Glasswrights' Master

by Mindy L. Klasky

  * * *

  Hal’s army was being slaughtered.

  Hal had watched all six ships gain the harbor, but the victory meant nothing. After all, the Liantines outnumbered their player captors by scores; there was no way to force all the invading sailors to take up arms on behalf of the Morenian and Sarmonian liberators. Indeed, all that the players had accomplished was removing the threat of bombardment from the water. The naval crossbows were disarmed, but nothing more had been done–nothing more could be done– to secure success.

  Looking back toward the city gates, Hal could not lower the spyglass, could not keep from watching the slaughter on the plain before Moren’s gates. He had long known that Davin was a genius, but he had never hoped to see all of the old man’s weapons at their work.

  Yes, the moving engines from Sarmonia did their job. They spat fire where they had once flung fine ribbons. They drenched the city gates with a jelly that burst into flame upon contact.

  But that was not enough. Davin had staked out defenses around Moren for years; he had fortified the city with all his wily genius.

  Hal watched in horror as pits opened up beneath the feet of the advancing soldiers, traps that were sprung through narrow, strategic mines beneath Moren’s own walls. Nearly a score of men succumbed, even though they had been warned of the danger, even though they had been told of the spikes that awaited the unwary.

  A dozen more fell to a deadly rain of fire, defensive engines that relied on massive bellows to splatter jellied burning oil. Flights of arrows rained down from the towers, the work of common archers, as deadly as Davin’s machines.

  Go, Mareka crooned. Ride to your men. Fire or pit. Arrow or sword. Go. Find your peace. Come to me. Come beyond the Heavenly Gates.

  Hal tried to push away the ghost, to set aside the temptation.

  We’re waiting for you. Marekanoran and Halarameko and Marekevilli and I. All of us await you, my lord, even the lost children that we did not name. The Gates are open. The Thousand await to escort you home. Come to us, my lord. Come join your family,

  Another spray of arrows took out a company of soldiers. The Sarmonians and the Morenians were reduced to clusters, mere stragglers stranded on the plain. Hamid himself hoisted his banner; his squire must have succumbed to the last assault.

  Hal should have joined them. He should have led them into battle. He should have stood beside his men instead of taking shelter on a hilltop, hiding like the women and children.

  The trebuchets were launched again, spraying fire upon the plain. Grass had kindled now, and smoke rose black into the late morning sky.

  It’s not too late, my lord. Come to us. Ride to the Heavenly Gates.

  Hal ignored Tovin’s startled cry as he grasped the length of blood-red silk and hurtled down the hill, running, running, running with all his strength toward the last of his loyal Morenians.

  * * *

  As Crestman’s sword rose, Rani realized that she must create her own escape, she must craft her own way out of the Fellowship’s snare. She must move beyond the dais, beyond the labyrinth in the floor. She must move beyond the carved screen that set this room off from all the rest of Moren.

  The screen.

  Rani opened her eyes and focused on the closest weapon at hand, the quiver of arrows that belonged to the god of archers. “Bon!” she cried, and the single syllable was raspy against the rope that still bound her throat.

  She was answered immediately. The whinny of a stallion sounded loud in her ears, and she remembered the first time that she had ridden fine horseflesh, the first time that Hal had taken her to the royal stables.

  Mind your caste.

  Rani had learned the power of nobility, the strength of princes and priests throughout Morenia, throughout all known lands. Ranikaleka, her brother had called her long ago, before he set her on the desperate journey of her life. She had lived as a guest of the royal family, as a noble woman in her own right, learning to hunt hawks and rule kingdoms.

  Hawks. Yot, the god of stones, spoke with the voice of a hawk.

  Rani had only to think Yot’s name, and the power of stone rose within her. Her cheek was still pressed to the floor; her new strength thrummed through her flesh, reverberated across the labyrinth.

  The Fellowship felt it too. They stumbled at the tremor, and some fell to their knees.

