Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology

by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler

  “Noon death” clearly meant when the sun went behind the moon. That was happening now. The light continued to dim, further than it had aboard the ship it seemed, or perhaps that was her imagination. If the birth was when the sun emerged, then it would explain why the fruit vendor had been concerned about the naro-a drying. That was near to seven minutes.

  The bells sounded again, while the dark still gripped the market. Cloth rustled around them and Katin pushed herself to her knees. She froze before rising any farther. The people were not moving to stand. They had rolled onto their backs. Lesid turned to look at her, brow turned up in confusion.

  She had no idea what they were doing, but given that everyone was lying down, it didn’t feel like they had a choice. She could think of nothing back home that would induce a crowd of people to act as one like this.

  Swallowing, not knowing what else to do, Katin lay down on her back. Lesid followed a moment later.

  She stared up at the sky and for a moment lost her worry about understanding what the people were doing. The sky . . . On the ship, the sun had passed almost behind the thin crescent of the moon, but an edge of it had been visible. Here though, they had evidently traveled far enough that the entire sphere had vanished.

  What remained was a dark disc with a fiery halo surrounding it. It undulated in a glory of yellow and red against a backdrop of deep blue. The sky was dark enough that stars shone. She searched the sky for the Sisters, but— But none of the stars were familiar. Katin shook her head, trying to slow her breathing. Of course they weren’t. These were the daytime constellations only visible when the sun died. Noon death.

  She took in a painful breath, understanding. Brightest light in the darkness, it consumes all who enter . . . Not when the sun died, but when the moon killed the sun and then gave birth to it. Had the Sisters worshiped in this manner? What had their lives been like to lose this display of magic in the sky?

  Above her, it was as if the moon wore a fiery crown. Or a skirt. Dorot’s bloody hands, but she wanted to find out how their scripture accounted for this. The myths and legends here must be as gorgeous as the streamers of fire that danced around the edges of the dark sphere.

  For a third time, the bells in the city chimed. Again the sound of cloth rustled around them. Before moving, Katin glanced to the side to see that everyone was rolling back over to their stomachs, kneeling upon the ground with their heads bent. Lesid had already followed suit, tucking his knees under his body. Katin rolled over and pressed her face against the cobbles.

  Had the entire city done this? Based on what she saw, everyone in the market had. She would have expected there to be nonbelievers at the least, and most definitely thieves who would take advantage of the time when everyone’s faces were pressed to the ground. No one here seemed to have that worry. Katin couldn’t imagine that happening in Marth, except in very small towns.

  The ground lightened around her, shadows coming back to etch the edges of the cobbles. Around them, the bells pealed again.

  She had expected a simultaneous movement, but the people in the market moved as if released from a spell that had momentarily bound them together. The fruit vendor bobbed to her knees, then pushed herself to her feet with a groan. She bent down to pick up her cloth, shaking the dust from it. The man on the ground to Katin’s right stayed with his head down for a few seconds longer, before sitting back on his heels. Another woman knelt and rolled her cloth up before standing.

  Lesid turned to Katin, eyes wide. Despite the fact that he spoke Markuth, he lowered his voice. “What by the blessed gods was that?”

  “I think it was a group prayer service.”

  He glanced up at the sun. Overhead, the sky had returned to its usual daytime blue. No stars were visible. The sun, blazingly bright, rode in the sky where it had just been released from the crescent of the moon. Did they see the shape as a bow?

  Lesid shook his head and lowered his eyes, blinking away tears from having stared too long at the sun. “Praying that the sun will come back?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry, I keep saying that a lot.” Katin turned to the fruit vendor, who had hobbled behind her booth again. She had wrapped her hair back up in its yellow scarf. Katin switched back to Old Fretian to address her. “Pardon. University? Is there?”

