The Great Rift

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Wint? From-the-Council Wint?" Dante goggled. "To do what?"

  "I don't know," Amwell said. Dante touched the nether to his neck and let him feel the chill. Amwell gasped out half a curse. "I think we were meant to undermine the Council. I just did as I was told. That's all I know!"

  "Undermind it by cutting off its head?" Dante said. Amwell shuddered, ashen. Dante fought down the fury surging through his blood. "Now you're going to repeat this to the rest of the Council."

  "What happens then?"

  "That's not for me to decide."

  The man's face twisted into a fearful sneer. "I want your assurance I won't be killed. My confession must be worth something."

  Dante returned his gaze. "I'll do all I can."

  Dante took down the lantern from the chain. Amwell led on. Blays relaxed his grip on Amwell's wrists. The circle of lantern light receded from the room. The body of Cally fell into darkness.

  They emerged into the humid night. Amwell made no effort to resist or escape. The front gates to the Citadel would be closed, as they always were, so Dante guided them back to his tunnel to the dungeons, continued through his cell, and took the steps up to the ground floor, where he encountered three very surprised guards.

  "I need the Council assembled at once," Dante said. "Don't try to stop me. If I am in the wrong, let my fellow priests destroy me."

  Two of the guards wavered. The third, an older man who'd often seen to Cally personally whenever the old man had business in the city, nodded deeply. "Where shall we tell the Council to meet?"

  "In our chambers," Dante said. "Wait to bring Wint until the end if you can. If you care for your own life, for Arawn's sake don't tell him why we're meeting."

  The three men followed him into the Citadel proper. The entry was scantly lit by slow-burning candles. One of the guards plucked one up to take into the unlit stairwell. Once they reached the upper floors, the guards peeled away to roust the councilmen from sleep. Dante headed straight to the main chambers, where he instructed Amwell to sit in a chair in the corner on the right side of the doorway, out of sight until one had stepped inside the room.

  "What happens if Wint goes batty?" Blays said. "Putting him in an armlock won't stop him from killing everyone with magic flying shadow-daggers."

  "I thought you had strategies to fight people like us," Dante said.

  "Yeah, and I bet a lot of them end with me dying horribly."

  "I can handle him," Dante said. "He won't attack anyone. It would only prove his own guilt."

  "Fine," Blays said. "Guess I'll just sit back and enjoy the drama."

  Tarkon was the first to arrive. The old man gave Dante an amused smile. "Is my memory that bad? When did we move the prisons all the way up here?"

  Dante grinned back. His cheer was short-lived. Somburr came next, examining the scene with the quiet intensity of a bird of prey. He perched near the back of the room, watching. Joseff came next. He was as silent as always, but his long-faced stare spoke volumes of wary suspicion.

  Then came Kav. His eyes glimmered with anger above his aquiline nose. "What are you doing out of your cell?"

  Dante made sure the nether was close. "I decided lying alone in the dark was less productive than figuring out who really killed Cally."

  "You killed your former leader and now you defy your new one?" Kav summoned the nether to his hands in a black blur. "If you won't abide by the process of law, then it's time to enforce an older form of justice."

  "Stop it!" Dante said. "Tricking us into tearing out each other's throats is all part of their plan!"

  Shadows tumbled around Kav's hands like mad moths. "What are these vagaries of yours? Is it your plan to confuse us until we no longer know true from false?"

  "Just wait until Wint is here." Dante held up his empty hands, letting the nether dissolve away. "If you're not satisfied by what I tell you then, I won't fight back."

  Kav hesitated, lips pressed together so tight they went bloodless.

  Tarkon cleared his throat. "Let him talk, Kav. Whatever he's got to say, you know it's going to be a hell of a lot of fun to hear."

  "I don't consider that a sound basis for letting a known assassin walk free." Kav's frown turned thoughtful. "How did you get out of the dungeon in the first place?"

  "I walked through the wall," Dante said.

  A few of the priests chuckled. Kav's frown found its former depths. "You're not helping your case any."

  "I'll show you the hole once I've acquitted myself."

