Fortunately, they encountered none, either aboveground or in the basements and dungeons. They came to the last prison cell, climbed up through the hole in the ceiling, and emerged into Merriwen's little chapel.
It was the middle of the night and Merriwen was very old, but he was still up, seated in his chair, reading by the faint light of the ether. He waited until Rowe and Cally were standing in front of him to mark his place and look up from the book.
"So we've won, have we?"
"I expect there are still a few wights running around," Cally said. "But the Lannovians have been thoroughly routed."
"What of those who learned to create the wights?"
"Vassimore and Minabar seem to have been the only ones who knew. Both dead."
"He means he killed them," Rowe said.
Merriwen nodded. "Good. And their priests?"
"In the custody of the Order. Master Garillar will probably try to convert them."
Merriwen laughed, shaking his head in wonder. "You have done an incredible thing. Something that no one ever expected could be done. They'll be writing songs about you."
"I have my doubts about the songs," Cally muttered. "But I suppose saving everything from certain doom is its own reward."
"It is indeed," Merriwen said, abruptly sober. "There is just one last thing to be done. Do you still have my old book? The one that kicked off this whole mess?"
"Somehow." Cally searched under his shirt. "Sorry if there's any blood on it."
He passed it to the old man. Merriwen cast it on the floor with a thump. He thrust out his hands, pouring fire onto the old tome. Cally jumped back with a small shriek. The pages contorted as they burned away, all of their wisdom converted into smoke, to be dispersed across the greatness of the sky until there was no trace of their existence left anywhere in the world.
Cally waved at the air. "What was that for?"
Merriwen glanced up from his work, mildly peevish. "All knowledge of the demons must be destroyed. Including my own contributions."
They watched the tome smolder. Rowe's silence seemed to be deeper than the others'. Once the book was little more than embers, he said, "Why did you do it?"
"Eh? I just told you. This is much too dangerous to be allowed to continue to exist."
"Not to your book. To the Order. The people who used to be the Order."
The chapel was silent except for the final hiss of the book burning itself out. Merriwen was staring at Rowe, but Cally didn't see any confusion on his face. Rather it was the odd serenity some prisoners took on when they were sentenced and they knew their fate at long last.
"Minabar said the Order has been doomed since its founding." Cally's tongue felt too thick to move. "You founded the Order. Were you…conspiring with the Lannovians? To turn over the city to them?"
Merriwen narrowed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly released it. "I have thought this confession to myself countless times. I never thought that I might come to speak it."
Rowe put his hand on his belt near his sword. "Talk."
"Naturally, it began before the Order. This was in the days when the Order was known as the High Council of Narashtovik, and was set upon on all sides by many foes. We feared that we wouldn't survive the wars that were coming for us. In desperation, we began a search for dark knowledge we could use to stymie our foes. We traveled to the Houkkalli Islands. To Pocket Cove. At great danger to our agents, we infiltrated both Setteven and Bressel. At last, in the foul swamps of the far south, we found what we were searching for."
"The wights," Cally said.
"Among other things. But as we gathered these new skills and put them to use, I saw in them the power not just to defend ourselves, but to conquer."
Rowe grunted. "Power isn't evil. It's how you use it."
"This wasn't the simple power of an army or even an empire. It was total power. The power to conquer the world—or more likely to destroy it. It seemed to me that even if we were cautious enough not to use it to those ends, someday, someone would—whether an overambitious member of our own Council, or one of our enemies, who would work tirelessly to steal our wisdom or learn to duplicate it."
Cally wrinkled his brow. "Every realm has gobs of sorcerers and a thousand times as many gobs of soldiers. And there must be hundreds of different realms out there. How could anything be powerful enough to destroy all of that?"
"Imagine if when a wight killed you, you became a wight as well, compelled to join the war against the human lands."
"That…well, that would do it."
Merriwen leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. "We were not at that point. Not yet. However, I believed we would get to that point. But the Council wouldn't be swayed. That meant I had no choice but to undermine them. But they were now too strong to be felled by any simple form of treason. I would have to compose a much more sinister plan.
"My plan was this: I would fill the Citadel with wights and seal it away. At the same time I would impose a reformation on the Council. A set of beliefs that might weaken them, year by year, until the day they could be destroyed by simple treason. Such as allowing the Lannovians to conquer them."
Rowe shifted his feet. "Under those wrinkles of yours, we're sure you're not a demon?"
Merriwen gave him a look. "I was willing to destroy what I loved most in order to spare the world, and you accuse me of being a demon? You know nothing. You weren't there. You have no idea of the weight of the responsibility I bore on my shoulders. Judge from where you stand today. But what I did then may well be why you stand here at all. If one day you have children, it is certainly why they will stand tomorrow."
