Hawkspar

by Holly Lisle

  I thought I was doing well. I could imagine that in a month or two, I might begin to feel as if I wasn’t entirely lost. That in six months I might have learned enough to continue learning on my own.

  But seven days after the rats ate Ruby, Windcrystal, and Emerald—sparing, unfortunately, Sunspar—a dozen Obsidians came to my cell, told me that it was urgent and that I must hurry, and led me, wearing nothing but my sleep tabi, through the darkness from the Brevon dorm to Hawkspar’s quarters.

  Hawkspar lay on her mat, pillows propping her up. I thought when I walked through the door that she was dead already, so pale and still was she. But as I stepped across the threshold, she turned her face toward me and said, “Obsidians, leave. Remain outside the door, guard us, and when you are called, hurry to me with all speed.”

  I knelt beside her. “Oracle, should we not call the Moonstones?”

  “No,” she said. “I die tonight because I choose to. Because this, at last, is the time when the river flows from me to you with the strongest, clearest current. I have things that I must tell you, and you must never tell them to another until the day comes when you must pass on the Hawkspar Eyes. Listen closely. This is your life, girl, and the life of every Tonk who lives or ever will.”

  I sat close to her.

  “First know that Ossal was no woman monk, no faithful follower of the Cistavrian Order of Marosites. Every word you have heard about the origins of the Ossalenes is a lie, though only Hawkspar can reach the truth, for only the Hawkspar Eyes are powerful enough to permit the truth to be found.

  “Ossal was the son of a king, a second son sent off to the Cistavrian Order to learn the disciplines of magic. He was a bright boy, but from his earliest years, twisted. He sought knowledge, but only so that he could use it to become powerful. When he had learned enough magic to give him the great power that he so desired, he returned home. Here. To the Citadel of the Ossalenes, which was, back then, his family home. Or one of them. He came here, and using the magic of the Marosite monks, he killed his parents, his brothers and sisters, his nieces and nephews, and any kin who might have dared lay claim to the throne he coveted. Then he set himself up as the new king. This wizard king set about conquering the people of neighboring lands. He took for himself the most beautiful women, and sought to enslave them so deeply that they would only ever be able to do exactly what he bid of them.

  “To this end, he made the first Eyes. He took gemstones, bound them with his magic, and forced them upon unwilling captives. And when they wore the Eyes, they became … biddable.”

  “Biddable?”

  “His primary interest was in using these women as sex toys.”

  History is full of men who have used women as sex toys. It was one of the things the Ossalene seru made sure we understood. “Ah,” I said.

  “But as he won more territory, and gathered more women, he decided it would be amusing to make these toys of his healers, gardeners, craftsmen, and warriors—all while still enjoying playing his perverse sex games with them. And eventually he decided to create some as his fortune-tellers, capable of revealing for him all aspects of his past and future, so that he might gain even more power, and more wealth, and more women.

  “He created the first eight pairs of Oracle Eyes, and they gave the women power unlike anything their predecessors had. Through these women and their Eyes, he learned how to create new weapons and new arts, how to have his people grow more and better food, how to heal his warriors more efficiently. Each pair of Eyes was better than the last, each opened up new worlds to him. And with each pair that he created, his art grew. By the time he got to the final pair, the ninth, he had learned entirely new ways of shaping the power of the Eyes. He poured everything he had into the final pair: all of his art, all of his science, and all of his passion and his darkness.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Which pair would that be?”

  Hawkspar’s mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. “These Eyes, of course. The Hawkspar Eyes.”

  Of course.

  “The Hawkspar Eyes gave the first Hawkspar the power to draw in and win over the other wearers of Eyes, to bind them together into a cohesive unit, and to lead them in slaughtering Ossal, though the first Hawkspar died leading them. Ossal’s death was a fine thing, and after he was dead, the next Hawkspar caused all the Eyes of sexual enslavement to be destroyed. Ossal’s toys took over the Citadel, and offered their skills as healers and teachers and eventually as fortune-tellers to the outside world. To some extent, they followed Ossal’s Marositism, though they changed the religion enough that the Ossalenes would not be a recognized branch of the Cistavrian Order from which they sprang were they not faithful in sending tithes to the faraway Cistavrian Cathedral at Ons. Wealth and power have kept us … acceptable.

