By the wall, Tylar straightened both his legs and his back. He stared at his arms. Hale once again.
Rogger motioned to him. “Let’s get moving. Best keep to the shadows and we should be safe.”
His words immediately proved false.
From the shadows at either end of the alley, black shapes folded out of darkness. A dozen. Cloaked, swords in hand. Shadowknights all.
Tylar backed into Rogger. Another trap.
The leader of the knights stepped forth, plainly fearless, sword still sheathed. A mountain of shadow. He was too tall and too wide to be Darjon. His eyes glowed with Grace, swinging from Tylar to the thief.
“Again in trouble, Master Rogger?” The gruff voice, though muffled by masklin, could not be mistaken. “Why is it that your plans always go astray?”
Rogger grinned through his red beard. “We’re out of the dungeons, are we not? I count that an improvement.”
Tylar glanced between thief and knight.
“Here stands the other part of my original plan,” Rogger said as introduction, turning back to Tylar. “If Lord Balger had played along, these knights were to have been your border escorts from Foulsham Dell to Tashijan, in service to our cause. Now it seems they must be our rescuers, too.”
The knight bowed. “Your handmaiden brought us rumors of Balger’s intent to keep the godslayer imprisoned here. It seems ol’ Balger speaks too freely among his wenches.”
Tylar sensed the flow of hidden forces at work here. He eyed the tall knight. The last time he saw the man, his face had been blackened by ash, as was the manner of the Black Flaggers. In fact, he was the leader of the Black Flaggers. Krevan the Merciless. Now he had replaced ash for blessed masklin. The tattooed stripes of his former life as a Shadowknight were plain.
Tylar remembered Rogger’s earlier words about the man. Not every knight breaks his vow… Some simply walk away.
Tylar faced the knight-turned-pirate. “How are you here?”
Krevan shifted, stirring shadows like oil. “We don’t have much time for such tales. Suffice it to say, we will get you to Tashijan. Our cloaks will help hide you. We have horses waiting in Fen Widdlesham.”
Tylar refused to budge. “Why… why are you helping? What has all this to do with errant knights and the Black Flaggers?”
Krevan’s masked features were unreadable, but his words grew frosty. “All of Myrillia is in danger. It has been for a long time, out in the fringes, where few but the low know. I had thought never to don cloak and sword again, but some duties surpass personal desire.”
“What do you mean by-?”
Rogger touched Tylar’s shoulder. “Leave it be for now, Tylar.”
Something silent passed between the elder knight and thief.
“You’ve not told him,” Krevan said.
Rogger shook his head. “It was not my place.”
Eyes narrowed above the masklin, pinching the black stripes tighter. “I bore a name before earning the title Krevan the Merciless. A knight’s name. I was once called Raven ser Kay.”
Tylar glanced to the thief in disbelief, but only found confirmation there. “The Raven Knight?”
Krevan swung away. “We must go.”
“But Raven ser Kay died over three centuries ago,” Tylar mumbled.
Rogger stood at Tylar’s side, watching the knight disappear into shadow. “Yes… yes, he did.”
14
WHISPERS IN THE DARK
Dart knelt on a small goose-down pillow and slowly unrolled the linen scarf across the stone floor. She then placed the small wyrmwood box onto its center. All the while, she felt the two pairs of eyes scrutinizing her every move.
Matron Shashyl stood with her hands folded behind her back, her lips pursed as she oversaw Dart’s preparation for her first bloodletting.
Lord Chrism merely sat upon a chair, his face turned toward the open window of his chamber. He smelled of hay and freshly turned soil. His hair was oiled and combed straight back, making his green eyes seem larger, shining brighter than the afternoon sunlight.
With trembling fingers, Dart opened the small wyrmwood box. Lord Chrism’s sigil was inlaid in gold on the lid. Inside, brown velvet protected the contents: a line of silver instruments, a ribbon of tightly braided silk, and a fresh repostilary. The crystal receptacle had been blown by the glass artisans only two days previous. Dart had toured the Guild’s shops across the courtyard and watched this very repostilary being crafted.
Her first.
