Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  A month previous I would have told him that I no longer feared him. Not anymore.

  I dropped to one knee, touched my forehead and heart, and lowered my eyes. “Serving justice is my desire, Knight Marshal.”

  “I believe that. Come in.”

  Lagging behind him, I seized the opportunity to examine the great window again. I was grateful for the fog and gloom. To see the sun firing the slivered glass would be near unbearable after what I had just witnessed.

  “Take a close look,” said the Marshal, gesturing toward the left panel before he’d even turned back to face me. As if he had read my thoughts. “It’s why I brought you here.”

  So close on the heels of the morning’s viewing . . . Was the Marshal responsible for the morning’s subject—another fire? Was Damon? A quick glance around confirmed that the curator was not present. Yet I could not shake the sensation of his cunning eyes watching.

  “Commander Inek said that the story depicted on the glass would be revealed to me on the day I was vested as a knight, if I should prove worthy.” And live so long.

  “That’s the usual way.”

  The Marshal joined me at the window. Surprising to note we were exactly the same height. He seemed so imposing.

  “You and Inek work well together,” he said. “My predecessor believed that would be so. He had great hopes for you, as do I.”

  “Your encouragement has helped me through difficult times, Knight Marshal.”

  The window displayed a city centered on two peaks, not a house in a verdant vale like that I’d seen destroyed an hour past. Even standing so close, I found no evidence of connection between the two scenes besides the murderous ring of fire—and, perhaps, a goddess weeping.

  “This is the Order’s story,” said the Marshal softly, “this and the other pane. I thought to tell you some of it today that it might ease some of the doubts that plague you of late. Do not mistake. It’s not my goal to coddle you by making this questioning time easy. Introspection is but a finer grit in your shaping. But you’ve difficulties enough to deal with, and I’d rue the hour the lack of a simple answer would drive you to unfortunate choices.”

  Had Inek mentioned my anxieties about my past when he’d applied to review my memories? Surely he’d not mentioned Danae or our suspicions of Damon. Or was this interview simply another step in Damon’s mysterious plan? Why were they so cursedly interested in me?

  “Please understand, sir, that what doubts I have are naught to do with my desire to pursue this life, but only with my fitness.”

  “Naturally.” He shifted his gaze from me to the window. “When our Aurellian ancestors discovered that their sorcery took on such exceptional vitality in the lands we now call Navronne, they settled where their particular gifts seemed strongest. The majority of our people pushed south toward the benevolent climes of Ardra. But one small group of families made their home in Morian, near the northern sea. Because of the great distance between their settlement and the others, they went their own way about many things, producing a harmonious society that nurtured great art, philosophy, and a richness in the land itself that was exceptional, even in beauteous Navronne. They prospered from the sea trade and the overland routes to the old kingdoms of the east, built themselves a magnificent city, and made their own rules. The rules included those regarding magic and how it was to be nurtured and protected. Tales call their magic unparalleled.”

  What was this power the Marshal had to touch the spirit with his storytelling? Knowing of his violation of the Order’s traditions, I’d not expected he could enspell me as he had in our private interview those months ago. But as a master musician with his lute, his story immersed me in nuances of wonder and grandeur, mystery and sadness.

  “Even as the Empire of our ancestors challenged great Caedmon for sovereignty of Navronne, the future promised decades of instability. The northerners reached accommodations with the local peoples and continued on their path, while those of the south believed it necessary to solidify—unify—our presence in the kingdom. So began a long struggle between the two factions. Decades later, as Aurellia itself began to shrivel, and our ancestors were left to defend our presence without fresh warriors from our homeland, unity took on a terrible importance. But those in the north relished the life they had made and refused to yield. And so, a cadre of three hundred pureblood sorcerers—one from each great family who had settled the south—their skills honed in war, were sent to insist our kin of the north join with them to ensure their mutual safety.”

