The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  He settled the book in his lap and read. “That light which far outshines the day and sun, first pledge of resurrection, and renovation of bodies long since dissolved . . . .”

  He went on, reading several pages. Thessaly didn’t pay attention so much to the words as to his voice. He read well. He had a warm, strong inflection, and a way of softening his tone when he came to a particularly poetic phrase. Thessaly’s body thrummed with heat and cold, and she flicked each away as it came, caught up in a tide of words that were magick as much as what now dwelled inside her. She burned again. She froze. And almost did not care.

  When he looked up, halting after a long passage, she smiled. “You are an orator,” she said, then squeezed her eyes tight as ice stabbed her.

  “Some say,” he agreed. “It’s nearly dawn. You don’t look well—you ought not be caught out of bed. Shall I walk you to your room?”

  “I am well,” Thessaly replied. “Only tired. You are right.”

  “Let us take you to your chambers, then.”

  Thessaly started a bit when he took her elbow, careful to keep the proprietary foot of space between them. The touch of his skin—it brought out the fire. It flared through her, and she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue to keep from crying out. She managed, however, and let her footsteps focus her containments again. By the time they got to her door, she had full control, but the feeling, the warmth and frizz of excitement at Luz’s touch had departed with it.

  A welcome thing, Thessaly told herself firmly. “Thank you,” she said.

  He gave her another bow, the usual small head-tilt this time, and walked off down the corridor. She watched him for a moment and edged her door open carefully.

  Guzal still slept.

  Poor Guzal, Thessaly thought. Huddled there in a chair instead of a soft bed. Likely she has had as little sleep as I, these weeks.

  She slipped under her covers. They were maddening, the waves. She was bored of it, tired of having to think always of floes.

  As soon as it grew light enough, she was out of bed, doing up her own underskirt. Guzal stirred to help her. “You sure you want that one?” She asked, fingering the plain linen. “Yes,” Thessaly said shortly. “I want to be quick and catch my aunt before she goes about the day’s business.”

  She went out into the courtyard, counting steps along the path to Umbra’s gate as she contained herself. She knocked on the door, and a slim, swarthy girl opened it for her, bowing as she stepped aside to let her in. There was a glint of something in her eyes—fear, Thessaly thought. She watched her for a moment, wondering, and the girl turned and scurried to the stove, scraping the ash out of the grate with grim focus.

  Umbra took a while to come from her bedchamber. When she did, she wore a billowing, intricately embroidered cotton shift and a sleeveless robe of black silk, carelessly open. Thessaly sat, sipping the tea the girl had set silently in front of her.

  “You’re ready, then, for lessons. I cannot promise success, as I have no real idea how to,” Umbra gestured dismissively, and sat across from her and thumped the tabletop. The girl leapt up and took another cup from the shelf, setting it on a saucer with a linen napkin in front of Umbra. “But we must try. You cannot go on as you are without some form of control, some types of bounds in place.”

  Thessaly poured carefully. “Yes,” she said.

  “You’ve got a grip on what’s inside, that’s certain.” Umbra sipped and studied her over the rim of her cup. “That’s not a bat portent. Right, girl. Imagine these floes of yours radiate from your center. At your center, two great molten orbs—one fire, one ice.”

  It would be hard not to see them, Thessaly thought wryly. She closed her eyes and looked. They were blinding-bright in her sight, only it seemed more like they were melded together now. The two balls that had bloomed in her when she touched byssus and cereus were now two halves of one mass, and they seemed to be trying to swallow each other. As she focused, she saw it more and more clearly, the battle there inside of her.

  “They are one,” she said. “One orb.”

  “They cannot be. You must pull them apart, else they will never still inside you like a chosen magick should.”

  Thessaly tried, but it seemed that the more she worked to separate them, the more the cold and the hot tangled like fighting kraken, wrapping tendrils around and through each other. It was not possible to focus on every surface at once where they touched; it moved too quickly, had too many reaching limbs.

  “That is not the way,” Umbra said quietly. Thessaly opened her eyes and saw her aunt’s were closed, her face tense with concentration. Was Umbra seeing inside her? Seeing her attempts? How? Seeing was a loose working, not a bound one.