  The labyrinth. It had been built by stonemasons, by guildsmen who had mastered their art as Rani had mastered her own.

  Mind your caste. Ranita Glasswright she had been. She reached out for Clain, for his familiar cobalt glow. The light was blinding in the chamber; it extinguished all the torches, and the Fellowship cried out in one terrified voice.

  Crestman bellowed for order, as if he were commanding a platoon of soldiers.

  Mind your caste. She had been Ranimara, a soldier in the King’s Men, even before she had marched with the Little Army. “Cot!” she called, summoning the god of soldiers, and the room was immediately filled with the stench of carrion, with endless, hopeless, rotting death.

  Mind your caste. There were patterns here, patterns that she saw, patterns that she made. She was Rani Trader, first and foremost, a merchant who understood the value of trade. She knew the power of a bargain.

  “I’m yours!” she cried to all the Thousand at once. This was the first time that she had proclaimed her faith, the first time that she had publicly, verbally, completely given herself over to the Thousand. She felt the strength grow inside her as she confirmed what she had discovered in her heart when she lay trussed in Kella’s cottage. “If you would have me, I am yours!”

  She thought that she had tasted the gods before. She thought that she had heard them and smelled them. She thought that she had felt them with every inch of her flesh, that she had seen every vision they could give her.

  But she had never imagined the force of all the Thousand at once. She had never imagined the power that would rise up in her, around her.

  Her body was fire. Her body was light.

  The rope that had strangled her was burned away, disappeared into the shadows. She was untethered; she was free. She was beyond the former boundaries of her senses; she knew the presence of the Thousand with her entire body, her entire mind, her entire soul. She was freed from the constraints of sounds and flavors, sights and scents, sensations that had limited her in the past.

  Without opening her eyes, she knew the room around her. She knew the members of the Fellowship, struck unconscious by the tremendous energy that radiated from the stone wall, that arced to the human body that had been Rani and roiled out above her.

  She became the cathedral sanctuary above her, became the trembling walls, the glass that shuddered in its armatures, and the lead panes that buckled beneath the pressure.

  She was the Pilgrims’ Bell, set tolling by the shaking earth, clamoring as if all the wolves in all the world were coursing down the hills toward Moren.

  She was the seawater that saturated the air above the harbor, shimmering into rainbows as it crashed against the piers, against the ships that held the warrish Liantines, that held their player-captors.

  She became the fire that scorched the autumn-dry grass outside the city walls, the heat that rose in waves as Davin’s defensive engines worked according to their maker’s plan.

  She became all the gods, all the Thousand. She marched with them out of the Fellowship’s chamber. She shattered the cathedral glass, sent fragments of cobalt and ruby and emerald and lead raining down upon the cold stone floor. She swept through Moren’s streets, gathering up green-clad priests who had masqueraded as soldiers, fanatics who had tainted a faith that was good and pure.

  She boiled onto the plain in front of Moren, inspiring good men to take up their arms. As she passed, injured soldiers recovered from their wounds, and men who had wavered stood fast. The part of her that she had known as Tarn gathered up those who were already lost, collected the dead in a brilliant green-black cloak.

  Hal was running
across the plain, streaming a crimson banner behind him, stumbling like a madman. She heard the chitter of the little voices in his mind, a scattering like a dead woman’s whisper, and then she felt her god-self banish the sounds forever. Hal stood straighter after she had passed, shaking his head as if his ears rang, as if silence were a separate, holy sound. He raised his silk again and continued toward the city gates, but now he walked with a measured tread, like the king he was, returning to his people.

  And then, the gods were gone. They swirled about the city in one final flurry, a maelstrom of sights and sounds, of scents and flavors and sensations. Rani became herself again, became a human woman, trembling and gasping from the separation.

  She heard the massive chimes that indicated the Heavenly Gates were open, and she saw the souls of all the dead soldiers ascend at once. The Gates clanged shut, and Rani was left, blind and deaf and dumb, shivering and alone in the center of the Fellowship’s secret chamber.

