[Valen 02] - Breath and Bone

by Carol Berg

  My mind stuttered over the simple immensity of what he described. Somehow I had always dismissed Harrower rants as ploys to attract the gullible. I’d never imagined the priestess believed what she preached. “She would destroy pureblood sorcery?”

  “Certainly the end of pureblood breeding laws will dilute the Aurellian bent. But it will take on a new life and character by the infusion of Danae blood—so Sila imagines. From the long night of the great Harrowing shall rise a new race of men and women—robust in health, what remains of the world’s magic held captive in their veins, with no need for books or gods or kings or anything else that might elevate one above another. A seductive vision, is it not? She sees you, the Danae-bred Cartamandua recondeur, as the exemplar of her new world.”

  Seductive…deeply, intelligently seductive. Magnificent. Surely it was my addled state that came up with no answer to it. How could I argue against breaking down barriers of birth, a man who had rebelled against the strictures of breeding my entire life, son of two people who had done the same?

  “How did you guess what I was? How could you possibly have known?” I had more pressing questions, but I needed time to think. Gildas lived by his cleverness. If he kept secrets from Sila Diaglou, then he likely had no confidant among her company and might enjoy a bit of boasting.

  “I put it all together when you refused to walk into the Well grotto. The place profoundly affected you

  —as if you could feel the myrtle and hyssop that bound its guardian—and yet you had taken on the search eagerly and actually found the Well when no one else could do it. You could not have used the maps, for I had long discovered your inability to read. But the possibility that you were a Cartamandua simply did not occur to me. You are so unlike the rest of them.”

  “I’ll thank you for that, at least.” I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to squeeze out the muzziness. Beyond Sila Diaglou’s seductive vision lay her murderous war to implement it. I needed some way to free my friends.

  Gildas continued eagerly, as I had known he would. “You’d had me curious from the night I submitted to Sila’s whip—proofs of devotion are a dreadful bother. You located me despite a barricade of magic, and our companions told odd tales of ghostly apparitions that night. As I asked myself why visiting the Well would affect you so strangely, I recalled your collapse on that very first day I took you into the cloister garth—the residue of the Scourge clearly affects you, whether the rite succeeds or no. And, of course, I had witnessed your uncontrollable aversion to captivity. I could find only one explanation to encompass all these things. Days later, when Gram told me of your emotional response to seeing a Dané, I was sure of you. Truly you had me coming and going when you were exposed as a pureblood.”

  I blurted one cheerless guffaw. “And then I begged you to bring me nivat. You must have been beside yourself.” I had handed him the very leash that would bring me to heel.

  His white teeth gleamed in the dark. “The tainted water was the final test. By that time I could see that your Danae characteristics were tempered by your human heritage, so I trusted you wouldn’t die from a few drops of blood in the water.”

  Damnable savage to so callously dismiss a boy’s torment! “Do you long for hell, child murderer? For I swear by every god and demon, you will meet the Tormentor himself before another season passes.”

  “You will do nothing to me.” He jumped up from his chair, his playful drawl abandoned. “Claudio de Cartamandua did me a great service when he made your childhood a misery. He left you weak. A penchant for unsavory pleasure rules your flesh, and this maudlin sentiment with regard to children rules your wit.”

  My loathing for Gildas eclipsed every hatred of my life. “If you’ve touched him, Gildas—”

  “I’ve kept young Jullian safe. Intact. Healthy. He begins to understand that men of exceptional mind must lead the world out of its morass. If I choose to complete his education, he will serve as a fine acolyte in the new order. Indeed, friend Valen, I hold everything you want and need.”

  A soft clicking sound came from his direction, almost like a shower of raindrops…or nutshells shaken in a bag…or seeds…The earth-ripe scent that accompanied the sound constricted my lungs and clenched my gut. With every breath the craving spread its spiked tentacles through flesh and bone. The same paralyzed incapacity that prevented me from shoving Gerard’s murderer through the iron bars into eternal night was all that held me back from snatching away his hoard. His soft chuckle said he knew that.

