The Cycle of Galand Box Set

by Edward W. Robertson

  "We're working on that now. But as soon as King Charles hears the news of Gladdic's victory, he'll dispatch more troops to strengthen his hold on the basin. We can't afford to delay."

  "'Afford' is a good word. Everything has a cost. If we resist Mallon now, the demons will be sent to Dog's Paw next. How many lives will that cost us?"

  "I couldn't say. What I can tell you—"

  "I can say." Serta tipped back his head. "It will cost every single life we have."

  "You think this is wisdom," Cord said. "But I call it cowardice! The Mallish offer you your deathright and you turn it away?"

  "I would be happy to claim my deathright. I won't commit every man, woman, and child in my city to do the same."

  She clenched her fists, as if ready to surge forward, then sagged, head bowed. "I dedicated my life to fighting them. Now, when the talents of those like me are most needed, we're too afraid to use them. Have I wasted my life?"

  Serta lowered his gaze. "It was never a waste to make Collen strong. But this is beyond the strength of any of us." After a moment of silence, he looked to the other senators. "Are we ready to vote?"

  They nodded. He asked who wished for war. As in Tanner, not a single senator raised their hand.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "Keeping my hand lowered makes me want to hack it off at the shoulder. But if I were to raise it, I might as well use it to draw a knife across my throat."

  Cord nodded. As if in a daze, she turned away and wandered from the shrine.

  Outside, the air was sweet with dew, but the mood was as sour as a farmer's beer. They stood beneath the cliffs, gazing up at the lights flickering from the windows carved into the rock.

  "Look on the bright side," Blays said. "If they won't fight, we can't lose."

  Dante booted a black pebble across the dust. "If we leave now, we have lost. Gladdic won't forget Narashtovik's involvement. Maybe it'll take a year, maybe it'll take ten. But he'll come for us."

  "My heart's as heavy as a millstone," Cord said. "But there are four more towns with the power to declare war. We must try them all."

  "Both votes have been unanimous against us," Dante said. "To get war, we need four votes from a senate, right? Unless something changes, we're operating on hope alone."

  "Hope makes thin gruel." The Keeper's deep voice was almost a moan. "You wish to race for answers. But I garden the past. Victories are like great trees. They don't leap to their full height overnight. They are grown and tended over the course of years."

  "What are you suggesting? We step back and wait for Gladdic to do something so heinous that the senates have to react?" Dante took a sharp breath. "Maybe we don't have to wait. Naran. Cord. Do either of you know where exactly Twill was from?"

  "Oh no." Blays' jaw dropped. "That's sick!"

  Naran wrinkled his brow. "Have I missed something?"

  "He wants to use her death to provoke her hometown into declaring war. Thus forcing the rest of the basin into it, too."

  "I'm not going to make anyone do anything," Dante said. "They should have all the information available to them before they make their decision. Including how Gladdic executed Twill for helping to free the people of the Plagued Islands. This is the moral choice."

  "Convenient that the moral choice happens to be the one that will inflame the locals against our enemy."

  "That sounds like Gladdic's fault. Naran, you knew Twill best. What do you think?"

  Naran pressed his fist to his chin. "There is no doubt whatsoever. Twill would have wanted her people to fight back."

  Cord punched the air. "A great woman has died. Her family must know the truth."

  "Where can we find them?" Dante said. "Please tell me it's not in the city of Collen."

  "Where do you think she found her thirst for trade? Mariola Twill grew up right here in Dog's Paw."

  "About time something broke our way. It's time to stop trying to sway the senators and speak to the people the senators answer to." He turned to the Keeper. "The people's support will be meaningless if we don't know how to defeat the Star-Eaters. We have to find new weapons against them. You're afraid of summoning one of the demons? Then teach me to be able to hurt them. Teach me to use the ether."

  18

  "The ether," the Keeper repeated. "But I am not a teacher."

  "So what?" Dante said. "At this point, I'd say you're well beyond the authority of the Mallish priesthood."

