Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series)

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Get out,” the Prince said to him.

  The Black Robe looked at the King. The King spoke sharply in his native tongue. Black Robe responded, gesturing at Jewel. The King repeated a phrase twice before the Black Robe bowed once and left.

  As the door opened, the guards outside peered in. The Black Robe pushed past them. Then the door slammed shut.

  “Your customs are very strange,” she said in Nye. Silence’s grip on her was still tight. “Is such disobedience common?”

  “This entire day has been uncommon,” the King said. “And I would not be seeing you now if the Danite hadn’t come to let me know that over most of the city your people are dying. Your invasion is failing.”

  Silence’s fingers dug into her shoulders. She wanted to pull away but couldn’t. She couldn’t take their word for it, but since the arrival nothing had gone as planned. Still, they didn’t know about Silence.

  “If we are failing,” she said, “then why do you need me?”

  “Because,” the King said, “I do not believe defeating the Fey could be so easy.” He ran a hand through his thick hair. “Milord, take her to the dungeons and put a guard on her that you can trust. I don’t want to come down there to discover another zealot has been there before me.”

  “I will go with her,” the Prince said.

  “No,” the King said. “You will stay with me.”

  Jewel swallowed hard, unable to believe her luck. Would she and Silence get a chance to be alone? It would be almost too easy.

  “Lord Powell doesn’t know the guards,” Stephen said. “I will accompany them and return within a few minutes. Besides, I want to see this defeat for myself.”

  “I can handle her,” Silence said.

  Stephen smiled. “You would probably abandon her at the first sign of trouble. Do I have your permission, Sire?”

  The King nodded. He spoke to them briefly in their own language. Jewel wished her arms had not gone dead. Silence could knock the old man unconscious and free her; then she could rejoin the others. It would be simple.

  She hoped.

  THIRTY

  The sun was setting. The sky over the Cardidas was blood-red. Long shadows hid the Rocaan on his balcony. He felt empty, hollow. Below, bodies littered the courtyard like discarded waste. The stench was so thick, he could almost touch it. Rot and burned flesh. From forever forward he would recognize it as the smell of anguish.

  Matthias was inside, supervising the last of the holy water they would make that day. Vials and vials of the water went out the doors on trays, as if every person on Blue Isle had come to Midnight Sacrament and needed a Blessing at the same time.

  As far as the Rocaan could see, the fighting had stilled. Lights flickered in the harbor, but the ships were gone. He had been staring into the twilight so long, he thought he saw an occasional Fey disappear over the waters of the Cardidas. Perhaps he was watching souls take flight.

  Ah, Holy One. The Rocaan leaned his head back. He could not believe that God would sanction such destruction.

  The stench touched him, seeped into his own body. He would never wash it clean. If only the confusion hadn’t been so great, if only he had been able to consult with Elders other than Matthias. Matthias had never believed. Matthias used his brain to justify everything.

  Matthias was terrified of the Fey.

  The Rocaan’s entire being ached—the joints in his hands and wrists and elbows, his shoulders and his back—all from the work he had engaged in during the afternoon.

  He couldn’t blame Matthias for all the destruction. Matthias, even though he had helped with the holy water, had not made the decision. The Rocaan had.

  He had no idea how many were dead. He had counted almost a hundred bodies on the ground below him.

  The lights flickered again over the harbor. Five Fey stood on the pier and then disappeared. The sounds of fighting were gone. Now the city was filled with the moans of the survivors. Oh, if he could only go back to the day before, when his greatest concerns had been his aging body and the unceasing rain. He had never believed that an entire world could disappear within the space of a day, but it had, and it had taken his life with it.

  What crime would it be to take his body as well?

  A man must live with his own actions. For it is on how he learns from his mistakes that he will be judged.

  A man should not be allowed to make such dire mistakes in the twilight of his existence. Nothing in the Rocaan’s life had prepared him for this. Nothing. It was a choice no sane God would allow: choose between killing hundreds of Fey and hundreds of Islanders. Of course the Rocaan would choose his own people.

