by J. C. Staudt
“It appears you have forgotten to clean your sword,” said Tycho Montari.
“I have not forgotten. Better you see it this way, with the proof of my corruption laid plain for all to behold.”
“Why am I awake so early in the day, Lethari? Hmm? I was awoken with some uncomfortable news. News I find difficult to believe.”
“You should believe it.”
“Why would you do this? Why would you add to the charges against you?”
“I lied to you yesterday. I was false. I was not ready to pay penance then. I am now.”
“What do you think I am going to do?”
“Take my head.”
“Had you come to me like this before, I would have spared you. Now, after what you have done… as a fair king, I cannot.”
“I understand,” Lethari said. “I am ready.”
The king stood. “Lethari Prokin, I hereby strip you of all titles, properties, slaves, wealth, privilege, and rank under my name. I cast the household of Prokin into shame, to be no longer within my grace for the rest of time. Further, I sentence you to death in the stadium. I have decreed it.”
Lethari looked up in surprise. “Death in the stadium.”
“You are well-known and well-respected among our people. This way, all will see the truth of your betrayal, and all will witness the fate that befalls a traitor to the master-king.”
Why not take my head off, if he means to make an example of me? Lethari wondered. Unless… he is giving me yet another chance. A chance to live. However remote his prospects for survival amid the horrors of the stadium, they were better than losing his head. “What is my trial?” he asked, not wanting to know the answer.
“For the crime of treason, you will face four sanddragons, left hungry to the point of starvation. If you survive, you will face three brengens, armed and armored, for the crime of murder.”
“And if I survive that?”
Tycho Montari gave him a skeptical look. “That depends. What other crimes have you committed?”
“The crime of cowardice. For I do not wish to live.”
“Then you need not worry about whether you will survive. The fates will align their will with your own.”
Lethari nodded. “I am ready.”
The master-king studied him for a moment. “You look unfit to die, let alone fight for your life.”
“I will not fight, my master.”
“Yet you must appear before a multitude. Summoning the whole of the city takes time. You may take today to gather your wits, and perhaps reconsider your cowardice. Tomorrow at midday is when we will learn your fate.”
“As you will, my lord.” Though I do not see the point. “Let me have peace and quiet in your dungeons until then.”
“No. You will spend your last night in the household that was once yours. Guards will keep you there. I will have your servants sent away and your slaves given to the families of those you have slain.”
“You are generous, my lord,” Lethari said, more out of habit than consideration. The king is giving me every advantage, though I deserve none. Does he know it was Frayla who bade me keep the goatskin record for myself? Is it possible he… understands? Lethari did not think so. The king dispensed justice where it was needed, without letting his personal feelings sway him. At least, he had always done so before.
The king’s guards walked Lethari home. Oisen looked hurt and confused when they sent him away, but he shuffled off without a word. Years of relationship between servant and master, gone in moments, and the servant getting the better end of the bargain, Lethari thought bitterly.
The guards posted themselves at every exterior door and window large enough to fit through, save the wide opening in his bedchamber overlooking the mountains and bordered by a pair of ornate pillars. That was the one place he was allowed to be alone. Lethari spent the day wandering the household, regarding its lavish excess as if seeing it for the first time. He’d grown so accustomed to this lifestyle, yet what good was any of it? He wondered who would live here after he was gone.
There was food in the kitchen, but he did not eat. Now that every hope in his life had left him, what was the point? What purpose did the master-king serve in making Lethari wait for death? When the guards weren’t looking, he took a knife and slid it into his waistband.
He managed to sleep that night, but only a little. Alone, the bed felt enormous. He lay against the headboard and watched a line of daylight slip over the mountains, every inch bringing him closer to sweet relief. The stadium was filling up; he could hear the noise of the crowds filing into the bleachers far below. No doubt they were curious to see what the great warleader would do with his final moments.
He fished out the knife from where he’d hidden it beneath his nightstand. The blade was stainless steel, serrated for cutting meat; something manufactured in a time long past. He could feel the blood pulsing in his wrist, see the veins snaking blue beneath the skin.
Scanning the room to distract himself from what he was about to do, he noticed one of Frayla’s necklaces hanging on a hook beside her mirror. A silky white undergarment lay over her privacy screen. It made him smile to think of the way she used to tease him as she undressed, tossing each item of clothing over the top to land on the floor beside the bed.
When he looked down again, the knife was hovering close. His knuckles were white with the effort of holding it, his other hand clenched into a fist. Just one movement was all it would take; one quick stroke, and the congregation jammed into the stadium would never obtain the satisfaction of seeing their champion reduced to a spectacle. One clean cut and he was free.
There was a knock at his bedchamber door. “Time to go, Maigh Prokin.”
“I will be out soon.”
Now was the time. The moment. The instant. He would get no other chance.
He willed his hand to move, saw it happening in his mind. But he remained still. I am too big a coward even for this, he thought. Now, even when everything had been taken from him, he could not take him from himself.
He put the knife on the table. He washed his hair, face, and hands in the basin by the window, then changed into a fresh set of clothes. I might as well be clean. Before he left the room, he tucked the knife into his waistband again, fully expecting the guards to search him and find it before they sent him into the arena.
