The Sealed Citadel

by Edward W. Robertson

  He very much hadn't; ever since their argument after the norren's unceremonious claiming of their earthly goods, Cally had tried to have nothing to do with the soldier.

  "Rowe?" He furrowed his brow. "Complaining about doing his job, I'd wager. Or stealing things. Or stealing things while complaining about how much other people are stealing things so that no one will notice it's him."

  "Just look at him, would you?"

  She lifted her mug, pointing subtly as she lifted it to her mouth. A quarter of the way around the wide round room, Rowe was leaned up against the stone wall. His posture seemed relaxed—arms crossed, right knee bent, foot propped against the wall—but even at a distance, his eyes were shifty.

  "He looks like he's skulking," Cally said. "Not surprising. Not surprising at all."

  "He's been acting skulky almost since we got down here." Lora looked away from the soldier, gazing down into her ale. "The first night I was out on the hunt with him and his men, they got to talking after they thought I'd fallen asleep. They thought the venture was hopeless. That even if they could find deer, the Order didn't deserve it. They wanted to desert us."

  "But they didn't?"

  She looked up from her mug and shot him a look of amused scorn. "If they had, and yet were still right here, then it would seem they're so incompetent we should wish that they had deserted."

  "If Rowe didn't desert then, when things were at their worst, why are you worried about it now?"

  "Everyone's about to drink wine until their sweat tastes like grapes. No one would even notice until he's long gone. The land's better for it now, too. There's more trees and things to hide in." She glanced back toward Rowe. "Or maybe he just wanted to get closer to Mallon. They'd never follow him across the border."

  Cally considered this, but he wasn't quite sure what she was wanting him to do. It seemed important that he not have to ask, however, and so he began to stroke his chin, which seemed to have a heady thought-generating effect on other people. Either his observations of this effect were off, or his skills were unrefined, for it produced no such revelations in him.

  At the tables where the priests were drinking and picking at the remnants of their meal, a gale of laughter swept across them, drawing the eyes of nearly everyone in the room. Cally's, however, were still fixed on Rowe, who seized the opportunity of the distraction to roll around the corner of the doorway and vanish into the labyrinth of corridors carved through the rock.

  "He's leaving!" Cally hissed. "Someone should do something!"

  Lora blinked at him. "Why don't you?"

  He was right on the brink of declaring that he was just an apprentice and this was much too big for him to deal with when some part of his brain reached out and throttled those words in his throat.

  He stood from his chair. "Why not indeed!"

  He strode toward the doorway, very much resisting the urge to look back and make sure Lora was watching. Nobody else seemed to be paying him any mind, which he was quite grateful for, as his burst of confidence was proving as short-lived as a mayfly.

  He entered the doorway. The small stone room on the other side was instantly cooler than the sunlit Bowl. Cally stopped short. The doorway opened into not one but three different passages curling through the rock.

  There was no sign of which one Rowe had taken. No immediate sign, at least. But along with healing, the apprentices were taught to find people, whether to bring the city watch to criminals, or to bring aid to runaways and the like. Cally stilled his head and brought the light of the ether into him.

  It glimmered down from the dim ceiling. He took it in hand and cast it like dust over the floor. Footprints glowed before him. The stone was bare, and would only hold on to the tracks for a minute, but for once, this was a good thing: it meant Rowe's tracks were the only ones to be found.

  They led down the middle of the three passages. Cally followed them, hastening along the tunnel, which smelled of mildew. It occurred to him that Rowe had a sword, and also the temper to use it. Well, Cally just prayed that he wouldn't.

  The passage sloped upward. Cally walked quickly, bringing some nether to hand. He passed a few wooden doors, each of them closed. Rowe's tracks weren't getting any brighter. In fact, they seemed to be dimming. Was he running? Cally picked up his pace, wincing at the noise stirred by the scuff of his boots.

  The passage leveled out and came to another intersection. Somewhere to Cally's right, a man screamed in pain.

