Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  Cadel was most concerned about the timing of their climb, which, in turn, depended upon how the guards on that middle segment had decided to keep watch. If they were walking the wall together, they could be avoided with relative ease. If not, he and Jedrek faced a far more difficult task.

  Walking as quietly as they could through the tall grass that grew behind the houses, the two men soon reached the wall. It was made of rough stone, and it stood at least twelve fourspans high. Doing his best to remain in the shadows, Cadel looked up at the torchlit tower, trying to spot the guards. He heard them before he saw them. They were talking loudly, laughing about something, walking northward atop the wall. Cadel and Jedrek waited until the guards had gone past; then they began to climb.

  Over the course of their travels throughout the Forelands, Cadel and Jedrek had climbed rock faces in the Glyndwr Highlands, the Grey Hills of Wethyrn, and the Sanbiri Hills that would have appeared impossibly sheer to most people. Once, several years before, they had climbed a peak in the Basak Range of southern Aneira to arrange the death of an Aneiran noble who enjoyed hunting bear in the mountains. This wall, rough as it was, offered ample handholds and footholds. They climbed quickly, like lizards on a rock, and were soon within a few fourspans of the top of the wall.

  Hearing the guards again, Cadel raised a hand, indicating to Jedrek that they should stop.

  “ … Three bloody nights in a row,” one of them was saying, as they drew closer to where Cadel and Jedrek clung to the stones. “During the Revel, no less. There’s no justice in that.”

  “Captain doesn’t care much for justice. If he thought you’d give him your wage, he’d probably let you off. Me, I’ve been on the wall for two in a row. And it looks like I’ll be up here again tomorrow night.”

  “It’s the banquet that does it. That’s where the captain is. Him and his favorites. They’re filling their bellies with wine and mutton while …”

  Their voices were fading, as was the clicking of their boots on the stone path atop the wall. Cadel nodded once, and he Jedrek resumed their climb. As he reached for his next handhold, however, Cadel felt the stone beneath his right foot begin to give way. Grabbing desperately for anything that would hold him, he dug his fingers into the first stone he could find. Only to have it come away in his hand. The foothold under his right foot gave way, and as it did, his left foot slipped, leaving him hanging by his left hand. Small pieces of rock clattered down the face of the wall and into the grass below. Flailing with his feet, he quickly found new toeholds, but the damage had been done. The guards had stopped talking and were heading back in Cadel and Jedrek’s direction.

  Cadel looked at Jedrek, who was glaring at him as if had just shouted Jedrek’s name at the top of his voice. The guards had almost reached them. With Panya, the white moon, full and climbing into the sky behind them, they would be easy to spot against the dark stone. So Cadel did the only thing he could. He still clutched the stone in his right hand, and now, with the guards approaching, he heaved it with all his might, up into the night sky and over the wall to the other side. After several seconds he heard it land on the ground outside the city.

  The guards did, too. They stopped just above Jedrek and Cadel, but on the far side of the city wall.

  “What do you see?” one of them asked.

  “Not a bloody thing. With Panya as low as she is, it’s black as pitch down there.”

  “I’m sure I heard something.”

  “So did I. But I promise you, whatever we heard wasn’t human. No person I know could see in that kind of dark.”

  “You think it was wolves?”

  The other guard laughed. “Wolves? More likely it was rats from the river, or a fox from the wood.” He laughed again. “Wolves,” he repeated, as the guards began to walk away again.

  “Shouldn’t we tell the watch?”

  “Sure, we can tell the watch. We’ll tell them the city’s under siege from a pack of hedgehogs.”

  Cadel took a long breath and looked over at Jedrek again. His friend was grinning, his dark eyes shining in the moonlight. Cadel had to grin as well.

  When they could no longer hear the guards’ voices, they finished their climb, peering cautiously over the edge of the wall before swinging themselves onto the walkway, hurrying across, and beginning their descent on the other side. Without any further mishaps to slow them, they were on the ground again before Panya had risen high enough to illuminate the outside of the wall.

