Godspeaker

by Tessa Crowley

  And it hurt, yes, more than anything, but I couldn’t look away from it. My best friend was slipping away piece by piece and I was transfixed by it.

  “I’m sorry,” Soya said as she rubbed her eyes, and I hated myself for how much she hated herself. “I’m sorry, Silas, it’s—”

  “D-d-d-don’t ap-pologize.”

  “Just – just please, Silas, promise me that if you know something – I love you so much, and I don’t want to be your enemy in this. You’d tell me if you knew something, wouldn’t you?”

  And I believed her, I really did. That is to say, I believed that she did not want to be my enemy, and I believed that she loved me. What I found harder to believe was that she was not already halfway gone, drifting out to sea while I could only watch as the inevitable tides separated us.

  And if only for that moment, I wished she could have certainty, even if that certainty was against me. At least then there would not be this agonizing tearing, this ripping of our friendship at the seams. At least then it would be easier for her.

  “I kn-kn-know nothing,” I said to her.

  Soya flinched. “Of course,” she said, and her skepticism drove the pain deeper.

  For a while, we were silent. Then she sighed and pushed both her hands through her hair.

  “We received some crows in response from those who will be attending the moot,” she said. “Two Godspeakers have already agreed to attend, along with two other Lords and a handful of thanes. We’ll be meeting on a small coastal city a day’s travel from here. We’ll have all the leaders and scholars and priests in one place, and – and—”

  She faltered, averted her eyes.

  “And then, I don’t know,” she finished anticlimactically. “Then we’ll see if we can think up a way to survive a war of gods. Who knows? With all five Godspeakers in the same room, maybe we’ll come up with something.”

  “It’s p-p-possible,” I said. Granted, it was also possible that all the stars in the sky would rearrange; that didn’t make it likely.

  There is a very unique type of sadness, I learned in those long weeks of in-between.

  “The Lord-Regent has his servants preparing for the moot,” Perenor said one day as we walked together through the tiered gardens.

  In my life, I had known anxiety and fear with great acuity, but this was a different beast entirely. There was no nervousness in me – not from the usual culprits of strangers and social interaction, nor even from the grander, existential threat of Umbrion’s terrible vengeance on Andelan. There was no nervousness in me because there was nothing in me. No fear, no curiosity, no drive, just a sucking abyss of self-hatred and hopelessness.

  “I’m not sure what level of pomp and politesse would be necessary for a meeting in these dark times, but people around Silverwatch seem to be treating it like a standard political summit, which apparently demands quite a bit of fanfare,” he continued.

  The rest of the world was dull, in muted colors and shades of gray. Even the resplendent four-tiered Silverwatch gardens, with their sprawling rows of blue-silver bellflowers and lush, red roses, climbing over each other in strange and wild ways, all seemed distant and foggy, holding no interest to my mind, swallowed as it was by this all-enshrouding darkness.

  “Silas?”

  The fog in my mind was thick, and it took me a moment to pull myself out of it at my brother’s words. At some point, we had come to a stop at the top of a long set of stairs leading to the lower tier of the garden.

  “You look half-dead,” he said.

  “P-p-p-perhaps I am.”

  Perenor frowned. “Don’t say that.”

  So I decided not to say anything at all. I kept walking, moving down the steps into the lower gardens.

  As we came out of the shadow of the tier above us, the rain began its relentless drumbeat on our waxed cloaks. We moved down the curving steps to the lowest tier, whose large silver gates on the far side opened into the city.

  “Silas—” he began.

  “Wh-wh-what p-preparations are th-there?” I asked, not because I was particularly curious, but because there was nothing I wanted to talk about less than myself.

  Perenor sighed, but let it drop. “Lots of food, apparently, and a whole caravan of bears,” he said. “And guards. I’m worried about the guards.”

  “Wh-wh-why?”

  “Because they’re not ready for what’s coming,” Perenor said. “I mean, no one is, of course, but theirs is a disrepair we can’t afford. They’re used to bar fights and petty thievery; they’re not used to whatever foul Craft Umbrion has in store. And they’re the first line of defense.”

