The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  Because he knows it, Thessaly thought. He’s seen it before.

  “I can’t touch the water,” Thessaly murmured to Guzal. “Papa is right. Somehow the . . . spell my aunt gave me, it makes the holy water burn.”

  She knew why, if she was being honest with herself. Holiness. Hatred. They did not go together.

  The waves were engulfing her now. She had to contain herself until she could find a private place to fetter her orbs again. Because holy or not, it was a spell she needed right now.

  Guzal breathed in deeply. Thessaly could tell she was disturbed, a little frightened. But she put a smile on her face. “Come, miss,” she said. “Let’s get you out of these somber things and ready for the day.”

  Thessaly followed her for a few steps, then spun on her heel and turned back. Grim, determined, she passed back through the door and dipped her fingers deep, clear to the bottom of the basin. I can do this, she thought.

  And it didn’t sting this time, not with the dark ropes of her spell gone. But it was different. It seemed to diffuse against her like spirits on the skin. It was not a bad feeling. Just different.

  It made the gold curls and strands and core of byssus light up like a candle.

  Holy water is a spell of loose magicks then, Thessaly thought. Breath and blood. Cold. As her hand was in the water, the hot silver of the bound magicks seemed to retreat somewhat, to mute, to crawl away from her periphery.

  Another way? She wondered.

  But how would one keep oneself touching holy water all the time?

  A grim determination welled up inside her. I don’t want to choose. I didn’t choose just one. I can do this. I shall. This fetter is only temporary. As my aunt said, I’ll stretch my muscles to contain the waves and continue to grow stronger.

  She closed her eyes. Contain, she thought, with each footstep. Now cold. Now the fire. Now cold.

  She was so tired. She needed sleep. She hadn’t slept properly in weeks.

  She took a deep breath and stepped carefully along the hall, continuing to count breaths. Guzal waited for her and put an arm on her shoulder as she passed.

  As soon as Thessaly came to their room, she sent Guzal on a mission for prune wine. When the girl had left her alone, she knelt by her bed and summoned all the dark, angry, putrid feelings from that night at Joao’s court. “Vinculum,” she hissed, gathering the loose magicks.

  The rope twisted itself around the gold mass much more readily this time, like it knew exactly where to go. It was a relief, but also, in a way, frightening. This was her new life, containing so much. She was doing it, but she’d have to continue doing it forever. She’d chosen something she hadn’t had any concept of.

  It rested heavy on her for a moment, and she closed her eyes and accepted it. She’d chosen, and she was stuck. No choice, now.

  No choice.

  “Vinculum,” she repeated, and cereus was bound as well.

  She fell onto her bed and slept until Guzal woke her to join the court for supper.

  “Lucky for you, lady,” Guzal remarked as she brushed down the velvet, arranging the folds carefully, fluffing out the gold cloth of the sleeves that ballooned along her arm, “the velvet hasn’t much suffered from its saltwater bath. Likely this cost more than all your others put together.”

  “Lucky for me,” Thessaly murmured, watching as Guzal constructed an intricate pattern of braids that tugged at her scalp, and then coiled the loose tresses in back so they fell down in a shower of bright coils.

  “You’ve not gained in beauty these last weeks,” Guzal added, squinting.

  “Thank you,” Thessaly said grimly.

  “I only mean, you must eat hearty tonight. And tomorrow. Gain back some of this figure.” She tugged, dissatisfied, at the bodice—it hung a little too loose, even though she’d corseted Thessaly as tight as the stays would go. “Any draper at that feast is going to look at you and see you as sickly. Not fit breeding stock.”

  “Well, then,” Thessaly said, striving to keep the scoff out of her tone, “I’d better get plump as a peach. I would not want to disappoint the cloth-wives.”

  Guzal’s eyes narrowed, and she tugged a little harder—enough that the edge of the stays bit into Thessaly’s ribs. Thessaly didn’t even react. The pain inside, barely contained, was far more than anything that could touch her skin. She gave Guzal an empty smile and allowed herself to be led down the corridors to the great open hall.

