by Pearl North
Clauda nodded eagerly. “It said, ‘I am the Literate Iscarion, and these are my words.’ ”
Thela tilted her head thoughtfully and then narrowed her brow. “If your clerk was the recipient of such a miraculous power, why is this the first I’ve heard of it, Selene?”
“She revealed it to no one, for fear of persecution, which indeed has come to pass.”
“They think she’s a witch,” blurted Clauda.
Selene gave her a stern look and told Thela of what had occurred at the vault. When she was done, Thela turned to Clauda. “But the Singers witnessed her reading from a closed book.”
Clauda nodded.
“Then surely they realized . . .” Her shoulders sank. “Were they very young?”
Selene and Thela were both looking at her, waiting for her to answer. She looked to Selene, who gazed back at her with an expression that seemed to say, You wanted to be here. “I don’t know. Maybe three years older than Haly and me. About Selene’s age.”
Thela nodded. “When they take her to the Citadel, and the censors hear their report, they will realize . . .” She turned to Selene. “Do you know the prophecy of Yammon?”
Selene shook her head.
“Ah, my daughter. It is always well to know the dreams of your enemies. These Eradicants, as you call them, believe that one day a Redeemer will come and liberate the written word; most especially the words contained in The Book of the Night, so that it can be understood by those who cannot read. They call the blessed event the Redemption, and it is to them as the Tale Time Will Tell is to you, my dear.”
“Or the return of the son,” said Selene.
Thela tilted her head in half acknowledgment. “But we Ilysians are wise enough to sample transcendence on a yearly basis. Saving it all up for one big day makes people . . . well . . . a bit unbalanced, in my opinion.”
Selene frowned, but didn’t say anything to contradict her.
“The point is, your clerk matches their description of the Redeemer. What you have brought me is Ilysia’s doom.”
“What?” said Selene.
Thela spread her hands on top of the book. “They covet this knowledge, as we all do. And through the Redemption it can be theirs. Since they now know that The Book of the Night is in Ilysies—”
“How will they know that?” Clauda bit her lip. She’d just interrupted the queen of Ilysies.
But Thela smiled sadly at her. “She will tell them, my dear.”
Oh. Of course.
“Now that they have their Redeemer, they will not rest until they possess The Book of the Night as well. Ilysies will be invaded within a fortnight if we do not act quickly.”
Clauda didn’t like how this was going. They’d come to Thela for help in rescuing Haly. So far the subject had barely been mentioned. Instead, Thela had succeeded in turning the gift of the book into a curse and focusing the conversation on the survival of Ilysies, which Selene might consider more important than saving Haly. Which was more important, of course, to anyone but Clauda. But she was here for Haly. She was perhaps the only one who was here solely for Haly, and she had to do something. “Your Majesty. If you can bring Haly safely to Ilysies, then you need fear no one ever again. All that is written there”—Clauda held her hand out to the book—“will be yours, and the Eradicants will tremble before you.” Her heart pounded as if it would explode. She watched the queen carefully.
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to speak. Thela lifted her chin and eyed her coldly. “And how would you propose I do that, child? Ride my chariot into the Corvariate Citadel and simply say, Hand over to me the most important person in your religion?”
Selene stared at Clauda with a closed, tense expression. Why, why had she felt she needed to be here? She was messing everything up. She licked her lips, and to buy time, asked, “This Redemption of theirs—is there a particular place where it’s supposed to happen?”
Thela lifted one eyebrow. “At the Libyrinth. When it is concluded they will destroy it.”
Selene breathed in sharply. Clauda swallowed. That gave her an idea. “Then they have to move her. And they have to go through the Tumbles to get there. Your army can ambush them and take her back.”
Thela studied her closely. One corner of her mouth lifted ever so slightly. In amusement? Approval? “It’s not bad,” she allowed. “Except that they won’t move her until they have the book.” She paused.
Clauda opened her mouth, and at the same time, she and Thela both said, “Unless the book is already at the Libyrinth.”
