Glasswrights' Apprentice

by Mindy L. Klasky

  “Aye. Ye sent fer me, didn’t ye?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think you’d come - not after.…” Rani trailed off, her words drowned in a pool of soldier’s blood. Blinking, she could still see her crimson-washed dagger in the dim light of Dalarati’s quarters. She’d left the Zarithian blade behind, forgotten it in her panic to be free of the soldier’s corpse.

  “I shouldna be seen ’ere with ye, that’s fer sure.”

  “But where did you get a pilgrim’s robe?”

  “That’s ’ardly important now, is it? The better question is why ye are wearin’ one, and what ye plan t’ do now that ye’ve killed th’ soldier.”

  Rani could not keep from darting her eyes at the crowd, fearful that someone would overhear Mair’s harsh whisper, that Larindolian’s messenger would choose that terrible moment to arrive. Fortunately, the marketplace was crowded, and no one spared attention for two small pilgrims who offered their obeisance at the feet of a stern statue. “If you know what happened, then you know I had no choice.”

  “I know ye sent Shar t’ get a message t’ me, ’n’ I know she discovered th’ soldier’s body when she made ’er way back t’ ’er only ’ome i’ th’ world.”

  “How is she?” Rani reminded herself not to cry. She must not give in to pity. Shar was better off with the Touched, better off with her own caste. Surely, Larindolian had only thought to use Shar in his battle against the Brotherhood. Against Bardo.

  “That’s none o’ yer concern, Rai. The better question is what’ll ’appen to ye. Those soldiers’d be glad to learn ’oo ye are, beneath yer Pilgrim’s cloak.”

  Rani looked up in panic. There were more soldiers in the marketplace than usual; the entire City was set on edge as suspicion surged from quarter to quarter. Even those castes that had not deigned to note a soldier murdered in his barracks could sense the added uneasiness in a City already strained to its limits of patience. The hundreds of visiting pilgrims only heightened her feeling of anxiety. “You wouldn’t dare! The soldiers are no friends of the Touched.”

  “Dalarati was a friend t’ one o’ th’ Touched. A friend ’n’ more.” Mair moved her fingers in a holy sign. “Poor Shar. She should’ve minded ’er caste.”

  Mind yer caste. That was what the Touched creature had said outside the hut, where Larindolian had met Morada. If only Rani had listened to the warning then.… If only she knew which caste she was to mind.… Such speculation was nonsense, though. Larindolian’s messenger was certain to arrive momentarily, and Rani did not want to justify her actions any further. “Mair, I can’t explain; there isn’t time.”

  “Ach, no time t’ talk t’ th’ family ye chose fer yer own.” Mair spat toward Rani’s feet.

  “I have other family, Mair!”

  “So ye say, Rai, so ye say. Ye’ve an odd way o’ showin’ yer family loyalties, though. T’ think I believed Shar when she said ye’d be payin’ yer debts t’ me i’ th’ marketplace.”

  Rani remembered the lie she had fashioned to send Shar on her way; she had promised to pay Mair the tribute owed to Rabe.… That, at least, Rani could make right. Afraid to look the Touched leader in the face, Rani ducked a hand beneath her black Pilgrim’s robe, grabbing for her pouch. Her fingers closed immediately on the strip of golden paper, the receipt that she had stolen from the tribute offered by the merchants in the cathedral compound.

  “I didn’t lie, Mair. Here’s what I promised, why I sent Shar to find you.”

  The golden paper glittered in the sunlight, and Mair glanced at it curiously before thrusting it deep inside the folds of her own robe. “A dozen robes,” the Touched girl recited. “A dozen robes fer a soldier’s life. Do ye think ye’ve traded well, Rai?”

  “It’s not what I think,” she began to protest, but Mair waved her to silence.

  “I’ll give ye more t’ th’ bargain. Shar did find me wi’ th’ Core, though ’ow ye knew I’d be there, I can only begin t’ guess. Th’ Core ’eard yer message, and told me t’ bring ’er own message to ye when we met. Th’ Core says this: “Th’ doe runs fleeter than th’ buck, and she dinna get tangled by ’er antlers in th’ brush.”

  “What does that mean?” Rani stared at Mair as if the other girl had taken leave of her senses.

  “’Ow do I know? I merely follow orders when I’m given ’em.”

