by Alec Hutson
“Welcome to Lyr, strangers.”
Captain d’Belin nodded respectfully towards the leader of the gate guards. “Greetings, Lyrishmen. My deep apologies for bringing our pursuit to your doorstep. This paladin was involved in an assault on Saltstone and an assassination attempt on Queen d’Kara herself. I have a royal writ calling for his arrest and immediate return to Herath.”
The Lyrish captain removed his plumed helmet and tucked it under his arm, then rubbed at his bald head. Keilan could tell by his pained expression that this was a position he did not want to be in. The captain was quiet for a long moment, as if trying to decide what to do next.
Finally, he sighed. “It is rare the rangers of Dymoria leave the northern forests, and rarer still when they hunt the holy men of Ama.”
“Our tracking skills were needed. I warn you, we will not be denied.”
The Lyrish captain raised his eyes to the sky, as if hoping for a miracle. “Surely you see the predicament you’ve put me in, Captain. If I refuse you, I will anger our neighbor to the north. But if I let you have the paladin, and the emperor discovers what I have done, then I will have made an enemy of Menekar.” The captain of the gate shrugged. “Truly, such a decision is not one I can make, at least if I want to keep my head attached to my shoulders. You will all come with me and present yourselves before the council, and the archons will decide your fates.”
The paladin, who had remained silent during this exchange, slid his sword back into its sheath with a sharp clang. Then his blazing eyes finally found Keilan among the rangers, and he flinched as if he had been struck.
Harsh rapping on the chamber door dragged Keilan from a deep and dreamless sleep. He surfaced groggily, feeling as if his head was stuffed with straw, and pushed himself into a sitting position. He winced as his muscles protested—his legs and back were not about to let him forget about the days recently spent on horseback.
Blinking away the last remnants of sleep he glanced around the room. He had been so exhausted when he was brought here that he had barely noticed anything before collapsing. The chamber was low-ceilinged and windowless, the only furniture his small lumpy cot, a rickety-looking wooden table, and a partially shuttered lantern that hung beside the door.
Clearly, he was not an honored guest.
Someone else had been here since the Lyrish guardsmen had led him inside and instructed him to rest; a wooden bucket had been placed on the table, along with a ladle and a small ceramic cup. Licking his dry lips, Keilan slid from the cot, shivering as his bare feet touched cold stone. The gray cloth shoes he had been wearing since leaving Saltstone were nowhere to be found, but a pair of leather boots that looked to be about his size had been arranged beside the bed, and he quickly slipped them on, then dipped the ladle into the water bucket.
The rapping came again just as he was taking a sip, and he spilled half of the water down his spider-silk shirt, soaking his chest and deepening the chill he already felt.
“Lad! Are you awake?”
It was a woman’s voice, cracked by age but still powerful. Not a servant—Keilan could hear the edge of authority in her tone.
“Yes,” he called back warily.
“Good. We’ve waited a fair long time, and I’m certainly not getting any younger. Better make sure your breeches are on. We’re coming in.”
A key clanked in a lock, and then the chamber’s door creaked open. A bald giant of a man sauntered into the room first, his gaze sliding over everything but lingering on nothing, not even Keilan. He was wearing an unadorned gray tunic and simple brown trousers, the kind of clothing men wore in Keilan’s own small village, but jutting over his shoulders were a pair of ornate silver sword hilts fashioned into the shape of twining serpents. He spat out something he’d been chewing on and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Just the boy,” he said gruffly, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“Of course it’s just the boy,” snapped an old woman as she stepped inside, frowning. She was dressed in rich robes, red and purple flowers picked out in glimmering thread, and her gray hair had been gathered back in a severe bun. Her hand clutched the arm of another woman, this one tall and thin and wrapped in a dark shawl. This second woman was somewhere in her middle years, Keilan thought, because though her skin was smooth and unlined, her long black hair was streaked with silver. At first Keilan thought the old lady was leaning on her for support, but then he noticed the blindfold the younger woman was wearing and her tentative, shuffling steps as she was led into the room. A tingle of unease crept up his spine. There was something odd about the blindfolded woman, something almost familiar.