Clauda blinked. Thela grinned at her.
“Are you both mad?” said Selene. She turned to her mother. “Didn’t you just say that they’ll destroy the Libyrinth after their Reclamation—”
“Redemption,” corrected Thela.
“Whatever. They’ll destroy the Libyrinth. And you’re going to make it easy for them, by taking The Book of the Night to the Libyrinth.”
Clauda, inspired by the queen’s grin, had another idea. “Do the Eradicant leaders have to go inside the Libyrinth in order to perform the Redemption?”
Thela nodded slowly. “Instead of ambushing them in the Tumbles, a contingent of Ilysians could get to the Libyrinth before the Singers and hide in the stacks. . . .”
“We could take out their leaders,” continued Clauda, “get Haly and the book back, and hide them in the stacks where no Singer will ever find them. And in the meantime the rest of the Ilysian army can come up behind the Singer forces outside. . . .”
“. . . and they’ll be pinned there and no one need ever fear the great Singer army again,” concluded Thela with a nod of approval. “I like the way this servant of yours thinks, Selene,” she added, never taking her eyes off Clauda. “Be careful or I may take her from you.”
Selene stood. Her dark eyes raked Clauda with a look of unfathomable betrayal. “You can have her.” She turned to her mother and bowed stiffly. “Your Majesty,” she said, and swept out of the chamber.
The Horn of Yammon
Haly crossed her arms and rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms. It was cold down here. The cell was carpeted with straw, and dark. It smelled like the Libyrinth stable, with an added hint of sickly sweet fear. Movement in the darkest corner of the cell made her start back, staring. She just barely made out a bent, shrouded figure, huddled where the stone walls met.
“What kind of witch are you?” It was an old woman’s voice, breathy and soft but perfectly distinct; like a wisp of smoke floating through the darkness to her ear.
Haly pressed herself back against the door. “I’m not a witch.”
A low, dry cackle emanated from the darkness. “Same kind as everyone else here, then.”
Haly took a deep breath and sidled to the corner opposite the other prisoner. She sank to the floor and pulled her knees up to her chest.
The old woman leaned forward, and Haly saw her eyes gleaming with the faint light from the tiny window in the cell door. “Oh, but you are a child,” she said. “And not one of Yammon’s chorus, I think.” She edged closer and the square of light from the window fell across her face. Haly gasped. Her face was covered with spiraling scars. They were like the lines she’d seen on the buildings outside, like the lines on the face of the Devouring Silence, too.
The old woman beckoned to her. “Come into the light, child; let Mab see you.”
Afraid of what might happen if she didn’t obey, Haly stood and slowly shuffled to the center of the cell, where the light could reach her.
The old woman came so close, Haly could smell her stale breath. “Ah,” she whispered, and raised a long-nailed finger to Haly’s injured cheek. Without touching the swollen flesh, that finger traced the curving line Ithaster had engraved upon her face. “They’ve just begun with you.”
Haly bit her lip and shrank back. “Please,” she whispered.
Mab made a sympathetic sound and tilted her head inquiringly. “Poor thing. Please what?”
Haly shook her
head. She didn’t know.
“Here,” said Mab, turning back to her corner and returning with the remains of a loaf of bread smeared with some kind of brown paste. “I still have some of my dinner left. You must be hungry.” She shoved the food into Haly’s hands.
Haly crept back to her corner and sat down again. She regarded the food a moment, grateful for the kind gesture, though she couldn’t imagine eating anything now. She heard Mab sigh and return to her corner.
Resting her chin on her knees, Haly stared into the shadows, but could see nothing of her cellmate in the darkness. It was as if she wasn’t there. No, not true—Haly could hear her breathing. Slow and steady, like sand blowing back and forth across the Plain of Ayor, the sound lulled Haly into an exhausted sleep.
The wind whipped up sandstorms around the caravans of books that were being brought to the vast face in the center of the desert. Selene and Clauda tossed books into the monster’s maw. They looked like Vinnais and Soth, but she knew they were really Selene and Clauda.