“This will be a full draw,” Matron Shashyl said. “So which lancet will you choose?”
It was not a difficult question. Shashyl had schooled her vigorously over the past two days.
Dart reached and pointed to the leaf-shaped lancet. To create a flow rich enough to fill an empty repostilary to the brim, she would need the largest of the silver blades. It was filigreed with gold inlay, again the sigil of Chrism. Dart knew it was an ancient instrument, dating back to the second millennia following the Sundering. Yet the tool was maintained in such delicate fashion that the silver shone without a single pox of tarnish. Its honed edge looked sharp enough to slice through darkness itself, its tipped point so fine it was hard to discern the end of the lancet without squinting.
“Very good,” the matron said. “Let us not keep our Lord of the loam waiting any longer.”
Chrism sighed with a ghost of a smile, his attention drawn back upon student and teacher. “Mayhap, dear matron, you should leave my Hand and I alone for this first bleeding.”
“But, my Lord, she is-”
The garrulous old woman was silenced with the lifting of a single finger. “She’ll do fine,” Chrism said in consolation. “This is a private time between god and Hand.”
Matron Shashyl quickly bowed, then retreated toward the exit to Lord Chrism’s chambers.
Dart kept her eyes upon the floor, upon the spread of her tools. She found it hard to breathe, as if the air had gone suddenly too thick. Pupp lay on the stones, his stumped tail wagging slowly. His fiery eyes were fixed upon the tools, like a dog eyeing a soupbone. She had warned him off with a firm gesture when she first knelt down.
Chrism stirred in his chair by the window. “As much as the good matron may press upon you the import and weight of your duty, it is truly a matter of no great concern.”
Dart glanced up at him. His eyes shone with emerald Grace, framed in soft brown curls, a slight stubble of beard shadowed his cheeks and chin. She found comfort in the warmth of his soft smile. She remembered his tears on the night of Willym’s murder, shed without collection, a treasure spent in memory of the god’s former servant.
“Every man bleeds,” Chrism said. “A god is no different. I can’t count the times this past winter alone that I’ve pricked a finger while working out in the Eldergarden.”
Dart found such a concept impossible to imagine, but she recalled her first encounter with Chrism among the gardens, mistaking him for some common groundskeep. Looking at him now, she could not fathom how she made such a mistake.
“While my blood may have value in trade and stock, it flows from me like any other man’s. Be not afraid. Master Willym and I were beyond ceremony.”
Chrism rolled back the sleeve and exposed his arm. His skin was tanned the color of red loam, while soft hairs, bleached blond by the same sun that tanned his skin, curled up the length of his forearm. He turned his arm to expose his wrist. Here the skin shone paler, appearing tender, as smooth as a woman’s cheek.
“You must simply stab deep and quick. My beating heart will do the rest of the work.”
Dart nodded. She took up the length of braided silk. Pupp lifted his head, tail wagging more vigorously. She waved him down with her free hand. She did not want him interfering-especially not when blood was involved.
Pupp lowered his head but maintained his vigil.
Dart knelt by Chrism’s chair and tied the ribbon above the god’s elbow. She worked rapidly, having practiced all night. She snugged
it, careful not to touch his flesh.
“Tighter,” Chrism said. “You can cinch it more firmly.”
Dart swallowed hard and did as he instructed. The silk pressed deeply into his flesh. For some reason, she had thought a god’s flesh would be more unyielding, more like stone.
“Very good.”
Dart sat back and gently lifted the silver lancet from the scarf. Now came the hard part. To stab the god she served.
“Can you see the vein at the edge of my wrist?” Chrism asked. “Willym preferred that one for a deep bleeding.”
Dart reached up and cradled Chrism’s wrist. His skin was warm, almost hot to the touch.
“A quick jab is all it takes.”
She hesitated.
“Be not afraid.” His voice purred with patience and concern.
Dart bit her lip and drove the point into his flesh and out again. A ruby drop of blood immediately welled upon his pale flesh, a jewel more precious than any mined from the heart of Myrillia. Here was a treasure mined from the heart of a god.
