At that point, the question became which was the best way to approach him. He seemed quite busy – would he be upset if I interrupted? Should I wait until the next pair came forward?
Before I could come up with my plan of attack, a large hand clapped on my back, and I nearly fell over from the force of it.
“I suppose I can add this to a list of things I never thought I’d say,” said an all-too-familiar voice. “My brother, out in public!”
I grit my teeth. My plan of avoiding him had been going so well.
“N-n-n-not n-now, Perenor.”
“What is it you’re doing here, if I may ask?”
“You m-m-may not ask,” I answered shortly.
He sneered at me, thumped the end of his staff against the dusty arena floor. “You’re always so clever, aren’t you?”
“C-c-c-cleverer than y-you.”
He rolled his eyes and reached for a flask of water on his hip. As he emptied the contents liberally over his sweat-streaked hair, there came a large, collective sigh from the side of the arena. I followed the sound to a section of seats in the lowest row of the arena, from a group huddled against the balustrade.
“G-go easy on the w-w-water,” I said. “Your f-f-fan club is going to w-wet themselves.”
That was just the sort of effect Perenor had on people, ever since he’d reached young adulthood. When he did not make friends, he made fans, all of them swooning and sighing at his every motion. I’d always wondered why he’d never courted anyone – he certainly would have had his pick.
Perenor flinched and glanced black at them, which turned out to be a mistake, because the moment they saw him look, they all stared giggling and waving enthusiastically. Many were young, but there were more than a few that were old enough to know better.
“Don’t engage them,” he said sharply, grabbing me by the arm and turning me away from them. I jerked out of his grip.
“I have n-n-no business w-with you,” I said.
“I disagree,” he answered. “What is it you’ve come here to do?”
“That’s n-n-not your c-concern.”
Perenor glared at me and I glared right back at him. Ours was an old enmity, but at least it was comfortably familiar.
“You’re here for the vizier, aren’t you?”
“Perenor of House Olen!”
At some point, the duel in the center of the arena had ended and the combatants cleared from the ring. A large Ansu woman was leaving victorious, by the way her opponent was limping away.
“You still claim to be Godspeaker to Umbrion?” Perenor asked me.
“Wh-wh-why would I l-l-lie?” I asked. “M-more to the p-p-point, how c-c-could I ever get aw-w-way with it?”
Perenor’s eyes searched mine a moment. “That’s what I’ve been wondering,” he said after a moment. “That nightlily you presented to grandmother…”
“Perenor of House Olen?” The crier on the far side of the ring was scanning the crowd for him, but Perenor hadn’t looked away from me.
“Wh-wh-wh-what about it?”
“It’s black,” he said.
I drew no meaning from his words. It must have been obvious on my face.
“Grandmother accused you of taking it from the back garden,” he said. “But the nightlilies in our garden are blue.”
I set my face. “Th-th-then I m-must not have g-g-gotten it from the g-garden.”
“Perenor – is Perenor of House Olen present?”
“You sh-should go b-b-before you name is s-skipped,” I said.
Perenor glanced over his shoulder, then back to me. “Whatever it is you’re planning to do,” he said, “try to do it without embarrassing our family.”
With that, he jogged off. I glared at his retreating form. He came into the ring to the sound of vociferous cheering from his fan club. His opponent was a spry, muscular woman with short-cropped hair and a strong jaw. She greeted Perenor with a firm, businesslike grip to his forearm, which he returned. The referee gave a nod to the man who I could only imagine was the vizier, and the duel began.
In another situation, I would have been keen to watch, but at that particular moment I hated him a little too much. I moved around the ring as they fought, ignoring the great cracks and clatters of Craft, and up to the dais.
Now that I was closer, I could see the vizier with more clarity. The lines of his face were sharp and straight, making him look slightly birdlike, and he was watching the duel with an intensity that he hadn’t had for the one before.
