A Season of Rendings

by Adam J Nicolai

  i. Angbar

  He woke to the stench of sehk and the clammy caress of cold stone on his cheek. The pain in his leg and torso had vanished, the crossbow bolts a fading memory.

  "Enough, now," a grating voice said. "I know you're awake."

  Arms gripped him, hauled him to his feet—a Preserver on either side of him, handling him like a ragdoll. They dragged him to a wooden bench with a device attached to one end that looked like a stocks, then seated him with his back to the device and his legs stretched out in front of him on the bench. A quiet dread tickled the back of his mind, a sensation like being trapped in a Night story.

  What are you doing? he tried to ask, but he had a rag in his mouth. He glanced around for the speaker and took in a small, simple cell. A single heavy door marked one wall, and an old man in an ornate scarlet robe watched from the corner, clericlight shining from the God's Star at his neck.

  The Preservers yanked Angbar's arms behind him, snapping the stocks around them at the biceps, and secured his wrists on the other side with manacles. Short of cutting his arms off, there was now no way to escape.

  The old man walked to the side of the long bench, just at the edge of Angbar's vision. Angbar flinched away from the glaring light of his amulet.

  "Your life has been spared by God's will, at my invocation," the man said. "It belongs to me now."

  The back of Angbar's skull was flush to the stocks behind him, making his shoulders creak with pain as he turned his head, but he forced himself to look at the speaker. Even squinting, though, he couldn't make out the man's face beyond the brilliance of his clericlight.

  "Your wounds were mortal, and removed by invocation as well. They, too, belong to me. Although . . . how often you revisit them is a question within your control.

  "I'm going to remove your gag now. You will not chant. You will speak only in High Tongue. Any deviation from this instruction, and you will suffer. Nod if you understand."

  With his hands locked behind him like this, he wouldn't be able to chant anyway. Angbar nodded. One of the Preservers dug into his mouth and pulled out the rag.

  "Let's start simply. What is your name?"

  Angbar licked his parched lips, but his tongue felt like a cat's. His mouth was a desert.

  Should I answer him? Does he already know? Should I lie?

  "Where―" Angbar started, and collapsed into coughing.

  "You must be thirsty. I have water for you, if you're cooperative. But 'where' is a strange name indeed. Try again."

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Where is my friend?"

  "Which friend is that?" the priest returned at once.

  Don't say her name. Maybe she escaped. Maybe she's working to free you now. Maybe he doesn't know about Lyseira or Seth—he almost certainly doesn't know about Iggy or Helix.

  Don't say her name.

  The priest made a slight gesture. One of the Preservers took the long finger on Angbar's right hand, and snapped it.

  His howl echoed in the dark chamber until it melted into sobs. It was every nightmare from his childhood, every bit of terror he'd felt about The Abbot multiplied a thousand times.

  The heroes in the stories stared down torture with defiance, willing to suffer any fate to protect their friends, but the stories never talked about how helpless the heroes were. How devastatingly alone.

  A hero is merely a man until he is faced with his most desperate fears. The steel of courage is not forged in a mundane life; it is forged in adversity. In loneliness and terror. Only when a man is made to bear his deepest terrors will he realize what it truly means to be heroic.

  "Beh'lal," Angbar breathed between sobs.

  "Say again?"

  "My name is Beh'lal."

  Behind his glaring clericlight, the priest smirked. "Hardly."

  They snapped the long finger of his other hand, and his sobs turned to screams once more.

  ii. Syntal

  She woke to the smell of lilacs, and the caress of a cool breeze on her cheek. Her eyes opened to a small bedroom with a lavish rug, beautifully furnished. Gauzy drapes fluttered in the open window next to her bed. An end table set with a single vase of artful flowers perched delicately at her bedside. Her clothes had been replaced with a modest, white shift; beneath it, the wounds in her stomach and chest were gone.

  She bolted upright, alarms bursting in her mind. A trick. What is this?

  "You're awake," said a lanky Preserver, standing next to the room's only door.

