Glasswrights' Apprentice (6 page)

She was abandoned, and for a crime she had committed all unknowing.

Again, Rani's attention was recaptured by the captain of the guard. “Aye, we know the name Ranita, and we know the look of the traitor we seek. And we suspect that you know her as well, and at least one of you harbors her even now, in your misguided plot to bring about the fall of the house of Jair. As loyal soldiers to that house, we must do all within our power to help you recall your loyalty to your king.”

The soldier made a curt hand gesture, and one of his men swooped into the herd of apprentices that milled at the foot of the dais. Rani squelched a cry as the soldier emerged from the chaos of frantic arms and legs, dragging Larinda forward by her hair. Before any of the stunned glasswrights could move, the soldier whipped a blade from his waist. Larinda did not even have a chance to pull away before she was screaming, holding up four fingers and a bloody stump where her thumb had been. The soldier kicked away the digit and, at the gestured command of his officer, gagged the shrieking girl.

Rani swallowed the sudden sickness that rose in her throat, taking a deep breath against the vertigo that threatened to pitch her onto the refectory floor. Even if she had retched, it was unlikely the sound could have been heard above the turmoil in the room. Instructors and guildsmen cried out, and the herd of terrified apprentices threatened to stampede past the soldiers' bared swords.

“You bastards!” Salina's voice rose above the chaos. “She's only a child!” Salina held out her arms, and Larinda took shuddering refuge, burying her face in the guildmistress's voluminous robes, even as Parion stepped forward to staunch the wound. The captain of the guard took a menacing step toward the trio, but drew back when the glasswrights' hum reached the frenzied pitch of a wasp's nest.

“Aye, she's a child,” he settled for grumbling. “And the traitor who called Prince Tuvashanoran to his death was a child as well. We shall mark one child, each dawn, until you deliver your murderous rat to us.”

Rani's first thought was to flee the gallery, to run back to the safety of her childhood and the luxury of her mother's embrace. Her second thought was more honorable, and she ordered herself to run down the narrow gallery stairs, to force her way into the refectory to save her fellow apprentices. Her third thought, though, won out. There was no way that she would survive a confrontation with the guard. They were certain she was guilty; they
knew
she had murdered Tuvashanoran.

Indeed, she could hardly argue in her own defense - she
was
guilty, because her words had summoned the prince to his execution. Her actual innocence would hardly be considered by a man who was willing to lop off the thumb - the thumb! - of an innocent child.

And so Rani stayed in the gallery, gripping the stone balustrade as the guardsmen finished their job. She was hardly surprised when a young soldier entered the refectory, bearing aloft the Orb that symbolized the power of the glasswrights' guild.

Each guild in the City had its Orb, consecrated to its particular god and blessed by the High Priest in annual ceremonies of great solemnity. Even now, Rani could envision the Holy Father standing in the guildhall's convocation chamber, invoking Clain, the glaziers' god, while Defender of the Faith Shanoranvilli presented Salina with a large purse of gold coins, rewarding her for royal commissions well completed in the prior year.

The glaziers' Orb, as appropriate to their craft, was fashioned of glass. The workmanship was ancient, the globe's lead tracery as fine as spider's silk. Each fragile metal frame held a panel of glass so thin that it shimmered in the air. Blue swirled into red and green and yellow - dramatic colors presenting a map of all Morenia, fashioned to appear like a globe of all the world.

When Rani was first presented to the guild, she had sworn her apprentice oaths upon the Orb, and she knew that each confirmed master spoke his words of commitment and brotherhood before its delicate glass planes. The Orb was the guild's heart, the core of the glaziers' power.

Even at this distance, Rani could see her fellow guildsmen's awe, inspired by the Orb. The globe's essence was tangible across the room, and a few of the glaziers relaxed visibly in the soothing familiarity of that energy. For Rani, though, the presence of the Orb was anything but soothing. Soldiers who could mutilate a child - what would they do to a bauble of glass and lead?

