Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  “No would have sufficed,” Gideon tiredly muttered.

  A brief flare of anger brought sharp words to Allystaire’s lips, but he bit them back. He’s not a lord’s son in need of breaking, he reminded himself.

  The three of them wearily trudged their last yards to the stables outside the Inn. Allystaire sent Gideon to fetch water while he and Idgen Marte unbuckled saddles.

  “Boy saved your life tonight,” Idgen Marte pointed out, as she fetched a pair of stiff brushes, tossed one to him, and began to comb her courser’s coat. “Ought to make sure he knows that you realize it.”

  “I will. When the time is right.”

  “The praise comes dear and the list of tasks never ends, eh? He’s not a squire.”

  “No, but that is no reason to abandon a sound method.”

  “I suppose.” She continued brushing and Allystaire did the same, and for a moment there was only the sound of the thick brushes against the coats of their warhorses, pulling free tangles, cleaning out the mud and dirt of the road. “How long do you usually get to teach a boy to be a man?”

  “Wrong question. You can never teach that. You can only teach the things you think a man ought to know, mayhap have some say in the kind of man he becomes on his own. Yet, to your real question—they would come to Wind’s Jaw as young as seven or eight summers, and become knights at sixteen, seventeen? Most would start marching on campaign at fifteen.”

  “So eight years or so. With Gideon, how long do you think you’ll have?”

  “Can it be more than two months till Longest Night?” Allystaire sighed. “So, that long.”

  “It’ll have to do.”

  “I suppose I can skip the finer points of the list and getting accustomed to armor.”

  “How does a boy get accustomed to that, anyway?”

  “In my day, we had chainmail thrown on and had to climb the highest tower in Wind’s Jaw if we wanted to eat that night.”

  “And what did your charges do?”

  “The same, but carrying sword and shield as well.”

  “Cold. You must’ve made some hard knights. How’d your barony not conquer?”

  “Well, we did, a bit. Lord Mornis, one of Harlach’s primary liegemen, was swallowed up entire by the Old Baron, and I carved a good third of Harlach away in my time. We took pieces of Delondeur or Varshyne or Telmawr, but rarely held them. And if our knights were hard, well, Delondeur knights were just as hard, as were Harlachan. Never enough of us.” He paused. “Enough of them,” he added, with a snort.

  “Hard to forget who you were,” Idgen Marte muttered.

  “Could be that it is easier for me because I was already walking away from it,” Allystaire offered after a diplomatic pause.

  “I’ve learned that lesson. No need to dance around it. I tried to be my old self. She decided to let me. It was no accident that my sword got broken, after I spent all that time blathering over what it meant t’me.”

  “Torvul can make something out of it. Something new.” He stopped in his brushing, having mostly gotten the tangles and mud out of Ardent’s coat. “And that would be the point, aye? Take the parts of what we were to make something new.”

  “Leave the explanations to the bards and the minstrels,” Idgen Marte said.

  “Have I not been saying that, or near enough, since we met? On with the work of the day,” Allystaire replied as the door of the stable swung open to admit both clear autumn daylight and a cold gust of wind.

  Gideon entered with them, hauling a full bucket manfully with both hands around the handle. Allystaire took it from him, nodding his thanks, and emptied it into the trough. All three horses came forward to nose into it and began noisily drinking.

  Allystaire handed Gideon the comb he’d taken. “Now,” he said, “we have work to do. Your horse wants brushing, combing, and feeding. Hold it like this,” he said, adjusting the boy’s grip on the comb, and then pointed him towards the palfrey. “Careful with any knots.”

  “I could probably do this with magic,” Gideon mumbled. “Carefully, but I could.”

  “You will not. A certain amount of working with the hands is good for everyone. And it is especially good for a man and his horse when you have the time,” he added. “Now to it, and no more delays.”

  Chapter 27

  Interlude

  “He escaped the Grip of Despair.”

