A Season of Rendings

by Adam J Nicolai

  "You!" Helix said, jerking his head toward the closed door, now padlocked from the inside. "I remember you."

  There's no one there, Helix. Lyseira didn't say the words this time. Neither did Angbar.

  Helix licked his lips, shook his head. "There's no one there. Is there? I can't . . . there's so much."

  "It'll get better," Lyseira promised. "It's just after-effects from the blindness." But the words rang hollow. Helix had lost his sanity along with his eyes. They would all come to terms with it in time.

  Iggy suddenly tensed, glancing toward the door. "Footsteps," he whispered. "Did you hear that?"

  Harth jumped to his feet, padded to the door, and listened. "Coming this way," he confirmed.

  Angbar glanced around for another exit from the room. There were none.

  Never again. An icy promise. One he would keep.

  Someone knocked on the door. Angbar's heart beat faster but he spun up the mantras, ready to Ascend as far as he could when the silence came. He would seize the Pulse like a man chasing lightning, embrace it until it vaporized him.

  Another knock, followed by a muffled voice: "Harth?"

  Everyone looked at Harth, who shook his head.

  "It is him," Helix said. "Blesséd sehk."

  "Who?" Iggy said.

  "I recognize his voice. The man from the dungeon—the one that saved us."

  The voice came again. "Harth, are you there?" Now it sounded dimly familiar to Angbar, too—like something from a dream he could barely remember.

  "Cort?" Harth said.

  "Yeah, it's me!" He knocked again. "Let me in!"

  Harth opened the padlock. A stolid man in plain clothes stood in the sewer passage outside. Harth ushered him through and closed the door.

  "How did you find us?"

  "I was there when Kai mentioned this place—remember?"

  Harth shook his head. "Sehk," he breathed, and let out a trembling breath. "I thought we were done when you knocked. I really did." His brows drew down. "Where is Kai?"

  "Marcus has him," Cort said. "You haven't heard?"

  "I was . . . here most of the day, I haven't―"

  "He took him. And the Prince Regent—Marcus has him too. He killed his Preserver. Dissolved the Crownwardens. I think he's taking full control."

  "What?" Harth sounded as if this news actually surprised him; as though he had expected a different outcome than imprisonment and death. "He can't do that!"

  "He just did. And he announced—the criers are all saying it . . ." Cort shook his head. "They're executing him. Tomorrow at highsun."

  "The Prince?" Lyseira said. Again, that disbelief. Angbar marveled at it.

  Harth stumbled to the wall, sank to the floor.

  Angbar laughed.

  "Something funny, nog?" Cort said, glowering.

  "Just . . . it's . . ." More laughter, black and cynical, just this side of hysteria. "Wow. We just really cock it up everywhere. We need to . . . just . . . go. I mean, stop trying to fix things all the time and just . . . go."

  "No," Cort said. "You need to free him."

  Angbar cackled.

  "I . . ." Harth started. "Yeah, Cort, I'm sorry, but . . . I was wrong. This was not a good idea."

  "Good idea or not," Cort said, "it was your idea. He's dying tomorrow because of you."

  Angbar wheezed, gasping for breath between giggles. Cort whirled on him. "Would you shut up?"

  And he wanted to. He knew it wasn't funny, but he couldn't stop. Derision was the only thing that still made sense. "Free him?" he finally managed. Preposterous words, absurd on their face. "I don't know what Harth told you, but—us? Free the Prince? Marcus destroyed us! We should all be dead. I nearly did die. Syn doesn't even have her books anymore. Helix is blind! We were all there, and he just walked in and . . ." The laughter dried up, exposing the raw horror beneath. "We're kids," he said. "Just kids. Can't you see that?"

  But Cort pushed on. "What I see is the people the Prince risked his life to save. I saw you last night. You . . . I could barely tell you were human, there was so much blood. And now you're standing there laughing. You look like a different person." He looked at the others. "He gave the order. He's the only reason you're alive. And now they're gonna kill him."

  Lyseira looked at her feet, her eyes red-rimmed and leaking tears. Seth stared at the wall; Helix stared at Cort's shoulder. Only Syntal met Cort's eyes, but even she, Angbar knew, wasn't taking his request seriously. Probably just trying to figure a way she can use this to get her sehking books back.

