Godspeaker

by Tessa Crowley

  I rose from my bed and found myself unsteady on my feet. It might have been from hunger – I hadn’t eaten much the day before – but more likely, it was from fear.

  I padded barefoot out of my room and down the hallway, clutching the nightlily to my chest. The house was quiet, but from below me I could hear soft, muted voices. I followed the sound down the steps, and they became clearer and sharper.

  “… would think that he’d be glad – proud, even.” I recognized the voice as Mother’s.

  “You’d think so,” answered a voice I knew to be Perenor’s, “but you’d be wrong. Scholar Jeron is quite a purist about these things.”

  “Surely he could set that aside and help his own acolyte prepare for the Queensday Tournaments.” It was my father this time.

  I saw them through the sheer drape of silk that separated the atrium from the salon. Perenor was standing by the window, my mother and father seated on the whicker settee, and my grandmother perched on the armchair by the unlit hearth.

  “He doesn’t like the whole concept of combat Craft,” Perenor said. “He thinks it an undignified and improper use of the gift. Besides, I’m confident in my own abilities; I don’t need my master’s hand to hold.”

  “You won’t be competing against other acolytes, Perenor,” my mother reminded him. “These are the greatest fighters from across Andelan.”

  Before Perenor could answer, I ducked under the silk curtain. The conversation abruptly stuttered to a stop, and remained silent for several unbearable seconds.

  My mother was the first to break it: “Silas,” she said, sounding surprised. “Your grandmother said…”

  “Well, well, well,” interjected Grandmother on cue. “He returns after all. I trust you’re done throwing your little temper tantrum.”

  The words curled low in my belly, boiling in a volatile mixture of shame and anger. I wanted to make her eat her words, but when I tried to start the story of last night’s events, they caught in my throat.

  “I…” I swallowed. “I-I…”

  My stutter was always worse when I was nervous, and I didn’t realize just how nervous I was until I was at the edge of saying what I needed to say. The words were stuck in my throat, and I hated myself for it. This was so important, so unbelievably important; I had to say it, why couldn’t I just say it?

  “Where did you go?” Perenor asked, though by his tone he scarcely seemed interested. “Swan off with that noble girl?”

  “I-I… I…”

  “Oh, for Sol’s sake,” my grandmother sighed, and my throat tightened even further. Just say it, I chanted to myself, just say it, you have to say it.

  “Can’t be that important if he can’t get the words out,” Perenor said, and he turned back to our parents. “I know the competition will be harsher, but that’s rather the point of the qualifying rounds.”

  It was infuriating. It was always infuriating, but now a thousand times more. I took several deep breaths, because I had to say it, just say it, Silas, you have to say it.

  “I have nothing but confidence in your abilities, Perenor,” Father said, smiling in a way he’d never smiled for me. “My son will be the youngest Queensday Champion in history.”

  Say it, say it, say it, say it, say it.

  “I…”

  “I just hope it remains a hobby,” Grandmother intoned. “We certainly can’t have you making a career out of it. A scion of House Olen needs his focus to be on matters of the state.”

  Were they not even paying attention? Why wouldn’t they just listen?

  I gripped my nightlily tighter, furious, exasperated. Why couldn’t I just speak clearly for one instant, for one sentence?

  “G-g-g-g—”

  “I’d much rather become a scholar of Craft than a diplomat,” said Perenor with a frown.

  If I could just get the word out, I told myself, if I could just manage the one word, perhaps the rest would tumble out with it.

  “G-g-g-g-g—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Perenor,” Grandmother said. They weren’t even pretending to care about me, standing there and stuttering like a fool. “Craft is a splendid hobby, but don’t entertain the idea that you can build your life around it. Your place is on the Queenscourt, with your mother and—”

  “Godspeaker.”

  The word was victory on my tongue. The conversation, once again, abruptly stopped. They all looked back at me, and I swallowed what was left of my fear.

  “G-Godspeaker,” I said again, more sedately. “I-I-I am Umbrion’s G-Godspeaker.”

  And then, further silence. I watched their faces. They seemed astonished, staring at me as though I’d grown an extra head right before their eyes.