  My hands trembled like a palsied beggar’s. I needed to drag my mind away from nivat and the hellish cost of deeper enslavement. Saverian…great heaven grant that she would help me again. For now, I had to live with it and find a way to damn Gildas to eternal fire.

  Somehow thoughts of my astringent angel affected me as might an icy plunge, for it occurred to me that Gildas’s lie about a Danae predilection for pain meant that he had not told Sila Diaglou of my problem with the doulon. Harrowers despised twist-minds, and burnt or bled them. They did not use us to breed favorites. Which meant that Gildas intended to hide his deepest hold on me. Which meant that he had plans beyond those of Sila Diaglou, and it would best serve my interests if I learned of them. So let the arrogant gatzé believe he owned me.

  “Indeed, it seems I am your thrall.” It took no effort to mime a doulon slave with an aching head and resentful soul. “How much did you give me that morning you betrayed Luviar? I lost the rest of my supply on that day’s adventure, and you’ve no concept of wrath until you try telling Osriel of Evanore that you’re no good to him unless he feeds you nivat every five days.”

  “Every five days?” Gildas chortled. “I’ll confess I gave you most of what you had in hopes you would lose track of the day’s events. And I knew it would accelerate your cravings, a matter I thought might be useful. But I’d no idea it would compromise you so sorely. I am sorry for that. Truly I bear you no ill will.

  Tell me, what use did Osriel have for you?”

  This casual inquiry bore all the power of his considerable intellect and will. The answer would take some care.

  “What do you think? The Bastard wanted entry to Aeginea.” Summoning every reserve of will, I reached a hand behind me to the window facing, hauled myself to my feet, and rested my ponderous head on the iron grate. “I refused to take him, and he did exactly what you will do. I held out for three days from the onset of my hunger. Remind me not to do that again, Brother.”

  “So you took Osriel the Bastard to Aeginea.” Gildas hated that thought. “What did he learn? Who did he see? What was it like?”

  “I’ve no idea. He waited until I was near my time again. I led him past the Sentinel Oak and promptly lost my mind. But somewhere along the way, he sold me to a clutch of the blue-marked gatzi. One of them did this”—I swept my hand across my pulsing sigils—“which makes the entire world into a madhouse. Then someone tied me to a tree and said he was going to break my knees. Gods…I went crazy. Broke the bindings and ran. I hope they killed the Bastard. I hope they died doing it.”

  “And you ran to your family. Astonishing…and yet your family is a strange mix. What could exemplify it better than your brother’s clumsy attempt to bribe a weapon into your hand after serving you up to Sila Diaglou?”

  I sputtered in disgust. “I needed money. I needed nivat. I needed a roof and walls to protect me from this rabble you’ve joined. That Max betrayed me to Bayard Slugwit was no surprise. And only a doulon-crazed fool would believe he’d help me out of this madhouse. He likely paid your whey-faced lout to taunt me with the knife, not give it.” And more clearly than ever, Jakome was Gildas’s whey-faced lout, not Sila Diaglou’s. Jakome had taken my blood for the doulon.

  “So, tell me, Brother Gildas, if the mad priestess plans to create a new world from mingling my blood with that of her mad followers, what is to be your place in it? Chief Corrupter? The Baron of Books?” And here I took the dangerous leap. “Or are your aims, perhap
s, different than the lady’s?”

  He strolled across the room and halted just behind me. I gripped the iron window grate, straining every sense to decide if cold steel was aimed at my back. But instead, he spoke softly over my shoulder.

  “You know I cannot trust you, dear fellow. You have made clear that you have no use for practical, unsentimental men. Know, too, that I have given the priestess everything she has demanded of me. She is fiercely loyal and will believe no slander—especially from a renowned liar. And she relishes bleeding doulon slaves to poison Danae sianous. But I will also tell you this, my friend: Heed my direction, and one day soon, before these cretins wreak heaven’s wrath on the winter solstice, you and I will exchange favors. You would like to keep your mind and be free of this madhouse and a future impregnating Harrower broodmares. I would like to spend the next few hundred years in Aeginea. I believe I’ve knowledge enough that I can buy the archon’s good will, but alas, your book of maps does not suffice to get me beyond their borders.”

