by Daniel Casey
“What someone?” Jena stood.
“Someone you need to talk to.” Addison opened the door and the two walked back into the holding cells of the station. There was a bench and small cabinet table beside it with several candles burning low, their wax pouring over the sides of it.
“I don’t need to talk to anyone. I need to head north and find my friends. There’s a Spires army gathering and they’ll need my help to survive that.”
“Why do you choose friends that are in such need?” Addison muttered. They came to the last cell in the backroom. It was nicer than the others with a proper cot, a tiny table, and a window that was unbarred. “This fellow is Cochrane.” A rather emaciated looking man lay on the cot. He wasn’t asleep but didn’t look awake. His eyes just stared unblinking at the ceiling.
“He’s catatonic.” Jena said.
“Not quite,” Cochrane said, “I’m merely thinking.” He sat up and spun himself around to see the two better.
“Found him on my way back. He was rather bedraggled and desperate.”
“They dumped me on the beach with only a bota of water. I made due.” Cochrane shrugged. “The Light revealed you didn’t it.”
“Right, the Light.” Addison looked at Jena. “He was half-starved and filthy.”
“Why do I care?” She asked.
“Because Cochrane here has to get to The Cathedral in one piece and soon.”
“Does she know?” Cochrane asked Addison, who shook his head.
Addison opened the gate and stepped inside. “Know what?” Jena asked remaining outside.
“There is an armada of Lappalan ships anchored just beyond The Blockade.” Cochrane said.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“They’re gigantic vessels. Biggest ships I’ve ever seen and there’s hundreds of them.” Cochrane continued ignoring her question. “Looming, not attacking or trading or moving on. It’s a great dark shadow on the sea.”
“Poetic.” Jena said bored. She looked at Addison, “You want me to chaperon this guy to The Cathedral, it that it?”
“I could make it on my own, if I wasn’t being hunted.”
“What?” Jena’s face scrunched up visibly annoyed.
“He claims that he was taken prisoner by this fleet from the first. That they let him loose down along the stony shore a little more than a week ago.”
“Why?” Jena shook her head. “Why capture him? Why let him go? And, again, why do I care?”
“Capture him because he was sent by The Cathedral to steal Lappalan secrets, and he succeeded.” Cochrane’s face was blank as he stared at the floor. “Release him? I don’t know maybe for sport.”
“He’s convinced that one of his captors is tracking him.”
Cochrane nodded, “You care because what I know could end The Blockade.” He gestured with his head toward Addison, “And he said, you’d care about that.”
“What did you tell him about me?” She demanded.
“I told him you were a good person.” Addison said defensively. “Look, what you’re asking me to do for Moria isn’t quite a one-to-one exchange for nabbing Heston.”
“So this is? This evens us?”
“I’m just saying, I can’t spare anyone and I know you’re already heading north.”
“Convenient.” Jena gave a mocking smile. “You’re not going to be one of those friends that’s always asking for favors are you?”
Addison shrugged. “Cochrane is more than just a free ranger…”
“I’m a justiciar. Technically.”
Jena’s eyes widened, “What?”
Addison held out his hand to calm her down, “It’s complicated. Point is, I have to see to it that he’s set well on his way.”
“I doubt a justiciar would want the aid of a woman.” Jena sneered.
Cochrane shook his head, “I’m not a Bandran. I’m from Sulecin. Would have been a paladin, but it turns out my skills are more…” Cochrane held out his hands. “Let’s say, I work better with a little more moral flexibility.”
“I wouldn’t think going from being a paladin to a justiciar would facilitate that.”
“I told you, I’m not Bandran. Take away the fundamentalism and you’re left with this,” Cochrane gestured to himself, “The Cathedral’s own ranger. And I’m sent out to do the unseemly things the Light needs done.”
Jena crossed her arms and glared at Addison. He didn’t look at her instead keeping his gaze fixed on Cochrane, “She’s wanted by the Bandrans. Travelling with her, you’ll fit their bounty perfectly.”
