by Tammy Salyer
“Your Scrylle,” Isemay said, confused.
“Yes. It would be for the best if I help you return to Vinnr by starpath, the same way you came here.”
“But what about my mum?”
“As I said, there’s nothing we can do for her.”
Isemay went cold. “No. I’m not leaving without her.”
Deespora eyed her, then seemed to come to a decision. “We will not refuse you hospitality. You may stay with us for a time. Perhaps the Minothians and your mother will send for you. Or maybe they’ll release her to join you.” She turned to Mura’s mother. “Lysis, would you be willing to provide our guest with a safe haven for now?”
Lysis nodded her consent.
Deespora tucked the Scrylle away and rose, once again using the staff bearing the Fenestros to aid her. “We shall adjourn for the day. Tonight, we’ll celebrate our visitor from another realm and give thanks that she is among us to shine the light of knowledge from distant corners of the Great Cosmos. This is fortuitous. As we Zhallahs know, we are not alone in the Cosmos. We all share the gift of being part of the Verities’ creations.”
Chapter Seven
Symvalline knew they’d arrived at some kind of plain or valley based on the way the clatter of the Minothian party and their mounts had stopped echoing against close walls. And with the change in geography, she sensed a quickening of their pace. They must be getting close to Everlight Hall.
The child had shown no improvement, but neither had she worsened. The two Minothian prisoners had remained on their side of the wagon, saying very little since they’d been given water. Food was also provided, but Symvalline had given all her share to the woman. She could go much longer without eating than an average person, thanks to the endurance provided by her Verity gifts. She hoped the extra portion would give the woman and her child the strength they needed to face what was coming.
After a time, the wagon ventured onto a stone-paved road, eventually coming to a stop. Heralds called from somewhere above, and someone among her captors’ party returned the call. She heard the crank of a giant winch and the grind as a ramp was lowered or a gate raised. Then the wagon continued inside what she assumed from the sound was the curtain wall of a fortress or castle.
As their journey neared its end, she reconfirmed her promise to the woman. “What is your name? I will speak to the Verity on your and Tulla’s behalf.”
“Agatha Pahzi.”
The wagon stopped and the wagon door was unbarred. A guard beckoned to Agatha. “You two, come with me.” To Symvalline, he said, “Wait.”
Then they were gone.
She was not left alone for long. When Tuzhazu came for her, he had her hands bound behind her and a blindfold tied over her eyes. Fury burned within her, but she kept it under control. Without her klinkí stones and Mentalios, she could do little to change the situation in her favor, other than keep her wits and use her skills of reasoning and negotiation. She wished for Safran, who had so much more practice at the latter part. She wished for Stave and Eisa, who would likely have already broken this wagon to pieces and perhaps defeated the entire troop of captors singlehandedly. She wished for Roi and his calm calculation. But mostly, she wished for Ulfric. He was her heart and the greatest leader the Knights Corporealis had ever had.
By now it was apparent that some kind of rift had taken place in this realm. The Zhallahs had called her and Crumb “plague-bringers” but seemed to quickly realize they were not a threat. Tuzhazu claimed the Zhallahs caused the plague, or the Waste, as she’d also heard it called. Whatever the disease was, it seemed to be the cause of the strife and division of this realm.
What troubled her the most, however, was not the divided kingdoms. Vinnr itself had broken into three during the War of Rivening. It was inevitable that anything large enough would eventually fracture under its own weight, and that included kingdoms. It was the fact that the Arc Rheunosian Knights, or Archons, themselves were also divided.
The Zhallahs they’d met, mostly children, had intended to take her to someone called Archon Raamuzi for help. They had shown her and Crumb kindness and offered sanctuary, and Symvalline’s instinct told her such people’s leader would also be honorable and compassionate, the kind of Archon who would not shirk their duty to serve and protect their Verity, while also capable of benevolence and sympathy to the Verities’ wider creations. But the Minothian Archon served the Arc Rheunosian Verity directly here in the Minothian stronghold. And he had so far demonstrated far less benevolence. He gave her the impression that Minoth, and the Archons who lived here, were callous, possibly even corrupt, people. And if it was true their Verity was here, she could only conclude one thing: Mithlí was, like Balavad seemed to be, at best a cold and detached Verity. And at worst, a cruel one.
