by J. C. Staudt
“What are you doing with it?”
“I’ve been soaking it in a gentle citrus solvent to remove the residue left by its previous host. Mother Bonnaire was a diabetic before receiving her Enhancements. This little device saved her life. It’ll need to be cleaned and sterilized before it takes a new inheritor.”
“She’s one of the Cypriests who was retired at the ceremony last week.”
“That’s right,” Bastille said.
“How long did she live?”
“If I were to wager a guess, I’d say a hundred and thirty years or so.”
In the half-light, Bastille saw Sister Severin’s eyes widen. “That’s incredible.”
“That’s on the shorter end of things, as Cypriests go.”
“Really?”
Bastille nodded. “A Cypriest’s lifespan is dependent upon many factors. How old the host is when they receive their Nexus; pre-existing disease and the extent thereof; number, age, and type of Enhancement required. It’s a highly subjective process. There are Fathers walking the parapets as we speak who’ve seen a hundred and fifty years or more, and Mothers below us just as long-lived.”
“No wonder everyone wants to join the Order.”
Bastille flicked her eyes up at the acolyte. “Everyone?”
“Back home in Eaderlakes, lots of people say they’ll come south and join. No one ever does, though. I’m the first one I know of who actually did.”
“You’re from Eaderlakes,” said Bastille, impressed. “You’ve come a long way.”
“I barely got here. Every day I thank the Mouth I made it.”
Such determination, Bastille thought. Here I was thinking Wynesring was a long trek. I was right to believe Severin a capable young woman. “Brother Jaquar is from Celios, a world away to the west. Not as difficult a trip, maybe, but certainly a greater distance. The Order does draw hopefuls from all over, it seems.”
“Where are you from, Sister Bastille?”
“Oh, a little town up north called Wynesring.”
“Wynesring. I know it. It’s a big livestock town, isn’t it?”
Bastille was not enjoying this conversation. Small talk was the antithesis of accomplishment, and there was much she wished to accomplish tonight. Nor did she have any interest in the before-life of an acolyte whom she had chosen specifically for her lack of notable qualities. Still, Bastille was skilled in the art of feigning interest. Especially when she stood to gain something by it. Perhaps if I’m nicer to Severin than I was to Sister Adeleine, her loyalty will last a little longer. “That’s right, Wynesring is rather well-known for its livestock. You know your geography. What’s the sustaining industry in Eaderlakes? Logging, isn’t it?”
“There’s some fishing up there too, but it’s mostly a logging town, yes,” said Sister Severin. “Most of the wood you find around here comes from the Shaitalla. Weather isn’t as bad as it is down here, either. Not as many deserts up that way. For a few weeks during the short year it gets cool enough so you can stay outside at noon without burning up, thanks to the lake breezes. You can sit in the daylight from dawn to dusk sometimes, long as you’ve got enough good drinking water.”
Bastille had been too young when the Heat started to remember much of what it was like before. Her father had told her about people staying outside for hours at a time in the old days, when the weather made it enjoyable to do so. She’d never imagined there was still a place like that in all the world, short-lived though the season might be. “That sounds… lovely.”
“It’s alright. The downside is we have a big problem with radiation. There’s lots buried around the lakes, they say. And in them. That’s why everyone wants to come down here.”
“My, isn’t that something…” Bastille tried to end the chatter there, but Sister Severin was as garrulous as a songbird.
“Brother Cournier told me he’s from a little village on the Drakeneck called Hawk’s Inlet. Have you ever been there? I haven’t, but I’d like to go. He makes it sound so charming, there by the bay. The waters are gentler than the Tideguine. Easier on the skin. And oh, the dayrise and nightfall over the open sea. A rainbow of colors every morning and evening, he says. That sounds so nice, don’t you think?”
This idle blathering made Bastille want to slam her head into the desk, if only to make it stop. Meanwhile, Brother Travers’ absence was beginning to grate on her nerves. He’d been tardy before, but never by this much. Such disobedience was unheard of in the Order. It’s about time disciplinary action was taken, she decided. It’s downright insubordinate, is what this is.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Brother Travers wasn’t in the habit of knocking before he entered. Bastille went over. “Who is it?” she asked without opening.
