by T. A. Miles
“There’s no other choice,” Vaelyx said, as if he’d deeply researched potential options. And, if Vlas didn’t understand the importance of the situation, he added, “She’ll kill all of us.”
“I’m not going to be cornered by your point of view or your paranoia,” Vlas told the man directly. “I have almost nothing to go on save for the mystery of you. And who’s to say that you’re not an agent of Morenne, set out to distract me from my previous task and fellow priests?”
With a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, Vaelyx said, “No one.” He continued to stare at Vlas with an expression that more aptly resembled apathy or the lack of focus of an already preoccupied mind. The weight his incessant staring put onto Vlas felt almost like an afterthought. His matter-of-fact way of speaking was becoming unsettling.
And then, disarmingly, Vaelyx said, “I don’t expect you to destroy her. I don’t suspect that’s even possible. You’re here to dam the flow.”
“Of what?” Vlas demanded.
“Of blood, Priest Vlas,” Vaelyx answered. “A well of blood.”
Eighteen
Cayri left the governor’s side. The physician stayed with him. He was a silent man for the most part, though he did answer questions and provide insight when relevant or requested. There was a compassion to his manner, but also a stern aspect that Cayri liked.
Closing the bedroom door quietly behind her, she was met with shouting in the hall; it was coming from a room nearby. She recognized the voices of the deputy governor and of Deitir and it didn’t take long for her to gather the gist of their argument. The deputy feared that Tahrsel’s age would be an ongoing threat to his ability to govern and believed that Deitir should begin to consider the inevitability of inheritance. Deitir, not surprisingly, would have none of it. Unfortunately, for matters of this nature, preparedness was essential, but felt callous. She sympathized with both parties.
Taking steps away from the argument, Cayri headed for the end of the passage and the central stairs at the front of the house. She found a servant heading upstairs with arms full of linens and stopped the woman long enough to ask where she might find the lady of the house. She was politely directed across the central stairs to the neighboring wing and made her way in that direction.
The house, in the boldness of its elegance, almost seemed forbidding. In spite of its immense size, the Citadel seemed humbler to Cayri. She understood that her sentiments could have been owed to her comfort and time spent there, but the many layers of finery detailing a house large enough to encompass several of the city’s other buildings made her feel somewhat out of place. She remembered such a small and distant portion of her life before Vassenleigh, but what she did recall involved nothing of such extravagance. There was no sense of standing in the sense of classes at Vassenleigh, only varying degrees of student and mentor.
At the top of the stairs, Cayri passed beneath an open archway, two tall doors wedged open to either side of it. The room beyond was long, rectangular in configuration with pillars fashioned into the wall on both sides. On the near side, they were spaced with tapestries and painted portraits. On the far side, windows filled the sections. The floor was adorned with various surface rugs, the changing patterns forming a sort of gallery on its own across the otherwise stone space. There were instruments and sitting areas arranged throughout the chamber, clearly for social gathering. Amid a cluster of plush benches and high-back chairs, Ilayna sat facing the windows. Only a narrow portion of each was visible with the drapes partially drawn.
Cayri announced herself with a polite greeting as she walked toward the lady, who acknowledged it with a half-smile.
“Please, sit down,” Ilayna said.
Cayri selected one of the benches close to Ilayna’s chair and lowered onto its green and honey-gold cushion.
“I’m beginning to doubt that I’ll see the end of the war in my lifetime,” Ilayna stated quietly. “I wonder if Deitir will.”
Cayri heard the question in that last statement, but had no definitive answer to give. None of them knew the outcome, or when they would see it. All they could do was continue to press toward the outcome they felt was right. Cayri could have said that, but instead she asked a question of her own. “Whose son is he?”
She hoped that she asked it as gently as she meant to. Ilayna’s ensuing silence offered no indication. An apology came to Cayri’s lips, but Ilayna’s belated response stopped the words from fully forming.
“I’m not from Indhovan originally,” the lady began with a breath that was slowly drawn inward and just as slowly released. Meeting Cayri’s gaze, she continued. “I was born in Cenily. My father would have liked me to marry one of the local scholars, who was also making progress in politics. I determined to defy him...and ultimately, I did. Not before falling in love with the man who was supposed to become my husband, though.”
There was a sarcastic edge to the aged woman’s voice, and Cayri couldn’t help but to smile. “How did you manage it?’ she asked of Ilayna’s defiance.
Ilayna returned the lightness in Cayri’s tone with a small smile of her own. “By being far too strong a woman, one who my intended fiancé couldn’t break and honestly, I don’t think he wanted to. We mutually agreed that we would both be much happier challenging each other’s patience with our conflicting social views than in a marriage. He later married a noblewoman from the far northern lands and I remained my father’s independent burden. I pushed to study here when I was older. I took to politics, and politics took to me, like destined lovers. When I returned to Cenily my formerly betrothed was hopelessly in love with his beautiful young wife and was rapidly having children. He and I reunited with political argument and we both knew we had made the right choices, particularly as I was beginning to deeply admire Raiss. We worked well together and he valued a woman’s role in venues beyond the household. I decided that I was going to leave Cenily for Indhovan permanently.”