  But what if this was a test, a test like the one the Roca had faced just before his death? The story was as familiar as the pain the Rocaan felt when he woke every morning. The Roca, when asked to choose between leading his people into a battle they could not win, or slaughtering the Soldiers of the Enemy, decided instead to offer himself as a sacrifice.

  The Words Written and Unwritten were clear on the sacrifice itself, on how the Roca died and was Absorbed into the Hand of God. But the Words were silent on the fate of the Roca’s people, and on what became of the Soldiers of the Enemy.

  Until this moment the Rocaan had always been caught in the ritual and ceremony surrounding the miracle. He had never thought of the human consequences. The canonical law did not say if the Roca was successful in finding a third alternative to the crisis facing his people. Instead, it focused on the fact that the Roca, holy being, had found a place before the Eternal Flame, cupped in God’s hand, able to do God’s bidding from that moment forward.

  But what was God’s bidding? And how was a Rocaan, the Roca’s emissary to the world, able to know?

  “You need a lamp.”

  Matthias’s voice made the Rocaan start.

  “I prefer the darkness,” the Rocaan said. “It hides the truth of the day.”

  Matthias stepped onto the balcony, the open door leaving a triangle of light on the floor. His blond hair was mussed, his face drawn. “At least we survived,” he said.

  “But at what cost?” the Rocaan asked. He stretched out his legs in front of him, feeling the strain of the overworked muscles.

  Matthias sank into the chair beside the Rocaan. For a moment the odor of Matthias’s nervous sweat overpowered the stench of death. “We had no choice, Holy Sir.”

  “We did not think of other choices,” the Rocaan said. “We followed blindly the path laid before us. Perhaps I should have given myself to them, as the Roca did so many generations ago.”

  “And then what?” Matthias said. “They would have slaughtered you, and no one would have been able to save us.”

  “I am not a savior,” the Rocaan said. “I am a purveyor of destruction.” He stood, ignoring the shooting pains in his back and feet, walked to the edge of the balcony, and leaned on the railing. The lights continued to flicker in the harbor.

  “The Roca knew he was Beloved of God,” Matthias said.

  “The Rocaan is also supposed to be Beloved,” the Rocaan said. The wood was still damp beneath his arms. “And you forget that there were people involved in that story, too, and Soldiers of the Enemy. You are a great scholar, Matthias. What became of the people the Roca swore to defend? What became of the enemy?”

  “‘The enemy is always with us, within ourselves.’ ”

  “I can quote the Words Written and Unwritten. They say nothing on these points. What of the history?”

  “The history?” Matthias sounded confused.

  The lights continued, nearly a dozen of them, circling the same point. “Yes. We study the Roca. We believe he was a man. We use the Words as a guide, but we know nothing of the human truth.” The Rocaan gripped the wet wood. “It did not matter until now. I had never even thought of it until this moment.”

  “There is historical precedent for what we did today,” Matthias said. “The Forty-fifth Rocaan, the Twenty-third—”

  “May all ha
ve missed what the Holy One was trying to tell them. Perhaps it is the duty of a Rocaan to sacrifice himself for his people every few generations. Perhaps it is a test of faith, of the religion itself. Perhaps, in failing to do our duty, we have destroyed the very foundation of our belief.”

  The chair creaked behind him as Matthias stood. He came to the railing and stood beside the Rocaan. Matthias’s height prevented him from leaning on the railing. He put his hands behind his back and stared over the carnage to the river. “You speak of things we cannot know,” he said softly. “The Fey would have killed you. That much is certain.”

  “And perhaps I was to be Absorbed into the Hand of God. Perhaps that is the duty of the Rocaan. Not leadership in this world, but in the next.”

  “There is nothing about that in the Words Written and Unwritten.”

