Godspeaker

by Tessa Crowley

  Good questions, all. I gripped my stomach and tried to smother my own panic.

  “For now,” Greatmother Amira said, “we must go on. We must not arouse suspicion or alarm. We will wait for Sol’s answer and go from there. Let’s focus on not causing any undue alarm. All right?”

  I nodded and pushed my hands through my hair. I still felt frantic, jittery – and now, more than ever before, deeply and profoundly scared.

  A moment later, I felt Greatmother Amira’s hands on my shoulders. I looked up at her; she was staring down at me with a calm and collectedness that I found myself deeply envying.

  “Peace,” she said. “Peace, Silas. The only benefit to helplessness is that there’s no cause for doubt or guilt. There is nothing anyone could have done to change things. What will be will be.”

  I wondered if she was right. I certainly wanted her to be, because despite my best efforts I could not talk myself out of this growing sense of doom and dread. Could I have talked him out of this, somehow, if I’d noticed earlier? Could I have done something, anything at all?

  “I’ll go now and pray to her,” she said. “Until we hear from her, it’s best that neither of us speak of this again or behave any differently.”

  That seemed impossible, but I nodded anyway.

  “Peace,” she said again, placing an affectionate, motherly hand on my cheek before she disappeared from whence we’d arrived.

  I think it’s fair to say that I never really would have enjoyed the confirmation ceremony, but the process was made all the worse by the weight of my recent conversation with Greatmother Amira. The exchange was weighing heavy in my mind as I was fed, washed, dressed, coiffed, made-up, as I was run through all the last-minute preparations.

  The only good thing to come from the situation, really, was the fact that I was so nervous about Umbrion’s plot that I had completely forgotten to be nervous about the ceremony. By the time the doors of the Palace opened and the cheer went up at the sight of me, I was so deeply in my own thoughts that the sudden awareness that the ceremony had begun managed to startle me.

  The crowd was massive. Even after the Tournaments, I had never seen so many people in one place before. They were packed tightly into the main street leading away from the palace, on roofs, craning over vendor stands, throwing nightlilies in the air and chanting – “Umbrion! Umbrion! Umbrion!”

  The other Godspeakers, along with Queen Nerisa and Lady Queen Roslin, were standing along the steps leading up to the main doors. My heavy silk robes, luxurious as they were, proved suffocatingly hot in the dry heat of the evening. My heartbeat was thrumming in the side of my neck from fear – though fear of what, I couldn’t say.

  My legs felt stiff and awkward. I climbed down the steps toward the gently smiling Queen Nerisa, her golden crown gleaming in the sunlight, and tried to keep myself upright. I just had to make it to the end of the ceremony.

  I looked across to Greatmother Amira, who was smiling at me with traces of worry so subtle that they were invisible to anyone not looking for them. I took a breath and moved down the long steps.

  Queen Nerisa met me halfway down. A young page approached fro the side, carrying the box with my crown. We stood face to face, and she recited the now-familiar script:

  “You are chosen as the mouth and the hands and the will of Umbrion. Praise unto Umbrion and praise unto the night.”

  “Praise,” echoed the crowd, though their voices were uneven, starting in the front from those who were close enough to hear and moving its way backward in a wave.

  The last stains of sunset were fading from the sky, and the stars were coming out. I tried to draw that familiar comfort from the stars, but found I could not. My heart was beating too fast.

  “We honor Umbrion’s choice and his mercy and his wisdom. We name you Godspeaker and beg your counsel. Praise unto Umbrion and praise unto the night.”

  “Praise,” echoed the crowd again, more loudly.

  I took several swallows of air and willed myself calm enough to answer, though the words still came out in fits and starts:

  “I accept y-y-y-your naming and-and offer Umbrion’s c-c-counsel to… to m-m-my queen and c-country, to all of An-n-ndelan.” I was glad that most of the spectators weren’t close enough to hear me.

  “Praise unto Umbrion,” Queen Nerisa said with a smile, “and praise unto the night.”