  “Where to now?” Jedrek whispered.

  “The Sanctuary of Kebb, by the river.”

  His friend smiled, and Cadel knew why. Kebb. God of beasts, god of the hunt.

  “How appropriate,” was all Jedrek said.

  The great hall of Thorald Castle shimmered with torch fire and candlelight. The smells of roasting meat, baking bread, and sweet wine filled the air. Dozens of long wooden tables, each piled with mutton and fowl, rich stews and dark breads, steamed greens and fresh fruits, and large flasks of light wine from the Thorald cellars, lined the walls of the enormous room. All of them were crowded with men, women, and children, whose voices and laughter blended into an incomprehensible din.

  The floor in the center of the chamber had been left open for the dancing that would follow the banquet, and just in front of the main table, which had been placed on a great dais, a group of musicians played.

  It was a scene that Filib had always loved. For as long as he could remember, the Revel banquet had been, along with his own naming day, and the Night of Two Moons in Bohdan’s Turn, one of the high points of each year.

  Somehow, though, this year was different. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he would soon be leaving Thorald. Maybe it was simply that he was growing up. Whatever the reason, it felt to Filib that this year’s feast had been going on for hours, though townspeople were still trickling into the hall to start their meal.

  It didn’t help that Renelle was here, sitting on the far side of the room, wearing the black dress he had given her, her fiery hair down around her shoulders the way he liked it. Occasionally their eyes would meet, and she’d give him that small, inscrutable smile that usually made his heart dance so.

  Your mother fears you’ve grown too attached to the girl. Filib wasn’t even sure what that meant. Too attached. How was that possible?

  She had been angry with him about the night before, just as he had feared. But she could never remain that way for long. After finding each other in the marketplace, they had stolen out of the city by way of thieves’ gate, circled around the outside of the castle and its famed double moat, and taken their hidden path to the riverbank. There, as they had so many times over the past year, they made love in the shade of the willows.

  Just before sundown, with the shadows deepening and the air turning cold, he left her there. But before he did, he promised her that they would be together tonight and, rashly, every night to follow. It was a foolish oath. Both of them knew it. But he would gladly have traded the entire kingdom for the smile it brought to her lips.

  He could still taste her skin, he could still feel her hands splayed against his back. Yet sitting at the front of the great hall, flanked by his mother and his uncle, he felt as though the distance between them had never been greater.

  I’ll be with her tonight, after I ride, he told himself.

  As if in answer, another voice—might it have been his father’s?—echoed in his mind. You’ll be king within the year.

  I can take her with me to the City of Kings.

  To what end? The two of you can never marry. The children she bears you will be bastards. And what of your wife? Are you ready to doom your marriage before you even meet the woman who will be your queen?

  All he wanted was to ride. To get out of this hall, this castle, this city.

  “Are you well, my lord?”

  He turned in his chair and saw the first minister, seated to his mother’s left, gazing at him, concern in her pale yellow eyes.

  “Yes, tha
nk you, Enid.”

  “Are you still planning to ride tonight, Filib?” his uncle asked.

  Filib felt his mother stiffen beside him.

  “Yes. As soon as the banquet ends.”

  “I think it’s a fine way to honor the duke’s memory. Don’t you agree, Nerine?” Tobbar winked at Filib, who responded with a grin.

  “I think the two of you have been plotting behind my back,” she replied, her expression severe. After a moment her face softened, and she allowed herself a smile. “I suppose there’s no harm in it.”

  “The rides are actually quite pleasant,” Filib said. “Perhaps you should come with me, and you can see for yourself.”

  His mother gave him a doubtful look. “I’ll enjoy the comfort of my chambers, thank you. I have no desire to go riding into the wood with nothing to light my way but the moons and the stars.”

  “A wise choice, my lady,” Enid said.

