The Sealed Citadel

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Used our power without supervision." Tarriman's voice was gravely flat. He poured more shadows into the woman's head. "You have broken one of our most vital commandments."

  "Master, she was about to die!"

  "And if your 'efforts' had failed, you would have killed her. You know what your duty was."

  "To call for you."

  Tarriman ignored him a moment; within Marry's skull, Cally sensed excess fluid draining away, relieving the pressure he hadn't even thought to look for. He prayed it hadn't hurt her.

  Satisfied that she was stable, the Master turned on him. "You think too much of your talents and not enough of your place. You have failed your test, Cally. Worse yet, you have betrayed our Order. You are sentenced to the Mind's Fast until I deem you properly repentant. Now be gone from this room."

  Cally stood there, stunned. Tarriman's face reddened and he lifted his hand as if to strike Cally. Then the Master's eyes widened. Cally turned away so as not to shame him for coming so close to violence, brushing past Yarrow on his way out the door.

  He bit his lip so he wouldn't start to yell or cry. When he tasted blood, the shadows of the nether swarmed to him, as if mocking him.

  ~

  The room of the Mind's Fast wasn't unpleasant. In a way, that made it worse.

  It was likely he would be confined for weeks. For some apprentices, the punishment could last for months. In all that time, he was not to touch, use, or wield the nether. Instead, he was expected to use his time to pray, reflect, and study.

  So he prayed for Tarriman to reverse his decision. He reflected that he'd done nothing wrong. And he studied the books they'd given him—books he'd each read at least three times before, and which held nothing new for him. By the fourth day of his sequester, he was ready to seek the enlightenment of the paving stones four floors below his window. It had always been his deepest desire to learn the secrets of sorcery and with them the secrets of the world.

  Ever since leaving his parents, he'd thought Narashtovik would be the key to unlocking these mysteries. But although he was only fifteen, he was starting to feel…slow. As if time that he'd never see again was slipping away from him. His confinement only worsened these feelings. Well, he didn't dare to use the nether—if he was caught, he'd be booted from the Order and the city—but there was no rule against looking at it, and he spent hours doing so, examining the rippling shadows as if they might start to spell out words if only he watched them for long enough.

  The only people he saw were the servant who brought him his meals and Volarra, an aide to the Minister of Apprentices who came to him each sunset to discuss what he'd learned on the day. She was of the age that seemed much older than him yet was much younger than most and the way she smiled at him and the tone of her voice made Cally feel as though she genuinely cared for his well-being.

  Which made him feel guilty that he was about to exploit that care.

  As usual, she arrived as the sun's last rays stained the gray walls red. They exchanged pleasantries, then she sat at the table that was his only furniture other than his cot.

  She folded her hands. "What did you learn today? What has troubled you that I can I help you understand?"

  Cally looked down. "Do you want the truth?"

  "Always."

  "I didn't learn anything today."

  Volarra drew back her head as if he'd shouted at her. "Nothing? Were you too ill to read?"

  "Ma'am, what is the purpose of the Mind's Fast?"

  "To recenter yourself and to widen your knowledge."

  "Does it seem like I'm widening my knowledge?"

  She frowned. "I know you've read many of these works before…"

  "I've read all of them before. More than once. Wasn't my studiousness the reason I got to take my test so early?"

  "One of the reasons, yes."

  "A student who's erred can only leave the Mind's Fast once they've shown they've developed new knowledge to fully understand their mistake so that it won't be repeated. But how am I supposed to learn anything when I'm not allowed to?"

  Volarra's frown deepened. After a moment, she narrowed her eyes. "Cally, you have something on your mind. Out with it."

  Cally took a deep breath. "I want to read the Cycle of Arawn."

  Her jaw dropped as if he'd asked her to bathe together. "You know that isn't allowed. Not without direct supervision."

  "But our people were reading it for centuries."

  "Which just so happened to coincide with centuries of violence and warfare. The Cycle is riddled with sorcerers using their power to kill and enslave people!"

  "Isn't reading about their mistakes the best way for me to learn how to avoid them?"

  "Or to become entranced by them!"

  "What are the words in the Cycle going to make me do? Break out of this tower and lay waste to the peasants? We can talk through what I've read just like we've been doing. You can guide me. If you think my understanding is faulty, or dangerous, can't you just take the book away from me?"

  "If you're not learning anything with your current material, there are plenty of other books I could bring you. Ones that aren't as…challenging."

  Cally began to pace. "What's so bad about being challenged? Isn't that how we get better? Stronger? Better able to stand against the barbarians, emperors, and mad wizards of the world? There are so many of them and so few of those of us who stand for the values of the Order. How can I help our people survive their assaults—and spread peace across the world—when I'm wasting away in this tower?"

  "I should tell Tarriman of this." She had lowered her eyes, but now locked them on his. "If they find it on you, you'll take the blame. They'll expel you from the Order."

  Suddenly afraid of saying something that might talk her out of it, Cally only nodded. Volarra watched him a moment, then stood and left the chamber.

  Near midnight, a soft tap woke him from sleep. He shuffled to the door. In the hall, a cloth-wrapped bundle waited on the floor.