The old woman’s frown deepened as she regarded Keilan. “Well, you’re not as impressive as I’d hoped. Any young man that can bring two great kingdoms to the brink of war should at least have a look about him. Either tall and handsome or brooding and dark.” She waved her hand dismissively towards the man leaning up against the wall. “By the Silver Lady, you’re as unremarkable as Telion here.”
The man in gray chuckled. “Sorry we’re so disappointing.”
Keilan swallowed, trying to find his voice.
“Wait, he’s about to say something,” said the old woman, leaning in and raising her eyebrows expectantly.
“Who… who are you?”
She scowled. “As ignorant as he is unimpressive. What do they teach you up at that Scholia? I am Lady Willa ri Numil, the eyes and ears of the archon council.”
The man in gray spat again. “Known as the Crone in some parts of Lyr.”
“You know I don’t like that name,” the old woman said crossly, narrowing her eyes. “Stop trying to annoy me.”
“Some parts?” Keilan said, trying to remember what he knew about Lyr. “Like the Warrens?”
The man in gray’s humorless grin failed to touch his hard eyes. “See, mistress, the boy’s not completely ignorant.”
The old woman sighed and studied the ceiling. “And to think this lad’s only knowledge of our great city comes filtered through that ruffian girl.”
“She’s not a ruffian,” Keilan said, feeling his anger start to rise from being talked down to like a fool. “In Saltstone they call Nel a lady.”
The Crone snorted. “I could dress a pig in silk and damask, but that wouldn’t make it a noble. Boy, I’m not here to discuss what she is; I know that well enough. I want to know what you are.”
She snapped her fingers and the blindfolded woman shuffled closer. Keilan couldn’t help drawing back a step as she leaned towards him. The air seemed to shimmer faintly, and the light from the lantern flared brighter. He held his breath, his body tensing.
The woman straightened. “It’s as the paladin said. The dark flame burns inside him, and it is brighter than anything I’ve seen before. But he’s completely untrained.”
“I could have told you that,” said the man in gray. “Even I can feel the boy’s power. The first thing any sorcerer is taught is how to hide his gift from others. He’s learned nothing from the magisters.”
“Is there any danger here?” the Crone asked. Indignation filled Keilan as they continued to discuss him as if he wasn’t even present.
The blindfolded woman shrugged. “I’ve never dealt with natural ability like this before. I’m not sure what he could summon forth if he felt threatened. I doubt he even knows himself.”
The old woman plucked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “What would you suggest, Telion?”
The man in gray’s response was shriven of emotion. “He’s a threat to the city. We court war with Menekar or Dymoria if we decide to give him up to one or the other, and if he stays here then they’ll both come knocking at our gate sooner or later. I’d suggest putting a sword through his belly now, dumping his body in the bay, and saying he choked on a fishbone.”
Coldness spread through Keilan at the man in
gray’s words, but the old woman clucked her tongue, shaking her head. “That’s a rather inelegant solution to our problem. And I have a strong suspicion there’s more going on here than we realize. Simply wiping our hands clean of the whole mess will only leave us with more questions than answers.” She turned to the blindfolded woman. “Philias—as you said, we cannot predict what sorcery he might summon. You’ll have to stay here until the council meets, and then accompany him when he’s called before the archons.”
The woman sighed. “I feared you might say that. Very well, but I refuse to wear this anymore. I entered your service so I wouldn’t have to hide.” She reached up and undid the knot securing her blindfold.
Keilan gasped as she unwound the black cloth and let it flutter to the stone floor.
Beneath the blindfold, her eyes blazed with the holy radiance of the Pure.
After the Crone and the man in gray had left the room, the woman pulled one of the stools from beneath the table and sat heavily, letting out a long sigh. She regarded Keilan with a slight frown as he stood beside the bed, and he couldn’t stop himself from squirming beneath her shining gaze.
“Well, sit down,” she said, motioning towards another of the stools. “The Silver Lady herself couldn’t make the archons move their fat arses any faster, so I think it’ll be a while yet before the council is finally called to session and a summons is sent.”
