Glasswrights' Test

by Mindy L. Klasky

  People wanted to remember their travels. They wanted to hold treasures in their hands, concrete images to help them recall the time that they had spent upon the road. The city teemed with trinkets—carved wood emblems unique to each of the Thousand, clay figurines, colored ribbons. What was next, Berylina scoffed. Was every Briantan set on earning gold in the name of the Thousand?

  Berylina needed no such physical reminders of course. She had the images in her head. She had the twisted paths that the gods revealed inside her own mind, the chambers that they excavated inside her senses. She sighed and hurried past the busy merchant.

  Father Siritalanu guided her to Mip’s temple with a directness and care that showed he had already scouted out the path. Only once did he take her down a side street. When she looked at him curiously, he flushed and walked a little faster. “Father?” she asked, in a tone that hinted at her royal lineage. She used that voice rarely, because it made guilt prick at the back of her throat. This time, however, the commanding voice worked to her advantage. The priest turned toward her but refused to meet her eye. “Father? What is it? Why are you taking me this way?”

  “I wanted to avoid the crowds in that street,” he said at last.

  “What crowds? What is in there?” She stopped and planted her hands on her hips. She was determined not to miss out on any aspect of her pilgrimage, on any worship that she might make to complete her journey.

  “A temple, Your Highness. Nothing more. No need for you to worry.”

  “I’m not worried, Father. I’m curious. What god?”

  “Perhaps I was mistaken, Your Highness. Perhaps we could have continued without mishap.”

  “Father!”

  “Your Highness. …” Father Siritalanu actually produced a kerchief from beneath his robe and began to mop at his brow. Berylina wondered at the priest’s discomfort. After all, he was pledged to honor all of the Thousand—to recognize and exalt each of the gods for what that deity could bring into the world.

  Berylina hardened her voice, strengthening it with the snap of command that she had learned at her father’s knee. “Who is it?”

  “Quan, Your Highness.”

  The god of harlots. Berylina’s belly flipped, and she stifled an uneasy laugh as her nose was filled with the sharp odor of boxwood. She had not met the god of harlots personally; he had never come to her as she stood ready with her crayons and parchment. Nevertheless, she had heard men whisper of him, and a few of the gods spoke to her about their colleague. She knew that Quan was a wastrel, a spendthrift. She could imagine what form worship took in his temple.

  Or perhaps she couldn’t.

  “Never mind, Father. You were right in choosing this path for me. I appreciate your guiding me to Mip.” She strengthened her approval with a hand gesture.

  The look of relief on Father Siritalanu’s face was almost comical. For just an instant, Berylina wondered just what she was missing by not forcing her way into Quan’s temple. Poor Father Siritalanu. He would probably never recover if she demanded passage. Instead, Berylina turned away from the sharp boxwood scent. “The afternoon escapes us. Let us go to Mip.”

  Berylina followed Father Siritalanu through the streets, trying to ignore the maelstrom of sensations as she walked. As she passed minor shrines, the gods beckoned to her, sending out their particular signatures. Her nose filled with scents, and she narrowed her eyes to slits in an attempt to cut down on the spinning, flickering visions. Never before had she been surrounded by so much godhood; never before had she sensed herself to be among so many holy beings.

  She knew that they were nearing Mip’s sanctuary when the trill of a nightingale rose above the chorus. The birdsong was still soft, delicate, but it resonated louder as she turned one last bend in the street. She could feel the notes in her ears, but they traveled down her nerves, into her body, into her bones.

  Berylina fell to her knees on the threshold of the temple. “Hail, Mip, holy god of water. Welcome this pilgrim into your sanctuary and look upon her with blessings. Recognize her dedication to you and accept her prayer as the blessing that she means it to be.”

  The god heard her. She felt his attentions turn her way, sensed them as an intensification of the nightingale song. Berylina glanced at Father Siritalanu, to where the priest patiently knelt beside her, but he did not seem to recognize the power that rose before them. Nevertheless, the bird song grew louder, and Berylina raised her eyes, amazed that none of the other pilgrims seemed to hear it, to feel it.