“With your leave, kind Sister. It’s Sister Voclain,” came the muffled voice from beyond. “I’ve brought you something to eat.”
Bastille glanced at Severin, who was looking on expectantly. “Is this your doing?”
“Not at all, kind Sister.”
Bastille yanked open the door and found the short graying kitchener holding a tray containing three clay mugs, a covered plate, and a candle. The hallway was otherwise dark. Bastille stepped aside to let the elder woman enter. Sister Voclain slid the tray to rest on the nearest empty side table.
“What’s this all about?” Bastille asked. “It’s hours after sundown, and we’ve already eaten our supper.”
“Hot tea and fresh-baked biscuits drizzled with honey. For you and your students,” said Sister Voclain. “Compliments of Sister Deniau.” She lifted the domed cover to let a cloud of steam escape from half a dozen warm, flaky biscuits. Honey was a rare treat, given Belmond’s scarcity of beekeepers. To use it so lavishly spoke of a special occasion or a meal meant to impress.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Bastille said irritably. “We’re hard at work in here. We’ve plenty of material to cover and no time for interruptions.”
Sister Voclain nodded her sympathies. “I’ll just leave these here and be on my way, then. We’ll send someone back for the tableware in the morning.”
Before Sister Voclain could leave, they heard laughter down the hall and saw candlelight flickering on the stone walls. Two shadowy figures emerged from the gloom. Brother Travers strolled through the doorway, followed by none other than froggy-eyed Brother Liero.
The tray caught Travers’ eye. “Oh my. Biscuits. Don’t mind if I do…” He snatched one up, then gasped in pain and tossed it hand to hand.
“Why, kind Brother Liero,” said Bastille, startled and perturbed all at once. “What a marvelous surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here at so late an hour.” Come to keep an eye on me, have you?
“Yes, well. After our conference this afternoon, I thought I’d stop by and see how things were progressing. Imagine my surprise at encountering one of your students in the hallway.” Liero shifted his candle to his left hand and craned his neck to peer around the room, as if searching for something amiss. “May I?”
“Certainly, certainly. Come in.”
Sister Voclain plucked her candle from the tray and slipped out before Liero seemed to notice her. The high priest circled the room, then spent several minutes making a general nuisance of himself, greeting Sister Severin with a long-winded conversation, examining Bastille’s instruments and putting them back in the wrong order, and asking Bastille if he might see the bodies in her cold lockers.
Everywhere he went, Liero kept looking around and nodding, like someone whose primary goal is to pretend expertise. Bastille sat at her desk to resume her scrubbing, but she remained on edge until Brother Liero gave one final nod and said, “Well. Everything appears to be in order. I’ll say goodnight.”
“Sleep well, kind Brother Liero.” And may your nightmares follow you into the waking world tomorrow.
Liero left without closing the door behind him.
Bastille gave an aggravated sigh and stomped over to push it closed. “You’re late, Brother Travers. Again.”<
br />
“Oh, cool off. Brother Liero and I were just shooting the breeze.”
Bastille blinked. Already seeking friends in high places, are we? “Have my ears gone out of tune, kind Brother? Or did I just hear you tell me to cool off?”
Biscuit crumbs spewed from Travers’ mouth as he spoke. “That’s what I said.”
Bastille reached deep inside herself to draw out what little patience she had left. Tardiness was one thing; bold-faced mutiny was quite another. “It seems you’re keen on creating an environment of disrespect, Brother Travers. So be it. Choose a book.”
Travers took another bite of his biscuit. He lowered his finger onto an arbitrary tome in front of him and gave Bastille a pulpous grin.
“A fine choice. You will now leave the comfort of your desk and chair. You will take your chosen book into the cold storage rooms, where you will live until you have learned to recite the first chapter of said book from memory. Furthermore, you are forbidden to show your face again until you’ve done so.”
Travers stared at her, chewing. His grin melted. “I get it. Okay, I’m reading.” He opened the book and propped his chin on his elbow to stare down at the page.
