Reign of Shadows

by Deborah Chester

  When he said nothing, the Elder’s gaze moved sharply to his. “Did you fail again to hear my question?”

  “No, I heard it,” Caelan said.

  “Then give me your reply. Have we mistreated you here?”

  Caelan set his jaw. There was no going back now. “I think so.”

  “You think so. You are not sure?”

  Damn him. Caelan flushed. “I’m sure,” he said curtly.

  “Please go on.”

  “You know,” Caelan said, struggling against his anger. “You probably have it on a list.”

  “You are impertinent, Novice Caelan. I am waiting for a reply to my question.”

  “Why?” Caelan burst out. “You know the answer. What I say isn’t going to make any difference. You already have your mind made up.”

  The Elder’s face might have been carved from stone.

  “Ah, so you have the ability to read minds, Novice Caelan. Interesting. What other talents do you possess?”

  Seething at his cool mockery, Caelan glared at him and said nothing.

  “Your failure to answer my question indicates you have no answer. Therefore, I can only conclude that you do not truly believe we have mistreated you.”

  “You want to see my bruises?” Caelan retorted.

  The Elder raised his brows. “You have been disciplined, Novice Caelan, when you transgressed. You have been placed under a discipline conducive to study, no doubt for the first time in your life. You have fought that, as many wild or untamed creatures must fight at first. But neither have you learned.”

  Caelan glared at the floor, his ears roaring against this lecture he didn’t want to hear.

  “We are tolerant here,” the Elder went on, “but tolerance has limits. Because of your father, we were willing to continue our efforts to train you, even allowing you to remain in the novice class for an unprecedented third term if necessary.”

  Caelan looked up in dismay. He should have known they wouldn’t kick him out. His anger welled up anew. “I’ll run away again.”

  “It will not be necessary.”

  Caelan caught his breath in hope.

  “Boyish pranks and rebelliousness are an annoyance, nothing more. Endangering the entire hold is something else entirely.”

  Caelan thought about the destroyed warding key and dropped his gaze. He hadn’t meant to put anyone in danger.

  “How did you remove it?”

  Caelan frowned and said nothing.

  The Elder rose to his feet. “How?” he demanded.

  “I—I just took it off.”

  A look of alarm crossed the Elder’s face, then was gone. His eyes were bleak. “Impossible.”

  Caelan shrugged. “Then believe what you want.”

  The door behind him opened, and the proctors glided inside. Glancing at them, Caelan shifted uneasily on his feet. He didn’t like the idea of them standing behind him, and both held truth-lights in their hands.

  “How did you remove the warding key?” the Elder asked again.

  There was something awful in his tone, something that compelled Caelan to answer. Casting a resentful glance at the proctors, he scowled and tucked his hands inside his sleeves. “I entered severance and pulled the key off the gate. I just wanted out.”

  “You were not injured from touching the key?”

  Caelan shook his head. “My hand felt burned, but it really wasn’t. That’s the way severance is supposed to work, isn’t it? So for once I did it right.”

  The Elder did not meet his gaze directly. “You show no remorse for this action.”

  “Oh. Well, I didn’t mean to leave the hold unprotected. The soldiers could have come looting, I guess. But they didn’t.” As he spoke, he looked up with a question in his gaze.

  “No, they didn’t,” the Elder said heavily. “We have nothing here which they would consider of value.”

  Caelan nodded. “So it worked out. Except for—” He broke off, remembering.

  “Yes, except for the fact that you were attacked and nearly killed.”

  “I—” But there was nothing for Caelan to say. He thought about the soldiers who had jeered at him, robbed him, then tried to kill him for sport. Their laughter still rang in his ears. Humiliation still burned inside him, fueled by his shame.

  “We are responsible for your life while you are entrusted to our care,” the Elder said sternly. “We keep you inside our walls for a reason, to guarantee your safety.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Caelan said. “I don’t need—”

  “Help?” the Elder said softly.

  Caelan bit his lip and scuffed his toe against the floor. “I guess I did need some.”

