A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  They cleared out, except for Vansainté and Yupendra.

  “What do you two want?”

  Yupendra firmly stuck a wooden stick in her mouth and examined her tongue while she gagged. “This is my job.” She pushed him away, but he must have already gotten what he needed because he just grunted. “You just need rest.”

  “Fine. Shoo!” commanded Anoni.

  He went back to his pile of supplies without much of a fight. She must actually be close to well.

  In a low voice she addressed her lieutenant, hunkered down beside her. “Vansainté, what do our supplies look like?”

  “Not good. We lost tents, most of the food, and much of Yupendra’s powders. We’re surviving on spring water and local fish. Thank the Goddess Nekobashi is from the islands. If we’re going to camp here much longer, I’d say we need to go back to the plains and try to scavenge what we can from the wagon.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Best guess, a half day’s travel out and back.”

  “The quest necessitates that we go to the Isle of Asteri, get Prince Corinado’s Goddess Offering, and then head back to Aquillion the way we came. Let’s try to get our business done on the Isle before we need the extra supplies. We can pick up any supplies that survived in the wagon on our way back south through Tall Grasses. How is Wix doing? He was very close to Tevix. They were more like brothers than cousins,” asked Anoni.

  Vansainté shrugged. “He’s about normal for one of us.”

  “Meaning bitter, withdrawn, and surly. Nothing like himself,” Anoni said with alacrity.

  Vansainté nodded.

  “Oh, burning bird shit,” she swore. “My portion of the gold was on Pelaki. Most of my clothes. Those throwing daggers...Those were a gift...”

  “I still have my portion of the gold, as does Wix. We’ll be all right,” comforted Vansainté.

  “No one to buy from out here anyway. If we’re in dire straits we can stop by Almacenista for supplies. Vansainté, I am sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “Well, if that Ozuk had come and you hadn’t come back with your guest, we’d all be in dire straits, wouldn’t we? Did I mention how glad I am you’re back?”

  She smiled tiredly. Her energy level was flagging as if she had walked along way on foot. Whatever had happened when she killed the Ozuk, her body had not rebuilt any kind of reserves. “Thanks. I think I’m going to go back to sleep now.”

  Vansainté nodded, patting her shoulder and levering himself up. He went over to Yupendra to help organize the mess of packets and medicine bottles. She laid back and closed her eyes, trying now to think of the spirit beast that might still hide in the darkness behind her eyes.

  ***

  Aquillion

  Copelia

  Copelia rode into the city without any fanfare, without even the cursory nod of the nobility that was customarily given to a returning religious leader. It irked her to have no one notice she had arrived. Secrecy was a key in this dangerous game, but still...She was the high priestess of the Moon Temple. There should have been a parade or something. People should have known just by looking at her that she was powerful and holy. She held onto that thought for a long moment before the laugh escaped her. Okay, well how would they know she was powerful and holy when she was just a sixteen-year-old girl who liked to get noticed, she thought, with a tiny note of doubt. She had absolutely no idea what she was doing in this job, but as long as she looked like she knew what she was doing...the rest would fall into place. She hoped.

  She was belatedly glad that her father had forced her to read Mishi’s holy book all the way through. He would have been shocked to discover that the “character” of hers that it built had nothing to do with his beloved Goddess. The cadences and phrasing, as well as the spectacle of Mishi’s early works were the basis of everything she had done in the name of the Goddess so far. Her only other inspiration was the stage plays she had seen in Aquillion and the players she had seen on the ships coming and going down the river. With a careful mental shrug, Copelia decided the Goddess wouldn’t mind that drama had returned to religious revival.

  But any kind of drama was lacking in her entrance to Aquillion. No one turned, no one looked. I must look like I’ve been through a storm anyway, she thought. Lack of sleep didn’t help her mood. She hurried through the crowded city streets to the old mansion her brother had bought. The front gate had carved rearing horses sitting sentry on the posts, but she was surprised to find it closed at midday. She yelled through the bars at a stablehand unsaddling a horse in the courtyard beyond. The boy knew her, and quickly let her in. In the courtyard there was a flurry of movement from people she didn’t recognize hurrying unsubtly for cover into barns and kitchen doors. She dismounted stiffly and rounded on the boy.