  “Praise,” the crowd echoed a third time.

  I ducked my head. The page offered up the box, which the queen opened to produce my crown. She plucked it from the bed of silk and placed it delicately on my head. The cool metal all but made my fevered brow sizzle.

  “The Godspeaker is arrived!” Queen Nerisa called, turning to the crowd and outstretching her arms. “Praise unto Umbrion and praise unto the night!”

  There may have been the answering call from the onlookers, but it was lost in the uproar that followed. Nightlilies went flying into the air, and the sound of their adulation thundered through the living rock. Queen Nerisa turned again and bowed, and I tried to pretend I wasn’t dumbstruck at the sight of the Queen of Andelan bowing to me.

  She stepped aside and I walked further down the stairs. That I was able to move at all was a small miracle in itself, considering the fact that I was so nervous I could barely feel my legs. All at once, the crowd went quiet. They knew what was coming as well as I did.

  “Umbrion w-w-would speak to y-you,” I stammered, hands clenching and unclenching at my sides. Another cheer went up, briefer.

  I was halfway to wondering if I would have to do something to summon him – was there some Godspeaker-specific trick they were expecting me to know? – but before I could, he was there. In an abrupt, unignorable, all-encompassing way, he was there.

  There’s really no easy way to describe what it feels like to be possessed by a god, past saying that I’m very glad I’ll never have to do it again. It was an impossible feeling, so intense that it was nearly painful, as though the essence of him inside my head stretched my physical body to its absolute limits, threatening to rip me open. An Andel body was not meant to play host to such things, and I would have grimaced or cried out or fell to my knees but for the fact that my body was no longer in my control. I was just a passenger, sequestered in my own mind, observing myself as I’d observe anyone else.

  Umbrion was still for a moment, looking out into the crowd. I felt him flex my fingers, slowly and deliberately, and he scanned the crowd with my eyes. Then he curled my lips into a sneer.

  For several moments, he did not speak. The crowd waited in eager, anticipatory silence.

  Then, quite abruptly, he said, “Pathetic.”

  His voice boomed from all corners of the capitol, deep and tremendous and omnipresent. It shook the ground and sent those too close stumbling back in shock at the sheer force of it.

  That single word filled me with fear all over again. No, I thought, not sure if he could hear me, no, please no, not now – but my body was not my own.

  “Look at you,” Umbrion said with my mouth, “chanting and praising and echoing words that possess no meaning to you – praise unto the night? When have any of you truly praised my night? Your words are hollow.”

  He made my eyes swivel toward the other Godspeakers. They were uniformly alarmed and confused, save for Greatmother Amira, who gazed back at me with cold clarity.

  “You luxuriate in my mother’s Light,” he said through my mouth. “You take her innumerable gifts so thoughtlessly, so thanklessly, never truly understanding, never appreciating. You bask in and abuse the gifts that I can never have. You writhe in the dirt of this loathsome little world, stupid, ungrateful, disgusting, and still she loves you.”

  I could hear the whispering at that point, soft at first, but getting louder. If I had any control over my body, I’m sure my heart would have been beating madly. My eyes scanned the crowd. I could feel his disgust.

  “I do not share her love,” he had me say. “I cannot share her love. The gifts you so r
eadily abuse were not extended to me. I can only see you for precisely what you are: unworthy.”

  Those closest to the palace palisade were backing away. He trained my eyes on them, and they froze in fear.

  “The sun sets on this day and on this miserable planet. A new age begins. All those who denied me the Light will choke on the Shadow. Tremble, you vile little creatures, because the Light will not long protect you.

  “Night falls.”

  He extended my hand out. There came the sound of screaming.

  He turns my head so I can see – Queen Nerisa was being lifted into the air, thrashing and kicking against an invisible force holding her aloft.

  “I rise.”

  I could hear Lady Queen Roslin screaming, the shrieking of her subjects. Some were scattering, scrambling away. Others stood transfixed, paralyzed by terror.

