A Season of Rendings

by Adam J Nicolai

  "A chant holds it closed." The blood on her face turned her quiet smile macabre. "A hard test, capped by a simple question."

  "Syn," he said again. The sword fairly rattled in its sheath now, its hum loud as a song. "Syn, wait, the sword is really―"

  "Sev siir rok," she ordered. "Kor rok riis."

  The book opened in her hands. The sky split with silent lightning.

  And the sword's song became a scream.

  24

  i. Lyseira

  Brilliant azure light, so vivid it penetrated her blindness. A bizarre, metallic scream that faded to a clang, then an echo, before it cracked and broke into its constituent pieces: human shouts, the clatter of swordplay, the groans of the dying.

  The light faded with it, receding until her vision renewed, coalescing into Helix's sword. But Helix wasn't holding it—and she wasn't in Kesselholm. She was in a long cavern, a tunnel, that wound out of sight.

  "Behind you," the man holding the sword said. His eyes were a piercing blue, as commanding as the light that had brought her here, and his armor . . . she knew that armor. She'd seen it before, though she couldn't remember where. "Cover our retreat."

  Recognition didn't matter. Her surroundings didn't matter. Only his command mattered.

  She turned on her heel to obey it.

  Seth dashed ahead of her, Helix and Iggy just behind him, to meet a swarm of creatures boiling over the lip of the cavern's mouth: half her height, naked and chitinous with the faces of ants, running on four pointed legs. The stuff of nightmares, but emotion had left her. She felt no horror or revulsion. She felt no confusion. She felt only purpose.

  As Seth impaled the first one and hurled it into a second, she called on Akir and detonated fire into their rear ranks. Syntal annihilated them with lightning, while Angbar put them to sleep so Helix could snap their necks with his bare hands. Iggy covered them with a hail of arrows.

  Free from conscience, deliberation, and fear, they repelled the things' advance in a matter of minutes. As Seth kicked the last one off the edge, scrabbling as it plunged to its death, her clarity vanished. She blinked as she came back to herself, a cloud of uncertainty settling into her.

  "Where are we?" Angbar asked. He was clean and unharmed, his earlier agony wiped away. All of them were whole, she realized: no wounds, no nosebleeds, not even a tear in their clothing. "Is this a dream?"

  She walked to the cave's mouth. It opened to a dead fall, hundreds of feet down, to a steep, rocky slope covered in scree. Below and beyond, she saw a forest so vast it made Ordlan Green look like Pinewood.

  It was burning.

  Great, curling clouds of smoke and ash billowed skyward. A distinct line of fire—so clean she could trace it with her finger—spread outward from this central blackness, widening like a ripple on a lake.

  "Ordlan Green," Iggy breathed, his voice breaking. "This is . . . that's . . ." His jaw hung open, incapable of finishing the sentence.

  "I don't understand." Helix glanced at the panorama of devastation and looked away. "We were in Kesselholm, we . . ." He looked at the empty sheath on his belt. "My sword is gone."

  "Not yours," Syntal said. "Lar'atul's."

  "I saw him," Lyseira said. "I saw him, when we first appeared here. But he can't be . . . how could . . . ?" The questions were too big; she couldn't fit them through her teeth.

  Again, as if none of the conversation thus far had even happened, Angbar said: "Where are we?"

  "Lar'atul," Syn whispered, her eyes darting through possibilities. "By Akir." She turned from the opening and ran into the cave.

  Charging headlong into madness, Lyseira followed.

  The broad passage sloped gently downward, cut in a near-perfect circle. After a brief run, it curved out of sight to the right. There Syntal drew up short and held up a hand for silence.

  " . . . wouldn't have mattered anyway," a voice around the corner was saying. It belonged to the man Lyseira had recognized earlier.

  "Wouldn't have mattered?" This voice was feminine. Achingly beautiful. Even the speaker's accusing tone couldn't dampen the melody in her voice. "It would have been everything."

  Syntal put a finger to her lips and crept slowly around the curve. Lyseira followed, the others behind her.

  A third voice—this one older, gravelly. Another man. "This was your idea, Lars. We tried, and we failed. There is no other choice, now."