  "Where are my books?" The question escaped before she could stop it.

  "Safe. Once you're dressed, knock on the door. You have a meeting to attend." He slipped outside, and she heard the door click locked behind him.

  She stayed on the bed, her ears pricked like a cat's, her heart thundering, expecting him to come back in or for a Tribunal witch hunter to take his place. She waited while footsteps passed in the hallway outside the door and low voices discussed linens and laundry. Eventually a young woman's laugh drifted through the open window, and she glanced that way to see a dizzying view of the city, arrayed out beneath her like an intricate child's model. She was so high she couldn't even make out the person who had laughed; the people milling about in the square far below were indistinguishable from one another.

  Sanctaria, she realized. I'm in Basica Sanctaria. She leaned out the open window just far enough to peer around its edge, to take in the mirror-like surface of the wall beyond, gleaming like crystal. Then dizziness—triggered by the height or her unreal situation, maybe both—forced her back, her head spinning.

  Why? Who is waiting to see me? Where is Angbar? Too many questions. She was disoriented, didn't even know how long she'd been out.

  She looked out the window once more. The March stretched like a river, people milling along it like schools of salmon, just to the right of her window. I'm facing northeast. I can see the crystal tower's shadow. It was afternoon, then, or evening. But was it still the same day she'd broken the third Seal? Or had that been the day before?

  The thought of the new wardbook triggered a rush of dismay in her chest. She hadn't even had a chance to look at it. The chants alone would be priceless, but worse, Lar'atul had probably left a clue to the location of the fourth book in it. Without that clue, she had no chance of finding it.

  She grabbed at her left hand to twist her ring, an old habit she didn't even realize she was attempting until her fingers found flesh. She looked at her hand in disbelief. The ring was gone—along with her coin purse and a dagger she'd had tied to her right calf.

  They shot me, robbed me, then set me up in a gorgeous guest room in the crystal tower. Why?

  One thing was clear: if they'd wanted her dead, she'd be dead. This realization brought her some comfort, but only fleetingly. If they'd chosen to keep her alive, what did it mean that Angbar wasn't here?

  Horrible possibilities, all far too likely, crowded into her reeling thoughts. No. He can't be dead. He can't be.

  She was going in circles, getting nowhere. She could step out the window and use her magic to hover safely to the ground, but it would mean leaving her books and her friends behind. She had to get more answers, and for that, she only had one option.

  The Preserver had said to get dressed. A heavy desk with an assortment of quills and inks stood against the far wall, but a rich, mahogany wardrobe loomed next to it. She opened it to find the breeches and tunic she'd last been wearing, along with the two other changes of clothes she'd kept with her since Southlight. The tears in all three outfits were mended, and the fabric laundered so well the smell was nearly out of them. But hanging next to those was a merchant's ransom in fine clothing: gorgeous, embroidered robes and dresses in both violet and black, colors which perfectly offset her green eyes.

  What was this all about? A gift? A bribe?

  She scoffed at the clothes and pulled on her well-worn tunic and breeches, then checked herself in the full-length mirror, returned to the door, and rapped twice.

&n
bsp; "I'm ready."

  The Preserver escorted her through myriad elegant hallways, with dozens of doors that looked just like hers. Servants bustled between these, dusting, washing, and gathering laundry, with the occasional young initiate directing them.

  She saw more people than she would've expected. Not priests, judging by their dress, but most likely guests for the Dedication. Nobility. She had never in her life seen so much finery.

  Eventually the hallway opened into a strange little lobby area on the right, and the Preserver stopped them there. It had no doors or normal exits, but on its long wall stood three ornate golden gates. Beyond two of them stretched an empty shaft, extending up and down into darkness, with two pairs of ropes stretched taut on either wall. Behind the third gate waited a small, empty room, maybe five feet on a side. No, she realized, not a room—a platform, with waist-high rails all round, suspended in a shaft just like the other two.