  “L-l-last night,” I began, my breath and my words blessedly steadier, “I w-w-went down to the b-b-bluff, and he c-c-came to me as a s-s-specter.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Grandmother’s voice was quiet, drawn.

  “He n-n-named me his G-G-Godspeaker,” I said, coming forward. “He g-g-g-gave me…”

  I held out the black nightlily to my grandmother. For a time, all she did was stare at it.

  “A nightlily?”

  “His f-f-f-favored flower.”

  “I know what the Night Father’s favored flower is,” she said lowly. “I also know that we grow them in the back garden.”

  She ripped the flower from my hands. Startled, I took several steps back. She vaulted from her chair and loomed down over me.

  “I will not have my grandson speaking heresy in my house.”

  I reeled back a step further. “H-h-heresy?”

  “Godspeakers, Silas,” she snarled, advancing, and I stumbled away in equal pace, “are Andels of strength and grace and virtue. They are not secondborn recluses with stutters.”

  “G-g-grandmother—!”

  “Is this about your brother?” she demanded. “Are you jealous? He succeeds where you fail in every dimension, and the night I tell you you’re to be married out of the family, the night your brother graduates as a sorcerer and enrolls in the Queensday Tournaments, you vanish and come back with this ridiculous, heretical lie?”

  “I’m n-n-n-n-not lying!”

  “Why would the Night Father speak through you, Silas?” she bellowed. “You can barely speak at all!”

  In my life, I’ve endured quite a lot of cruelty, dismissal. But to hear something so profoundly cold from my own grandmother felt like a physical blow. I wanted to challenge her, I did, but all I could do was stare at her and ache. I was so unworthy in her eyes that the mere idea of my life having greater meaning rose anger in her.

  “I have looked up on his face, child!” she roared, waving the nightlily in wild gesticulation. “I was there at the Manifest and I heard his voice! He would never grace his presence on a foolish, jealous, useless boy – I have half a mind to force you down to Umbrion’s temple and make you pray for his mercy—!”

  “Mother, please!”

  “Talk some sense into him, Viera!”

  Mother had risen to her feet at some point; I had been so transfixed on my grandmother’s theatrics that I had not even noticed. I stared at her retreating form. The shaking began in my fingertips and climbed like spiders up my arms. Perenor, behind her, ducked down and plucked the nightlily up from where it had fallen on the floor.

  “Silas,” Mother said, suddenly in front of me with her hand on my face, “is it not possible that you dreamt this encounter? You’ve always had such vivid dreams.”

  I slapped her wrist away. Her comfort was salt in my wounds. My eyes burned with a dark combination of incredible sadness and black rage.

  “I apologize for s-s-s-so insulting y-your sensibilities w-w-w-with the t-truth,” I hissed. “I’ll b-b-burden you no f-further.”

  “Silas!”

  I stormed from the room, and as I made my way to the door, I heard my father say, “Let him go. Whatever the truth is, I don’t think it would do to follow him.”

  There was a
great deal of comfort, I found, in this new sense I had – this perpetual awareness of Umbrion’s existence. It was as though there was an ocean in the corner of my mind, soft and cool and temperate, and anytime I felt frayed or frightened, I could sink into it.

  It did not erase pain, but it did ease it. I could immerse my consciousness into an all-encompassing calmness, and I wondered how I had ever gone without.

  “Godspeaker,” Soya said, for what must have been the fifth time since the conversation began. “You’re sure?”

  The question was starting to grate my nerves.

  “Yes,” I hissed. “F-f-for Sol’s sake, y-y-yes, Soya, I’m s-sure.”

  She leaned back in her chair, its weathered wood groaning in answer. The Blue Star Tavern was not an upscale establishment by any stretch of the imagination and likely couldn’t afford anything better than old, creaky furniture. But then, we weren’t patronizing it for its quality, rather for its reliable emptiness.

  “It’s just…” She hesitated. “It seems…”

  “Y-y-y-you don’t b-believe me.”