He had worked up quite a head of steam, but he sat back, tugging and readjusting his robes, suddenly as calm as a pond at dawn. "Regardless, there is more to it than that. It was my intention to betray the Lannovians as well. In the many years it would take before the Order was weak enough to conquer, I would destroy everything we once knew. All of the knowledge that had led to our downfall. The Lannovians would take the Citadel and find that it was empty."
"But why give it to them at all?" Cally said. "Why not just let everything the old Council knew fade from memory, then hand the Citadel back to the Order?"
"It was my fear that unless the institution was destroyed utterly, someone would revive it and find a way to restore what I schemed to undo. But you are still missing something vital. Handing the husk of the Council over to the Lannovians was no more than a backup plan. I did want to return the Citadel to the Order in time. Don't you see? The beliefs I instilled in the new Order of Healing Shadows were not some heinously cynical ploy to eradicate my old friends from the world. I believed in these values! With all my soul! If I hadn't, they would never have taken root.
"This is what I tried to give to the friends I was betraying: an institution where sorcery—the greatest power known to man—wasn't used for strife and warfare, but for healing and peace. One that might, against all odds of our nature, break us free from our base ways, the corruption that seems to lurk within everything we do, our singleminded power-lust.
"If I could build such an Order, it would be so glorious and pure that its light would sweep across the world just as the dark knowledge we'd discovered had threatened to do. Within a world united by peace, backed by the authority of the wielders of nether and ether, all of my fears of cataclysm would be moot. Our desire to destroy each other that seems to have been embedded in us since the breaking of Arawn's Mill would at last be quenched. I knew the risks of such ambition—that it might fail completely—but I hoped with all my heart that the Order would save us."
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, tears leaking down his cheeks.
"Could it still?" Cally found his voice had gone as soft as if he were wandering through the archives of a monastery. "Maybe it hasn't been given enough time."
Merriwen waved one hand in dismissal, flicking away his tears with the other hand. He laughed, not bitter, but resigned.
"No, no. In time, what I learned was that some people lacked the temperament to ever accept the Order's teachings. The very existence of such people—people who would use the nether as a sword of conquest—meant the Order could not succeed. For the Order cannot conquer with the sword, while its enemies are under no such restrictions.
"As the years went on, and the Order's leaders grew tamer, weaker, flat-spirited, it became obvious it was only a matter of time before they would fall, whether it be to Setteven, the Lannovians, or anyone else who recognized how vulnerable the Order really was. Seeing what my people had become…like barn animals…no matter the loft of my intentions, I began to regret what I had done to them."
"Then why didn't you come out? Confess? Tell them they were making a huge mistake?"
"He still needed them gone," Rowe said. "Make sure the cataclysm would never come."
Merriwen nodded. "That's right. Besides, if I had gone forth to them a year ago, even ten years ago, and told them what I'm telling you, would the members of the Order have abandoned their beliefs? No. They are set in them now like iron ore cast into hard steel. My regrets came too late. Better to stay here and let the last shreds of the old Council be forgotten—along with my crimes."
Cally gazed up at the slitted windows cut into the ceiling. "Well, I'm done with the Order and it's done with me. Maybe we can leave here and you can mentor me. Teach me to wield the shadows without straying too far into darkness."
"I'm afraid not. It's time for me to leave, too—and become lost, so that what I know is lost at last. This is where our path parts."
"But what do I do?"
"Go elsewhere for training. Setteven, Gallador, it doesn't matter. Every order is ever hungry for new sorcerers. That is part of why my Order failed."
Cally gestured about him. "I don't want to leave Narashtovik for good. It's become my home. I want to make sure that it doesn't fall."
"I suppose there is one way to do that." Merriwen sounded amused. "Restore what was lost. Found a new Council."
"But how would I prevent it from going down the same road yours did? From threatening all the world?"
"You will never be tempted to let it go down that road. Because you have seen what it required of me to stop it—and having heard my story, you would never let yourself become me."
Cally began to pace in front of Merriwen's chair. "But how would I do this? I don't know enough. I'm no one."
"To form a Council, you will need companions. To gather companions, you will need authority. But if you want authority over this city—and over the Order—the best thing you could do is recover the ancient heart of the city: the true copy of the Cycle of Arawn."
"What do you mean, the true copy?"
"The first to be written. The founding document of Arawn's place in the Celeset. The book has the power to awaken a latent nethermancer's talents. It will help train you and others who might join you." Merriwen thumped his fist on the arm of his chair. "And it will certainly give you primacy over the Order!"