  "Do you think I'm concerned about being caught teaching their secrets? I didn't say that I wouldn't teach you. Only that I'm not a teacher. And you will make an awful student."

  "Because I know too much already?"

  "Definitely not the problem," Blays said.

  The old woman shook her head. "You will never have the talent you want."

  Dante got up from his chair and began to pace. "What makes you so sure?"

  "When a man is born without legs, does he ask why he can't run?"

  "But I can already summon the ether. All I need to do is get better at using it. Why is that so impossible?"

  "I am the Keeper of the Past. I have read all there is to know of six different lands. I know every sorcerer whose name was worth writing down. And you are no ethermancer."

  "Obviously there's plenty you don't know. Or else we'd have beaten the Star-Eaters at Collen."

  The Keeper snorted. "Explaining this requires that you understand the ether. I doubt you even know that much."

  Dante did his best to keep his tone neutral. "Have I done something to offend you?"

  "I don't get out much," she said. "Am I too blunt? If the truth is too hard to swallow, should I feed you soft lies?"

  "Tell me whatever you think is true. But I'm still going to try. Even if I'm such a terrible student that they run out of wool before they can finish knitting my dunce cap."

  "Then tell me what you know of the ether."

  Dante cleared his throat. He could have quoted passages from the Cycle word and verse, but wanting to show understanding rather than rote memorization, he paraphrased.

  "In the first days, Arawn's Mill hung in the heavens where it ground the ether. The ether filled the sky with stars and the earth with life. There was no sickness. No death. But in time, the world groaned with so much life that it toppled, knocking Arawn's Mill down to earth. Arawn set it back in the sky, but it had cracked in the fall. After that, rather than ether, it ground nether. And for the first time, people died—but that was the start of the cycle. Life was born, but in its time, it also died. Since then, the earth hasn't toppled again."

  "That is what's told outside of Mallon, yes. So what is ether and what is nether?"

  "Ether's light and nether's shadow. But that doesn't mean ether's good and nether's bad. Just that they're different substances. Like salt and pepper."

  The Keeper waved a hand. "I'm not a Mallish priest. You don't have to convince me that the nether isn't an abomination. The only thing I want to know is that you understand the difference."

  "They're both a form of energy. If you're asking for something more precise than that, then maybe I don't understand."

  Blays chuckled. "That's the best you've got? Apparently they'll make anyone High Priest these days."

  "Do you really have nothing better to do?"

  "Than watch you fall on your face? This is better than bear-baiting."

  The Keeper waited for them to finish. "The breaking of the mill taught Arawn that perfection is only possible in the Celeset. Not among mortals. He altered life to include death. To become a cycle that could renew itself each time it became degraded. Taim rejected this lesson and cast Arawn out. But the perfection of the first days had been lost forever.

  "Those of us who work with the primal substances must accept the lesson Taim couldn't. Ether is the ideal. In this realm, it might last for a time. But the ideal can't survive in our world forever. In time, it is always broken. However, the nether is the matter of our world. It may crumble. It may break. But death becomes life once more, an
d the cycle goes on."

  "I see," Dante said.

  "By which you mean that you don't. Here is another way to perceive it. The nether is shadow. The object casts a shadow. But it is the ether that casts the object."

  "I think," Blays said, "my brain just melted."

  The Keeper looked amused. "They aren't my words. They're that of Stathus the Wise."

  "Let me offer a piece of hard-earned advice. If you never tell anyone when you're quoting somebody, everyone will think you're a genius."

  Dante leaned against the wall. "I think I get what you're driving at. So what does this have to do with me?"

  The old woman stared into the distance. "Ethermancers come from people of ideals. Nethermancers come from people of the world. I have seen you, Dante Galand. I have read of who you are and what you've done. You don't bend the thing to the ideal. You bend the thing to what is."

  "You mean I'm practical? What about Gladdic, then? He's a skilled ethermancer, yet he's a violent hypocrite. He doesn't give a damn for his ideals. They're nothing more than a way to cover his grabs for power."