  "Is there no boundary to your arrogance? Your—"

  Kav broke off, distracted by the arrival of Wint. Wint kept his smart, sharp features carefully composed, but when he saw Amwell sitting in the corner, he flinched. It was just a hint of movement, a flickering retraction of his neck, and Wint composed himself an instant later, but Dante had been watching him as unblinkingly as the full moon. With that flinch, the last of his doubts dissolved on the wind.

  "Hi, Wint," Dante said. "Want to tell them how you had Cally killed?"

  Wint laughed in disbelief. "Was this your scheme to be released from prison? To shift the blame from yourself by casting it on others as carelessly as you'd throw a sheet over an old chair?"

  "I was speaking with Cally on my loon as he was dying. He identified this man." Dante pointed to Amwell, who gave Wint a sickly stare. "Please tell them what you told me, Amwell."

  Amwell dropped his gaze and spoke in a swift monotone. "I was sent by Lord Cassinder to work in conjunction with Wint. Our express purpose was the neutralization of this council."

  "Stars of Arawn," Tarkon whispered.

  Kav's nostrils flared. "Including the assassination of Callimandicus?"

  Amwell's lips curled from his teeth. "Including that."

  "This entire conversation is a disgrace to this room," Wint said, casting about for support. "There's no evidence here. Just the fabulous claims of the real killer and some drunk he hired from the street."

  "And that assassin who tried to kill me when I returned during Thaws?" Dante said. "Did I hire him too?"

  "I can't keep track of all your enemies for you."

  Dante pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Kav. "This is your blood. They planted it to make me come for you. Just like they must have planted the knife in my room."

  Kav turned his head to Wint as levelly as if it were on a swivel. "Is this true, Wint?"

  "This is nonsense," Wint said. "Absurdity. Maniacal slander. Nothing this child has said would last two seconds at formal trial, yet—"

  "That's my blood on that rag!" Kav said. Even his snarls had a regal tone. "Don't disgrace this room with any more lies!"

  Wint's righteous smile tightened until Dante feared it might break. Nether flickered throughout the room. Wint gazed out the black windows overlooking the bay on the far side of a room.

  "I have a story for you," he said. "Once upon a time, there was a young man born to a poor family. The son of a fisherman and his wife. The boy studied diligently—perhaps obsessively—discovering a facility with the nether and a knack for theology. Despite the fetters of his lowly station, he was allowed to enter the priesthood. As a monk, his station no longer mattered. These people didn't care who he was born to. All that mattered was what he was born to do."

  Wint circled around the long table, still watching the windows. The priests and guards tracked each one of his movements. He ran his hand over his mouth. "This order was so egalitarian, in fact, that when opportunities opened in the highest order of its ranks, the boy (who had, in truth, since become a man, though not that long ago) was allowed to apply and test for one of those positions. Miracle of Arawn! He was accepted.

  "Yet short years after the ascendance of this son of a fish-gutter to the highest ranks of the land's holiest order, stormclouds appeared on the horizon of that order's future." He opened the windowed doors to the balcony, revealing low, black clouds that hugged the night's humidity close to the city. "What would be the rig
ht metaphor for the decision this group had reached? It was as if a bear cub, on seeing its mother feasting on a stream full of salmon, suddenly decided it had more in common with the fish, and decided to scheme with the salmon against its own mother. Madness. Hubris. A decision that could only result in the destruction of the cub by the very jaws and claws that had raised and fed it.

  "Let us back away from poetry. This priest, then, on seeing that the body to which he belonged had opted to betray its mother, decided he would do whatever he could to save his institution's life. No matter the cost. No matter if it meant being branded a traitor himself—exiled, hated, scorned and besmirched centuries after his name should have faded into history's great haze. So he spoke to those his institution would betray. They suggested a solution.

  "The solution was extreme. Vile. Even worse than this son of a fisherman had imagined. Yet bitter as it was, it wasn't half so bitter as the poison pill of witnessing the destruction of the order that had allowed this son of no one to taste the fullness of the world. So he accepted. Knowing it would likely mean his own death, too—of his physical body, as well as no more and no less than his soul—he took up the dagger, for all its weight."

