‘You’re worried you won’t be able to live up to his reputation,’ Ronnyn guessed. Although he didn’t feel he owed All-father Hueryx anything, he still felt the pressure. ‘I’m in the same boat.’
‘There’s more to it.’ Sardeon glanced around the empowered lads’ cabin and lowered his voice. ‘Once we join the brotherhood, if someone challenges our all-father and wins, the new all-father will execute us. They can’t afford to let us live long enough to grow into our gifts and avenge our fathers’ deaths.’ He shrugged. ‘If our fathers truly loved us, they wouldn’t have claimed us. They only claimed us to shore up their leadership. With our loyalty, they gain the loyalty of the next generation of initiates. That way they can hold onto the leadership for thirty or forty years instead of fifteen or twenty.’
Ronnyn’s mind reeled as he ran through the ramifications.
‘Boys?’ The hand-of-force beckoned them. ‘I need you to help Ree’s devotee look after the children while the rest of us are at a ceremony.’
‘What ceremony?’ Ronnyn asked.
‘Scryer Lysitzi’s farewell.’
‘She’s dead?’ Ronnyn was aware of a rush of relief.
There was the barest hesitation. ‘Yes. Now go help Meleya.’
When they reached the cabin door, Vittor let them in.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said and gestured to the pile of sleeping toddlers. ‘All day long I’m surrounded by little boys. It’s driving me crazy. What are we going to do?’
‘Well...’ Ronnyn thought quickly. ‘How about I teach you to play cards?’
‘I can already play cards,’ Vittor insisted. ‘I’m good at it.’
‘This isn’t the memory game we used to play back home. It’s a grown-up card game, about forming sisterhoods and brotherhoods.’
Vittor’s eyes widened. ‘I’d like that.’
Ronnyn grinned. ‘Sardeon will explain the rules, and I’ll get the cards.’
While crossing the cabin, Ronnyn paused beside the devotee. Ashmyr dozed in her arms; Ronnyn cupped his baby brother’s soft head. Then he left for the empowered lads’ cabin.
As much as Ronnyn resented being separated from their sisters, he knew his family couldn’t survive on their own. The deaths of his parents had proved that.
When he retrieved the cards, it struck him that this set wasn’t as fine as the cards his father had painted. His Da had been a manuscript illuminator, who gave up his high stature to run away with his mother and live like the poorest Mieren on their island. Back then, Ronnyn had just accepted the exquisitely-painted cards and delightful carved toys as normal. Now he knew they were as good as, or better than, the ones the sisterhood’s children played with.
No, they were better. Asher had made them with love for his family.
Ronnyn felt like something had hit his chest.
‘You all right?’ one of the empowered lads asked.
He nodded and ducked into the passage, where he leant against the wall, dragging in great gulps of air.
They’d left Da’s body on the beach for the wild dogs to devour.
Ronnyn thrust open the door and staggered out onto the deck. Some instinct for self-preservation prompted him to dart under the steep steps to the foredeck.
There he gasped and bent double. What was wrong with him?
He had to hang onto the steps and drag in one breath after another.
Gradually, his breathing slowed and his vision cleared. Before him, through the steps, he saw the women of Reoden’s sisterhood gathered around the Malaunje hatch as the scryer’s body was brought up from below.
Poor thing. Just as well she was dead.
When they carried her past his choice-mother, one of the scryer’s hands reached out for Reoden.
She was alive? They were going to throw the scryer overboard alive? They’d never...
But he recalled Cerafeoni’s slight hesitation when he’d asked if the scryer was dead. They wouldn’t throw her overboard alive. They’d kill her first, then farewell her, the practical part of his mind told him.
Outrage reverberated through him. His gift surged; he wanted to accuse them of savagery.
At the same time, he was torn. It was not that simple. Her gift had corrupted. It was dangerous. But...
To kill her?
Sardeon would help him make sense of what was happening. Clasping the cards in one hand, he ran back to the cabin, where he found the devotee singing to a fractious toddler.
Meleya and Sardeon both looked at him, startled by his abrupt arrival. The devotee lifted her finger to her lips.
Ronnyn caught Sardeon’s eye. They needed to talk. He picked his path carefully through sleeping toddlers.
But Vittor had also been waiting. ‘What’s wrong?’