  "No," the first voice—Lars—snapped. Lyseira remembered the man's brilliant blue eyes, his penetrating stare. Lar'atul, she thought. "We were too late to stop Her here, yes. But if the Chi'ite towers work like Alía says, we must secure them. Now. While we're close. We have a chance to surprise Her—She won't expect us to―"

  "Because it would be madness!" Dismay rang like windchimes in the beautiful voice. "The fire still spreads—you saw it hit Kesselholm and the neighboring towers. It could easily envelop us if we risk such idiocy!"

  "Forget it," the gravelly voice said. "We go back."

  "Ethaniel―" Lars said, and Lyseira's heart stopped.

  "No. We go back. This was your chance, Lars. It's over."

  "Would you listen to me?" Lar'atul—Lars—snarled. "Would you think? She has mastered the Tenth Circle, now. If She learns to control the Chi'ite towers, too—if She can both chant from the Tenth and deny it to others―"

  The beautiful voice interrupted. "Once the Seal rises, She'll be capable of neither."

  "If She masters the Towers," Lars threw back at once, "She could block the Sealing entirely."

  Silence struck the passage like a thunderclap. "That . . ." The melody in the beautiful voice turned sad. Fearful. "I hadn't considered." As the speaker finished, Lyseira rounded the corner enough to see her.

  She was an angel.

  Her skin was thin and translucent, her head angular, her eyes wide and dark. Her hair floated about her back like a nimbus of light. She wore a garment cut from the clouds: wispy robes, white and fluttering. She stood a foot taller than the other two.

  "It's only more reason to move forward with the Seal quickly," Ethaniel grated. Compared to the angel, he was supremely mundane: a gnarled old man in a grey robe, his scraggly hair thinning and his ragged goatee shot through with silver. His eyes were sad and heavy, his shoulders slumped as if he carried a mountain with him. "Now. Your people have ensured Her belief that the Towers don't function. We'll have time enough."

  "How can you still doubt Her ability to uncover the truth?" Lars said. "After all that we've seen, all that I've told you? Deception is Her weapon. She's―" He cut off, glancing in disbelief at Lyseira and the others. "What are you doing?"

  Lyseira's mouth worked, but no words came out. She looked at Syn.

  "We, uh . . ." She, too, was at a loss.

  "Go back and finish the Threen," he snapped, and turned back to Ethaniel. Lyseira felt a whisper of that blind clarity she had felt before, that compulsion to obey—but it faded as quickly as it came on. "She's adept with it, She'll always recognize―"

  "We did finish them," Seth said. "They're gone."

  Lars looked at him again, incredulity written across his face. The angel managed a nervous laugh, a sound like lilting flutes. "Manage your shades, Lar'atul," she said.

  "You're Lar'atul." Syn looked as if she might drop to her knees in awe.

  If he heard her, he gave no sign. "Then go. You're done." He glanced away, then back again. "You have my leave!" he said.

  Lyseira looked at Seth, who shook his head. "We've . . . nowhere to go," Iggy said. "We don't know where we are, or how we got h―"

  "Oh, for all that breathes," Lar'atul fumed. "Sev siir rok, kor rok riis." He jerked a dismissive hand toward them, already turning away—but when they failed to vanish, his look of irritation gave way to disbelief. "What are you still doing here?" he demanded.

  "A trick?" The mirth was gone from the angel's voice now. "Some power of Revenia's?"

  "An effect of the cataclysm," a fourth man posited. Lyseira hadn't even seen
him until he spoke: lean and hard in a simple burlap robe, his head shaved like Seth's. Preserver, Lyseira thought—but like Seth, he had no marks on his forehead. "Some kind of disruption in the Pulse."

  "May be," Lars allowed; then, to Lyseira and the others: "Just . . . don't interrupt."

  "We have to go," Ethaniel insisted.

  "Back to the Towers," Lars said.

  "Back to the Council," Ethaniel corrected him.

  Lars turned to the fourth man. "Jenseer?" The bald man shook his head, abstaining. "Alía?"

  The angel looked at him. "I'm sorry, Lar'atul. I agree with Ethaniel. We tried."

  He glowered at the floor and rubbed his chin, biting back his rage. "This is the wrong choice," he said, and continued deeper into the cave. As his companions fell in behind him, Lyseira and the others followed.

  "Syn," Angbar whispered. "What in Hel is going on?"