  “And as word spread of the Ossalenes’ power in seeing the future, they became rich. Powerful in their own way. But wearing Eyes carries a price, and wearing the Hawkspar Eyes, the largest price of all.”

  I nodded and waited.

  She said, “So here are some warnings you must take to heart when you are the wearer of these Eyes. First, Ossal is dead, but he is not gone. The magic by which he created the Oracle Eyes bound him to them. Each of the nine pairs of Oracle Eyes can become a gateway for his spirit, and centuries in a hell of his own devising have made his spirit even fouler and more twisted than it was in life. The stronger the Eyes, the stronger the connection the wearer feels toward him at certain times. And the more connected you become to the Eyes, the more power his spirit has over you.”

  I shivered. Hawkspar’s cell was cold, but the chill that came over me at that moment started from deep inside me and shuddered its way out.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

  “Because it is the price you pay to save your people. All power has a price,” Hawkspar growled. “But with the Eyes, you can choose when and how you will pay. We haven’t much time. Events gather on the horizon, and you must be ready to meet them. So listen. When you wear the Eyes, you will be able to see the flow of time. This holds a danger for the weak—time is beautiful, and the wearer can fall into the fascination of watching it and never come out again. An oracle can be seduced into her own past, back to a time when she was safe and happy, and she can choose never to leave. Her body will starve, her mind will waste away, and in short order she will die.

  “But you are not weak, so for you, this is a lesser danger. Avoid visiting your own past.”

  “But remembering my name …”

  “You cannot go back to find it. You cannot go back to see your family again. You cannot. If you remember your name on your own, take it back. But don’t let yourself fall into the trap of searching for it.”

  “That danger has nothing to do with Ossal.”

  “It doesn’t. It is a minor danger—the danger of watching time. If you avoid losing yourself in the watching, you can stretch out your life to vast, unnatural lengths. The reason I am so very old is that, save one exception, all I have ever done is watch time.”

  “That sounds a simple enough rule to follow. Just watch.”

  She snorted. “For me it was a simple rule to follow, for I was a spider sitting in the middle of a web. Events and the men who caused them came to me. You will not have that luxury. You are going out into the world. And in the world, you will be forced to act. The Eyes also permit the wearer to step between moments in time and alter outcomes. And this, if you are to succeed, you will have to do.”

  She turned her head away from me, and grew so still I thought she had died. I put a hand on her wrist to see if her blood still coursed, and she said, “I’m not gone yet.”

  “I feared …”

  “Don’t. I’ll tell you when my time is done.” She turned back to me. “You can, with the Eyes, rearrange the flow of Time’s river. It is difficult, arduous, and painful—and when you do it, the Eyes call to Ossal’s spirit and bring him to you. Stepping into time opens the gate that separate
s you from him. Your youth and strength should permit you to accomplish much between moments. But understand that when you are exhausted, you will falter. And when you falter, Ossal will attempt to take your flesh and throw your spirit into oblivion. He will try to own you, and if he succeeds, you may not be able to get yourself back. When you must take the step of walking into time, be prepared to fight for your very existence.”

  “You did this?”

  “Once. I had good reason. You and I are here now because of it. But the aftermath was … horrible. He is a terrible creature. A nightmare with hungers that have grown huge from long abstinence. Do not give him any opportunity that you can avoid.”

  I nodded.

  She sighed out, long and slow, and I could feel her watching me.

  “That’s all?”

  “I wish it were.” She sat, the embodiment of stillness, and I waited, wondering, with slow dread seeping into my body. “The Eyes hold one other power. According to the Hawkspar knot-records, this power has been used only once, and only for the overthrow of Ossal himself. It was the power that killed his body. Hawkspar can, if the legend is true, call into her flesh the power of all the Eyes. She does this by in some fashion forging paths between the Hawkspar Eyes and all the other eyes, both oracle and seru.”

