Adria returned her hands to the activating stones and discovered a trio of novices awaited her at the bottom of the tower. Their eyes bulged at the sight of the moving platform, but they kept their wits about them and pretended to have seen nothing.
“Yes?” Adria asked when none of the youngsters appeared ready to break the silence first.
“Vikar Thaddeus requests your presence,” said the oldest of them, a pretty redheaded girl maybe a year or two away from obtaining the rank of Mindkeeper herself.
“I’ll be on my way to the cathedral then.”
“No, not the cathedral. Vikar Thaddeus said to meet him ‘where only we might go.’”
Adria withheld a shudder.
“Very well,” she said. “Thank you.”
The novices bowed and left. Adria cast one last look to the Sisters’ Tower, half-expecting to see Janus lurking atop it, his sick smile mocking her from afar.
There was only one place Thaddeus could mean by his deliberate wording. Adria descended the innocuous steps upon the side of the Sisters’ Remembrance, passed through the dark tunnel, and traveled to the locked door barring her way into the forgotten prison of the Keeping Church. The guard checked her over from his little window before opening it. Thaddeus waited in the dim torch light, his arms crossed over his chest and a grim smile painted upon his elderly face.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said. “I do not know how much time we have left.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Deakon Sevold has taken a turn for the worse.” The Vikar led her past the dank, empty cells. “I fear we are rapidly running out of time.”
Adria remembered the horrific state Sevold had been in when she last visited. How could his health possibly get worse? Again she passed the cell with the imprisoned Mindkeeper Tamerlane, and it seemed his pale gold eyes twinkled at the sight of them. His mouth was securely covered, but there was no doubt in her mind he smiled.
To her surprise, the next cell was not empty like before. A man lay on a cot, his body twisted and contorted in a horribly familiar way. His hair had fallen from his scabbed head, and his ribs formed an unnatural wave upon his gaunt frame. His tongue hung out from a jaw stretched much too far to one side. Adria shuddered. She could see his soul, and from it wept a constant agony and torment. The temptation to free it from his broken mortal shell nearly overwhelmed her.
“Who is he?” she asked after halting before the cell.
“A man who earned the wrath of a Ravencaller,” Thaddeus said. “Their numbers are growing throughout Londheim at a frightening rate. If we don’t halt the spread soon, we might have more cursed citizens than we do cells to safeguard them in. We brought him down here in hopes that, should we discover a cure for Sevold, we can use it upon him as well.”
“I pray we discover it soon,” she said. The idea that others might suffer a similar fate as her Deakon terrified her, as did knowing there were more out there who wielded dark, blasphemous power.
“I pray you discover it now,” Thaddeus said. “We have no choice.”
The stench of death was overwhelming in the final cell. Adria had wondered how a man in his state could worsen, but she discovered how easily that was possible. Sevold’s skin was covered with bruises, his entire right arm was a sickly yellow, and when he breathed in, it gurgled like water blown through a straw. If the Deakon was awake, he lacked the strength to open his eyes. His mouth hung limply open, and multiple teeth were missing. Those that remained were solid black.
“Goddesses have mercy,” Adria whispered. “Only the cruelest of men could place such a fate upon another.”
“The world is full of cruel men,” Thaddeus said. “Please, I know it was difficult, but I would like you to try to cure him a second time. I fear he will die within days if he is not healed.”
Adria felt her sight shifting. The Deakon’s soul hovered within his skull, just as tormented as the other man’s. She focused on it, dimming the outer world as her vision attuned to the spiritual. Its light was weaker than expected, due to thin black lines that wrapped about it like spiderwebs. Adria tried to fall into the soul’s memories but found her path blocked. The curse, she realized. It denied her any attachment to the man’s soul.
“I have something I would like to try,” she said. “Please, remain still, Thaddeus, and trust in me no matter what happens.”
