Cordimancy

by Hardman, Daniel

  For reasons he did not understand, Toril immediately sensed a sort of inversion of cause and effect about the tree. Ordinarily, water and good soil made a tree possible; here, he was certain it had been the opposite. Somehow, this tree had pushed back the reeking, foul haze, transformed rock and sand to rich loam, willed pure water out of the ground, freshened the air, and thrust above darkness to hail the sun and stars in flight. It must have stood like this for centuries, sending taproots deep, rustling its joy.

  Malena saw his expression, and turned. He watched the lines at the corners of her eyes and lips soften. Her mouth opened in a wordless expression of delight.

  For a long time, nobody spoke; they just sat and feasted on the sight of the tree.

  Paka was the first to find words. He cleared his throat. “I’ve always had a thing for oaks,” he said. “Now I know why.”

  Shivi limped over to Malena and cupped her cheeks with wrinkled hands. “Remember when I said not to give up on joy?” she whispered.

  Malena leaned into the older woman’s shoulder.

  “I know this tree,” Paka murmured. “At least, I know what it must be.”

  “You do?” Oji asked. “What is it?”

  Paka held out his hand. “Help me up. Need to wash the wound in my leg. Toril’s got a rip in his ribs, and everybody has cuts and bruises. I don’t know if the water here is magical, but it sure felt that way when I drank just now. Let’s get cleaned up, and I’ll tell you the story of this tree while we work.”

  “If you’ve read Memimir Taran-ya, you know a little about the Blood Rift,” Paka began. “It tells how the land was torn by sorcery—blood magic—worked by an ancient queen of Zufa named Viro. It warns us to avoid her same mistake—and I suppose that’s true enough, far as it goes. But it’s just the start of the story. Here’s how I heard it, back when I was studying to be a kada, in fancy kada words.”

  He grimaced as Oji swabbed his hip, then inhaled carefully.

  Long ago, Zufa was ruled by a wise raja who had twin daughters, Lin and Viro. They were his only heirs.

  Lin was gentle and generous by nature, and she grasped affairs of state with a wisdom far beyond her years. But she had no great love of politics, and preferred to spend her days walking among the blossoms and trees in the palace gardens, or making friends with the homeless waifs who clustered at the gates to beg for alms. She had a talent for learning people's names, and it was said that her father preferred her smile to a week of sunshine.

  Viro was quick and fiery, with striking features and a ready wit. She was also a gifted hand, like her late mother; rumor had it that she could stroke tears from a stone with the magic in her fingers. And she excelled as a student of history and language, battlecraft and commerce.

  Because Lin was the eldest, her father and his advisers expected her to take the throne, while Viro would marry for alliance. This prospect was not especially pleasing to either of the girls. Lin was not eager for a future of duties and formality; Viro resented being relegated to a lesser realm at the margins of power, where her talents would languish.

  One day Viro approached the raja with a request that he allow his daughters to reverse their roles. It was best, she argued, for each person to do what suited them. She loved the complexity of negotiation and statecraft, and had her tutors not described her as their most brilliant pupil? She would wield the power of the throne with greater zeal and expertise than her sister. Besides, why should Lin be saddled with a role she didn't relish?

  The raja consented to ponder, but he did not agree right away. He saw a kernel of sense in the plan; however, his younger daughter's ambition troubled him, and he worried that the proposal would sow the seeds of contention. The common folk idolized Lin. Would they accept her replacement cheerfully? Could he in good conscience deny them a ruler with her natural integrity and compassion? What about the aristocratic young men who were already beginning to send out feelers for Viro's hand? If he flouted tradition, would his grandchildren accept the station they were born to, or would Lin's posterity seek to take back their legacy?

  And of course, he had Lin's feelings to consider. Detesting pomp was understandable—he'd battled a similar restlessness himself, all his life—but that did not mean Lin would be miserable as queen. He derived warm satisfaction from the wars he had managed not to fight, from the occasions when he'd displayed clemency and restraint, from a reputation for justice. He was sure Lin would someday feel the same.