  The woman stared at her, mouth screwed up in a frown. “Oh— A university. Yes.” She rattled something else off and then stopped at Katin’s look of confusion. “Bardstown College. Water Street.” She lifted the machete and swung it at the pink fruit. It split open to reveal a creamy interior, ringed with a thick circle of vivid pink. “South Islands, right?”

  Remembering what the captain had said, Katin did not disagree with her. “Library-a there?”

  “Aye.” She swung the machete again, halving the other naro-a. With a little nod, she handed the naro-a to them, along with an odd wedge of some thick reed.

  After a moment, Lesid grinned. “Oh! It’s a spoon.”

  He stuck the end of the reed into the pale center of the fruit and dug out a scoop of the soft flesh. Passing it under his nose, he inhaled slowly, filling his lungs. Katin watched him slide the piece of fruit into his mouth and close his eyes in concentration.

  “Well?”

  He held up the hand with the reed-spoon, shushing her as he chewed. After a moment he gave a grin and opened his eyes. “Subtle. Almost creamy, but a little acidic. Not enough to make your mouth pucker like rindfruit. Maybe like a rindfruit ice . . . Anyway. There are also little seeds that crack when you bite. It’s nice.”

  “Nice.” Katin shook her head and scooped out a spoonful of her own. “You describe food the way other people describe wine.” Anything else she was going to say was forgotten as she tasted the naro-a. The texture was the first thing that stopped her. It was soft, somewhere between a ripe melon and a pudding, while the little seeds in it burst in tiny pops. The flavor was a little like cream, but the thing Lesid had said about rindfruit was right. It made her mouth feel clean with each bite. “Wow.”

  “I know. We should find out how long they store, in case we can take them back to Marth.”

  Katin drew in a breath, somehow shocked by the reminder that they would be returning to Marth. It had always been the plan, of course. Find the homeland, then come back for her people. She just had not expected . . . this. Civilization. Or unfamiliar culture or— She wasn’t sure what she had thought they would find, but not this city with its people praying to the moon. Did they do that in Center too? Did the entire city fall to its knees at noon?

  Lesid cleared his throat. “Why do you want to find the university?”

  “I’m hoping someone speaks Old Fretian.”

  “Isn’t that what everyone here speaks?”

  “No . . . It’s related. Probably a descendant from a common tongue, but I’m fighting to understand anything.” And maybe the university would have information about the Five Sisters. Surely they must have left some historical trace.

  A knot in her stomach formed around the naro-a. Unless the Five Sisters were unknown here.

  They found the university easily enough by simply repeating the words “Bardstown College?” as a question until someone pointed them on their way. The campus grounds had a broad expanse of fragrant ground cover with tiny leaves and even tinier purple flowers, spread between gravel lanes. Young men and women that Katin took to be students walked along the paths with yellow and blue ribbons tied to their left arms. The thin pieces of fabric fluttered behind them in a miniature festival.

  She repeated her trick and said, “Library?” to the first student she met. Eventually, she and Lesid found themselves in front of a broad glass-fronted building. Brightest light in the darkness, it consumes all who enter.

  Wide marble steps led up to glass doors set into brass facings. Did they use glass for everything here?

  Inside, ranks of shelves stepped back through a well-lit great hall. At home it would have been filled with glowdiscs, while here the ligh
t came from a cunning arrangement of skylights and mirrors, but the sense of being a temple to books was still the same. Desks stood at intervals between the shelves, with students bent in study over stacks of books. At the center of the library a series of counters formed a square. In the hollow of the square, a pair of older faculty members sat at matching desks. A heavy book rested on the counter facing the front of the library, open to a page filled with names and dates. A registry, perhaps, of the people using the library.

  As she approached the desk, Lesid dropped back slightly to stand behind her shoulder. Katin wet her lips and tried to think of how to phrase the questions she wanted to ask, but all of the sentences were too complicated for her meager grasp of the language. One of the librarians, an older man with thinning brown hair, looked up and smiled.

  “May I help you?” He stood and approached the counter where Katin stood.