  “T-t-t-teach them C-Craft, then,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You m-m-managed it w-with me,” I said. “They d-d-don’t need to b-be seasoned s-s-sorcerers, do they? J-j-just teach them flame-b-b-based Craft.”

  Perenor frowned thoughtfully. “That would theoretically be strong against Umbrion’s magic,” he said.

  “Shadow f-f-flees from l-light,” I said, as the old proverb went.

  “Maybe,” Perenor said as we passed under a large olive tree. “That might not be a bad idea at all, actually. I always forget how smart you are.”

  I would have smiled in another situation; as it stood, I didn’t have the energy.

  “Silas,” Perenor said when I stayed quiet, “can we please talk about the fact that you look like you’re falling apart?”

  “I’m f-f-fine.”

  “You’re clearly not fine, Silas. This whole situation is clearly starting to get to you.”

  Our attention was drawn suddenly by the sound of a great clatter of metal. When we turned toward it, we became aware of angry shouting, growing louder as we came around the bend in the garden path.

  “Stay back!” came a stranger’s gruff voice, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass. “You’re standing on the Lord-Regent’s palace grounds; stand back!”

  There came a sudden shot of adrenaline that pierced my haze. The indistinct sounds of a crowd became more precise: shouting, chanting, jeering.

  “This can’t be good,” Perenor said, and he hurried ahead of me. I stuffed my hand into my pocket and withdrew the glove, pulling it onto my hand before I hurried to catch up with him.

  On the far side of the garden, just outside the great, vine-wreathed gate leading into the city, was a mob. The sound of it grew louder and louder as we approached.

  “You are standing on the Lord-Regent’s palace grounds!” repeated the voice, and I could now see that it was a guard. “Stand back! Stop this at once!”

  She was holding shut the gates with all her strength, but they buckled with an answering volley of shouts as the mob pressed into them. I could pick out words like “defile” and “evil” – and, eventually, “traitor god.”

  At once I knew what it was. What else?

  Perenor kept moving forward, apparently not having heard what I did. “What is this?” he asked the guard, though he had to shout to be heard over the riot.

  The gates rattled treacherously. The guard shook her head.

  “Ths gate usually stands open for the public to enjoy the garden,” she said. “I noticed them coming and tried to shut it, but there’s no lock—”

  The gates groaned suddenly as several people rammed their shoulders into it. The guard let out a startled shout, stumbled, then pushed back against it. Perenor swung his staff off its holster over his shoulder and cracked it loudly into the ground. Blue-white threads of energy snaked around the metal bars, locking it in place.

  “What do they want?” Perenor asked her, holding one hand out against the gate to reinforce his Craft.

  “I’m not—” she began, before—

  “Look!”

  I could see him, standing toward the front of the crowd – some de facto ringleader, soaked through with rain, wild-eyed, frenetic. Our eyes met, and I knew at once that he recognized me.

  “Down with the traitor!” shouted some
one at the back.

  “Down with the traitor!” the others chimed in. “Down with the traitor!” It became a chant. My heartbeat thundered on the side of my neck, fingers flexing in my glove.

  “Shit,” Perenor said, then CRACK. They slammed at the gates again, and the threads of Perenor’s Craft shivered and quaked. “Silas, get out of here!”

  “I—”

  “Go!” he said. “Warn the palace; get the guards!”

  “They’re coming over the wall!” the guard cried.

  Sure enough, one of the rioters came vaulting over the garden wall, wearing fitted leathers with a runed whip hanging from her hip. She was no ordinary villager – I knew a sorcerer when I saw one – and on top of it all, she was lean and deadly-looking, and I was the first thing she looked at.

  “Silas!” Perenor tried to vault off the gate, but without his hand pressed into it, the Craft on the gates began to crumble treacherously. “Stay away from him!”

  “You’re coming with me, traitor,” the sorcerer said to me.

  Heart pounding, I widened my stance. “Y-y-y-you d-don’t want to do this,” I said to her.

