by Ken Scholes
“Be watchful. I can let you pass but I cannot keep you safe.”
“The light will keep us safe,” Petronus said, quoting the Whymer Bible’s opening admonition.
The young lieutenant shook his head. “There is no light now.” He looked around again, scanning for any sign that his men were nearby. “And the one now asked to guard it is the same who snuffed it out. You will not be safe here.”
Then, he turned his horse and rode off in the direction of the wind.
By nightfall, Petronus and his ragged band of gravediggers had set up their camp by the river, just outside what had once been the river dock gate and clearly in compliance with the Exercise of Holiness. That area had been granted special Dispensation to keep the supply chain moving through the duration of the Exercise in years past.
The one good thing about having been Pope was understanding the rules one had to play by.
Rudolfo
Rudolfo and his escort rode northwest to the Papal Summer Palace high up and secluded in the Dragon’s Spine. Riding high in his saddle, he could see the purple line of those jagged peaks on the horizon. Once they reached the foothills, they’d turn west and follow them until they found the Waybringer’s Path and followed it up to the palace and the village that had sprung up around it to care for the Androfrancine foothold when it was not in use.
He’d left two mornings ago, slipping out of the camp before the sun rose, dressed in subdued colors and trading his turban for a black hood. His half-squad of scouts rode, too. He would not have it otherwise, and he would not approach this so-called Pope with magicked scouts regardless of the war.
“What will you do?” Gregoric had asked him as he climbed into the saddle.
Rudolfo had settled himself in, whipping his dark cloak over his shoulder. “I will tell the truth,” he said, smiling despite the weariness that pulled at him. “Though I’m not sure they will hear it.”
He’d seen the note declaring the Exercise of Holiness and had crumpled it into a ball when he saw that Sethbert had been deputized by the new King of Windwir.
That pompous cesspool carp had sent him a note three days before the Papal decree. Rudolfo should have expected this sudden setback.
You will pay for what you have done, the note read, and Rudolfo knew that though on the surface it could be read in many ways, it was about the Lady Jin Li Tam. It had taken some time for the spies to take word back to the Overseer-largely because the one Physician of Penitent Torture Rudolfo had brought along had not yet finished redeeming them, turning them to Rudolfo’s cause. Rudolfo was pleased to send those spies back to Sethbert with news of his betrothal to Jin Li Tam.
Perhaps, he thought, that had been an error in judgment.
The forests and grasslands stretched out before them now and they raced north, stopping only when they had to. The narrow road-more a track really-passed through a few scattered settlements, but the riders stayed low on their horses, their eyes fixed on the line of mountains.
They rounded a corner and a white bird dropped from the sky into Rudolfo’s net. He held up his hand and they halted. They waited, and Lieutenant Alyn, the lead scout, made his way back to them ten or fifteen minutes later.
“There’s an Androfrancine caravan yonder,” he said, pointing to a point where the road disap {thes Npeared around a slight rise. “Mostly on foot. A few with carts or wagons.”
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Are they armed?”
The scout nodded. “A few guards-none in gray. They look to be up from Pylos or Turam.”
Making their way to the Palace, he realized, compelled to obey their Pope. “Very well,” Rudolfo said. “I will ride forward. You will accompany me.” The others looked uncomfortable but unsurprised. “The rest of you-follow at a distance.”
Rudolfo rode ahead and Lieutenant Alyn fell in just behind. He reached beneath his cloak and loosened his sword in its scabbard as he went.
As he cantered around the bend, Rudolfo raised his hand in greeting. He quickly scanned the collection of carts and old men in tattered robes, sized up the handful of guards, and whistled a tune from the Hymnal of the Wandering Army low enough for Alyn to hear it. The lieutenant nodded once, slowly.
“These are dark days for pilgrimage,” he said to the guard who approached him. “I’ve a half-squad of scouts and would offer you escort if you ride to heed the Pope’s homecoming call.”
The guard, riding a tired old paint, scratched his head, pushing his steel cap back as he did. “You bear the coloring of the Gypsy Scouts,” he said.
