by Carol Berg
The knot in my belly drew tighter, shooting bolts through my limbs, setting off firestorms of cramps in my calves, back, and biceps. Warnings. All my life I had ignored warnings, putting them out of my mind as fast as they were issued, for I believed them but more shackles on my freedom. I could not imagine what significance my grandfather attached to the age of eight-and-twenty. Yet, while lacking weeks until that mystical occasion, I had used the book in some fashion to intrude on a Danae holy place and to summon one of them to an unwanted meeting. Now Danae followed me through fields and town. And even before I’d used the book, the earth that was their domain had pulsed under my body as if it were alive, and their holy places—the cloister garth and the pool in the hills—had barraged my senses like siege weapons. What did my grandfather fear might happen to me? Perhaps I had worse things to dread than a lifetime of bound service to Osriel the Bastard.
Amid these fearsome questions rose wonders, too. My sister’s help…the abbot’s faith…and one phrase that hung vivid and poignant in the cold night, like the last, lingering tone of plainsong. Unimportant to any but me. My grandfather had altered his book for me…who art without words, yet complete. What did that mean? Why did those words from a madman soothe a hurt so deep and so raw? Another mystery to occupy my mind in the bleak days to come.
As the hours crawled by, cramps, sweats, and insidious craving claimed one part and then another of my body. Events and words, hopes and beliefs blurred together, impossible to sort. By morning, I could not think at all.
Chapter 27
“Brother Valen.” The voice sliced through the pain like a steel claw through skin. “I’ve come to give you counsel.”
“Gildas?” I whispered harshly. Lord of Earth and Sky, let this be Gildas. I could not open my eyes to confirm it, lest my head fall apart, lest my teeth crack and fall out. The disease had come full upon me in the night. And the hunger.
“Yes. Iero’s blessings be upon you this morning, Brother. I understand this fear that sets you trembling. And you are right to seek the Lord Iero’s grace before embarking on this voyage of duty. I wish I could change what is, but I’ve brought at least temporary comfort. You must seek the ultimate solution for yourself.”
Praise all saints if temporary comfort meant nivat. “Iero’s grace, Brother Gildas.”
“Sirs, I presume you will leave us some privacy to speak of a man’s immortal soul.”
A wave of flowery scent had me gagging, and the fingers that tugged at the ropes about my chest and legs might have been a gatzé’s flaming tongue. “He looks ill. Perhaps he needs a physician, not a practor.”
“Would not the prospect of bondage in Evanore give you pause for your soul’s health, sir?” Ever-calm Gildas.
“Bound service, monk, not bondage. Purebloods have duties that ordinaries cannot comprehend.” Ever-prim Silos.
Go away, I thought.
“Vowed initiates of Saint Ophir have duties that heathens cannot comprehend. But we shall not argue those things here. I am this man’s mentor and confessor, and merest decency demands your tolerance. Please step out whilst I pray with Brother Valen.”
Pounding footsteps, crashing doors, slamming shutters. One might think a herd of cattle had stampeded through the cold room. Silos and his scent vanished. Then I felt the scrape of razor knives that was but soft breath on my face. I dragged my eyelids open.
“I don’t know precisely what I’m doing here,” he said quietly, his eyes remarkably unworried under his dark brow. “To encourage such perversion of the body is a great sin. Brother, you must give up this horror.”
“I’m like…to give it up in the coming m-months,” I said, my teeth clattering with chills, not fear. “It’s a sickness drove me to it. Please believe me.” Stupid to care what he believed.
“A sickness?”
“Never had a name for it, and now it’s so tangled with this cursed spell…” The spell that had me yearning for boiling oil to scald my feet or a hook blade to tear my skin. “Please, Brother, I beg you tell me you’ve brought it.”
“I found a bit in the priory kitchen. Not much. I didn’t know how much you needed. What must I do?”
To hear that Gildas was willing to help had me sniffling like a maiden. I’d not been able to think beyond the possibility of obtaining the nivat. I’d known naught of how I would manage the using, bound as I was. I tried to concentrate on the task. “At my waist…the green bag.”
Gildas dug through the layers of blankets and clothing. “The Sinduria said you hold the book of maps. I should take it out when I go.”