Keilan slowly lowered himself onto a stool, trying to avoid staring into her glowing eyes. Was she Pure? In all the stories from the Tractate he’d heard while sitting before the Speaker’s Rock in his village there had never been any mention of female paladins. Sella had even remarked upon it once, her face twisted up in annoyance, and the mendicant that day had smiled down and claimed something about how only men could become Pure, since they alone were fashioned in the divine image of Ama.
Certainly, she did not look like Senacus. While the paladin was tall and broad-shouldered, radiating strength and vitality along with Ama’s holy light, this woman was thin and frail and slightly stooped, her silver-threaded hair hanging limp. But her eyes blazed similarly, and now that he looked for it Keilan could see the same faint shimmering aura that limned the Pure.
“I know what you want to ask,” she said. “So out with it.”
Keilan swallowed. “Are you a paladin of Ama?”
She snorted. “All right, not what I was expecting. No. In fact, if given the chance I’d love to stab that shining arse with one of his own white swords.”
Keilan’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard anyone dare insult a god like that before, not even the bitter old men who used to mutter into their grog when the mendicants preached in his village—and Ama wasn’t just any minor spirit, but the blazing heart of the most powerful empire in Araen.
“But you’re… I mean, your eyes…”
One side of her mouth quirked. “Since I can sit here cursing him, I don’t think the light inside me comes from Ama’s favor.”
She cocked her head, as if listening for something, then smiled when there was a faint knock on the door. “Enter,” she called out loudly, and a timid-looking servant slipped inside carrying a large rosewood box. “Put it here,” she said, motioning at the table, and the boy scurried over and gently laid his burden down. Then he hurriedly retreated, flashing a final terrified look at them both before vanishing.
Upon the side of the box, lines of breaking waves had been carved, each one slightly different, until suddenly they more resembled tongues of flame than cresting water. A tzalik set.
The woman snapped open the lid and removed a gameboard of polished white stone. “You know how to play, yes?”
Keilan nodded as she pulled two cloth bags from the box, one red and one blue, then dropped the box on the ground beside her chair with a clatter.
“Good. I don’t want us to sit here ogling each other like a couple of halfwits until the archons finally decide to see you. I’m Philias, by the way. Just Philias, so don’t go calling me ‘lady’. Grew up on the docks of Palimport, and I don’t have much respect for those who lord over other folk, especially when it’s all just some coin flip by Chance that they were born in a big house with golden chamber pots.”
Not a lady. Keilan thought he wouldn’t have much trouble remembering that.
“You prefer fire or water?”
“Ah, water, I suppose.” He felt dizzy: days of chasing the Pure, half-dead from exhaustion while clinging to his saddle, and now he was sitting down for a leisurely game of tzalik.
Philias handed him the blue bag and Keilan carefully dumped its contents onto the table. He hadn’t played very much, as tzalik was considered a pastime suitable only for the old men of the village, but his father had sometimes enjoyed setting up a board outside when the weather was nice in the evenings. Keilan remembered crouching in the grass across from his father as they both studied their pieces, a cool breeze carrying away the heat of the day as the smell of his mother’s cooking wafted from their hut.
They had never played again after her death.
Philias placed her fortress—in this set, intricately carved to look like a castle clinging to the side of a volcano—in the middle of her side of the gameboard. Then she began to build out her army, arranging ranks of imps and mephits, while also occasionally sprinkling in her more powerful pieces: gaunt efreets brandishing scimitars, fanged cherufe, squat, toad-like kaliza, and finally the general of her forces, a rearing dragon with wings outspread.
“This set was once used by the veiled ladies of the Cinnabar Palace,” Philias murmured, distracted by the task of arranging her side. “It was a gift to Lady Numil from the padarasha himself. The Crone doesn’t play, though, so she gave it to me. My pieces are made of pumice, a volcanic rock. Yours are carved from sea-stones rounded smooth by the waves.” Philias surveyed her army, resting her chin on laced fingers. “You were asking whether I was a paladin of Ama.”