  Wint stepped onto the balcony. He turned to face the priests. Nether whipped around his face and hands. "I was instructed to kill Dante. Dante, the one pushing us to betray the motherland that would surely maul us. When that didn't work, I killed Cally, who was no less enthusiastic, and attempted to destroy Dante again by blaming him for Cally's death. On learning Dante was on the verge of escape, I sought to reensnare him, and in the process lead him to kill Kav, whose will was too weak to trust he would sue for peace after all. All for the sake of my city, Narashtovik, and its Council I love so well."

  Beneath the black clouds, Wint tipped back his head. "I can't see Arawn nor his mill. The skies are too dark. Will they ever clear?"

  He took a step back, hit the balcony railing, and flung himself over its edge. He disappeared without a sound.

  Kav cried out. Dante rushed to the railings. So did the others. Cloth flapped in the wind. Far below, something heavy and wet met the ground with a spatter.

  "Arawn's sweet wheat," Kav whispered. Dante turned to ask him what next. Amwell rose from his seat in the corner and wandered to the door, glancing about to see if anyone was watching. Dante reached out, clawlike, for the nether in Amwell's heart. He squeezed.

  Amwell's face went white. He gasped, eyes frogging, and pawed at his chest. He fell and was still.

  "What did you just do?" Blays asked softly. "You said you'd let him live if he helped you."

  Dante frowned. "He killed Cally."

  "But you made him a promise."

  "The man who killed Cally doesn't deserve promises. He deserves death."

  Blays flung out his hands. "Then tell him that from the start! Don't lie to him. Don't promise him life when you mean to give him death. This isn't a game."

  "I know that," Dante said. "Games have rules. We can't afford to."

  "Well, maybe we should. Maybe if we did, I wouldn't lie awake thinking about that guy's face."

  "Rules are a luxury for those with the power to play by them. I'll start worrying about what's fair as soon as King Moddegan stops forcing me to scramble for my life."

  Blays shook his head. "You know, nobody makes you do anything. You always have a choice."

  The rest of the room watched in silence. Dante turned away from Blays and met Kav's eye. "I'm sorry I thought it was you. Things are moving so fast. I moved too fast as well."

  "I can't damn you without damning myself for the same sin." The hard planes and regal curves of Kav's face aligned into a single pained look. "We can't seek peace with the people who killed Cally. Do we have any chance of winning this war?"

  "Hell if I know," Dante said. "But if we don't, at least we'll all die together. Should we get started?"

  27

  From atop the city's outer Pridegate, Dante let out a yell and scrambled down the stairs. Five hundred men shouted and pursued him up the boulevard. Sunlight struck the cobbles as hard as his own boots. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Faces snarled. Swords and spears glinted. Dante pushed harder uphill, sweating in the stagnant summer swelter. Footsteps rang closer and closer. He had nothing more to give. The first troops caught him, falling in beside him with taunts and jokes.

  He grinned back. The citizen conscripts had been learning fast. Not that it took any great discipline to retreat from a hypothetically breached Pridegate to the next line of defenses at the Ingate. But it wasn't the most straightforward activity in the world, either. The sprinters had to lead the way and ensure the route ahead was clear while the main body of conscripts had to stay cohesive enough to reform if they were overtaken by cavalry. Then came the issue of what to do once they reached the Ingate—learning to make their way through it in a reasonably orderly fashion, to rush up the stairs to take fresh positions, to call out when they were ready to close the gates behind them.

  Which the conscripts quickly did, with a minimum of fumbling or confusion. Pretty good, considering the Citadel guards had just rounded them up this morning.

  "Well done!" Dante called from the tower flanking the main passage through the Ingate. "Soon enough we'll be the finest retreaters in all the land. See your sergeants for your next instructions."

  He continued uphill to the Citadel. He had an appointment with Kav. Nothing major. Just to decide how they'd spend the few days they had left.

  Dante detoured to his room for long enough to towel off the worst of his sweat before continuing to Kav's. There, Kav glanced up from a desk laded with messages, marching orders, and maps.

  "I've recalled Olivander," he said. "The messenger should reach him within two days. Assume he'll require an equal amount of time to finalize his recruitment and three more days to return with whomever he's been able to muster."