  "Angbar's not wrong," Iggy told him. "Are you listening? We were all in that room, and Marcus just walked right over us. Just him and a couple Preservers, and it was over. We couldn't even fight back. What do you want us to do? Go back, get captured again?"

  Cort turned on Harth. "These are the people you were gonna bring to the Prince? How were they gonna help him—whine until the Church gave up?"

  Lyseira glared, filled with sudden rage. "How dare you?" she snarled. "How dare you? You have no idea who we are, what we've been through. We tried. We have tried everything. Every way to fight that we can think of. We have risked everything, over and over, but no matter what we do, the people we try to help die. Every time, they die! Don't you get that?"

  Cort withered in the face of her fury, but not for long. "You," he said to Syntal. "You're the one who knows all these other witches. Right? Where are they? I'll talk to them myself. Just tell me―"

  "I already tried," Syn said dully. "They don't care. They're just faces in the crowd, scared as the rest of us. Probably even more. No one wants to be the Tribunal's next victim. None of them would even admit anything."

  "Just give me the names, I'll―"

  "There aren't any names! I have to see them. I'd have to walk the streets, just looking. I already did that once, and it nearly got us all killed. I'm not doing it again."

  Finally, Cort had no answer. He looked to each of them in turn, deflating. "He dies tomorrow," he said at last, and slammed the door behind him as he left.

  The silence crept back in like a rising tide. It carried a stink of shame. Angbar wondered if he would float or drown in it.

  "After tomorrow," Harth eventually said, "it'll get even worse here. I'm getting out, tonight, after dark. If you want to come with, fine—but for God's sake, you have to cover your faces."

  "Where are you going to go?" Lyseira asked. There was no trace of hope in the question.

  "I don't know," Harth said evenly. "Probably Borkalis. I have enough money to get there." He looked at Syntal. "If you and Helix want to come with, I could pay your way. I'd love to study with you some more. It's the only thing that still . . . makes any sense to me."

  "I'll come with you out of the city," Iggy said. "After that, I think Ordlan Green would be safest for me."

  The tone of the conversation had shifted, Angbar realized. It now carried a tenor of disintegration. This is it. The end of the road. It should have panicked him, and in some small way, it did. But it had been a long time coming, and he was ready.

  "Lys?" Iggy asked.

  "I'm going home," the girl answered.

  Harth sighed. "You can't do that. They'll be waiting for you there, they'll kill you as soon as―"

  "I don't care." She sounded small. Broken. "I want to see my mom."

  Borkalis. Ordlan Green. Southlight. All the choices were terrible. Which option erases all of this? Angbar wondered. I just want my life back.

  Lyseira wiped a tear and put a hand on her brother's shoulder. "She'll be happy to see us," she said, "if she's still alive."

  Seth stared at the door, ignoring her. The nervous tic in his cheek and eyelids had grown to consume half his face. "I'm not going," he said.

  Lyseira's face drained of color. "What?" she whispered.

  "I'm going to the execution tomorrow." An ocean of rage frothed behind his eyes, a frenzy of hate his flesh could barely contain. "Bishop Marcus will be there. I'm going to kill him."
<
br />   The certainty in his voice, the sheer vengeance glaring from his eyes, struck Angbar dumb. Not even Harth bothered to try dissuading him.

  Helix started coughing—great, heaving whoops. He threw himself flat to the floor. "Get down!" he cried. "You can breathe if you get down!" Iggy knelt, whispering words of comfort as he tried to quiet him.

  Lyseira glanced briefly at them and then back to her brother. Her eyes slowly hardened, even as the tears kept leaking. "I'll go with you."

  "I'm going there to die." Seth still wouldn't look at her.

  "Me, too."

  Angbar understood the idea's pull on them. To kill the man who had hurt them so much, even if it meant dying themselves? He just wished he had the courage to do the same.

  "The crowd will turn on you," Iggy said. "Just like Keldale. Especially you, Lyseira, if you do anything where they can see it."

  "I know," she said. "But I'm dead anyway. If I stay here. If I go home. Even if I leave Darnoth, the person I was is gone. He did all of this. I just want him to pay for it before I go." There was no talk of signs from Akir, no fumbling attempts to justify her decision as the will of God. Angbar felt a chill run down his back.

