A Season of Rendings

by Adam J Nicolai

  No. The thought was pure venom. She can do the curséd copying alone. I won't give her the satisfaction. I refuse.

  In the quiet room, his stomach rumbles: a reminder to them all of the stakes. They are out of food now, the last of the venison jerky eaten and the final coin spent. Is his wounded pride of greater import than his friends' survival? Of his own? What kind of hero would stand on stubbornness while his companions starve?

  Perhaps this is all he is, in the end: a petulant whiner who would rather let his friends go hungry than suffer the smallest indignity.

  Oh, for the love of winter. He turned around to face the corner. "Moshka do vér te," he began, praying to Kirith a'jhul and Akir and any other god listening not to let Syntal hear.

  Mistress Zandra seated him on the opposite side of the hall from Syn, just behind a sandy-haired young man named Mark. Angbar knew his name because he was constantly chatting with the friends seated all around him, and one of them used his name nearly every time he opened his mouth.

  "Mark," this other kid would whisper, or at least he thought he was whispering; actually, he wasn't half as quiet as he thought he was. "Mark!" Lanky and slouched, his forehead frothing with ragged black bangs.

  Mark would turn to him, the same expectant, bemused expression on his face every time, and they would all fall to snickers and susurration.

  Angbar did his best to ignore them, but unlike every other scribe in the hall, they were not focused on their work. Mistress Zandra, who had so little patience for lax work, seemed to turn a blind eye to these boys. Even though he sat behind them, they glanced back and forth so much that there was a constant risk they'd see him—maybe while he was chanting.

  He craned his head toward the far end of the hall, but couldn't see Syntal. He had no idea if she'd managed the chant unnoticed yet or not. This had seemed like a brilliant idea when she'd first told him about it, but now that it came to it, trying to chant surreptitiously in a hall full of people seemed like a really dumb plan. Possibly the dumbest plan in a whole year full of them.

  Finally, during a rare interval of brief, hard work at Mark's table, he Ascended and rattled off the first chant, the one to mask his eyes. He felt a familiar heat behind the bridge of his nose; it had worked, and no one had screamed for his immediate execution. His heart pounding, he tried to Ascend again—but his nervousness tripped him up, and the focus he'd grasped so easily just a second before eluded him.

  You have to do the second chant quickly, Syntal had told him. The spell to prevent the chanter's glow only lasts a short time. But the more he failed to Ascend, the more nervous he became, and the more nervous he became . . .

  He fumbled for the mantras, reciting them in his head like he'd learned to do over the winter when he'd needed to fall back on them. His jangling nerves calmed, just enough to untether him from his body and launch him into the boundless mysteries of the universe. He felt his tongue rattling off Syntal's new chant, the one he'd spent hours committing to memory, and this time when he came back to himself, the quill in his hand thrummed gently.

  "What?" Mark had turned around, looking at him, his long, horse-like face now screwed up in an expression of challenge.

  "What?" Angbar stammered back.

  "Did you say something? Nog?" He appended the insult like an afterthought, a clarification. Seth had called Angbar a nog a million times. It had never sounded like that.

  "What? No, sorry, I . . . was just . . . sounding something out." That heat came into his face again, ten times stronger than the remnant of the first spell he'd chanted. Why had he said that? Of all the excuses he could've made, he had to make himself out to be some kind of near-illiterate?

  Now the kid with the bangs turned around. "He got a problem with us, Mark?" His eyes shifted to Angbar, who looked down at the table. "We too loud for you, nog?"

  There it was again. It meant something different here, something meaner.

  "He's just struggling with the words," Mark said. "It's tough for them. They got a head for numbers, not words."

  Bangs scoffed and shook his head, as if Angbar's very existence were preposterous, and turned back to work.

  His hand shaking, Angbar started copying.

  They finished just after midday: twenty-one pages from Angbar and twenty-seven from Syntal, a total of forty-eight pages. Mistress Zandra looked skeptical, scrutinizing each page with exaggerated diligence. "You have a tremor in your tees," she noted, without taking her eyes from the page. "It happens in the exact same place nearly every time." She sniffed. "The script is usable, but only just. I'll have to dock you for quality."

