“Thank my mama for my mouth. And my hair.” She tried to smile, failed. “What now?”
“The clans will be waiting for us, for word. What the Twelve Hells do we tell them?”
“We should read the scroll first, see what we’re dealing with. I need to speak with Ilpen anyhow.”
They nudged their horses into a tent city whose population was already thinning. Maybe a thousand had departed by boat and ship, and a couple hundred godless cowards disappeared into the night, but it was impossible to know how many. Of those who didn’t win the drawing to take sail, small groups had packed up and started walking the coastline of their own accord. They might be the smart ones.
Ilpen took the reins from their horses and tethered them to a hitching post. “Didn’t expect to see you two today.”
Ivin said, “We need to borrow your tent.”
The big man gave them a squinted eye. “What fer?”
Meliu met his gaze with an unblinking stare. “For something a helluva lot less fun than you're thinking. I also need a dozen copper blanks, about the size of a coin, and if you’ve a selection of stamps I could choose from?”
Ilpen nodded with a grin. “I can see to that. Tent’s yours.”
Ivin said, “Thank you,” and stepped through the flap.
Meliu lingered and poked the big man in his bulging belly. “You’re a naughty old man.”
Ilpen chuckled. “Now, girl, I didn’t say a danged thing, did I?”
Meliu snorted and followed Ivin into the tent, and the Coerkin’s face already glowed from the light of the scroll’s text.
“You think it’s real? Powdered diamond, like the shrine?”
She took the scroll from his hand, ran her fingers across the raised words. “I’m not an expert. The enchanted diamond in the wards they used against the Shadows of Man, the powder looks the same. But this… This might be something more.”
“How so?”
“Lapidaries enchant the gemstones as they cut and polish the stones, and they can be powerful, but there are also gems that come from the dirt with natural power.”
“Like Kinesee’s pearl?”
She cocked her head. “What the hells you talking about?”
“A pearl the girl found, it glowed when rubbed, and Solineus linked the two’s souls with it.”
“No horseshit? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” How in the name of the Seven Heavens could some clan warrior know how to create something like that? “But yeah, it’d be something akin to it. We call them infused gems, rare is an understatement. Crushing an infused diamond now days would be… unheard of, but during the God Wars, they were more plentiful.”
“You’re saying this damned thing is real?”
“Let me study a moment, don’t think we want to read it out loud.”
In your dying eyes I see the hatred your false-gods have for you, and their despair over your ascendency to the heavens of Sol. The Heavens of the Faithful, Loved, Wealthy, Serene, Provider, Wise, and Conqueror will open before you. The false-gods made their weaknesses yours, but your souls sever now their failings from your eternity. I free you to rapture, to die in the embrace of your new name in the fields of eternity. Blackened Void, sever the pagan ties.
She rubbed her chin and stared. “It isn’t complete, missing the beginning and end.”
“How do you know?”
She smirked. “The scroll’s cut on both ends, for one. There’d be three steps, guessing from what they taught of the Slavers. The first section would drain life from the wounded, the next sunders their soul’s connection to their gods, and the final bit would force a new connection to the Pantheon of Sol.”
“So this scroll…”
“The shittin’ witch gave us a scroll meant to sunder people from our gods.”
Ivin planted his face in his hands. “Is the cursed thing real?”
She stared at the words. Blackened void, sever the pagan ties. “I don’t know. Yes? Yes, it almost has to be.”
“I never imagined the Slavers were ever real.”
Meliu grimaced, recalling the pain of the Maimer’s Lash on her shoulders. The way the wounds bled so little and healed into scars in a matter of wicks. “They were real.”
“And this, it could sunder souls?”
“The mystic lapidary, scroll-making, these are arts all but lost. It has power, but without the full scroll?”
“Why cut it?”
“Because the bishop isn’t a fool. She wouldn’t want this to fall into the Church’s hands intact.”