“You know some people say she never existed,” said Clauda.
“Then how do you explain all these books?” answered Selene.
“I know what kind of witch you are,” said the book in Clauda’s hands.
Haly opened her eyes and pushed herself up. She brushed the straw from her cheek and rubbed her eyes. It was still dark in the cell, but now she could hear a voice down the hall singing. Well, shouting, more like, the sound softened only by distance, and getting louder all the time. “Miscreants, witches, criminals rise, you’ll work this day or I’ll have your hide.”
She heard a rustling of straw and Mab was at her side. “Here,” she said, her chin dripping. She held out the water bucket. “Drink your fill now, for you’ll get no more until midday. And if you know what’s good for you you’ll eat that bread and peabea I gave you last night.”
“What?” Haly shook the fragments of her dream from her mind and took the bucket from Mab. “Work? What?”
Mab gave a harsh laugh. “You don’t think they feed us for nothing, do you?”
Haly hoisted the bucket to her mouth and drank. When she was finished she rummaged in the straw until she found the remains of Mab’s dinner. She picked a few pieces of straw off it and took a bite. It was terrible—the bread was burned around the edges and the peabea was dry and cracked. She managed no more than a couple of mouthfuls before the door to their cell was flung open and a harsh voice cried out, “Rise! You’ll work this day or pay with your lives!”
Haly followed Mab out into the hallway, which was already crowded with prisoners. They looked uniformly old, though some were Haly’s own age. They all had dirty, exhausted faces and dull eyes. They stank, and Haly shrank into herself, trying not to touch anyone, but they were packed body to body in the narrow hallway. She saw a louse crawl down the neck of the prisoner in front of her and she began to itch. They all shuffled down the hallway together, herded through a doorway by the two largest Eradicants Haly had ever seen.
Haly stepped through the doorway at the end of the hallway and suddenly the smell of her fellow prisoners, the horror of them brushing against her with their soiled garments, even her fear and despair, fell away as she gazed upon a vast chamber, the ceiling arching into dimness far above. And into that vast indeterminance soared a great iron funnel, its flared opening facing them like a devouring maw. Massive steel beams supported the structure, which tapered down into a spiraling tube and ended in a rounded bulb approximately the size of Haly’s head. The entire construction stood upon a wheeled platform held stationary with heavy blocks of stone.
“The Horn of Yammon,” whispered Mab beside her.
One wall of the chamber was lined with ovens. Even from here, she could feel the heat radiating from them. A long line of people, looking even more exhausted and dirty than Haly’s group, shoveled fuel into those ovens, while others worked bellows to keep those fires hot. Guards patrolled up and down the line, shouting out orders and prodding the weary with metal rods that appeared to be more primitive versions of the mind lancets.
Haly heard a rhythmic metallic clang and saw people in goggles and leather aprons hammering red-hot pieces of metal into shape. She took another look at the horn. Gaps in its surface revealed the framework beneath. A team on a catwalk riveted a panel in place, while nearby another pair examined an unclad section. One of these men held a small device in his hand. It looked like a tiny stringed instrument of some sort. He plucked the strings, listened, plucked some more, and turned and spoke to his partner, who ran to the nearest metalworker and shouted, “Make this piece two and a half octaves wide by five and three fourths octaves long.” The burly man nodded and resumed hammering.
Judging by raggedness of clothing and gauntness of faces, it appeared that those maintaining the fires were prisoners.
“Feed the fire! Heat the steel! This day of breath you earn by zeal!” cried one of the guards on Haly’s group, confirming her suspicions. Her group formed into a line, as did the group at the ovens. As they filed past each other, each departing prisoner handed their shovel to one of those arriving. When Haly took the shovel from a short, heavily scarred man who somehow had the strength to leer at her, it was so heavy she nearly dropped it.
It was exhausting work, becoming more agonizing as time and the heat of the fires took their toll. As they labored, the prisoners sang, their voices low and harsh with fatigue:
Feed the fire, heat the steel, the mark of Yammon will reveal,
Feed the fire, heat the steel, the evil which my heart conceals.