In an instant, Rani's worst fears were confirmed. The young soldier presented the globe to his captain, scarcely bothering to hide his gloating smile as the burly soldier hoisted the fragile thing. His voice, when it poured across the refectory, was oily and gloating, and Rani was more chilled than she had been to witness Larinda's maiming. “I speak in the name of Shanoranvilli, King of Morenia, lord of the City, and Defender of the Faith. ‘My forefathers gave the glasswrights' guild its charter, and in times past the glaziers have served my family well. In remembrance of that old service, I am merciful, and I do not yet demand the life of every man and woman in the guild. I offer this mercy despite the fact that the guild has stolen the heir of my body.'”

The captain raised the globe above his head, even as some of the instructors made a furtive religious sign, muttering gratitude to their individual gods that their lives were to be spared. The soldier continued, unresponsive to the whispered prayers. “‘I, Shanoranvilli, have harbored an asp at my breast, in the glasswrights' guild. Therefore, I order the guild destroyed, and all its members outlawed in the eyes of the land. I order its buildings razed, stone by stone, by the labor of the former glasswrights. I order its wells befouled so that no man, woman, or child may think to take shelter in the ruins. I order its lands sown with salt so that no loyal citizen of the realm will pollute his faithful soul by eating of the fruit of the traitors' guild.'”

“Have mercy!” Salina cried, awkwardly setting aside the maimed Larinda and falling to her knees before the captain of the guard. “We are innocent, my lord!”

The soldier ignored her. “‘Henceforth, the sign of the glasswrights' guild will be a sign of treachery. Anyone seen wearing the badge of the aforementioned guild will be beaten for a first offense. A second offense will warrant branding - an image of grozing irons crossed upon the brow - to forever mark a traitor. A third offense will be paid for with the traitor's life, worthless as that coin may be.'”

The outcry was probably more than the captain had expected - his men needed to lay about with the flats of their blades before any semblance of order could be restored to the hall. “So speaks Shanoranvilli, King of Morenia, lord of the City, and Defender of the Faith. Let any who defies his will taste the justifiable force of his anger.” The soldier raised the Orb above his head, turning it for a moment to catch fitful torchlight. Then, with a flick of powerful wrists, he dashed the glass and lead to the floor.

Glints of color skittered across the flagstones. A collective cry came from the guildsmen, and Rani felt the power that was released as the leaden frame crumpled against the floor. The energy of the disbanded guild was a physical thing, pressing in upon her mind, and she remembered the touch of that power when she had sworn her eager apprentice oaths only a few months before.

The captain, though, did not waste his time with somber reflection on the disbanding of a guild that had been an honorable part of the City's structure for generations. Instead, he gestured to his men to move through the room, and the soldiers ripped away every visible symbol of the glasswrights' now-outlawed brotherhood. Fine fabrics were torn, badges stripped from sleeves. Jeweled tokens were plucked from stunned breasts and pocketed by soldiers, with an eye toward selling valuable stones and melting down gold and silver. The guards were harsher, more avaricious, than the crow that had stolen Rani's own insignia.

Only when the guildsmen stood before the soldiers, silent and shivering in the aftershock of the destruction, did the full import of Shanoranvilli's edict reach Rani. The glasswrights were now deprived of caste. They were no longer the guildsmen they had been since birth, unless they could find some brother guild brave or foolish enough to take in a putative traitor. Every glasswright in Morenia had just been converted to one of the casteless, to one of the Touched.

That realization, more than any other ruthless action by the soldiers, made Rani realize that she must flee the guildhall immediately, if it was not already too late. Forcing herself to set aside the image of the shattering Orb, she scampered down the gallery stairs. She could hear the soldiers in the refectory, once again cutting out the apprentices for imprisonment and execution of Shanoranvilli's bloody orders. Before the confusion could be sorted, Rani sprinted down the stone hallway to her bedchamber.

Once there, she found surprisingly little that she needed. Her scant clothing, all proudly bearing her guild's badge, was as good as a death sentence. As an apprentice, she owned nothing; by contract, all of her possessions belonged to the brotherhood. Still, she reached beneath her mattress, extracting the few treasures she had hoarded.

