"May I get you anything else?" asked the Acolyte.
"No," she answered.
He left. She didn't bother with the food. She just crawled in bed. Slept. She dreamed that Rune came in at one point, and the girl put her hand on Sword's head and whispered words that could have been a blessing or simply a prayer for forgiveness.
And then she was in her Dream again. But this time it was different. As though Rune's blessing had given her the ability to be there, too. The other Cursed One stood in the hall with the gold-threaded marble, the Man and the Woman reaching not just for Sword but for both of them. They smiled at Sword, and smiled at Rune as well.
Rune smiled back. Brought into a strange dream by an unknown prayer, but acting as though she knew these strangers.
Then the blood came. The Man and the Woman bled, and now Sword was – as always – alone.
The Dream ended, and Sword opened her eyes and she was in the room still, and Scholar was still dead, but somehow it seemed as though the event had lessened. Maybe this was just another kind of shock, but she felt farther away, and it was easier to move.
Is this what grief is? Just a sadness that lessens over time?
She didn't know. She hoped so.
She had barely sat up when Rune appeared at her door.
"They want to see us," she said.
"Who?"
"The Council," said Rune. "The entire Council."
23
When Sword entered, half a step behind Rune, the first thing she noticed was that the Council of Faith met in a room even more spare than most in the Cathedral. Just a simple circle, barely large enough to accommodate the twelve seats arranged evenly around the room.
The second thing she noticed was that Brother Scieran sat at one of the seats. Sister Prasa sat beside him. Sword also saw that their seats were just a bit closer to each other than the rest of the seats were to their neighbors.
Six men and six women sat on the seats. Six High Preists, six High Priestesses. Four wore the outfits of the Order of Chain. Four were dressed as Acolytes of the Mind, and the last four were Temple Faithful.
"Welcome," said Brother Scieran. And the next thing he said ensured that he would remain "Brother" Scieran in Sword's mind. He grimaced as he said, "Sorry we don't have seats. There isn't much room in here, so it's either stand or sit on someone's lap."
Several of the other High Priests frowned at the quip, but didn't say anything. Sister Prasa laughed quietly behind an upraised hand.
"I wouldn't mind sitting on old Inmil's lap," said Rune.
An old man, completely bald save a white beard so long it curled over the Temple chain he wore on his waist, said, "We have invited you to the Council as a courtesy, Rune. Please don't make us toss you out on your irreverant behind."
Rune batted her eyes. "But if you bruise my behind, I won't want to sit on your lap anymore."
The man – Inmil – actually growled. And now it wasn't just Sister Prasa who was laughing; half the men and women were chuckling.
Surprisingly, even Inmil grinned after a moment. "You tempt me, Rune, you know that? An old man, being tempted by a young woman offering to sit on his lap. Tell me, would you whisper sweet blasphemies as you held me?" He sighed and shook his head. "It's like the First Story all over again."
Rune grinned just as widely as Inmil. "You know I'm not that bad."
"But bad enough you'll be trouble when you finally enter the Temple Faithful." He looked at her meaningfully. "You know you'll actually have to be respectful when that happens, don't you?"
Rune shrugged. "Maybe I'll join the Acolytes of the Mind."
"You wouldn't dare. And we wouldn't have you," said one of the women in the room. She was laughing.
Rune shrugged again. Looked like she was going to say something else, but Brother Scieran held up a hand, and all grew silent and serious.
"We have heard grave news." He looked at Sword and Rune. "We have been up all night talking, and come to no answers. I asked for you to come in the hopes that you could help us."
"What happened?" Sword's stomach grew heavy. Are more of my friends dead?
"Arrow called us by Ear," said Brother Scieran. "Smoke was discovered on his mission – apparently they either knew about his Gift, or just stumbled onto it. In any event, he has been compromised."
"Is he all right?" said Sword.
"He was wounded," said Brother Scieran. "He managed to make it back to the cave, but he isn't going anywhere for a short while." He looked around the Council. A few of them nodded. "But there is something more troubling."
"Than that?" said Rune.
"Yes. We know Smoke went to a certain tavern for his information. That tavern was leveled last night. Part of that was apparently Smoke's own doing. But after it happened, we've received word from several of our sympathizers in Center that everyone who survived the initial blast was rounded up… and slaughtered."
Sword's throat went dry. "Who would do that?" she managed.
"A little girl, we're told. Just a tiny thing, but she was at both places. So was a good-looking man. Both Blessed Ones." He looked at her. "We have their names."
Sword didn't need them. "Devar and Marionette," she said. Then something pricked at her. "Wait, 'both places'? What do you mean?"
Brother Scieran looked at the floor. "Sometime after we left the Imperial Archives, the same thing happened. Every single Archivist was rounded up. And killed."
"How is that… how is that possible?" Rune said. "Why would they do that?"
"We don't know how it's possible," said Brother Scieran. "The damage to the Archives was extensive – enough so that it is likely to cast the Empire into chaos in a matter of days. But to kill the Archivists?" He shook his head. "We can't make sense of it."
"It's because of us," whispered Sword.