  “To swear allegiance or die,” I said. A pernicious dread crept through my veins. History unfolded in certain ways, ever and again. “And they died.”

  “They died. Every one of them. It wasn’t meant to be that way—not the children, not the artists or scholars or the musicians, the elders, or the ordinaries. Only the recalcitrant leaders, those men and women who refused to accede to the wisdom of their southern kin, were to be chastised. But the cadre’s plan went terribly wrong. They had set a ring of fire around the great city to flush the northerners out, and as the people fled through the gantlet of sorcerers, the traitors would be arrested. But the northern folk did not leave. Instead they fled to sacred ground—this ring of standing stones atop the second peak. The flames consumed city and people alike. Some tales say the gods took pity and the earth swallowed the city, or it sank into the sea before it could burn. Some say—”

  “Xancheira!” I blurted.

  The symbol at the bottom of the window should have told me. The white on black emblem was not a degenerate version of the Order’s mark. It was a five-branched white tree on a black field, the blazon of the duchy of Xancheiros—the greatest historical mystery of Navronne. That was a story I knew.

  I could not hold quiet. “Historians have always written that it was Aurellian soldiers—loyalists to the Empire—who razed Xancheira and massacred its people as King Eodward drove them from Navronne. But that would have been over a century later than the time you speak of, and no one ever found evidence of it. None have suggested it might have been the Aurellians who stayed who did the murders.”

  Three hundred families had sworn allegiance to Caedmon’s line and the kingdom he founded, because they wanted to remain in the land where their magic was strong. They held to his Writ that balanced political power in Navronne between the Crown, those who served the gods, and those who held the gift of the gods’ magic—themselves. Sorcerers.

  “Knight Marshal, you’re saying the Pureblood Registry burned Xancheira and massacred thousands of innocent people.”

  “One could conclude that,” the Marshal acknowledged with quiet reason, “but without blame or accusation. It was long ago. Many worthy societies are built on faulty ground. And today I’m telling the story of another such society. Built by those who witnessed a horror they had no mind to cause.” He waited.

  “The cadre of sorcerer-warriors,” I said, as the links snapped into place.

  “Though some had wives or children or parents, they could not go home to them, not after slaughtering wives and children and parents. To a man, they vowed to pay for what they had done—to cover their faces in shame and use their strong arms and their magic in service to those who needed justice . . .”

  “To forgo glory, pride, and even thanks for their deeds,” I said. “The Equites Cineré—the Knights of the Ashes.” The Order.

  So much explained. And, as everything of late, the knowledge brought with it a fear that shook me. Was that how they chose who joined them—men guilty of sins that required a lifetime’s expiation? Was that why a portrait artist called Lucian de Remeni-Masson had abandoned his gift, his life, and a friendship that few mortals had ever known to stand the seaward watch at this dismal fortress? What had I done?

  You are not a murderer. The fragment given me took on a wholly new significance. If I was here because of a crime, at least it was not murder.


  “How did they end up here?” I said, pointing to the rightmost window and its depiction of Evanide. “This fortress is centuries older than the Aurellian migration.”

  The Marshal dipped his head and laughed, not in his usual easy humor but in amusement tinged with vinegar and rue. “Many reprobates have found safety in Evanide. Warlords. Thief lords. Sea lords. Exiled royalty. In the time of the Order’s founding, this was a hospice, a place of refuge for those mighty, god-gifted purebloods who were unable to control the power of their magic here in Navronne. Of necessity, those who cared for them had learned a great deal about mind and memory.”

  “And shared those skills with the knights.”

  “Indeed, their great work became our greatest tool. This story is not yours to speak to anyone save Commander Inek. He, of course, is privileged to know everything of you.”

  A warning sounded in my soul as brazen and clear as the tide horns. The Marshal had just lied with the same quiet clarity that he questioned and probed and reassured nervous trainees. Inek’s request to know more of me had been refused.