  "He cares far more deeply than you believe. He cares so much that he'll warp those ideals if that's what it takes to achieve them. I fear for Collen."

  Dante crossed his arms. "I'm not sure I buy this. There are plenty of sorcerers versed in both skills."

  "How many of them can match your skill with the nether? Answer me this. How did you first learn to use the shadows?"

  "By reading The Cycle of Arawn."

  "Which you stole from a temple," Blays said. "After disposing of the guards there. After which you hired me—with money you got robbing people—to keep you safe while you learned."

  The Keeper belched with laughter. "What ideals were you fighting for when you killed these guards and robbed those people for the sake of your own curiosity and power?"

  "I was young," Dante said. "I didn't care about anything but becoming something greater. You know, I tried to learn to wield the ether from my first teacher, too. His explanation was nothing like this."

  "Who was this first teacher?"

  "Callimandicus of Narashtovik."

  The Keeper bent double, eyes glittering like ice in the winter sun. "Ha! I should have guessed!"

  Blays smiled in disbelief. "You knew Cally?"

  Her pale eyes twinkled. "As closely as a man and a woman can know each other."

  "You're kidding!"

  "When we were much younger, he came to Collen help us resist the Third Scour. We were drawn to each other from the start. Fighting the Mallish together only tempered the steel of our passion. He talked of marriage, and so did I. I dreamed of children who'd carry our talents combined within them. Sorcerers who could point their finger and send the towers of Bressel crumbling to the ground."

  Blays took a seat. "So what happened?"

  "When our movement was ready, we took the palace in Collen, routing the baron and all his men. For two weeks, we hung onto the city. Then King Winsten sent his men from Bressel. Hired sellswords from Larkwood. In the siege, many Colleners claimed their deathright. My brothers were captured. Burned alive for treason and heresy."

  The Keeper's deep voice caught. She smiled, a small thing that acknowledged the heartache of the past, but also that it was in the past, as far from her now as her youth itself.

  "In time, the Mallish drove us from the palace. Cally argued that we couldn't stay. That Collen would always be stomped beneath Mallon's boots. I thought he was right—I still fear that he was—but I couldn't leave my people to that fate. When I stayed, Cally did as well. But he was too loud in his opinions. Too prone to strike down any Mallish soldier who harassed a citizen. If he'd stayed in Collen, it would only have been a matter of weeks until his temper would have seen him burned alive like the others. So I joined the Undershrine. The one place my Cally couldn't follow me."

  "So he left Collen?" By now, Blays was gawking. "You gave up a normal life to save his?"

  The old woman shook her head. "I gave up a normal life the instant I watched Mallish priests burn my brothers. After that, it was only a matter of the shape my new life would take. I chose the one that would save the person I loved from the swords of the enemy."

  "It worked," Dante said. "After that, he lived for more than a hundred years."

  "He's gone now?"

  "He died fighting in the Chainbreakers' War. Without him, the norren people would still be in chains. So would half of the former Gaskan Empire. And I wouldn't be here—or half the man I am today. Still, I'm sorry."

  "I'm glad I chose this life. But I'm also glad to be reminded of the one I had before. Thank you for telling me where his life took him." Blue eyes as wistful as a nursery rhyme, she stared into the distance, as if she could see into the past itself. She exhaled, then turned to Dante, focus returning to her gaze. "Show me how you bring the ether."

  Dante drew his chair to the table, turned up his right palm, and sent his mind into the air. Specks of light condensed and swooped to his hand, forming a small shining sphere.

  "Bah," the Keeper said. "You treat ether like nether."

  "How should I be treating it? Ideally?"

  "That is so. Ether doesn't wish to come like a flock of crows or a swarm of bees. Ether wants to come together like the ribs of a cathedral or the facets of an emerald. Once it's together, it doesn't want to swirl like water or breath. It wants to be a sphere. A cube. A representation of perfection that reality can only hope to imitate."