Feed the fire, heat the steel, my sins by labor I must heal,
Feed the fire, heat the steel, or in my soul wear sorrow’s weal.
Haly wondered how they could spare the breath. It was all she could do to keep her grip on her shovel and concentrate on getting the coal into the oven instead of spilling it on the floor.
“Faster, lit filth, that plodding won’t keep the fire hot!” cried one of the guards, and he touched his prod to the back of her calf, making her jump. The pain was not so debilitating as that of a mind lancet, but it was bad enough. “Speed up or the rest of your cohorts will get the same,” said the guard. The other prisoners snarled at her, and with a sob Haly forced her quivering muscles to greater speed. Beside her, Mab winked and cackled. “It’s not just your soul that wears sorrow’s weal!”
After what seemed like days, they were given a break. Haly collapsed on the floor not far from the ovens and watched distractedly as a team of Eradicants attached another panel to the horn. What was the purpose of such a thing, beyond providing backbreaking work for “evildoers” such as herself? She lacked the will to pursue the question, just as she lacked the strength to join the other prisoners, who fought one another to get at the water trough. Her muscles felt flayed, and her joints ached. She wasn’t sure she could stand again, or lift her arms, even if she tried.
She couldn’t do this, she thought. She wasn’t brave like Clauda, or strong like Selene. She was afraid. All her life she’d been afraid—of discovery, of punishment. Well now she’d been discovered; now she was being punished. And just as she’d always suspected, she couldn’t bear it.
When the call to return to work came, her muscles trembled so badly she could barely stand, barely lift her shovel. The other prisoners glared at her—all but Mab, who looked amused. One of them, a tall, rangy man too thin for his frame, stuck his face in hers and snarled, “You’ll keep up, or you’ll have more than Quorl’s prod to worry about!”
Haly became insensible to anything but the burning of her muscles and the breath laboring in and out of her lungs. She tried hard to go as fast as she could, but it wasn’t enough. True to his word, Quorl shocked the whole row of prisoners, and the tall man would have shoved her into one of the ovens if Mab hadn’t pulled her out of harm’s way and given him her own post at the bellows, the easier of the two jobs.
Ignoring the glares and curses thrown at her by the others, Haly stared fixe
dly at the shovel in her hands as she turned from coal pile to oven and back again, over and over. She drew breath and found, in some deep place within herself, the strength to be angry. With a will, she swallowed her pain, her terror and despair. She plunged her shovel into the pile of coal and sang, “Feed the fire, heat the steel, the mark of Yammon will reveal!”
By the time their shift was through, she was barely conscious anymore. She was awake, yes, and in great pain, but her mind felt as if it were stuffed with cotton, and only the most abrupt and startling sensations broke through the numbness. She followed Mab back to their cell on legs she could no longer feel, fell gratefully onto the dirty straw, and instantly fell asleep.
To be awakened what seemed like seconds later, by Mab shaking her. “No,” she muttered. “No, I can’t. I can’t.” She tried to burrow deeper in the straw, but Mab hauled her up bodily. “They’re from Censor Siblea, you fool! He wants to see you. When Censor Siblea wants to see you, you go. Get up!”
Blinking, Haly became aware that light streamed into the cell from the open door. A pair of robed figures stood there, one of them holding a lantern that glowed brighter than any she had ever seen before. “Are you the Libyrarian Halcyon?” demanded the other.
“I’m just a clerk,” Haly muttered, rubbing her eyes.
“It’s her. Take her,” said Mab, hauling Haly up and shoving her at the figures.
“You will come with us,” they said. They took her by the arms and marched her out of the cell and down the hallway, in the opposite direction from the workroom.
She stumbled on the stairs and they hoisted her up the stone steps. They hurried through the large chamber she’d seen before, and up several more flights of stairs until at last they opened a door and ushered her into a room that was carpeted in red.