“You can’t. Caphur…the Registry man…he’ll sense its magic. Think you’re stealing. He’ll take it. Lassa must retrieve it. I can’t—Sorry I can’t help more. Tell Luviar I would if I could. Willing.” I could not examine my growing resolve to aid the cabal, only regret that my damnable weakness and blighted future left me useless to them. Beyond such fleeting concerns lay only pain and need.
“I’m glad to hear you’re willing. This devil prince must not have you.” I fought not to scream as his fingers fumbled at my waist. “I know people of influence in this city. We’ll see you safe with us by midday.”
Even as I despaired of its fulfillment, his ferocious declaration warmed me beyond measure.
He drew out the little green bag I had so painstakingly kept hidden through the past weeks. “Now tell me what to do.”
“How much did you bring?”
He unwrapped a scrap of cloth and showed me a generous mound of seeds, enough for at least three or four doulons. Amid mumbled prayers and thanksgiving, I told him how to crush the seeds and that he must free two of my fingers so I could work the magic. “…only twenty seeds. No more.” Only enough to ease my sickness.
As a youth, I’d seen the doulon-mad wallowing in refuse heaps and filthy hovels, scarred, starved, and forever shaking, tongues thick, unable to articulate a clear thought. One old man had scratched his skin off, trying to rid himself of invading “beetles.” Even enduring the pain of giving up the doulon would not have healed his broken mind at that late stage. I’d always been careful.
“And the rest of the seeds?”
“Into the green bag.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to free your hands entirely?” he said, a few moments later, looking dubiously at the two fingers of my right hand he’d wrestled out of the tight silk bindings. “We could rewrap them after.”
“Too slow. Won’t take long for Silos to detect spellmaking.” I would not have my savior compromised. “Now, p-prick my finger. Draw blood.”
He jabbed the silver needle into my fingertip, and I managed not to scream. He had to grip my bundled hands and hold them over the crushed nivat so the blood could drip, as I was too unsteady and too awkwardly positioned to do it.
“D-don’t t-touch the stuff,” I said, as he squeezed my two trembling fingers together to hold the thread steady. “The instant the fumes stop rising, when the scent fades, help me get it to my mouth. Then get out.”
He nodded, his expression curious, but not disgusted as I’d feared.
“Bless you forever, Brother,” I whispered, as I released magic to flow through my fingertips and bind the nivat to my blood.
Gildas fixed his gaze to the mirror fragment. I could see neither mirror nor fumes nor even the mound, but only glimpse a distorted reflection of the bubbling mess in his clear eyes. It looked huge and evil. I closed my eyes, ground my wrists against the rope to sharpen the pain, and tried not to vomit into my friend’s lap as he crouched beside my bed.
“Now,” he said, in what could have only been moments. Or perhaps I merely lost sense in the meantime. “It looks black and thick, as you said. No fumes rising in the reflection. Shall we?”
I nodded, unable to speak. He used my own fingers to scoop up the reeking glob and put it to my mouth.
I convulsed. Howled. Drowned in fens of pain and pleasure…of guilt and shame and joyless rapture.
“What h
ave you been up to?” The flower-scented Silos burst through the murk of my perceptions. He tugged at the ropes. Spent an inordinate time checking my hand bindings and fussing over the bloody marks about my wrists.
I raised my leaden eyelids to a glare of cloudy midmorning streaming through the open door. Gildas was nowhere in sight. I hadn’t noticed his going. Neither had I felt him tuck my fingers back into their shroud nor seen him pack away the guilty evidence that now poked reassuringly into my hip.
“Nightmares,” I said, my tongue thick. Had the world burst into end-times flames before my eyes, I would yet sink into blessed sleep, burying the remnants of my shame. I had never felt so drained. So heavy.
“You work spells in your dreams?” Silos dropped my limp appendages heavily onto my belly. “A good thing I came and not Caphur. Your clerical friend did not tuck the extra cord about your fingers. What has he done with you? He looked smug as an adder as he left.”
I closed my eyes and smiled. “Brother Gildas cleansed my soul. When the Bastard Prince eats it, he will suffer a flux.” As I’d learned on the journey to Palinur, Silos’s skills at detection were less impressive than his lightning bolts.