  "I'll come too," Syntal said.

  Harth's jaw dropped. He looked wounded.

  "Wait for me," she told him. "I'll still come with you."

  "I'm leaving tonight!" he said. "We can't be here in the morning!"

  "I want to make sure he dies," Syn said as if he hadn't spoken. "And I can get away without getting caught—I know I can, I've done it before." She looked at Seth and Lyseira. "But I can't save you."

  They nodded, gravely, as if they were rational people who understood the costs of their choices.

  Then Helix said, "The crowd rises up.

  "All of them. Everyone in the square, when they see the witches. It's screaming, and fire. They're burning them." His face crumpled in horror. He extended one shaking hand, reaching for something none of them could see. "So much hate," he whispered. "So much . . . terror."

  This time, the silence struck like lightning.

  "Helix?" Lyseira breathed, her voice shaking.

  "It's all of them, oh my God, it's all of them. They don't listen. They can't, they're . . . they're . . . mad." He sucked in a breath, empty eyes widening, and scrambled backward to his feet. Slammed into the wall. Iggy took his shoulder, trying to steady him, but Helix was oblivious to his efforts. "It's like Keldale," he whimpered. "The mob has torches, and her face . . ." He sank against the wall, hitching with sobs. "Her face is melting!"

  "Who?" Iggy asked, but Angbar already knew who.

  "Lyseira," he said, and looked at her. "It's you. Syn will get away." He knew it better than anyone.

  "Does he die first?" Seth crossed to Helix, his eyes intense. "Bishop Marcus, does he die first? Do I kill him?"

  But Helix pulled away. He fell into a rocking motion, gripping his head and muttering.

  "You can't," Iggy said to Seth. "We have to get out of here tonight."

  "No," Seth said. "I'm killing Marcus."

  "Lys." Iggy whirled on her, desperate. "You gotta talk some sense into him. You heard Helix—he's been right every time. If you do this, you die."

  Lyseira, trembling and ashen, stared at Helix. Angbar imagined all the faces flashing behind her eyes—Cosani, Angna, Matthew, Helix. Her own mother.

  "Then I die," she finally said. "But Marcus dies first."

  iii. Melakai

  He'd woken in his own jail wagon, shackled and alone, as it bumped and rattled east on Leyton. Trius had been driving, with a trio of Blackboots on horseback behind. When they'd arrived at Basica Majesta, the sun was just beginning to peek over the eastern roofs.

  Trius halted the wagon and came around back, then stared at him through the bars, the key in his hand.

  "Aw, Hel, Trius," Kai finally said. "Just do what you have to do."

  "I will," he answered at once. "I always do. I just can't believe it was you, Kai. I know you blow a lot of hot air, but I actually thought you were smarter than this."

  Carefully, hoping to get some idea of what Trius knew, Kai asked, "Smarter than what?"

  Trius grunted. "You know what."

  "I don't. It was an honest transfer, Trius. Witches should be in the Majesta dungeons, you know that."

  "And you decided this on your own, in the middle of the night, without an order from the Bishop or anyone else, and just happened to be ambushed—by witches, who freed the prisoners—as you took a weirdly winding route to the temple."

  Kai sniffed. Shrugged. "Well, you say it like that and it sounds unbelievable."

  Trius didn't smile. "This isn't a joke, Kai. It's not some game."

  "I'm well aware." He nodded at the temple. "Witches get Samson's, but for old men with big ideas, only the temple dungeon will do the job."

  "It was Marcus's order. He wants you here."

  That sent a chill down Kai's spine, but he refused to let Trius see it. "Just tell me one thing. Who was it? Glendon?" The man had returned his easy nod at the front door, but maybe Kai had discounted him too fast.

  Trius hesitated. "Duncan," he finally said. "His brain started running after you left. Only reason he's not in there with you."

  "Duncan," Kai breathed. He'd been sure the man was trustworthy. "Bitch's tits."

  Trius unlocked the cell door and swung it open. A pair of Blackboots came forward to haul Kai out.

  "Trius," Kai said, "Isaic had nothing to do with this. It was my idea, top to bottom. You gotta tell Marcus, make sure he―"

  "Tell him yourself," Trius snapped. "He'll be here in an hour."