Rudolfo nodded. “We do.”
“You’d do best to ride on then. There is no longer any kin-clave for the Foresters.” He waved to the Androfrancines, some of whom were now standing and looking in their direction. “Especially with this lot.”
Rudolfo studied them. “Really?”
The guard lowered his voice. “Me, I’m a Turam Bookhouse guard on half-rations and half-pay to see these oldsters back to their new home. I care little for the politics of kin-clave. The rumor birds say Sethbert brought down Windwir with a spell.”
“It’s true,” Rudolfo said. “I’ve seen it.”
“Yet the Writ of Shunning is to the Foresters and their Gypsy King… that damned Rudolfo.”
Rudolfo shrugged. “Who can know what to believe?” He watched the other guards as they also approached now. “Still,” he said, “you are short a few blades for the work ahead.”
The look on the guard’s face brought a smile to Rudolfo’s lips. “What work do you speak of?”
Rudolfo stretched high in the saddle and pointed north and east. “That line of scrub there marks the bank of the First River. You’ll pass within two leagues of it, and those are Marsher lands.”
The guard nodded. “Aye. We planned to slip past the Marsh King’s skirmishers in the night.”
Rudolfo sat back down in the saddle. “Perhaps you will succeed,” he said. “Perhaps you will not.” He shrugged. “I’m offering myself and my half-squad of Gypsy Scouts. If the Writ of Shunning is your concern, we’ll ride apart from your charges and watch out from afar.”
An old Androfrancine broke from the group and approached. “What is the concern here, Hamik?” he asked. True, he wore a simple, tattered robe, but Rudolfo saw the ring upon his finger.
“You’re the arch-scholar of this concern,” Rudolfo observed.
The old man nodded. “I’m Cyril. Of the Turam Francine House. You’ve the look of a Forester about you.”
Rudolfo nodded and bowed slightly with a flourish. “I’m sure I must.”
“He’s offered his blades to ours. He claims a half-squad of Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts.”
He watched at least three emotions wash over the arch-scholar’s face. At first, surprise. Then anger. Then weariness. These are the only currency our hearts can spend now, Rudolfo thought. He added his own voice to that of the guard’s. “I am also bound for the Papal Summer Palace to parley with Pope Resolute regarding the Desolation of Windwir. I am aware of his Writ of Shunning but remain confident that the matter shall be resolved peaceably in its own time and manner.” He patted the pommel of his sword. “Meanwhile, my blade and the blade of my men for the true children of P’Andro Whym. We will keep our distance if it pleases you.”
A hard look crossed the arch-scholar’s face. “And you want nothing for this?”
He smiled. “Only the chance to restore faith in my questionable name.”
Both the guard and the arch-scholar’s eyes widened a bit, and Rudolfo savored their silence as if it were a fine, chilled wine.
Finally, the arch-scholar nodded and spoke. “Very well, then.” He paused and Rudolfo could see the question he wanted to ask next forming on his face before forming on his tongue. “An {guepaud what is your name?”
Rudolfo threw back his head and laughed. “But of course I am Rudolfo, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, General of the Wandering Army.” He inclined his head, doing his best to bow from the saddl
e. “And I am at your service.”
Neb
Neb stood at the river’s edge and watched the setting sun. They’d made their camp the day before, setting the tents up carefully outside the place where the city’s walls had once stood, near the river. Petronus-Petros, he reminded himself-was a crafty old fox. He’d studied very little Androfrancine Law in the Orphan School but he’d read enough of the codices and Council of Findings volumes to know that it was more complex than a Whymer Maze.
He wasn’t sure it would work, but he hoped it would.
They’d spent the day digging trenches in the charred earth, long shallow trenches.
“We start with those who fell outside the city,” the old man had told them when they gathered up that morning. “We’ll work in the daylight, and should anyone approach, I will deal with them.”
They worked all day digging the trenches, but no one approached. At one point, Neb thought he’d seen a rider at a distance, but the rider turned south and vanished.