  “What’s going on around here?” She pinned him with a hard look.

  “Ask Master Nelvandi, Lady,” he said weakly. She blinked at her own stupidity. She had told Sarousch to do things, and he had done them. She’d forgotten what that would actually mean.

  “I’m going to my chamber. Tell the maids to bring up a tub and wash water. Then tell Sarousch I will see him in half an hour in my brother’s office,” she ordered mildly. She would love to have a long soak in the bath; it still grieved her that she had had no time to visit the hot springs in Skevelia on her way back. But priorities were priorities. She had things she needed to do tomorrow that would need planning in the time she would sleep. And she would sleep, she promised herself, for a very long time. Even the thought of her smooth sheets in her bed made her almost want to weep. But she needed a bath more, she thought as she continued through the courtyard and up the wide marble steps to the main house’s front door.

  In half an hour she was scrubbed, fed, dressed, and waiting behind her brother’s oak desk. She played with the gloves on her hands while waiting.

  Sarousch came in carrying a stack of ledgers. He was much how she remembered him: skinny, his dark skin kept fastidiously clean and perfumed. His ego seemed even more inflated than it had been in the weeks since she had left. She did admit momentarily that he ran the western branch of the Caruda clan’s business better than she or her brother could. His mind was sharp as her brother’s blades, even if his heart would never be in the horses. But his self-righteous snobbery made her want to do something violent and unexpected, like hurl one of her brother’s glass paperweights at his head. Her luck, he would catch it and give her another lecture on appropriate female behavior. She wished she could tell him about Anoni. Talk about lady-like behavior.

  Sarousch came to a stop in front of the desk and squared himself. “Did you have a pleasant trip?”

  “Between bogs and torture...no, not pleasant at all,” she said with brittle sarcasm.

  “If you had stayed home, where a young lady of your stature belongs...” he began, but she cut him off.

  “How many clergy are hiding in the house?” she asked mildly. He froze and tried to catch his breath, searching for a lie, she imagined. He gave up.

  “Fifty-four. Twenty-four clergy, thirty acolytes and novices. How did you know?”

  She stood, smiling; it was a much better number than she could have imagined. She walked around the desk. “Sarousch, the children of the Goddess were scattered and confused.” She paused, pulling her gloves off one finger at a time. She stepped out of her slippers so he could see the casters on her feet also. He shook his head in denial, mouth agape. She held up her hands to him. “Who else would send them to a haven under Mishi’s sign?”

  He backed up, still shaking his head. “What...how...?”

  “I was called to the Lady’s service on the road. I accepted office as the Sybil.”

  “But you’re not even a follower...how can?” he stuttered.

  “She saw through me. I am glad you got my message and that you have had so much success.”

  “They believed me. I told them I had heard a calling. They were so afraid, they just followed. They filled up the guest r
ooms long ago. The acolytes and the novices are in the stable lofts.”

  She smiled. When in doubt, Sarousch would revert to the tangible organizing that he did so well. If she kept him moving, he would not balk. “I’m going to go sleep now. I need you to get me the things on this list by tomorrow. Send a stable hand to do it quietly. Do not tell the clergy or underlings that their Sybil has returned,” she said, dismissing him by turning to read a productivity report on the desk. “I will deal with them in due time.”

  There was a moment of silence before he stuttered out a “Yes, my Lady,” and then strode to the door.

  She slumped in her brother’s chair as soon as the door was shut. She had a feeling that twenty-four experienced clergy were not going to fall for the take-orders strategy. She hadn’t any idea how to get them to cooperate with her plan. So she wasn’t going to tell them. To hell with them, she thought. They can write about it in the history books afterwards...