This did not give her much hope for her meeting with the celestial creator.
“Move along, Vinnric. Your audience with Mithlí awaits.” Tuzhazu’s tone had a sardonic grate to it, setting Symvalline further on edge.
She stumbled forward, finding it difficult to keep her balance on the unfamiliar ground while blindfolded. As she slowed her pace, a guard nudged her in the back, and the second time it happened she fell forward to a knee, bruising it. Someone yanked her up, and she cursed at them.
“Verities fiery eyes, if you keep pushing me, I’ll forget I’m a healer. If you want me to move faster, remove this troghopping blindfold.”
Tuzhazu grumbled. “Kaneas, take her to the Everlight’s balcony and hold her there until I arrive.”
“Yes, Archon.”
Symvalline felt thick arms reach beneath hers and grasp her around the chest. There was a gush of air and a sudden jerk, and her feet left the ground before she could demand to be released. She was being carried upward by a winged soldier, the sensation disconcerting and unwelcome.
Moments later, her feet once more struck solid ground. “Get off!” she yelled and took several paces forward to escape the guard’s grasp.
“My maker,” she heard him say reverently.
Then a new voice spoke. “Unbind her, then leave us, Kaneas.”
Symvalline’s blindfold and the rope on her wrists were removed, and the guard swiftly retreated over the side of the balcony. She blinked away the haze from being blindered, then looked to the speaker. “And who are you?” she asked.
The woman who stood before her was much more distinct than those she’d met thus far. Brawny, tall, the colors of her skin a constantly shifting rainbow that grew so pale in places she looked like white marble. Her eyes, too, shifted colors, swirling in an entrancing dance that Symvalline had trouble looking away from. She wore a richly embroidered sleeved tunic with a belt that fit snugly over wide hips and carried no visible weapons.
“Don’t you know a Verity when you meet one, foreigner?” Her words were clipped, but not a challenge.
“I do. And you aren’t.” Symvalline realized she was already losing her clutch on diplomacy and amiability, but she was teetering on the brink of not caring.
The woman smirked, an expression that reminded Symvalline of Tuzhazu. Everyone here seemed to find something funny about Symvalline’s ignorance.
The woman paced closer to her, unhesitant and deliberate. Symvalline stood her ground. What choice did she have? She was not one to cower, and if seven hundred years as a Knight had taught her anything, it was that she could endure almost any challenge that was thrown at her.
“An Archon from Vinnr,” the tall woman said, eyeing her. “I know little of your realm, but based on your appearance, we are not so different.”
Symvalline, in no mood for chitchat, moved the conversation to where she most needed it to go. “You’ll forgive me if I seem curt, but I’ve been held against my will and treated like a criminal for over two days, with no reason and no explanation. I was told I’d have an audience with Mithlí. May I impress on you how important the matter is? There are lives at stake, and I must speak with your Verity.”
“And wh
at do you want of me?” the woman said.
Confused, Symvalline fumbled for a moment. “You? Nothing. You’re an Archon, if my guess is right, not—”
“I am what the people of Arc Rheunos believe me to be.”
What was going on here? Was she implying—? “You mean, you pretend to be your maker? But…why?”
Steps approached from outside the chamber’s large set of doors, and a Minothian woman entered, her head bowed reverently. The Archon turned. “Food and drink. Enough to welcome our Vinnric”—she turned to Symvalline—“Knight? That’s what you call yourselves, isn’t it?” After Symvalline nodded, the Archon finished, “Now.”
The servant departed, and Symvalline found herself once more under the Minothian’s scrutiny. The woman said, “Let me ask you a question. How long has it been since you spoke with your Verity?”