  Had a servant burned himself? Gotten into a brawl? Cally gritted his teeth, used a dab of ether to mark the hallway Rowe had taken, then ran to the right to treat whoever had just been injured. He thought that he should come up with an excuse for why he was up here and wondered if the truth would do. The man screamed again. The sound was gruesome, but though it was warped with pain, there was something familiar about it.

  The hallway lightened. To Cally's right, a room had been carved into the rock, its outer face open to the Bowl below, creating a balcony. He entered. It was obvious at once that the screaming man wasn't there, but something made him pause.

  He was close to thirty feet up and had a full view of the ground floor. Scores of people were chattering and making merry, Narashtovikers mixed with Lannovians, soldiers milling about at ease, servants coming and going from the tunnels. There were several other balconies set around the walls of the Bowl, and though Cally hadn't seen anyone in them before, there now seemed to be people within each of them, drawn back from the sunlight so that the people below wouldn't be able to see them at all.

  Behind Cally, the man screamed a third time, from somewhere deeper within the tunnels, then was cut short.

  For a moment, everything seemed to be frozen in time: the revelers' teeth flashing white as they laughed, silver cups glinting in their hands; the observers watching solemnly from the balconies; and overhead, the sun beaming as it prepared to slip behind the clouds.

  It was then that people began to die.

  6

  Bidden by an unseen signal, the men on the other balconies stepped into the light. They wore cloaks. They held bows. With a twang, they loosed them.

  Screams echoed across the Bowl of Seasons: first from the people who had been struck, followed by a second round from those sitting next to them.

  People jumped up from their chairs, spilling cups and knocking plates to the ground, stoneware shattering. With a yell, the Order's soldiers drew swords. Some backed toward the middle of the room while others ran to protect the Masters and priests while others yet took cover behind the tables.

  A second volley sprung forth, drawing a sharper round of screams. A monk sprinted toward one of the tunnel entrances, robes aflap, touching off a torrent of escapees racing for the exits. Stray arrows knocked a handful of them down, but dozens of the Order's people neared the dark mouths of the tunnels.

  Lannovian soldiers detached from the walls and took formation in front of the doorways.

  Some of the fleeing people faltered, but most continued toward the exits, unable or unwilling to understand. The soldiers' blades rose, shining dully in the overcast light. Their swords fell. So did their victims. Blood shot across the stone floor, horrifically red.

  Priests in silver and black hollered in outrage. Nether twisted above them like dust devils of shadow, sweeping down into their hands. They shaped their power with practiced grace and fired it toward the Lannovian soldiers holding the passages. The nether sank into the attackers' bodies, locking them as stiff as statues.

  Narashtovik's men-at-arms raced toward them, maybe to shove them aside, maybe to cut them down in fury. Behind them, more nether clouded the air. Not from the Masters of the Order. From the Lannovians.

  Black bolts flashed through the air. They made no sound until they thudded into the backs of the priests and exited their chests in misty cones of blood. In the blink of an eye, a score of trained nethermancers fell dead. With cries of shock, the survivors spun to face the new threat, nether flocking and swooping to thei
r defense, but the Lannovians were already upon them with a second wave of sorcery.

  The powers collided, blasting black sparks into the air that twinkled out like wild embers. Other bolts pierced the defenses and ripped into the bodies of the Order's priests. Cally had never witnessed the nether used to draw blood before and the sight of the healing force being used to murder and destroy—gouging open rib cages, splitting skulls—made him so faint that he had to crouch against the waist-high stone barrier enclosing the balcony.

  As the swarm of black spots lifted from his eyes, the last of the Masters fell to a whirling fog of shadows. Their death freed the Lannovian soldiers from their unseen bonds. They moved forward, but there was no one left on their feet to confront.

  The Bowl of Seasons lay terrible still.

  The whole thing had hardly taken a minute. Soldiers stalked among the wounded, thrusting swords into hearts and throats.

  Cally ripped himself away from the balcony. His legs were shaking so hard that he reeled to his left like a drunken soldier. He clawed his way into the hallway.

  "Any rats left in the tunnels?" a rough-sounding man called from below. Someone answered, but Cally couldn't make out the words.