Her jaw dropped, “You knew about that? You didn’t turn me in?”
“A vague bounty issued by the Bandran justiciars is something worth ignoring. If I followed up on every one they put out, there’d be no one left in this town.”
Cochrane nodded, “They do tend to overdo it. There’s always someone to accuse of heresy.”
“How’s that gonna help us?” she asked.
“It’s going to hurry you along.” Addison said bluntly. “I’m giving you horses and supplies. You should be able to make it to Sulecin in a fortnight. Maybe less if you really bear down.”
“If we survive.” Cochrane muttered and laid back down with his arm crossed over his face.
“His sect’s bounty hunters and the supposed killer that’s after him.” Addison said. “So you’ll have to get going.”
“Nothing about this makes any sense.” Jena sighed. “I’m sick of this kind of thing.”
“An army in the north, a fleet in the south, and some kind of nonsense going on between Bandra and Sulecin in the faith.” Cochrane muttered.
“Fine.” Jena shook her head. “He can ride with me. But we have to get going. I’m sick of this town.” She turned away walking back out to the front of the station. Addison watched her go. Cochrane slid his arms underneath his head and smiled at him.
“She’s going to be a delight.”
Addison left the cell and said over his shoulder, “He’s your best chance.”
CHAPTER Five
The 1st of Winterfinding
Sulecin
The night air was crisp as the wind brought down random snowflakes from the grey sky. From atop the squat wall that encircled The Cathedral proper, Wynne saw the lights of Sulecin glimmer. He looked up trying to judge the weather’s intent. He suspected the first snow of the season would come over the small hours. It wouldn’t be more than a dusting.
He watched as whirl of light snow spun across the empty stone expanse between the Cathedral wall and the city. Snow was collecting in the corners and crevices. He had been here for weeks and hadn’t made as much progress as he would have liked. Wynne flexed and stretched the fingers of his gloved hand. He hadn’t experienced cold like this in a long time. It was only going to worse.
Already there were reports that Far Port and the Falkstone River were frozen. The weather wasn’t unusual but a small part of Wynne marveled at the notion of a city locked in ice for half the year. Rubbing his palms gazing out over the sacred city, he imagined Sulecin ice bound. Just beyond the lights, emanating from the thousands of low buildings stretching out into the dark horizon would be army pyres. The Spires had amassed its army—a patchwork of Silvincians, Novosars, and, worryingly, Bandra’s justiciars.
There was talk through the halls of the Cathedral, murmurs by the clergy of a schism. The city of Bandra had always stood slightly apart from the proper faith. At least, it did in the eyes of the Cassubians. The founders of the faith here in Sulecin at the heart of the Cassubian nation considered their southern brethren too extreme in their views, too zealous, quick to anger, and lacking foresight. It was nothing more than a transference of their disdain for Silvincian mores. To distinguish itself within the faith, the Bandrans focused on the letter of the law. Merging secular zeal with religious fervor, Bandra became the second most sacred city in the world. The Light shone on Bandra, as the saying went.
Wynne had seen the golden pagodas
once as boy. He was just beginning his merchant career as his first commission took him to the eastern half of the sea. Fat teardrops, he had thought then. Fat, golden tears. The pagodas weren’t painted; they were gilded in gold leaf. Every year each pagoda was restored, given a new layer of gold leaf. There was never a time when the pagodas didn’t shine and they seemed everywhere in the city. When he had first sailed into the harbor he began counting, and once they had moored he had lost count. They varied in height, some were no taller than a small house while others rose hundreds of feet into the air, but each kept the same teardrop shape. The smaller ones usually housed an icon of some sort, an image or sculpture of a passed patriarch or other long dead sacred person.