  Her eyes fixed on me, and my heart stuttered in my breast.

  “I have seen the manner by which this might be done. Doing it will make the Hawkspar vessel a goddess in fact as well as in name, for the time that she can hold the paths together. But doing this will bind the Hawkspar vessel to madness and certain death. Understand that this is the path of sacrifice, and if ever you must use it, you will be finished. When the power drawn from the paths you have forged flows out of you, you will be lost. Doomed. The Eyes will own you, and there will be no step you can take that will give you back yourself. If you take this step too soon, the Tonk will lose you. Losing you, they will lose everything.”

  My fingers clenched on the fabric of my sleep tabi and twisted. “You see this as my fate, don’t you?”

  Hawkspar said nothing.

  “You see this as my fate, don’t you?” I repeated, feeling terror rising within me.

  “You choose your fate,” she said at last. “You choose the fate of the world, girl. Be sure you choose wisely.”

  And then she turned her face from me. “Tell the Obsidians to attend me. It is time.”

  “You’re dying?”

  “I’m done. And you must be made ready. Bring them.”

  I ran to the door and pulled it open. I had not even a chance to say a word. The Obsidians knew. They streamed past me. The tiny room filled with them, while a dozen more dragged me away, silently, back toward the acolyte dorm.

  We were not even halfway across the yard when the ululation went up, the keening of grief that is the sound of an oracle dead. The bells began to toll, and the Obsidians hurried me faster. “Run, Mouse,” one of them said, grabbing my arm, and I realized that I heard Redbird’s voice. That she was beside me. “For the love of Jostfar, run. You cannot be seen like this. You are now the Hawkspar Elect.”

  Aaran

  Aaran woke from a nightmare in which the faceless girl he pursued was screaming, in agony, terrified. In which he was racing to save her, but was too late.

  Too late.

  There had been flames. Rivers of blood. The clash of metal on metal, the scream of the dying.

  The nightmare had carried with it both the stench of death and the ring of truth.

  He sat up, and in the loft above him, a sleepy head popped out of a cubbyhole and said, “You need me, Cap’n?”

  “Go back to sleep, Potyr. I had a dream. I’m going out to walk the deck for a while. You’re off duty for the rest of the night.”

  “Thanks for that, Cap’n.” The head withdrew, the little door pulled shut with a click. And the door to the second runner’s cubby popped open, and a bit of moonlight poured out. “Will you be needing me, then, sir?”

  “Nor you, either, Neeran. I’m restless. Nightmares. Nothing that needs to bother your sleep.”

  “I was reading,” Neeran said, and waved a book down at him. “One Keeper Tuuanir recommended. Ethebet the Morii: Tales of Adventure from the Saint’s Early Years.”

  Aaran sighed. “Tuuanir wrote it,” Aaran said. “And I thought for a few years the Ethebettans were going to disown him for it.”

  “It’s a grand tale,” the boy said. “What wouldn’t you have given to know her? To fight alongside her. She must have been glorious.”

  “Enjoy your book,” Aaran said. “Don’t get into any fights with the ship scholars over it; Tuuanir hasn’t sold many on his choice of sources for that thing yet.”

  He walked out onto the deck.

  Ynyar av Beylan, kor adas, or master of the watch, was leaning on the captain’s stair, the series of rises that led up to the captain’s deck just behind the prow. He turned when Aaran stepped out, took one look at him, and said, “You felt it too, then?”

  “Felt what?”

  “The wrongness of the night.”

  “I woke from a nightmare with the thought that we needed to put some more wind behind us,” Aaran said.

  Ynyar leaned on the rail, staring out to starboard. “Your nightmares, my waking fancies. It all maybe of a piece. Come take a look at this.”

  Shadows moved across the surface of the sea. In the moonlight, they moved like smoke, dancing and writhing, curling around the bow of the ship, slipping toward the back, then racing forward again. They were not of the water; neither were they in it. They never quite touched the light chop, they never fell beneath.

