Glasswrights' Master (36 page)

Mind your caste. That was the lesson that she had learned so long ago. She had been wrong to think that she could leave it behind forever. She had mastered the text, after all. It had once brought her safety and security, growth and power.

Think as a trader. Think in patterns.

She could see nothing but boiling red clouds as Crestman tightened his noose again. She forced herself to listen, forced herself to hear the soldier say, “This woman kneeling before you holds the key. She holds power over the king of Morenia, a dark power, an unholy bond. She has manipulated Halaravilli ben-Jair since the first day that she met him, shaping his reign, changing the way that he has administered his beloved kingdom.

“Rani Trader kneels before you as a merchant. Ranita Glasswright kneels before you as a guildswoman. By neither of those titles should she control the king, and yet she does.”

Rani wanted to respond. She wanted to tell the Fellowship that Crestman was a jealous man. She wanted to explain that he had lost in love, and he had carried his bitterness into other battles. She wanted to say.… The crimson clouds hovered closer, and she heard her breath rattle in her throat.

“Halaravilli ben-Jair has permitted himself to be poisoned by this one, to depend on her, to rely on her beyond all logic. There is a reason that kings are counseled to mind their castes. There is a reason that kings are told to marry queens, that royalty is meant to be with royalty.”

Could they not hear him? Even past her own choking gasps, even past her pounding heart, she could hear the rage in Crestman's voice. She could hear the loss, the frustration, the jagged edge of sorrow that cut through every one of his words.

The Fellowship, though, was bewitched. They had longed for the Royal Pilgrim for so long, yearned for the one who would bring them ultimate power, ultimate prestige. They would do anything to gain the prize that they had trained for, waited for, hoped for all these endless years.

Crestman tugged on her rope, angling the noose toward the floor. Rani's hands splayed in front of her; her palms lay flat against the dais. Her belly heaved as she struggled to draw breath, and one small corner of her mind wondered how Crestman could continue to have so much power in his broken body. How strong he might have been! How great he might have proven, if he had not been eaten away by the worm of jealousy, jealousy and octolaris poison.

“And so, Fellows, it is time for us to embrace the truth. It is time for us to acknowledge that Halaravilli ben-Jair is too weak to hold his crown, too weak to do the business of a king.

“When Brianta and Liantine attacked fair Moren, what did Halaravilli do? He fled! We tested him; we tested his dedication to his men and to his kingdom. We tested his ability to maneuver from our one last challenge, from our last true measurement of his skill as king. And how did Halaravilli respond? He decamped to Sarmonia and hid with his lords in a forest. He did not try to free his city. He did not try to save his people.”

That is not fair,
Rani wanted to cry.
Hal was regrouping. He was building his strength. He was mustering his forces so that he could free his kingdom.

She gathered her own strength, desperate to fight to her feet, but Crestman must have sensed her intention. He twisted the rope one more time, sawing the hemp into her flesh. He forced her head to the dais, forced her cheek to the rough stone. He planted his foot on her neck, using his leather sole to grind the rope further in.

“He did not try to save his people,” Crestman repeated. “Only one thing remains, one last show to prove how weak a king Halaravilli ben-Jair truly is.

“For all these years, he has hidden behind this one. He has relied on Rani Trader, on Ranita Glasswright. He has ignored his caste, betrayed his caste. He has taken the advice of a merchant, a guildswoman. And now, today, he will feel the full weight of that folly. He will recognize that he was wrong to abandon the requirements of the crown. He was wrong to abdicate responsibility.”

Rani's ears were ringing. The crimson behind her eyes had darkened like drying blood, had faded to black. Her tongue was swollen in her mouth; she could barely sneak half a breath past the rope.

And yet, she could still hear Crestman. She could still make out his bitter, angry words. She could still feel the hopelessness of her sorrow, the depth of her despair as the man who had once loved her said, “Halaravilli ben-Jair will collapse without this prop. He will fall over like an infant child when he is left on his own. Morenia and Amanthia and Sarmonia all will tumble, willingly, desperately, utterly, utterly completely into the arms of the joined forces of Brianta and Liantine. All the kingdoms will be united. All will be ripe for one strong leader, for one guiding force. All will be ready for the Fellowship to take charge, to take control, to lead for all the future. The Royal Pilgrim will have done her deed.”

And then Rani knew the full pattern. She could see the final pieces snapping into place. She could see the direction all of them had flowed; she could read the scrolls that they had written together, through Morenia and Amanthia, in Liantine and Brianta, in the forests of Sarmonia. If she could have found the breath, she would have laughed at the simplicity of it, at the perfect, crystal balance.

Crestman completed his explanation for the Fellowship, laying out the end to any who had not yet understood. “Halaravilli ben-Jair is nothing without Rani Trader. Kill her and he will fall. Present her body to him, and he will collapse with no more struggle than a burned out log falling to ash upon a fire. And so, in the name of our Fellowship, I will act!”

Rani heard the whisper of metal on metal, of a sword sliding from its sheath. “By Jair, I will kill Rani Trader!” Crestman lifted his foot from her neck; she felt the momentary easing of pressure against her windpipe. “By Jair, I will slay the Royal Pilgrim, and we will gain the world!” She heard the sword whip through the air as Crestman raised his blade for the final stroke.

 

* * *

 

Hal's army was being slaughtered.

Hal had watched all six ships gain the harbor, but the victory meant nothing. After all, the Liantines outnumbered their player captors by scores; there was no way to force all the invading sailors to take up arms on behalf of the Morenian and Sarmonian liberators. Indeed, all that the players had accomplished was removing the threat of bombardment from the water. The naval crossbows were disarmed, but nothing more had been done–nothing more
could
be done– to secure success.