"How so?" Sister Prasa sat forward in her seat.
"They killed everyone who saw – or might have seen – one of the rebels. One of the Cursed Ones." She looked around the circle. "The Chancellor is making some kind of move. Some kind of change to the government. And he can't let it be known that there are others out here, others just as powerful as his greatest weapons."
"We've acted before," said Arrow. "And they've never done anything like this."
"Are you sure? Besides, from what I can see, everything you've ever done before was covert – get in, get out. The only witnesses were the refugees, and they were hardly going to say anything to anyone but you." She closed her eyes. Shook her head. "No, this is a cover-up. The Chancellor can't let anyone know about us. Our existence threatens his power base."
"But what about the Archives?" said Rune. "How's the Chancellor going to make a move when his entire information infrastructure just went poof?"
"Remind me to ask you how you can use words like 'infrastructure' and 'poof' in the same sentence," said Inmil. He began playing with his white beard, running it through his fingers and braiding the end. "Still, the question is a good one. It would be an upheaval."
"Could it be so the Chancellor will be able to take control?" Sword said.
Brother Scieran shook his head. "One way to take control is during a power vacuum, but that is different than complete anarchy. No, the Chancellor has a different plan – one either unhindered or actually helped by the destruction of the Archives." He shrugged. "And we can't figure out what it is."
"It doesn't matter."
"What?" Inmil stared at Sword. "I think it matters a great deal, young lady. If we don't know what he's planning, then it will be extremely difficult to counter it."
"And how are you going to counter it?" She looked at the assemblage, catching the eye of each in turn. "Are we going to keep on attacking from the shadows, killing officers in the Army and waiting for a lucky chance to take out another Minister when he's unguarded?" She shook her head. "That's not war. That's…." She searched for the word. "That's just a slow death. That's retreating to the edge of a pit that has no end."
Sister Prasa rubbed her chin. "What would you suggest?"
"Take the fight to them. Not on a small scale, but on a large one. Kill the Chancellor's remaining two ministers – the Minister of Secrets and the Minister of the Interior. Without the Minister of Secrets and his secret police, the Chancellor's information flow cuts off. Without the Minister of the Interior, the Army is like a snake with no head."
"No, it will grow another head. A ranking member will simply be chosen by the Chancellor and the Emperor to lead the Army. And another Minister of Secrets will be found as well," said one of the Councilors, an old woman with a long face quite at odds with her stout body.
"Not if you kill the Chancellor."
"Then who would take over?" said Sister Prasa.
"The Emperor."
"And if the puppet, cut from his strings, turns out to be as corrupt as the puppetmaster?" she said.
Sword shrugged. The words came, though they were heavy: "Then we kill him, too."
Inmil sighed. "And that is the one thing we cannot do. The people need to be free, but freedom requires a leader. It is fine to choose one's own path – or it would be if we all lived as hermits on our own mountains, never interacting with one another, with no possibility of harming each other. But the fact is, we are a society, a culture, a people. And though a person can walk a path alone, people must always have someone who walks that path first. They need a leader, and they need that leader to be legitimate." He shook his head. "The people of the mountains have had an Emperor from the same lineage for a thousand years. Do you think they will accept a coup with an illegitimate heir? Because I do not."
"Nor I," echoed another Councilor.
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
"And what of my thoughts on that matter?" said Brother Scieran. He was nodding, as though he had already proposed what Sword had said. As though he had already faced this question.
"We will have the best of the Acolytes of the Mind review your document," said Inmil. "But we can't work off conjecture."
"I'd like to have one of my Cursed look at it, as well," said Brother Scieran.
"Who?"
"Arrow."
"Arrow? Why?" Inmil seemed both confused and amused at the suggestion. Sword didn't know why – she didn't understand anything of the turn the discussion had taken.
"Because part of his Gift is eyesight so acute it puts the sky-hawks to shame."
One of the other High Priestesses – an Acolyte of the Mind – spoke. "His idea has merit."
"Very well. I vote we call him, but direct him to come discretely," said Inmil. "In favor?"
Everyone's right hand rose.
"What document?" said Rune. "What's going on?"
Brother Scieran looked at his fellow Councilors. Several nodded, while the rest either shrugged or seemed to lean back in their chairs as though asleep. "I think –"
"We think," Sister Prasa broke in, laying a hand on his arm.
"We think," he continued, "that the scroll we recovered from the Imperial Archives may be part of the reason the Archive was destroyed. Perhaps even the real reason the people at Smoke's tavern were killed: to throw us off the track, to make us think what you do – that the Chancellor didn't want anyone to know about the Cursed Ones."
"But what else could it be?" asked Rune.
Brother Scieran drew something out of his robe. Something Sword recognized immediately. The scroll they had recovered. "Why would that be so important the Chancellor would risk anarchy to destroy it?"
"Not to destroy it," said Sister Prasa. "To destroy the very memory of it."
Brother Scieran nodded. "And as to what it is… I believe it may hold the identity of the lost child of the Empire. I believe the part that was scrubbed away is a record of the girl born to the last Emperor, the twin of the current boy." He stared at Sword. "I believe that you may be the one we can put on the throne."