  “What are they?”

  “Makkor’s log lists a place near the end of his journey where the spirits of dead men clung to his ship, telling of the mountains of treasure from sunken ships buried beneath.”

  Aaran watched the shapes move. They hadn’t the look of men. But he’d never seen spirits in the physical world. “Is that what you think they are?”

  “No, Cap’n,” Ynyar said.

  “I dreamed of fire,” Aaran said. “Fire, and disaster, and us not reaching the slaves.”

  “Truly?” Ynyar worried at his bottom lip with his teeth.

  Ves av Imaaryn, the kor daan, came to join them. “You noticed them, too? I think I know what they are.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve not seen any dead fish on the surface yet, nor have I smelled anything foul. But the water is rough, it’s dark and the wind is steady on. Those signs maybe hidden. If we lower a bucket overboard and quickly bring it up, we’ll know.”

  “What are you thinking?” Aaran asked.

  “Fire under the sea,” Ves said. “We have volcanoes in plenty along the Sea of Sorrows. There are volcanoes at the end of the Path of Stars, too. I think we might be sailing over something about to happen.”

  Aaran called a sailor to lower a bucket into the water. By the time he pulled it back up, a small crowd had gathered. Ves put a finger into the seawater and pulled it back out, swearing. “Hot,” he said, and sucked on his finger.

  “Get the windmen,” Aaran told Ves. “Get both of them working, and push us forward as fast as we dare.”

  Along Aaran’s skin, fear raced, but it wasn’t his fear. It was her fear. If he closed his eyes, he was with her. In her. Her skin was his skin; her sounds, his sounds; her vision, his vision.

  Something horrible was racing toward her. Pain and blood and the clash of metal.

  Behind him, the wind picked up. The sails filled, the ship bit into the sea and raced faster.

  It wasn’t fast enough. That was all he could think. If fire and ash erupted from the sea, if towering swells ran under the ship to break as huge waves across the near islands, if the sky burned and darkness devoured midday, he could only think of those things as warnings. Something terrible lay before her, and no matter how hard he fought to reach her, he would not be quick enough to save her from the doom that stalked her.

  10<
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  Acolyte

  The oracles convened in the center of the Arena on a dark, cold night three days after the death of Hawkspar, with Tigereye, the new Ruby—one of the younger penitents, and a complete surprise pick by the Eyes, the new Windcrystal, Amethyst, Sunspar, Sapphire, and Raxinan all present. The new Emerald’s Eyes had not yet melded with her, so she remained in the infirmary under the care of the Seru Moonstone.

  I walked into the center of the Arena under my own power this time, to face my own Gata Ossala Shen, though it took every bit of my will to do so. Obsidians walked beside me—Redbird on my left, another conspirator, Starweed, on my right.

  In the center of the Arena stood a great pyre, and on the pyre lay the dead Oracle Hawkspar, her Eyes still in place. She would be burned to ash, Oracle Tigereye had explained to me, and once that was done, her Eyes would come to me.

  I had asked if they would not be destroyed by the fire, and Tigereye had just laughed. “They have survived countless vessels and countless fires. They’ll survive this one, too.”

  I had a duty that I was supposed to be pursuing, and my getting the Eyes was an essential part of that duty. But I cannot say that if the fires had shattered the Eyes into pebbles and dust, I would have wept.

  I was selfish, I know. Selfish and unworthy. I could do the whole Litany of the Undeserving from the morning prayers by rote, and I had no doubt every word of it would be true.

  But as I stood there watching them lighting torches, one passing the fire on to the next, the oracles chanted a prayer that consecrated Hawkspar’s body and returned it to the earth, and that asked that her soul be found worthy since she had served in selflessness and faith. It echoed of continuity that had followed down the line from the first Hawkspar—the one who had won for the women of the Citadel a form of freedom, no matter how far they had strayed from its principles over the intervening centuries.