“… look at him fight,” I heard him mutter to his page, who was scribbling notes furiously. “I hardly believed the rumors, but there it is… who’d have thought a house of politicians could breed such a competent sorcerer…?”
Speaking to strangers was never very easy for me, even when I was neck deep in Umbrion’s ocean. I swallowed the sudden flare of nervousness in my throat. “S-s-sir?”
The vizier looked at me, but only briefly. His attention quickly returned to the battle.
“Yes,” he said, looking off-put at the distraction, “what is it?”
“S-s-sorry,” I said. “I d-d-don’t mean to-to interrupt, but I have s-s-some rather important n-n-n-news…”
“Oh!” the vizier cried suddenly in reaction to a tremendous flash of light from the ring. “Did you see that, Lorwin? What a display! Make sure you note that.”
I sighed. Even without making a concerted effort, Perenor was still making my life difficult.
“M-my name is Silas of-of-of House Olen.”
That, at least, caught his attention. He looked back at me, dark eyes widening in surprise.
“House Olen?” he repeated. “So you’re—?”
“His b-b-brother,” I answered, “y-yes.”
“Your brother, then, is quite a talent,” he said, looking back at the battle. “I’ve never seen anyone use Craft like him – and so young! He only recently came of age, did he not? To master such a difficult art having only lived for three hundred seasons – how long has he been studying at the monastery?”
He began his tutelage around the same time I’d built my first spyglass, so it must have been at least 120 seasons ago, but I knew better than to answer. “I n-n-need j-just a m-moment of y-your time,” I said instead. “A f-f-few nights ago, I w-w-was confronted b-b-b—”
“I’d heard rumors, of course,” the vizier continued as though he hadn’t heard me. “Everyone’s heard the rumors – an acolyte like him doesn’t come along without turning some heads—”
I was starting to get a headache. “S-sir—”
“—but so often, the truth is hyperbolized. I think this may be the first time the truth actually exceeds the rumors—!” CRACK, from the ring, accompanied by another tremendous flash of light. “Sol’s Light, did you see that—?”
“Sir,” I said, loudly this time, “the g-god Umbrion has ch-ch-chosen me as-as his G-G-Godspeaker!”
I once again managed to draw his attention, though this time for a more significant amount of time. I did my best to ignore the way that, from the raised dais, he loomed down at me from a position of not insignificant power. I would not let myself be intimidated. I must not.
Slowly, the vizier narrowed his eyes.
“What is your name?”
My mouth twisted. “S-S-Silas.”
“Silas,” he echoed. “I’ve heard of you, too.”
The answer didn’t bode well.
“Your mother and grandmother sit on the Queenscourt, after all. I know them well. They came to warn me…”
Anger latched tightly onto my throat. They warned him. Of course they warned him.
The ocean in the corner of my mind began to feel a bit warm. I was getting so very, very tired of other people deciding what I was capable of.
“How about we just go our separate ways, my boy,” the vizier said, coolly, with just a hint of disdain, “and we’ll forget this whole thing.”
“I am afraid th-th-that is n-not possible,” I a
nswered, voice measured. “I am g-g-given order by the N-Night Father; his w-w-word far outranks y-yours. I s-seek audience with the Queen.”
“Your grandmother already explained—”
“My g-g-grandmother does not know,” I interjected. “When c-confronted with a t-t-truth that defies her expect-t-tations, she c-c-calls me liar. I s-seek audience with the Queen.”
The vizier sneered at me. Warmer and warmer and warmer; the ocean turned to a sun-warmed creek, then a hot bath, then a pot of boiling water.
“I’m not sure if you’re deluded or just slow,” the vizier said, “but it is obvious to anyone who’s spent any time at all with the true Godspeakers – and I have, boy – that you are not among their number. To say otherwise is heresy.”
“Heresy.” My ocean was boiling hot, and my vision was dark with fury. “You speak to-to me about heresy? Three d-days ago, the Night Father c-came to me an ordered me to l-let spread the w-word of my d-destiny. You are the one who st-stands in the way of his c-commands. You are the heretic, not me.”