  The words were as much felt as heard, for the voice that spoke them was mostly a hollow whisper. The speaker was a mere outline, a stick figure in a robe, with glowing trails of shimmering blue energy leaking openly from beneath the hood and the sleeves.

  “We are aware.” The voice that answered him, from a similarly thin robe, was something closer to two voices echoing each other.

  “He killed one of the Knowing.”

  “He killed Bhimanzir, who was counted one of us by but the slimmest of margins.” The reply echoed through the stone-walled chamber.

  “It is easy to speak glibly of the dead, but we did not count him so slightly when he still lived,” replied a third, much more human voice. “I say this not because he was my student, but because there was a time not long ago when he was well valued among us for his power, his potential, his gifts, and his willingness to act. It is the latter trait that we most miss.”

  “Be easy, Gethmasanar.” Two trails of sickly green spread across the darkness as the echoing figure turned towards the younger, more hale sorcerer, whose own eyes and fingertips leaked a bilious yellow. “Bhimanzir’s loss was unforeseen and regrettable. It will be paid. Let us not speak of moving in haste or of foolish concepts like revenge. We do not get revenge. We advance our aims, consolidate power. What other goal should power have?” The words rebounded off the stones, chasing each other in their dual tones.

  “This man and his deity are a threat to us in precisely this way,” the hollow voice answered.

  “You also forget the boy,” Gethmasanar pointed out. “How much of our knowledge does he carry with him? What power, what will, did we lose? He is a dagger held over our heart.”

  “You may feel free to plunge a dagger into our heart if you wish,” the voice that was two voices answered. “It will have as much effect upon us as tossing a stone into the sea. The boy is nothing. He is a failure. Our order’s history is littered with them.”

  “When is the last time our order faced something as dangerous as this man, his deity, and his movement?” The whispery voice rose to a ragged high, and Gethmasanar’s spine stiffened, hands tensing beneath the sleeves of his robe.

  “Deity? Dangerous? Are you beginning to believe this babble, Iriphet?”

  “There is power there we do not see, power we cannot understand.”

  “He is a man with a hammer. He may as well be an ape with a rock bashing open grubs.” The final sibilant hissed its way around the chamber.

  “And yet, he escaped the Grip of Despair. How many men can have done that, in all the time the Knowing record its use?”

  “We do not keep count of such things. What we do is not sport, nor clumsy battle losses tallied by an historian, nor trade goods upon a ledger.”

  “No, but there are those who do,” Gethmasanar ventured, feeling like he had overturned a dice cup as he spoke. “Keep a count of such things. In song—and there is a song collected from these lands that speaks of it being thrown off by a paladin of legend, a Reddyn the Redoubtable…”

  “We do not know that name.”

  “Because it is not known does not mean he did not exist,” came the whisper.

  “We do not acknowledge that name. The two of you go and do as you must, as you think fit. Speak not of this Allystaire again to us till he is dead or broken. Leave us.”

  The weird, pitchy yowl of the two voices was an end to the conversation. Iriphet stood and Gethmasanar went to his side, and they left, both feeling
the piercing stare of bright and terrifying power across their backs.

  Chapter 28

  The Will and the Dragon

  “Are you certain he is ready for this?” Allystaire stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt. Despite the deep chill hanging in the air, he wore no jacket or vest, and his arms and neck were thick with dust and sweat.

  “For the past two weeks, you’ve had him up at dawn, hauling rocks, getting hit with sticks, hitting you with a stick, fetching water, riding, running, cutting timber, and Mother knows what else sort of fool’s labor—and you’re wondering if he’s ready to do the kind of thing he was made to do?” Torvul looked up from the tools he was preparing—his risers, his glass stems, bottles of vapor. Torvul wore his deep blue robes, with the sleeves pushed up over his elbows as he tinkered.

  “The work I have had him doing is for his own good, and ours.”

  “He’s not a knight, Ally. Ya can’t make him one.”

  “If I wanted him to be a knight I would be having you make him a set of armor.” With only the slightest pause, he added, “Speaking of armor…”

  “I’ve almost got it ready,” Torvul held up a hand to forestall him. “We get this done with fast enough, and it’ll be tonight. I think.”

