“I saw no sign of man or daemon,” he finished, “but this was no mere storm. Something hid at its heart, cloaked in snow. I’m certain of it.”
Jessup pondered his story, leaning forward a bit, eyes down, fingers steepled and tapping his brow. “There has been much strangeness of late, much to worry and concern me. Clearly those of ill purpose take heart from this stretch of bitter winter. Who’s to say what emboldened act might be attempted? It bears investigation. If there are any Black Alchemists afoot on my lands, we must root them out.”
“Lord Jessup-” Liannora began again.
A hand raised, palm out. “I will send the chief master of the Oldenbrook school, a man familiar with corrupted Graces, out into the wood along with a small legion of guards.” He eyed Brant again. “I will have maps brought up. Are you able…do you remember…?”
“I can mark where I hunted. But mayhap I should accompany the search.” Brant was afraid that the heavy drifts would have blanketed all evidence to his claims, deeply burying the bodies.
“I fear it’s not best for your health to be out in this bitter cold. Not if you’re to recover for the coming morning’s flight to Tashijan. And I fear even the strain of such a flight, of the festivities at the Citadel, perhaps will be too much.”
Brant sat straighter and pushed away his emptied mug. “I will be more than hale enough to travel.”
He did not want to be excluded from the retinue. Despite all that had happened, there was still the matter of Dart, his stone, and the strange apparition conjured as the stone flared. He could not pass up this chance for answers. Not after so long.
“I hope you are right,” Lord Jessup said. “I was the first to put Tylar ser Noche’s cloak in service to the Order. It was here he first bent a knee as a knight. I would send the best of Oldenbrook to witness his knighting again. To send less would cast some doubt on my support. Still, if you are not able…I will not risk your health.”
“I am mending fine, Lord Jessup.” A rasping cough confounded his words, but he met the god’s blue eyes with steady assuredness. “I am.”
A nod. “Very good. Then it’s settled.”
Lord Jessup began to rise, but now it was Liannora’s turn to lift a hand. “A wonderful thought has just occurred to me, stirred by your words of honoring the assembly at Tashijan. For the past nights, my slumber has been troubled by worries of how to properly show our respect, of what gifts we might bring besides our fine personages.”
“What idea has possessed you?”
Liannora glanced to Brant, flashing some wicked intent, then turned back to Lord Jessup. “Master Brant here has risked his life to bring two beautiful woodland cubbies out of the forest, to save them from the savageries of the storm. What better gifts might we present than those same twin cubbies? Fell wolves, no less.”
Brant felt as if he’d been clubbed in the stomach.
“The whole ceremony at Tashijan is one of unification,” Liannora continued. “To heal the fractured houses of Chrismferry and Tashijan. Would it not be a wonderful gesture to offer one pup to the celebrated and battle-brazened Argent ser Fields, high warden of the Citadel-and present the other to the new regent, Lord Tylar ser Noche?”
“Most wonderful,” Mistress Ryndia added.
“Indeed,” Master Khar chimed in.
“Fell wolves represent strength, cunning, and honor. To share them between the two houses-Tashijan and Chrismferry-would help symbolize the new resolve of all the First Land, to stand against the darkness, proud and nobly.”
Brant finally found his tongue. “The wolves belong in Mistdale. It is where they should be returned.”
“There are enough wolves in those dark forests,” Liannora said. “Was it not hunger that drove the she-wolf down here to begin with? The symbolic nature the pair could represent would serve far better than stocking two more starving wolves in Mistdale.”
“That is not the Way of-”
Now Brant was silenced with a nod from Lord Jessup. “Thank you, Liannora. Well-spoken indeed. The gesture would be significant, but as it was Master Brant who risked his life to bring the wolves here, then it should be his choice on what will be done with them.”
Liannora bowed her acknowledgment and settled with a shimmer to her seat. All eyes were on Brant.
Even Lord Jessup’s.