  ***

  Aquillion

  Copelia

  The next day, Copelia walked into the palace dressed as a boy in a rough tunic and pants, with a pair of sturdy work boots. She carried a pack. Hiding her nervousness over the fact that she did not know how long her magic disguise would last, she handed her work permit to the guard at one of the servants’ gates. It had taken a lot of bribe money to get a forged permit for a young stonemason to work in the palace. She was lucky that the government was perpetually remodeling some part of the old palace. The structure was so old that without constant maintenance it would crumble down on the heads of the courtiers. She hoped that they wouldn’t notice another apprentice mason in the halls.

  The guard barely even looked at her face, just gave her back her permit and waved her on through. She sighed with relief as she made her way across the minor courtyard toward the lower halls and kitchens. She did actually have mason’s tools in her pack, on top of many other supplies that she had needed, but would give her away. She was glad not to be stopped.

  The secret passages that ran from the city under the palace, coming out near the chapel, had been blocked by wreckage. The general palace gossip brought to her by Sarousch was that disrepair had caused the fire in the palace and temple. They were condemned as dangerous and no one had yet been allowed to enter into those levels or the towers. Yeah, to keep them from finding the bodies, she thought bitterly. There had been no word mentioning the prince or the Ordeal Chamber. Since its location was secret for security reasons, no one was concerned about the whereabouts of the prince. Except perhaps the Shaisos, who, she guessed, were searching frantically. They did not know how close they had come to the prince. They might even think that they had gotten the wrong chamber. They wagered much on their actions not being found out.

  Anoni had told her she had gotten the prince out through the skylight in the Ordeal Chamber roof. They were in a light well; that was all she knew. A tack in a pile of needle stacks, she thought. She’d never been anywhere in the palace besides the Dragon barracks. Her only guide was the mental image she had of a figure wrapped in red cloth accompanied by the sound of falling rain. She also had a vague directional urge, knowing that he was west and above her.

  Copelia entered the lower halls near the kitchen area and quickly ducked into a lesser-used passage. It was empty so she dropped her disguise. It had been hard to do without a relic and it was draining to maintain. Checking to see the path was empty, she set off in the direction her gut told her to go. Forty minutes later, she was making her way through the fire-blackened levels opposite the tower where the clergy had been housed, trying to breathe shallowly to avoid the cloying reek of smoke. As she picked her way through the blackened rooms, she took a moment to appreciate how lucky she had been. She had been forced to use her chisel and hammer to move the rocks and debris in the main roof collapse blocking off the levels, but most of the passageways were still stable. She had scrambled through the hole she’d made in the rubble and camouflaged it with a broken table to hide it from any casual patrols.

  On the other side she had had to wait and light a torch since the normal lightfish had been killed. The way to the prince’s body was not very hard to follow, just made confusing by the ravages of the fire and the darkness. She stepped through a bit of flooring that had been weakened by the flames and had to scramble to catch herself. Her legs flailed in the air, while she dug her fingers into the remaining planks of the charred floor, hanging on for dear life and stuttering out a string of swears that would have made Sarousch turn purple. The pack felt like it was trying to drag her through the hole in the floor. Clenching her teeth and breathing deep of the ash on the planks, she gathered all her strength and pulled herself up with one hand to grab another handhold. The muscles in her back and arms screamed and shivered with the strain. Inch by inch and handhold by handhold she pulled herself out of the hole.

  Finally, she was able to get a knee up and roll herself onto her side away from the hole. Lying on the ground to catch her breath, her eye fell on an engraved sigil on the base of the wall. Looking closer, she rubbed the soot off. She could make out it was an imperial crane. Frowning, she pushed the sigil. The carving recessed into the wall with a click and a door slid open in the wall to reveal a room in total darkness.

  CHAPTER 17

  Imperial Palace

  Copelia

  The curiosity to see the inside of the room burned inside her, just as the feeling in her gut told her to leave it and get on with her duty. I’ll just stay a moment. Just to see what hidden room in the palace warrants an imperial crane. She stepped in, torch held high.