  “Quite the contrary,” she answered, “I’ve been waiting to do this for weeks.”

  Almost faster than I could perceive, her whip was off her hip and flying toward me faster than its sound could keep up with it. On instinct, I raised both hands in front of my face, and the brightly glowing runes on my forearm flashed suddenly; the whip changed its course and wrapped harmlessly around my wrist.

  “Foul magic,” she snarled.

  “Get away from him!” Perenor screamed. “Silas, I can’t—!”

  “P-p-please, you m-must stop,” I said. “Um-m-m-mbrion kills those wh-wh-who threaten me.”

  “My faith lies with the true gods,” she snarled, pulling hard on the handle of her whip. My heels dug into the earth, but the Craft held me steady.

  “F-f-f-faith will n-not save you!” I insisted, but she tugged again, and I tumbled forward; the snarl of lash freed my wrist, but I went rolling hard onto my side. When I heard a roar of magic, I jerked to keep rolling, out of the way of what turned out to be a powerful bolt of magic. “S-s-stop!”

  “I—” Perenor said behind me, voice strained, “I can’t—”

  The gates rattled loudly, a sign of Perenor’s waning strength. Another burst of lightning came down at me; I held up my gloved hand and met it with an arc of shielding light; the crash that resulted was blindingly bright, the recoil intense enough to press me into the ground and send my assailant flying back.

  I scrambled to my feet; my attacker was picking herself up off her knees, a line of blood running down along the crux of her jaw, murder burning in her eyes.

  “S-s-stop!” I begged her, holding out my hands “Please, s-stop! He w-w-will manifest in order to-to-to p-protect me!”

  “Your false god has no power over me!” she roared, and she held her whip high—

  “No!”

  It was Perenor this time, and what happened next is almost beyond explanation.

  I stood waiting for her blow to fell, arms over my head, and realized after several seconds that it had not come. Then, when I refocused enough to hear beyond the blood rushing in my ears, I noticed that my surroundings were suddenly silent.

  I lowered my arms. My attacker was standing over me, whip poised to strike but hovering still in mid-air, face mid-scream, stance mid-attack. She wasn’t moving – it was as though she had been suddenly preserved in ice right before my eyes.

  “Wh-wh-wh-wh—”

  I looked to Perenor. To my astonishment, everyone else in the garden was just as icy-still as my attacker. The gates were half-open, but the rioters on the other side were poised motionless, as if they had just started to run through them.

  It was as if time, I slowly realized through the fog of adrenaline, had suddenly stopped.

  Except for Perenor. Perenor stood precisely where he had been, the runes on his staff shining so brightly that they were hard to look at, his brow streaked in sweat.

  “P-P-P-P-P-P—”

  “Run,” he said through his teeth, eyes screwed shut in concentration.

  “Wh-wh-what d-d-d-d—”

  “Silas, run,” he snapped, “run now, I can’t hold this forever!”

  I couldn’t imagine that he could hold this at all. The amount of energy it would take to stop time – how on earth could he possibly—?

  “I th-th-th-think y-you should s-s-s-stop…” I panted. “P-P-Perenor, th-this…”

  “You have to go,” he said. The stress in his voice was starting to show; his shoulders were starting to shake. There was no way this wasn’t eating him up from the inside. “Tell the castle, get more guards…”

  I stumbled back on one foot, then the other. Then I turned and ran, darting for the nearest door leading into the castle. As I left, I heard the clash and clatter of the riot resume as though it had never stopped, and it made me run all the faster.

  Perenor didn’t regain consciousness for almost two days. No one knew what had happened, but it must have been something tremendous.

  And though I was beside myself with fear during that dreadful in-between, there was a not insignificant part of me that was astonished that he had done something so incredible at all. Perhaps it was no less impressive than creating a shield large enough to stop a falling rock the size of a coliseum, but now that I had a proper perspective of the scope of the Craft involved, I was starting to realize something I’d never really let myself acknowledge before:

  My brother might have been the most powerful sorcerer in Andelan. I wondered if it was odd to be upset by the fact that no one had warned me.