  “We have warding keys for good reason. How you twisted the purity of severance to shatter the spell of a key is blasphemous enough.”

  “But—”

  “You have done far worse. You left us vulnerable to attack, whether from this world or the other. You exposed our throats, and only by the grace of Gault were we not attacked.”

  Shame filled Caelan. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

  “Running away to join the army,” the Elder said, contempt like ice in his voice. “Wanting to become a butcher, a defiler, a taker of life. This is abhorrent to us and all we stand for.”

  “But I—”

  The Elder lifted his hand for silence. “If you had died out there in the forest, what could we have said to your father? How could we explain our mistake in letting harm befall you?”

  “It wasn’t your responsibility,” Caelan said. “I chose to leave. I took the risk, and I’ll—”

  “It is our responsibility. You are underage, and we are entrusted with your safety. You put us in an untenable position.”

  Feeling cornered, Caelan turned and pointed at the proctors. “Your proctor locked me outdoors for the night. What was I supposed to do, freeze or be clawed by wind spirits? I chose neither. Blame your proctors as much as me.”

  “You would not have been left outside all night,” the Elder said dismissively.

  “How was I to know that?”

  “At Taul Bell your absence was discovered. Harmony was broken. Disorder filled the darkness. The serfs had to brave the night to search the hold for you. The proctors found the open gate. That told its own story, and by the quick wits of your cousin we were able to determine which direction you had fled.”

  The Elder came around his desk, frowning with daunting severity. He pointed his finger at Caelan. “Men risked their lives to find you in the dark forest. They searched all night, before at last you were found, half-dead of exposure and blood loss.”

  Remorse touched Caelan. “I didn’t mean to put anyone at risk,” he said softly. “I just wanted to get away.”

  “You were brought in at dawn. Master Grigori and Master Hierst labored hard within severance to save your life. Had anyone been lost to lurkers or worse out there, what could you have done to repay your debt to them?”

  “I don’t know,” Caelan said miserably. “I’m sorry.”

  “Apology is not enough.” The Elder beckoned to the proctors. “Cast the truth-light over him.”

  Caelan turned around in protest. “But I haven’t been lying about any of this. I swear.”

  “It is not your words they will test. It is you.”

  The Elder nodded at the proctors. They glided forward and tossed the tiny balls of blue light at Caelan. Light burst against his forehead and sprayed down to his feet in a shimmer. It changed color from blue to yellow to green, then faded to white and seemed to vanish altogether.

  “Enough!” the Elder said, sounding shaken.

  The proctors stretched forth their hands, and the light flickered feebly back into existence at Caelan’s feet. It surged away from him, split into two halves, then reformed itself into two tiny glowing balls of light.

  “It is decided,” the Elder said.

  “What?” Caelan demanded, puzzled. “What’s decided?”
<
br />   The Elder gestured, and the proctors stepped back. “You, Caelan E’non, are in grave danger of losing your soul. You have deliberately sought the ways of shadow.”

  Caelan gasped in shock. “I haven’t—”

  “By your own confession you wrongfully used severance. You betrayed the safety of this hold. You willfully exposed every inhabitant to possible death or worse. That crime is attempted murder.”

  “But I didn’t mean—”

  The Elder held up his hand. “Rebellion is as much a gateway to the center of the soul as is obedience. By your actions, you prove you are becoming a vessel for that which is foul and otherworldly.”

  “No!”

  “We want no part of you here among us, infecting the other boys.”

  “Fine!” Caelan said furiously. “Then let me leave.”

  “We have laid the matter before your father,” the Elder said as though Caelan had not spoken. “He has asked us to purify you.”

  Caelan stared at him. He felt frozen with growing apprehension. “I don’t believe you,” he said through stiff lips.

  “Do you understand purification?” the Elder asked. “It means to enter with the masters for forty days of fasting and surrender. They will sever you completely from everything, root out the evil from your mind and soul, and then allow you to return to your body.”