  The music was loud and sweeping. An entire company of musicians—dozens of violists, a chorus of birdlike flutes, dulcets, shawms, the triumphant blast of trumpets, the mellower rumble of cornetts and sackbuts hit her in a wall of noise. It sent painful shimmers through her contained magicks. She gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and hung on tight as she walked in. The wave of warm sound surrounded her along with a roar of chatter, the warmth of the blazing fire, and the heady scent of wine and spices.

  It was surprisingly difficult. The dark fetters slid and twisted, snakelike. She guided them around the masses of brightness, biting her lip until she tasted blood.

  The shock of the sensations faded as she breathed in and out, and her body grew re-accustomed to company.

  The room was crowded. Hundreds and hundreds of men and women in glowing velvets, shining satins and silks, glittering gold and jewels.

  At least the crowd meant her entrance went completely unnoticed. Even as her father and his company rose, seeing her, and waited as she seated herself among them, the chatter and music went on undisturbed. People came in and out in waves, and the laughter was like the roar of thunderclouds, cracking randomly, glittering with feeling.

  Thessaly felt it all. And struggled to feel it all, without feeling it all. So much at once. Too much. She closed her eyes to make sure the fetters were still in place as dishes passed down the table and she smelled and tasted figs in spiced cream, deep-red grape wines, tender fowls smothered in sauce with basil and rosemary. Her fetters were in place; the floes were with everything shimmering and passing through her.

  It was the bound magicks. Flesh and Fire. That was what they did—connected you to bodies and the floes of others, so you felt them. Channeled them. She may have contained the war inside, but she was just beginning to deal with the consequences of her magicks.

  The pain wasn’t nearly as bad, but she still had to take care. The feelings couldn’t be allowed to overwhelm her, all the sadness, frustration, hope, anger, passion.

  She felt her aunt’s approach before the tall gorgeously robed figure even entered the room: a bright fire of a presence with a deep-red burning core. She knew it was Umbra because of the tinge of cereus and cloves that came with her—something she hadn’t even realized she’d noticed before. Now her mind filled with it, and she turned to watch as the dark woman walked into the room accompanied by a dozen men and women.

  The man on her arm wore a white robe and a red velvet cap trimmed in gold braid. His entrance stopped everything.

  “Sixtus,” Antonio said in a rumbling undertone, nodding as the two of them progressed through the room, heading toward the high table where Thessaly’s uncle and aunt sat.

  “His Holiness the Pope,” Bellccior breathed, his dark eyes going wide, his face paling.

  The room went almost silent as the company seated itself, in spaces obviously left empty for them. Francesco and Catherine rose and moved aside, allowing Sixtus and Umbra the center seats, directly in front of the fire. Umbra arranged her skirts gracefully as a serving boy hurried to move her chair. She settled herself like a queen, staring around the room, her slanted eyes taking in every face, everybody in a hundred snaps at once. Thessaly felt it—her scanning of them, taking all their measures, before she turned to His Holiness and made a quiet remark.

  The Pope smiled calmly and nodded to Francesco, and the music began again, more somber and graceful tunes now, some of which Thessaly recognized as hymns.

  What must it be like, Thessaly wondered, to have everyone sober immediately in you
r presence? To have cheerfulness flee the room as you enter? To have everyone too in awe to laugh with you?

  She watched the Pope and her aunt and saw a queer sort of laughing acknowledgment on Umbra’s face as their gazes met across the room.

  It’s what her aunt had chosen. The heavy, the bound. The power that ran through flesh and feelings. She accepted the consequences. Maybe even relished them. She didn’t care for the light and flighty, she wanted grounding. Burying.

  Thessaly shuddered again, and tasted her rice pudding, smothered with the fig cream. It was delicious, but such an explosion of flavors in her mouth made all the silver cereus floes spark every time her tongue touched it. She moved her plate aside and took, instead, plain peeled pears and grapes, melon, and unbuttered bread. Her hunger rose to meet the food as she ate, unburdened by her magicks responding to their vessels of spice and flavor, and the comfort of fullness stole over her for the first time in a long time. She leaned back with a sigh and saw her father’s little smile as he observed her.