  “Look, Silas, you’ve got a lot of virtues—”

  I groaned and fell forward over the table. This was unbearable. My family didn’t believe me, my friend didn’t believe me. And how could I prove it to them? I couldn’t let them into my mind. What if the Queen herself called me liar?

  “Silas, let me finish! You’ve got a lot of virtues! You’re smarter than you have any right to be and you’re funny and sweet, but those aren’t the qualities of a Godspeaker.”

  “Oh, b-b-because you’ve m-met so many!”

  “You’re not the only one between us who reads!” she said defensively. “They write poems about Godspeakers for a reason, you know.”

  “If you th-th-think I don’t know how w-w-wildly unqualified I am for this, S-Soya, you’ve lost your mind,” I said.

  “Godspeakers are more… they’re more…”

  “N-n-not me.”

  Soya sighed. “I wasn’t going to say it like that, but yes,” she said. “Godspeakers aren’t people like you, Si.”

  “L-l-l-look,” I said, “I kn-kn-know it sounds impossible, b-but I’m n-n-not lying and it w-w-wasn’t a dream. I c-c-can feel him, Soya, in m-m-m-my head, I can f-feel him.”

  The admission caught her attention, and she sat up a little straighter. “Right now?”

  “Y-y-yes. Right n-now, in m-m-my head.”

  “Is he talking to you?”

  I shook my head. “N-no, n-n-not talking, j-just – I can j-j-just feel him, it’s hard t-t-t-to explain.”

  She sat back again. She was looking at me with a peculiar sort of intensify, as if trying to find the answer to her questions hidden in the lines of my face.

  “M-m-my family d-doesn’t b-b-believe me, either,” I said. “I d-d-don’t know wh-what to do. A g-g-g-god has ordered me to s-spread the w-w-word that n-no one believes.”

  She sighed then, looked away, drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

  “You could try the vizier,” she said, after a lapse of silence.

  I frowned. “The Q-Q-Queen’s? C-can you get m-m-me in to-to talk to him?”

  “I barely know him,” she answered. “I’m not on the Queenscourt yet, much to my father’s chagrin.”

  The only other people I knew who could give me audience with the Queen’s vizier were my mother and grandmother, and, “Th-there’s no w-w-w-way my f-family would help. Not after G-G-Grandmother’s theatrics this m-m-morning.”

  “He’s going to serving as judge for the qualifying rounds of the Queensday Tournaments the day after next,” she said. “Perhaps you could pull him aside.”

  “M-m-maybe.” I scraped the heels of my palms across my eyes. “N-n-not that it will m-m-matter, if he r-reacts like everyone else.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I looked out the dirt-streaked window onto the alley. It would be sunset soon. I patted myself down, wondering if I had enough coin for one of the Blue Star Tavern’s sub-par ales.

  “What’s it like?” Soya asked suddenly.

  “Wh-what?”

  She gave me her best don’t be thick, Silas look. “Having a god in your head, stupid.”

  “Oh.” I thought about it for a while. “It’s all right, I g-g-guess.”

  The answer didn’t seem to impress her. “It’s ‘all right?’”

  “It’s n-n-nice,” I continued. I wasn’t really sure how to describe it. “C-calm. Sort of l-l-like ocean and s-s-starlight.”

  “I thought Umbrion just didn’t want a Godspeaker,” she said. I finally managed to fish the coins from my tunic pocket. “I mean, he’s had ten thousand seasons to pick someone. Why now?”

  “B-b-b-beats the fuck out of me,” I answered, which was true. “Ale? I’m b-b-buying.” I slid the coins across the table.

  “Ale, please!” Soya called, and the bartender across the room grunted back at her. “Maybe you can ask him why. He’s in your head now.”

  “I’m p-p-pretty sure it d-doesn’t work l-l-like that,” I muttered. “B-besides, I c-c-couldn’t even speak to him when he m-m-manifested, I was s-s-so scared.”

  Soya released a sudden, startled laugh. “Sol’s Light,” she said, “of course you couldn’t. Gods, that had to be embarrassing.”