  “The Words are full of such admonitions,” the Rocaan said, “about the Roca himself. Tell me, Matthias. Who are the Soldiers of the Enemy? We do not know. Such a general name. Perhaps they were Cemeni and the other leaders of the Peasant Uprising. Perhaps the Forty-fifth Rocaan failed to follow the model set by the Roca. Perhaps we have new Soldiers of the Enemy here now, and perhaps I have failed.”

  “I think God never makes easy choices,” Matthias said.

  “And I think that is an easy answer for a complex problem.” The Rocaan let exhaustion fill him. “I cannot stand more of this day. I am going to my chambers.”

  “Wait.” Matthias put a hand on the Rocaan’s shoulder. “What are those lights?”

  “They have been flickering all evening.”

  “I thought I just saw someone disappear into them.”

  The Rocaan patted Matthias’s hand. “I think they are Fey souls meeting their own version of God.”

  “Or a new style of Fey magick that we are unfamiliar with. What happened to the ships, Holy Sir? Ships like that do not disappear from our harbors, and yet our people couldn’t trace them.”

  The Rocaan felt an odd chill mixed with an even odder hope. If the Fey weren’t dead, then he had another chance to serve his own God. He looked at the dark courtyard below, as if he could see the bodies rising whole and strong. “What do you think it is?” he whispered.

  Matthias shook his head. “I do not know,” he said. “But I promise you an answer by morning.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  The Shadowlands leached the ships of color. Rugar stood on the deck of the Feire, watching as more and more of his people staggered into the Shadowlands, bloody, beaten, and terrified. In all of their history the Fey had never encountered someone with more power than they had.

  His clothes smelled of mud and the odd rot that had set in on the bodies near the port. Since he’d entered, he had made the entrance circle near the dock wider and ringed it with newly made Fey Lamps. He had one Foot Soldier outside, changing the lamps as their powers faded. Already a hundred Fey had entered the Shadowlands. He wanted to make sure all the other survivors did too.

  He had not seen Jewel, even though he searched for her. He hoped she had gone to her quarters on the Eccrasia, but he had not yet had a chance to search.

  “Sir, another!” a Weather Sprite called to him from her position near the prow of the ship. He stiffened. This Shadowlands had been a creation of haste and confidence, meant to house ships and perhaps fifty of the invading force. The strain on his creation was showing. Corners were breaking, sending bits of light and glimpses of the ships to anyone who was observing. He was glad for the dark. Otherwise, the Islanders would find them.

  He tugged at his caked clothing, wishing for a moment—just one moment—to search out his missing daughter and to bathe himself. But he was the only one who could repair the Shadowlands. He crossed the deck, his footsteps echoing in the hollow nothingness that made up the Shadowlands. Soldiers, unwilling to go into the darkness belowdecks, crouched against the railings, leaning against each other for comfort. He nodded to them, trying to reassure them, faking a confidence he didn’t feel.

  This failure had caught him off guard. He had prepared himself for a quick battle, and a quick victory. Another mistake. If he had known that the invasion would become a long, drawn-out series of attacks, he would have slept more. He would have prepared himself for the strain on his own resources.

  As it were, he would have to work with the Spell Warders on finding a counterspell to the Islanders’ magick poison. He would also have to keep repairing the Shadowlands while his scouts looked for a new opening. Then he would have to create another Shadowlands, a firmer one that would withstand the presence of his entire fighting force. No one had built a Shadowlands like that since the Black Queen at the battle of Ycyno two centuries before. He only hoped he had the strength.

  The Weather Sprite stood near the railing at the edge of the prow. He pointed to the hole in the Shadowlands, but he didn’t need to. The sound of water lapping against the dock was clear, as was the cool breeze, filled with the scent of death. He peered at it and saw that it faced the far side of the river, near the ghastly palacelike religious building where the destruction had started.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I can tend to it now.”

  But he stood for a moment, gazing through the hole at the crispness and clarity of the real world. He didn’t relish living in a Shadowlands, not even for a few days. Its grayness was depressing; it dampened the spirits instead of raising them.