She had told no one of the changes she’d undergone in Janus’s machinery beneath the city. She feared the increased scrutiny, and she wanted nothing to do with whatever fate Janus seemed to think he’d forced upon her. What she did want was to help people, and if that meant revealing herself to her Vikar, then so be it. Her right hand settled upon Thaddeus’s jaw. The other stretched toward Sevold’s.
“You will feel a strain,” she said. “Endure it.”
Thaddeus’s face was a perfect stone, revealing nothing of his thoughts and emotions. His soul, however, revealed all as she touched it with her mind. He was frightened and confused, but as the threads of his soul floated out to touch her palm, she sensed his growing curiosity. Power flowed into her, and she channeled it straight through her body and to the broken Deakon.
To her mind’s eye, it was like watching opposing spiderwebs intertwine. The vibrant silver she cast from her hand twisted and broke about the black lines imprisoning the Deakon’s soul. She lashed at them, tugging and pulling, but they would not break. The more she tried, the more they drew power from Sevold’s own soul to lash back in return. Again she felt the similar hatred and anger as when she’d first tried to heal him, but this time she could actually see the vicious, stabbing little threads as they bit into her skin.
Adria relented to their power when the pain grew too much for her to bear. So far as she could tell, she had made not a dent upon the curse. Thaddeus gasped in a long breath upon her releasing his soul. Sweat poured down his skin, and he had to brace himself against the bars of the cell to remain on his feet.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I… used the power of your soul to see if I could free the Deakon from his curse. Clearly I was not successful.”
He looked up at her, his eyes sparkling with curiosity so strong it bordered on obsession.
“How?”
Adria almost told him, but that intellectual need broke her confidence. Janus was proclaiming her a replacement for the Goddesses. What might her Vikar do with that knowledge? Discussing how she’d gained her new powers also meant potentially revealing her rescuers, perhaps putting Puffy and Jacaranda in danger by doing so.
“I’m not ready to talk about that yet,” she said. “Will you allow me my privacy for a few days longer?”
Debate raged within her Vikar, but in the end he kept to his trust in her.
“Very well,” he said. He released his grip on the bar and tested his balance. His legs wobbled a bit, but he seemed to have mostly recovered from the strain of her using his soul. “Have you anything else you might try?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “Allow me to speak with Tamerlane.”
“Absolutely not. We already suffer without our Deakon. I will not lose you as well to his curse.”
“That curse is fueled by divine power. I can do nothing to it, for it seems the Sisters themselves want it locked upon Sevold. If you want it removed, then allow me to question him. He may be the only way we banish this curse.”
“We’ve interrogated him relentlessly,” Thaddeus insisted. “His resolve is nigh unbreakable.”
“Even so, I believe I can make him talk to me.”
Thaddeus crossed his arms.
“Is this linked to whatever you just did to me?”
“Yes. It is. Now will you allow it?”
Another inner debate, this one far quicker than the last.
“Very well. I pray you do nothing to make me regret this.”
They returned to Tamerlane’s cell. The tanned man sat on his knees, and he watched them intently. His Mindkeeper robes h
ad broken down considerably during his stay, and his brown hair was matted from dirt and sweat. His eyes, though, were alive with thought. Thaddeus was right. They’d not broken his spirit in the slightest.
The guard opened his cell with a loud clank of metal. Adria stepped inside, her hands crossed behind her back.
“How does he eat and drink?” she asked as she studied the leather across his mouth.
“At knifepoint,” the guard answered. He knelt beside Tamerlane and inserted a second key into the lock, undoing the contraption, and then pulled the saliva-coated leather away. Tamerlane wretched twice, then gathered his bearings. Despite her newfound power, Adria still felt a twinge of fear at what might happen if he decided to curse her. The guard clearly feared the same possibility, and he drew his sword and placed the edge at the man’s throat.
“Hello, Tamerlane,” she said. “My name is Adria Eveson. I wish to speak with you. Is that all right?”
Tamerlane worked his jaw up and down, which audibly popped twice. That done, he settled a cocky smile her way, as if they were friends meeting up at a tavern instead of in a bleak, forgotten cell tied to the church’s darkest times.
