Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

  “They’re long gone, Vasari. No point sticking around to play in the ashes.”

  Vasari shrugged. “I’ll still feel safer when we’re inside Sotalio’s gates.”

  “I’m not moving her.”

  “I talked to the old man. He says that she’s not headed for recovery.” When Toril did not react, Vasari put a hand on his shoulder. “Time’s running out, Toril. Not just for Malena, but for you as well. We had to burn the dead, but we’ve already overstayed the time limit Rovin gave us. He’s going to think we’re trying to avoid muster into Gorumim’s border force if we dally. Gorumim will think the same.”

  “What do I care what those vipers think?” Toril spat. “I already told Gorumim he was getting no troops from Kelun. Rovin has no authority to muster anybody.”

  “Think for a moment, Toril! Noemi’s been wiped out. Folk are scared, and with good reason. They want protection. You’re nowhere to be found, and rumors are flying about your unwillingness to fight, your escape from Bakar. They say you’re a coward. Rovin steps into the power vacuum and acts decisively. He organizes defenses. People accept it. Do you really think he has no authority at this point? Do you imagine you can just show up whenever you feel like it, staff in hand, and people will hail you as their leader?”

  Toril’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “Gorumim’s manipulating us, Vasari. He trotted out some osipi prisoners at our war council, claimed they’d been captured trying to sneak in to raid Bakar. Eighteen ahu and one aiki, and they were captured without losing a single man on either side? Since when does that happen?”

  Vasari looked taken aback. He opened his mouth, but Toril pressed on.

  “Gorumim tried to keep Kelun out of the council, Vasari. He summoned my father when he knew the travel would be impossible for him, probably hoping that Rovin would have to be appointed as a replacement. When I showed up instead, it made things difficult. These prisoners are supposed to be Gorumim’s proof that the osipi are on the war path, that Gorumim desperately needs troops from us. But I don’t buy it. And what happens next? Conveniently, my home gets wiped out by what Gorumim claims is an osipi army. Of course, nobody proposes to investigate, and I’m locked in a cell where I can’t make any demands myself. When I manage to escape I find plenty of death, but not a single golden body. Not one, Vasari.”

  “So Gorumim’s wrong. Rovin’s wrong.”

  “They’re not just mistaken, Vasari! They’re creating the lie, and then milking it! How did Gorumim get word of the attack, all the way in Bakar? I saw our Voice, dead, with my own eyes. No news got out that way.”

  “Someone must have escaped.”

  “Who? They would have run to Sotalio. Did you see any breathless messenger? Or did Rovin get the news from Gorumim?”

  Vasari stared at Toril wordlessly.

  “I don’t understand Gorumim’s motive,” Toril continued, “but Rovin’s easy to read. He announced the attack, got everyone in an uproar. Maybe he let you come because he knew it would look bad not to send a delegation, but I’m guessing you’re also one of the few men of any standing who’s inclined to hear me out. With you gone, he’s got free rein to feed the lie. Keep the people scared. Blame me. Point them at their favorite enemy and sound the war cry! You think I don’t get it? You think the son of Hasha doesn’t see through the politics?”

  “If you have any political vision at all, you know that Gorumim is a dangerous man to accuse.”

  Toril snorted. “It doesn’t seem like he could make things much worse for me.”

  “Then come!” Vasari demanded. “Come and tell the rest of the clan what you’re telling me. Don’t let the schemers get away with it.”

  Toril glanced at his wife. “I can’t. Not now,” he said hollowly.

  Vasari matched his gaze. “She’s dying, Toril. The old man implied it, and now I can see the truth of it in your eyes. Nothing you do is going to change that. Besides, if you’re really clan chief, you can’t dismiss your duty just for inconvenient timing. ‘My people before myself.’ Or didn’t you take the oath?”

  Toril whirled and grabbed Vasari’s jama with both fists, almost lifting the man off his feet. Hika, who had observed the whole conversation with detachment, growled as he spoke.