  Inside, I smiled with grim satisfaction and chose to take one more risky step. “Give me Jullian along with the nivat, and all my skills will be at your service, Brother Treacher. The boy stays with me until we go, and I breathe no word of your plan to him, to Sila, or to anyone. Sentiment and pragmatism will walk hand in hand.”

  His breath moved on my back, fast and hot. My own breath held still as my mind raced over everything I’d told him—where I might have yielded too easily or pushed too hard.

  “Done,” he said at last, clapping a hand on my bare shoulder, his forced joviality reopening one of Malena’s lacerations. He snatched up the bloody rag from the floor and blotted the wound.

  I did not allow him to see my fierce hope. If I could truly persuade the blackguard to give me Jullian, I would tear down these walls with my toes if need be to get us out.

  “The diviners have foreseen the fall of humankind, Valen. It is up to each of us to find our way through it. Follow my lead, and you will survive as you have all these years.” He dropped something onto the table and tapped on the door. The door guard let him out and set the lock.

  His parting gift comprised a small canvas bag holding a silver needle, a linen thread, a finger-length rectangle of mirror glass, and three nivat seeds—far too few for one doulon spell, but sufficient to rouse my hunger. I clutched the bag to my chest and told myself that I dared not risk my pretense of cooperation by tossing the seeds from the window.

  If I were actually planning to deliver Gildas to Max, I could save my brother the work of interrogation and tell him Gildas’s secrets, writ as plain as my own on this night. Instead of serving as the lighthouse Scholar, vowed to teach the world what might be forgotten in the Great Harrowing, Gildas planned to keep his treasury of knowledge all to himself. Instead of watching magic that he himself could never possess become every man’s birthright, he could astonish the ignorant by fashioning a spindle, by predicting the sunrise or the change of seasons, by working the magic of fire by striking flint to steel or the magic of life by suturing a wound. Gildas fancied himself a prophet, an alchemist, a sorcerer. The weary survivors of the world’s chaos would name him a god.

  Chapter 23

  Lust and nivat plagued my dreams. I was out of bed and pacing my tower cage well before what passed for sunrise. I donned my shirt and chausses, unable to bear the thought of my captors gawking at the mystery of my gards, and hoping that clothing might quench the dual fires that plagued me with fits of the shakes.

  Trying to recapture some use of my senses, I examined the inner side of the door locks, peering through the seams of the door, tapping, shaking, rattling. The exercise revealed little. I needed to be out of here.

  When Malena brought ale and bread, I could not eat. I could not speak. I could not look at her without wanting to tear away her gown—stitched of common russet, buttoned tight across her breasts to reveal everything of softness and curves. I hated myself for it. I hated those who tempted me to it. I didn’t understand it. In the past, the doulon had quenched all fleshly desires, not driven them. I donned my pourpoint, thinking to put another layer between my skin and temptation.

  The girl played the good wife, commenting upon the weather and the food and did I wish for a heavier cloak to wear over my garments. She folded the clothes still scattered on the floor and laid them in the clothes chest. She even began some apology for serving me wine laced with “vigger’s salt,” which was the common name for saffron that alley witches swore could inflame a man’s flagging prick.

  I choked on a miserable laugh, closed off my hearing, and clung to the window bars. Saffron was more expensive than nivat.

  Though I did not suffer from the cold, the morning was bitter. Ice crystals whipped through the barred windows, swirling on the floor and settling like dust in the cracks and crevices on either side of the door. In the mottled gray of storm and smoke, Palinur spread below my tower like a battlefield, its streets and houses like fallen soldiers—some of them charred ruins, half buried in mud and blackened snow, a few still displaying life and movement. Somewhere out there, Voushanti and Saverian awaited my call.

  Considering the two of them gave me extraordinary comfort. That a dead man with a mote of hell in his eye and a physician with a desert for a heart seemed like the world’s finest companions told me what a nest of lunatics I’d come to. And I was as bad as any of them. The moment I had Jullian at my side, we would find a way through this damnable door, down to the prison level, and out of this cursed place.