Brant ignored the others, but he could not dismiss the gentle attention of the god in their midst. He knew the high esteem in which Lord Jessup held the new regent. Even more deeply, he understood the god’s desire to acknowledge and certify the new pact between Chrismferry and Tashijan. The First Land must heal.
But he had a responsibility beyond the land. By saving the cubbies, he now had their lives to protect. He weighed the life they would lead if he agreed. He had no doubt they’d be raised with pampered attention. As gifts of a god, representing the new unity and symbolizing the First Land’s newfound fortitude, the wolves would be well cared for and well-kept. Their lives would be easy; they would be fatted and groomed.
Yet still it would be a caged life, all freedoms gone. Brant rankled at the thought. Here he was, exiled from his own homelands into this pampered existence. He’d had no choice. Then again, sometimes freedoms had to be laid down for the greater good.
“Master Brant…?” Lord Jessup pressed softly.
He met his god’s eyes, knowing what the god hoped.
Brant nodded slowly.
“I gave ’em some goat’s milk ’bout a bell ago,” Malthumalbaen grumbled. “Just about took my thumb off.”
The giant held out a ponderous digit, wounded with an arc of needled bites.
Shadowed by the giant, Brant stood at the cage door. The cubbies were half-buried in his old coat, forming a den beneath it, glowering. A low growl greeted him.
Brant flipped the latch and pulled the gate.
“Take care, Master Brant. Or at least count your fingers. Make sure you leave with the same number.”
The giant’s twin returned from down at the end of a row, where he had finished relieving himself into a pail. Dralmarfillneer snugged the laces on his trousers as he joined his brother. A few of the kennel’s hounds regaled his passage.
“Them’s some feisty bits of fur,” he said with a grin upon reaching their side. “Probably taste a mite nice, too. After being fattened up first.”
Malthumalbaen clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Take no offense, Master Brant. Dral’s always wondering what things taste like.”
Brant slid into the cage.
“We must get back to our posts,” the giant said.
Brant nodded to them. “Thank you again for coming out and pulling me out of the teeth of that storm.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“Just a few hares now and then-that’d be nice.” Dral elbowed his brother for his agreement.
Malthumalbaen sighed. “Is that all you think about? Your belly?” He shoved his brother toward the far door. “Don’t you know anything about honor, ’bout doing what’s right for rightness’s sake?”
“Still, a few hares…If you’d rather not have yours, I’ll be happy to-”
“Ock, that’s not the point. Mother surely dropped you on your head.”
Their argument faded into grumbled snatches as they left the kennels.
Alone, Brant pulled the door closed behind him and sank to a crouch. The cubbies stared at him. Two pairs of eyes reflected the torchlight beyond. Brant noted a pile of spoor in one corner. It was runny and loose.
“Goat’s milk is not your mamma’s, is it?” Brant whispered.
A growl answered him. He caught a ripple of teeth.
Ignoring the threat, Brant sidled closer, then sank cross-legged into the hay. He would wait them out. Let his scent push through the pall of shite and hound piss.
After a long moment, a snarling nose peeked out of the coat, curious but wary.
“Do you recognize my smell?”
The small cubbie lowered its muzzle to t
he ground, ears flattened. It was the little she-wolf, braver than her brother. She edged out a whisker at a time in his direction. Her brother shadowed her. Brant saw how the male, more cautious, studied him, first from one side of his sister, then the other. Though he lacked his sister’s bravado, he made up with wits and cunning.
Brant had rested a hand in the hay. The little she-wolf, bristling with black fur, stretched her neck to sniff at a nail. Satisfied, she crept farther, circling out a bit, still wary.
Then she lunged and snapped into the meat of his thumb. She stayed latched, growling. Brant could guess she was the one who had wounded Malthumalbaen. Brant simply waited her out.
Finally she let go and pulled back.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I probably deserve it.”
Her hackles slowly lowered. She sank to her belly and wiggled forward again. A small pink tongue licked at the droplets of blood raised by her milk teeth. A whine escaped her, apologetic.
The male slipped from the den and joined his sister, licking at Brant’s thumb. Once his finger was clean, the pair were soon sniffing him all around, exploring his nooks and corners.