  "Syntal Smith, to see the Fatherlord on twenty-eight," the Preserver said to the waiting servant, a well-dressed man in his later years. The servant picked up a horn-like device hanging from the wall by a sturdy cord and spoke into it: "Shaft three, eighteen up." He then smiled, slid aside the gate in front of the platform, and guided her on to it. The floor was slightly canted, just enough for her to realize only the ropes anchored it in place.

  She fought the urge to chant her hovering spell and gripped the rails instead. The servant closed the gate behind her as the Preserver that had escorted her made his exit.

  Guess he's not coming. She had a sudden vision of the ropes snapping, all of this nothing more than an elaborate trap to make her death look like an accident.

  "Proceed on shaft three," the servant said from the lobby, and the platform gave a sudden lurch upwards.

  The four pairs of ropes moved more-or-less in synchrony, one side of each shifting up while the other moved down. Some kind of pulley system. She found herself impressed despite her steadily building terror. I wonder if it has any kind of failsafe, in case one of the ropes frays.

  She craned her head back, taking in the full height of the dark shaft. It extended upward as far as she could see, but at regular intervals came banks of light, all against the same wall. As she came level with the first of these, she realized it was another little lobby, like the one she'd entered through, with another servant and another horn on the wall. Then came another, and another. The fourth lobby and the rest were no longer open to the hallway beyond, but closed off by a door.

  The platform finally stopped ascending after nearly ten minutes. This time, there was no lobby; the gate opened directly into a stately, spacious hallway, where the platform operator (as she had come to think of them) waited with two Preservers.

  "This way," one of them said. As he began to walk, the other fell into place behind her.

  The opulence of this new level put everything she had seen before it to shame. A rich, velvety shag carpeted every inch of the floor. Fine art—paintings, tapestries, sculptures set into recessed alcoves—lined both walls. After a short walk, though, the art on the left wall gave way to glassed windows, which provided a breathtaking view of the March, the city, and much of the landscape beyond. If the people had been salmon from her first room, they were barely minnows here.

  She stumbled to a halt despite herself, captivated. Even the clouds looked attainable here. She remembered the snatch of laughter that had drifted through the window in her room and shook her head. No simple human laughter could reach this place.

  The Preserver behind her prodded her forward. Ahead the hallway turned to the right, and down a short corridor on the left wall stood an enormous double door, open to the hall. They escorted her through into a giant study, the walls lined with bookcases, the open floor pocked with fine furniture.

  The far wall, to her left as she entered, was taken up almost entirely by a commanding glass window and a dizzying view of earth and sky. In front of this stood a broad mahogany desk, the grandfather of the smaller one she'd seen in her room that morning, littered with tidy stacks of books and parchment, inkwells and quills. And behind the desk stood an older man, perhaps ten winters older than her Uncle Kevric, in a shining white raiment. Gold and silver thread emblazoned a God's Star on His chest. His gaze was at once gentle and stern. Two more Preservers flanked Him.

  "Good day, Syntal Smith," He said. "Please approach Me." As she neared the desk, He said, "Do you know who I am?"

  Her lips had gone dry. "I . . ." she started, and had to clear her throat. "I don't dare guess."

  "I am the Fatherlord of Akir's holy Church." He gestured at one of the chairs in front of His desk. "Please, sit. We have much to discuss."

  Terror nibbled at the edges of her thoughts, trying to force its way in. I should have left through my window. It was the only chance I had. They don't know I can do that, I might have gotten away, but now—

  She had a sudden vision of chanting Hover, charging past the Fatherlord, and diving through the window behind Him. The spell would be active, but latent; once she was in freefall, she could invoke it to slow herself and descend at a controlled rate to the ground. It was a good plan, she tried to tell herself, and the only chance still left to her.

  Except the Preservers will catch me before I make it three steps. The Fatherlord will Bind me when they do. The window could be reinforced. I'm so far up I'm not even sure I could maintain the chant long enough to reach the ground, and I would descend so slowly in any case that they'd be prepared for me by the time I touched down.