  “Goddess...” The word slipped from her lips on a shocked exhale. The room was perhaps a hundred feet across, circular, without windows. The walls were covered with crude drawings in brown. From the fetid smell, it was drawn in blood. A big heavy bed with posts carved with vines lay on the far side, with ropes tied to the posts and dust covered disheveled silk blankets. There was a small table, and the rest of the room was occupied by old children’s toys. The hair raised on the back of Copelia’s neck. It had the look of a child’s room after the child has died. A room where the child was tied to the bed?

  On the table she found a pile of papers, covered in dust. She grabbed a handful and stuffed them in her pack. She should not be here. As she backed toward the door, her eyes fell to the painting on the wall. It was a nightmare mural, with fires and explosions and stick figures losing their heads in frantic angry strokes. Dread perched on her shoulders, threatening to overwhelm her. She made herself walk, not run, through the door. Breathing unsteadily, she kicked the crane sigil and the door slid shut on its horrors.

  She did not want to know what had happened there. She would give a great deal to not to know it was there at all. But it would haunt her, she was sure. At some future time, she would go through the papers to find out who had been in that room. She would do it in daylight and hope it wasn’t so creepy without the darkness to set the scene. She turned back down the passage, suppressing the urge to check behind her again. She hurried away down the corridor, only to come to a stop at a wall made of huge thick blocks of stone where the hall dead-ended. It was older and more substantial than the walls that had divided the halls from the rooms so far. The blocks didn’t even have any cracks between them that she could exploit. But her gut told her, straight ahead. It was the strongest feeling she had had since coming into the palace. Straight ahead. Cursing, she dumped her pack on the floor and set her torch down.

  She checked for any sigils in the wall, but there was nothing. Mumbling a quick prayer to the Lady, she studied the wall. Nothing. In frustration, she slapped her caster-clad hands against the wall. She was shocked when she felt something go out into the wall and echo back. She did it again, harder this time. Some power in the casters moved into the stone and echoed back, giving her a feeling of the areas behind the wall. Again she hit the wall, and this time she pushed. When the power echo bounced back it came from a humming magic. It was the Lady’s power, put
into the blocks when they had been laid in the first place. Eyes closed and biting her lip, Copelia did it again, struggling to find a crack or hole she could get through. There were none. The power flowed back into her as a wave, pushing her back a few steps as she struggled to take it back in.

  She became aware of the sound of rain and rushing water so close to her that it was making her thirsty. Wiping a sweaty lock of auburn hair out of her face, she took a sip from one of her canteens, and tried again. This time, she pushed the power into the wall and out, so it flowed along the walls below and above. It echoed along, finding an unbroken wall of protection above and to the right and left as far as the power could go before she lost it. But below, she sent a wave and found a hole. Her wrists and elbows ached, but she sent wave after wave to check it.

  The hole in the Lady’s power was two floors below her. A door. And she had to hurry. Her feeling was getting more urgent. She heaved her pack back on and turned back the way she had come. It took her another hour to find a way down two flights and return to the barrier wall. This time she found a discreet maintenance door at the back of a closet. The closet had kept the worst of the fire away. She closed its door behind her as a precaution against prying eyes and turned her attention to the maintenance door. It was old, built of oak so weathered as to almost be petrified, the wide hinges rusted shut. Copelia thought this door must have been forgotten. Or perhaps forced to be forgotten?

  Her dreams implied there was a lot the Goddess’s power could do, despite the Temple’s reputation. They were known as a quiet society, solemnly doing a few ceremonies for the imperial family every few years, and generally staying out of everybody’s way. That was what she had heard. A boring religion, dusty from neglect. She had never heard of anything remotely magic-like happening in the normal ceremonies and services of the temple. Of course, before she had seen the crazed look and the branding irons of Califf’s followers, she had thought all religions were like that. Just a lot of chanting and praying for stuff that you might or might not get. The priests in Oruno were certainly mundane with a holy book full of boring parables, most of which had no bearing on anything that had happened for the last thousand years.