Ivin paced the floor, huffing, before he planted his hands on the table and stared at her. “If I read this in front of a crowd, it might be just as the bishop said, innocent words. A gesture of peace.”
“Or it could sunder the soul of everyone.”
“And if we don’t, they all die in days.”
A chill passed down her body, and she would’ve sat if a chair were close. Gods, she needed to sit, but instead she propped herself on the table. “We’ll figure out something.”
“We need to take this to the clans.”
She shook her head, but her mouth spoke truth. “Yes, we do.”
“Do your damnedest to come up with a reason… a way this won’t work before we get there.”
She snorted as she stood straight, took a couple deep breaths to ease the tension in her shoulders. “It might be horse shit, but I’ll come up with something.”
“Horse shit and hope might be better than the truth.”
She guessed it was the old man Coerkin’s saying and found it amusing that she may have gotten along just fine with a man the church taught her to hate.
When Ivin explained the scroll of the Mercies to the gathered clan-blood, he may as well have ripped their tongues from their mouths. They sat mute as rainbirds in a drought, their eyes ranging from horrified to glazed incredulity. A wick passed before the Broldun could take it no longer.
Polus stood and slammed the table. “Damn it, no one else’s willing to say it, I will. It’s godsdamned outrageous, I’d rather fight and die than condemn my people to walking the world as ghosts.”
Meliu’d only met the man once, but his reaction was already predictable. She cleared her throat before speaking. “If I may.” Both Ivin and Polus nodded their consent. “Every right-thinking person in this tent should think the same upon hearing this demand. But, there are considerations. Even if the reading Sunders their souls, it’d be possible to regain the soul’s direction to the Living Stars.”
The huge man glowered. “And how the godsdamned hells you know this, hmm? Done it yourself, have you?”
“If conversion to a new faith is possible, so is re-establishing the old.” She held up her hand to stop his protest. “What’s more important, there’s nothing to say this ancient fragment of scroll will even work. Reading it could do nothing, while buying us the time we need. The Mercies read these scrolls, high priests trained in prayer, odds are the scroll won’t work for Ivin, for any of us.”
Tedeu Ravinrin stood, and all eyes went to the stern woman. “So, we gamble on our own ineptitude?”
Meliu said, “And we emphasize it. From what I understand, the reading must be perfect. If I teach Ivin to mispronounce a few words, and skip one here and there… Combined with this scroll being a fragment, I don’t see how it can work.”
“So, we take loaded dice to a game where we can only roll once?”
Meliu sighed, her shoulder slumping. The situation was dire enough without reminding her of Tokodin and his woeful dice. “It’s the best we’ve got, unless you’ve an Edan army on its way.”
Roplin Coerkin stood, and the Broldun and Ravinrin sat. “We thank you, Meliu, for your help and opinion. The clans have much to discuss now, if you wish to attend other matters.”
She glanced around the table, to Ivin last. He smiled and shrugged. “Yes, well. There is something I need to do. My final word: Facing the Bishop’s wrath is death, and I don’t fear death after all
I’ve seen… But our people deserve the chance reading the scroll gives. I thank you for your time.” She turned and made as graceful an exit as she could without looking in a rush to leave. I should have bowed. Curtsied. Pah. She wasn’t wearing a dress anyhow, and not like most of them gave a damn.
Meliu was happy to be in the sun and to put the sounds of debate at her backside. Ilpen might have her blanks done by now, but a walk to sort out her thoughts sounded more pleasant. She made her way toward the beach, looking out over the sea that days before was littered with boats, masts stuck into the air, but the waves were damned near empty now.
A ship bearing the banner of Ravinrin still bobbed off the coast, but it’d depart soon. The Luxun ship that carried Solineus and the Trelelunin woman might return anytime in the next few days, but others wouldn’t return in time for a mass exodus.
She stopped. This wasn’t the time for strolls on the beach. She made her way to Ilpen, finding him lounging by the table gnawing on the remnants of a coney.