  “Dear Magnus, the day is so very cold.” A weight pressed softly against my back and Malena reached her arms about my waist. She was shivering, and my arms ached to enfold her. “Could we not begin again?

  If we learned more of each other, we could be friends.” Her fingernails were chewed and broken, ridged with black dirt and a rusty residue that could so easily be old blood. Saints and angels!

  I grasped one of her hands as it snaked toward my groin and twisted her arm as I turned, using it to force her back toward the door. “Let us learn more of each other, Malena. Shall I tell you stories of my friend Gerard, of how he loved to watch the wall of light move across the refectory or how he named all the abbey’s goats after holy saints or how this boy, who blanched at butchering a chicken, sat bravely on a wounded soldier, singing of hearth and home, as our infirmarian sawed off the man’s leg? Tell me, Malena, did you cut Gerard at the Well? Did you drive the spikes that held his hands to the rock or taste his blood?

  You will need more than vigger’s salt to make me lie with you of my own will.”

  Even as I spoke these things, my body craved her. Revolted, I shoved her against the wall and returned to my window. I would bind my hands to the bars before touching her again.

  “You speak bravely in the light, Magnus,” she said, all sweetness foregone. “But when I come in the night, you shall bend as the earth must bend before the power of the Gehoum. They care naught for one boy, naught for you, naught for me, but only that the land and people be subdued and humble and made clean. Your body speaks their will. Look at your hands.” Indeed my shaking dwarfed her shivers.

  She rapped on the door and was released. I wondered if the unhappy Jakome was forced to deliver her to me. I hoped so. I wondered if she had “caught,” and near screamed at the thought of a child given life from a doulonfed frenzy and in such a creature as Malena.

  The morning was quiet so high in the tower. I fidgeted and paced. I sipped Saverian’s potion, hoping it might quench these other uneasy sensations as effectively as it controlled my stomach. After my outburst at Malena, I might find myself in the dungeons by midday. I touched the stone floor and, for the tenth time that morning, verified that the guide threads I had established the previous night were still intact.

  Somewhere far below me, Osriel and Stearc yet breathed.

  I had just emptied the ale pitcher out the window without tasting its contents, when the bolts and latches rattled again. This time I heeded every s
nick of pins and levers in the locks. My visitor was Gildas.

  “You’ve distressed our little wench this morning, Valen.”

  “As long as I’ve a mind to choose with, I choose not to dance to Sila Diaglou’s music,” I said. “Which leaves me perhaps two days until I succumb.” I prayed I was misleading him. The more preoccupied I seemed to be with my cravings, the less cautious he might be.

  “I am to take you to the priestess. Alas, good Jakome is required to bind your hands against the chance of some magical escape. Do I need to call for shackles, as well, or ruffians with blades?”

  Lifting the hems of pourpoint and shirt, I showed him his little bag tied at my waist. “Your leash is quite strong enough, though it’s mostly promises as yet; three seeds get me nowhere but sick. Nor have I seen my young friend this morning. And all bargains are moot, if the priestess thinks to bleed me.”

  Gildas grinned. “Sila much prefers you alive…as do I. I discussed Jullian with her last night, suggesting we entrust the boy to your care. I proposed that he could relieve Malena of serving your meals. Thus reassured that we mean well, you might be more attentive to the young woman’s charms.” Sila seemed receptive. Perhaps you could set her remaining doubts at rest during this morning’s interview. Each hour you behave well will add weight to your nivat bag.”

  Gildas admitted Jakome, who carried a grimy wad of silken cord. The silkbinding took an extraordinarily long time, for Jakome wasn’t particularly good at it. He bound the cords tight, but uneven.

  And unlike pureblood guards, whose skilled binding left no bit of flesh exposed and not the least possibility of movement, Jakome failed to keep my fingers properly clasped and tucked as he worked. With a little time, I might be able to wriggle my thumbs loose and poke them through the coils of cord. The bony man completed the tedious task by spitting on the already filthy wrappings, evidently his idea of a proper torment.