings wished all men to know of their greatness. So they ordered great towers to be built, each one taller than the last. The towers rose so high that clouds crowned their summits, and the kings declared, “Behold! The gods themselves bear witness to our greatness.” Yet still they did not stop building, for each king wished his tower to be the tallest and the grandest of them all.

  Each then commanded that the finest silks in all his kingdom should be sewn into banners to hang from his tower, and the outer walls should be covered in gold and silver and adorned with glittering gemstones, and the best musicians should gather along the upper balconies to serenade the air with song, not only from dawn until dusk but through all the hours of the night as well, so that any man who stirred in his sleep might hear their music and know of his king’s greatness.

  And the fields of the First Kings lay fallow for lack of laborers to tend them; the herds of the First Kings died of hunger in the field for lack of laborers to feed them.