  As I recalled, I was a bit too busy being terrified to be embarrassed. “C-c-can I s-stay at your place t-t-tonight?” I asked. “I l-l-loathe the idea of g-g-g-going b-back home.”

  Soya smiled. “You’re always welcome, Godspeaker or not,” she said, and I smiled back at her. She was more relaxed, but I knew her well enough to know that she still couldn’t quite believe me. And that knowledge did upset me, but at the very least it didn’t surprise me. Apparently the mere idea that I was chosen for a position of such import was entirely unbelievable.

  And for a moment, I entertained the notion that perhaps my mother had been right. Perhaps it had been a dream. An extremely strange, incredibly vivid dream. But then, that vast, calm, cool ocean was still there in the corner of my mind, and it left no room for doubt.

  In the days since the arrival of Greatmother Amira, Godspeaker to Sol, Ellorian had become steadily and increasingly crowded. The inns filled up first, then the tents started springing up around the grounds outside the city walls. It was as though the Queensday Tournaments had drawn the whole of Andelan to the city’s gates, and everyone in the capitol was feeling its effects.

  For my part, I tried to bide my time and avoid the crowds. I slept in Soya’s spare bedroom, in the house her father rented for her, and spent most of my days going through piles of scrolls in the Capitol Library. It had occurred to me that we knew so very little about Umbrion (due in large part, my mind supplied mirthfully, to the fact that he did not have a Godspeaker), and it seemed like good sense to find out as much as I could.

  There wasn’t much information to be found. He had temples, of course, and a small number of priests and devotees, and was often prayed to for the interpretation of dreams – but there was hardly a wealth of knowledge to be found compared to those of his siblings and mother.

  I would have dove into some of the more obscure texts, or even taken the day-long journey to his temple outside Ellorian, but for the fact that I simply didn’t have time. Two days later, the qualifying rounds of the Queensday Tournaments were underway, and I woke up early to go down to the arena and find the Queen’s vizier.

  The Capitol Arena, or the Queen’s Ring, as it was known to locals, was a great circular building in the northern district – three stories of sandstone arches, open to the air, strung with the blue-and-silver banners emblazoned with the Royal Crest. Though the qualifying rounds were not, strictly speaking, open to the public, that didn’t seem to stop anyone. Nearly three thousand people had come out and were flooding through the wide arena doors to find a seat and watch.

  Five days ago, going anywhere near such a crowd would have had me nauseous from fear. But now I had Umbrion’s ocean in my mind, and I found that it
was not only possible, but relatively painless. I still felt the little tremors and flutters of nervousness in my chest as I came upon the massive crowd surrounding the building, but it was more residual than it was active. The vast coolness of the Night Father seemed to wash away all my anxiety.

  My objectives were twofold: first, find the vizier and talk to him. Second, avoid Perenor at all costs.

  As it turned out, avoiding my brother proved rather simple, because as soon as I came through to the arena floor, he announced his presence with a sudden clap of thunder.

  I had to admit, despite my reluctance to do so, that he did look very impressive in his combat leathers with his long, runed staff. He was sparring with an equally impressive-looking woman in combat leathers of her own, who had instead of a staff a fearsome pike with runes carved along its shaft.

  Of course, I use the term “sparring” loosely, and anyone who’s seen any demonstration of combat Craft will know why.

  He came into my line of sight just as he was spinning on his heel, thrusting his staff out toward his partner, and CRACK, blue-white lightning came rocketing out toward her, which she deflected a blazing white shield. Then she countered with a downward thrust of her pike into the ground, and BOOM, the living rock buckled and broke under Perenor’s feet. He rolled out of its path and CRASH, with a swing of his staff, a burst of red light.

  It was actually quite awe-inspiring, to my aggravation, and I dutifully set to ignoring it entirely, making a wide circle around the duel and moving further towards the center of the Ring.

  Past all the sparring partners and hopefuls, there was a large, cleared-out area with a few official-looking tables. Two people were dueling in the very center of the arena, and I noticed a man in rich silks looking on as a page took notes beside him. A golden brooch pinned to his tunic flashed in the sunlight – the Royal Crest. It could only have been the vizier.