  Feeling. Umbra was feeling the movement of the bound magicks inside her, Thessaly thought. Feeling.

  It gave her an idea. She closed her eyes again and felt. I’ll take the cold, she thought. The cold first, it’s the worst.

  She felt around the icy tendrils, probed, wincing at the gulping icy throat of it, her loose magicks as they tried to swallow the bound. She pushed away all thoughts of silver and heat and focused only on the gold, the cool, the freezing.

  She had it. She had a hand around the byssus floes. And when she opened her sight she saw them clearly, then—tendrils, snakes. A maw opening.

  Dough, she thought. Like dough.

  She melded it. She thought it colder. And colder. As she did, it seemed to slow, to become more solid.

  A ball, she thought. A ball of gold snow. Icy as I pack it in. Solid as it freezes.

  For a moment, it became completely still.

  Heat flowed through Thessaly immediately, burning and searing—Thessaly gritted her teeth and shoved the sensations away. She was holding it—the loose floes. Holding them tight. And starting to shake with effort. After a moment she had to let go, and silver and gold blazed back into her sight, the two running together, grabbing and swallowing, a twist and cacophony of lights, cold and heat.

  “That was good,” Umbra said. “How long can you hold it?”

  Thessaly opened her eyes. “Not long,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “You will need something more, until you develop those . . . muscles, until you can contain them

  yourself. Are you ready to learn some Latin? It is not a perfect solution. It is, in fact, a rather dark curse.” Her eyes seemed to darken and snap with energy and intent. “One that should never be used. But in your case, you will burn out from lack of sleep before you learn the higher road. The left-hand path can offer you rest until you learn.”

  The left-hand path. Thessaly shivered. Margarida had warned her.

  But Margarida did not know what Thessaly had done, did not know how close Thessaly was to falling over the edge of sanity, ability.

  Her father’s voice came back to her, about her mother. “Flung herself over the edge,” he’d said.

  She really had no choice. If there was a spot to rest in this, if there was a way to tie what was burning and freezing her from the inside while she gained the strength to contain it herself, she needed to take it.

  “Yes, Aunt,” Thessaly said simply.

  Umbra smiled—it was not a pleasant smile; wicked, curled up at the corners. “Are you certain?”

  Thessaly frowned. “Don’t tease me, Aunt. You know I must.”

  Umbra studied her for a moment. “The word means to bind.”

  “Adfigo,” Thessaly said. “I know that one.”

  “No, we’re seeking a slightly darker word. It is vinculum.” She said it strangely, the V buzzing through her lips, the vowels dark and round. The room seemed to go dim for a moment as it passed through her lips.

  Thessaly swallowed hard.

  “Try it, now. And there must be intent behind it, a sort of . . .” Umbra tilted her head, “loathing. Hatred, even. A desire to crush, to kill all that you’re binding. A desire to remove life, as you say it: vinculum.”

  Thessaly closed her eyes. She summoned t
he frustration, the sadness, the pain she’d experienced for weeks.

  Along with it, a pour of emotions overwhelmed and startled her. Anger at her father. Loneliness, filtered through emerald-green leaves and the scent of coconuts and India dates—her time on Goa. When her father had left her.

  And following those, a treacly, bitter flavor in her mouth, along with a feeling—a grasp at

  her bosom, a possessive look above a hooked nose and sneering mouth.

  There it was. Hatred.

  Her father blamed her for that. But it was him. Hook-nose.

  The treacly flavor took over, filling her to the corners like pungent smoke. She felt it and saw in Umbra’s eyes that her aunt sensed it as well. Umbra nodded, blinking rapidly. “Say it,” she hissed.

  “Vinculum,” Thessaly said.

  “No. Put floes behind it. Put intent behind it. It’s a command, a threat. Put an edge on it, put fear in it. Use the bitterness you’ve summoned to bind the thing inside.”

  Thessaly looked inward, focusing on the byssus floes, setting the hot silver aside completely again, focusing on the ice. Hardening it, globing it, until she saw clearly the gold orb moving. A burning tide was coming. She ignored it, forcing the pain aside. “Vinculum,” Thessaly said fiercely, drawing on the thick, treacly bitterness that filled her, making it a rope, a veil, a cage.