“It has been hundreds of turns,” Symvalline replied simply, assuming subterfuge would be pointless. The woman’s eyes seemed to see straight into her, a sense similar to looking into a Scrylle. They were wise, but deep inside their shifting layers, there seemed to be a darkness or a pain that Symvalline could almost feel.
“So Vaka Aster has abandoned you.” It was a statement, not the smallest gap at its edges for argument. “And since then, what calamities and troubles has your realm faced?”
Now Symvalline did hesitate. There was no doubt where these questions were leading, but she saw no point to them. “The Verities do not interfere in the lives of their creations. You imply they should, that troubles we bring on ourselves should be resolved by our makers. That’s ridiculous. If people faced no consequences for our mistakes, we would forever be helpless and ignorant.”
The earlier servant and another returned and laid several things to eat and drink on a small table they brought with them. When they were gone, the Archon gestured to the libations. “You must be hungry after your journey. I have never traveled by starpath and am curious if it is taxing.”
Symvalline remained in place. “And you call yourself a Verity.”
An authentic smile crossed her face. “My name, my true name, is Archon Akeeva Raamuzi. I’ve been a guardian of our vessel for lifetimes. It doesn’t matter how many. But I have been Mithlí to my people since the last Equifulcrum.” She gestured to the far end of the chamber, which opened to the outside balcony. “Follow me.”
They crossed the room and stepped out. For the first time, Symvalline was able to look over the vista of her surroundings. She wanted to stretch and bend her cramped muscles, to complain about her rough treatment, but there was no point. Instead, she stood stiffly beside the foreigner and took in the vast valley spread out before her. It encompassed a village twice the size of Asteryss. In the distance, she could make out farmlands and rolling foothills that rose to more terraced farms growing up the mountainsides. Two of the moons, one red the other blue, stood out faintly in the sky, and she could make out just a hint of the third, like a ghost on the horizon. They were closer to each other than the night she and Isemay had arrived.
“The Equifulcrum is twelve days from now. In our tradition Mithlí changes vessels then and will take the form of one of the Archons who volunteers for the honor. This was our way for as far back as we Arc Rheunosians existed, until…” Her eyes shifted toward the faint outlines of the realm’s three moons. “The last Equifulcrum.”
She stepped back inside to the table and poured herself a cup of amber liquid. With her back to Symvalline, she said, “Our world was ending, our people were dying in great numbers. We called it the Great Waste. A sickness with no cure. Families rent apart. Children dying in their parents’ arms.” She paused, then gulped the drink.
Symvalline took one last look over the balcony handrail. The courtyard below was too far. Even if she survived a jump, she’d break and rupture too many things to walk away from it. Then she’d be useless to Isemay for an untold length of time. She would have to find another way to escape the Minothians. Walking away from the railing, she stopped just inside the chamber.
Akeeva placed her cup down and faced Symvalline. “And where was Mithlí as her creations suffered and died? I’ll let you guess.” She watched Symvalline closely, the colors of her face and hand flushing from magenta to burgundy to a dusky gray, like the eye of a hurricane at twilight.
The reason for the pain she’d seen buried in the woman’s eyes came to Symvalline. “How old was your child when you lost her?” she asked.
“Children, Vinnric. I lost three children. One after another. And all I wanted was to die with them. But Mithlí even took that option from me.”
Symvalline observed her quietly. An Archon who led the people of her realm to believe she was the living vessel—it seemed inconceivable. The fiction would crumble the moment the true vessel or the Verity in her celestial form chose to appear. The price for such a betrayal would be equally inconceivable. So why would Akeeva take such a risk, betraying not only her maker but her duty and oath as well? Her children would never come back, no matter what Akeeva tried or what disloyalties she was willing to commit.
And where was Mithlí’s true vessel?
“The people of Arc Rheunos were once much more numerous than just those who live in this valley,” Akeeva went on. “We were spread across the realm. But the Waste took it all away. Hundreds of thousands died. Whole families, cities. Minoth closed itself off from the rest to try to protect a few. But even with our lands barred, the mountains serving as our stronghold, the Waste finds us at times. Brought by any who come from outside. Like the Zhallahs, or”—she looked Symvalline dead in the eye—“other foreigners.”