  She imagined lighting softly into a waiting throng of Preservers. Angbar would've cackled at the irony.

  "Syntal," the Fatherlord said, "I didn't spare your life so I could harm you." He gestured again at the chairs. "But I make no request twice."

  Syntal drew a shaky breath, trying to screw up the courage to attempt the chant despite the plan's abysmal chance of success. Then she saw her three wardbooks, along with a new, blank book she had purchased with her scribing money—a few pages of which were already filled with her scribing chant and notes on several other new spells she had started trying to piece together.

  He had them. They were here, on His desk.

  She sat.

  "Good." He sat as well, opposite her across the sprawling desk, and patted the books. "Yes, these were brought to Me after My men brought you down."

  Those are mine. She wanted to speak the words, to channel Lyseira's defiance, but she couldn't. Her courage always failed her when she most needed it. Wait, she told herself instead. My chance will come.

  "They're most interesting; I had one of My scribes review them while you slept. The Tribunal has silenced many witches in the years since the first Rending, and some of them had a book like these, but for a single witch to have four of them? Three of which are filled completely, one of which has detailed instructions for learning sorcery, and another of which includes notes for several new spells of the witch's own devising?" He spread His hands. "It's unheard of."

  His casual tone shifted into one of command. "Where did you get them?"

  The question arrested her, sent her heart into a frenzy that was surely visible at her neck. She felt herself withering beneath His stare.

  "I found them." She barely finished speaking before He pressed on.

  "Where?" A single word, a dagger draped in velvet.

  Don't tell Him. The question was just the start; answering it honestly meant telling Him everything. Lie. Delay. Something.

  "The blank one I bought here. In Tal'aden. The scribe master I worked for sold it to me at a discount in exchange for foregoing part of my wages for the day."

  "I see." He tapped the first wardbook—the one she had found under the lake as a little girl, just after her parents died; the one that had triggered the first Storm and changed the world when she'd opened it. "Where did you find this one?"

  He'll go back to Southlight if I tell Him. If her aunt and uncle had survived the Tribunal's first visit to Southlight, they would
surely never survive a second. "On a trip, as a child, with my father."

  "A trip to where?"

  "To Felmar. We . . ." She grasped at recent events, letting elements of them filter into the story. The best lies always have a fair bit of truth, Angbar had told her once. "There was a wagon, an overturned wagon. It looked like bandits. Everyone was dead, but the thieves had left the book. My father took it, but he could never figure out how to get it open."

  "Why not?"

  "It had a clasp." She pointed at the metal band, now shorn in two, which still hung limply from the book's covers. "He couldn't get through it for anything. There was no keyhole, and nothing he tried could cut the metal—or the cover, he tried the cover too. It was all impervious to everything he tried."

  "Did he try burning the book?"

  "I . . . not that I saw."

  "And yet, it's open now."

  She nodded. "On the morning of the St—the Rending, it opened. He told me it opened when the Rending happened." This was a safe lie. She had fooled her own friends with it for months. She would make for the window before she would tell the Fatherlord the truth—that she had opened the book and caused the first Storm, by speaking the rune on the book's clasp.

  He set the book on its binding, took the pieces of the metal band, and held them together. The marks on them combined to form a rune like a stylized h. "Salgo," He said, speaking the rune aloud. "Interesting."

  Suddenly, He winced and dropped the book to clutch at His head. The four Preservers, impossibly, tensed. "M'sai," He grunted. "Yes, all right." He looked at her, His composure restored, but when He opened His mouth to speak, He grimaced again. "Just let me―!" He began, and abruptly cut off.

  Then He settled His hands on the desk and gave her a disarming smile that was anything but. "I know you're lying," He said. "I don't even entirely blame you—I might lie as well, were I in your circumstance. But the book was a kind of seal, wasn't it? You opened the clasp and broke the Seal. The Rending resulted."

  "No," she stammered. "No, that's not how it happened." A transparent lie, even in her own ears. He knows. How does He know?