He had never been a faithless man, but Wynne had never seen the attraction or appeal of the Light. It struck him as a rather silly animism. But it didn’t afford one too much benefit to dwell on it. After all, he was raised in a city of ancestor worshipers. Nearly every city had adapted the Light to its native faith. Yet the Bandrans, they did it in a way that always felt primal, aggressive. It was almost as though they craved the faith for their own and wanted to purge its founders in favor of their own. At least, that was the rumor. A silent campaign had kept Bandrans from ever reaching genuinely high positions in the clergy. That is, until recently, and now there were rumblings.
Wynne’s hands were stiff inside the wool-lined gloves. He wasn’t use to the cold. Making fists, he folded his arms together inside the sleeves of his cassock and turned away from the view of the city. Walking along the parapet, he let his mind wander. What would happen if the Bandrans betrayed the faith, defying the patriarch? It wasn’t practical. Too much to lose, it seemed to him. Yet if there was one thing he had learned about the ardent of the faith, it was that they often were shortsighted. Most people were. Most didn’t have the time (or convinced themselves they didn’t have the time) to think beyond the moment, the immediate. In reality, they often didn’t have the skill. In reality, they usually didn’t have the patience to raise their head and embrace the full field. Wynne’s father had called it distance vision.
“Does the Light have you?”
Wynne stopped abruptly. He snapped back the world around him and saw before him a priest standing in very plain clothes. Clothes that weren’t made for the out of doors.
“I’m must apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you.” The priest didn’t move but gazed at Wynne with calm, almost sleepy looking eyes.
“No, no,” he waved away the concerns, “I needed air to think.”
“It is bracing, isn’t it?” The priest took a deep breath and let out a long cloud of breath. “I too find it clears my mind, allows me to take in more of the world’s possibilities.”
“Yes, well…” Wynne was annoyed at himself for losing touch with his surroundings.
“Tonight would be better if these clouds went away. Do you know that the auroras should be occurring soon?”
“I am sorry…” Wynne gestured to the priest hoping to pry a name from his seemingly eager lips.
“Pallas.” He smiled taking a few steps forward and pass Wynne. Pallas didn’t turn to look back at Wynne but did continue talking, “Perhaps you should linger out here a bit longer, Wynne Landis.”
He turned looking after Pallas but the priest just kept walking with is back to him. When he had first arrived in Sulecin, Wynne had found a place to stay in one of the poorer districts. Partly to keep a low profile but also because it would be easiest to come across the one soul he trusted in the city, a man named Cyr.
Not an ordinary man, though Cyr would certainly have referred to himself as nothing more than that, he was a gyrovagi, an order of wandering monks who served the poor. Gyrovagi were considered the lowest of the orders serving the Light, yet this was mostly due to snobbery within the clergy. When the vast majority of your ranks are made up of third and fourth born noble sons, the order of the faith tasked with proselytizing to the common folk and those in poverty tend to be sneered at.
Wynne was under on false belief; there were some churlish gyrovagi using their position to fleece everything could from the poor. Cyr, however, was perhaps the model for what one of his order should strive to be. He was humble and tireless in his efforts not to just spread the faith but to care for those he came upon. Cyr believed that through his actions he could inspire even the lowest. They had met years before The Blockade when Cyr was tasked with shoring up the faithful of Heveonen and Rikonen. He had had middling to slim success but you wouldn’t have known it by how gregarious and kind he had been. Wynne had taken to him immediately and the two had long discussions about faith and philosophy, usually over far too many mugs of beer.
He had found Cyr running an orphanage of sorts, a home for the wayward of the city. When he saw him, Cyr had welcomed Wynne in with open arms as though no time at all had passed since they last saw one another. It was from him that he had been given the name of another gyrovagi, one less scrupulous, who Cyr suspected of being among a particularly ambitious group of clergy. There were always factions in any ruling body, but those within the Cathedral made all others look like child’s play.
The friar Cyr had direct him to (while expressly warning him to steer clear of the wretched man) had promised to get him an audience with several vicegerents. Nothing had materialized, though Wynne had cleared the first hurdle. He was allowed to occupy chambers in the Cathedral proper as a foreign dignitary. However, that was where he had stalled. Until now.