  “My vengeance will swallow the sun!”

  I watched, powerless, as Queen Nerisa was ripped to pieces.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

  I should have called off the ceremony the moment I worked it out. I didn’t think at the time – I never could have imagined – but I should have.

  I was not the Queenslayer, but her blood was on my hands, figuratively as much as literally. I should have done something. Anything. I should have seen, should have known. Instead my foolishness and fear had killed the Queen.

  My hands are shaking and my words are barely legible. I can’t write anymore tonight.

  I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry

  It occurs to me that this manuscript, if it is read at all, may not be seen for many thousands of seasons. Distant generations may have lost the cultural context and the implications surrounding the death of Queen Nerisa. I’ll do my best to explain.

  Death, for an Andel of the First Age, was not so much a state as it was a nebulous, indistinct idea. We had some understanding of mortality – we hunted, we slaughtered livestock, we cut down trees – and as a society, we had a general idea of life’s impermanence, but we had no practical knowledge of the matter. Combat was a sport, not a necessity; death was a thing that happened to other creatures, not to us.

  On the day of my confirmation, when Queen Nerisa was lifted into the sky and torn limb from limb, it was the first time any Andel had ever died. Up until that point, we had been protected and made longevous by the Worldmother’s Light. It was the first gift of hers that Umbrion took from us.

  So try to understand the context: after tens of thousands of seasons of life without end or age, you watched your beloved Queen die. You barely understand death at all, and to make matters words, a god had just sworn vengeance on you.

  To say that panic spread through the city would be a shameful understatement.

  The first thing I remember after Umbrion left my body was the sound of screaming from every direction and great clatters of wood on stone as carts and vendor stalls were overturned in the street. As my eyes refocused, I saw people running, fleeing, scrambling down the main artery of Ellorian as though pursued.

  The Godspeakers were gone. Not fleeing, but genuinely gone, as though they hadn’t been there at all – I didn’t think of it at the time, but in hindsight I know that their respective gods must have spirited them to safety.

  And there I stood, splattered with the blood of Queen Nerisa, no longer possessed, but still utterly incapable of movement. Every part of my body was trembling with a greater intensity as the moments ticked by. What had just happened? How was that possible? My mind could make no sense of it.

  A few seconds or perhaps several minutes later, there was a hand on my shoulder that wrenched me around.

  Soya – she was frightened, ashen white, but resolute.

  “We need to leave,” she said.

  “I—”

  “Now!”

  She used her grip on me to tug, and I went stumbling forward, nearly falling, and she took off in a dead sprint.

  People were fleeing in every direction, screaming, scrambling through the streets. If any of them noticed me, they had better things to do than acknowledge it.

  And beneath my feet, I could feel a dreadful rumbling. The veins of the hot spring underneath the city were rolling, growling, and the volume of it was only getting louder.

  Before long, we made it through the ever-thickening crowds and burst through the door of Soya’s rented house.

  At once, she spun to face me.

  “What did he do to her?”

  I almost swallowed my tongue from fear. “I d-d-d-d— I d-d-d—”

  “Silas!” She was frantic, and the terror she’d been trying so desperately to keep in check was seeping through the cracks. “What did he do to Queen Nerisa?”

  I couldn’t blame her for not knowing; I didn’t know, myself. All I could do was shake my head, because the words would certainly never come. I hoped she could read the answer on my face. “I d-d-d— I d-d-d-d—!”

  Soya let out a furious sound that was equal parts fear and frustration. She began to pace the floor, wringing her hands together. “How could he kill her?” she asked. “He couldn’t, right? The Worldmother’s Light protects us from death, how—”

  The ground lurched underneath our feat; the entire building rumbled. This city was breaking.

  She steadied herself with a hand on the wall. She looked to me, desperate. “Silas, do you think he took away her Light—?”

  I did not have time for theology. I pushed past her into the kitchen and grabbed a bag from the wall, shoveling food into it – pears, potatoes, salted pork, wine—

  “What are you doing—?”