The vizier sat up a little straighter, nearly more astonished than he was offended. Behind him, the page had stopped taking notes and was staring at the sky in open-mouthed astonishment. My vision grew even darker.
“Now – now see here—!”
“I am the mouth and the hands and the will of the Night Father,” I said, and my voice was booming, and my ocean was boiling me alive, but I had never felt so strong. “I am the Godspeaker to Umbrion, and to defy me is to defy him!”
BOOM, a tremendous, earth-rumbling clap of thunder. The whole arena had gone dark, and people were screaming, scattering, scrambling away, but my eyes were on the vizier, who was now ashen-faced and shaking.
“Sol’s Light,” he breathed, “how is that—?”
BOOM, another clap of thunder, louder than the first; the vizier sprang from his seat so abruptly that he knocked it over and off the dais. I could still hear the screaming, and my ocean was boiling all the hotter, and—
“Silas!”
There was a hand on my shoulder that wrenched me around, and suddenly I was staring at Perenor.
The first thing I noticed was the expression on his face – a curious combination of concern, alarm, suspicion, and fear. The second thing I noticed was that, at some point, it had turned to night.
Or, to be more specific, the sky above my head had stained with darkness as ink stains paper, and the wispy cirrus clouds had thickened, darkened, and turned to thunderheads.
It took a moment for the anger in me to settle, for me to realize what exactly had just happened. It took me even longer to realize that dark veins had appeared along the palms of my hands, spiderwebbing up the undersides of my arms.
“What the fuck was that?” Perenor asked.
The ocean was starting to cool again, and as time passed, my breath evened – had I been panting? – and the veins on my skin began to recede. I breathed and I centered myself, and I tried to come up with an answer to his question. Unfortunately, I had no idea.
“I… I…”
“Your Holiness…”
I turned. The vizier was on his knees, genuflecting before me. His face was white as ocean foam, and he was terrified, but with a devastating clarity carved deeply into every line of his face.
“I – I am so sorry,” he stammered. “My words were hasty and out of turn, I just – I had no idea…”
I wetted my lips and looked around the arena. Those that had not fled were standing at a wide radius, primed as if ready to run, staring at me with big, frightened eyes.
Being feared wasn’t a good feeling. For one maudlin moment, I wished they would go back to disdaining me. At least I was used to that.
“I will give you audience with the Queen, Your Holiness,” the vizier said, head still bowed in genuflection. “I will return to the palace now and arrange for your meeting. There will be much to discuss.”
I nodded, but the vizier did not move. He looked at me as though he was waiting for me to do something, but was too scared to say what.
“Protocol dictates those of lower rank may only leave when dismissed by the higher ranks,” Perenor muttered.
I turned to him in confusion. “Am I—?”
“You’re a Godspeaker,” Perenor answered, face inscrutable. “You are the highest rank there is.”
It seemed ridiculous, but when I looked back to the vizier, he lowered his eyes again. He was still genuflecting.
“Y-y-y-y-you may l-leave?” I hazarded.
And leave he did, though it was less like leaving and more like fleeing. He scrambled off the dais and past me, bowing shortly as he left my line of sight. His page was scrambling after him, and I was left standing in the center of a dusty arena, surrounded by a terrified, silent crowd.
I found my feet soon enough, and I moved to leave as well through the southern exit.
“Silas!”
It was Perenor, of course, but I didn’t look back. The sky over the arena was clearing, and those still in the arena parted, scattering from my path like reeds in a strong current.
“Silas!” He grabbed my wrist and turned me around again; I deliberately yanked out of his grasp and turned to glare at him. “Do you want me to tell Grandmother?”
“T-t-tell her what you w-w-will,” I mumbled. “I c-c-care not what she th-thinks.”
