Three Coins for Confession

by Scott Fitzgerald Gray

  Chriani looked down to see darkness below them. He had to fight back the instinctual panic that told him they were floating in empty air. “What is this?” he whispered.

  “Sanctuary,” the assassin said. “Escape.”

  Chriani made the moonsign in response. “You were dead,” he said. There were more pressing questions, he knew, but this one was at the fore of his mind.

  “Not as much as you might think. And thank you for intervening when the Ilvani captain tried to make it certain. Stilling the blood was difficult enough in the moment. I’m not sure I could have started it again in time to kill him.”

  Chriani felt the steel-sharp calm Tician exhibited now. He remembered the helplessness she had shown when Dargana captured her near the edge of the Ghostwood. A trace of fear in her then that Chriani understood had never been real.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to him,” the assassin said. No real emotion in her voice, though. “And for the exile. I lost you when you vanished with the body. I’m sorry it took so long to find you.”

  “And how much is you being sorry for anything worth?”

  The assassin said nothing as Chriani’s gaze caught movement beyond her shoulder. Lóechari sentries were hitting the platform at a run. Two ran to the edge, dropping alongside it in a way that made him sure they were set to leap out into the air after them. But then both fell back after scanning the shadows below and around them, their gazes slipping past Chriani and the assassin where they floated two paces away.

  “They don’t see us because we’re here now,” the assassin said. “No longer there. This space is set aside from the world for a time. They can’t reach us.”

  “You’re a spellcaster,” Chriani said. “Faking your death in the forest, passing into Sylonna and pursuing us unseen. Healing me.”

  Tician smiled like his assessment pleased her somehow, but she shook her head. “Spellcraft takes a dedication I don’t have time for. My magic is a deeper part of me.”

  She carried no ring. He saw that much. No chain or amulet at her wrist or neck. He had searched her body in the forest, found nothing on her. He didn’t understand, but he had no time to wonder at it. “They can read your magic, though. Spell or no spell.”

  “Indeed. They know you’re passing unseen with magic. They’ll be looking for you that way. So we need to keep moving.”

  Chriani saw the platform receding even as the sentries left it, disappearing along both bridges, lost to the shadows. He made the moonsign again, ignored how the assassin’s smile broke briefly to a smirk. Her hands were close together, thumbs and forefingers touching as she let them trace across the interior of the silver sphere. Its course changed as she did so, as if under her direction. Chriani felt no sense of motion, though. Just a feeling like the silver space around them held stock-still while the dark shapes of trees and platforms swept slowly past.

  “You saved my life,” Chriani said. “Why?”

  “You saved mine, more than once. I owed you that much.” Tician’s pale blue eyes held a playful light that made the straight-line scars beneath them seem even more sinister.

  “You’re a mercenary. An assassin. You don’t act for what you owe, you act for what you can earn.” Chriani saw the assassin smile. “Why?”

  “Fate and magic are intertwined,” she said in response. “The power of magic can warp reality. Bend time and understanding. That’s why Ilmari fear it so much during their short lives. Why the Ilvani live longer than us.”

  As the silver sphere rose, it shifted through a screen of branches. Chriani lurched back instinctively as they appeared to push in through the shimmering wall, but they turned translucent as they did, passing through him where he stood. A sensation like vertigo shunted through him, his feet slipping to send him a step down toward Tician. He pushed himself back quickly, tried to focus as the ghostly branches passed behind them.

  “Answer the question. Why did you save me?” Chriani felt a faint trace of anger twist through him. The last and unlooked for sign that he was returning to normal.

  “I am, warrior. I’m interested in your fate, and the lines that magic weaves within it…”

  “No,” Chriani said coldly. “I’m done with pretending to go along with any talk of fate.”

  “Strange words to come from the heir of the exile’s blade.” The assassin smiled again.