“Not a word while he’s around,” Tamerlane said, pointing at Thaddeus. “And not with a blade at my throat, either. If I talk, it is to you alone.”
Adria glanced over her shoulder, her request obvious. Thaddeus glared at the imprisoned Mindkeeper with open contempt.
“Please, be careful, Adria,” he said. He motioned to the nearby guards to follow, and then he disappeared toward the exit. Tamerlane settled against the cell wall. His amusement was plain as day.
“Twice now I’ve seen you come here trying to undo what I’ve done,” he said. “Both times Thaddeus held himself differently than when he’d brought scholars and doctors to investigate the Deakon. My mouth may be blocked, but my ears hear well. You prayed over Sevold the first time, to no avail. This time, you pray not a word, yet I swear it seemed our beloved Vikar was greatly moved by your actions. Tell me, Adria, what is so special about you?” His smirk grew. “Is it because your prayers for healing actually work?”
Adria kept her body stiff and relied on her mask to hide her reaction.
“What makes you believe such an outlandish claim?” she asked.
“Is it really so outlandish? The Sisters granted me strength to curse the Deakon. It only follows that others would receive strength to heal and bless, does it not?”
Goddesses above, she wanted to slap that smirk off his face so much it hurt.
“You think the Sisters granted you power to curse their own Deakon? A curse you read in the blasphemous Book of Ravens, which denounces the Sisters and denies their authority over the Cradle?”
“Have you read the Book of Ravens?” he asked.
“I have.”
Immediately his attention perked up.
“Have you now?” he said. “Then you should know the book does not denounce the Sisters, but instead asks the reader to view them in a different light. Those curses are the proof. By accomplishing these supposed ‘blasphemous’ results, they show that the calm, pure, forgiving Goddesses we envision are capable of a far wider spectrum of concepts and emotions.”
Adria thought of the horrendous shape Sevold had been cursed into and shook her head. If that ugliness were a part of the Goddesses, they could not possibly be worthy of her prayers. She could not accept that it was the Goddesses’ doing.
“You purposefully lead the conversation astray,” she said. “Tell me how to remove the curse. If you don’t, the church will have you executed.”
“If I cure the Deakon, the church will have no need of me, and then I will be executed for what I know and what I have done. I’m sorry, Adria, but try offering something more valuable than a hastening toward my own death.”
“Then what is it you do want?”
Tamerlane gestured to the walls about him.
“What does every prisoner want? Freedom.”
“You know I can’t promise that. I’ll relay the request to Vikar Thaddeus, of course. If you undo the damage you have done, then perhaps a merciful fate for your transgressions can be reached.”
“You again offer me nothing,” he said, and slumped back against his cell wall with a roll of his eyes. “I bore of this. Let us discuss far more interesting matters. Yourself, to be specific. You can hide behind that mask all you like, but I can sense that this line of questioning is not your desired inquiry. Sevold was the reason you were brought down here, but if we were friends in the cathedral’s library, calmly conversing with cups of tea beside a fireplace, you would ask different questions, wouldn’t you, Adria?”
Those pale gold eyes bored into her, and though she could see his very soul, she felt far more naked before him than he before her.
“How did you lose your faith?” she asked. “What is it you discovered that broke down your belief in the Sisters and allowed you to become such a monster?”
She worried that her question would anger him, but instead he sounded disappointed.
“You think my casting of that curse means I lost my faith in the Sisters? Far from it, Adria. I hold them close in my heart, and I assure you, they still love me as well.”
An unwelcome memory flashed through Adria’s mind; Janus crumbling before her, his body twisting and breaking as she wielded the words of the mutilation curse like a sledgehammer. Yes, there was one question she wanted an answer for, one that had weighed on her since that weak, frightened moment she’d committed blasphemy in a failed attempt to spare her life.
“How could that be possible?” she asked. “How can one wield such a horrific curse and still be beloved by the Goddesses?”