Now, he stood by the river and stripped out of his clothes. They were black with soot, along with the rest of him.
Neb could’ve bathed in camp. There were tubs of heated water that a few of the women had put on for the diggers. But the day had worn into him like a wagon wheel on a familiar road and he’d needed to slip away from the others to recollect himself.
He waded into the cold waters, and jumped when his foot moved across something round and slippery. The skull floated to the top, pulled downriver by the slow current. He watched it go and realized suddenly that he felt nothing at all.
“This is my life now,” he said to the skull as it bobbed away.
Wind he could not feel caught at the ashy ground and put up a small cloud of gray. “Hail, boy,” a voice said from the cloud.
Neb looked, seeing nothing, silently cursing himself for not bringing a knife. He crouched in the water, his hand feeling for a rock. But knife or rock, it wouldn’t matter. Even if he could bring himself to wield either, it would do nothing against an enemy he couldn’t see.
“You’ve nothing {17;"0eto fear from me,” the voice said.
Neb’s eyes moved over the shoreline. But the sun was lower now, and any chance of picking up a glimmer of light, even if it could slide somehow over the magick, was rapidly fading. “I’ll not go back to Sethbert,” he said in a low voice.
The scout chuckled. “I don’t blame you for that. I’m not from Sethbert.”
A Gypsy Scout then, he thought. “You’re from the Ninefold Forest Houses, then?”
“Aye,” the voice said. “And you’re with the gravediggers.” It was a statement, not a question.
Neb nodded. “I am. I…” He didn’t know how to finish his thought. “I used to live here.”
Now the voice moved downriver a bit. “I’m sorry for your loss, then. Sethbert has wronged the world with his treachery.” A pause. “But don’t worry, boy. He’ll pay for it.”
Neb hoped the Gypsy Scout was right. He hoped it with everything inside of him. “How goes the war?”
Now, the Gypsy Scout sighed. “Not good, I’m afraid. The Pope has issued a Writ of Shunning against us. He’s been somewhat misinformed about matters.”
“He’s no Pope,” Neb said, and regretted it as soon as he said it.
Fortunately, the scout did nothing with it and continued. “General Rudolfo rides even now to parley with him. We’re dividing the Wandering Army, and most are falling back to the Ninefold Forest.”
Most. The thought lingered before he asked. “Most?”
The voice was upriver from him now. “Some of us are staying behind. We will be keeping watch over you from the shadows while you do your work. Tell the old man we would speak with him here at the river when the sun rises tomorrow.”
Neb nodded. “I will tell him.” He paused, thinking about it for a moment. “There was a woman with red hair. From House Li Tam. She fled Sethbert’s camp a week past for yours.”
“She is safe,” the Gypsy Scout said. “Rudolfo spirited her away along with the metal man before the first battle.”
A mechoservitor, Neb thought. Another survivor of Windwir. He wondered if there were others. It seemed odd {ItTim to him that the mechanicals would survive the destruction, but he welcomed what little of the Androfrancines’ light remained in the world, though he wondered what a mechoservitor’s role in this different world would be.
And the woman-her blazing green eyes and her copper hair filled his memory. She’d towered above him, standing a full head over Sethbert even. “I’m glad she’s safe,” he said.
A low whistle carried across the charred landscape. “I’m needed elsewhere,” the Gypsy Scout said. “Pass word to the old man. Tomorrow at dawn. Tell him it’s Gregoric, First Captain of the Gypsy Scouts.”
Neb nodded. “I will.”
Silence, then the faintest whispering of wind along the ground.
The sky was purple now and the light was leaking out of it quickly, turning the water as dark as the field of ashen bones that stretched west from the river as far as he could see.
With so many of the dead watching, Neb scrubbed himself clean as quickly as he could, then ran back to the camp to find his Pope.