  Out. That was where he had to go. Or he'd end up just like all the others. Where? He didn't know the way out, not without backtracking to the Bowl, which was suicide. Could he hide? Wait until they left?

  Boots thumped below, approaching. No. He could not hide. Still: he didn't know the way out.

  But he knew someone who did, didn't he?

  He ran back down the hallway as fast as he dared. His dab of ether was still gleaming from the passage he'd marked. He erased it as he went by, sifting a little more onto the ground. Rowe's tracks had almost faded completely.

  "Almost," however, was not the same as "had." Cally loped along the starlight-faint footprints. Greasy candles oozed just enough light to see by. The passage tilted upward, coming to a staircase, which seemed good. He hiked up it. The footprints brightened greatly but were muddied by the addition of two other sets. The next corridor broadened, wooden doors on both sides. An exit stood ahead, the blessed light of the day burning beyond it.

  A body sprawled across it. Lannovian soldier. He wasn't moving and the blood was just beginning to spread from beneath him. Gingerly, Cally stepped over the body.

  A figure in a black cloak was striding away not twenty feet to Cally's right. His sword was drawn and bloody and even from behind Cally recognized Sergeant Rowe's lean build. Before he could call out, a soldier leaped down from the low rocks behind him, his gray and crimson tabard flapping about his mailed chest.

  The Lannovian shot a look at Rowe, saw Cally's apprentice robe with its star patch, and turned on him instead, naked blade in hand.

  "Rowe!" Cally shrieked. "Help!"

  Rowe glanced over his shoulder, but only to deliver Cally a disgusted look. He ran on toward the woods.

  The Lannovian took a step closer, edging to Cally's left. "Come on, boy. We'll make it quick."

  Cally drew his knife and clenched it in both hands. Its blade was barely longer than his middle finger. Though all boys had fantasies that they could out-fight an assailant even if that assailant was bigger and carrying a longer, deadlier weapon, Cally knew in that moment he could not.

  The man took a heavy step toward him. Cally took an unsteady step away. "You can't do this. I'm not here to hurt anyone!"

  The Lannovian snorted. "That's what makes this so easy."

  He lunged. Cally contorted his thin body so the sword jabbed past him. Cally grabbed for the nether. He might have locked the man in place, as the priests had tried down in the Bowl, but defensive techniques were reserved for the last two years of apprenticeship, and he didn't know how. Instead, he flung the unshaped shadows in the man's face just as he'd done to the grouse in the desert.

  The soldier grunted and jerked back his shoulders as if expecting to be injured, swatting his sword at the black threads. Cally broke around him and sprinted after Rowe. The Lannovian soldier seemed to teleport to his side, sticking his leg out in front of Cally, who tripped, landing hard on his face in the dirt and dry grass.

  Cally rolled onto his back. The soldier shuffled beside him and poked at him with the sword. Cally wriggled away, but the blade stuck him in his side. He felt a flash of heat, and then a hot, sick dread, as if his body knew exactly what was happening to it and what was to come next.

  Only then did the pain come. He screamed.

  The soldier looked down on him with the clinical regard Master Tarriman had displayed to routine patients. He withdrew the sword from Cally's side, provoking a second wave of the sick heat, and cocked back his elbow, preparing to drive the point of the weapon as deep into Cally as it would go.

  "I'll gouge your eyes out!" To Cally's ears, his voice sounded much too thin and weak to be taken seriously. But perhaps his cloak of the Order lent him some authority, for the soldier hesitated.

  Cally drove the nether into the man's eyes. He had no actual idea how to gouge them out, so he simply filled the soldier's sockets with a solid layer of shadows.

  "I'm blind!" The man staggered back a step, taking a clumsy swipe with his sword while grabbing at his face with his free hand. "You little bastard! You blinded me!"

  Cally had dropped his knife when he'd been stabbed. He scrabbled it up and pointed it at the soldier, who was still backing away while waving his sword about and yelling. Rather than knifing him, Cally turned and ran away.