  Chriani slipped farther down toward her, forced himself back once more. He was conscious of the fact that he would slide inexorably toward Tician if he didn’t hold on, but his legs were cramping from the awkwardness of keeping himself pushed back and up along the silver sphere’s sloping floor. The assassin’s bare feet seemed to offer a better grip along that surface of light, her hands still locked together as she swung them slowly around.

  “The heir is a figure of mystery,” Tician said. “The legends are fascinating.”

  “That seems a strange sideline for someone like you.”

  Tician laughed. “The Order of Uissa is about power, warrior. Knowledge is a key to power, as is the manner in which the past drives the present and the future to come. Like the way the destinies of Ilvani and Ilmari alike are centered in the lines of fate that mark a single warrior’s life.”

  “I held the blade for two weeks,” Chriani said darkly. “Chanist held it for years. Tell the Ilvani to go to him for their salvation.”

  “But it’s not about time, warrior. It’s about destiny. During the Incursions, Caradar was named as heir by the Ilvani, but the blade was his mother’s before him, and her father’s before her. Caradar was the one touched by fate, though. Meant to fix the conflict between Ilmari and Ilvani, by drowning the Ilmari in their own blood.”

  In days of war, one will arise to stand between between Ilvanghlira and Ilmari in struggle. One who will forge the final fate of both peoples.

  Tician smiled as if she could sense Chriani’s thought. “All the best prophecies leave themselves open to interpretation.”

  “A good enough reason to ignore them.”

  “A good reason to try to figure out which interpretation holds true. The Calala named you the heir, Chriani. I don’t doubt that you surviving two attempts on your life and singlehandedly taking out a war-band in Rheran have made them believe it even more now than they did at the start. I suspect that’s why they set a shadow on you in Aerach rather than arranging another assault when I led them to you. Why they sent their blind agents, as you called them.”

  Chriani felt a chill slip through his mind. A brief surge of anger that turned to something sharper, tracing along his spine. “I don’t even hold the blade.”

  “The Laneldenari knew that, but it made no difference to what they saw in you. The Calala knew that Chanist held the blade after Caradar fell, but never said a word to connect the prince to the prophecy. Hidden or in hand, the Valnirata believe the blade’s fate ties to you, now.”

  Chriani told himself that the anger was just from fear, told himself it meant nothing. The pieces of the puzzle were shifting, but he forced them aside in his mind.

  “If you know so much, tell me why the Ilvani seek the blade.”

  “I know the history, not the will of the cult. Veassen spoke truth as well when he said the Laneldenari don’t know. Just that the cultists seek the power of the past, and they believe the blade to be the key that unlocks that.”

  Within the silver sphere, they were passing now alongside platforms and terraces lit by mage-light. Chriani could see cots and bedrolls set out as makeshift barracks, but these were deserted. All the cultists on the move, searching for him.

  “The cult found that power here,” Chriani said, staring to the darkness. “You sold it to them.” It was only a guess, left over from when Tician had been bound before them in the forest. He saw the truth of it in her eyes now as he had then.

  “Uissa discovered the temple when we fell back to the Ghostwood,” she said. “Nowhere else to go, thanks to the duke of Teillai. We stumbled across the site but found no sign that e
ven the Crithnalerean had walked here in a century. They were as afraid of the power here as the Ilvani that fled from it a hundred generations before.”

  “And that didn’t give you pause?”

  “We’re mercenaries, warrior.” Tician smiled. “We act for what we can earn. We found the temple, but there was no power here. Only ruins, and the coins of the confessor, hidden away. The amulet the dark sorcerer wears. You saw it.”

  “And you gave it to them.”

  “We sold the coins to the Calala, because we had no means to assess what they might do. But we knew the Ilvani did. We kept our contacts with the Calala to stay close to them. We waited. We watched.”

  “And you’ve seen. You were with us with Taelendar turned. You saw what happened to Farenna. You were watching when Dargana died.”

  The assassin said nothing in response.