“And you’re not, you said,” Keilan replied, busy deploying a phalanx of serpentine naga around his fortress.
“I am Pure, though. I can feel the heat of your gift.”
Keilan swallowed, remembering the ease with which Senacus had sent him spiraling into darkness when he tried to summon forth sorcery in his village. Philias could probably do the same to him, if she so wished. “I didn’t know women could become Pure.”
Philias snorted. “Aren’t there girls born with the gift? Garazon’s black balls, look at your Crimson Queen. The mendicants strap just as many girls as they do boys to that damned altar.”
“But you’re not allowed to become paladins?”
Her mouth twisted. “No, we’re not. Instead, we’re hidden away in nunneries to spend our lives kneeling on stone pews and mumbling prayers.”
“I don’t think you’d make a very good nun.”
“Ha! Yes, for some reason, unlike most others who are Cleansed, I could recall most of my childhood on the docks. My new life of rubbing a copper sunburst and intoning the Effulgent Prayer ten thousand times a day was just deathly dull in comparison. So one day, I fled.”
“And Ama did not take back your powers?”
She frowned. “You’re not listening, boy. Ama doesn’t make us Pure—otherwise he’d have withdrawn his damned light from me when I first escaped the nunnery. Believe me, I wish he had. I can’t leave these halls, or else a Menekarian assassin will find me. Years ago, when I first came to Lyr, I served a powerful merchant. But then the mendicants heard of me and sent a knife in the darkness. The Pure are not supposed to slip their leashes, don’t you know.” She drummed her finger on the stone board, then slid one of her efreets forward. “Have you heard of the Blackson Rebellion?”
The name tickled at Keilan’s memory. “Yes,” he said, moving a naga forward to block the efreet’s path. “I read about it in one of my mother’s books—the second son of the Menekarian emperor rose up against his fathe
r, I think. Nearly tore the empire apart.”
“Well, what you don’t know—what almost no one knows, since the mendicants have tried to strike it from the records—is that the rebellion began with the greatest of the Pure turning against his faith. The emperor’s son only joined later, when it seemed the revolt might actually succeed in overthrowing the alabaster throne.”
“Truly?”
“Aye. Melekaith was his name, and the light of the Pure burned more strongly in him than in any paladin since Tethys. But then the unthinkable happened—while hunting for those with the gift, Melekaith fell in love with a sorceress. Now, while children are returned to Menekar and sacrificed upon the Radiant Altar in the hope that they will rise again as Pure, adults are given no such mercy. According to the Tractate, they must be put to death… but Melekaith could not do this, and so he rebelled. More than a few of his brothers joined him, accompanied by several legions, and dozens of sorcerers also emerged from where they had hidden. They flocked to his standard, hoping to free themselves forever of Ama’s scourge. Can you imagine? The Pure fighting alongside sorcerers against the armies of Menekar? They lost in the end, of course, and Melekaith and his sorceress lover were strapped side by side on thorned wheels and left to die above the Melichan Gate. The mendicants made sure to pluck out his eyes before he was displayed to the people, as even then they still shone with the mark of their lord.”
Philias deliberated for a moment, and then brought out her dragon from the back of her ranked pieces. “And that is how I know the light inside me does not come from that bastard Ama—Melekaith’s power should have deserted him when he turned against his lord, yet it did not. No, the Pure are not the creations of a god. We are something else entirely.”
Keilan imagined he could feel his skin growing warm under her blazing gaze.
“Your move, boy.”
He was well on his way to losing his third straight game when the door banged open and four pikemen in ornate ceremonial garb entered. They quickly arrayed themselves on either side of the door, facing each other in pairs. Their black-metal helms were shaped to resemble the heads of demons, and no two were alike: one had pointed ears like a cat, while the ears of another hung pendulous, as if stretched by an invisible weight; one had spines like a sea-creature, others sported webbed crests, or random barbs, or hooked noses. All had open, roaring mouths, out of which the faces of the guards stared without expression. After a long, drawn-out moment they raised their pikes in unison and struck the stone floor twice.