The deck was slick with rain and sea foam from the unruly waters. She grabbed the wet wooden railing and used it to help her keep her footing. The air was cold and her chill deepened. As she passed the Spell Warder’s cabin, she noted light and peered through the portals. They held a Nyeian navigator in thrall. Five of the Warders had circled the Nyeian and were chanting in front of him. They had deepened his trance. His knowledge was critical for this part of their journey. They would not get through the Stone Guardians without the Nyeian’s knowledge.
She took the stairs leading up to the prow, where she had last seen her father. He would be planning now and would have no time for her. Still, she wanted to be beside him. She wanted to watch him on his way to his first triumph.
On Nye she had seen the point of the Black King’s arguments against fighting. But since the fleet had left, she had come to believe her father more, even though she had not discussed the attack with him. She was a young soldier, having fought only through the last years of the Nye campaign, and she still missed the fighting. She could only imagine how the career soldiers felt. Most of the Fey fought the wars. The Domestics, while necessary, were never valued. Anyone who lacked fighting skills lacked the heart of a true Fey.
Her grandfather was proposing years, maybe even a generation, without a true battle. The Fey would lose their identities, become as soft and cowardly as the Nye. Her father was right; such a thing should never happen.
When she reached the prow of the ship, she found her father surrounded by some of his lieutenants. The rain was still falling steadily, and she could make out only a few faces in the gloom. Oswel, head of the Foot Soldiers, stood hatless near the railing, his long, slender features bent in a grimace. Caseo, leader of the Spell Warders, was speaking, his cowl down and his hands raised toward the heavens. Her father had his back to her, his head shaking slowly from side to side as he listened.
Jewel approached, walking carefully on the wet deck. She slipped beside her father and put her arm around him. She wasn’t supposed to hear the highest-level negotiations: she was a soldier of the lowest rank, a member of the magickless Infantry, often used as advance troops to shock the unwary. But since she was the Black King’s granddaughter, no one dared order her away.
Her father’s woolen coat was dry, but his hair was plastered against his face. On this trip she had reached his height and had only to look across to him. His lips were chapped, his nose red with cold. Only his eyes were unchanged—black and shiny, their almond shape more appropriate to his hawklike features than to the softer Fey faces. He was of medium height for a Fey—Caseo was taller—but her father seemed to tower over all of them.
He acknowledged her by placing his arm around her waist.
Caseo frowned at her, then glanced at Rugar as if telling him to make her leave. Rugar pulled her closer, his gesture clear. Warders might think they were the most important Fey, but they would get nowhere without the Visionaries. Even Warders were subject to the Black King’s family.
The Weather Sprite, Hanouk, was speaking. “We cannot time things exactly, Rugar.” The only protection she wore against the rain was a thin chemise. Her ribs and collarbone were visible through her skin, her neck and face so tortured by the elements that she appeared four times older than she was. “You must choose to end the rain early or wait for it to end after we land.”
Caseo sighed, the sound barely audible above the thud of the rain. “We can barely see to navigate as it is. Our Nyeian thrall is terrified. Before we placed him under, he swore he could not get us through the Guardians without a current map.”
“I was there when he was interrogated. The Nyeian sailed to Blue Isle all his life. He will know the way,” her father said.
“His knowledge is over a year old—”
“Besides, he’s Nyeian. He could be lying to us,” Oswel said.
“No.” Caseo’s tone was flat. “He will not lie to us. But he may not know if the current has altered or if there have been traps set among the rocks in response to our capture of Nye. This is the most delicate protected harbor in the world, Rugar. One false direction and we will sink.”
“We will not sink,” her father snapped. His grip around Jewel’s waist tightened. “The Islanders are isolated. They believe themselves protected here, and they believe the harbor unnavigable without their petty maps. They know nothing of us or our powers except rumors they may have heard trading with the Nye.”
“And we know nothing of them,” Oswel said.
“Except that they have not known war for at least ten generations.” Jewel adopted her father’s tone. “We are a military people. We should be preparing our victory feast instead of speaking of these Islanders with fear.”
“The unknown,” her father said gently, “is always more dangerous than the known. But Jewel does have a point. We cannot fight with fear.” He turned to Hanouk. “We shall arrive under cover of rain and darkness as was the original plan. By the time the ships are in the Shadowlands, the weather shall have cleared.”
“I do not like navigating blind,” Caseo said. “At least allow the Sailors to do their jobs.”
Jewel felt her father stiffen, although the movement was not visible. “You assume that I would place the entire fleet in jeopardy by not placing Sailors at strategic points? Is that what you’re saying, Caseo?”
Caseo shoved his hands into the pockets of his robe. Water dripped off the edge of his nose. “I had assumed that you were trusting the Nyeian and the Warders to communicate knowledge to the Navigators. You have said nothing about Sailors.”
Jewel bit her lower lip so that she would not respond. She had never heard anyone question her father, but she had never been in a meeting with a Warder before.