  Below them now were terraces flooded by water, pouring out from shattered fountains. Their wood and stone had broken away, but the magic at their heart still produced its endless bright flow. None of it had been restored, none of it so much as touched from what Chriani could see. It was as if the Ilvani’s reverence for the power of the past had forced them to a fearful worship of that past. Insinuating themselves into what was here, for fear of what might happen if they disturbed it.

  “You won’t have the blade,” he said quietly. “If that’s your goal in saving me.”

  “A novel plan, except I’m certain you’d kill yourself before you led me to it. I promise I’m not tempted by the price on your head, Chriani.”

  “Then what?”

  “The coins of the amulet channel the power of this place,” Tician said. “They’re bound to the shadow well and the sorcerer. Viranar, they call her. White hair, black robes. You saw her. We didn’t know the power the coins held. But then the Calala Ilvani made a full-scale invasion of Crithnalerean while we watched. We saw the golden-eyed ones set out on their hunt. We discovered what they were hunting for. And we don’t like the idea of them getting it any more than you do.”

  “So what are you planning?”

  “Not what I’m planning, warrior, but what we’re planning. This is for both of us.”

  Chriani heard the tone of careful diplomacy in the assassin’s voice. The bravado had vanished beneath it for a moment, the bright blue eyes expectant.

  “We’re going to steal the coins of the confessor,” Tician said evenly. “We’re seizing the amulet. You want to break the cult’s power. I’m here to help you do it. I’ve saved your life to take you back with me to Uissa. Give you a place and purpose, because you know in your heart, Chriani, that you have nowhere else to go.”

  Something had changed. He felt it.

  Outside the silver sphere, Chriani saw the rough platform camps of the Ilvani surrounded by the furnishings and features that had once filled those platforms, scattered like shadows now. Stone benches were shattered and slumped across rubble-strewn floors. The remains of lacquered screens stood even where their paper had rotted away, long ropes of mold hanging now from black frames.

  “I walk my own path,” he said at last.

  “The paths you once walked are closed, warrior. You’re an exile from two lands. Always caught between two worlds, and now cut off from both. And when the road behind is closed, you can look only ahead. There’s another future in front of you, starting here tonight. The coins represent the future of the balance of power in the Ilmar…”

  “And Uissa wants to control that.”

  Tician smiled. “We will control it, one way or another. But you’re connected to the power here. I was listening when you spoke in the council at Sylonna.”

  “I said nothing in council. Veassen was in my mind. The blind seer.” Chriani shook his head, dismissive. “And even if I believed a word of what Veassen had said, why in fate’s name would you think I’d follow you?”

  “Because I believe it,” Tician said, and Chriani saw the light of truth flash in the bright blue eyes. “I believe in all the fates that wend through us. I’ve seen those fates laid down, seen them shattered and rebuilt. Your princes seek to chart the fate of peoples and nations with the movement of armies and merchant fleets. They set a future of chaos into motion, hoping it resolves to a world somehow richer and less terrible than they began with. Uissa seeks order. We chart change by manipulating one line of fate at a time. Save a thousand lives on a battlefield by engineering a single death whose effects can ripple through a thousand-thousand lives…”

  The assassin’s words cut off to rough silence even before Chriani shot the bloodblade to her throat, as if she’d realized just a moment too late what she was saying. How he would hear it.

  He locked himself tight to the sphere, but his boots were slipping, edging the blade along the assassin’s neck. She made no move to defend herself, her hands still locked together, set against the silver light.

  “You need to stop talking now,” Chriani said. The blue eyes blinked once to mark a minimal nod of Tician’s head. Chriani let the blade drop. His hand was shaking. “Uissa’s contract to kill the Princess Lauresa would have plunged all the Ilmar into war. You don’t talk of saving lives.”

  Tician nodded again. She let her gaze slip back to the view outside the sphere. Her hands shifted to set the spaceless sanctuary rising once more, drifting through mage-light and green shadow. “The coins could change all that,” she said carefully. “You know their power. The means of sharing intelligence across whole armies. Soldiers bound by the magic of the past.”