  But she wasn’t alone.

  She heard someone else breathing close beside her, and she forced her eyes to open. Crestman had clambered to his feet. He supported himself on the tip of his sword as if he were the oldest man in all the world.

  “What are you?” he gasped.

  “I am Rani Trader,” she said.

  “What did you do?” There was no fear in his voice, no terror, as she had thought there might be. Instead, there was anger–bitter, acrid anger.

  “I do not know.” That was the truth. “Berylina first brought the gods to me. I became them. All of them.” Glancing about the room, Rani could see that the Fellowship was stirring. People were struggling to their knees, gasping for breath, retching.

  “I hate you,” Crestman said, the words as simple as a child’s. Rani had never heard such truth.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You lied to me. You lied in Amanthia, when you said that you would stand with me against Sin Hazar.” He seemed unaware of anyone else in the room, unaware that people were standing, whispering, staring at Rani in awe.

  “I did stand with you. But I could not stay there. My life called me elsewhere.”

  “You left me in Liantine.”

  “I would have come back for you. You did not trust me enough.”

  “I loved you.”

  “I know.” She met his eyes then, seeing the hopeless sorrow and loss and rage. “I know,” she said again, and tears pricked at her helplessness, her inability to be what he had needed.

  “Die, ye bairn-killin’ bastard!” Rani was startled by the cry. She knew that she should move, knew that she should reach out for Crestman and pull him toward her, snatch him safe from harm. She could not make herself move fast enough, though, could not find the energy to act.

  She recognized the blade, even as it whistled through the air. She knew the eight prongs that fastened the pommel to the shaft. She saw the weapon that had been stolen from Crestman himself, stolen from his hiding place in Sarmonia. She knew the knife that she had last seen in a sunny forest glade, pressed against soft flesh, spinning out a thread of blood. She knew the dagger had belonged to Mair, had measured out the depths of the Touched woman’s guilt and pain and sorrow.

  Rani heard the weapon sink into Crestman’s chest, heard his splutter of surprise and then his sharp gasp as the point breached his heart. Even as Crestman collapsed upon the dais, Mair straddled his body, driving the knife further into the dead meat that had been a living, breathing man only moments before. “Tha’ was fer ye, Lar. Tha’ was fer ye, me puir dead boy.”

  Mair crooned the words over and over, her face whey-pale against a Fellowship robe. Rani stepped up to her side, kneeling to gather her friend against her chest. They huddled together on the dais, rocking as if they were children, as if they had all their lives ahead of them and nothing more to fear than a bogeyman in the night.

  “I ’ad t’ do it, Rai. By th’ rules o’ th’ street, I ’ad t’ do it.”

  “I know, Mair. I know.” Rani looked at Crestman’s withered, broken body, and a whisper at the back of her mind mourned the boy she had met in Amanthia, the boy who had given her her first kiss, beside a leaping bonfire. “You had to do it. We all did. We all did what we needed to do.”

  Chapter 15

  Rani shrugged a blanket closer about her shoulders, scarcely aware of the late autumn breeze that broke around Tovin and gusted toward her. Some months before, stranded in Kella’s cottage, she might have reached for Purn, asked the god of dance to spread his heat across her flesh. She stood without the gods now, though, stood without their constant infringements on her eyes and ears, her tongue and nose, her flesh.

  The Thousand had retreated. She knew that they were still nearby. She could sense them hovering in the shadows, soaring in the daylight. She knew that if she needed them, if lives hung in the balance, she could reach out for any, for all.

  But she also knew that she was an ordinary woman. She was a simple Morenian, trying to make her way in the world. The gods had stepped back, had let her return to the life she had known and loved before the final battle, before Berylina passed on her holy power, before the Fellowship.