"Where exactly do I find this priceless artifact? Underneath a dragon in its lair?"
"If I knew where it was then I would have it myself. It was lost ages ago in the south. Somewhere in Mallon, I think."
"But that's enemy lands. They'd hang me just for knowing the nether."
"Then I suppose you better hadn't let them know you know it. For if you want to restore the High Council, that is where you must go." Merriwen braced his hands on his chair and pushed himself to his feet, looking about himself. "The Order is on its way. It is time for me to leave."
Cally glanced about the chapel, with its neat beds of plants, its tables full of curios and artifacts, the result of decades of curation. Yet Merriwen seemed unconcerned in the slightest about leaving all of his work behind. The old man walked toward a bricked-up portion of wall—shuffling at first, but with increasing spryness—and lifted his hand to it.
Shadows poured forth as lithely as dancers. The wall crumbled, pebbles cascading into the courtyard with the sound of heavy rain. Merriwen stepped across the rubble and strolled down a paved path toward the gates. Once he was through them, he stretched his arms wide, inhaled through his nose, and smiled up at the night sky.
"Goodbye, Cally," the old man said. "I meant to destroy this place…but I'm glad that you've saved it, if only for now."
Before Cally could reply, a curtain of darkness swirled over Merriwen. It vanished and so did he. Cally could still feel him there, hidden by or perhaps a part of the shadows, but the old man was already walking away, his presence growing fainter with each step.
"That was a hell of a thing." Rowe shook his head as if he'd taken a punch to the jaw. "Better get you past the city gates before Garillar catches up with you."
"What's he going to do?" Cally said. "Lock me up in the prison he insists I couldn't have escaped from?"
"More likely to hang you from it."
Cally was not at all sure that Rowe was wrong, and put a spring in his step as they headed for the northern gate, where it was least likely that the Order would have their people about in any number. The citizens were still skipping and dancing in the streets, swigging from cups and bottles. Cally doubted he and Rowe would garner any special notice.
Before they came to the Ingate, Cally turned about for one last good look at the Citadel. Massive. Ancient. He couldn't help wondering how it would feel to rule such a place. Someday, perhaps. He smiled and walked on.
Merriwen's confession had been both baffling and dispiriting. But now that he was back out among the people—very much alive people, people not being bashed apart by twisted wights—Cally felt light again. He remained that way until they came within sight of the Pridegate that would send him out of the city and understood that he had a long journey ahead of him and for the first time in his life he would be making his way forward alone.
This made his steps heavier, but he didn't let himself slow down. Not until the gates' guards waved them through and they stood on the other side.
"Well," Cally said. "Thank you for everything, Rowe. Especially the times when you didn't let me die." He stuck out his hand.
Rowe gave him and his hand an odd look. "What are you going on about?"
"I'm thanking you."
"Why?"
"Uh, because I doubt I'll ever see you again."
"Intending to knife me in my sleep?"
Cally gestured back to the city. "Won't you have to return to the Order? Even if they kicked you out, you made a vow to them. I thought you were one to never break your vows."
Rowe scowled at him. "My family's vow isn't to the Order. It's to this city. And you're the one who's going to restore the city to what it once was." He gave Cally a shove—although as far as shoves went, it was a light one. "Now get moving before you convince me it's a stupid idea to follow you anywhere."
Cally grinned and walked onward down the road to the waiting forest. They had no supplies other than what was in their pockets, but he wasn't worried. Carvahal looked after the bold and the foolish as his own. And neither the night nor the wilds felt as fearsome as they once had.
For ten years, the Order had held him locked inside its narrow circle, keeping him away from harmful books, protecting him from dangerous thoughts, banning him from forbidden use of the nether, exposing him to no more than the smallest bits of the world at large, like a child too sickly to leave his room. It was only within the last few weeks that he'd been able to catch little glimpses of what lay beyond the window. Most people would resent that, being robbed of so much of their youth.
But it also meant that wherever he now went—whatever he saw, heard, read, felt—it would all be new to him. It would be like being born again.
He left the city, and turned his face into the wind.
FROM THE AUTHOR
The Sealed Citadel is the first in a new series. To make sure you hear when the next books in the series are out, please sign up for my mailing list.
This series is self-con
tained, but it's part of a much larger world. If you're interested in reading more, I'd start with The Cycle of Arawn, which is set over a hundred years later.
I blog occasionally at edwardwrobertson.com and Facebook somewhat more occasionally at facebook.com/edwardwrobertson
Thank you for reading! Look for the sequel to this near the back end of 2019, so if it is already the back end of 2019 or later, you are probably in luck, and should go read that one too.
- Ed
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