  Fine, Angbar wanted to say. Good. He was sick of this place; he just wanted to leave.

  "No," Syntal said. When Zandra's eyebrows shot up, she went on, "We already negotiated the lowest rate you've ever paid out. You checked our script before you hired us. You knew what it looked like. And there's no provision in the contract for docking pay based on quality."

  Zandra fumed, her fingers trembling on the sheets. She's going to rip them up, Angbar thought. We're not getting anything.

  "We can aim to do better tomorrow. I'm sure with practice we'll improve. But we had an agreement with you, and we've held up our end."

  Zandra glanced at Angbar before turning back to Syntal. "Fine. I can make an allowance for today, as it is your first day. But not tomorrow. Clean this up"—she gestured at the parchment in disgust—"or get half."

  She set one shell and ten heels on the counter. Syntal scooped them up.

  "She thought she wouldn't have to pay us at all," she whispered once they were out on the street. "That's why she's so jumpy. Probably try to undercut us again tomorrow, but she is getting good work out of it. Mine was only shaky because I was so nervous."

  "Yeah," Angbar muttered. "Same."

  "I'll probably be better tomorrow, just like I said. I think I'm getting a feel for it. I didn't get caught once today. Did you?"

  Angbar thought of Mark and his friends, of the close call he'd had. "Nope."

  "All the same we should probably take it slow tomorrow. Barely make the quota, maybe try the chant five or six times so that we have a few sets of papers, instead of just several identical copies that all look the same. Then we could shuffle them all before handing them in. You think?"

  Angbar had barely made the quota as it was, and he'd pushed himself as hard as he could. He was exhausted from chanting, his mind wiped out like he'd spent the whole morning working geometry theorems. He could easily sleep the rest of the afternoon, and he'd only cast the spell twice. He wouldn't be able to do it four times, let alone six. "M'sai."

  "She was starting to get suspicious, but if we have multiple types of copies and shuffle them up, I think it'll throw her off." Syntal paused, oblivious as always to his reticence, completely unaware of his fatigue. She would see it if she would take even a second to look at him—to really look at him—but she didn't.

  She never did.

  It hit him then. Since they'd fled Southlight, he'd thought of her as a good friend. He'd thought they were getting closer because that's how he had felt. But he was no longer sure it was also how she felt.

  It came through in a million little ways: the way she didn't pick up on his exhaustion or his simmering concerns, the way she never asked him what was wrong, that look of utter shock on her face when he'd tried to kiss her. She'd had no idea it was coming because she'd spent no time thinking about him. To her he was, at most, a sounding board off of which she could bounce ideas—always good for a fawning look, a round of glowing praise. It had to be nice, after having to hide what she was for all those years, to have someone that was always on her side. He didn't blame her for that. He was even glad he could be that person for her. But couldn't she reciprocate? Even a little? Kirith a'jhul, they didn't have to be together if he really repulsed her that badly. He could find a way to swallow his wounded pride to salvage their friendship. But right now, they weren't even truly friends.

  He was
just a . . . thing to her. A tool.

  "Should we head up to the Hall of the Council? Do some scouting? I had an idea about how we could―"

  Angbar brushed past her, fighting not to let her see the sudden tears in his eyes. He coughed and swiped at them, feigning bravado. "I can't. I know you can chant all day but I'm exhausted. Sorry."

  "Oh." Again, that legitimate shock, as if she had no idea this refusal had been coming. "We can take a break first if you want. Get something to eat and―"

  "Sorry," Angbar said again, walking away.

  Despite himself, he was a little relieved when she fell in behind him. "M'sai," she finally agreed. "Maybe tomorrow?"

  He let the question hang, relishing having the upper hand for once.