  As she spoke, her lips buzzed the V, darkened the vowels, exactly as her aunt had spoken.

  And coil of rope piled into her senses, surrounding the space that contained her core. Thessaly drew from it, winding it round and round the loose floes as fast as she could, knotting, binding them tight. They pulsed, fighting. They fought furiously.

  They could not leave the black cage.

  She opened her eyes, gasping. Water dripped down her face—tears, this time. The bound floes moved freely through her, left to burn everything. But her body numbed to it, and then accepted them. Sweet Relief. “Aunt,” she said.

  Umbra’s face was fierce, proud. She rose, holding her saucer and cup, and sipped casually, studying her with flicks of eye, black, glinting. “You learn far faster than you should. Well, cereus now. Do it, if you’re going to do it. Bind them both. You chose both, you’ll have to give neither preference over the other.”

  She closed her eyes again. The fire was roiling through her, burning her, and she was numbing to it, but it had taken over, hemming in byssus, which glowed so cold that the barrier between them pained her like a cracked rib. She put byssus aside and saw the cereus—sly silver, rich, slow-flowing, graceful. Frissons of feeling tingled through her as she touched it . . . a thrill, a pleasure.

  “Bind it,” Umbra’s voice commanded.

  Thessaly gathered to her the dark, bitter ropes again, pronounced the word, and knotted cereus tight, gathering, binding, knotting, and imprisoning.

  There were two bound, shifting orbs inside now, pulsing, glowing too bright to look at for long. Contained.

  “Your assignment is to keep them fettered all the time for the next while,” Umbra said. “It will not be easy. Any time feelings are roused, any time fear comes into play, anger, lust, the bitterness will reach for them, releasing your cores. And anytime feelings of pleasure come, they will eat away at those ropes and let away your cores. You must contain all feeling until you manage your own bindings.“

  “Thanks, Aunt,” Thessaly said, standing. It was inadequate. Foolish, almost, in the thick atmosphere and in the wake of the dark spells that had been done.

  “It’s been generally made known you are well,” Umbra said. “You must make an appearance.”

  Thessaly groaned. She needed sleep.

  But she also needed to know the state of things—her uncle, her aunt. Nobody was telling her much, and if she was to make her home here, her aunt was right. She had to put in an appearance of normalcy, of convention.

  The thought of someone gold-eyed, with hair tied in velvet, figured in only slightly. Only slightly.

  Thessaly hadn’t yet been to the Sforza’s chapel, but she knew her father had wanted her to go. To show herself respectable. And if she were going to make her home here, she wanted to be small and unnoticeable, proper. At least for a while.

  Umbra wrinkled her nose and smiled so cynically Thessaly almost laughed. Before she did, she shoved the feelings aside.

  Any pleasure, any pain, Thessaly thought, and I’ll be breaking these cages. Moderation.

  Thessaly gave her aunt a calm, cold look and walked out the door, feeling light. Feeling exultant. Heady, almost, as if she’d had wine on an empty stomach. No, that was too much. She was feeling the pleasure eating away at the bonds.

  She had to shove the joy aside and feel only . . . calm.

  I have both in me, she thought. Both. And they are contained. This is my new existence, and it is better than the old.

  “Matins,” she told Guzal carefully, calmly, as she walked back into her chambers. “We must go. People will begin to talk if I spend time with wytches and none at prayer.”

  Guzal stared for a moment, shook her head. “Right,” she said. “Where were you? I woke and found your bed empty and thought—“

  “Umbra’s.”

  “Lovely,” Guzal muttered. “Chapel, then. Let’s get ye properly outfitted; your Papa’d not want to see his daughter kneeling in a linen gown in the Ducal chapel. And you’re sure to have all the eyes, being a newcomer to matins. All the wool-merchants’ wives and weavers’ mams’ll be sniffing around you like hounds at a fox.” She rolled her eyes as she went to the closet. She took from it a dark black velvet embroidered with a modest edging of gold scallops and a sheer dark veil. “You have a need for a visit to the privy?” She paused as she did up the laces in the back.