  He really did care about her. He wanted her comfort, her safety.

  But Thessaly did not want that cage. And even now, even after feeling the results of her own disobedience, she was not going to be caged. Did her father really think he could control her now? That she would still willingly bow to his choice of a husband, a life for her?

  Tonight was not the night to fight that battle, however. Tonight, she was only going to work on handling herself in the real world again—the world she would be taking as her own. Fancy courts. Her aunt’s aura of power. Men and women of means.

  This was a place where she could learn and flourish. It had the largest library, and Umbra here for her to look to, as well as arts, and universities only a few days’ ride away. Umbra, already established as a magicker. Without Margarida to teach her, it would not be a perfect fit. But it was the best option she could see.

  She watched His Holiness as he fussily picked amongst the dishes at the table and exchanged a suggestive look with the pale serving boy who bent over him, ladling cream sauce on his portion of capon.

  Yes, there were many things here to distract from her own power and strangeness, like an aroma masked by many strong aromas. It was where Umbra, the most powerful woman she knew, had flourished unchallenged. Thessaly could hide here, too.

  Thessaly took some deep breaths, feeling much calmer. She followed her aunt’s example and moved her attention around the room, studying faces, wardrobes. So many flowers fluttering their petals. The perfume that came off the ladies was heady and musky, filling Thessaly’s senses more even than the spiced fig cream she had spooned over her wheaten porridge. A dance of feelings, in this room, and she felt them all—in surges, in waves. Tension, desire, dis-ease, pleasure. She felt all the senses and feelings of the room just as she smelled the bouquet of mingled perfumes—a complex mixing, not unpleasant, but overwhelming.

  With the Pope, there would be no dancing tonight. And Thessaly was glad. She could stay in her place, surrounded by the men she knew well, and watch and feel what was going on around her, without the distraction of steps, flirtations. Still, she saw her father was looking at faces, too. Looking for a husband for her, Thessaly knew.

  After the courses were finished, Thessaly excused herself and made straight for the library. Her father did not object other than to make sure Guzal accompanied her.

  At the library door, Thessaly dismissed Guzal. “Go back to the room,” she said. “It is late, and I will be reading for a while.”

  Guzal opened her mouth, then shut it and shrugged. “It’s not like you’re not a match for any

  man who might try something,” she said.

  Thessaly smiled at Guzal. “That would be the silver lining, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m for bed, then. Wake me when you come, just so I can rest easier feeling I’ve done my proper duties.”

  “Aye,” Thessaly agreed, and entered the shadowy, yawning space full of so many treasures, smelling of old leather and papers, ink and dust.

  She selected the book of Constantine’s sermons again, sat, and began to study it out.

  It was a little easier this time, dividing her attention as she read. She kept a bit of attention on the fetters, but they stayed in place, and eventually she could lose herself in puzzling out the Greek. The message began to wend its way through her, and she felt the writer’s message.

  She started to drowse, but she still wanted to read.

  Looking around at the empty space, she tucked the book under her black velvet overdress, under her stays. She continued down the corridor to her room.

  There was nobody in the corridors. Thessaly lay on her soft bed, disobeying Guzal and leaving her to rest in the chair by the fire. She studied the words in the book, hearing them spoken in a warm sure voice that grew soft with passion.

  She did not sleep. She forced herself to read. She wanted words, not sleep—she’d had plenty of prone time on her mattress these last weeks. Finally, she drifted, after checking carefully that her fetters were in place.

  Her sleep that night was so satisfying, she was not moved to rise in the morning, nor even for the noon meal. She stayed in her bed and allowed Guzal to bring her a small selection of things from dinner, interspersing sleep with reading.

  When evening finally came, Guzal insisted. Thessaly was tempted to argue, but the look she gave Thessaly as she rose, stretching, from her own siesta, was scolding enough. “Time to dress for supper,” she said firmly. “The yellow silk tonight, I think.”