  They stopped at a food cart and spent six heels on raw carrots and cauliflower for dinner, then maneuvered through the streets, packed with carts and merchants and people wearing God's Stars. He was beginning to feel like he knew his way around the city—or at least, that he could navigate from Mistress Zandra's to their little home in the slums without too much difficulty. It was a twenty-minute walk, and he knew he was getting close when he began to see the broken buildings—some missing windows, some missing walls—marked with a red slash.

  He hadn't noticed the marks the first night, or the night he'd tried to kiss Syntal and fled. But on subsequent trips they had stood out to him. Across the front door (or, on buildings with no door, across the stone next to the doorframe): a stark red line. A mark of condemnation.

  Red Quarter. He'd caught the phrase here and there, in stolen snatches of overheard conversation around town. He didn't know what the mark meant, exactly, but he had a feeling it had something to do with making sure the city's poor, sick, and rejected stayed out of the Fatherlord's pretty temples.

  As he passed the first building with a red slash, he decided he was fine with that. Red might have been brimming with homeless people and thugs, but he'd never seen anyone wearing a God's Star there. As far as he was concerned, that made it the safest place in Tal'aden.

  Still, they kept their guard up, and crossed the street more than once to avoid crowds. They weren't from around here, everyone knew it, and Angbar could feel their suspicious gazes chasing him over the cobblestones. When they reached the rundown sign for Kettleback Avenue, a block from home, he felt a familiar surge of relief; but when they rounded the corner, it stuttered and vanished.

  A crowd milled in their alley, blocking the way.

  iii. Lyseira

  "It's watercough." The boy had thirteen winters, pale and dirty, with a hint of a mustache staining his upper lip. His little brother, one-third his age, clutched his leg like a lifeline, and an old woman lay curled in a ball on a blanket behind him, every breath a wet rasp. The two of them had dragged her here. "You can hear it when she breathes. Please. She's real sick, you can hear it. We don't have any money, but I—I heard you don't . . ."

  Desperation and fear fought in the boy's face. Lyseira had seen the same look on four other faces already today—scared to approach, but too sick to risk staying away.

  She put a hand on his shoulder. "What's your name?"

  He met her eyes. She could feel him trembling, but his voice stayed sure. "Moab. This is Ramoth"—he indicated his brother—"and my grandma's always taken care of us, ever since my mom died in the winter."

  "M'sai, Moab. Do you have faith in Akir?" The Abbot had always asked this question before working a miracle on another's behalf, and though she hadn't asked it of any of the adults she had already helped today, something about Moab's age reminded her. It felt like a formality, but his answer surprised her.

  "I . . . I can't say as I do or don't. Do I need that? Will it help her?"

  "He does!" Ramoth insisted. "He does have it, I saw!"

  They don't even know what I'm asking. The question was just an obstacle to them, another inscrutable barrier to God's healing. Does the Church do anything for these people?

  "Wait, are you . . . ? Do you mean do I believe in God?" Moab asked. "Yes, I do. Yes."

  Believing and having faith are not the same thing. More of The Abbot's teachings, lessons she had striven for years to understand that had no relevance here. None at all. These kids would say anything to save their grandmother—she was all they had. If Lyseira stood here demanding they lie about their faith before she would help them, she was no better than Father Annish, the selfish, spineless deacon that had replaced The Abbot.

  Suddenly her question about faith felt like a pointless exercise in cruelty. She was ashamed she'd asked it.

  "M'sai," she said, brushing the boy's protests away and kneeling. The old woman was nearly skeletal, frail with hunger and sickness. Lyseira could help with one of those problems.

  She opened herself to Akir and felt His presence flood her, a fire that roared in her chest but burned brightest in her eyes and fingertips. Watercough was no different than a festering wound, when it came to it: both were spirits working at the body, feeding on it, ruining it. In the case of a wound, a quick bandage and a proper cleaning could help keep the spirits out, but with sickness, they had already arrived and needed to be purged.

  The heat poured through her and into Moab's grandmother, driving the spirits from the woman's lungs. She jerked to her hands and knees, her body heaving as she coughed up strings of bloody phlegm.

  "Grandma!" Ramoth dove to her side, panicked. "Gran!"

  Moab whirled on Lyseira. "What did you do to her?"