The stadium was built within a deep chasm behind the city, and the long walk down gave him time to think. He found the empty streets strange on a market day until they neared the stadium and he saw how thickly the spectators were packed in. Commerce had taken a back seat to entertainment on this day.
After bringing him through a rear entrance and down a stretch of dark tunnel, the guards handed Lethari off to the stadium masters, who stood him before a pair of massive entrance doors. They did not search him. He wondered if that was another of the king’s many fortuitous oversights. He could not say whether they were intentional, though it certainly appeared that way to him.
A hush fell over the crowd, and a voice announced the proceedings. The doors cracked open, and Lethari had to squint against the wash of daylight as the masters prodded him forward. The crowds hissed when he emerged onto the arena sands. The midday heat raised a sweat on his brow. He could see the master-king high on his arched platform overlooking the ring. There were gates on all four sides of the circular enclosure, each of them closed behind heavy wooden doors to hide the denizens within.
When the entrance doors behind Lethari were closed, the king silenced the crowd once more. “Today we have before us a traitor from a high household, a warleader, and a descendant of warleaders for many generations. His crimes are few, but they are grave. His punishment for these misdeeds shall be swift. May the fates judge him according to his merit.”
At the master-king’s signal, the gates opened. Not one, but all four.
The crowd roared.
Slithering from the darkness on powerful legs, hunger seething from serrated jaws, came the
four sanddragons Tycho Montari had promised. They flicked their tongues to catch Lethari’s scent. Then they converged, moving faster than he’d expected.
The crowd fell silent to watch.
Lethari stood alone, waiting for death to come. He wanted it; there was nothing left to live for, and he found himself longing for the end more than ever. Then he remembered Amhaziel’s words to him while the feiach was camped in coille cenaim, the forest of bones: For when the day comes that you look for allies among those you love, you will find the fabric of your household turned to molten fire, and the span of your wealth will be as the space between your fingers.
The seer had foreseen the very situation in which Lethari now found himself. He began to think of Amhaziel’s vision, of a creature both beast and man. And he thought that if the seer had predicted this, then maybe his other vision was meant to come true as well. If such a creature existed and Lethari had not encountered it yet, perhaps he was meant for more.
The sanddragons slithered toward him.
The crowds waited to discover whether the man standing before them was truly Lethari Prokin, son of lords and ancestor of kings; blood of the sands, and the one they had called champion for so long.
CHAPTER 49
The Unraveling
The harder Sister Bastille tried not to be angry, the angrier she got. Sister Dominique had allowed three strangers to enter the basilica grounds and walk out alive, a blatant violation of the Order’s laws. So what if she was one of the Most Highly Esteemed? The Order’s secrets were at great risk indeed if its adherents resolved to treat its statutes with such disregard.
Bastille wondered how it was that someone as stern and stringent as Sister Dominique could’ve been so suddenly possessed by the urge to break the rules. She had made an exception to save the life of someone she’d known before she joined the Order. To Sister Bastille, that didn’t sit right. Over the weeks that followed, the memory of the incident began to eat away at her.
With the starwinds gone, the Order had started trading with the heathens again, so Bastille had found herself even busier than usual. Brother Belgard was walking a razor’s edge, having come within days of a full admission of his fraudulence and total storeroom bankruptcy before the trading began. His secret was safe for now, but Bastille wouldn’t hesitate to call in a much-needed favor in return for her silence, if it came to that.
She had met in secret with her other ally, Brother Lambret, each week since their first conversation about the storerooms. Lambret hadn’t turned up any new information about dead Brother Froderic’s elevation, though he claimed he was nearing a breakthrough. Bastille found herself in a continual state of frustration with him, but no one was closer to the affairs of the Most High than Brother Lambret, so there was little more she could do.
As for Brother Travers, Bastille had taken every measure to avoid being alone with him since that day in the hospital when he had revealed to her his deranged predilection. She had suspended classes until Sister Severin was well again, and was now convinced Travers could not be allowed to continue under her tutelage. She couldn’t very well train a surgeon who was as likely to defile his subjects as to perform the required procedures on them. A person like that shouldn’t be allowed in the Order at all, she reflected. Yet she feared his retaliation if she were to alert the Most High and they chose to relocate him instead of eliminating him altogether.
It wasn’t long after the basilica returned to its normal operations that the Most High called upon Bastille to deliver a progress report on her pupils’ training. She stood before them in the meeting room expecting a thorough tongue-lashing, but too disgusted with their flawed leadership to respect their judgment. Dominique, who let strangers come and go as they pleased. Gallica, with her back-door subversions and nonsensical decision-making. Liero, the blinking, spineless pacifist. And Soleil before them, who had worked with Brother Froderic to squander the Order’s resources for his own personal gains.
Against their ilk, Bastille knew, she was powerless. She was subject to the whims of hypocrites who did as they liked because they could. She had no doubt they’d each risen to power thanks to their knack for bending the rules and escaping unscathed. Now they had only to force her hand; to make her do what they wanted so they could get rid of her afterward. She had delayed as long as she could; she had no choice left but to train her students, make herself obsolete, and perish as the consequence.