  “I am sick of impossible choices offered by fools, Vasari. Sick of it. I rushed off to Bakar at Gorumim’s behest, and while I was gone, bandits torched my home. I should have been here, defending my wife and father, but no—I was arguing with a bunch of fawning idiots who’d rather imagine enemies than solve problems. And now you want to lecture me about my duty? What kind of a fool do you take me for? Those men that Gorumim wants for his army—they won’t be sitting around doing nothing. There may not be any war with the osipi yet, but there will be before he’s done. Our men will bleed and die because of this convenient little fiction he’s spinning. Their families will suffer. War is starvation and pestilence and rape and murder, and that’s what Rovin is signing us up for. Kelun has the longest and least defended border with Merukesh. You think I don’t see that?”

  He released Vasari. The older man stumbled back, and they stood there, facing each other, both breathing heavily. Toril’s eyes were wild, but a stillness crept into them. “You go,” he said. “Tell Sotalio the truth. Tell Rovin I challenge him. Here. In Noemi. He can come and get me. Or he can wait.”

  “You know he’ll never come,” Vasari responded angrily. “You have to go to him. And you have to answer when the clan is calling.”

  Slowly, Toril shook his head. “No.”

  “What do you mean, ‘No’?”

  “If the clan can’t wait a day for the clan chief’s wife to live or die, then I owe it no loyalty at all. I was absent on clan business at the hour of Malena’s greatest need. I’ll not bend her death to its convenience as well. And I’ll be lectured about duty by no man.”

  Vasari spread his hands. “You’ve got a name as a lip, Toril, but by Dashnal’s hammer, this is one of those times when a little talent in the ear department might be more useful. My men and I are leaving. Now. If you can’t find a way to come with me, then the consequences are on your own head.” He turned and stomped away.

  Toril stood motionless, eyes fixed on the doorway that Vasari had vacated, for a hundred heartbeats, until a groan from Malena whipped his head around. Then he rushed to her side. She was arching her shoulders and gasping in weak desperation.

  As he reached for her hand, he heard a peal of thunder that seemed to echo his wife’s pain, followed by Shivi’s voice and the sound of hurrying steps. In a moment the frail woman burst through the door, Paka on her heels. She took in Malena’s condition at a glance and knelt to feel her forehead.

  “Have you seen the sky?” Shivi asked. She was looking at Toril, not Malena. Her face was grim.

  Toril’s eyebrows wrinkled.

  “There are clouds in the northern mountains,” she continued. “Unnatural clouds, boiling and green.”

  Malena moaned again, and the twilight streaming through the window dimmed.

  “I don’t understand what’s happened,” Shivi said, “but I’m sure it’s not good, and I’d bet there’s magic behind it. More magic than I’ve ever seen.”

  Toril walked to the window and studied the sky. Then he reached out and caressed the center of his staff, leaning against one wall, as if lost in thought. “Perhaps,” he said, “it’s time to fight back with magic of my own.”

  14

  kavro shilmar ~ Toril

  “You’re playing with fire,” Shivi said, shaking her head. “There’s a reason the Ordeal of Names is discussed in whispers.”

  “It’s not like I’m turning to kavro shilmar on a whim,” Toril replied, glancing out the window at another flash of lightning. “I just don’t see any alternatives. At least it gives me a chance. With enough power, I know I could cure her. Then I could deal with clan business with a clear conscience.”

  “When you’re backed into a corner, it’s because the middle of the room is e
ven more dangerous,” Shivi said. “You’re looking for a way to save your bride. Good. But think! All magic has a price—the great magics most of all. I once tended a man who burned his words in front of a priestess. He came out of the temple in some kind of a trance—just kept staring at the wall and mumbling to himself. I couldn’t get him to eat anything; he died within a few days.”

  “Thus must magic heat the hand of the kindler,” Paka chimed in. It was a line from Memimir Taran-ya, the catechism that all youth studied before their naming ceremony—kadas often repeated it as a rhetorical flourish when they concluded tales of magic gone awry.

  “The risk is mine to take, and I will do this thing,” Toril interrupted. A bone-jarring explosion of thunder sounded a moment after lightning flashed at the edge of the town. Hika flinched. “This storm is getting closer. And stronger. It doesn’t look natural, and now the tingling in my mouth tells me the same thing you did: magic’s involved. That can’t be good. Paka, would you catch the priest, before he rides off with Vasari, and ask him to meet me at the paoro? I’ll be there soon.”