“Ebon Danforth is a wretched friar.” Pallas said casually. Wynne hadn’t rushed after the priest but did increase his stride to catch up with him. “It pains me to have to be in his presence. However, he is a dreadful liar. Good, really, for only overhearing and retaining choice bits of information.”
Wynne came alongside Pallas as the two walked back over the path that Wynne had come. “When I spoke with him, ages ago it seems, he believed he could help me in my cause.”
“Your cause isn’t hopeless but no one here is willing to weaken their own position within the Cathedral.”
“Standing beside me would do that.”
Pallas nodded, “So they all believe. Of course, you stand here now.”
“You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t know of you.”
“Nor should you really,” Pallas smiled, “I belong to a rather obscure order.”
There was silence as they walked along the parapet. Wynne didn’t want to seem too eager even though time was running short for him. He had learned over the years that if a person wanted to speak they would in due course.
Finally, Pallas stopped and gestured down to the wide, empty expanse between the Cathedral’s wall and the city. “Do you know what that is?”
“Those in the city call it the promenade.”
Pallas nodded, “Yes, the Winterfinding as well as the Midsummer festivals use it. The common folk build their pageant wagons and carry their litters on their shoulders as their processions circle around the Cathedral. It’s very colorful and pleasant, even when the weather doesn’t cooperate.” Pallas looked up into the sky then down around them at the accumulated snow.
“But that’s not all.” Wynne prompted.
“No, it’s not. It’s not even the reason. That’s just what people have decided to do. No, that promenade is really a channel. A great false floor of stone covers what is probably the deepest channel in the world. And at the bottom of that channel is river of sewage. It encircles the Cathedral, a thick river of shit.”
Wynne was taken back, “If that were true, wouldn’t the smell be pungent enough for any and all to notice.”
Pallas turned slightly and wagged a finger, “You would think so, wouldn’t you. But, no. The covering keeps the fetid air trapped and, it’s said, the guttermen add a powder to the drains that neutralizes the stench. At least, to some degree.”
“Still seems like a rather poor design.” Wynne replied.
“Not the best sewer system, no. But is it a great defensive asset?
Yes, it is.” Wynne raised an eyebrow, and Pallas continued. “That surface can be drawn back leaving a gaping chasm. It’s existed since before the Cathedral was built.”
“The channel?”
“Yes, but when the Cathedral was built, incorporating the channel—digging it deeper, making it wider, covering it with retractable stone—was the true marvel.”
“I never knew that could be done.”
“The last time it happened was nearly eighty years ago, when the patriarch was elected.”
“Why then?”
“Because whenever there is a conclave, it is retracted so that no one from the outside can interfere with the decisions being made inside.”
“People have just forgotten about it. Because the patriarch has been seated so long.”
“Exactly,” Pallas said smiling, “but soon I believe we will see it again.”
“I know the patriarch is old but is he unwell?”
“I am not offering you idle gossip, Wynne Landis.” Pallas was serious. “I am part of a faction that will soon see to it that a conclave is struck.”
“Although I am merely an ambassador from a city under siege, I am still one of the faithful. And if I hear that the patriarch’s life is being threatened, I must let the paladins know.”
“You are no more a part of the faith that I am, Wynne Landis.” Pallas smirked and turned away. He continued walking along the parapet. Wynne didn’t hesitate this time and kept pace with him.
“You know who I am, obviously. But you’ve given me scant information about yourself.” Wynne said.
“Your point?”
“That is not how trust is built.”
Pallas laughed. It wasn’t mocking or spiteful, but it still rankled a bit. “There are so many ways to build trust. Usually when people tell me know to build trust, they don’t approve of the method I’m using. I guess it makes sense. Some would argue that we have a natural inclination to impose our will on others.”
“But not you.” Wynne was beginning to get a sense of the kind of man Pallas was. He sounded too cunning to be a proper clergyman.