  “You told me that two nights ago.”

  “Ah, well, there was a bit of a hang up. I had it right, ya see, precisely how I wanted. But, ah, well. Then a thought came into my head, unbidden, just sort of tunneled its way in as thoughts are wont to do, crashing about like trolls.”

  “What thought?”

  “The thought of how much weight I could pull by selling what I’m working on,” Torvul said hastily. “I know, I know. Her gifts are contingent on charity. It was unworthy of Her service. It came and was gone, and so were my results.”

  “Have you damaged—”

  “Stones above, no, I’ve not damaged it. Anything I do to it will improve it. Now go tell Gideon we’re ready.”

  “Aye.” Allystaire turned on his heel and followed the dirt track deeper into the village, towards the Temple where the Will of the Mother waited in prayer for his task. Grey clouds, heavy with rain, circled Thornhurst. A half a day’s ride in either direction, Allystaire was sure, would mean rain, but Braech’s priests, according to Mol, kept it at bay. It was time for Gideon to pull it down.

  At least that is a longer game, Allystaire thought. Gives us time to breathe. Though how much time they truly had, he wasn’t sure. Not enough. Even so, the timber in the northeast hills was being cleared and slowly turned into a palisade wall around the village proper, and such of the village men as could work metal or stone were busy figuring out a pair of gates as designed by Torvul.

  He swung open the doors of the Temple, letting the cold air in with him. Fires burned low in braziers set around the room, warming it, but the sweat of labor had dried on his skin and he found himself unrolling his sleeves and pulling them down.

  Gideon stood by the altar, in front of the Pillar of the Will, one hand extended to it, pressed against the smooth red-gold stone. Though it had only been a few weeks of working with him, Allystaire thought he could already see a change in the boy. A straighter spine, a thicker chest, a more possessed manner.

  Without turning to face him, Gideon said, “Is Torvul ready for me?”

  “Aye. Are you ready for this?”

  “Allystaire,” Gideon said, turning from the altar and stepping away from it, “I’ve faced down two deities already. What great matter is a third?”

  Allystaire frowned, carving deep lines around his mouth. “That kind of arrogance does not become us.”

  Gideon stopped and tilted his head. “I have heard you, and Idgen Marte, and Torvul, all speak that way. Not about gods, it is true, yet the point remains; why may you express confidence while I must not?”

  “Confidence is good. A man needs to carry some with him, certainly. Braech, though, is not Fortune, and his clergy are not going to be unprepared. The Choiron himself may be involved, and he can wield his power like a blade or like a maul—if you let confidence become arrogance, and you do not take him as a genuine threat to your life, and the lives of everyone depending upon us, he will find a way to hurt you.”

  “How did you withstand him, then? Didn’t he try to bring his will to bear on you?”

  “The Mother was already behind and within me then. Truthfully, though, I am not sure. Most of what I remember of that moment was an anger I had never known before. It was cold and bright and hard, and it was like a goad driving me away from him. Through him, if need be.”

  “How can mercy and anger come from the same source?” Gideon wondered aloud, but was cut off when Allystaire gave him a gentle, almost playful shove on the shoulder.

  “Enough words. Time for action.”

  Gideon brushed his hand away but went outside all the same. Allystaire gave him distance as they walked. The boy began chafing his arms against the cold, only to look back at Allystaire and drop his hands to his sides.

  Don’t be daft boy, put on a cloak or a coat if you’re cold, Allystaire thought, but didn’t say, as he felt the chill move up his own arms. At least it is not quite a freeze yet. We’ll have rain and not snow.

  They found Torvul with his inflated paper-and-wood contraptions, four of them, staked to the ground, leaving little slack in the ropes. Mol waited next to him, silent as the dwarf worked, and turned to face Gideon as he approached.