  “The doe…” Before Rani could repeat the cryptic message, a commotion began on the far side of the marketplace. Craning her neck, she could make out the Pilgrims’ progression that Larindolian had told her to expect. She was nearly out of time. “Mair, thank you for coming here. You have to believe me - I never wanted to kill Dalarati. I never wanted to hurt Shar.”

  Before the Touched leader could respond, a child-figure darted from the shadows at the edge of the marketplace. “Mair!”

  “Rabe, I told ye t’ wait fer me wi’ th’ others!”

  “Mair, Jair’s Watchers ’r’ ’ere! Th’ Progress is comin’ t’ th’ market! They’re choosin’ th’ First Pilgrim. Th’ group is afraid we’ll miss -”

  All of a sudden Rabe looked at the small pilgrim Mair was talking to, and recognition spread across his face like a rash. “You!” he breathed, even as Mair exclaimed, “Rabe, I bind ye by yer oaths t’ th’ Touched!”

  “But Mair, she -”

  “I’ll not ’ear it from ye, Rabe.”

  “You ’eard Shar. You ’eard th’ Core.”

  “Aye, and as long as I’m th’ Leader o’ our troop, Rabe, I’ll ’ear more than that, ’n’ about more things.”

  The youth stared at Mair, clearly disbelieving that his leader would cast her lot with a wandering, caste-jumping murderer. “I’ll not let ye do this, Mair. We’ll not let ye lead us down this path.”

  Mair put ice into her voice as she faced down her lieutenant. “Ye’ll do as ye see fit, Rabe. Just remember that ye dinna know all th’ tale. None o’ us knows th’ full story bein’ writ ’ere.”

  “None but that one.” Rabe did not restrain himself where Mair had, and Rani felt the warm gobbet of his spit like a slap against her face. She hissed and sprang from her knees, fingers crooked as she launched at his sneering face.

  “Stop, Rai!” Mair’s command bit through Rani’s anger like the sharpest Zarithian dagger. “Leave ’im be. ’E dinna know yer story, and ye canna take th’ time t’ tell ’im now.”

  “But -”

  “I said t’ stop.” Mair’s command brooked no argument, and Rani clenched her hands into fists as Rabe crowed his delight.

  Meanwhile, the commotion on the far side of the marketplace had worked its way near. Even Rabe was silenced by the spectacle that wound through the plaza. A dozen figures, Jair’s Watchers, stood at key points in the marketplace. Each was robed in solid black, with a pointed hood that obscured any human features. The Watchers were the holiest of Jair’s representatives in the City, purified by days of fasting and prayer. Their presence denoted the power of this holy day, the force of Jair in all men’s lives.

  Hundreds of pilgrims, also gowned in black, wove through the stalls beneath the Watchers’ hidden eyes. Each bore a golden Thousand-Pointed Star. Merchants cried out in religious fervor at the procession, and more than one pilgrim helped himself to the fresh fruits and ripe cheeses offered up in homage. The vendors who were favored loudly praised the Thousand Gods, grateful at being singled out in this most honored of spectacles. More than one merchant spoke Jair’s name, calling on the founder of King Shanoranvilli’s house, on the man honored on this holiest of feast days.

  The cacophony deepened as the pilgrims chanted the Processional, calling in turn upon each of the Thousand Gods to bless their pilgrimage, to bring peace and prosperity to the City and the Kingdom and the lives of the pilgrims themselves. As the first of the black-robed holy wanderers reached the Defender’s statue, Rani’s stomach tightened in expectation. This was the moment Larindolian had told her to wait for; this was the reason she had been praying in the morning light.

&
nbsp; “Mair -” She turned to the Leader of the Touched troop, ignoring the stupefied Rabe.

  “Watch yer step, Rai. Ye canna see where th’ serpent suns ’imself on th’ rocks. ’N’ dinna ferget th’ Core’s words. She said they would mean life ’r death fer ye.”

  Before Rani could respond, the pilgrim crowd surged around her, and firm hands grasped her shoulders, submerging her in the black-robed throng. Rani tossed her head in protest, but when she managed to twist around to find Mair, the girl had melted away into the crowd. Rabe was nowhere to be seen.

  “Stop your fighting, you little fool!” The voice hissed into Rani’s ear, and she whirled to face cruel eyes that glittered in an aging face.

  “Guild -” she started to exclaim.