“We’ve heard a rumor which I sincerely hope is untrue, Sister Bastille,” said Brother Liero, when Bastille was standing before them.
“What you have heard is no rumor,” Bastille said.
“Then pray, tell me… why have you cancelled your classes? You were specifically instructed to teach two training sessions a day until further notice. This is an unacceptable act of disobedience, and I should very much like an explanation.”
“Sister Severin has been sick. I did not think it wise to continue without her.”
“Could not Brother Travers have benefitted from one-on-one instruction in the meantime?”
Bastille had an unsettling vision of Brother Travers slitting her throat while she slept, raping her corpse, and eating her innards for breakfast the next morning. She felt her inhibitions wearing down, and knew she needed to tell them. “I’ve recently discovered something about Brother Travers which I have been admittedly hesitant to share with the Most High.”
Liero shifted in his seat, rested his elbows on the armrests, and steepled his fingers. “If this matter might interfere with his progress, we would hear of it.”
“This matter might interfere with his place in the Order, kind Brother Liero.” Bastille hoped, even as she said it, that the high priests would feel the same. It wasn’t just a matter of impeding her successors anymore. It was her own safety in jeopardy.
“Then I would urge you to treat this no longer as your prerogative, but as your duty.”
He was right, Bastille knew. “Brother Travers is a cannibal.”
The high priests exchanged looks.
“This is something he… told you?” Gallica asked.
“In so many words.”
“I should think he’ll make an excellent Cypriest one day,” joked Liero.
No one laughed.
“That is not all. It seems he also has a certain perversion when it comes to the dead. A fetish, if you will.”
“My, this is a more colorful discourse than I was expecting this morning,” said Dominique.
If you treat Travers anything like those friends of yours, you’ll probably let him prance out of here without a scratch, Bastille wanted to say. “I assure you, it is the truth. I have no reason to lie to the Most High.”
Gallica’s face contorted into a smile. “Just as you have no reason to investigate our doings. Is that right?”
Bastille went rigid. Why was Gallica bringing this up in front of the other two? Had she chosen to enlighten Dominique and Liero regarding Froderic’s slave trade and subsequent death? If so, they must also know about the storerooms and Belgard’s fraudulent record-keeping. It seemed Bastille’s carefully constructed network of informants was unraveling before her eyes. How the Most High managed to engender such long-lasting and unyielding loyalty baffled her. Perhaps it was merely because they were the Most High.
There was only one way out. Bastille would call Gallica’s bluff and spill everything she’d learned. She only hoped there was something the others didn’t know. A squabbling priesthood would take the heat off her for a time, if not for good. Bastille had always been too calculating to resort to a fight-or-flight defense, but things were different now. “Brother Froderic is dead,” she blurted out before she had time to convince herself not to. “We all know it. He isn’t off evangelizing somewhere, and he isn’t coming back. I found his remains in a clay urn under the name Thiers in the Hall of Ancients. You’ve elevated a dead man to this empty chair. You’re lying to everyone.” She paused to let the silence speak.
Sister Galli
ca leaned forward. “Brother Froderic’s elevation had one purpose. To reserve the fourth seat among the Most Highly Esteemed for you, Sister Bastille.”
Bastille fell silent for a different reason this time. Her breath caught in her throat. She stood dumbstruck beneath the high priests’ stares.
“Are you okay, kind Sister?”
She blinked. “I’ve only just received my Esteem. I’m not even Greatly Esteemed yet.”
“Which is precisely the reason we gave the position to Brother Froderic: as a means of holding your place until sufficient time had passed for us to arrange your elevation. Whenever a vacancy opens among the Most High, you can imagine how Sister Usara and Brother Reynard and all the other Greatly Esteemed priests clamor for the position. A high priest serves for life, until such a time as he or she is elevated to Motherhood or Fatherhood. That, in our opinion, was far too long a time to make you wait. We would never have heard the end of it until we filled that vacancy.
“Brother Froderic’s unfortunate demise turned out to be a stroke of good fortune for us in that regard. Since no one knew he was dead, we could reasonably elevate him until such a time as you were ready to assume the post yourself. We had hoped the Order would’ve recovered from the attack by the time you’d trained your successors, thereby paving the way for you to be relieved of your current duties. The Gray Revenants caused us a great many problems, which you have been instrumental in solving. There is no better candidate to receive the honor of the Most High than you, Sister Bastille.”
“You’ve been putting all this pressure on me to train Sister Severin and Brother Travers. I assumed that was because you wanted to… do away with me.”
Gallica snorted. “Do away with you? What sort of conspiracies do you think we have the time to sit around and dream up? Is that truly what you think of us? No, kind Sister. Just as Soleil needed you to assume the bulk of his work in the preparation rooms after his elevation, so you will need Brother Travers and Sister Severin to aid you as you take on the many responsibilities of your new position. No more wandering the halls, looking for suspicious activity to investigate. No more hour upon hour spent in dissection and surgery. I’m afraid your free time will be scarce from now on. Liero, Dominique and I all believe you have the makings of a high priestess—and one of the finest quality, at that. We believe you will find nothing but success in this new charge.”