Tamerlane’s eyes met hers, and she could almost see the mind behind those eyes at work, brilliant and fascinating. It took him but a moment to reach his conclusion, and she had no doubt it would be the correct one.
“You cursed someone, didn’t you, Adria?”
She swallowed down a jagged stone that spontaneously formed in her throat.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Another long stare.
“The world we live in is not simple,” he said. “It is not black and white and confined to a flat page scrawled upon by the scholars. You ask about an act committed in a singular moment in time. The context of that moment must be taken into account. Can the Sisters love a person who wields their power into a curse? Absolutely. Might they also hate or condemn a person for the same act? Without question.”
For the first time he stood. Adria hastily retreated two steps toward the door. For some reason she was more frightened of him than she’d been of Janus atop the Sisters’ Tower.
“You committed the same act as I,” he said. “Yet I am within a cage, and you are the Deakon’s supposed savior. It’s almost as if the act itself is irrelevant. All that matters is the framework, the victim, the purpose, and the ripples it spreads throughout the many affected lives. You know nothing of me, nor why I spoke that curse. I know nothing of you, or why you spoke a similar curse, but I do know this: The Sisters have abandoned neither of us, which means their love remains. Does that soothe your soul? Or would you rather a simpler answer, one mushed into gruel more appropriate for consumption by the children?”
Adria clenched her hands into fists. She could turn Tamerlane’s physical body to ash. A mere thought, and she could spare herself the confusion… but did she truly want that? The Keeping Church struggled mightily to understand the rules and philosophical implications of this new, chaotic world. Tamerlane, though, seemed unbound by rigid dogma and tradition. One conversation with him, and she already felt she glimpsed a better understanding.
“Then let us start again with what I know,” she said. “What I know is that two cells down a man I believe to be wise and just is suffering immensely by your words, and I want to end that suffering. Am I truly so terrible for wishing that so?”
Tamerlane smiled. Not a mocking, arrogant smirk.
A real smile, one that made her wish she had known this man long before the world turned itself inside out. No doubt he had been handsome once. Even covered in sweat and dirt, he carried a sort of confident charisma.
“I will make you a promise, Adria, but only if you make me one in return. If you guarantee my freedom, then I will remove the curse upon Deakon Sevold’s soul. I want your guarantee, mind you, not anyone else’s. I want you to swear your very life to protect mine should anyone try to kill me or return me to this dark cell.”
“Why would you undo the curse now, and why for my promise?” she asked. “I am but a simple Mindkeeper. A similar promise from my Vikar surely means much more.”
“Because you’re clearly precious to Thaddeus. He won’t hesitate to chop off my head, but if it meant possibly losing you? Well…” The man shrugged. “Perhaps that might cause him to think twice. And besides, I already offered such a deal to Thaddeus. He refused it.”
Adria’s mouth dropped open, the reaction thankfully hidden behind her mask.
“What? You lie. Thaddeus would certainly have granted your freedom to spare Sevold’s life.”
Tamerlane laughed and shook his head.
“You vex me, Adria. Sometimes I find myself liking you, and other times, you are insufferably naïve. If the Deakon of Londheim perishes, who replaces him?”
“A vote among all keepers decides that.”
“I imagine Thaddeus has his sights on a promotion,” Tamerlane said. “But maybe that’s why you won’t take my offer as well. If he is made Deakon, the position of Vikar of the Day suddenly opens up. My, my, I wonder who he might choose as his successor? Might it be the humble Mindkeeper who tried her damnedest to heal the previous Deakon and who wields the power of the Sisters in ways even our current Vikar does not?”
Adria wanted to shout at him how wrong he was. She wanted to crush him with her newfound power and rip his soul to the heavens. His claims… they couldn’t be true. Lies, manipulative lies of a man who had turned against the Goddesses.
“You disappoint me,” she said. “But I guess I should have expected no less. Farewell, Tamerlane.”
Ravencaller Page 4