“You’re right lazy today.” But the whole smithy was quiet, several of the finer craftsmen, who worked steel instead of copper, having already departed for the Blooded Plain.
“Folks got more to worry about than getting their wares repaired.”
“My blanks?”
“Done. But you ain’t getting ‘em until you tell me what they’re for.”
“It’s best you don’t know.”
His jowls wiggled with his nod, but he wasn’t pleased. “Tell me then, what were going on in that tent?”
“Nothing good.”
“Worse than Shadows?”
Her head rocked back to look at the sky as she thought on it, but Kinesee spared her the need to answer.
“What’s worse than Shadows?” The girl strolled from the direction of the donkeys, the dainty clothes the Lady Ravinrin provided covered in dust and animal hair. One of Ravinrin’s men accompanied her, a stern fellow in his forties with a drooping mustache and bagged eyes. Maro, if Meliu remembered right.
Ilpen jumped up, his face brightening in a smile for the girl. “Nothing you and I want to know about. You done with brushing Ears and Ears?”
She glanced at her dress. “Somebody needs to brush me, now.”
Ilpen untied a pouch from his hip, tossed it, and Meliu snagged it from the air. “Stamps are on the table in my tent.”
She took a step, but stopped. “Kinesee, would you like to help me?”
The girl squinted, nervous, but Ilpen put a hand to the child’s shoulder. “Go on girl, the priestess don’t bite.”
Meliu smiled as Kinesee took hesitant steps inside, but she halted the girl’s bodyguard. She gave her best cutesy smile. “Be a dear and watch the flap for me?” The man “hmmphed” but turned to guard the flap with a curt nod.
Meliu closed the flap and tied it with a quick flip of rawhide strings before walking to the table. “Don’t be shy, I just wanted to talk.”
Kinesee nodded and came to her side, where an assortment of steel stamps lay spread across the tabletop. Meliu emptied the pouch on the hardwood surface, and muttered a prayer for Light, the knots in her muscles relaxing as the tent grew bright. “Have you ever been in the Light of the gods?”
The taut muscles in the girls face relaxed. “No.”
“The Light will protect us. Don’t fear what you see next.”
Kinesee gasped as the tents walls and ceiling disappeared in utter black, but Meliu kept the Light strong all around them. “What is it?”
“Elemental Dark. No one will be able to see what we’re doing, and so long as we don’t yell or shout, no one will hear what secrets we might share.”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“You have a pearl, tell me about it.”
The girl’s cute face scrunched into a brat’s snarl. “No.”
Meliu rummaged through the stamps, settling on a sun with four rays. She lined it up on a coin and banged it with a hammer, then flipped it, scratching a single notch with the edge of a chisel. “Tell me about the pearl and you can have one of these, and I’ll tell you what it’s for.”
The girl’s determination wavered. “You can’t touch it.”
“I don’t even need to see it. Ivin told me Solineus made it for you, that you can call him with it?”
“Mmhhmm.”
Was I like this as a lass? No, worse, ‘cept papa would’ve laid me out on the floor by now. “How?”
Kinesee shrugged. “He rubbed it, it glowed like it always did before, then he told me it was a real special pearl, that if I rubbed it when I needed him, he’d know and come.”
“That’s it?”
“Mmhhmm.”
The girl didn’t like her much, that was obvious, but she had no idea why. “And it works?”
“Mmhhmm. When we… When the Shadows came for Alu and me, he heard me, and I could hear him. So could Alu, the second time.”
“And all he did was hold it in his hands, to give the pearl this power?”
“I s’pose. I dunno.”
Who the hells could do such a thing? She’d read the one surviving text on the art of the mystic lapidary in the library of Istinjoln, and its words spoke of candles and weeks to cut and refine stones infused by an Element. Some of the finest took years.
“Your turn.” The girl grinned.
“This coin is for you.” She hadn’t planned on giving her one, but after this tale, and because she was Solineus’ daughter now, she changed her mind. “Keep it on you, always.”