  ~

  The smell of age rose from its pages.

  They had limited his supply of candles to prevent him from staying up too late into the night, which was under the sway of Lia, whose capriciousness was thought to be able to sway sorcerers into dark pursuits. But they had nothing that could stop him from using the ether.

  He brought the Cycle beneath the covers, tucked them tight, and emptied his mind. Ether emerged from the air. He took it in hand and scattered it about his nest like so many little stars. It was just bright enough to read by. The book, like all copies of it, was bound in black leather. The White Tree of Barden reached across its cover, its bone limbs spread to the darkness around it.

  He began to read.

  Almost at once, he was shocked by the savagery of it. Nethermancers waged war on each other—and common people!—with reckless abandon. Towers were blasted into flinders; towns were burned like blighted fields; whole armies of un-spelled men were stamped out like a brood of baby wolf spiders clinging to their mother's back.

  Cally was of course intellectually aware that many contemporary sorcerers used their powers to enforce their will through bloodshed. It was undeniably true that the only thing that could stop a sorcerous assault was a sorcerous defense, meaning that a nethermancer could run wild over peasants and nobility alike. But that was high among the reasons that sorcery couldn't be used as a weapon. Reading about bloodthirsty nethermancers who had no conception of the Declaration of Merriwen was like reading about water that had no conception of being wet.

  Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he felt compelled to read on, and didn't finally close the book until the third time he nodded off. He hid the Cycle among his clean robes and slept. When he dreamed, he dreamed of sorcerers advancing on him, their eyes and palms ablaze with power, and he couldn't so much as raise his hand to defend himself against them.

  The servants woke him much too early. They kept no set schedule as to when they came and went, which Cally suspected was intenti
onal, a method of enforcing the edicts of the Mind's Fast, and so he didn't risk reading more of the book during the daylight hours. Anyway, he was a bit shaken by the whole thing, both its stories and his dreams, and actually wanted to go over what he'd read with Volarra before progressing any further.

  As it turned out, he got the chance to do neither.

  That afternoon, a hue and cry rang from the gates to the House of Twelve. Cally looked up from the treatise he'd been reading and went to the window. A rider was tearing across the broad courtyard. He was yelling something and waving his arms above his head, but between the clatter of his hooves and the cheers of the people trailing in his wake, it was some moments before Cally could make out the words.

  "The curse on the city!" the rider shouted. "The curse has been lifted!"

  2

  Of course it wasn't that simple.

  Trapped in isolation, Cally didn't learn the truth for hours. Even the servants, who typically gossiped so much he suspected they used it as a weapon to control the Masters, kept mum on the subject, claiming they weren't allowed to disturb his Mind's Fast.

  Sunset arrived, but Volarra didn't. Cally's room dimmed. No servant came to light his candles. Barred from using the nether to bring flame to them, he lapsed into darkness.

  A half hour later, someone knocked on the door. Before he could tell them to come in, the door swung open, bringing Volarra with it.

  Cally jumped to his feet. "Well?"

  She eyed him. "Well what?"

  "Was the rider telling the truth?"

  "Why is it so dark in here?" She motioned to the candles on his table. Nether flew to their wicks, lighting them. "That's much better, isn't it?"

  "If you're trying to torture me, remember that I'm locked in here with my own chamber pot. You're going to have to make a serious effort."

  Volarra laughed and went to the window to look out on the dark courtyard, where people were reveling and singing and drinking. "What have you heard?"

  "That the curse has been lifted from the Citadel. Then a lot of whooping. Then a great deal of increasingly bawdy songs."

  "The rider was a little exuberant. The curse hasn't been lifted—yet. But the Lannovians have agreed to hear our evidence that it should be. We've arranged to meet them in southern Tantonnen. We leave tomorrow morning."

  "That's a little bit fast, isn't it?"

  "We've been waiting sixty years for this. That's about 59 years and fifty weeks more than we'd need to prepare for such a journey."

  "What happens if you convince the Lannovians that the wards should be dropped?"

  "I'm just a humble aide, but I assume they'll come back with us and help us drop the wards."

  "Oh," Cally said. "Well, good luck."

  She laughed again. "We're about to regain control of the Sealed Citadel—and all its treasures. We'll restore the city to its old glory. Spread the Order's faith across all of Gask. And all you have to say is 'good luck'?"

  "May your journey proceed under the blessings of Arawn, Taim, the twelve gods of the Celeset, all of the saints who weren't secretly jerks, and of course myself."

  "Better. Now please excuse me. I need to prepare." She headed for the door, but stopped in front of it. "Did you do any reading?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  "And it was very much not what I'm used to."

  "That's because we're trying to create a world where everything that happened between those two covers never happens again. Keep it well-hidden, Cally. I suspect whoever's left in charge of you will be much stricter."

  She left the room. Cally sat. A mood had settled on his shoulders. Of course he was happy for the Order as a whole. As for himself: yes, a mood. For, although they were supposed to stay humble in all things, he hardly thought it arrogant to admit to himself that he was among the most talented of the apprentices. If anything, it was humble for him to deny that he was absolutely the best.

  This being the case, then, in his secret heart, he had always imagined he would be chosen as part of the venture to unlock the Citadel from the bonds that had kept it from them since long before his birth.