  “Shut your mouth!” Guildmistress Salina seized her arm with iron talons, and Rani swallowed her outraged cry of pain. The old woman’s claw dragged Rani into the group of pilgrims, but the apprentice did not begin to recite the Pilgrims’ Processional until she felt the master glazier’s fingers pinch her arm to the bone.

  “Hail, Defender of the Faith. Guide this Pilgrim in the steps of Jair, first Pilgrim and greatest. Guide this Pilgrim’s feet and heart in the ways of the great God …” Rani trailed off, not certain which of the gods was being prayed to at this point in the spectacle. Ile, the god of the moon. At Salina’s silent urging, Rani continued to recite, mechanically inserting the god of the sun, the god of the stars, the god of the clouds. She trembled as she passed beneath the hooded gaze of one of Jair’s Watchers.

  When the apprentice could restrain her curiosity no longer, she whispered, “Did Larindolian send you? How did you escape the King’s dungeons?”

  Salina merely tightened her grip on Rani’s arm, raising her voice to chant the Processional a little louder. Rani decided not to press the matter; she knew the answer to her first question, at least. Guildmistress Salina was there in costume; she must be the messenger that Larindolian had promised. Guildmistress Salina was doing the Brotherhood’s bidding, and Rani had better follow suit if she wished to see Bardo.

  Suddenly, Rani thought of the words Mair had just brought her from the Core. The doe ran faster than the buck, but did not get tangled by antlers. Salina had risen high in the Brotherhood’s hierarchy - higher than how many men? - but she was still free to move about in the outside world, to drag Rani through the marketplace. The guildmistress might have lost her guildhall and all her apprentices and journeymen, but she had escaped Shanoranvilli’s bloody vengeance. She had managed to free herself from the deadly thicket of Prince Tuvashanoran’s untimely assassination.

  The thought sent a chill through Rani, centering in the ache of her bandaged arm beneath her black robes. Mair’s warning had to be about Salina. The guildmistress had been instrumental in all that had gone wrong - she had snared Rani in the Prince’s murder, in the burning of her parents’ home, even in the power struggle between Mair and Rabe. Salina might as well have held Rani’s hand as the apprentice executed Dalarati. Remembering her flight from the cathedral compound the night she had embalmed Tuvashanoran, Rani recalled the rage in Salina’s agate eyes, the blunt fury behind her snake-chased mask. Salina had been there for everything that had happened; she had caused it all to fall apart. And through it all, Salina remained free to roam the City.

  Rani did not have a chance to act on her new certainty, for the pilgrims were finally finishing their listing of the thousand gods. Salina drew Rani through the streets with the other worshipers, dragging her from the marketplace and the sheltering arm of the martyred Tuvashanoran’s statue. What should Rani do? She was bonded to Mair like a sister; the Touched girl had brought her a warning, taking a stand against Rabe, against one of her own, to deliver it. And yet, Larindolian had promised to send a messenger, to send Salina. Larindolian had promised to reunite Rani with her true sibling, with Bardo. Whom should Rani believe? Whom should she trust?

  The streets cleared for the pilgrims as they made their way from the merchant’s quarter toward the cathedral. Citizens lined the narrow way, tossing tokens toward the pilgrims. Rani caught a few of the tin coins, medallions stamped with the insignia of various gods, and her fingers scrabbled over boiled sweets that were molded in the shape of religious trinkets - birds for Fairn, little ladders for Roan. In past years, Rani had been the one who had thrown the riches; she had been the one who had looked on in envy at the pilgrims who made their way to the cathedral.

  Now, Rani’s enjoyment of the spectacle was diluted as she tried to decipher what the Brotherhood planned for her. Salina maintained a vise-like grasp on her shoulder, making her arm throb under its tight bandage. She longed to duck out of the parade, to return to the dark quiet of her room beneath the eaves in her parents’ house, to wait for Bardo to climb upstairs after a long day working in the shop.

  Bardo. That was why she was here. That was why she permitted Salina’s bony hand to guide her into place among the pilgrims. At one point, Rani would have darted forward, exploiting an opening in the throng, jockeying for position toward the front of the crowd of pilgrims as she had on the day of Tuvashanoran’s Presentation. Now, though, Salina restrained her, reining in her enthusiasm with the pursed lips of a child’s dried-up old nurse. What good was a festival, if one did not show full passion for the Thousand Gods?