  The old man stared at Toril, disapproving. But when Toril did not flinch, he shrugged his shoulders and turned to the stairs.

  “You’re wrong, you know,” Shivi murmured, when her husband was gone. “Not wrong to care so much, and maybe, just maybe, not wrong to undergo the ordeal. But you’re definitely wrong about one thing.”

  Toril let the sentence hang while he changed his tunic and ran fingers through his ash-permeated hair. Vasari’s censure had provoked him, but for some reason this pushback from Shivi felt different. He couldn’t dislike the older woman, despite her willingness to meddle. She’d given him the unadorned truth about Malena’s condition. He was grateful for that. She’d worked hard to save the life of a total stranger. And her tone now was sad or meditative, not bent on persuasion.

  Perhaps he detected an echo of his mother’s gritty common sense in her. Perhaps it was because she appeared to have no personal agenda; he could forgive a certain amount of opinionated counsel when it wasn’t self-serving.

  “All right, I’ll listen,” Toril finally said with a sigh. “How am I wrong?”

  “You said the risk was yours to take.”

  “And?”

  “That’s not the whole story anymore. A week ago if you wanted to wrestle rhinos with your bare hands, that was your business and nobody else’s. Now folk depend on you.”

  “Malena.”

  “Yes. But also the clan. You are taking a risk with all our futures, not just your own.”

  “I’m the one who will undergo the ordeal,” Toril said, as he cut a scrap of parchment and reached for a quill.

  “But you’re not the only one who will pay a price,” Shivi responded. “Don’t you see?”

  Toril opened his mouth. Shivi cut him off.

  “What sacrifice will you offer, Toril?” she asked. “They say Hasha was wealthy, but I doubt you have a stash of gold nearby—not after the bandits sacked this place. Besides, you’re kidding yourself if you think a rich man’s money will buy one of the Five’s attention.”

  “Of course I won’t offer gold,” Toril said. “I’m not such a fool.” The sacrifice was supposed to be indicative of the value that a supplicant placed on his or her request; a hollow gesture was a sure recipe for failure.

  “Then what? Would you trade your life for hers? The Speakers never accept such bargains, or kavro shilmar would be one long procession of mothers trying to save a dying child.”

  Again Toril attempted to answer, and again Shivi wouldn’t listen. “It doesn’t matter what you come up with. If you want a Speaker’s power, you have to pay for it somehow, and whatever you offer may end up costing others as much as it costs you. Will you put your health on the altar? How will you lead Kelun in battle if you’re feeble or bedridden? Do you want Malena to spend the rest of her life in poverty, nursing an invalid?

  “Maybe you think you can sacrifice your time, lop a couple decades off the end of your lifespan? That sounds good until you realize that you’re sentencing Malena to all that time as a widow, guaranteeing fatherless children...

  “What about your arm? Your sight? Your land? The priest will let you vow, and you’ll be the poorer for it no matter what else happens. But even if your offering resonates and the magic kindles, you may regret your choice. Others may, as well.”

  “You believe the Five Who Speak are so capricious, so eager to have us fail?” Toril responded.

  “The great magics tap their power, and they’re protected for a reason. They themselves warned against undertaking the Ordeal lightly. I have heard a hundred stories about it; so have you. Few end happily.”

  “And yet kavro shilmar is their own creation. It must have a purpose.”

  “If ordinary magic is a candle, then great magic is a bonfire. Sparks from such a blaze have a way of drifting into the woods and finding more fuel than you intend. Be careful.”

  Shivi lapsed into silence.

  Toril looked at Malena, who moaned faintly and clenched her blanket with pallid fingers. Moisture swelled in his eyes.

  “What else can I do?” he whispered, dipping the quill.

  Signaling Hika to stay outside, Toril crossed the threshold of the paoro, his bare feet prickling against the grit on the floor. Lightning flashed outside, but its effect was muted by thick stone walls; candles provided a radiance to the center of the chamber, while leaving the edges of the room in shadow.