  Long ago, as a child, Caelan had heard the servants talk about someone possessed at another hold. Healers had been called in—not his father, but others—to cleanse and purify the man. The fellow had been quite mad when they finished. Nor did he ever regain his sanity. The healers said the possession was so strong it could not be driven from him. Others whispered that he had been severed too long and could not be made whole again.

  A shudder ran through Caelan. He knew he wasn’t evil. Not in the sense the Elder claimed. He’d never tried to harm anyone here. He wouldn’t knowingly expose them to danger. Yes, he’d been foolish and selfish, thinking only of himself when he ran away, but his carelessness didn’t warrant this. As for having Master Mygar—so cruel, so heartless— walking through his mind, reshaping him—

  “No!” he cried. “I won’t let you touch me, none of you! Not like that. You’ll kill me, or make me insane. I’d rather you’d let me die in that ditch than face—”

  “Enough,” the Elder said icily. “You have made your refusal quite clear.”

  “Father didn’t request this,” Caelan went on. “I don’t believe that. He wouldn’t.”

  “Beva E’non was my star pupil,” the Elder said, his voice as sharp and cold as the icicles hanging off the roof outside. “Aside from the principles of severance which teach us to place no man above another, I loved him as a son. For his sake, for the memory of how eagerly he took learning from me, I offer you this final chance to redeem yourself. Accept the purification, Caelan E’non, and remain with us as your father wishes.”

  Caelan’s heart was pounding. Without hesitation he looked the Elder square in the eye. “Never,” he said. “I don’t want to remain here. I deny your charges. I refuse purification.”

  The Elder stared at him for several moments without speaking. The room grew still and oppressively quiet except for the fire hissing on the hearth.

  “Master Beva wanted to teach you himself, but you were not a willing pupil at home. No doubt a father’s love for his son has clouded his usually clear perceptions. He sent you to us with a father’s pride and a father’s hope, expressing special concern that we might be able to teach you where he had failed. He thought our discipline would be more effective than his own. We have also failed.”

  Caelan knew no way to make this old man understand. “It isn’t Rieschelhold,” he said. “It’s me. I belong elsewhere, in another kind of life. I was not meant to be a healer.”

  “You were born,” the Elder said gravely, “to be nothing else.”

  He waited, but Caelan faced him without flinching.

  At last the Elder bowed his head. “Very well. I expel you now from Rieschelhold, that you can cause no more harm to the other novices by example or by deed, that you can spread your evil influence no longer within these walls, that you can never again commit blasphemous acts to disrupt our harmony. In this expulsion, I pity your father, for the son he has, for the son he must again deal with.”

  Caelan realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out now, hardly able to believe his ears. Jubilation lifted like skyrockets. Was this all there was to expulsion? What a relief. He barely held back a grin.

  The Elder picked up the scrolls from his desk and threw them on the fire. The parchment caught, sending up sparks and curling into black cinders as the fire ate through it eagerly.

  He looked past Caelan at the proctors. “Prepare him.”

  The proctor opened the door. One of them beckoned to Caelan. He rushed out, grinning broadly now, almost skipping with joy. All he had to do now was gather his belongings. They were few enough. A pair of soft traveling boots, fur-lined for winter. His thick cloak. A book of music and his flute. A drawing made for him by his sister Lea. A smooth, fist-sized stone of marble which he’d gathered in Ornselag at the seashore when his mother still lived. These things had been taken by the purser upon his admittance, locked away for the day on which he would leave.

  That day had finally come. He couldn’t believe it.

  But as he stepped out of Elder Sobna’s office, he heard a bell start ringing, a deep somber bell he’d never heard before.

  At the foot of the stairs, the same servant waited for them. But instead of leading them to the door, the man pointed at a narrow hallway.

  Caelan’s high spirits dropped. “What now?” he asked suspiciously. “Where are you taking me? I just want to get my things, then go.”

  The proctors shoved him down the hallway and into a tiny room containing only a tin basin and a stool. There was no heat and no window. Only a small, face-sized hole cut high in the door provided any kind of dim illumination.