  Besides, would the role of a foreign consort really be more pleasant? Transplanted to the court of a distant realm, his daughter would live as figurehead, with less substance, less chance for friendship and down-to-earth frankness to counterbalance the posturing. Lin liked to gossip with the scullery maids; here, the habit was endearing, if a bit undignified, but among those who knew Lin less well, such behavior was more likely to garner contempt or censure. Viro's verbal sophistries and aloof cultivation of admirers was a better fit for such a life.

  Weeks went by, then months, and the raja could not settle on a course of action.

  Viro grew moody. She acted bewildered at her father's indecision, wounded at his lack of confidence. She began to find fault with her sister, first subtly, and then with greater boldness.

  One day the raja found Lin crying quietly in the gardens. Her favorite flowers were wilted and dying. Lin blamed a hot east wind, but the raja knew better. He had seen Viro in that very spot the previous evening, her slender fingers stroking the petals with what he had supposed was uncharacteristic affection. He recalled with miserable certainty her magical talents.

  Viro approached him that same evening. "Why do you delay, Father?" she said. "Is tradition so sacred that it outweighs the happiness of both your daughters?"

  "If only it were that simple," the raja replied.

  "Ah," said Viro, as if she were suddenly realizing something. "You fear to hurt Lin's feelings." She paused. "Or mine."

  "Of course," said the raja. "But that's not it, either. At least, that's not the whole issue."

  "Then what?" Viro prodded. "Do five extra minutes at mother's breast matter so much to fate? Lin may be older, but she is more interested in songbirds than diplomacy, Father. I work hard to learn the languages of Merukesh and Altria. I practice my magic and my bargaining and my thrusts and parries because I want to carry on your legacy. Lin is a heart; she can't kindle or even curtsy, and she will never manage power like me."

  The raja smiled sadly at his daughter. "Come with me," he said in a soft voice. And he led Viro onto the balcony. Below, Lin was handing out leftover bread from the palace kitchens to hungry beggars. She was at ease among the rabble, bantering with confidence. The guards at the gate were alert, but not worried.

  "What do you see?" said the raja.

  "I see Lin skipping her lesson with the harp," said Viro tartly.

  The raja gazed down and shook his head. "Two kinds of power are at play down there, daughter. One is the power of a smile and a loaf and a name remembered. It is a power that you could wield well, if you chose. Mastering such power would bring you real happiness."

  Viro waited for her father to continue, but he seemed content to remain silent.

  "And what is the other power you see?"

  "Wilted flowers," he whispered.

  Viro understood then that she had lost her father's trust as well as his endorsement, and her heart grew bitter. "You are naive, Father," she said. "A hunk of stale bread won't cure poverty. Sound bargaining might, though. If I could get better prices for our millet when we trade with our neighbors, there would be less riffraff in the streets."

  "There is a difference between food and kindness," said the raja.

  "Is there?" said Viro.

  The old raja lived to see Viro marry the crown prince of Altria, but he was mercifully dead when Viro's father-in-law and husband died in quick succession, both of unexplained illness. Lin heard the news and thought of her flowers and wept for the sister of her childhood. She had lost he
r own husband to a plague within months of marrying, and she knew something of loneliness—but Lin was certain the silence in her sister's chambers echoed with a type of emptiness that was especially haunting.

  Altria grew proud under Viro's leadership. It severed its ties to Zufa, stopped sending tribute. Its army intimidated smaller satellites; its ambassadors were polished and cunning and quick to take advantage—and they always blamed Zufa for inequities of wealth or opportunity. "We have a common enemy," they said. "The crown in Zufa has grown fat on our taxes; now we must stick together to counter her lopsided influence." Some lands listened.

  Lin ignored her advisers who counseled a decisive consolidation of power; she felt it was kinder to let some vassal states grasp at independence than to plunge the entire land into war. And perhaps her soft heart betrayed her.