Cayri watched the weight of memory settling down on Ilayna, like a shadow. Not a malicious one, but more a cloud that drifted across the light of her life in this city whenever she considered what was left in another.
“My formerly betrothed’s wife died,” the lady said next, in a heavy tone. “And I delayed my decision. The war escalated and I delayed again. This time it claimed his only son. He was so grief stricken...I stayed longer than I should have.”
She shook her head slowly while she contemplated how to put what she wanted to say next. It probably didn’t require words, but Cayri waited for them patiently anyway.
“At both our ages, the last thing either of us expected was a child,” Ilayna said. “I didn’t want that to anchor me to Cenily. I carried forward with my plans and gave birth to Deitir here in Indhovan. Raiss and I continued to work together and eventually married. He adopted Deitir as his own out of love and Deitir and his natural father rarely see one another. Deitir doesn’t know him as his father and, as you can see, he loves Raiss very much.”
Cayri nodded. “Yes, I have seen.” She didn’t know she was looking for any specific answers, but that did further set her mind at ease regarding the governor. An overly ambitious father who viewed his son’s adopted status as a potential stepping stone for himself would have created motive. However, she believed Ilayna’s story and she had seen Deitir’s devotion. She doubted he would allow anyone to harm or convince him to harm Raiss. She came to her next question. “What can you tell me of Vaelyx Treir?”
This seemed to invite another shadow into the room. Ilayna drew in a breath and released it quietly before answering. “He and my husband were friends, before Vaelyx appeared to lose his mind.”
“Appeared to?” Cayri asked.
Ilayna nodded. “Vaelyx Treir was once a man who made sense, even when his decisions or behavior seemed erratic. He was a quick thinker, but not always patient or thorough. He seemed to always have many things on his mind at once, a
lot of them to do with the war and how Indhovan might help to end it. My husband has always been much more concerned with how we might preserve Indhovan and help it to grow, and through that strength and growth, the city might persevere against onslaught. I don’t know if any of us honestly believed the war would come this far, except Vaelyx. Vaelyx and his brother were Kingdom soldiers first, though. Perhaps they had a better view than many of us.
“Regardless, there were points where Vaelyx and my husband’s ideas intersected, particularly where the Islands were concerned. Raiss believed that a more solid relationship between his homeland and Edrinor would improve the quality of living both here and there. Vaelyx believed that it would potentially strengthen the Cities Alliance, adding the able population and ideas from a place Morenne would likely not have considered.”
That made sense to Cayri. In fact, she felt a little better about Indhovan’s situation knowing that.
Ilayna continued, “They ventured many times to the Islands, coordinating consistent trade and helping what was tantamount to a handful of free-floating towns and villages to become a single, joined community. Raiss’ cousin, Ossai, came here to be an ambassador and quickly integrated himself, taking a mainland name as well. Konlan established rank and presence in both places and Raiss earned a reputation as a benefactor to his people and an inspirational leader among the coastal cities. Indhovan began to look ahead, as did the Islands. The war fell further into the background. Vaelyx fell away with it, which is what I believe began the rift between him and my husband. I’m also certain that’s when Vaelyx and Konlan began to view each other as rivals.
“Maybe it made matters worse that Konlan and Irslan were also becoming friends. Vaelyx may have felt abandoned and after the loss of his brother, it may have been easier for him to arrive at such a conclusion. I can’t say. I’ve never had the opportunity to sit and speak with him about it. He began making frequent visits to the Islands on his own, spending long hours at home otherwise, keeping to himself. Irslan, at the time, reported him somewhat depressed and stressed by his continuing endeavors to end the war, but otherwise well. I thought it might help to introduce him to people I knew from Cenily who were actively involved in their own efforts against Morenne.”
“Did it?” Cayri asked her, though she suspected the answer lie in the fact that Vaelyx had wound up in prison.
Ilayna shook her head slightly. “Some of them were active and former soldiers volunteering for the Alliance, whom he had already met or heard of. He seemed to want very little to do with them and wanted nothing to do with their activities that involved leaving the region. He appeared a man anchored by some obsession. And then came the public outbursts...”
Cayri watched the lady’s features take on a weary hue as she brought forward a memory that was perhaps in actuality sitting constantly out in the open.
“Claims that my husband was aligned with Morenne and planned to allow Indhovan to be taken over by demons,” Ilayna was saying, again her head turning from side to side, as if she still struggled to believe the road Vaelyx had taken. “I imagine many people didn’t take him seriously, especially where demons were concerned, but Raiss took his behavior quite seriously and eventually decided to have him arrested and detained until he recovered his senses. I think Raiss assumed a few months, maybe even a year, would be enough to settle him down. The years accumulated quickly, with Vaelyx growing more and more antisocial.”
“Yes,” Cayri said. “The Vassenleigh Order tried to intervene on his behalf, but it was Vaelyx himself who rejected our help.”
“I have no explanation for his change in personality, except what I’ve told you. Though I will note that it was during that prolonged period when Raiss began to show changes in his own personality. He seemed to also want to clear his mind and wash his hands of everything...especially in the last few years. The activists established themselves almost as a contingency. Their governor and his staff were seeming to do nothing, so they would gather information and rally ideas, prepared to act if the need arose.”