  “The coins channel the shadow. They’ll have no power away from here.”

  “The coins can channel any power you wish to send through them,” Tician said. “We didn’t understand that when we found them, but we know it now, as we know their full potential. The Ilvani kept the coins here because of the natural power bound here. They knew what this place once was.”

  “Laneldenar and the Ilmar will raze the temple. If you were at the council, you know our goal.”

  “But the coins will endure, and in the hands of the Ilmar or Laneldenar, their power leads to the same end, warrior. And you know what that end will be.”

  The skein of shadow shimmered below them. Chriani looked down, saw a figure moving along a wide expanse of white, glimmering in the mage-light. He slipped the bloodblade back to his belt.

  “Take us down,” he said.

  Tician glanced down to follow his gaze, squinting. Her eyes would see only shadow, Chriani knew, but she shook her head just the same.

  “The magic of the well of shadow is too powerful. It bends the fabric of the world, just as this sanctuary does. It’ll destroy dweomer as easily as it destroyed your friend and the sentries he took with him. We’ll have to get closer on foot. If you’re with me, Chriani.”

  Below them, the shadow rippled again. It was the dark sorcerer, Chriani saw. Her hands were in motion around her, tracing out the lines of golden light that hung in the air for a long moment, then faded away.

  An understanding settled in Chriani’s mind.

  “If I join…” He felt the words catch in his throat, couldn’t speak them. “If I help you. How does this end?”

  The assassin smiled. Her hands shifted as the silver sphere rose. “With the coins in the hands of the only force in the Ilmar who can keep their power in check. Uissa doesn’t seek to rule, warrior. We simply want to be, and to carry on our craft and trade.”

  “Murder.”

  “Order,” the assassin said. “Intelligence. Knowledge that the rest of the Ilmar has long forgotten.”

  Chriani said nothing. He focused his thoughts, shook his head to clear it.

  “Think on it, warrior. Memory is the true threat of the coins. The confession drains away the past. A hole carved out in the mind, and the power of the cult threaded through that hole to hang all their supplicants like the coins on their chain.” A sense of earnestness was in Tician’s voice. A sense of careful persuasion. “Armies of Ilvani with any memory of morality stripp
ed from them. Armies of Ilmari who’ve forgotten how to fear death. Soldiers who remember every skirmish ever fought, who can recognize and name every enemy that any ally on their side has ever seen. Knowing every battle plan as soon as it’s uncovered.”

  “The blind agents,” Chriani said. As much as he wanted not to, he saw it exactly as the assassin meant him to. “Spies and assassins bound by the coins. Undetectable until the magic triggers in them.”

  “And the Ilmari will have a distinct advantage in that regard,” Tician said. “If you were thinking that your princes claiming the coins from the Ilvani would make a difference. The Valnirata have a short supply of Ilmari they could bind to their service. But the Ilmari have you, warrior, and plenty of others like you. Loyal Ilvani and half-bloods. You’ll be the first ones forced to your knees to take the rites. The memory of your lives lost so they can send you to the Greatwood, then wait as you fall into a life you never had. And they’ll know everything you see while they wait for whatever trigger turns your eyes to gold and forces you to kill everyone around you in their name.”

  “The coins are Ilvani magic. The Ilmari won’t be able to…”

  “The war-mages of your princes won’t let anything stand in the way of their understanding the coins’ magic. They’ll invade Crithnalerean for a start. They’ll tear the Ghostwood apart in search of its secrets.”

  All his life, Chriani had looked out to see a future in front of him that it seemed he would never touch. Then death and fate had pushed him forward to seize that future, unexpectedly. Had torn it from him just as fast. And in thinking on it, he understood that the assassin was right.

  He was gone from his own past, as if that past might have been a story told about someone else. No place for him among the Ilvani. No way back to the Ilmari. Everything lost and nowhere to look now but forward. Chart a new course. Draw his fate out from the tangle of torn threads that had been his life. And out of all that, what would he find? What would be left to him when everything else was gone?