  A short while later, his uncle rose and offered the ritual tribute. As was custom, he honored each of the gods by name, citing the blessings they had brought in each of their turns during the previous year, and ending, of course, with Bohdan, god of laughter and patron of the Revel, for whom the year’s final turn was named. He then thanked Aurea Crenish and Yegor jal Sennah, the Eandi woman and Qirsi man who ran the Revel, and who were seated at the table of honor with Filib and the others.

  Once, when they first assumed leadership of the Revel, Aurea and Yegor’s marriage had been the topic of much discussion. To some, it had been an affront. Unions of Eandi men and Qirsi women were forbidden by law, because of the danger posed by childbirth to Qirsi women bearing Eandi offspring. The sin of the moons it was called, because Panya died giving birth to Ilias’s child. Unions between Eandi women and Qirsi men, on the other hand, were legal. But to those who believed that the races should remain separate—and there were many, not only in Eibithar, but throughout the Forelands—they were still offensive. Many of Eibithar’s dukes refused to allow Yegor and Aurea to attend the Revel banquets. To his credit, Filib’s father had not been one of them, and to their credit, Yegor and Aurea continued to take the Revel to each of Eibithar’s walled cities, regardless of how they themselves were treated. With time, their marriage came to be accepted, and the other dukes relented. Even now, however, Filib saw that many of the people attending the banquet here in Thorald craned their necks to get a better look at the couple. Many of them wore expressions of distaste.

  Finally, Tobbar ended his remarks by thanking all of their guests for coming to the banquet and sharing the celebration with the Thorald family.

  “Very well done, sire,” Enid said, as the duke lowered himself into his chair.

  “Thank you, Enid.” He glanced at Filib, a kind smile on his face. “If you’ve had your fill, you can go.”

  “So early?” Enid asked quickly.

  “I agree with the first minister,” Filib’s mother said, before Tobbar could say anything. “It’s too early yet. You needn’t stay to the very end, Filib, but I think it would be rude of you to leave now.”

  Tobbar shrugged, as if to say, Sorry, I tried.

  “Of course, Mother,” Filib said. “I was going to stay anyway. I’d like to have a dance or two with Renelle before I go.”

  His mother paled. “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. Have you seen how lovely she looks tonight?”

  She glared at him, her mouth set in a thin line. Tobbar snickered.

  “Just a short while longer,” she finally said, surrender in her voice. “Then you may leave.”

  Filib smiled. “Thank you, Mother.”

  Out of courtesy to his mother, Filib actually stayed a good bit longer, until most of their guests had finished eating and a few had begun to dance.

  Despite what he had said to the duchess, Filib never had any intention of dancing with Renelle. While many knew that they were lovers, such a public acknowledgment of their affair would have been deemed improper. Both of them knew it. As he left the hall, however, he did catch her eye, and they shared a smile.

  Stepping out of the hall into the central ward of the castle, Filib took a deep breath. He hadn’t realized just how warm it was inside until he felt the cool air on his skin. He could smell the brine of Amon’s Ocean and hear the music drifting up to the castle from the city.

  Though anxious to be on his mount, he walked slowly across the west ward to the stables, enjoying the quiet and the soft breeze. Panya shone down on him, stretching his shadow across the stone path and the grass beside it.

  Galdis, his grey, had already been saddled and was waiting for him just inside the stable.

  “He’s all ready, my lord,” the stableboy said, as Filib stepped inside and stroked the beast’s snout.

  Filib nodded. “Many thanks, Doran,” he said, tossing the lad a silver half.

  He led the horse outside and through the west gate of the castle before climbing into the saddle. On most nights he would have ridden through the city to the south gate, but with the streets choked with performers and peddlers, he chose instead to leave the city by way of the upper river gate. Once outside the walls, he rode south along the river before cutting east to the wood. It was the longer way, but with Panya’s glow shimmering on the river, it also proved to be the more pleasant. Before long he was in the North Wood, riding toward the sanctuary where his father had died.