  A trickle slid down his neck and between his shoulder blades, causing an shiver. He’d washed away the grime and stink of death in a hurried ritual bath at the well in the courtyard; his hair was still wet.

  The priest stood at the far end of the hall, dressed in the same ceremonial robes he’d worn at the wedding. In the center of the floor, a ring of sand enclosed a shallow puddle of water. It was no marble-lined temple pool, but considering the circumstances, the priest’s ingenuity was impressive.

  He pursed his lips. “I’m assuming the old man was serious about your plan?”

  Toril nodded and swallowed. His heart was beating quickly. He held up the scroll that contained the words of his sacrifice. Gitám, let this work!

  The priest sighed. “I will play my part in what comes next. It is your right to call upon me. But before we begin, I want to be sure you know what’s at stake. Kavro shilmar is one of the great magics. Such things never leave those they touch unaffected.”

  “I understand,” Toril answered. It was part of his heritage to credit such warnings. A great magic had begun the Kelun clan in the mists of antiquity, and the dwindling bloodline had never forgotten.

  “I doubt you do. When a kada sings his legends, heroes die or conquer, and years of pain or heartbreak are all summed up in a tidy chorus. Somehow the young think that life is like that, or that it can be, if it will just listen to the rhyme they want to sing.

  “Kavro shilmar is not a shortcut to the future that you want. It is not a way to convince One Who Speaks, or to change the ending of the story.

  “You may gain a powerful ally, but if you succeed in calling down power to bless your purpose, you do so by giving yourself over to a Speaker’s version of it. Their will is benevolent, but it is rarely easy, and it plays out on a scale that we never fully see. It will consume you, one way or another.”

  “I have heard you,” Toril answered soberly. “I know how to do the sacrifice. What about the rest of the formalities?”

  “I have no instructions to offer. What happens in the ordeal is between you and a Speaker alone; I remember nothing. A priest simply channels.”

  “Then let’s begin. Time is short.”

  The priest paused, as if waiting for a backpedal. At last he grimaced and nodded.

  Toril whispered the words that began the ceremony:

  Jezhro vamigózaril,

  Amdévilo ba inlar.

  Guzhégavro mandíbuo

  Næ gídamrodezhimlar!”

  He’d read the phrases f
rom his childhood catechism silently, years ago, but never tried to vocalize them. Now he could feel his tongue bending oddly around the syllables, his lips twisting. The awkwardness of utterance was a bonus; a taste of danger, a slippery import would enhance the symbolic power of the words. A tingle shot along his jaw as the power grew. He snapped his mouth shut at the end, giving himself over to the finality of the vow.

  “What is it you seek?” the priest responded.

  The object of the magic had to be defined with care. Lore stressed that a legalistic answer was presumptuous and would sap power; a sloppy one invited side effects. Toril had debated with himself and decided to err on the side of simplicity.

  “Heal Malena,” he said. The warmth on Toril’s lips became a burning that spread across his cheeks and down his throat.

  “With whom would you speak, and what value do you place upon your petition?”

  Hands shaking, Toril lifted a taper of incense that smoked at the side of the altar, held the hot tip against his parchment, and blew. A tongue of flame licked upward from his fingers. For a moment he glimpsed the angular hatching of his quill marks, backlit through the glow; then yellow became black and he laid the crumbling ash on stone.

  The sacrifice was made. Would it be enough? Had he done the right thing?

  The priest had already closed his eyes and begun to chant. His words were soft, unhurried, calm—the antithesis of Toril’s feelings.

  For a score of heartbeats, stillness dominated, accentuated rather than disturbed by the priest’s low murmur. Candles flickered as wind, impelled by thunder, pushed through the open window. Then the priest raised his head, stopped his chanting, and opened his eyes. Light seemed to gather around him, leaving Toril in a gloom and the edges of the room in complete darkness.

  “Tell me your name,” the priest said, in a very different voice from the one he’d used before. It wasn’t a rough voice, like the Sisterhood used when proxying; this one was deep and quiet, but it seemed to carry effortlessly across the room. Toril felt his lips burn—the resonance was more powerful than with any magic he’d encountered before.