  She shook her head, eyes wide. "I . . . have no idea."

  "A dream?" Angbar said again.

  "It's something to do with his sword." Helix was the only one who sounded confident in his answer. "It was that hum, Syn—remember? I tried to tell you. Something happened when you opened the wardbook . . . the sword did something."

  "But the sword is gone." Lyseira pointed at his empty sheath.

  "I don't have it," Helix allowed, pointing toward Lar'atul's retreating back, "but he does."

  "It still doesn't make any sense," Lyseira whispered back. "I was completely numb. Now I can see, hear . . . everything."

  "I feel better, too," Syntal said, "and I was barely keeping my feet before we came here."

  "Me, too," Angbar said. "It can't be real."

  "It sure feels real," Iggy put in. "The Pulse is strong, the way it's supposed to be—healthy. I've never felt it like this." He trailed a finger against the stone of the wall as they walked, then jerked his head the way they'd come. "At least here. Out there, it's . . . feels like it's dying."

  Ethaniel and Lar'atul, both dead for centuries. A forest where the Waste should be.

  We've gone to the past. It was the only explanation that made sense, but Lyseira couldn't accept it. How? Why?

  "Is there any way back?" Seth asked. "Or are we stuck here?"

  They all looked at Syntal. "I . . ." she stammered. "I don't know."

  The passage tightened as the carefully carved walls gave way to natural formation. Just ahead, the ceiling dropped to three feet before spilling outside. A choked tangle of bushes obscured the sunlight, but there was no mistaking the cave exit.

  Lars and the others crouched and went through. When Lyseira followed, she found herself on a narrow, rocky ledge, steps away from a sheer plunge of hundreds of feet. Fighting dizziness, she set a hand on a stone outcropping to steady herself.

  Ethaniel strode to the edge, his staff crunching through the gravel, and prayed. Lyseira felt a thrum of familiar heat, an answering whisper of flame, and a circle of fire leapt into the air before him, hovering above the drop. It elongated and widened, taking the form of a broad chariot. Without hesitation, Ethaniel stepped inside. Jenseer and Alía followed him. When Lar'atul moved to do the same, Ethaniel nodded at Lyseira said, "Your shades."

  Lars glanced back. That same look of irritation flashed through his eyes. He wasn't seeing them, not really—he was merely acknowledging their existence. "What of them?"

  "It would be cruel to leave them here."

  Lars scoffed. "I appreciate your compassion, but it's misplaced. They'll dissipate in time."

  "And if they don't?"

  Lar'atul shrugged. "They'll die up here eventually, and dissipate then."

  "They're practically children, Lars."

  "They're not real, Ethaniel."

  Ethaniel clenched his jaw. "You know my thoughts on this."

  "And you know mine," Lars snapped, "but by all means, let's have it out. Ordlan Green burns behind us. The Queen of Dawn has mastered the Tenth Circle. Her armies march on Trinity Hold as we speak . . . but please, please, won't someone think of the shades?"

  Ethaniel glowered as Lars stepped into the floating chariot, but didn't rise to the bait. Instead he spoke past him, directly to Lyseira: "Come aboard. You are welcome. There isn't room enough for all of you, but . . ." He prayed again, quick, supple words that transformed his rough voice into a rich baritone. A second chariot manifested behind him.

  "Thank you," Lyseira said.

  He gave a sharp nod. As she and Seth stepped aboard, he said, "I'm sorry for this. You must have many questions, but I can only tell you this: it will end, and when it does, you will return to where you came from."

  She and Seth shared a quick look of relief. As their friends finished boarding the second chariot, the first pulled smoothly away from the mountainside, pulled by a pair of white horses with hooves of flame. They were spectral, like the dragon's dark had been; she could only see them clearly when she looked directly at them.

  We are flying. The revelation took her breath away. Distant to begin with, the mountainside beneath them now dropped even farther, giving way to craggy foothills choked with pine and wild brush. Then even that fell away, and the landscape turned indistinct: broad shades of green and brown, the occasional narrow line of a road. A village passed beneath them—a model carefully constructed by a child's parents—then the wide, glittering basin of a river.

  "Where are we going?" Seth asked. Lyseira had other questions, too—thousands of them—but they vanished beneath the weight of her awe. She had the presence of mind to glance back for the second chariot, its phantom horses keeping easy pace as they galloped through the open air, leaving trails of fire behind them. A quick head count told her everyone had made it off the mountain.