“Why? Can I talk to you with it?”
Meliu giggled, wishing she had such power. She didn’t want to scare the girl, but the child needed a reason. What the hells, sometimes honesty works. “I’m not going to explain this, so don’t ask, just do as I say, right? It’s so if I ask for it, I know it’s you.”
The girl blinked once and stared, but she didn’t ask the obvious. “Can Ilpen put a hole in it, so to slip it on my chain?”
“So long as you don’t tell anyone what it’s for, including Ilpen. And you keep it and the pearl safe, under your dress, where no one can steal them.”
“I swear.”
Meliu released the Dark. “And don’t tell anyone about any of our conversation, or the Dark.”
“I won’t.”
The girl disappeared through the flap and Meliu picked up the hammer and stamp, banged another coin, marked its backside twice. The Face of Ulrikt could be anywhere, anytime, as anyone, but at least she knew he was an enemy. But this Solineus wasn’t the simple clan-blood he claimed. Next they met, she’d need to figure out what he was hiding, and what games he might be playing.
16
Oaken Splendor
A philosopher, a wise man, for certain…
Would a dented skullcap take such a noble title?
Yes, a lie, I can not deny, but if not wise,
at least he sat around thinking until his ass was sore,
Ha ha! Much and more than the common man.
He called living, this life given, the common mortal thread,
but the philosopher is or was wrong in what he said,
despite never doing wrong because he Does nothing.
The only common weave in the skein is the thread
leading from birth to dead.
–Tomes of the Touched
The Luxun vessel reached the Silone encampment on the Blooded Plain in three days, and most disembarked for the town being called New Fost. But it was a city of tents, not a fortress.
Solineus leaned on the rail, bundled against a chill wind coming in from the north. For a man descended from a long line of sailors, he hated boats, but there was little point to setting foot on dry land after gaining his sea legs.
Lelishen wandered to his side, as close as possible without touching. They shared a smile as the Luxuns weighed anchor, and flickers after, sails snapped in the wind.
The sun set with red skies, the dawn arrived bright and clear, and a rocky shore stood to their st
arboard with trees stretching for the sky. From a distance and in the rays of the morning sun, the leaves flashed between gold and green in flittering waves. Golden oaks, Captain Intoeno called them. It seemed it’d be impossible to forget such a sight, but it enticed him with a familiarity that taunted his memory.
They docked in a port called Eslonu, but he didn’t see a town, or at least not a proper one. A few buildings stood in a clearing, storage he imagined, but forest dominated the view, trees over one hundred feet high and big around as a tower.
They looked like towers, and the comparison wasn’t inaccurate; they were part of a fortress and manned by archers. But according to Lelishen these trees weren’t part of the Eleris proper, they were a border territory administered by the Trelelunin in the name of the Edan.
Lelishen and the Luxun captain disembarked first, greeted by a small party of officials clad in tunics of gold and green to match the leaves of the trees in the sun. The conversation ended in nods and Lelishen returned to fetch him. They strode the gangplank to the docks and headed for a gap in the woods where he discerned a gate fashioned from living trees.
“I must travel first, to report my observations to a representative of the Chancellor of Knowledge. I will lead you to a hundersan, where you will stay until my return.”
“I don’t recognize that word.” Syllables were familiar, but blended they meant nothing to him.
“It doesn’t have an easy translation. The Eleris is a place of Elemental power. This is normal for the Edan, the Trelelunin, the Helelindin, and other the animals living here, but it can disorient newcomers.”
“You spoke of the Elements with Eliles. The source of magic, prayer?”
“You were spying.” Her smile invited a kiss, and if she were human, he might’ve obliged. “In simple terms you are right. Humans, Luxuns, other peoples not used to the intensity of these energies will grow sick, violently so if they travel too far, too fast.”
They passed through the gate and he looked up, wobbled as the heights affected his head. “That’s one helluva… An invisible defense, a soft wall.”
Trail of Pyres Page 15