  Another great rumble and lurch; I had to steady myself on the wall, Soya on the door frame.

  “W-w-w-w-w—” Curse my tongue; I had no time for it. I grabbed a second bag and threw it at her, then pointed toward the front door urgently.

  It took her a moment, but only a moment. “Right,” she said. “Right, we can’t stay – we have to—”

  I kept shoveling food into the sack. Soya muttered something about clothes and took the bag with her out of the kitchen and onto the upper floor.

  Bread, kale, peaches, cheese – it would have to do. We might be able to pick up more provisions later, but right now we had to get out of this city before it broke in half.

  I sprinted out of the kitchen just as Soya was scrambling down the steps, her pack stuffed with clothes.

  “You can’t go outside without disguise; who knows what they’d do to you,” Soya said, urgently handing me a black cloak over her arm. “Put this on.”

  I flinched, but shrugged it on anyway.

  “We can make for Avenos,” Soya said, fastening the bag closed as I pulled up the hood. “My father will protect us – we have scholars, diplomats, we can—”

  “L-l-l-l-l-l-let’s go—”

  She bolted for the door; I followed hot on her heels.

  The streets of Ellorian were madness given form. People ran in every direction, screaming for loved ones, hurrying to load up their carts with provisions. From somewhere, a man screamed, “We are betrayed by the Night Father! His vengeance is upon us!”

  I did not have time for the crushing guilt I felt at that moment. I took Soya by the arm and we ran straight for the main gates of the city.

  There were great cracks forming along the streets, jets of steam shooting into the sky. In the process of dodging them, and other people, and overturned vendor stalls and carts, I did not notice at all that we were being pursued until—

  “Silas!”

  —I was grabbed by the shoulder and spun around, slammed into a nearby wall.

  “What did you do!”

  Before I could determine whose voice it was, before I even knew the words being screamed at me, I felt something pressed into my neck – wood, I recognized, carved elaborately. It was Perenor’s runed staff, pressing so hard into my throat that it choked my breathing. Reflexively, I grabbed the staff and tried to wrestle it away, but
Perenor always was stronger than me—

  “Get off him!” Soya cried from behind. “Perenor, you brute, get off him—!”

  “How far does this treachery extend?” Perenor roared at me, face so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my cheek. “You traitor, were you in on it? What did you do the Queen—?”

  I kneed him hard in the gut. He doubled over and I used the opportunity to punch him in the nose. As soon as he tumbled, I grabbed Soya’s arm and took off running again. I was nearly back onto the street when I felt tendrils of magic snarl around my ankles, and I went crashing to the ground.

  “Silas!”

  “How dare you protect him!”

  “Perenor, stop! Stop it!”

  “Stay out of this, Rhodan!”

  The Craft around me was dragging me back into the alley, despite my fingers scrabbling for purchase on the cobblestone. I wrenched around and saw Perenor standing up, hands and staff glowing hot with Craft, blood streaming out from his nose down toward his chin.

  “What would you do to him, Perenor? He’s your brother – your brother, the Godspeaker! Do you honestly think Umbrion will let you fell a single blow?”

  “Let the traitor-god come! Let him answer for what he did—!”

  “He’s the only link to Umbrion!” she said, grabbing Perenor’s arm and pulling so sharply that at last, the Craft around my ankles was dislodged; I scrambled back, heart thundering in my ear. “He’s the only person alive who can give us any insight into what his planning, so either you honestly think you can best a god on your own, or you need him! We all need him, Perenor!”

  His breath was hot and ragged. He looked wild with fury, dangerous, and I braced my hand on the nearby wall, ready, if necessary, to run. Perenor’s eyes were darkly burning, but he must have heard some truth in Soya’s words, because they had stilled him.

  “Look at him,” Soya said. “What kind of evil mastermind do you imagine him to be? He’s an academic, not a war criminal! You’ve known him your entire life – he is so many things, but has he ever been malicious?”