“I do not have to approve my plans with any of you,” Jewel’s father said. “I tell you all what you need to know.”
“Then you will be using Sailors—?”
“We have been using Sailors all through the trip, Caseo. Their skills have worked for us for a thousand years. I see no reason to pull them from their posts now.” Jewel’s father brought his head back, the water beading on his face, making him look fierce. “You may rest assured, Caseo, that I would never rely on the Warders alone.”
“You do need the Warders’ loyalty for this campaign to work,” Caseo said.
“Are you saying that the Warders are not going to be loyal to the Black King?” Jewel’s father asked.
“The Black King did not want this mission.”
“The Black King funded the fleet.”
Hanouk took Caseo’s arm. “Arguing with the Black King’s son is foolish, Caseo. You have a job as well as the rest of us. Trust Rugar. He is right. The Islanders know nothing of war. We will be feasting in their palace by nightfall.”
Caseo kept his gaze on Jewel’s father. “Your father always kept me informed on past campaigns.”
“I am sure he did,” Jewel’s father said. “You know everything you need to know now, as well.”
The rain thrummed on the wood and water. The riggings groaned, and the ship creaked as it crested a swell. Across from Jewel a rock loomed, going from a shape in the darkness to a menacing presence, its surface shiny with wetness.
“I hope you have asked the Powers to provide a creature of the deep for you,” Caseo said, “because if none live in these waters, we shall live and die by our wits alone.”
“Our wits,” Oswel said softly, “and a Nyeian’s memory.”
“The Nyeian will help us only once,” Caseo said. “We have invaded too deep. He will not have a mind left by morning.”
Water leaked behind Jewel’s ear and under her cloak. She shuddered. A wave of dizziness hit her. The heavens cleared, and she saw a face looming over her. His eyebrows straight, his hair long and blond. His features were square. Orma lii, he said, then repeated a different word over and over. He cradled her in his arms. She smiled at him. His odd look had become familiar.
Her forehead burned. “Are you
all right?” her father asked. The pain was greater than any she had felt before. “Jewel?”
A hand tightened around her waist. The darkness returned. The slanting rain was colder, and her father held her against him with such strength, she knew he had been keeping her from falling. The others were staring at her.
“Jewel?” her father asked. “Are you all right?”
She had had another Vision. Or the same Vision. But she deserved her last battle. She wanted it. One more battle, and then she would let him know. Then she would sit at his side as the second heir to the Black Throne.
“I will be glad when this rain ends,” she said.
They all laughed, including her father, but the laughter did not reach his eyes. He knew something had happened to her. He would question her about it later. She only hoped he would wait until they had captured Blue Isle.
He turned his attention to the others. “When the rain ends,” he said, “Blue Isle will know that the Fey have arrived.”
SIX
Every morning the Rocaan would wake before dawn, put on his threadbare Danite robe, and light a single candle. In the thin flickering light, his cluttered chambers would look as spare as the cell he had shared when he was a young Danite awaiting his first assignment, five decades before. He would leave his feet bare despite the swollen joints and aches that had the Elders begging him to see a physician. Then he would cross the thick rug, the pain in his feet easing by the time he reached the stone stairs.
On this morning, rising had been particularly difficult. The rain still pounded the side of the building. His joints hurt him more than usual, and the only way he managed to get himself out of bed was to promise himself an extra pastry at breakfast. It wasn’t until he had the candle lit and he was following its tiny light up the stairs that he realized the devotions were no longer enough. The thought pained him. It was a matter he would have to take up with the Holy One.
He opened the door to find the hallway brightly lit. The flames in the covered lamps burned fiercely: someone had just changed the wicks and replenished the oils. These small amenities were growing as his age advanced. It was as if the Elders would protect him from aging through comfort.
The large stones that made up the wall were covered with a whitewash that got repainted each week. The carpet was a thin runner of red woven by the Auds in the Kenniland Marshes. They had used wool specially imported from Nye, wool known for its thickness and softness and complete luxury. Even the lamps spoke of elegance, with their carved gold bases to hold the oil, and their precious glass.
He hurried out of the light toward the back stairs, which he had kept purposely undecorated. The rock was worn smooth from the passage of many feet over the centuries. Its icy coldness was reassuring. He used his left hand to steady himself as he followed the narrow staircase, keeping his right extended before him so that the candle would light his way.
By the time he reached the bottom, the chill had returned the ache to his joints and the blood to his face. Only there did he ever feel alive anymore. It was as if the luxury had bred the yearning soul out of him. He needed the poverty, the hardship, to remember what it was like to believe.
The stairs led to a cramped hallway that was part of the original kirk. This palatial cathedral, the Tabernacle as it was now known, had once been a small saint’s cottage holding only an incense burner, an altar, and a kneeling cushion so that the itinerant worshiper could feel closer to his God. The original stone room remained, although three centuries earlier the Thirty-fifth Rocaan had added a window, covered by tapestries, which he used to attack assailants who were trying to eject him from the Tabernacle.