Perenor stopped following me. The clouds were almost gone now, and the sun was shining as though the great shadow had never fallen at all, and I left the arena, head spinning.
I spent the rest of the day outside the city, at the bluff overlooking the ocean, with nothing but a small lunch bought at the market, my spyglass, and my star charts. After a day like that, the solitude was a blessing for which my gratefulness knew no bounds.
Though I had so much to think about, I willed it all away. My life, I knew, was about to change forever, and I wanted to take my little pleasures – my bluff, my stars – while I still could.
When I fell asleep, it was curled up on the moss bed, around my book of star charts. That night, I dreamt of cool water and starlight and Umbrion.
Quite a display you put on, he remarked to me. We were standing by the edge of an ocean of black water, edges hazy in the way only a dream can be. You nearly called down a tempest over the arena.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I took the time to study Umbrion more closely. He was still handsome, in a sharp sort of way, still robed in twilight, still angular and lean and severe and pale. The wind off the sea was low and constant, making his dark hair twist and dance in strange and impossible ways.
Looking at him was like looking at art. He was night in Andel form, ethereal and majestic. I wondered what he would feel like under my fingertips.
Going to dare to speak to me this time, my little bird?
I smiled.
“Why not?” I answered. “This is a dream, after all.”
Yes, he said, it is. Dreams are a natural part of my domain, and an easy way to communicate.
It took my sleeping mind a moment to discern the meaning of his words. I came toward him slowly, with a fearlessness only possible in dreams.
“Is this real?” I asked him.
That depends on your point of reference, he replied. This conversation may not be happening in the traditional way, but it is still happening. Does that not mean it is real in the most essential respect?
“You’re right, Night Father. It was a question wrongly asked,” I said. “So let me rephrase. Am I conversing with Umbrion, or with my own mind’s projection of him?
There fell a lapse of silence. He was silent a moment, and he looked me over with starlight eyes. Eventually, he smiled.
I am no figment of your imagination, my little bird.
Perhaps the news should have made me nervousness, but in the easy, aimless haze of sleeping, all I felt was happy. I was happy to see him again, to talk to him again.
“What happened at the arena?” I asked him.
When I forg
ed our connection, he explained, it linked my essence to you, and likewise yours to me. When you felt that anger, my own Craft reacted accordingly. You became an extension of my wrath.
It was an interesting answer, and it offered plenty worth thinking about. But the detail that stuck out to me the most was— “You’re receptive to me?”
Of course, he said. I sense you as an extension of my own consciousness, just as you do of me.
It seemed silly. Of all the Andels in all the world, “Why me?”
Umbrion canted his head to one side. The ocean lapped at my bare feet. He did not seem to understand the premise of my question.
“Why did you choose me as your Godspeaker? Surely it was not some great cosmic dart that just happened to land on my name.”
I chose you because we are kindred souls, he answered.
“I am unworthy of the comparison,” I said. “I am nothing. I am a secondborn with a stutter and a fear of strangers.”
Umbrion laughed, and it was a startling sound, deep and low and sonorous like temple bells and rushing water, and it set off little sparks all along my nerves.
My little bird, he said fondly, what have they done to you?
I wasn’t sure what to say. He reached up and pressed his hand to my face, and any words I might have had left me in a shudder. His touch was lightning and velvet, and at once my mouth was dry.
That you can even hear my voice is a testament to the strength of your spirit and the acuity of your mind. But I suppose, after a lifetime of being called strange and useless and wrong, even a soul like yours would be tricked into thinking it’s true.
I was trying very hard to listen to his words, but his hands – gods, his hands – they were fire and ice and electricity on my skin, and through the haze of dreaming I could feel myself shuddering.
But then, that’s also why it’s you, he said. Why it was always going to be you. You struggle like I struggle. You know my pain more completely than you yet understand. And I know yours.
Was this some sort of Craft? This intoxicating touch that lit my skin afire and thrummed in every sinew of my body? Was he doing this intentionally?
“You…”
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