  Even now, there were some who were forgetting how the Thousand had flowed across the battlefield at Moren’s gates. Many said that the earth had moved, that a temblor had occurred, but nothing more. Some said that Briantan fanatics had fashioned stories about the gods, that the invading soldiers had invented the presence of the Thousand to explain their sudden loss to a force a fraction of their size.

  Rani let the stories grow around her. She let the rumors fade. She had other missions to accomplish, other goals to achieve. Now, with Tovin watching, she reached for her closest diamond blade. “I know that I’ll need a fresh one to cut the smallest pieces.”

  “Of course you know it.” His voice was even, as steady as it had been since he first joined her in her tower chamber. “You know precisely what you’re doing. You don’t need me here.”

  “I do.” She brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand. “I must have a master approve my design, and you’re the closest thing this land can offer.”

  Tovin answered her more gently than her dismissive words had warranted. “That will not satisfy the guild, you know. That will never meet your Master Parion’s requirements.”

  Rani set the diamond blade on the table. She had avoided this conversation for days, for weeks, for the two long months since Moren had been regained. It was time, though. If she were going to reestablish her guild in Morenia, she must confront her ancient fears.

  She tested her words inside her head before she spoke them aloud. “I no longer measure myself by Master Parion’s rule.”

  Tovin nodded, as if he had expected her to say as much. “You might not. But there are others who will. There are others who will always say that you are outside the guild, that you do not deserve the commissions that you gain.”

  “Some of those others tried to kill me, Tovin.” Her voice was level. She had confronted her fears. “Some of those others tried to poison me in Brianta, to destroy me before I had a chance to complete my masterpiece.”

  He merely nodded. They had never spoken openly of Rani’s cruel treatment at the hands of her guild, of how Parion had wrought his personal revenge. Rani sighed, and she tried to order the thoughts that swirled in her mind, to explain her compulsion to rebuild her guild.

  “This is the end of the circle, Tovin. This is the final arc. I ruined the glasswrights’ guild when I was a child, when I scarcely knew what I was doing. I thought that I could right that wrong when Hal agreed to grant me land and stone to build another hall. I thought that I was ready to rebuild when I learned my craft in Brianta. I thought that I could erase all that I had done by mastering skills.

  “All of those actions, though, were designed to make me accept what had happened. All of those actions were supposed to ease my mind. Even my masterpiece in Brianta, my panel of the silk god, was about me, about my life, about
what I had accomplished by bringing the spiders from Liantine.

  “Now, though, I act for others. Now, I act to restore the guild to its former power, to its position of glory and prestige among all the other Morenian guilds. With the masterpiece I plan now, I can give back what I once took.”

  Tovin shook his head, a small smile curling his lips. She was surprised by the expression–it seemed the look of an older man, a father or a grandfather. The player gestured toward her work table. “I understand your thoughts, Ranita,” he said gently. “I cannot say that I agree with them. I cannot say that you will be a better glasswright for finishing this project. I cannot say that guildsmen from all the five kingdoms will hear of your feat and flock to join you. But I understand that you do this thing to right past wrongs, that you act now to erase the final vestige of what was done in your youth.”

  He shrugged, and she was relieved to see a flash of his familiar impatience return, drowning his flowery words. Once, that was the energy that had drawn her to his side, that had lured her to his bed. Now, she remembered his restlessness fondly. She wondered if this was how a mother felt, watching her son twitch through his responsibilities.

  “Go ahead, then,” he said. “You’ve delayed enough. Is there anything left that you need from me?” Tovin’s voice was gruff, and she wondered how much of her emotion he had just read in her eyes.

  She shook her head automatically, hesitant to ask the question that she had toyed with all these weeks, all the months since she had returned from Sarmonia. It didn’t matter, she tried to remind herself. It really didn’t matter. Tovin’s eyes glinted as he took one step closer. “What?” he said.

  “I shouldn’t ask.”

  “You’ve grown shy? Now?”

  She curled a lip at his sarcasm. Very well. “Why, Tovin? Why Kella? What brought you to her … cottage?” To her bed, she did not say.