Symvalline wanted to scoff, but she held it back. “I’m no plague-bringer.”
Light flashed off the steel-tipped hooks of Tuzhazu’s wings as he walked into the room. Akeeva turned to him.
“You’ve been informed?” he asked her, not looking at Symvalline.
“The runner arrived a few hours before you. Our guest and I have been discussing her options.”
“She may serve some purpose or have some ends she hasn’t revealed. We must keep her locked away from the people. Who knows what diseases she may carry.”
“No,” Symvalline broke in. “I have no intention of meddling in your affairs, and I’m not a danger to anyone. I must return to Vinnr. I only ask for you to open a starpath and send me home after I—” She cut herself off. How could she tell them of Isemay without giving them more leverage over her?
Tuzhazu continued without even a glance toward Symvalline, as if she weren’t there. “Balavad may have use for her. She said he’s come to the Vinnric realm as well.”
At the mention of Balavad, Akeeva’s eyes flashed yellow, predatory like a bruhawk’s. She faced Symvalline. “What do you know of the Battgjald Verity?”
Fighting against the cracks spreading through her composure, Symvalline took a deep breath. “He came to Vinnr in disguise, calling himself His Holiness Prime. His forces usurped my home kingdom, Yor, then started to infiltrate Ivoryss, the seat of my Order. My…our leader tried to stop him, but Balavad’s forces attacked Ivoryss and besieged the Knights at the sanctuary of Vaka Aster’s vessel. I was isolated and outnumbered in the attack, and then, somehow, I was sent through the starpath and ended up here. I honestly don’t know who opened the starpath, why I was sent through, or where the rest of my Order is now. The one thing I do know is that Balavad is a calculating, malicious celestial. He has ends that I don’t yet understand, though it involves the Syzickí Elementum. Our Scrylle is not detailed enough to show what this means or what it is, but if you return me to my realm, I can learn more. There’s a chance that what I learn could be of benefit to you as well.”
She stopped, drawing another deep breath. It had all come rushing out. Until this moment, she’d not had much more on her mind than worrying for Isemay and Ulfric and had not begun to question or analyze Balavad’s motivations in Vinnr. Now that she’d said all that she knew aloud, the larger picture was coming into fo
cus.
She noted the look that passed between the two Archons as she pieced things together and asked them, “What do you know of the Syzickí Elementum?”
Tuzhazu said, “We know it is a doom that will never come to pass.”
Despite the frustration his evasiveness caused, Symvalline pressed on. “Then you have no need to keep me here.”
“Tell me, did you speak to Balavad yourself?” Akeeva asked.
“I did not.”
“Did you and the rest of your Order meet with him to learn his intentions?” When Symvalline refused to answer, the false Verity nodded her head knowingly. “Then you can’t be certain that anything you’ve said is any more than hearsay and gossip.”
“One of my Order saw him murder several members of our Arch Keeper’s staff.”
“Perhaps they were a hindrance to the greater good.” Akeeva moved to a settee in the shade of the overhanging roof and sat. “Balavad is a Verity,” she stated simply, “and his purposes and methods are beyond our comprehension. But he saved this world from near destruction and stopped the spread of the plague while Mithlí the Everlight did nothing. He put an end to the Waste and asked for little in return. Some of our own Order did not like the compromises we had to make, but with Balavad’s help, we saved our people. I have no regrets.”
Some of their Order disagreed with the choice to accommodate Balavad—which must mean the one Salukis had mentioned. “Raamuzi,” she said. “The Archon who leads the Zhallahs?”
“Yes.” Akeeva nodded. “My sister. And once, my ally. But no longer. Balavad is not an enemy of Arc Rheunos. If he came to our aid, I encourage you to entertain the possibility that he came to Vinnr’s as well.”