He watched them, his heart heavy.
After a few moments more, they grew bored with his presence. The male returned to the coat, grabbing it by a sleeve and tugging on it. Such housekeeping plainly angered his sister. She grabbed the other sleeve, fighting with determined growls.
Brant sighed. Maybe he should have left them to the storm. Had it been any true kindness rescuing them? Into what sort of life were they headed? Still, it was life. As long as their hearts beat, the future was never set in stone.
Not theirs, not his.
He pondered the strange storm again. Even he had begun to wonder if he had not merely caught the contagious panic of the animals. Maybe it was just the extra cold spooking the beasts. Still, he remembered the ice in the air, the cold flesh of that hare, dropped in midleap.
No.
Something unnatural had been cloaked in the storm.
But what? And more importantly, why?
The storm had blown itself out of Oldenbrook and now rolled south toward the distant sea. In another day or two it would be gone from these lands. Perhaps it would always remain a mystery. He thought he had sidestepped it, but maybe that had been a delusion. Maybe it still held him in its grip.
Maybe it always had.
Brant clutched the stone at his throat, rolled to him by the dying breath of a rogue god.
How much freedom did any of them have?
SECOND
CASTLE IN A STORM
Blood to open the way
Seed or menses to bless
Sweat to imbue
Tears to swell
Saliva to ebb
Phlegm to manifest
Yellow bile to gift
And black to take it all away
- Litany of Nine Graces
A GATHERING OF RAVENS
Kathryn knocked on the door, concerned. she had not heard from Gerrod Rothkild for over a full day. The last she had spoken to him was when Rogger had appeared at her own door, bearing the strange talisman of a rogue god’s skull.
Then nothing.
Not word, nor note.
Such silence was unlike Gerrod. Especially now. In the past day, Tashijan had swelled to bursting as retinues from all the god-realms of the First Land had arrived. But more importantly, Tylar ser Noche was due here before evening bells. With such an event pending, Kathryn had spent the morning pacing her hermitage. It had been a year since she had last seen Tylar. Certainly they’d shared messages by raven and scroll, but their duties after the Battle of Myrrwood kept them both too busy for a casual visit.
And casual was certainly beyond either of them.
Even now.
Her hands wrung at her belly. They had once been betrothed, certain to marry, sharing a bed already, first as a dalliance between knights, finally with a deeper stirring of the heart. Then Tylar had been accused of murder and broken vows. Kathryn’s own testimony before the adjudicators had gone a long way toward damning him to the slave ships of Trik and the bloody circuses that followed, where he was broken in limb and spirit. But his guilt had been fabricated from the start. He had been a blind piece in a greater game, used to weaken Tashijan and its former warden, Ser Henri.
And the cost had not fallen solely upon Tylar.
Kathryn still remembered the blood in her bed, the lost child, limbs as small as birds’ wings, expelled from her body by grief and heartache. It was this final loss that had driven her down here at that time, into self-exile, away from the staring eyes and whispers, betrothed to a murderer.
But Tylar’s only crime had been some gray dealings, traffic below the table with some sordid characters from his past, done at first to raise coin for the city’s orphanages, where both she and he had been raised. But after a time, a few silver yokes had ended up in Tylar’s own pocket. It was a familiar slide. Still, the murder of the cobbler’s family was not Tylar’s doing, despite the blood on his own sword. It took the death of two gods-Meeryn, who blessed Tylar as she lay dying, and the naethryn-possessed Chrism, whom Tylar had slain-to finally clear his name.
All should have been made right.
But it hadn’t been.
The pair remained lost to each other, bitter. Anger and guilt had rooted too deeply, becoming as much a part of them as their own bones. If Tylar hadn’t started his underhanded dealings with the Gray Traders, soiling his cloak…if I had trusted his professions of innocence to murder…if only I’d told him of our child… And though they had stumbled over words of forgiveness to each other, the words were spoken with the tongue and not the heart.
At least not yet.
But now Tylar was returning.