There was the steel blade from Zarithia her father had given her, her first reward for laying out the merchant's stall and luring passersby. There was a four-sided coin from some distant land to the south, pierced and threaded onto a rawhide thong by her oldest brother, Bardo. There was a doll the size of her hand, made out of a knotted rag by her mother when Rani was a babe. There was a piece of cobalt glass that pooled in her palm, smooth and flawless, rescued from a trash heap the first day that Rani had swept the Instructors' workroom. And there was a mirror that had been her birth-gift from the Merchants' Council. Its perfect circle was solid silver, with a raised boss on the back, showing a lion attacking a mountain goat. Her fingers automatically caressed the sinewy cat's body. “Brave as a lion, fleet as a lion,” she muttered, remembering her father's incantation as he entrusted her with the treasure when she had left for the guildhall.

Rani shoved her meager possessions into her pockets, forcing them down among the windfall apples she had recovered in the garden. A quick glance outside her door proved the hallway still deserted, but she knew her luck could not hold.

Indeed, Rani had just gained the guildhall doors, the massive stone portals that opened onto the gardens, when she heard the crowd stir in the refectory. The soldiers spoke in harsh voices, and it was apparent that they were driving the apprentices to Shanoranvilli's legendary dungeons.

Rani darted outside, but even in the twilight, she could see the guards at the gate. There was no time to climb her apple tree and scale the wall; an alarm would surely sound. Rani ducked behind the hall's west wing, dashing to the massive glass kilns that squatted on their raised stony platform.

Used to fire glazes onto panes of glass, the ovens were fed dry oak by over-heated apprentices. Rani knew that the nearest oast had last been used to fire Morada's Defender Window - it had been empty for at least three days, for Rani herself had borne the responsibility of keeping the kiln fueled. Still, the ceramic oven held heat for days after a firing, and she could feel the warmth radiating from the clay walls in the cooling autumn night. She tugged at the heavy door, leaning back with all her weight to make it swing outward.

The wave of heat was like the summer sun baking a field of obsidian. Before Rani could draw back, though, she heard the commotion outside the guildhall. Soldiers' voices were loud in the night, and there was the clang of metal on metal. Rani had no idea how long it would take for the soldiers to begin to raze the hall, but she was certain to be captured if the captain set a guard about the grounds tonight. Above the pounding of her heart, Rani could just make out a soldier's order, “I want the perimeter secured before we bring out the guildmistress. There's no telling what these treacherous dogs will do in the dark.”

Rani's last hesitation was squelched as a young voice called out from the corner of the building. “Yes, sir!” The guard made no secret of his mission as he swept his sword from its scabbard. Rani could make out the weapon's moon-shadow as the soldier approached the corner of the guildhall.

Rani took one deep breath of the cool night air and ducked into the kiln. She barely managed to pull the door closed before the guard's booted feet crunched on the oven's gravel platform.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

Rani watched in horror as Tuvashanoran rose from the altar, lifting his iron-sinewed hand to pluck the arrow buried deep in his eye. As he pulled the quivering shaft from his flesh, it writhed in his fist, shriveling into a stub. Blood still dripped from the end, crimson droplets that steamed on the marble dais, and Rani realized that the Prince did not hold an arrow; rather, he grasped Larinda's severed thumb. Before Rani could scream her horror, Tuvashanoran turned to where she knelt in the suddenly empty cathedral, drilling into her with his steely eyes. “It was not enough to murder me,” he intoned. “You needed to strike your sister apprentice as well.”

“No!” Rani cried, and the single word dragged her up to consciousness. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her tunic was drenched in sweat. For a long minute, she was too terrified to open her eyes, too afraid that the gritty floor beneath her would be in the cathedral, with Tuvashanoran standing in judgment over her.

Her breath came in short gasps, snagging normal thought, and she struggled to untangle herself from her nightmare's clinging shroud. Opening her eyes, she did not recognize the strange closet surrounding her, or her hard bed. No wonder she had had such foul dreams - she must have offended Cook yet again, committed some arcane violation of the guild's rules that she certainly could have avoided if only she'd been born to the guildsman's class. Her penalty had clearly been sleeping in the sweltering pantry, futilely warding off mice from the Instructors' flour.