  Caelan took in these details with one glance as he spun around. “But why do I—”

  One of the proctors drove him back with its staff. “You will remain here until you are prepared.”

  “No!” Caelan shouted. “It’s a trick! You won’t purify me. Do you hear? You won’t—”

  But they slammed the door, bolting him into the gloom.

  Chapter Four

  OUON BELL TOLLED ominously over the silent expanse of Rieschelhold, its deep, sonorous voice echoing across the courtyard, orchard, buildings, and snowy forest beyond. Ouon Bell rang seldom; it was the bell of death and tragedy. It began tolling at midday, when Caelan was led from the house of the Elder, and it did not stop.

  The sky remained slate gray. Intermittent snowflakes fell. Ushered by the proctors, all the students assembled in somber silence in the courtyard. Big-eyed, the young novices in their short indigo robes stamped their feet and blew on their hands to keep warm. The taller disciples—gangly and awkward in their long cyan robes—looked frightened or grave. The most advanced, the healers, marched along in gray robes trimmed with pale fur, their expressions blank within severance. White-faced and nervous, the serfs clustered at the rear. The proctors moved back and forth among the assembly until not a sound could be heard, not a rustle, not a throat being cleared in the crowd. Only the soft sigh of the falling snow and the low peals of the bell broke the silence.

  The masters, robed and cloaked in white, walked the ramparts, stopping at each corner of the walls to sprinkle cleansing herbs of rue, hyssop, borage, and camphor. Then they came down and took their places on the dais before the assembly. Pale figures in the falling snow, their faces might have been carved from stone. Their eyes held only severance.

  Crushed in among other bodies, with someone’s elbow in his ribs and another student almost standing on his heels, Agel sought the calming refuge of severance within himself. But his heart was beating too fast and his breath came short.

  For the first time in months, he could no
t find his concentration, now when he needed it most of all.

  The bell rang like a dirge. He wanted to weep with anger and humiliation. How could Caelan have done such a risky, foolhardy thing? How could he have let his stupid temper get the better of his good sense? Agel could not forgive him for it. He felt betrayed by his cousin, betrayed and bereft. Agel had thought they would spend their lifetime together, working for a common good, sharing the same occupation and interests, but now there would be no more friendship, no more companionship.

  Caelan had thrown his opportunities away. Whispered rumors said he had refused the Elder’s generous offer of forgiveness.

  The fool. Agel’s hands clenched into fists inside his wide sleeves. What would become of Caelan now? No one had been disrobed at Rieschelhold for at least two decades. And now, for it to be the son of Beva E’non was incredible, unbelievable.

  Agel’s throat stung with embarrassment.

  He saved you from a demerit, a small voice reminded him, but Agel brushed it angrily away. So he still had his perfect record thanks to Caelan. Did that excuse Caelan’s own behavior?

  A stir made everyone crane to look. Agel saw his cousin coming, flanked by an escort of six hooded proctors walking three on each side. The proctors in front and the proctors at the rear held their staffs crossed, thus creating a cage around Caelan.

  The boy walked tall, with his shoulders straight and his chin high. He was a strapping lad, taller than nearly anyone else, still growing out of his clothes. His hair blew back from his forehead like ripe wheat tossed by the wind. There was no shame in his face, no regret. His blue eyes were eagle-keen, almost happy.

  Agel felt his eyes sting, and he could have kicked Caelan then and there.

  Didn’t the idiot understand what disrobing meant? Once expelled by the masters, there was no coming back.

  Agel watched his cousin stride through the parted center of the assembly, the bell tolling over him as though he had died in the ditch. Maybe it would have been better if he had. He had apparently learned nothing from his near fatal adventure.

  Agel’s vision blurred, and he struggled to hold back tears. It was not manly to weep, nor was it in accordance with severance. Besides, Agel knew the proctors were watching him. They would always watch him now, seeking any evidence of the taint that Caelan had shown, nay, flung in their faces. The masters would drive Agel harder, for he was now the sole heir to Beva E’non’s great legacy.