Ronnyn thrust the cards into his brother’s hands. He didn’t want to trouble Vittor with what he’d seen, so he said the first thing that came to him. ‘These cards reminded me of Da.’
Vittor’s eyes widened as he stared at the cards.
Remorse made Ronnyn drop to his knees and hug his little brother. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have –’
‘No. I want to remember.’ Anger lit Vittor’s dark eyes and hardened his little mouth. ‘Da didn’t deserve to die that way. I should have –’
‘There was nothing you could do. Nothing any of us could do.’ And as Ronnyn said this, he felt the truth of it, bone-deep. He hadn’t failed his father, or his family.
Ronnyn hugged Vittor again. ‘Go to the desk and shuffle the cards. I’ll be over in a moment.’
While Vittor did as he was told, Ronnyn stood up and met Sardeon’s eyes.
‘What is it?’ his choice-brother whispered.
Ronnyn led him to the bunk under the window. He sat, leaned one arm on the window frame and stared out. Stars filled the night sky.
‘The scryer’s not dead,’ Ronnyn whispered.
Sardeon’s lips compressed in a grim line. He didn’t appear surprised. Saddened, but not shocked.
‘You knew?’
‘I suspected. They try to keep the truth from us, but power comes at a price.’
‘So they’re going to kill the scryer –’
‘To prevent the gift-corruption spreading.’
Ronnyn rubbed a shaking hand across his mouth. He could feel his gift churning in his belly, urging him to action. Last time, it had snuck under his guard and driven him to do things that had shamed him. This time he would not let it ride him.
Sardeon put his hand on Ronnyn’s shoulders. ‘Sometimes, the right thing can seem wrong.’
‘I’m not a child.’ Ronnyn met his eyes. ‘I’ve killed... we’ve both killed to defend the ship. But this is different.’
Sardeon nodded. ‘Back then there was no choice. This is deliberate.’
Ronnyn felt betrayed. As if he’d found a safe harbour, only to discover it filled with hidden rocks.
Meleya joined them. ‘What’s wrong, boys?’
‘Nothing,’ Sardeon said.
The devotee was not fooled, but she didn’t press the issue.
‘You have good hearts,’ she said and went to kiss Sardeon on the forehead, but pulled back. She did the same with Ronnyn. And he knew their gifts made her uncomfortable.
Too bad. This was what he wanted. More than that, it was what he needed, if he was to survive in the brotherhood.
The devotee returned to the little ones, while Ronnyn and Sardeon taught Vittor how to play the sisterhood card game. It was preparation for real life, when they would be forming alliances to increase their stature and power with the ultimate goal of winning a brotherhood.
But neither of them would get the chance, if Hueryx and Paragian lost control of their brotherhoods. Their futures were tied to the all-fathers’. He hoped Hueryx was as cunning as the sisters claimed, and Paragian as well-loved.
Chapter Forty-Six
A
S
S
ORNE JOINED
Merchant Sahia in her carriage, he decided two things: he would not agree to anything until Imoshen arrived, and he would have to be very careful. If Sahia was an example of a Sagorese merchant, then the leaders of the Sagoras were going to be a real challenge.
The carriage travelled up the sloping road from the port to the ridge behind it and stopped just inside the entrance to the Halls of Learning.
Sahia gestured to another Sagora waiting by a door. ‘This is the Most Venerable Uda of House Felinii. She will show you around until the Sagora Seven are ready to see you.’
Sorne thanked the merchant and climbed out of the carriage. Two servants, also Sagoras, held hooded lanterns, which cast golden pools on the paving.
No one spoke as the carriage pulled away in its own circle of light. Sorne caught a glimpe of an avenue easily wide enough for two carriages to pass. Then the carriage turned left.
‘This way, ambassador.’ His escort was small, slight and very old.
She led him through the door into what appeared to be one of the gate towers. They climbed four flights of steps, with one servant in front, one behind. Despite her age, his escort managed the stairs without trouble.
Sorne waited until they’d reached the top floor and another door before attempting conversation. ‘What is your area of study, Venerable Uda?’
‘
Most
Venerable,’ one of the lantern bearers corrected. From his protective tone, Sorne suspected he was her student. ‘The Most Venerables are the Heads of Halls. Ven Uda is the Head of the Halls of Philosophy.’
‘Apologies, Ven Uda.’ Sorne gave the obeisance of contrition. ‘What does the Most Venerable of the philosophers teach?’