  "It's a'fin." The aftermath of Akir's glory spangled Lyseira's vision: brilliant, blazing spots that morphed and swam. "She's well. She needs to purge. Drive out the sickness." The floor swirled beneath her and she stumbled, throwing a hand toward the wall, but it wasn't where she thought it was.

  "Lyseira!" Seth had been standing near the door, holding the crowd at bay; now he launched across the room, catching her before she could fall. "All right. Enough. Everyone go! She's done all she can!"

  "Grandma?" Ramoth said again.

  "Ramoth?" the old woman managed between panting breaths. "Moab?"

  "Everyone out!" Seth demanded. "That's enough!"

  Lyseira's vision swirled, the blind spots slowly fading. "No, it's all right. I just need a moment, that's all. You can stay." As the children helped their grandmother to her feet, Lyseira smiled at her. "Akir has made you well." She couldn't see the woman's face, but she had seen the automatic response to those words often enough to predict it, so she went on, "It's a gift. No donation needed."

  "Have you any food?" the little boy asked. "We ran out of―"

  "Ramoth!" Moab cuffed him on the shoulder.

  "Food?" Seth fairly snarled. He steered Lyseira toward the collapsed pillar that passed for a bench, pressed her into a sitting position. "She just saved your grandmother's life out of the kindness of her heart!"

  "Thank you." Moab bowed, helping his grandma toward the exit. "I—just—thank you."

  "Akir keep you." Lyseira wanted them to know the miracle had come from Akir, and she felt like she should say something, but the words were too stiff. Their formality achieved nothing. They weren't relevant, they weren't helpful, and above all, they weren't dinner.

  That woman caught the watercough because her body is too weak to repel it. The Abbot had told her: healthy people stay healthy. Better to prevent than to treat. And her body is so weak because she's not eating. As her vision gradually returned, she saw the family of three make their way back into the alley—all frighteningly thin. She'll be dead in two months without food, and her grandchildren not far behind her.

  The truth, though, was that Lyseira herself was famished. She'd had nothing to eat since the night before, when they had all finished the last of their venison, and that had been the barest of meals to begin with. Syntal and Angbar had promised to return from their first day of work with food, but if they didn't . . .

  Cosani's words whispered in her mind, stark as prophecy: You live here now, too.

  Seth retur
ned to the door, where a young Bahiri man leaned against the threshold. A filthy, crusted rag swathed his right thigh, his face weak with pallor and shining with sweat. She could smell the spirits in his wound from here. It had to have taken every ounce of his strength to reach her.

  Seth blocked him and told him to leave.

  "No!" She stood up, keeping her balance this time. "Let him in."

  Seth glanced at her, naked disbelief in his eyes. "Lys, you are weak." It was practically a plea. And her nickname? He hardly ever used that. "Please. They can come back tomorrow, if they must."

  She sighed. He's only trying to look out for me. Thank Akir someone is. "This one can't," she said, apologetically. "Look at his leg, he . . ." She trailed off. She didn't want to scare the man.

  Seth kept a hand to the visitor's chest, but turned and took a step toward her, dropping his voice. "There are at least three more behind him," he whispered. "One more than the last time I looked."

  "And most of them are probably just hungry," she returned. "You know we can't do anything for them. The more of them we see today, the more they'll spread the word that we don't have any food."

  Seth did not look at all convinced of this logic. "You're pushing yourself too far. What if we're attacked tonight? What if the―?" He slapped his mouth shut, but the intensity in his eyes finished the sentence for him: What if the Church finds us, and you're too weak to stand?

  A caustic laugh scraped out of her throat. "Seth, look around. They never come here. We're living in their garbage dump." She took a step toward him, gently pressed his arm away from their visitor.

  "Hello." She smiled. "Welcome. You're going to be well." She had him sit down and unwrap the festering wound in his leg.

  She couldn't feed him. She couldn't fix Red Quarter, or eliminate the gangs that had probably done this to him, or force the Church to use its miracles the way Ethaniel Isaihne had.