  A drought swept the land. Lin had just begun an ambitious plan to irrigate the plains south of the capital; now she bent all her effort to complete the project. She moved out of the palace into a dusty tent to be near the digging. She met with local councils of elders to arrange equitable well-sharing plans. She opened the treasury to hire idle farmers, and sent them into the mountains to redirect runoff into streams, and streams into the larger rivers that kept the lowlands alive. She blinked gritty tears beside villagers as they watched cattle grow bony, then weak, then diseased and catatonic. And still the land grew drier, until green was a miracle that children knew only from the memories of their elders, and water was as precious as myrrh.

  In the early years, the drought was less severe in Altria, but after a decade every throat was parched, and Lin began to hear rumors of Altrian soldiers raiding the wells in the border lands. She arranged to meet her sister at the mountain pass between their two lands. As a token of hope and friendship, she took with her a small seedling—the last healthy tree from once-verdant palace gardens. With the tenderness of a mother, Lin had skimped on her own water ration for months to keep it alive.

  "The years have been good to you," Lin said with a smile, when the line of Altrian standard bearers knelt and her twin stepped forward. Indeed, though her retainers were gaunt and almost ragged, Viro seemed scarcely to have aged at all. Time had deepened her natural beauty, and added a regal remoteness that fairly took one's breath away. She had none of the wrinkles that Lin had gained from years of work in the sun and wind.

  "Let us not mince words," Viro said, ignoring the sprig of green in Lin's outstretched hands. "You wish for the raids on your wells to stop?"

  "We have little moisture to spare," said Lin, stung at her sister's lack of welcome. "So let us counsel together. Surely the blood of our people is worth more than a few drops of water."

  Viro raised her eyebrows. "You threaten war?"

  "Of course not," Lin said. "But desperate folk may do something that we both regret, if we are not careful."

  "Is Zufa's situation so dire? Somehow you've kept most folk alive these last ten years."

  "Let us say that even the tears are scarce for us, now."

  Viro was silent for a long time, as if waging an internal debate. "I can stop the drought, if you let me," she said at last.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I have studied the ancient lore, paid the price to learn secrets hidden for centuries. I know a deep magic that will bring the rain."

  Something in her sister's voice stopped the joyful exclamation half-formed on Lin's lips. "What deep magic is that?" she asked.

  "Does it matter? We are talking about grain in the fields. Lush pastures. An end to famine."

  "Then why have you not stopped it already?"

  Viro did not respond, and as the silence stretched out, Lin felt her heart tighten. "What do I have to let you do?"

  Still Viro said nothing, and as Lin searched her sister's eyes, she read a mixture of fear and harshness that scared her. Lin sighed and bowed her head. "I was not the pride of our tutors, and I never had your talents, Viro, but I read the Kaporo Tarana often enough. It says The Five permit only three deep magics. I assume any others are unmentionable for good reason."

  "It is sanguimancy,” said Viro at last.

  Lin's face blanched. She opened her mouth to protest, but Viro raised her hand. "Let me finish. I know the taboos as well as you do, and I admit that they exist for good reason. It is evil to take another's life essence to strengthen your magic. But this is different."

  "How can it be different?" Lin stuttered.

  "The blood need not flow through malice in the dark. It could be offered willingly."

  Lin stared at her sister.

  "Set aside your prejudice for a moment and listen to me," insisted Viro. "I know a way to make rain. But all magic has a price, and this one is blood. It is the willful taking of a life, not the fact that blood's involved, that makes such actions evil."

  "I'm not sure it's so simple..."

  Viro's eyes narrowed. "Yes it is. But just like Father, you flee what's expedient and disguise your cowardice as virtue."

  Lin's expression grew sad. "I don't deserve your contempt, Viro. I have made my share of sacrifices for the realm. But I will not spill anyone's blood. The law is crisp, and it has not changed since the dawn of time. I cannot uphold the law if I reinterpret it for my own convenience."

  "Convenience!" hissed Viro. "How dare you speak of convenience when wells are dry and mothers can't even suckle their children!"

  "Would it be a kindness to fill wells at the price of an entire nation's conscience?" Lin whispered. "It is an abomination. What mother would be glad to suckle her child on the blood of a stranger?"

  "I would."

  For the first time Lin noticed the slight curve of her sister's belly.