Bastille waited until he looked up again. “Need I repeat myself?”
“Wait, what? You’re serious?”
“Brother Travers… I am always serious.”
“No way. I’m not going in there.”
“You’d spurn a chance to cool off with the acquaintances you’ve been so desperate to make? Oh yes, kind Brother. You most certainly are going in there.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head. “No way.”
“Shall I send for Sister Gallica? Discipline is her forte, and I assure you, she is quite capable in daylight hours. I wonder how much more good-humored and neighborly she’ll be when disturbed from sleep. Would you like to find out?”
“No. I’m going.” Travers took a candle in one hand and a book in the other, then trudged toward the storage rooms, shoulders slumped and dreadlocks swinging. “Bitch,” she heard him say under his breath.
“I’m sorry, Brother Travers. What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“The Mouth… my ears must be going.”
Bastille finished scrubbing Mother Bonnaire’s former NewPancreas about an hour later. “Alright, Sister Severin. That’s enough for tonight. You may go.”
“Should I get Brother Travers?”
“Certainly not.”
“You’re really going to make him memorize the whole first chapter?”
Bastille sighed loudly. “See you tomorrow, Sister Severin.”
“Goodnight, Sister Bastille.”
Severin took her candle and went out, leaving Bastille alone in the room. She wondered whether Travers would call her bluff. She hoped not. If he tried to pull some holdout stunt to see how long she could go without breaking down and letting him out, he had chosen the wrong Sister to test.
CHAPTER 14
Brood-Father
Sniverlik was coming to Tanley.
He was making his way through the tunnels even now, the village folk said. They said he had recruited a thousand ikzhehn in Bolck-Azock to fight against the invading calaihn. But when the army arrived, Lizneth saw that it was not nearly that many. Two hundred, at most. Two hundred of the mangiest, scrawniest ikzhehn she had ever seen.
As soon as she scented Sniverlik’s haick on the cavern wind, Lizneth wanted to hide; to disappear. But Raial and Thrin and Deequol could not hide, nor could her family’s other hostages, and so neither would she. She would stand for them all when she came face to face with Sniverlik. She would be as brave as it took to endure his wrath. Courage did not seem so laborious a thing when summoned in the name of those she loved.
She stood in the crevice of a familiar dip in the cavern wall, just beyond her dry and decimated fields, knowing Sniverlik would’ve found her by sight or by scent had she tried to escape him. The villagers had picked clean the mulligraw vines Rotabak had felled, leaving only scraps for Lizneth and her siblings to gather over the following days. The creatures who scurried or flitted through the cave had stolen away the rest. New vines were growing, but Lizneth knew they would fail to reach maturity before the harvest season ended.
The Bolck-Azockeh conscripts marched more quietly than the Marauders, armored in tough boiled hides instead of the abrasive forged breastplates of brass and hammered copper worn by their betters. Sniverlik entered like a great black monster, a full head and shoulders taller than the rabble surrounding him. Even hunched over with fatigue, his hard paunch bulging like a ripe turnip, he was a bear in a field of mice.
Rotabak’s Marauders stood in the village square while Sniverlik greeted him with a celebratory clap on the shoulder that nearly knocked the lazy-eyed kradacht off his feet. The stretched pelts of dead calaihn hung across the cavern walls and tunnel entrances like skin sails, pinned up like party decorations to serve as a gruesome warning to any hu-mans who might venture that way. A select few calaihn had been left alive for torture and questioning, or to be offered in tribute to Sniverlik. There were more hu-mans coming, if the rumors were true.
“A victory well-earned,” Lizneth heard Sniverlik roar above the troops.
“As you commanded, Sniverlik,” Rotabak said with a sweeping bow.
“Take these city-scum and make them ready for war,” Sniverlik said. “They’ll need their weapons sharp and heavy if they’re to do the work of bloodletting.” He lifted an arm to signal the new recruits.