Chapter 12
Resolute
Pope Resolute the First had chosen his name quickly. Until ten days ago he’d simply been Archbishop Oriv, and that really hadn’t been much as far as he-or anyone else for that matter-was concerned. He’d climbed the ranks of the Order, starting out as a digging acolyte and working his way into a paralegal role researching and scripting matters of Androfrancine Law for the Office of Land Acquisitions. Somehow, in his later years, he’d earned the favor of Pope Introspect III and had found himself suddenly a bishop. The leap from that role into archbishop-assigned to oversee the Order’s vast property holdings throughout the Named Lands-had been a relatively short one.
But this leap, he thought. Gods.
He stood up from his desk and turned his back on the mountain of papers that cascaded there. He walked across the carpet, his slippered feet whispering as he went, and paused at the large open doors that led out to the small balcony attached to the Papal Offices of the Summer Palace. Second Summer had arrived, and the mountain air hung thick with heat. He walked out into it and looked out.
The balcony faced south, giving him an expansive view of the small village with its stone buildings and wood-shingled, high-pitched roofs. Beyond the village, the foothills of the Dragon’s Spine rolled down to forest and the forest stretched on for league upon league. The day ~, twas clear, and a hundred leagues distant he could see the sunlight thrown back from the surface of the Marsh Sea, spillover from the headwaters of the First of the Three Rivers.
Ten days ago, he’d been downstairs in the quarters reserved for the higher ranking members of the Order. The Summer Palace was first and foremost for the Pope, but it was also for the Pope’s friends, and the Archbishop Oriv had certainly been a friend through the years, using his knowledge of Androfrancine Law to bend around the various corners of kin-clave and protect the Order’s best interests at home and abroad.
And when the Pope’s own nephew had come up implicated in a scandal that involved Order holdings being sold for a pittance, Oriv had done his part to protect the light by keeping that particular corner utterly in the dark.
And now, I am Pope. Of course, he wasn’t. He may have specialized in the laws of property and holding, but you couldn’t touch those laws without understanding the other laws that held them up. Especially the Laws of Succession.
He’d been drinking hot brandy in the later part of the day that seemed now so long ago. It was a day, he realized, that people would someday ask about.
“Where were you,” they would ask, “when you saw the pyre of Windwir?”
And those who had been close enough to see it-surely most of the Named Lands, if the reports were true-would say where they had been, and the room they were in would grow quiet with loss and grief reme
mbered.
That day, he’d looked up at a word from one of the acolytes who made up the staff of servants in the Summer Palace and he’d seen the pillar of smoke far south and east, rising into the sky. He’d disbelieved it, of course. There were certainly other explanations, other places along that line of sight; but when the birds arrived a day and a half later, he’d finally believed enough to call an Assembly of the Knowledgeable to determine the senior Order member. By the time that handful had gathered, more birds had come in-all with questions rather than answers.
They put forth the questions to identify the ranking brother. He’d known by looking around the room that it would be him.
And after, he’d gone alone into the Papal office and pulled the heavy iron key down from the wall. He’d taken one scholar, one scientist and two members of the Gray Guard contingent with him then, down into the cellars far below, walking the winding stone stairs until he stood before the vault.
He’d opened it, found the Letters of Succession from his friend, Introspect III, and carried them back up to the Assembly.
They named him Steward of the Throne and Ring first. When reports of the? reigh devastation arrived, he named himself Pope provisionally. It was understood-but not said-that he would lay down the office should someone from Introspect’s named list of successors turn up alive.
When Sethbert’s bird arrived, Oriv took his final step, and no one argued though all of them knew it was not the proper form. He burned the Letters of Succession for all of them to see and took his new name.
“I am resolved,” he said to the gathered Assembly, “to right this wrong and avenge the light extinguished.”
No one argued, even though it went against the teachings of P’Andro Whym. He named himself Pope Resolute the First and immediately issued the Writ of Shunning against the Ninefold Forest Houses and the man who his cousin, Lord Sethbert of the Entrolusian City States, had identified as the Desolator of Windwir.
He used your own light against you, Dear Cousin, the coded note read. It was a metal man who spoke the words of Xhum Y’zir and finished the Wizard King’s work of long ago.