  But even if that had once been the case, it was no longer true. Not since he'd disgraced himself.

  He blew out the candles, got the Cycle out from hiding, and retreated beneath his covers. This time, the stories of butchery and war didn't seem quite as upsetting. It had been a different time, hadn't it? One that had called for different measures.

  A knock awoke him. It was light in his room and the light was coming from the window; this meant that he had fallen asleep while reading and stayed asleep until early morning, which it seemed to be. The door sprung open and Master Tarriman barged into the room.

  "Cally?" His voice felt strong enough to rattle the dust from the walls. "Cally, what's going on in here?"

  Cally sat up sharply. A book shifted in his lap. Not just a book—the Cycle. He grabbed it, meaning to slam it shut, then his fingers brushed over the icon on the cover, which was so instantly recognizable that he knew what it was by touch, meaning the Master's eyes would identify the White Tree in a flash.

  With his head feeling like it was about to float free of his body, Cally swept the sheets aside, hiding the Cycle beneath them. He hurried to grab his long shirt from the floor, as if embarrassed for his superior to see his bare chest.

  "Master Tarriman!" He pulled the shirt over his head. "What are you doing here? Have they demoted you to servant?"

  Tarriman motioned to the disheveled bed. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"

  Cally gawked.

  "Get your things!" The Master made a broad circular gesture. "Get going!"

  "Right," Cally said. "Which things, in order to go where?"

  "Tantonnen—and to the great council, where we will decide the future of our city and our very Order. Or were you planning to stay here?"

  "Of course not." Cally willed himself not to glance at the besheeted book. "Just, ah, give me a minute to get ready."

  ~

  Within the hour, they rode forth—or anyway the Masters, scouts, and senior soldiers did. The apprentices, common soldiers, and servants proceeded on foot. Cally had rarely had business beyond the Pridegate, the city's outer wall, and was amazed to find that the countless houses there were almost all abandoned, whitewash flaking from the structures' faces while weeds overwhelmed the yards. Signs of the city's decay were everywhere, of course—for it had been in decline for many years before the locking of the Citadel—but here it was worst of all. It was a shock to be reminded just how much it had fallen.

  As it turned out, Cally had been deemed a worthy addition to the procession for two reasons. First, because Tarriman was under the belief that Tantonnen was close to Arrolore, Cally's birthplace, and thus Cally might have more familiarity with the territory than most. Every assumption of this premise was untrue, but Cally deemed that it would be cruel to disabuse the Master of his illusions, and thus did nothing to correct him.

  Second, the council at the Bowl of Seasons would almost certainly turn out to be a historic event. To rightly commemorate such an event, it was desired that representatives of the full array of the Order's members be there, from Masters to monks to apprentices.

  Around them, the houses dwindled. Most hadn't been inhabited for decades or even centuries, and the roofs had long ago yielded to the heavy snows of the northern winters. Then there were no more buildings at all: just the stumpy fields where people harvested their firewood and lumber, and the young pines that grew to replace them.

  Cally had been to the woods on a handful of occasions. But he hadn't been outside the city for longer than a day since he'd first arrived in Narashtovik. The thought of leaving it behind for a journey that would take two weeks just to reach Tantonnen would have been daunting, or even terrifying, if he hadn't been in the company of dozens of soldiers and senior nethermancers.

  But he was in such company. And the forest smelled of sunlight on pines, and the var
ious birds seemed to be very happy about their own situation. So rather than being afraid, Cally felt as though he was off on his very first adventure.

  ~

  They followed the road, which wasn't paved. The path was so old it had been worn down into something that looked like an empty stream bed. On the high banks, trees reached across the gap and joined branches, forming a green tunnel over their heads.

  They made camp at sunset, lighting fires and roasting the bit of unsalted meat they'd brought with them. Everyone was in good spirits. With no one in any hurry to sleep, some of the soldiers sang songs while the monks took turns telling stories, which seemed to be their second-favorite activity, bested only by sampling their own brews.

  Footsteps approached Cally. Lora, one of the only other apprentices named to the journey, sat down next to him. She was accompanied by a faint whiff of flowers.

  She gazed into the popping fire. "You were being held in the Mind's Fast before this, weren't you?"

  Cally found himself confronted by an odd mix of shame and pride. "And all it took to get me out was the most important thing to happen to the Order in sixty years."

  Lora smiled and flipped a twig into the flames. "They say you brought a woman back from the brink of death. And when Master Tarriman tried you stop you, you punched him in the nose."

  "Then they're saying what's fun to say rather than what's true. I did heal the woman, and without permission. But there certainly wasn't any punching."

  "Oh." For some reason, this seemed to disappoint her. "I thought Master Tarriman had just healed his bruise."

  "I'll let you in on a secret." Cally leaned closer, dropping his voice. "I did punch him. I just tell people I didn't to spare his dignity. You see, the blow landed with such force that it knocked his nose clean off. The nose he is presently wearing is a prosthetic. In fact, there is no grand council meeting at all. The whole thing is just a cover story for the Master's quest to secure a new nose from the nosewrights of Tantonnen."