Kathryn knocked again, needing to consult Gerrod, ever her counselor. Long ago, Gerrod had helped lift her back into her life after she fell down here the first time. She trusted no one more, not even herself.
A coarse bark answered her. “I’m not to be disturbed!”
“Gerrod!” Kathryn called through the door. She leaned close, keeping her voice low. She had come buried in her shadowcloak, shying from others. Even now, Grace flowed through the blessed cloth to hide her among the shadows.
“ Kathryn…?”
“Yes!”
She heard steps approach, and a latch scraped back. The door swung open. Gerrod pulled it just wide enough for her to enter, but no more.
“Hurry,” he urged her.
She thought at first the master’s furtiveness was because he had shed his armor’s helmet, exposing his pale and tattooed flesh. Gerrod preferred to keep his true face hidden.
He closed the door behind her, leaned an ear against the wood, then stepped away. “Hesharian knows I’m dabbling in something secret. He’s already visited twice this morning.”
“Does he know about the skull?”
Gerrod shook his head and clanked over with a whir of mekanicals to the far side of his chamber.
Kathryn caught the whiff of burning black bile, which even the sweet scent of myrrh boiling on his braziers could not mask. She also noted the state of his room. Normally Gerrod was fastidious in his upkeep, but the four bronze braziers in the corners of the room-in the fanciful shapes of eagle, skreewyrm, wolfkit, and tyger-were blackened with smoke, and piles of ash lay unswept beneath them. At his wide desk, a teetering stack of ancient tomes covered the surface, some open, others facedown, spines bent. In one corner, a stack of scrolls had spilled to the floor, and a candle had burnt to a slagged puddle of wax with a wan flame floating in the middle.
Her friend looked just as wasted, sustained by as weak a fire.
She doubted he had slept at all since acquiring the skull.
“I think Hesharian grows suspicious of my studies,” Gerrod said. “The last time he appeared on my doorstep, he came with a strange milky-eyed master named Orquell. The man hails from Ghazal, where he has been studying among the Clerics
of Naeth of that volcanic land.”
Kathryn was well familiar with the cult of Naeth. Unlike most of Myrillia, the followers shunned any worship of the aethryn, the sundered part of the gods that had fled high and away into the aether, never to be heard from again. The Clerics of Naeth sought communion with the naethryn, the undergods, through strange practices and acts of blood sacrifice. While no one had been able to prove it, if ever there was a ready source of Cabalists, it would be found there. But as the followers rarely left their subterranean lairs, they seemed harmless enough, for now.
“Why did this master come here?” Kathryn asked, suspicious of anyone associated with such clerics.
“Summoned, I heard-by Hesharian.”
Kathryn frowned.
“They’ve spent some time up in the Warden’s Eyrie. Behind closed doors.”
Kathryn suddenly remembered. “Dart mentioned such a man…”
Gerrod nodded. “From such meetings, I can fathom why Hesharian has summoned this master from Ghazal.”
“Why?”
“Because of Symon ser Jaklar, the warden’s best man, turned to stone by Argent’s corrupted sword. Hesharian still keeps the man’s body in some secret hole. But to lift the curse would surely raise our esteemed master’s status-at least within the eyes of the Eyrie.”
Gerrod finally waved the matter away. “But that is not why you came down here, was it? You came to inquire about the skull.” He turned toward the arched opening that led into his alchemical study. The thick ironwood doors were open, and the scent of bile emanated from within.
“You must see this,” he said and disappeared through the archway.
Kathryn followed him into his study, where the smell of black bile was riper. The windowless room beyond had been carved into an oval. In the center was a scarred greenwood table with a complicated apparatus of bronze-and-mica-glass tubing above it, attached to the arched stone roof. All around, the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with cabinets, shelves, niches, and nooks. At the far end rose Gerrod’s repostilum, a mosaic of blessed glass cubes, each die no wider than a thumb, eight hundred in number, containing drops of each of the eight humours from all hundred of the original settled gods, an alchemical storehouse of great wealth.
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