  "A week," Dante said. "Should beat the king's armies here, at least. Any word what they're up to?"

  "Conquering. At an alarming rate. And northward-bound, to boot. They could beat Olivander here if they wished, but it appears they're content to spend no more than half of each day marching and the rest quashing all norren in reach."

  "Sounds like we'll owe the norren a monument before this is done."

  "If we have any stone left after our graveyard is finished." Kav brushed dust from his doublet. "So where are your brilliant, beyond-the-bend-in-the-river strategies for overcoming the inevitable?"

  "Should I have some of those?"

  "I have been led to believe it is your stock in trade."

  "I don't know anything about defending a city from an army the size of another city. Quite frankly, I'd be looking to Olivander's lead on that front." Dante rubbed his eyes. "Anyway, absurd and half-assed schemes are Blays' specialty. If I can pry him away from Lira, I'll see what he has to offer."

  Kav nodded, then pursed his mouth in a way that showed the tips of his teeth. "I am not sure of the most graceful way to broach this. But I want you to know that, for whatever role I might be currently occupying within this madness, I intend for it to be temporary. If the Citadel's still standing once this is over, its next leader will be decided through the standard channels."

  "By murdering the current leader and snatching up his mantle?"

  Kav chuckled. "Preferably something a hair more civilized than Cally's methods."

  Dante went to the dungeons to seal up the tunnel he'd bored between the Citadel and the outside, then made a circuit of all three of the city's main walls—Sealed Citadel, Ingate, and Pridegate—to ensure they were intact and sound. He finished his rounds just before nightfall. Somburr came to his room minutes later. Inside, the man fished into his pocket and produced the letters Dante had copied from Kav, along with an additional set of papers: translations.

  "I'd forgotten all about those," Dante said. "What do they say?"

  Somburr gave him a sharp look. "Can't you read? Do you spend all that time propped up
over books just to trick anyone watching into thinking you're literate?"

  "I can read. I just figured you can, too, and had already applied that heroic skill to the contents of these letters."

  "Okay. They're love letters."

  "Love letters? Why would he bother to encrypt those? I've never seen anything about celibacy in the Cycle."

  Somburr tapped the folded papers. "They're from a man."

  "Oh."

  "Yes. Do you want to blackmail him?"

  "What?" Dante reached for the letters. "My plan from here is to put them back and never mention them again."

  "I can take care of that." The letters disappeared in Somburr's pocket. "Are you sure you don't want to blackmail him?"

  "Double sure."

  "Well, have it your way. Maybe another time."

  Somburr departed. Day by day, the city grew more quiet and more loud. Quieter because those citizens unwilling to defend it began to leave it, dispersing to the far eastern hills or by boat to Yallen or even driving their wagons into the hinterlands of the Norren Territories. Louder because as the daily clamor diminished, what few sounds remained rang all the harsher: the constant clank of blacksmith's hammers, the shouts of sergeants drilling volunteers, the occasional thunder of a rider bearing some new message from the lands beyond the walls.

  With the institutions of the Council and city guard kicking in to oversee the bulk of the logistics, Dante found himself with an unfamiliar abundance of free time. Working with the commander of the guard, he helped raise a few new earthworks to shore up the city's most vulnerable points, such as down on the bay where there were no walls against a seaborne invasion, but he could only work for so long before the nether gave out. Then he was just one more man with a shovel. Instead, he selfishly left the digs to spend his time as he pleased.

  Some he spent walking. Enjoying the warmth and the sunlight. Twice, he went to the ocean to watch the fish from the docks and to wash off the suffocating humidity in the cold northern waters. He went to visit the marker on Cally's grave at the top of the hill. If they had a future, a stone monument would be erected in its place, but for now it was nothing more than a wooden pole. When Blays and Lira weren't busy in their rooms, he spent time with them. Lira insisted on teaching them some of her most desperate grappling techniques. Dante appreciated it, and went through her drills and sparring with as much energy as he could muster, but a thick fatalism had settled over his shoulders. Two or three weeks from now, it would all be over. What could he learn in two or three weeks that would make any difference? At this phase, what could it possibly matter?