“You are a fool, plebeiu. And the Sinduria is a greater one to indulge you. Perhaps when I tell her you’re working magic with the Karish, she’ll reconsider. Last night she petitioned the Registry for your transfer to her custody, saying this contract your father has arranged is evidence of madness in the Cartamandua line. Her petition was refused.” He sniffed the air and poked about the bedcovers.
Shadows chilled my comfortable warmth at his mention of the future. “She’s wrong”—my father was not mad, only soul-dead—“but I’ll not tell anyone that. Tell her I can keep secrets.”
Secrets. Only as I said the word did it penetrate my iron skull that Thalassa had unraveled her tongue-block. I had talked with Jullian and my grandfather of Danae, even speaking the word lighthouse to the boy. I dragged my heavy arms across my face and whispered the word into my sleeve just to make sure.
Surely this meant my sister trusted me; Abbot Luviar trusted me. Blessed Jullian had sent Gildas to succor me. And Gildas had promised they’d come to my rescue. Perhaps they did need me for their plan. In a wash of unreasoning euphoria, I smiled into my sleeve and mumbled louder, “Need to sleep now.”
Silos unknotted the ropes and tossed them aside. I giggled like one of my little sisters.
“Too late, plebeiu. Prince Osriel’s man has arrived earlier than expected.” He shook me again.
Eventually his insistent prodding stole my good feeling. Dully I dragged my cold, heavy body to sitting. As my hands were yet cocooned in silken cords, I persuaded Silos to help me take a piss in the jar. He refused to wipe the crusted drool from my face.
“You should not have frightened off your valets,” he said, his mouth curled in distaste. “Though I suppose you’d best learn to groom yourself anyway. I doubt the Bastard Prince will provide you a bodyservant.”
Stupid Silos. What did he think I’d been doing for twelve years? Of course, I’d had my hands to use. Perhaps this prince would just cut them off. I pressed my wrist against my mouth to contain my rising gorge. No, no, the Bastard wanted my magic. He was paying for it.
Scarcely able to stay upright, I straightened my garments with my elbows and wiped my face with my sleeve…three times before I realized the offending substance remaining on my face was merely my skin. The open-necked purple and black tunic hung loose over my wool shirt, and they had provided me no belt.
When Silos held up the silver half mask, I could not summon control enough to disguise my loathing. And pride seemed unutterably foolish at the moment. “Ah, domé,” I whispered, begging, “not that one. Please, I cannot breathe in it.”
“Your new master provided a silk mask for the journey and a standard pureblood cloak,” he said apologetically, “but, as you are yet under Registry restriction, you must be delivered wearing this and the recondeur’s yellow. Your protocols within Prince Osriel’s house will be his choice, of course.”
No protections in a recondeur’s contract. My master could require that I wear this mask forever. My stomach clenched. Sweat dribbled down my back and sides as the pressure of Silos’s hand on my shoulder buckled my wobbling knees. He latched the band about my neck and secured the strip over my head, leaving me half blind, half deaf, and completely muted. Suffocating.
I panicked, trying to clear my clogging nostril, trying to suck enough air through the exposed half of my tight-bound mouth that I would not die. I scraped my arms across my face as if I could dislodge the hateful metal, and when I could not, I slung my bundled fists wildly into Silos, dug my feet into the rug, and lunged forward. My grandfather’s whimpers and screams drifted through the open doorway as they did in every hour in that house.
“Settle, plebeiu,” said Silos. He grasped my flailing arms and shoved me down again. “Settle. You’ve plenty of air, if you’ll just calm down.”
His firm assurances eventually slowed my heart, and my gratitude set me weeping. He knelt to shackle my ankles, then hoisted me up and propelled me through the door.
The unending symphony of madness from the corner apartments accompanied our journey through the courtyards and arches. Poor devil. I sniffled like a sentimental drunkard. I’m as mad as you, Capatronn. They’ll lock me up in my own filth, too.
Ssst…Silos. My sister beckoned to us from a grape arbor threaded with dead vines. We’re here to save him.