  Thessaly realized, suddenly, that she did. Her bladder ached full. How long had she been unaware of the normal pains of a body, in the face of the torture she’d filled herself with? Guzal left her laces loose, attended her up to the tower that hung over the cesspool, waited while Thessaly took care of her needs, and then did so herself.

  “You’ve lost some belly,” Guzal grunted, lacing her properly. “The bodice’ll not close tightly around your middle.”

  “I don’t think anyone will be looking at my middle, with all this shroud on me,” Thessaly replied, batting at the black netting.

  “Aye, it’ll have to do,” Guzal sighed. “Do I take it in, or are you going to eat proper from now on?”

  “I’ll eat proper,” Thessaly promised as they went back down the countless flights of stairs. She was feeling a prick of anxiety. They were going to be late, which meant eyes would, indeed, be on them.

  The men guarding the doors bowed as Thessaly and Guzal passed, Guzal with her head bowed and pale hands clasped in front of her.

  A mass of more than a hundred knelt there facing the altar, all clad darkly, kneeling in neat rows before the hundreds of dancing candles. The priest wore a gold-brocade lined cloak in black velvet. The cross at his chest glinted in the candlelight—the dark blood of rubies, soft gleam of pearls. He pronounced the mass carefully, discreetly, and touched the holy water to his forehead as if it were precious ointment.

  Nobody so much as looked up as Thessaly and Guzal approached the door. Thessaly let out a breath and realized her dark ropes were wavering.

  Calm, she told herself firmly. Calm. It’s feelings I must contain now. After containing so long those monster floes, it should be easy.

  Thessaly saw her father in a far corner, bowing. He’d shaven. His dark features—handsome, rough-cut—stood out in the crowd of sloped foreheads and pale skin. “Il Moro,” his father, Ludovico had been called. Thessaly studied him for a moment and went to kneel next to him, Guzal following. Antonio gave her only one surprised look and went back to bowing. Reaching across him, Bellccior’s massive, scarred hand reached forward to grip her shoulder, shook it slightly. Thessaly felt the joy from all of them, radiant and fragrant like a perfume, only not smelled with the nose. She sensed it inside her
.

  She had to block it out, or she’d rise with it. Break down the cords binding her pain. She gave Bellccior a smile in return. She could feel how cool, almost prim, it was, even as it crossed her face, and she was stabbed with regret as his gaze went from ecstatic to puzzled, then slightly hurt as he bowed as well.

  As Thessaly bowed the cereus throbbed, strained against the tether she’d given it. She fettered it firmly, grimly, and focused on the words of the prayer.

  They knelt a long time. She savored the pain in her knees. It was pain she could handle. When it ended and the padre figlio spirito santo was said, she rose, her father giving her a hand to help her up. He continued to hold it as they left the chapel.

  “You are well, daughter?” His grim, stern tone reassured Thessaly. The father she’d heard sobbing was not one she knew.

  “Aye,” she said, reaching for the basin of holy water.

  It stung her skin like acid.

  She muffled a yelp, pulling her fingers away from it, and flung the droplets off so they scattered.

  She looked up at her father and saw his expression change to a sagging sadness. She stayed stuck, frozen a moment. Guzal, to her side, looked on with wide eyes, a question in them.

  Thessaly moved past, affecting a casual posture, but churning up inside. She could feel the dark fetters unbinding as the fear bit into her. Felt the two orbs of magicks grow unruly. As they burst free, she threw herself back against the wall and let the few last supplicants pass by her.

  “What is it?” Guzal asked.

  Thessaly’s father crossed his arms, fingered his chin. He didn’t look surprised, only sad. Maybe angry. “This is what you’ve chosen,” he hissed at her. “This, daughter. And now, you are not fit anymore to touch that which is holy. I should never have brought you to Milan.” He stalked down the hall, hands fisted against his thighs.

  Guzal followed his retreating figure with her eyes and then turned to Thessaly. “What happened, lady?”

  Thessaly watched the others pass by her in their dark velvet cloaks, their gold and silver laces. A few gave her a passing glance, but she was dark and veiled like them, a mere woman. They had not sensed what her father had. How had he?