  I lowered my eyes that he might not guess what I’d heard. His lie betrayed the very honor he claimed for the Order. “Thank you for this, Knight Marshal. I’ll speak the story to none who lack the right to know.”

  Yet why was I privy to it? And why now? Nothing Inek might have reported about my doubts or questions had to do with the Order’s origins.

  “Dalle cineré, Greenshank. May you surmount all difficulties and find your proper destiny.”

  And so was I dismissed.

  “Dalle cineré, Knight Marshal.”

  In a swirl of white robes, he retreated to his chair. Interesting to note—his feet were bare. They were not the callused, dry feet of an elder, but those of a man near my own age.

  • • •

  The afternoon’s duties were tedious. An hour sorting lists of needed supplies to be parceled out to various merchants. Two hours practicing basic combat spells without full use of one, two, or all four limbs. An hour squeezed in to clean my armor from the night’s watch. At some time I ate and drank.

  Though I found occasion to visit the armory twice and Inek’s guide chamber several times, he was not to be found. I even exerted my prerogatives as first of our cadre and engaged Dunlin in extra wrestling practice, just to have an excuse to visit the arenas.

  “You’ve not seen Inek this afternoon?” I said as Dunlin and I sat panting on a butt of hay and canvas used for target practice.

  “No. He left me to spar with his squires after they finished reviewing the mission study. Hand of Magrog, that was a rough viewing.” He glanced sidewise at me and passed me his water flask. “Was that what spurred this fight? I’ll not be able to take a full breath for a tenday.”

  “You’re getting lazy. I’m your first, and it’s my responsibility.” It was the truth. I’d been neglecting my second and third, trying to balance discipline and comradeship. But we were knights-aspiring, not gossiping friends. I needed to do better.

  Dunlin was right, though. Fighting when outrage seethed so near the surface risked loss of control. Pain, fear, and anger must be used to feed strength and skill—Evanide’s unending lesson.

  Yet the screams from that burning house would not be silenced. Purebloods murdering purebloods. Exterminating them. No more fitting word could describe what I’d seen. And the story of Xancheira declared that extermination was a part of the Registry’s very foundation. It could not be coincidence that the Marshal had summoned me right after the study session. Had Damon arranged it?

  It was scarce believable Damon could be privy to mission studies. But he was choosing my missions. The more I considered it, the angrier I grew. Damon was a curator of the Registry, a direct successor of those who’d sent executioners to Xancheira. If magic was the gods’ gift, then the Registry were the worst kind of apostates.

  Inek did not reappear that night. We were told he had taken his tyros and squires off-island. As always, our cadre’s training schedules would be posted each morning in his guide chamber. Without his word to the contrary, my punishment schedule remained unchanged.

  Inek’s absence chafed. I needed to know if he’d been able to learn anything of the Danae or references to a place called Sanctuary. I needed to speak to him of the Marshal’s tale that fit so horrifically with the study session, to ask how the story of pureblood infamy might fit with Damon’s presence here, and to explore why, in the name of all gods, the incident had shaken me so. I had promised Inek to bury all knowledge of Damon and the Marshal and my role in their conspiracy while in the fortress, but that was impossible. If my guide didn’t return timely, I’d soon be manic as a twistmind.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, the swordmaster and the combat spellmaster announced that the quarterly combat tourney required for all parati would begin the next morning. After the first hour of serious bouts, as a healer stitched the laceration that spanned the length of my forearm, I determined to bend every thought to avoiding further bodily damage. As when wrestling the demon tides, distraction would see me dead—or at least a patchwork of stitches.

  • • •

  By the fifth night of the tourney—the sixth of Inek’s absence—body and mind were pounded to paste. As midnight struck, I stood at the bottom of the steep, narrow, exposed stair to my watchpost atop the seaward wall. The ascent appeared as unassailable as a mountain must to an ant.