  Thessaly submitted again to fussing and robing. Her hair was gathered into a net of silver threads. This gown had layers and layers of material that whispered around her as she moved. She looked like a many-petaled flower.

  She sighed. Tonight she’d be dancing, certainly. She set aside her book when the knock sounded on her door and her father came to collect her for supper. He was magnificent in dark yellow brocade, matching again her own gown. It fitted tightly to his lean torso, and his shirt was cream silk, billowing down to the cuffs. He wore on his third finger the ring Thessaly’s mother had given him. As she took his arm to be guided down the corridor, Thessaly stared at it a moment—the winking honey-colored topaz set in the wide silver band. He didn’t often wear it, her mother’s ring. It brought back to mind the conversation she’d heard, when Antonio had lost himself in sorrow at her bedside. Thessaly had been too swallowed in pain to pay much attention, but now the words came back.

  She’ll end just like Thessalia.

  I vowed I’d save her from that.

  After her mother flung herself over . . . .

  She stared up at him, the questions squirming inside her. What about her mother?

  Had he been speaking of magicks?

  Thessaly did not know much of her mother. She remembered glowing red hair, a pale face, heart-shaped. Lovely eyes. And she knew her mother had fallen from a cliff to her death when Thessaly had just passed three.

  After her mother flung herself over . . . .

  Her mother had died suddenly. Her father did not say anything about it, nor her godfather Henri, on whose estate it had happened. Henri, her godfather and her father’s greatest friend. He had brought Thessaly’s parents together, in fact. And usually he was free with words and stories—much freer than Antonio wished.

  Still, Henri had never spoken of Thessaly’s mother’s death. It was a topic not to be broached at all. She’d learned that lesson well as a child, sitting at her godfather’s table. She’d asked and had been frozen by both Antonio’s and Henri’s expressions—fury and deep, biting sorrow. That look on her playful godfather’s face had etched itself deep in Thessaly’s heart.

  Whatever had happened to her mother, it had been terrible. She’d never asked again.

  What her father had said, did that mean that Thessalia, Thessaly’s own mother, had taken

  the the same path Thessaly was taking? Had she done something similar?

  Had she claimed both magicks as we
ll?

  And it had killed her. That was the implication in her father’s sobbed words. Thessalia had not

  survived. Thessaly’s own mother had passed away, somehow, in the wake of both magicks claiming her body. Was this to be Thessaly’s eventual fate as well, then? And how had history repeated itself so?

  What was in her, in her mother, that had inspired such a rash choice?

  She studied her father’s cool, contained expression, felt the knead of tense muscles in his arm. He was not the one to ask.

  She could ask Umbra. Considering the conversation as she remembered it, Umbra obviously knew.

  But was that wise?

  Thessaly needed answers from somewhere. But Umbra was a source clearly to be filtered, to be considered before following. Umbra had tried to trick, to coerce Thessaly into choosing the bound magicks over loose. Umbra did not always give information freely. She might give Thessaly what she wanted Thessaly to know, with her own purposes in mind.

  Umbra had power. And she really was Thessaly’s only source of instruction now. But Thessaly felt, at her gut, there was something unsavory about the way Umbra practiced magicks. This fetter, for instance. It worked, but . . .

  Holy water shouldn’t burn someone who was operating according to the proper order of things. Should it?

  Thessaly’s mind boiled with thoughts even as she kept up with the battle inside, counting steps all the way to the hall, keeping a firm eye on those fetters in anticipation of the rising tide of sounds and senses.

  It was only slightly less crowded this evening, maybe two hundred people. The Pope and his entourage were nowhere in sight, but the vast group of musicians was already playing—this time with the addition of a harp as tall as a man, two lyres, and even a harpsichord, great and gilded, standing on three stout legs in the corner by the fire.

  A small, pretty woman sat at the harpsichord, fingers busily dancing over the black keys. The overall clamor was full and rich and musical, and couples swarmed the floor even as the meal had barely begun and people were still coming to sit at the tables.