  I refused to leave his side, so my brace of guards eventually gave up trying to convince me and instead took post outside Perenor’s bedroom instead of mine. I sat curled up in a chair by his bed, missing the swallowing darkness and despair because it was less painful than living on the edge of my brother’s death.

  “It seems that no matter where you are, Godspeaker, you are a danger to those around you.”

  I looked up from my knees. The Lord-Regent and Soya, flanked by a set of guards separate from my own, were standing in the doorway. The Lord-Regent’s hands were clasped behind his back, and Soya’s eyes were underlined with dark circles. He came slowly around the far side of the bed, keeping his distance as he observed Perenor; Soya stayed in the door, looking tired and guarded.

  “Your brother’s skill may have prevented a very violent coup,” he said, “and for that I commend him. Of course, he wouldn’t have had to but for your poisonous presence in my city.”

  “Father,” Soya hissed.

  “Y-y-y-you b-blame me,” I said. It wasn’t really a question.

  “That mob didn’t swarm this castle for my head, Godspeaker.”

  “Have you c-c-come here to s-s-s-scold me?” I asked. I wished I could have put more venom into my voice, but I had never been very good at spite. “D-d-do you think th-that will h-help?”

  “Stop being combative,” Soya said. “Both of you.”

  “I am not being combative,” her father answered tersely. “But I think it is becoming obvious that we must demonstrate to Avenos that their Lord-Regent is not on the side of the Traitor God; that we are not coddling his Godspeaker like a cherished guest. Why do you think they’re angry? Because I am keeping you in this palace, while you try to summon Umbrion outside this city, and give me no information—”

  “So l-l-lock me up,” I said. “I’m s-s-sure that w-w-will make everyone f-f-feel better, and wh-what c-could possibly b-b-be more important?”

  “They think me at best a fool and at worst a conspirator in your god’s plot!” the Lord-Regent bellowed at me. “And meanwhile, you refuse to cooperate, giving me no insight into Umbrion’s plans – why shouldn’t I lock you up?”

  “No one is getting locked up,” Soya interjected. “Silas has committed no crime of gods or Andels.”

  “At least n
one that we can prove,” the Lord-Regent added coldly.

  “What are you trying to accomplish, Father?” Soya snapped at him. “Your quarrel is with Umbrion, not with Silas. This war has not yet even begun and already there’s divisiveness among us?”

  The answering silence was telling, though I wasn’t sure of what. The Lord-Regent’s nostrils flared, and he turned away to face the window.

  “Umbrion is as much a threat to Silas he is to you and I,” Soya continued, “and we have to work together or we’ll die together.”

  More silence. The Lord-Regent looked out my brother’s bedroom window, down at the streets of Avenos, busy and thrumming in the rush of midday.

  “There are ten thousand people in this city,” he said after a lapse of silence. “Tell me, Godspeaker, does your presence here make them safer?”

  I didn’t answer. I had a feeling that the question was not meant to be answered, anyway.

  “Your brother insists that only those who would do you harm are in danger. But how many people is that, do you imagine? In this palace? This city? How many of them am I meant to control?”

  “Wh-wh-wh-what do you w-w-want from me? If y-y-you’re going to-to l-l-lock me in a c-c-cell—”

  “What do I want from you?” He spins on a heel. “I want from you what I have always wanted. I want answers. Answers that you conveniently never seem to have! I want my people to know that I am not coddling Umbrion’s Godspeaker while their kin die by his hand in Ellorian!”

  My hands formed fists on my knees. The swallowing despair was slowly roiling up in my chest again, devouring me from the inside.

  “Father,” Soya said miserably, “stop. This is not productive.”

  “You have until your brother awakens,” the Lord-Regent said in a tone that left no room for argument. “If you don’t have something by then, you’ll be going into the jail underneath Silverwatch, and I don’t care what your brother says.”

  The Lord-Regent left with a spin and the fanning of his silk robes. As his footsteps echoed into silence down the hallway, Soya and I were left, staring at each other in silence.