24
Arrow hated this part of the job.
It was one thing to face Imperial officers in the alley, to kill nobles who forgot what "noble" really meant. It was one thing to fight a quiet war – even one he believed he must lose.
And it was quite another to sit and wait.
Not that he had nothing to do – there were small fights to be broken up among the refugees, quarrels that seemed so large when they occurred in the small space of the cave.
People aren't meant to be cloistered in a place like this. People are meant to be outside. To see the sky. To be….
Free.
He missed his State. Missed his home.
Missed his family.
For a moment he thought of them. His father, his little brother. How had they looked when they died? Had they gone bravely, had they begged?
He hoped they had been brave. But brave or not, they were still dead.
"You're moping."
"And you're moving."
Arrow had stopped by to check on Smoke, and was dismayed to find the man out of his bed, teetering around the large tent where the Cursed Ones made the plans that were their part of this war. The overall actions were organized by the Council of Faith, but the details, the minute hows and whens of each part of the grand scheme – they were brought to pass in this place before they ever happened aboveground.
Smoke was looking at some of the maps, turning over the notes Brother Scieran had written before departing on his last trip.
"Do you even understand what he was doing there?" Smoke said.
Arrow shrugged. "The man is a mystery as much as not."
"And yet we follow him. The child of a noble and a convicted murderer, traipsing after a priest who shirks his priestly duties as often as not." Smoke snorted. "Life is funny sometimes." He flipped through a few more pages, then gave up with a shrug. "Who knows?"
"The real question is: what are you doing out of bed?"
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. You look like a poorly cooked meal."
Smoke brushed his hands over his face and head, grimacing as his fingers found patches of singed, hairless skin. "Well, I was never very pretty. What do you think of Sword?"
Arrow blinked, startled by the sudden turn of conversation. "Uhh… complicated."
"No. Not complicated." Smoke leveled a huge finger at him. "That's the problem with you nobles. You're so busy 'complicating' the world, you forget how to make simple decisions."
"And you convicts make the mistake of seeing the world as a simple place, and look where that gets you."
Smoke grinned, unoffended. "True, but at least we sleep the sleep of the innocent after our convictions." Then he grew serious. "Honestly. What do you think of her?"
Arrow shook his head. "She's a good warrior."
Smoke snorted, then followed that up with a grimace and rubbed his bandaged shoulder. "That's not what I meant."
"What do you want me to say, Smoke?" Arrow felt himself growing angry. "I think she's good for our cause. I think she may even be a good person. But she killed my family."
"So what you're saying is… it's complicated."
"Finally, the convict sees the light."
They stood in silence a moment, then Smoke returned to shuffling through the papers on the table. He looked like he wouldn't have much in the way of a mind – the prison tattoos, the muscled chest and arms that he rarely covered with a suit or tunic or even a vest. But he was smart. Very smart. Arrow liked him – loved him as an older brother – and trusted him with his life.
But he could be very annoying sometimes.
"She didn't know."
"What?" Arrow barely heard the big man's voice.
"She didn't know. What she was doing."
"I know. That's part of what makes it complicated." Arrow dropped to a nearby chair. He felt tired. Tired of it all, tired of the war, tired of being….
Alone.
He missed his family. Not that he'd seen them much in the last months. But just knowing they were out there, available should he need them. Peop
le needed their families. Families were what you went to when the whole rest of the world fell to the Netherworlds.
If it hasn't already done so.
The word had come in by Ear: the Archives destroyed, whole groups of men and women slaughtered. Brother Scieran hadn't told him how he knew of this – the priest had sources as deep and high as the Imperial Palace itself – but Arrow had no reason to doubt.
And one of the people he fought with. One of the people he was supposed to trust his life to… had killed what remained of his family.
But there's still Smoke. Wind and Cloud and Rune. Brother Scieran. Still family of a kind, if not the ones you were born to.
The thought was the one he kept returning to, day after day. And it was the only one that really gave him comfort.
"What do you think of Sword?" asked Smoke.
"I already told you –"
"I'm not talking to you."
That was when Arrow realized he and Smoke had been joined by the twins. Cloud and Wind stood in the entrance to the tent. Wind was wearing what she always did: silver armor, silver mask pushed back over her head. But Cloud was not wearing his white robe with the black trim. He was, instead, wearing a simple gray tunic and pants that looked like they belonged to a suit – the kind of patchwork outfit many of the refugees wore.
The people here were wanted by the government, most of them had been targeted for specific assassination, so to go outside was too dangerous for them – at least for now. One of the only things to do down here was barter goods, which meant State lines had blurred, and everyone now looked like they belonged to a new place. An Empire with no individual mountains, no separated States. Just a single place, and a single people who all simply did their best to live with one another.
Perhaps that's why we suffer. So that we can see how good comes of it.
Is that why you suffer, Arrow?
But he knew that was self-serving and unfair. All of them had suffered. Wind and Cloud, Smoke, Rune… all had borne much. And would likely have to bear more.
The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Page 29