  Viro smiled grimly at Lin's widening eyes. "Anyway, piety on someone else's behalf won't get you off so easily. Rain will only fall on land that recognizes what blood's been spilt. If I want to save more than one village, I can't use a nameless nobody. I need blood that matters."

  In a flash, Lin understood. She wore the crown that had once governed from coast to coast. The royal blood of Zufa meant something even to the lowliest peasant on the far borders of Altria.

  "I will think on this," she said stiffly. And then Lin walked back to her tent with as much dignity as she could muster, the seedling clutched against her wildly beating heart.

  That night, Lin summoned her senior leaders and explained Viro's proposal. Their counsel was both indignant and predictable, and after an hour of careful listening, Lin dismissed them to be alone with her thoughts. The incense she’d lit with evening prayers collapsed to ash as she paced. The moon rose and began to fall again.

  Blood magic was the vilest behavior imaginable—milking the final drops of someone's life from a punctured vein, lifting bloody fingers to your lips, swallowing as you felt the magic rise. It was a parody of a babe’s lifeline to its mother—as sensuous and invasive as incest. And because it added murder to the magic, it was even more forbidden. How could she ever countenance such a thing?

  And yet, and yet—could Lin refuse if she could save the lives of all her people? Perhaps Viro was right, and having a willing victim made all the difference. Was she sick with horror or just with fear of a knife at her own throat? Of late, Lin's hope for an end to the oppressive dearth had begun to ebb, though she'd done her best to keep a brave face. Ten years of choking dryness, each worse than the last. She'd helped to bury dozens of children only last week in a village where thirst had paved the way for fever. Would The Five condemn her for solving a problem in the only way she knew how?

  Perhaps it was time to dance with one of The Five in the Ordeal of Names. Karkita loved water; Jurivna sponsored spring, and all green things that grew… But somehow, she suspected that Gitám, god of the suffering and of lost causes, would be the one to ask. Would He listen? Would He speak back? How would she feel if the price of His help was the very thing her sister proposed?

  Nor were all of Lin’s doubts ethical. As one general had pointed out, there wa
s no way to know if Viro was being honest about her ability to work this magic. She would only know its power if she’d done such things before. Did she actually intend to kindle, or was this proposal merely a bid to take back the throne she’d coveted for so long? How would Viro treat Lin's people in a power vacuum? When the old raja had found her crying over wilted flowers all those years ago, Lin had offered the kindest explanation she could think of, but she’d known the truth. Perhaps the millet on Zufa’s plains had shriveled for a similar reason. Perhaps drought had spread to Altria through Viro’s miscalculation.

  Just before dawn, a breathless page dashed up to report that Altrian troops, reinforced by columns that had crept through the pass in the night, now surrounded Lin's camp. They were outnumbered at least four to one, and Viro was demanding another parley.

  "Your decision?" Viro snapped, when her older sister approached.

  "I thought you wanted a willing victim," said Lin. "Send your soldiers home." She extended the tiny seedling she'd hoped to give the day before. Its beauty seemed even more precious to her, after her wrestle in the dark.

  "I need blood," said Viro. "And I'm going to get it, one way or another."

  Lin's bodyguards, loyal to a queen they loved like a sister, had their swords out before she could stop them, but Viro was even faster. She twisted her fingers ever so slightly, and the air crackled as Lin's men shriveled and crumbled into husks of leather and bone. A moment of shocked silence gave way to battle cries—first from Lin's followers, then from Viro's. Arrows darkened the sky. A crescendo of steel on steel, punctuated by harsh groans and the gallop of horses, rent the parched sunrise.

  But the fight halted almost immediately. Without a weapon or attendants, Lin soon stood white-faced and stiff, an Altrian sword at her throat.

  "I have your queen!" Viro crowed. "Drop your weapons, or she dies!"

  A hush fell.

  "Your impatience makes you foolish!" hissed Lin. "Kill me now, this way, and you inherit a nation in turmoil. Thousands will die."

  Viro chuckled grimly. "Everyone will die, sister. Do you hear me? Everyone. This is no natural drought. It won't get better this year, or the next, or the next. It will devour us all unless I stop it. I won't be deterred by anyone's blood. Not even yours."