  “The clouds are near, and Braech’s priests hold them back unnaturally.” Mol gestured with one hand towards the sky. “Do what you think you must—if they are too strong, or you need time to understand what it is they do, remember that this isn’t a crisis. We’ll not starve this winter if it doesn’t rain now.”

  No, Allystaire thought grimly, we will starve in the summer or the next winter.

  “I know,” Gideon said. “Everyone stand back. And do not be concerned. Whatever happens. I will come back.”

  The boy went to a knee. He placed one hand on the grass next to his leg, and the other he rested on his bent knee. And then, to the shock of the three standing there, he disappeared.

  * * *

  His task was in the air, among the clouds. So, he reasoned, he needed to be in the air.

  He needed to be air.

  He realized almost instantly the flaw in the plan. As it was formless and without sense organs, air could see nothing. So as fast as the speed of thought, as fast as the idea formed, he was no longer simply formless, barely collected air, but rather air in the shape of himself.

  No. He was himself, the Will of the Mother, in a familiar shape. The shape he knew the best, only it was a shape that was as light—no, lighter than the air—and as invisible. He floated, observed the clouds. Understanding that he needed wings to propel himself, he willed them, and they unfurled from his shoulders. Or, he thought, they felt as though they unfurled—since they had no discernible weight and no visible shape, unfurling was simply how he made the sensation intelligible.

  Flight was a new sensation. It was interesting, but he could not linger. Drawn by the feel and even the smell of the rain that fattened the nearby clouds, he beat his wings and flew like a loosed arrow straight towards one.

  Near the edges of the air above Thornhurst, he felt it. If he had to describe it, he would’ve called it a net, a great, finely woven net of air and water. The word, of course, was an imperfect reflection of the thing. All words are, he reasoned.

  A net can be cut, he thought, and in the next moment, one of his hands had lengthened, flattened, and sharpened into a kind of blade. He reached for the net with his other hand and set the blade against its edge, and began to cut.

  * * *

  In the Great Temple of Braech in Keersvast, a huge blue marble edifice occupying its own island on the Keersvast Archipelago, the island chain on which the greatest city of the northern world was
built, a circle of priests knew instantly that they were threatened.

  The weather over the eastern border of Barony Delondeur, many hundreds of miles away, had required their specific attention this day, according to the Choiron Symod and his Marynth, both of whom had come to the City of Islands some weeks ago and taken council with the present members of the Choironate. Artifacts that resided in the Great Temple, and could not leave it, were needed to battle some threat to the Sea Dragon, or so the gossip would have it.

  This was why, headed by the Marynth Oritius—a stout, bearded man of middle years and tremendous will, if very little political acumen—a circle of half a dozen priests in Braech’s sea-blue robes stood around an incredibly finely wrought and detailed globe, with islands and continents worked in gold and silver and set into a massive blue crystal so minutely faceted it appeared round.

  When they felt the presence begin to assault the construct of their will, they did not panic, and they did not scatter. Oritius’s back stiffened as he stood up straighter. “Harden it,” he commanded. “Harden yourselves.”

  * * *

  For the briefest of moments, the Will of the Mother thought the moment would come easily. The blade of his hand parted a few strings of the net, and he could see how the whole would unravel.

  Then the net became a chain, and his blade snagged inside of a link. He pulled it free.

  He set both hands against the link and pulled. Slowly, agonizingly, it began to part, but he felt even as he was tearing it, the others were growing smaller, tighter, offering no purchase.

  What he wanted was neither tool nor raw strength.

  What he needed was fire.

  * * *

  It was a sudden and intense agony for the six blue-robed priests, till Oritius, sturdy and strong-willed Oritius, yelled another command. “Separate! Pull the clouds away but do not give this thing a target to focus upon!”

  * * *

  It was as though the lengths of chain suddenly became a flock of birds that exploded from his grip and disappeared. Even as he sensed that he was chasing after them, for they weren’t flocks—rather quickly they coalesced into larger birds, and they gripped the clouds, the prize he had come for, in their talons and began to pull them, wrench them away from Thornhurst.