  The crescendo continued to build, the notes gliding ever sweeter, ever closer to their true, eternal meaning. Berylina could see into the temple’s courtyard; she could make out pilgrims kneeling and praying. An altar stood in the precise center of the space, raised as high as Berylina’s waist. A delicate metal framework stood behind the block of polished stone, and Berylina could make out a pair of artisans who worked at something.

  What were they doing? What had they brought to honor Mip?

  Berylina turned her head, letting her better eye focus on the workers. Ah! They were glasswrights! They were installing a frame, a panel that saluted the god of water.

  The green-clad princess stepped closer to the construction, angling to one side.

  There. … Without the sunlight shining directly on the glasswork, she could see the craftsmanship, recognize it for the beauty that it was. The panel was a medley of cool blues and greens, soft colors that swirled into each other like all the shades of a river. They caught the sky and reflected it back, breaking it into its component planes. They snared the stone of the courtyard as well, softened it, smoothed it. They captured the essence of Mip.

  Berylina realized that her eyes were filled with tears. She had never seen guildwork like this. She had never imagined that an artisan could create such a true work of art, such a strong sense of rightness. The nightingale trill pounded through her limbs as she looked about the rest of the courtyard, checking to see which of the pilgrims had recognized the beauty, the rightness of the glasswrights’ labors.

  No one paid attention to the guildsmen, though. Pilgrims made their offerings, prayed before priests, spoke to each other. Families gathered together, sharing common meals as the sun climbed toward noon. The glasswrights might have been invisible for all the attention that was paid to them.

  Berylina watched the worshipers kneeling before Mip’s fountains. There were three watery displays inside the temple walls. In the first, a single great spray of water arced toward the sky, pushed to glory by arcane engines beneath the ground. In the second, a pool of water spread in a perfect circle, the water welling up slowly and mysteriously, cascading over the sides of its stonework ramparts like a sheet of liquid silver, only to be caught in a larger, placid pond.

  The third fountain, though, was the one that cried out to her most clearly, speaking in a voice almost as perfect as the glasswrights’ panel. Great blocks of stone were arranged in tiered layers, rising up like the stairs in a god’s castle. Water splashed from the top of the rocks, cascading down in leaps and arcs, hitting new surfaces and sparkling as it fractured in the air. Everywhere that Berylina turned, rainbows glinted, prisms arced as they caught each other and bent and glimmered. The patterns were always glorious, always holy, and yet they changed eternally. The fountain cycled through different patterns, and water crashed down on different planes of stone.

  Mip. Mip was present in every droplet of that water. He was there in the arcs, in the jets. He was there in the mist that framed the rainbows. He was there in the pool at the bottom of the stone steps, in the slick paving stones.

  Berylina caught her breath and opened up her mind to the great god’s presence, feeling him fill her, expand within her. His song pulsed inside her body, beat inside her brain. She caught a breath against the nightingale’s tremor, exhaled it with the sheer beauty of Mip’s presence. Unable to bear the perfection of the rainbows, she closed her eyes, letting the god fill her from within.

  And then, when she
thought her entire attention was given over to Mip, she heard the scream.

  At first, she forced it from her thoughts, believing that some pilgrim child was playing in the fountains. The first shriek sounded like one of joy, of gamesmanship, of entertainment. Berylina registered it, but did not permit it to distract her.

  The cry was repeated, though, sharper, more desperate. Berylina could not tell herself that the sound was part of her prayer; she could not believe that it was related to Mip’s delicate nightingale song. She opened her eyes as if she were awakening from the deepest dream.

  At first, she could not place the sound, could not find the direction of the cry. Perhaps she had imagined it. No one else was disturbed in the courtyard. The glasswrights continued to affix their offering to its metal stand. A cluster of pilgrims knelt by the still pool, watching the water cascade over the sides. An elderly priest stood by the tall jet, speaking to a crowd of eager worshipers, explaining to them that the stream of water hit upon the Heavenly Gates, knocking for entrance on behalf of all believers.