  He had started his rides nearly five years before, on the night of Panya’s full in Bian’s Turn, just a turn after his father’s death. He had been in his thirteenth year then, awkward and unsure of himself. He had worshiped his father, and in the wake of the accident that claimed the duke’s life, he had felt as though the entire world were falling away beneath his feet. As the duke’s only child—Simm, his younger brother, had been taken by the pestilence as an infant—he was entitled to all of his father’s possessions. His sword and armor, his dagger and hunting bow, his saddle, and the lynx-fur wrap he had been wearing when he fell. Filib’s mother assured him that she would keep all of it for him, until he was old enough to use the weapons and wear the clothes. But Filib could not wait. Every item was like treasure to him, a small piece of his father’s life. On some level he believed that if he surrounded himself with enough of them, the pain of his loss would vanish, the wound on his heart would heal. Long before his father’s gold signet ring fit on his finger, Filib wore it on a chain around his neck. Every night for that first year, he would lie awake in his bed, staring at the seal on the ring as it glittered in the candlelight. The Golden Stallion, the Thorald crest. And he would talk to it as if it were his father, telling of the day’s events and how his mother was doing.

  Eventually, the pain did begin to recede, just as his mother and his uncle and everyone else had said it would. But the comfort he drew from his father’s belongings never diminished. Training with his father’s sword, he felt as though the duke were teaching him to fight. Hunting with his father’s bow, he felt as though the elder Filib were tracking boar and elk beside him. Sitting in his father’s saddle, he felt as though they were riding through the wood together.

  He rode slowly among the trees, moving in and out of the shadows cast by Panya’s white glow and the branches overhead. Night thrushes called to each other, their songs sifting through the limbs with the scent of fire blossom and the low gurgle of the river. An owl called in the distance and the breeze coaxed a gentle rustling from the leaves. just as Filib first glimpsed the sanctuary fires through the trees, another sound reached him, one that was utterly unexpected. Somewhere in the forest, not far, a man was singing.

  He wondered briefly if he was hearing a cleric at the sanctuary, but he soon realized that the sound was growing louder too quickly. The singer was traveling the wood, just as Filib was, and he was heading in Filib’s direction.

  After several moments, he recognized the tune. It was an old Caerissan folk song that one of his nurses had taught him when he was a child. Filib shouldn’t have been surprised. Eibi
thar’s Revel attracted performers, including singers, from all parts of the Forelands. With relations between Eibithar and her southern neighbor as cordial as they had ever been, many of those traveling with the Revel this year were from Caerisse.

  An instant later, the singer came into view. He was on foot, and illuminated as he was only by Panya’s silver light falling irregularly through the canopy of the wood, he was, at first, hard to see. He was tall and thin, with long limbs and broad shoulders. His dark hair fell to his shoulders, framing a pleasant bearded face. As he drew closer, Filib could see that his eyes were pale, although in the moonlight he could not tell if they were blue or grey.

  Mostly, though, Filib noticed the man’s voice, which was sweet and strong, like the golden wine served this night at the Revel banquet. It was higher than he would have expected for such a large man, though not so high as to sound unnatural. His notes floated through the wood as those of the thrushes had a short while before, as if they belonged there, as if they were as much a part of the forest as the river and the whispering wind. There was something almost haunting in the sound, and Filib shivered even as he and the man shared a smile and passed each other by.

  He rode on, still not hurrying, listening as the singer’s voice receded like an ocean wave. The sanctuary fires appeared brighter now, though the stone walls, bathed in moonlight, were still a good distance off. The owl hooted again, closer this time.

  Abruptly, Filib realized that the singing had stopped. He glanced behind him, but could see nothing for the trees and the darkness.

  Facing forward again, he saw a man standing in the forest path before him. He was slightly smaller than the singer, though not by much. His hair was shorter, dark and unruly. And his eyes appeared black in the forest shadows.