Silos did not turn his head. I slowed, glancing over my shoulders. Seeing with only one useful eye made everything seem flat and out of proportion.
I bumped Silos’s shoulder and nodded toward Thalassa, who now crouched behind a statue of Erdru with his goat’s legs. Or were they her goat’s legs?
The temple guard prodded me to keep walking. I stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop, grunting, jerking my head, and pointing my hands toward my sister. Look at her. Are you blind?
Silos paused and spun in a slow circle, stopping only when he faced me again. “Stop playing, plebeiu. I don’t know what you want.”
I whipped my eyes back to the statue. And then to the arbor. Thalassa had vanished. Far behind me, my grandfather cackled. Frenzied, the voice of my fear sealed behind the metal half lips of my mask, I dodged in front of Silos again, pounding my bundled hands on his temple badge and then on my own chest.
“No, plebeiu. I cannot take you to the temple.”
Grasping my shoulders, he turned me around and gave me a gentle shove toward the main house. Halting again, I tried to show Silos where Abbot Luviar perched beside a crow on a lichen-covered column. Then I pointed out Gildas, grinning from behind a dormant tree.
“What is it, plebeiu? What’s wrong with you? Move along.”
I hobbled forward. Blinked. The garden was empty of all but me and my jailer.
One more glance over my shoulder. The naked man sat cross-legged, tucked into the frost-glazed shrubbery, his gleaming dragon sigils silver in the morning haze. Eyes the crisp gold of autumn aspen observed us. Curious. Disdainful. The world blurred as I turned away, my throat swollen with grief. Illusions. Visions. Not real.
We passed through an arched gate and into the house.
Crystal lamps chased the gray morning from the columned reception room. I blotted my damp face on my sleeve and forced myself calm, trying to grasp what was real. I was surrounded by the familiar—the richly colored tapestries that my ancestors had brought from Aurellia, the luminous marble statue of Kemen and his belt of stars, wrought by some Pyrrhan master centuries ago, and the enameled urns and gilt caskets brought from exotic Syanar and set here on pedestals shaped like bundles of reeds. Beneath my feet gleamed the silver and blue mosaic tiles that my grandfather had salvaged from a ruined temple on the isle of Caraskan, shipped to Navronne, and reassembled here to display the order of sun, moon, and earth.
Just beyond the vulgar and exotic display of my family’s wealth shone the burni
shed breastplates of four well-armed warriors who flanked the doorway to the outer courts. The warriors stood at attention, lances at rest, their surcoats the rich, dark green of holly leaves and blazoned with the silver wolf of Evanore, a white trilliot under its paw.
Silos closed and locked the inner door behind me. Holy gods…whoever you are…please wake me from this nightmare. Where were distracting visions when I needed them most?
“This is he?” The words scoured skin and soul like windblown sleet.
The speaker walked in alongside my father. Though the mailed forearms that bulged from his holly-green surcoat were formidable, and his thighs might have been piers for Caedmon’s Bridge, it was his face that caused my bowels to seize. Where half of mine was encased in graven silver, half of his was fleshless scars, leathery creases and ruptures surely caused by burning oil or systematic beatings with hot irons that destroyed flesh and sinew and underlying bone. The eye buried within this horror was but a dark slit. The other, fathomless in its emptiness and limitless in its disdain, briskly scoured my sorry turnout.
When Silos prodded my back, I bowed ungracefully to my father and the visitor at once. The planets beneath my feet spun in their paths.
“Magnus Valentia de Cartamandua-Celestine,” said my father. “A male pureblood of seven-and-twenty years, his bloodlines registered before birth, witnessed and verified through ten generations. Contracted for unspecified service to His Grace, the Duc of Evanore, for lifetime duration.”
Of course, this grotesque man was not the prince. Osriel was the youngest of the three brothers, close to my own age. This man’s hair, trimmed close to his skull, was mottled gray.
He clasped his gloved hands behind his back, well away from the sword sheathed at one hip and the Evanori battle-ax ready at the other. “Recalcitrant, you said. Incorrigible. But I did not expect shackles in his family home. Is he violent, mad, or merely undisciplined?” He did not sound as if he cared which.