  Even Father Siritalanu seemed unaware of the voice, oblivious to the desperate cry. He knelt beside Berylina, his head still bowed in his own quiet prayer. From this angle, she could see the growing bald spot on the top of his head; he was a young man, but his head would be smooth within a decade. The thought made Berylina start to smile, but then she heard the cry again.

  “Help!” This time, there was no mistaking the word. She turned toward the rocky fountain, to the great blocks of stone. There, jumbled toward the center, there was a particularly tall boulder. Water plummeted from the highest part of the fountain, crashing down onto the rock with all the force of cascading falls. Berylina turned her head to one side, and she could make out a small child trapped behind the curtain of water, crying out in terror.

  She scarcely had time to wonder how the boy—for she could see his flimsy tunic plastered to his flesh—had arrived at such a perilous place. He must have been playing in the fountain; he had likely circled around to the far side, escaping the watchful eyes of his parents and all the priests and pilgrims.

  He tried to step through the curtain of water, but it was falling too rapidly, sheeting down too hard. Berylina could see that the child was only a few steps from freedom; he just needed to be braver as he moved through the falls.

  The fountain, though, chose that moment to cycle to another of its phases. The heavy sheets of water that had blocked the boy’s escape slowed to a trickle, stopped. In their place, rivers gouted up between the stones. The water poured forward, as if the very core of the world had been penetrated. The crowd exclaimed at the change, crying out as if Mip himself had strode into the temple compound.

  The changing water caught the boy off-guard, and he slipped on the stones. Berylina saw his head crack against the rocks, and then the water pushed him forward, forced him across the slippery surface. Mercilessly, the rainbows arced in the air above the boy, dancing as if there were no danger.

  Berylina heard Mip’s nightingale, the sweet song sharpened by a sudden urgency. Without conscious thought, she sprang to her feet, leaping toward the fountain. She wrenched up the hem of her caloya gown up as she stepped over the ring of mortared stones that contained the fountain’s flow.

  The water was cold. Shockingly, bitterly cold, even on such a sunny afternoon. It seemed to carry a cavern’s bitter chill, like the frozen blood of the earth. It sucked away Berylina’s breath, even as she tried to tell herself to move forward, to move to where the boy had slipped beneath the sparkling surface.

  Her robes tangled between her legs, caught by the swirls and eddies of the pool. Her feet slipped in their pilgrim’s sandals, wrenching both of her ankles as she fought to remain upright. Despite her best efforts, she lost her footing, and she caught herself hard on her right wrist. Pain shot up her arm, a red-hot poker that burned against the freezing water.

  She forced herself back to her feet, refusing to concede to the fountain. Mip sang to her, encouraging her. His notes rose in urgency, growing louder, louder, and she turned to face the source of those desperate tones. “Here!” the god seemed to cry. “You’ll find the boy here!”

  The direction made no sense—the child had slipped in at the top of the pool. There was no reason for him to be to Berylina’s right, in the relatively placid pond that spread out beyond the stones. She edged forward, ignoring the pain in her arm, twisting to stay upright in her sandals. Her caloya robes ballooned behind her, but then she fell, and they were drenched completely. They sank down to drag her toward the bottom of the fountain.

  When she fought toward the spot where she had seen the boy fall, Mip’s song grew fainter, as if he were chiding her poor choice. She turned back to his original direction, and the nightingale grew more spirited. She took one tentative step, and he encouraged her, his song becoming so sweet that she could taste it at the back of her throat.

  Mip commanded her. She must set aside her human logic, must ignore her thoughts and expectations. Mip knew right and wrong. He knew good and evil. He told her to move across the fountain, and she did.

  She fell once, twice, three times. A priest distracted her, bellowing from the edge of the holy pool. She made out Father Siritalanu’s face, saw his fear that she had taken leave of her senses.

  The currents proved stronger than she ever would have expected, sweeping deep beneath the surface of the water. Her ankles were frozen into blocks of stone, and a fan of icy water pulled her to one side. This time, when she fell, her Thousand-Pointed Star dug into her side, and its spikes were wicked talons, forcing in the penetrating cold.