  The relief that she had understood all of the words, even in such a simple sentence, made her sigh with thanks. “Please.”

  “What do you seek?” He waited, and still she had nothing easy to ask.

  Did he have books about the Five Sisters or about a voyage beyond the moon, or ancient histories, or— Katin’s head came up as she thought she saw a way out of her dilemma. “I speak not Setish.”

  She paused as his eyes widened with surprise, and she filed the surprise away to consider. Like the marketplace of people kneeling, what were the chances that a university, even in a middle-sized town, would not have foreigners passing through?

  Katin put the questions it raised aside, and offered an apologetic smile as she constructed the next sentence in her head. “Is any person who speaks . . .” What was that phrase from scripture . . . ? “The ancient tongues?”

  The librarian drew his head back, and turned to his colleague, a woman of middle years with blonde hair that had silvered at the temples. “Can you . . .” and then Katin lost the train of the rest of his question. Whatever it was caused the woman to raise her eyebrows and stand. She came to the counter, blue and yellow ribbons fluttering from her arm as she walked.

  She tilted her head and studied Katin. “What language?”

  “I call it Old Fretian.”

  There was no answering sign of recognition in the woman’s eyes at the word “Fretian.”

  Gnawing her lower lip, Katin reached into her sash and pulled out her copy of the Principium. It was not a translation into Markuth, but had the original Old Fretian scriptural text. She opened it to the first page and slid it across the counter. “This?”

  The woman pulled it closer and bent over the page with a frown. The man leaned over her shoulder, chewing on his lower lip. “Can you read it?”

  “Not well.” The woman traced a finger along the opening of the first chapter. With an accent strangely formed and stumbling, she read aloud from the Principium.

  “We give all praise and thanks to the Five Sisters for our Safe Deliverance.

  Straight the Course and True the Path of the righteous.

  Dorot, Gefen, Nofar, Yorira, and Abriel have kept us safe from the Ravages of the Deep.

  We left behind Woe and Hardship in the Path of the Moon.”

  After a moment, she simply traced her finger over the text, lips moving occasionally as she sounded out a word. The woman riffled forward to a later chapter and placed her finger on the text again, mouthing words.

  Behind Katin, Lesid shifted his weight and nudged her in the back. She glanced over her shoulder at him.

  His brow was furrowed and he jerked his chin at the librarians. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m hoping they can help us find a better translator than me,” she answered in a low voice.

  The sound of flipping pages pulled her attention back to the librarians. The woman had turned to the back of the book and frowned over it. “Where are the printer’s marks?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The printer’s marks.” The woman tapped the back endpapers of the book.

  Katin spread her hands and shook her head. “I understand not. I mean— I hear words, but I do not know meaning-the. Printer’s marks. We come from beyond the Moon.”

  The woman laughed and scooped the book up, slapping it against the chest of the man. “A prank. You should—” The rest of her words slid past Katin’s understanding.

  He caught the book as she released it, striding back to her desk. As he looked down, a flush of red highlighted his cheeks. “But so much trouble . . . ?”

  “One year, they . . .” Katin lost the words, but thought she was talking about a forged play. Or ox-tails. Or maybe a manuscript. The woman waved her hand in scorn at the book. “. . . not trying . . .” and “language” were all Katin caught.

  “What language?” Katin held her hands out. “Please. What language is it?”

  “Ancient Setish.” The man answered reflexively.

  “Anyone who speaks? A . . . ancient-an Setish speaker?” If Katin could talk to someone without having to struggle so much to understand modern Setish, then perhaps figuring out what had happened back in the days when the Five Sisters had left would be easier.

  Again, she just barely grasped what they were saying, clawing meaning out of the words.

  “Center University? Department of ancient languages?” She repeated to make certain she had understood it.

  The woman’s expression had gone from amused to annoyed. “Stop this farce.”

  Katin held up her hands in apology. “Sorry. And thank you.”