  Are you tired, Greenshank? Do we push too hard? Will you always manage to be fresh and rested on your knightly missions? Can only those born in armor serve the world’s needs? I didn’t need Inek’s cold assessment to judge how weak I was. An ink dabbler aspiring to be a knight. Perhaps that was the problem.

  I cursed and set my boot on the first step. Whenever he returned, Inek would not find me lame and would not find me shirking.

  Relief at nearing the top vanished as I emerged from the shelter of the wall and the sea wind blasted me full in the face. I tried to plant the heel of my lance, but the step was too narrow and I wobbled sideways, dizzy, toppling. . . .

  I lunged for the wall, scrabbling and heaving myself upward for my life. Stone had never felt so welcome as that narrow walk atop the seaward wall. Until I thought about getting up.

  I lay straddling the walk, one foot dangling over the deeps, the other over the courtyard far below—a lesser drop than the plunge to the sea, but more than enough to leave me a heap of broken armor and bloody meat. My right hand yet gripped the lance, but the shaft was trapped somewhere between my torso and the wall.

  Worse yet, the low parapet did not begin for a body’s length from the stair on either side. Encased in heavy armor, buffeted by a constant gale that could fell trees, my limbs displaying all the strength of butter in summer, I could imagine no possible way to get to my feet without falling.

  What a damnable predicament. I pressed my forehead to the stone, trying to slow my thudding heart and pumping lungs. If I could just clear my head . . . so foggy . . . so drowsy . . .

  A gust of wind slapped me in the face like a cold, wet hand. My extremities were grown frighteningly numb. I had to move, and I needed leverage and more width than the wall walk provided. The stair was somewhere behind me.

  Gripping the wall with my knees, I wriggled backward and stretched my right leg along the wall to locate the stair. Nothing.

  Again.

  When my boot at last scraped the edge of the blessed stair, I almost wept. I wriggled and stretched again, but just as I found a solid purchase, a shadow flapped over my head. Not a bird, for a firm weight pressed on my back.

  Fear had me reaching for my knife, only to realize that it was the very lump grinding divots in my hip bone and entirely impossible to extract. Which made no difference whatsoever when someone grabbed my waist and dragged me, armor, lance, and all, backward along the damnable wall and onto my hind end right beside the stair.


  “Choose, paratus. Get your own feet under you or dive off. Anyone so infernally stubborn is like to die young anyway.”

  My chin rested on my chest, not from the humiliation, but from sheer difficulty in lifting it. Indeed, I was helpless to suppress the laughter that bubbled through my aching chest. “How long have you been watching me, Commander Inek?”

  “A very long two years and sixty-eight days. But for tonight, near an hour. Your snoring belied any notion you were dead, so all I had to do was make sure you didn’t fall. I wished to judge what I must add to your schedule of punishment for sleeping on watch, and I wasn’t about to help if you didn’t make a move to help yourself.”

  Asleep? A chill rippled my skin as though a wave had strayed up the wall. I pushed up to standing. My knees buckled, but I planted the lance and willed myself into a proper stance.

  “My life is yours, Knight Commander.” This was the correct acknowledgement to a comrade who had saved one’s life. Once my spirit settled, I might argue that I was very close to saving myself, but the night had a while to run as yet.

  “I don’t want your life. I want your attention. The stair verge is hardly the best position to stand watch. You should consider a station more useful. Perhaps near the north bend?”

  “As you suggest, rectoré.” But he was already vanished into the dark. Northward.

  It took me a while to follow him, planting the lance and each foot with perfect caution, making sure my gelatinous limbs would hold me up. I even cast a light. My night-seeing was acute and most times I could walk the wall by feel, but I dared not rely on it this night.

  By the time I reached the bend in the wall where the Archive Tower blocked observation from any other point in the fortress, Inek sat draining a flask of . . . ale, by the smell of it. His legs dangled over the precipitous drop as if he perched on a fence in a homely meadow.

  I doused my magelight, took my stance facing the sea, and held proper silence. No more reprimands this night.