  She gasped, and struggled to regain her feet, but Mip’s song rose even higher. She could not help but cover her ears, try to protect them from the assaulting music. That motion, though, caused her to lose her grasp on a rocky outcropping, and she splashed beneath the surface of the water, submerging her head entirely.

  And then she saw the boy. He was trapped beneath the surface, his body wedged into a stony niche. His mouth was open, as if he were screaming for help, and his fingers floated in the water like widow’s weeds. Berylina pushed herself to the surface and gasped a breath of air, and then she fought her way across the pond.

  Her arm ached, where she had fallen wrong. Her side burned with the mark of her Thousand-Pointed Star. Her ankles throbbed where her sandal straps had dug in. And yet, she forced her way forward, drove her reluctant flesh to the paired stones that trapped the child.

  Pausing only to offer up a wordless prayer to Mip, she dove beneath the surface.

  The child was a dead weight in her arms. He was not pinned by the stones; he had only been pushed against them by the force of the water that rushed from the top of the fountain.

  As Berylina’s fingers worked to pull him free, to break the water’s hold, a part of her mind continued to analyze the problem. The fountain worked with massive pumps, she realized. Mighty engines sucked water through holes between the stone. The water was collected in some subterranean chamber and then pushed—by what energy she could not name—to the surface.

  Mip required great offerings to his glory. He demanded a literal outpouring of respect, of faith. He demanded that water rush to the top of the fountain, all the water that trapped the boy. That trapped Berylina.

  She gathered her remaining strength and pushed to the surface, snatching another breath of air. As the water broke around her face, she cried out to the great god, “Mip! We came to honor you! Do not crush the pilgrims who would do you glory!”

  And then she fought her way back beneath the surface. She was tiring now. Her bones ached. Her heart pounded. The nightingale music was lost behind the speech of her own body, behind the agony of her exhausted flesh. “Mip,” she managed to think. “Mip. Mip. Mip.”

  She reached the paired stones. She grasped the boy’s hand, taking it in both of hers. She closed her fingers around his wrist, felt how limp it was. “Mip,” she thought, and her feet found the pond’s stony floor. �
�Mip.” And she pushed upward, fighting for air and light and peace and life. “Mip.”

  The boy came with her. She broke the surface of the pond, and she raised her hands, fighting to bring her face up, struggling to breathe. Her hands were full, burdened, and it took a moment before her frozen mind realized that she had succeeded, she had brought the child with her.

  The realization lent her strength that she had not known she could command. She fought to the side of the pool, dragging the boy along. She clambered out of the water, ignoring the staring pilgrims, ignoring the goggle-eyed priests.

  Father Siritalanu waited for her, and his hands were confident, calm. He steadied her as she struggled to stand. He reached for the boy, taking up the child’s tremendous weight. Only after her arms were empty did she feel the ache in her shoulders, did she recognize the sharp burn of muscles pushed beyond their endurance.

  “Mip,” she whispered, and Father Siritalanu seemed to understand, for he nodded and eased the child to the ground.

  A woman keened, her voice penetrating the crimson haze in Berylina’s mind. She broke off long enough to speak, to form words, words that the princess could not translate, could not parse. The woman snatched up the child, letting his limp neck fall back with a startling crack. Her cries grew even louder, and she pointed a shaking finger at Berylina, furious, accusing.

  A man stepped out of the crowd, the weight of his Thousand-Pointed Star pulling his cloak askew. Roughly, he took the child from the woman, pushing aside her trembling hands. He laid the child out on the misty stone, and he pressed his fist against the boy’s belly. He hollered as he worked, swearing obscenities at the priests, at the woman—his own wife, Berylina somehow realized. He swore at the boy—at his son—cursing the child’s stubbornness, ordering him to respond, to open his eyes, to come back to life.

  The nightingale song came back to Berylina’s ears. She understood it, as clearly as she understood human speech.