  “It is nothing.” The man turned back to his desk, still holding her book.

  “Excuse me?”

  He paused, with his brow raised. “Yes?”

  “My book.”

  Sighing, he looked down at the book in his hands. “You think not it return would I.”

  “But it is mine.”

  With exaggerated care, he said, “No printer’s marks. Illegal.”

  Katin gaped at him for a moment. “I told you that we aren’t from here.”

  “You are fortunate I do not call the Factors.” The woman gestured to the man and took the book from him. With a glare, she dropped it into a waste bin. “Good day.”

  Lesid stepped forward and looked from Katin to the woman. In Markuth, he said, “Did they just throw your book away?”

  “Yes— No!” She grabbed Lesid’s arm as he put his hand on the hilt of his knife. By the Sisters, if he went after one of the librarians there was no telling what havoc it would bring down on them. “Lesid . . . We should go.”

  “But that’s your holy book.”

  “I know.” Her stomach twisted at the sight of the scripture lying in the waste bin. “We’ll go back to the captain and see if he can ask the official to help us get it back, all right? But right now they think we’re college students pulling some sort of prank.” At least she thought that was what they had said. Maybe there was a fine she could pay.

  “This isn’t right.” He glared at the librarians.

  It wasn’t, but for the moment, she had to accept it. “Let’s go.”

  He lowered his hand with obvious reluctance and let her turn him back toward the doors of the library. She had taken no more than four steps when Lesid turned. “It’s not right.”

  He ran back to the counter and vaulted over it. The librarians started up with shouts. The man hurried forward, but Lesid shoved him back with one hand to the chest.

  Reaching the wastebasket, he grabbed the book and spun back. Tucking it under his arm, he ducked away from the woman librarian as she snatched for his arm.

  She shouted and Katin understood the word all too clearly. “Alarm!”

  Lesid put one hand down on the counter and sprang over it, running toward Katin. “Go! Go!”

  His words released her from her shocked hold, and Katin spun to run for the doors. Students staggered up from their tables, hurrying to see what the commotion was about. Lesid caught Katin before they reached the door and passed her, pushing the heavy glass open on its spr
ings. They ran through. She bounded down the steps two at a time, sprinting beside Lesid as they ran across the lawn. Behind them, the woman librarian had followed, still shouting, but her words were mercifully unintelligible.

  When they reached the street, Lesid glanced behind them and slowed to a walk. “I don’t see them, so I think we’re all right. Best not to grab attention.”

  Katin laughed, the patter of excitement still urging her steps forward. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

  “Let’s just say, I had a strong reason to go to sea.” He handed the book to her, with a wink. “We’ll walk for a bit. See if we can find a shop to duck into, maybe.”

  “Thank you.” Katin tried to slow her breathing to something that involved less panting. “Do you think they’ll come after us?”

  “Dunno.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. Might be that I need you to teach me this language.”

  “If I actually knew it, I would.”

  From behind them came a shout that needed no translation. “Stop them!”

  Katin whirled, her prayer scarf flying wide. On the university grounds behind them, the woman librarian stood on the walk, pointing with a straight arm. Running toward them were two burly men with blue streamers flapping from their arms. These must be the Factors. They each carried a short sword with a strange grip in a small sheath at the waist. Across their chests, little mirrors had been sewn into the dark blue silk and flashed light with each step.

  With an intake of breath, Lesid grabbed Katin’s arm and pulled her back around. Running in earnest now, they sprinted for the nearest side street. Lesid kept the pace rapid, dodging through the crowds of shoppers. He slipped between men in long tunics, women with bared midriffs, and everywhere the little ribbons streaming from their arms.

  They wound through the unfamiliar streets, not slowing to look at textiles and brass vases or anything else that caught their eyes. Glass windows granted crazed views behind them, where their pursuers bobbed in and out of sight through the thick crowds. Lesid rounded another corner, narrowly missing a baker’s cart.