  The temple dungeon had no windows, but Kai felt evening coming on. He'd been fed twice, meager meals shoved beneath the bars of his cell wall, and each time the approaching footsteps had made him brace for Marcus—but Trius had been wrong. The bishop never showed.

  Now footsteps came again. This time, it wasn't some nameless initiate with another crust of stale bread. It was Trius.

  "You really scorched this," he said. "Marcus has stripped Isaic of his inheritance. He's gonna kill him tomorrow, in the public square."

  The breath left Kai's lungs. No. It couldn't be that easy, that fast. Marcus was just a bishop. "That's . . ." He coughed a weak chuckle. "He can't do that. He's not the Fatherlord."

  "I told you," Trius snarled. "I told you all this sehk was gonna come back and bite him." He had more accusations to lay—Kai could see them in his eyes—but he bit them off. "Listen. With the Prince dead, you don't matter. I can get you out of here, or I can try—but you've got to watch your tongue. You hear me?"

  Kai sputtered. Watch my tongue? "Trius, you can't let him do this. You can't let him kill the Prince of―"

  "Can't let him?" Trius shot back. "I'd drop the blade myself. The kid's a heathen, Kai. I'm just trying to look out for you—that's it."

  "He's not a heathen! He's just trying to do the right thing!"

  "He can't know the right thing! They tell us the right thing! It's as simple as it gets! All he had to do was shut his damn mouth!"

  "Trius . . ." He couldn't believe it. Trius could be a horse's ass sometimes, he could be obstinate, but he had to see what was happening here. He had to. "Look. Isaic did nothing wrong. You've gotta tell him. This was all my idea, all of it. He never told me―"

  "God above, you are thick. I'm not gonna take your word over Akir's, Kai. Father Marcus prayed. He knows what happened. It's over, and you're lucky it is. You're lucky I brought you in this morning. If you'd been in the palace, you'd be dead right now. But I took care of you again." The last words tripped him. He watched them vanish into the air as if he could snatch them back.

  "'Again'?" Kai said.

  "Once he's dead, once this storm blows past, Marcus will be too busy installing Jan to worry about you. You'll be irrelevant. A few weeks in the dungeon won't kill you, and it won't be hard to―"

  "Again?" Kai demanded. "What do you mean, again?"


  "Nothing," Trius snapped. "Would you listen to me? I'm trying to save your life."

  I never told him, Kai thought, his suspicions building toward hysteria. I asked him for help, but I never told him it was my son, I never would've—

  Whoever this friend of yours is, Kai remembered Trius saying, you ought to turn them in. Be easier on all of you. And he'd never thought twice about it, never even considered the possibility that his lifelong friend would ever—

  "How did you find out it was them?" Kai demanded.

  Trius clapped his mouth closed, trembling, nostrils flaring.

  "How did you find out?" Kai's heart trembled with rage, his breath heavy as stones in his chest.

  The words leaked like steam from Trius's gritted teeth. "I saved your sehking life."

  Kai went blank. There was only his breath, white and hot; his heartbeat, pounding like a war drum. "You sehking viper," he heard himself say.

  "I didn't know they'd kill him. I just wanted what was best for the girl."

  Didn't know they'd kill him.

  Didn't know—

  "She's had a good life, Kai." Trius leaned into his sin, embracing it. "A cleric! And Bastion never would have given her that, he would have tried to hide it—she would've ended up on a stake!"

  "Don't say his name," Kai said.

  "You were always too stupid for your own good, too stupid to see what was right in front of you! If it weren't for me―"

  The world went red. Kai shot his arm out, grabbed Trius by the collar, slammed his face into the bars.

  "If it weren't for you?" he roared. "If it weren't for you!"

  "What in Hel?" Trius shouted, clawing at Kai's hands. "Get off me, you crazy sehking―"

  "You killed him! You sehking monster, you brainless sehking thrall, you sehking killed him!"

  "Get―!" Trius pulled a knife, stabbed into the meat of Kai's hand—who fell back, howling, as Trius retreated. "I didn't kill him!" he screamed. "You sehking killed him! You're the one who taught him all that dogsehk! You were his father, Kai, you were supposed to raise him right!"

  Kai wailed. Hurled himself at the bars.

  "Well now you're gonna die here!" Trius screamed. "I tried, God knows I tried, but you just—God, just look at you!"