The Bolck-Azockeh conscripts ambled forward to merge with the sea of Marauders. The two groups sniffed each other out, forming uneasy haick-bonds that would likely last no longer than their thin alliance. Most of the metropolis-dwellers wielded simple weapons: short-handled spades, switch-knives, chunks of driftwood, and clubs that were nothing more than blunt lengths of rusted iron.
Sniverlik began conveying his plans to Rotabak and the others in charge, seeming at first not to notice Lizneth. She knew he’d scented her when he entered the village, which only made her more nervous. If he hasn’t expressed his outrage by now, she postulated, it’s only because he’s had so much time to sit and stew over it. He’s probably worked out the perfect way to punish me.
The nestlings were home with Mama and Papa today. Lizneth had half a mind to go there herself and hope Sniverlik would forget about her until after the battle. Or better yet, until he and his army had moved on to the next village and it was too late to go back. She was considering whether she could escape the village unnoticed when she heard Rotabak utter the word ‘scearib’ and saw him point at her. No! Rotabak, you slack-eyed cretin! You had to remind him, didn’t you?
Next she knew, Sniverlik was thundering up the rise, accompanied by half a dozen of his personal guard. As if he needs guarding, Lizneth thought, a vain distraction from the fear threatening to cleave her chest in two. If I ever had a chance to run, I’ve missed it.
“You are the scearib who speaks for the calaihn, are you not?” Sniverlik asked as he came to a halt before her.
Lizneth was shocked at Sniverlik’s vagueness. He had treated with her in his own throne room. She still remembered the cold dead look he’d given her during the battle in the Brinescales the following day, a look that said he meant to follow through with his threats. Now he barely knew her. If his threats are as empty as his memory, there’s hope for my family yet. “The calaihn helped me, so I brought you their message in return for their kindness. I’ve since learned them to be false.”
Sniverlik gave a great sniff. His eyes took on a keen glimmer. “I told you they were liars, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”
“Yes,” she admitted meekly.
“What else did I tell you?”
Rotabak cut in. “Sniverlik, you said you would—”
“She remembers. Don’t you, leparikua?”
“Yes.”
“Say it, then. I want you to tell me what I promised.”
“You said…” she bega
n. Her voice was quivering so hard she couldn’t finish. She didn’t want to speak those words, or think about them, or hear anyone say them ever again. “You said you were going t—” she choked back a gag and had to stop. Her stomach churned violently. Then something warm and bitter was in her mouth. She slapped a hand over her snout, too late. It seethed past her longteeth and dripped to the ground, warm and thick.
“Beh dyagth,” Sniverlik cursed. He backed off in disgust.
Lizneth swallowed the rest in embarrassment. As soon as she could speak again, she began to apologize.
Sniverlik cut her off. “The leparikua can’t control herself. She’s as cowardly as the krahz-jaagivh calaihn she serves.”
His guards laughed.
Sniverlik reached over and drew a blade from one of their scabbards. “Here, scearib coward. Perhaps you will earn back a measure of my mercy by fighting for your vilck, eh?” He shoved the blade into her arms.
The heavy slab of curved iron began to bite at the insides of her elbows. When she tried to lift it by the hilt, her arms felt like strings of soft mutton. “But… I’m just a lecuzhe,” she said. “I can’t fight. I don’t know how.”
“You carry that knife on your hip for bean-picking, is that it?” he asked, pointing to her dagger. “Rotabak says you slew a full-grown calai keguzpikh with it.”
“I didn’t, I just—”
“Am I a liar, scearib?” Rotabak said.
Lizneth was beginning to despise Rotabak as much as Sniverlik. How could they call her a traitor if they knew she’d killed one of the calaihn? She would’ve said as much, but the roiling in her stomach made her thoughts go all crossed and jumbled. “No, I’m not… I—”
“And your fields,” Sniverlik interrupted. “What have you done to them? A planned sabotage to starve us out of your village?”
“That was Rotabak.”
“You and your family have one responsibility,” Sniverlik roared. “To feed this vilck with your harvest. If my Marauders don’t eat, they don’t fight. If they don’t fight, the calaihn take you all to slave tomorrow. If you are unable to look after these fields, perhaps I should give them to someone who can.”