  Rani did not have the opportunity to argue her theological point. Instead, she found herself at the front of the cathedral, looking up at the stone steps, at a corridor formed by the hooded Jair’s Watchers. At the end of the slightly ominous path, a priest held a flaming torch in one hand and a ewer of water in the other.

  Each pilgrim who climbed the gauntlet of Watchers bowed his head to receive a blessing at the portal. The priest, in turn, lowered his flaming brand toward every worshiper, moving the crackling fire in the intricate pattern of a five-pointed star. The religious symbol was reminiscent of Jair’s journey from the casteless Touched, through the four castes. The priest then sprinkled a few drops of water from his ewer in the hands of each pilgrim, washing away their worldly cares that each might enter the cathedral receptive to the demands of First God Ait and all the Thousand Gods.

  The priest did something else, though, something far more important. As each pilgrim stepped over the cathedral threshold, the priest greeted him formally: “Welcome to the house of the Thousand Gods. Welcome in the name of Gaid.” “Welcome in the name of Set.” “Welcome in the name of Lart.”

  One by one, each of the pilgrims was greeted on behalf of a particular god. Rani felt the excitement mounting as she climbed the steps. The Watchers channeled the pilgrims, keeping them orderly despite the rising thrill.

  Salina had pulled Rani back into the crowd, bridling her enthusiasm, even when one kindly pilgrim recognized the eagerness in the apprentice’s soul and held back a few other travelers so that she could spring up a step or two. Rani wanted to make sure that she would be permitted in the cathedral; she wanted to observe the ritual of Jair’s feast day, as if it were a cleansing rite.

  After all, the cathedral was where this entire adventure had begun. Perhaps if she could worm her way back inside the stone walls, she might light a candle to the benevolent gods, find a way back to the quiet life she had known. She would gladly forfeit her status as an apprentice, if she could return to the peaceful calm of a merchant’s life, settle into her easy role as her parents’ daughter, as Bardo’s sister. In the fervor of her sudden religious passion, Rani managed to ignore the fact that she would never again act as her parents’ daughter; she would never again see her mother or father in all her living days.

  The priest continued to greet pilgrims. In the name of Lene, god of humility. In the name of Sorn. In the name of Dain.

  Rani wriggled, knowing that the priest was reaching the final decade of the gods. She twisted beneath Salina’s grip, launching angry daggers from her eyes. The guildmistress’ face was set in concentration as if she listened to some distant counting. “Please!” Rani exclaimed, barely r
emembering not to name the guildmistress, and Salina finally released her shoulder, just as the priest intoned, “Welcome to the House of the Thousand Gods. Welcome in the name of Tarn.”

  Tarn. The god of death. Rani was too late - the thousandth god was named, and she was not among the counting. Rani turned to snarl at the guildmistress. “There! I hope you’re happy! You kept me from the cathedral! You kept me from the windows! You -” Rani choked on all the accusations she wanted to hurl at the guildmistress, all the bitter complaints about her lost family and friends, the life she would have enjoyed as an apprentice and a journeyman and a master.

  Salina ignored the outburst, thrusting a tight roll of parchment into Rani’s hands before fading back beyond Jair’s Watchers, into the crowd of other black-robed pilgrims. “There now!” exclaimed the priest, and Rani turned on him with a gasp of fury, unable to channel her rage solely at the disappearing woman who had kept her from her prize. “Calm down, little pilgrim. You must straighten your robes, now, and quiet your heart. You are the First Pilgrim of the new year.”

  The First Pilgrim. Of course Rani knew of the honor; she certainly would have remembered it, if she had not been so busy trying to beat Salina’s game. The First Pilgrim was honored among all Pilgrims, chosen to act out the greatest of Jair’s accomplishments in the coming year. Whereas all other pilgrims came from their own caste and made their journey according to their station in life, only the First Pilgrim completed Jair’s story. Only the First Pilgrim was brought into the castle, to sit beside the king as a beloved member of his family. For an entire year, the First Pilgrim became one of the royal household.

  Rani suddenly understood the calculation behind Salina’s cruel hands. The old woman had set a high goal for her, the most noble of goals in a City attuned to the worship of the Thousand Gods. Rani turned back to the guildmistress to offer up her thanks. Too late, though - Salina was nowhere to be seen; she had melted into the crowd of black-robed worshipers as neatly as if she had never existed. Like the doe in the Core’s warning, the guildmistress had avoided entanglement in the current thicket of events.