“A rebellion,” Cayri offered.
“Not as aggressive as that—not for most of them—but yes...in the lack of a better way to put it. It surprised me that Konlan had taken such a prominent role with them, but it occurred to me that he was helping to keep them manageable and once again, acting as an ambassador. His relationship with another activist and founder—Irslan Treir—enabled him to communicate ideas and concerns back and forth between the two.”
“When did you take an interest?”
“I began attending their meetings from time to time to better understand their point of view and eventually to play a similar role to Konlan’s,” Ilayna replied. “Deitir’s always disagreed with it and only ever attended for my sake. They’re a very civil lot, however. I don’t believe they’re a true danger; they only want to have a voice. As it turns out, through them—namely Irslan—the Vassenleigh Order is also represented. Unfortunately, Irslan doesn’t hold enough sway with my husband or with Konlan, in spite of their friendship, to make your concerns heard. That’s why I agreed to meet with you. The nature of the activist meetings has shifted from the city’s welfare as it grows and even from the war to topics of disappearances, murder, and the reality of the Vadryn. If the war is here already, then we must respond to it. I don’t know why my husband won’t. Twenty years ago—maybe even ten—he would have at least listened, as he listened to the concerns of Indhovan’s coven, who he now also chooses to ignore. He’s dismissed them as harmless irritants.”
“What do you think of them?” Cayri ventured to ask.
“I think they’re harmless, yes. Pacifists. They protest Indhovan’s growth, but as far as I know, there hasn’t been even one incident of aggression or retaliation from them as a group at any point throughout Raiss’ time as governor. His adoptive father had also never claimed to have any problems with them. They convene in peace and when they complain it’s never violent. I think some wanted to attach the recent murders and disappearances to them, but with Irslan’s bringing priests into it, everyone who’s aware seems to be digesting the fact that the Vadryn are the present enemy, and no one else.”
Cayri considered all of that. She could see no reason to doubt, but there were still some details that nagged. “According to Vaelyx—according to journals of his Irslan lately discovered—the murders and disappearances have been happening for years. Somehow they went without notice?”
“Without special notice, perhaps,” Ilayna permitted. “Indhovan is a large city. Its safety is not granted, but achieved.”
That was reasonable. “When did people begin to retreat indoors after dark? In substantial number, I mean.”
“The curfew was set at an advisory level earlier this season,” Ilayna said easily. Watching Cayri, she was inclined to add, “But you believe it’s been happening longer, don’t you?”
Perhaps. “The city has almost complete compliance to an advised curfew...not an enforced one.” Cayri paused as she continued to process all of the information she had received. She met Ilayna’s gaze as she concluded, “I feel as if the people of this city have felt unsafe for a while now.”
Irslan returned home with a sense of urgency building within him. He let himself in and locked the front door behind him, took a step away, then thought about his priest guests and turned back to unlock it again. He stopped in the midst of that action, considering Konlan, considering what had been going on in the city and how much worse it was than any of them had truly known, and considering that the priests would surely make their presence known whenever they returned. He chose to leave the door locked and doffed his coat, depositing it on the bench beside the door along with his gloves before making a slightly rushed path to his library.
For activists, they had all been considerably lax; he was realizing this now. Had they allowed themselves to be lulled and mollified by Konlan? What precisely was his friend up to..
.and was this the way his uncle had felt in regard to Tahrsel? He also had to wonder, was that Konlan’s doing, as Vaelyx had accused in his writings?
Irslan was determined to read each of the journals more thoroughly, but first he was going to search them end to end for evidence of exactly what he had been looking at carved into Konlan’s study floor. Undoubtedly, there was magic involved. Undoubtedly, it had to do with what the Vassenleigh Order classed rogue magic users. Odd that Konlan, one of the most vocal against archaism, should be a practitioner of one of the most archaic systems known to Edrinor. Had he been misleading all of them? To what purpose?
As far as Irslan knew, the witches had no political ambitions beyond waiting for politics to die and for the world to resume some form of ancient anarchy. But it wouldn’t be anarchy. The coven had its own system, its own political process, whether they chose to call it that or not. They boasted themselves pacifists, but as Irslan saw it, their inaction was aggression, a want for those who didn’t agree with them to fail and die...or join them.
He’d been fooling himself by trying to excuse and ignore them. And now he felt he owed the Vassenleigh Order an apology for not being more informative about them in his communications with Lords Ceth and Ashwin. He had cut them out, as Vaelyx had...as someone may have wanted.
His suspicions flared the more he thought about it and he determined to surrender all of his uncle’s writings to the Vassenleigh Order. Hopefully, they would still find some worth within the pages. In the meantime, Irslan intended to translate what he could from them now, so that he might help the priests present in any way he could. Gods, protect them.
Nineteen
On the other side of the narrow chasm, Korsten and Merran found a featureless space which led to a corridor that grew ever narrower and with a ceiling that seemed to slope lower the further they traveled at an upward route. The sound of water resounded through it, bringing the sensation of rain into the caves.