“The glass…” Chrism said with a smile.
Dart stumbled back, realizing she had frozen in place, mesmerized. She reached blindly for the repostilary, knocked it over with her fingertips; its crystal stopper rolled free of the scarf, tinkling on the stones. She grabbed the tiny decanter.
“Calm yourself. There is no hurry.”
Blood welled on the god’s wrist into a pool. Dart held forth the repostilary, needing both hands to hold it steady. Still the crystal receptacle tremored with each beat of her own heart.
Chrism leaned forward and tilted his wrist with a skill honed over millennia. The pool of blood became a channel, rushing from his flesh into a thick stream. The repostilary caught the flow as it poured forth.
Dart kept her gaze focused on keeping the wide mouth of the receptacle positioned to accept the god’s gift. Her trembling continued to bobble the jar a bit, but not a drop was spilled. The repostilary filled.
Chrism studied the flow. “That should do nicely, Dart.” She flicked a gaze in his direction. His lids lowered slightly. A glow bloomed softly on his wrist, moonlight through a break in clouds. Chrism had cast a blessing upon himself. The blood stopped flowing, dripping away, healed.
“The bit of linen, please,” Chrism said.
Dart let go of the repostilary with one hand and reached for a folded slip of green Kashmiri linen. She snatched it up and held it out.
Chrism turned his wrist toward her. She dabbed the blood from his skin. No sign of her stabbing wound remained.
Clutching the repostilary, Dart finished her ministrations, wiping the last drops away. The bit of linen would be burned upon the brazier outside the chamber, a fire continually stoked for this very purpose. The residual Grace in the scrap of cloth was too capricious, dangerous, unpredictable, apt to be used in dark rites by black alchemists. Such items had to be purged regularly, including Chrism’s daily garments after the slightest soiling by sweat or bile, the same with his bedsheets. Even forks and spoons were cleansed in fire to burn off any residual saliva.
Her focus on Dark Graces brought her back to the afternoon in the gardens, to the murder of the woman named Jacinta, turned to ash. She pictured the cursed black blade-and the man who had wielded it, a lord she knew by name now after inquiring discreetly.
Yaellin de Mar. Another of Chrism’s Hands.
Dart knew nothing else about the man, avoiding him at every turn. The man oversaw the aspect of black bile, the solids passed by Chrism into a crystal chamber pot, twinned with another pot that collected the god’s yellow bile each morning and night.
Dart had gone over the murder in the gardens… and Jacinta’s final words. Myrillia will be free! What did that mean?
It was the woman who had brought the cursed dagger onto the grounds. Once exposed, she had seemed to throw herself on the dagger to keep from being captured. Why? And what role did Yaellin have in all this? If innocent, why hadn’t word of the encounter in the garden spread, especially here in the High Wing?
Dart had her own secrets, too many already. She wanted no others. So she had spoken to no one about it, not even Laurelle. What could she say? How could Dart accuse or slander a Hand who had been in service to Chrism for going on his second decade?
Distracted by these black thoughts, Dart missed the roll of a drop of blood from Chrism’s wrist. It fell toward the stones. Wincing, she watched the ruby jewel splatter-not against the floor, but upon a bronze nose. Pupp had darted forward, catching the drop in midair.
Rather than passing through her ghostly companion, the droplet found substance. With the touch of blood, Pupp grew momentarily solid. His bronze nails clicked on the stone floor. His molten form settled into ruddy plates and a mane of razored spikes. Dart felt the heat of his presence like a stoked fire.
She froze.
Chrism’s eyes had returned to the view out the window as Dart had finished her ministrations, but now he stirred in his seat. Pupp stared up at the seated god. His eyes flared brighter. His tongue, a lick of flame, lolled out.
As Chrism leaned forward, the droplet of blood sizzled on Pupp’s nose and burned away. A tiny dance of smoke marked its passage. And Pupp’s form turned just as smoky.
“What’s that scent?” Chrism asked. He withdrew his arm, placed his palm on the armrest, and shifted upward, staring around the room.
Dart waved a hand through the puff of blood smoke, clearing her throat. Pupp shook his head like a wet dog and trotted back across the room.