‘I teach how to think. If we cannot think logically, we cannot begin to make sense of the world.’
‘So you seek to make sense of the world?’
‘In as far as it is possible for our minds to grasp.’
He had the impression she was amused, but whether it was by him or her indignant student, he could not tell. The veils revealed only the mouth and chin, hiding the eyes which usually revealed so much.
Ven Uda gestured to the door and the servant opened it.
Sorne stepped out onto the wall-walk, and a view that took his breath away. They were perched high above the silvered bay. Beyond it the sea stretched to the horizon. Much closer, around the edge of the bay, light spilled from doorways and windows in the port. ‘It’s...’
‘Isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘You must bring T’Imoshen up here. When will she arrive?’
‘I’m not sure. I lost track of the days in the sea-vermin cellar.’
‘We’ll see what tomorrow brings. This way.’ She led him along the wall. It followed the ridge, which was roughly triangular in shape, and higher at the southern base. He was headed north to the lower point of the triangle but even here, the walls were high and they rose straight up from the ridge. King Charald would approve; it was eminently defensible.
The hooded lanterns illuminated the wall-walk under their feet, but the moons illuminated the night beyond the wall.
‘As you can see’ – Ven Uda gestured to their right, where the wall dropped four storeys, before the ridge fell away into the countryside – ‘the Halls of Learning hold an enviable position.’
He could see why they were giving him this tour.
‘And on our left, safe behind our walls, are the Halls of Learning themselves. For hundreds of years we have guided the minds of the greatest thinkers and military advisors to kings. Mainland royal families and great merchant families send their best and brightest to study under us. So you can see, although we live out here on the rim of the world, we keep in touch with every corner of the mainland.’
As they had reached the end of the wall-walk, he noticed there was another tabletop ridge to the north. It was almost as high as this one, but posed no threat as the distance was too great to span. The Sagoras were right to think their eyrie impregnable.
Looking south, the halls and the Sagoras’ private walled city were laid out before him. All spires and domes, the hidden city reminded him of the Celestial City.
‘This way.’ Ven Uda went south along the wall which gradually climbed, in a succession of long steps, towards the triangle’s base. ‘On our right, you see the fertile plains of Ivernia, stretching all the way to the mountains. North and south of us we have alliances with the city-states that rule those provinces.’
There was enough moonlight for him to make out a chequerboard of fields, farms, sinuous rivers coming down from the mountains making their way to the sea, glinting silver.
Whether they knew it or not, the Sagoras were in the same position as the Wyrds had been. If they were besieged, then their lands and people were vulnerable. An army could live well off these fertile southern plains. In fact, they could simply move in, set up their homes, subdue any incursions from the provinces to the north and south, and ignore the Sagoras.
But he was not leading King Charald’s army, intent on carving a kingdom for himself. He was the T’Enatuath ambassador, representing barely two thousand survivors. And they were frighteningly vulnerable.
‘Ah, the Sagora Seven are ready,’ Ven Uda said.
Sorne turned around to see someone with a lantern, signalling from the street below. They went down the steep steps and were escorted into one of the buildings to a verandah, overlooking a courtyard.
The smell struck him. Vaguely familiar, feral and effulgent, it made his heart race. The primordial part of his brain screamed danger and he turned to Ven Uda. ‘What is this – ?’
A strange, raw scream split the night. He felt for his sword, but of course his only weapons were his wits and his words.
‘Be still, it is not what you think,’ Ven Uda whispered.
A moment later her students removed the hoods from their lanterns as they hung them at each end of the verandah to reveal three of the Sagora Seven. There was no sign of Merchant Sahia.
In place of veils, the Sagorese leaders wore extraordinary masks. With their arms folded, hands tucked under their long, full sleeves, they were even more of an enigma than their fellow Sagoras.
Each stylised mask was a work of art, representing a creature from the natural world, its features picked out in swirling striations of different metals, embossed to represent fur or scales and embedded with jewels. One mask was based on a peacock, its crest picked out in finest filigree silver. Brilliant enamelled plates represented the peacock’s eyes. Another was a feathered cat, and its tufted ears moved in response to sounds. The last was a serpent, covered in iridescent scales. Delicate wings fanned out behind its head. The work was so exquisite Sorne longed to study each mask in detail. As it was, he had to take them in at glance.