  Dante dismissed the light, took a few breaths, then imagined the vaults of the Cathedral of Ivars in the air above the table. Rather than coming in a storm of disjointed flecks, the ether flowed down eight separate channels, joining in a single point in Dante's hand. As the sphere grew there, the channels quivered, then shattered like glass wine flutes.

  But the glowing sphere remained in his hand.

  "Better," the Keeper said. "Now practice. The closer you come to summoning it as it hopes to be summoned, the more of it will heed your call."

  He did as she commanded, summoning, gathering, and releasing the ether. Each time he brought it forth, he did so in a different pattern, hunting for the ideal even as he trained himself to become more familiar with the ether's movement. But each time, his grip on the ether grew weaker. Within five minutes, he was too shaky to go on. After some discussion of the day's meeting with the senate and tomorrow's effort to speak with Twill's family, they went to sleep.

  At dawn, a thunderous boom rolled through the open windows. Dante sat up from sleep, heart pounding. The boom repeated.

  Blays scrambled to his feet, moving to the window and grabbing his swords from the chair he'd looped his belt over. "What the hell is that? Are we under attack?"

  Cord sat up from her cot, rubbing her eyes. "These are the drums of dawn. They're sounded in Dog's Paw when all is well."

  "Then I'd hate to hear what your war drums sound like. Couldn't they just pound them when things aren't well?"

  "The drums show the watchers are vigilant! Here, the sound is one of safety."

  Dante went to the windows. "Do they really expect to be invaded every morning?"

  "This isn't about invasion." Cord glared out over the parched earth. "People come to Dog's Paw to trade what the crown has taxed. The drums tell them that none of the king's vultures are here to arrest them for exchanging their own property."

  "You don't believe in taxes?"

  She boomed with laughter. "How can the king demand money for what isn't his? If I slay a buck, then come to the city to sell the meat and skin, what piece of my hard work has King Charles earned?"

  "Apparently he's given you a city that's safe enough to trade in that you'll get a higher price for your pelt than if you tried to sell it out in the wilderness."

  Cord patted the sword on her hip. "When I step into a street, I make it safe. I should be taxing him!"

  "Can we have this argument another time? Like never? We need to see Captain Twill's family."

>   "First, we eat. No one is reasonable before breakfast."

  Blays hunted for his boots. "At last, something we can all agree on."

  They headed downstairs and ate a breakfast of flatbread, spiced squash, and a thick lentil stew. Cord ate what the Keeper couldn't.

  Finally finished, Cord stood and stretched her arms above her head. "The day looks much brighter now. I'll seek an audience with the Twills. Stay here, yes? The people of Dog's Paw welcome strangers, but not to their doorstep."

  She walked outside, leaving the four of them to pick at the scraps remaining on the table. Aside from the plentiful wines and beers, the beverage of choice in Dog's Paw was a strong tea that tasted similar to the way their sage-lights smelled. Dante couldn't decide if he liked it.

  Blays set down his mug. "Is this really our next step?"

  "Do you have another suggestion?" Dante said.

  "Try the four other senates?"

  "The first two beat us down like we'd stolen their shoes and were trying to sell them back to them. What makes you think the next ones will be any different?"

  "Because they are different?"

  "The Andrac have these people so scared they're literally jumping at their own shadows. It'll take us at least a week to go get rebuffed by each of the other senates. That's more than enough time for Mallon to bring a second army into the basin."

  "So what? As long as they've got the invincible demons on their side, it doesn't matter if they've got a hundred men or a hundred thousand." Blays brightened and snapped his fingers. "That's your plan, isn't it? After we use the tragedy of Twill's death to light off a war, the gods will be so disgusted with us they'll turn us into demons. Then we can fight back as equals!"

  "Let me ask you this," Dante said. "Do you think Twill's family should be kept in the dark?"

  "They have the right to be told. But the timing's fishier than a fishwife's explanation of why she smells like the neighbor's cologne."

  "So we agree they should be told."

  "And not so much on every other part of this."

  "Then here's my deal," Dante said. "You do all the talking."