  "Tal'aden," the man who looked like a Preserver said. Jenseer, Lyseira remembered. His name was Jenseer. "The Hall of the Council, I imagine." An enigmatic smile played at his lips. "You must realize you're an eclectic group. Chanters, a speaker, a grey Kesprey?" This caught Lyseira's attention and she looked back, a denial at her lips, but the man went on: "All you're missing is a tei'shaar. It's quite the group of shades; normally, Lars is more the type to manifest packs of wild dogs."

  Lars darted a glare at him for this, but kept silent.

  "But you," Jenseer went on, nodding at Seth. "A practitioner, yes?"

  Seth's eyes were unreadable. "Yes."

  "Your form is excellent. Enviable, even. Who trained you?"

  "Retash," Seth returned, the barest hint of pride in his voice.

  "Lifelong?"

  "I started late—around twelve winters."

  "Twelve," Jenseer repeated. "I can only imagine your skill if you had been lifelong."

  "There's time yet," Seth said.

  Again, that enigmatic smile—more in the eyes than the mouth. "There is at that."

  In the distance, to the south, Lyseira saw palatial spires and a sprawl of buildings. Keswick, she marveled. It has to be. But as incredible as the flight was, Seth's brief exchange with Jenseer kindled a desire to have a conversation of her own. "I'm sorry to intrude," she began, "but . . ." She could hardly believe she was speaking the words. "Are you Ethaniel Isaihne?"

  He looked at her, surprised; Alía and Lar'atul, also, took a sudden interest.

  "I am," he said. "How do you know that?"

  She felt Lar'atul's and Alía's eyes burning into her. "I . . . I've read some of your work."

  "You have?" Ethaniel threw a meaningful glance at Lars: I told you. "Which?"

  "A History of the Kespran Church," she said.

  He arched a brow, surprised again. "Really? A rare one, that. What did you think?"

  "I . . ." I think it changed my life, she thought.

  The wind in her hair. The terrain spooling out miles below her. Ethaniel standing in front of her. She couldn't shake the feeling she was dreaming. "I was . . . impressed. Deeply impressed. Especially by your advocacy of compassion. It's . . . rare, where I come from, to see compassion defended so strongly."


  "Thank you." He appeared honestly moved. "It's becoming rarer where I come from as well."

  "Where did you read it?" Lar'atul asked.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but suddenly, the knowledge was gone. She recalled the book. She recalled how it had affected her. But the rest . . .

  "I . . . I can't recall."

  "Where were you before you came here?"

  "Kesselholm," she said.

  "Doing what?"

  "We . . ." Again, the memory vanished. What had they been doing? As she chased it, fighting to remember, the Safehold recurred to her—but when she turned her attention back to that, it vanished again as well. Her memories were shadows, evaporating whenever she shined the light of recollection on them. "I don't . . ."

  Lars returned the meaningful look Ethaniel had shot him earlier. No, I told you.

  "Oh, leave the child alone, Lars." Ethaniel put a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's confusing. It's all right—just ignore him."

  "I manifested her," Lar'atul said evenly. "She can ignore me when she can remember what she ate for breakfast."

  The chariots dipped lower, descending until the ground rushed along a mere score of feet below them. Ahead, the familiar walls of Tal'aden loomed.

  They slowed, then touched to the ground just outside the city gates. The chariots and their horses vanished after everyone disembarked. Ethaniel approached the guards, who quickly opened the way.

  It was Tal'aden—she was certain of that. They had flown toward the rising sun for maybe an hour; it fit geographically, and Jenseer had confirmed it. But while she recognized the shape of the walls themselves, little else looked familiar.

  Runes marched along the barbican, for one: tiny marks that glowed in the shade from the wall. And the wall was well-manned, for another. Thirty guards stood here alone, with hundreds more staffing the ramparts. Priests—Kesprey, she thought—riddled the area, most in blue robes, but the rare few in grey or white.

  As the gates ground open, another Kesprey in blue greeted them: younger than Ethaniel by a dozen winters, the grey in his hair constrained to tight, neat wings at his temples. When he smiled, Lyseira distrusted him immediately.