This Rocaan had found the room early in his reign. It had been sealed for generations. He had opened it, cleaned it, and restored it to its former simplicity. Now when he opened the thick wooden door, he found his kneeling cushion, an incense burner, and the small hand-carved altar. He’d had the Elders commission tapestries from the life of the Roca, and then he’d hung a simple silver sword, point down, from the wall, to commemorate Roca’s death and subsequent Absorption into the Hand of God.
The room was ice cold and smelled of mildew and seawater. The tapestries were soaking wet and dripping onto the stone floor. A wide puddle ran to his kneeling cushion, and a thin trickle ran from the kneeling cushion to the door.
He sighed. He had designed this room to keep him in touch with the simple faith he’d had as a Danite, and as long as the rain continued, the discomforts of his youth would continue too. When he went up for breakfast, he would ask the Elders to commission new tapestries. The rain would certainly have ended by the time the tapestries were woven.
He stepped around the trickle and placed his candle in its small stand. Then he gritted his teeth and stepped into the puddle.
The water was colder than he’d remembered, and he nearly cried out as the shock ran from his aching feet into his legs. He had to hold up his robe to keep the hem from getting damp. He crossed over to the window and brushed the tapestry aside. The tapestry was so wet that it felt three times thicker than normal. The mildew smell was coming from the fabric.
The rain fell at a slant that coated the side of the building and hit him directly in the face. The darkness was so thick, he couldn’t even see the river below. If there was going to be a dawn, it would be rendered invisible by the unnatural clouds. The day before, he had searched the records for any mention of a summer like this one, and never, in all the centuries of documentation, had Blue Isle been subjected to this constant dark, winterlike rain.
Some of the Auds whispered that the Holy One was visiting the rain on Blue Isle as a punishment for the corruption of the Rocaan and the leaders of the Church. But if the Holy One was displeased, He would have been even more displeased by the Rocaan’s predecessor, who, the Rocaan believed, was more interested in the wealth of the office than in the people’s spiritual well-being.
The traditionalists believed that the rain was the beginning of the final reckoning, that the world would slip further and further into darkness until the Holy One, in His compassion, brought the believers to Him in a final Absorption.
In a meeting the day before, the Rocaan had called together his Elders and asked for their opinion of the matter. Fedo used his knowledge of the Words Written and Unwritten as the basis for his opinion that the rains were merely one of the plagues brought to the Isle to test the believers. Porciluna used his knowledge of the Words Written and Unwritten to determine that the rains were a miracle long promised by God. And Matthias, bless his heretical heart, suggested, with no scholarship at all, that the rains might simply be rains, however unseasonable, inclement, and annoying.
Privately the Rocaan agreed with Matthias. He hated attributing motives to the Deities when common sense dictated something simpler, something rational.
Water ran down his face and stained the front of his robe. He let the soggy tapestry fall back into place. His feet were numb. He slogged through the puddle and stopped at the altar long enough to light his incense; then he knelt on the cushion, wincing as the wet fabric squished beneath his weight.
He bowed his head in meditation, allowing the events of the previous day to flow through him. Once he had believed what all children were taught: that the Holy One heard each still, small voice and carried it with the speed of wind to God’s ear. As he grew older, such simple belief was hard to maintain. He had spoken to the Holy One with a still, small voice and with a loud, angry one, and none of his prayers seemed to be answered. Sometimes he thought that the Deities sat in front of the Eternal Flame, Roca cupped in God’s Hand, and the Holy One at God’s Ear, laughing as they listened to the requests of the poor humans below.
Not a charitable thought for a Rocaan to be sending on the wings of the Holy One to the Heavens above. The Rocaan bent his head and tried again. All these trappings of early faith did not wipe away the years of disillusionment. Even the spicy-sweet smell of raw, cheap incense could not bring back the feeling of joy h
e had experienced as a Danite preaching the Words Written and Unwritten to the congregations along the Cardidas River.
He wished he could go back and speak to that old woman who had approached him in his first year of ministering. She had come to him after a sunrise service, her face wizened with age, her mouth caved in because of her missing teeth.
You ask us to give our lives to the Holy One, she’d said, her voice quivering, and in return He will give us peace and joy. I have devoted my life to the Holy One since I was a little girl, and I have known no peace and no joy. You must help me, Religious Sir, before I turn my back on the Sword forever.
His words for her then had sounded lame, even to his own ears: You must believe, and the peace and joy will come to you, sister.
Only now he understood her despair. Perhaps no one received peace and joy in this lifetime. Most died before they achieved it, and the very old seemed discontented and angry with life. Or perhaps the Auds and the Elders had misunderstood the Words from the beginning. Perhaps peace and joy came after death. Or perhaps, as he feared in the pit of his soul, peace and joy came only to those Absorbed.
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey Page 4