  He entered the trees Rowe had disappeared into. He maintained his hold on the nether blinding the soldier, but he could already feel it weakening as the distance grew between them. People were shouting behind him; the soldier's cries had drawn others. Cally scurried downhill, shielding his face from the assaults of the branches, skidding through dead leaves and loose soil. His side ached badly, threatening to overwhelm him. The blood that slid down his hip was shockingly hot.

  He pulled to a stop in front of a short drop. It was no more than four feet to the flat ground below, but he felt as though jumping down it might rip him in half. He exhaled shakily and reached for the nether. It flung itself at him as if it had been launched from a trebuchet. Taken by surprise by its ferocity, he uttered a squeak, swatting at it and falling to the ground, which hurt so badly he lost consciousness for a moment.

  There. Awake again. Hurting. Nether?

  He took it up and sank it into his wound. The relief was immediate and felt as good as falling asleep. He worked hastily, patching the flesh back together just well enough to stop all the bleeding and hurting. This done, he still didn't like the look of the drop, and backtracked until he found a less threatening portion of slope to head down.

  The shouting had stopped a minute ago, but it had been replaced by the fast fall of footsteps. The soldiers were coming after him. The slope was angled too much to run without leaving big obvious skids behind him and he headed down it at a quick walk.

  He'd barely gotten anywhere at all before a man's voice raised uphill and to his right. Cally half-collapsed behind a clump of trees whose roots had opened a small hollow into the slope.

  "Got some blood here," a man said. "Reckon he's this way."

  Cally edged one eye around the earthy-smelling roots. Three Lannovian soldiers, including the one that had attacked him, clambered down the short decline he'd turned away from hardly thirty seconds ago. They disappeared from sight, their footsteps fading, leaving Cally alone in the woods.

  ~

  He was sorely, sorely tempted to wait under the roots until night fell. But he'd only evaded the soldiers through sheer luck. Besides, if he waited another two hours for full darkness, Rowe's tracks would be long gone.

  Every nerve on edge, he emerged from his warren. The hillside looked empty. He hiked back up to the crown and began to sift the ether across the ground. Almost at once, light glittered on a set of tracks heading in a different direction than the three soldiers had gone.

  Cally set
off after it, using a bare sprinkle of ether, uncertain how long he'd be able to keep drawing on it. The sky had darkened by several shades and a gentle rain began to fall. Under different circumstances, this might have dispirited Cally, but softer ground meant Rowe's boots would leave a stronger disturbance, meaning in turn that the ether would be able to highlight it for longer.

  Sure enough, the tracks quickly grew brighter. Cally followed them down a gradual decline. They came to a grassy glade, skirting the open space. Cally glanced up from the tracks constantly, having no desire to bump into the Lannovians again, yet for all his alertness, he didn't see Rowe until he was about to run right into him.

  The soldier stood halfway behind a tree. His bow was drawn and the iron point of its arrow was aimed squarely at Cally's chest.

  "There you are!" Cally rocked to a stop. "Rowe, it's horrible. They killed every—"

  Rowe's elbow lifted, pulling back another inch. Through an instinct he hadn't known he possessed, Cally threw himself to the ground. The bow twanged; the arrow hissed over Cally's head.

  "It's me!" Cally sat up, putting up his hands. "We're kinsmen!"

  Rowe had already drawn another arrow. He fitted it to the string, but didn't pull it back. "How did you find me?"

  "I tracked you."

  "Like hell. You couldn't track a herd of cattle across a bread pudding."

  "That's true, in the sense that you mean it. But I can do this." Ether coalesced around Cally's hand in a cube of beautiful lines. He sifted it over the ground.

  Without moving his body, Rowe glanced down at the shining light of their footsteps. "The Lannovian priests can do this too?"

  "Ah…I can't say that I've asked them. But if I know how to do it, I'd be shocked if they didn't."

  "How do you get rid of the tracks?"

  "Well, I don't think you do. Other than by waiting." Cally stroked his chin. This time, it did coax an idea forth. "But there might be another way. Do you know the children's game Hot Bed o' Coals?"