  Then he reached up and gripped the soft edges of the Shadow with his fingers. He closed his eyes and, with his Vision, closed the hole, made a seam, and willed the seam away. When he opened his eyes again, the hole was gone. Only grayness faced him. A never-ending grayness.

  And silence. That disturbed him the most. None of the soldiers talked as they returned. They found a place to collapse and remained there, nearly motionless.

  The Fey had lost battles before, but this was different. In the past the enemy had had greater numbers—as this one did—but those numbers had been trained. The enemy had also had more advanced weapons. The advantages had always been in the physical world, not in the magickal one. The Fey had been seduced into thinking they were the only ones who had conquered that realm. The shock of discovering the truth, and the horridness of the deaths visited on them, affected him profoundly—yet he was the one who had to revive their spirits.

  He hurried along the deck until he reached the connecting bridge built especially to link ships hidden in Shadowlands. Nothing natural occurred in the Shadowlands—no water, no ground, nothing except air that a Visionary poured into the hiding place. The walls of the Shadowlands were porous, an invention of an early Black King, and allowed the air to filter through. Nothing else did filter through, not even sound, which made the Shadowlands dangerous to leave.

  Since this was a simple Shadowlands, the walls were tight and spare. As he crossed the bridge, Rugar could feel the damp coldness brushing against him. The next Shadowlands he built—the one built for a longer fight—would not have this design flaw.

  He crossed quickly and stepped onto the bridge of the flagship, the Eccrasia. Here the soldiers conversed in low voices. He heard only snatches:

  “. . . black robes . . .”

  “. . . never would have believed that something so ungainly . . .”

  “. . . on horses . . .”

  “. . . entire room full of bodies . . .”

  “. . . no faces . . .”

  “. . . most still alive . . .”

  He had seen the destruction himself. The thought of identifying the dead filled him with a different anguish. And he couldn’t get his father’s words out of his head.

  No one has conquered Blue Isle before.

  And his own cocky response: No one has tried.

  But he had checked only Fey and Nye records. Perhaps Blue Isle had been attacked from Leut, even though it was farther away. He had thought Leut had no real history of trade or warfare this far north from its land mass, but he had not checked. Perhaps all that he had known about Blue Isle was wrong. I
t certainly seemed that way after this morning.

  On the way to his own cabin, he stopped at Jewel’s and knocked. The portal was dim, and he heard nothing inside. “Jewel,” he said softly.

  No one answered.

  When he came back from his cabin, he would open the door and see if she was resting inside. But he doubted it. She was always at his side during a crisis.

  He put his hand against the door and leaned his forehead against his knuckles. If she was dead, he would never forgive himself. Jewel, the brightest of all his children. But he had seen her, walking through the Islander palace as if she owned it.

  She couldn’t die.

  He would have known.

  He tried the door. It opened easily, and he stepped into the darkness. He lit the lantern she had stored in the traditional place beside the door, finding it odd that the thing did not sway as it would have if the ship had been resting in water.

  The cabin was small—and empty. The cot still bore the indentation of Jewel’s body, and a nightdress lay across the mattress as if she had expected to use it later.

  He sat on the edge of the cot. She could be a hundred places—with the wounded in the hold of the Feire or working with the Warders herself. She might even still be outside, helping the rest of the stragglers to Shadowlands.

  Next time—next time after a campaign—he would ask her to come to him first so that he wouldn’t worry about her, so that he could fight with a clear mind. This was the reason the Black King’s advisers had suggested that family members not fight in the same unit. But no one had listened because Fey tradition called for family to remain together.

  It was not like him to worry like this.

  Perhaps this rout was just a test, and a reminder of his own arrogance. The Black King’s son, the best commander in the entire Fey military, suffering a defeat at the hands of nonwarriors. Far enough away, though, that the majority of the Fey people, and his own children (except for Jewel), would not need to know of it if he turned this victory around.