Chrism failed to note his passage, but his nose remained crinkled.
Dart quickly bowed her head. “One of the other Hands must be cleansing the utensils from your last meal, my Lord. In the grand brazier outside your doors.”
With a worried crinkle of brow, Chrism settled back to his seat, but not before glancing one more time around the room.
Keeping her head down, Dart carefully plugged the repostilary with its crystal stopper and returned it to the wyrmwood box. She then folded the scarf over the box, and though her knees threatened to betray her, she stood smoothly.
“You did very well, Dart.” Chrism returned to his watch on the flowing river below his window.
“Thank you, my Lord.”
“Take the repostilary to Matron Shashyl. She’ll instruct you from here.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Dart backed toward the door.
As her fingers touched the door’s latch, Chrism spoke again, only a mumble, still staring out the window. “We must be watchful… all of us.”
“So tell me every bit,” Laurelle said in a rush of breath and silk, sweeping into Dart’s chamber. “Was it terrifying?”
Dart closed the door behind her friend. Laurelle was dressed in a white cotton dress, belted with silver silk, a match to her slippers. Dart had changed out of her own finery and back into a more comfortable shift that fell about her like a sack. She found its plainness a comfort.
Laurelle fled to Dart’s bed and perched on its edge. Her eyes glowed in the last rays of the sun. Beyond her windows, the deeper bowers of the Eldergarden already shone with moonglobes and dancing fireflits.
Dart settled to a spot on the bed beside Laurelle. She took a pillow and hugged it to her belly.
Laurelle fell back to the crimson coverlet, arms flung out. “To see a god cry…” she murmured. “His tears shone like molten silver. I feared collecting them. How my hands shook! The tiny crystal spoon quavered in my grip.”
Dart listened as Laurelle related her own first collection of Chrism’s tears. It was a heady day for both of them. Dart still felt a twinge of unease. Pupp had almost been seen, made solid by the blood of the very god she served. It awakened her own fear of discovery.. not only of her strange ghostly companion, but of her corruption.
Blood… why did she have to be chosen for blood?
“So tell me,” Laurelle finished, sitting back up. “Did his humour glow with Grace? Did you swoon? I’d heard back at the school th
at some Hands faint away when drawing their first blood.”
Dart glanced to her friend. “Truly?”
Laurelle’s eyes widened. She reached a hand to Dart. “Did you faint?”
Dart shook her head.
“Then what happened? You have a great look of worry upon you.”
Dart stared into her friend’s eyes. Perhaps she could tell all to Laurelle. About Pupp, about the murder in the gardens, about her own defilement. Instead she found herself relating the event in dry tones. She spoke of Chrism’s kindness and patience, of her own nervousness, of the successful draw. Laurelle listened to all with rapt attention.
Dart made no mention of Pupp… nor of Chrism’s final cryptic words. We must be watchful… all of us.
“It all went well, then,” Laurelle stated as Dart finished. “Why the long pout?”
Dart shook her head. “I… I’m just tired. It was trying. See.. seeing the blood and all.”
Laurelle’s fingers squeezed hers. “But you didn’t faint. You should be proud.”
Dart offered a weak smile. It was all she could manage.
Her sour mood dulled the shine from Laurelle but failed to subdue her entirely. “Come,” she said, standing abruptly and drawing Dart up by the hand. “Matron Shashyl has promised us a special feast to celebrate our first day. It’s to be served in the common room. All the Hands will be there.”
Dart now felt a swoon threaten. All the Hands…
The sixth bell rang out in the courtyard. It was answered by a small chime sounding in the High Wing’s hall.
“We must get you dressed,” Laurelle said. “Matron Shashyl sent me in here to fetch you. She said you were suffering a headache and she didn’t want to disturb your rest until now.”
Dart glanced to the cold cup of willow bark tea, untouched. She had feigned illness to escape to her chambers after the bloodletting. Shashyl had seemed to understand, nodding and taking her under her thick arm. She must have suspected, like Laurelle, that Dart had been overcome, perhaps swooned.
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