Looking back toward the city gates, Hal could not lower the spyglass, could not keep from watching the slaughter on the plain before Moren's gates. He had long known that Davin was a genius, but he had never hoped to see all of the old man's weapons at their work.

Yes, the moving engines from Sarmonia did their job. They spat fire where they had once flung fine ribbons. They drenched the city gates with a jelly that burst into flame upon contact.

But that was not enough. Davin had staked out defenses around Moren for years; he had fortified the city with all his wily genius.

Hal watched in horror as pits opened up beneath the feet of the advancing soldiers, traps that were sprung through narrow, strategic mines beneath Moren's own walls. Nearly a score of men succumbed, even though they had been warned of the danger, even though they had been told of the spikes that awaited the unwary.

A dozen more fell to a deadly rain of fire, defensive engines that relied on massive bellows to splatter jellied burning oil. Flights of arrows rained down from the towers, the work of common archers, as deadly as Davin's machines.

Go
, Mareka crooned.
Ride to your men. Fire or pit. Arrow or sword. Go. Find your peace. Come to me. Come beyond the Heavenly Gates.

Hal tried to push away the ghost, to set aside the temptation.

We're waiting for you. Marekanoran and Halarameko and Marekevilli and I. All of us await you, my lord, even the lost children that we did not name. The Gates are open. The Thousand await to escort you home. Come to us, my lord. Come join your family,

Another spray of arrows took out a company of soldiers. The Sarmonians and the Morenians were reduced to clusters, mere stragglers stranded on the plain. Hamid himself hoisted his banner; his squire must have succumbed to the last assault.

Hal should have joined them. He should have led them into battle. He should have stood beside his men instead of taking shelter on a hilltop, hiding like the women and children.

The trebuchets were launched again, spraying fire upon the plain. Grass had kindled now, and smoke rose black into the late morning sky.

It's not too late, my lord. Come to us. Ride to the Heavenly Gates.

Hal ignored Tovin's startled cry as he grasped the length of blood-red silk and hurtled down the hill, running, running, running with all his strength toward the last of his loyal Morenians.

 

* * *

 

As Crestman's sword rose, Rani realized that she must create her own escape, she must craft her own way out of the Fellowship's snare. She must move beyond the dais, beyond the labyrinth in the floor. She must move beyond the carved screen that set this room off from all the rest of Moren.

The screen.

Rani opened her eyes and focused on the closest weapon at hand, the quiver of arrows that belonged to the god of archers. “Bon!” she cried, and the single syllable was raspy against the rope that still bound her throat.

She was answered immediately. The whinny of a stallion sounded loud in her ears, and she remembered the first time that she had ridden fine horseflesh, the first time that Hal had taken her to the royal stables.

Mind your caste.

Rani had learned the power of nobility, the strength of princes and priests throughout Morenia, throughout all known lands. Ranikaleka, her brother had called her long ago, before he set her on the desperate journey of her life. She had lived as a guest of the royal family, as a noble woman in her own right, learning to hunt hawks and rule kingdoms.

Hawks. Yot, the god of stones, spoke with the voice of a hawk.

Rani had only to think Yot's name, and the power of stone rose within her. Her cheek was still pressed to the floor; her new strength thrummed through her flesh, reverberated across the labyrinth.

The Fellowship felt it too. They stumbled at the tremor, and some fell to their knees.

The labyrinth. It had been built by stonemasons, by guildsmen who had mastered their art as Rani had mastered her own.

Mind your caste. Ranita Glasswright she had been. She reached out for Clain, for his familiar cobalt glow. The light was blinding in the chamber; it extinguished all the torches, and the Fellowship cried out in one terrified voice.

Crestman bellowed for order, as if he were commanding a platoon of soldiers.

Mind your caste. She had been Ranimara, a soldier in the King's Men, even before she had marched with the Little Army. “Cot!” she called, summoning the god of soldiers, and the room was immediately filled with the stench of carrion, with endless, hopeless, rotting death.

Mind your caste. There were patterns here, patterns that she saw, patterns that she made. She was Rani Trader, first and foremost, a merchant who understood the value of trade. She knew the power of a bargain.

“I'm yours!” she cried to all the Thousand at once. This was the first time that she had proclaimed her faith, the first time that she had publicly, verbally, completely given herself over to the Thousand. She felt the strength grow inside her as she confirmed what she had discovered in her heart when she lay trussed in Kella's cottage. “If you would have me, I am yours!”

She thought that she had tasted the gods before. She thought that she had heard them and smelled them. She thought that she had felt them with every inch of her flesh, that she had seen every vision they could give her.

But she had never imagined the force of all the Thousand at once. She had never imagined the power that would rise up in her, around her.

Her body was fire. Her body was light.

The rope that had strangled her was burned away, disappeared into the shadows. She was untethered; she was free. She was beyond the former boundaries of her senses; she knew the presence of the Thousand with her entire body, her entire mind, her entire soul. She was freed from the constraints of sounds and flavors, sights and scents, sensations that had limited her in the past.

Without opening her eyes, she
knew
the room around her. She
knew
the members of the Fellowship, struck unconscious by the tremendous energy that radiated from the stone wall, that arced to the human body that had been Rani and roiled out above her.

She became the cathedral sanctuary above her, became the trembling walls, the glass that shuddered in its armatures, and the lead panes that buckled beneath the pressure.

She was the Pilgrims' Bell, set tolling by the shaking earth, clamoring as if all the wolves in all the world were coursing down the hills toward Moren.

She was the seawater that saturated the air above the harbor, shimmering into rainbows as it crashed against the piers, against the ships that held the warrish Liantines, that held their player-captors.

She became the fire that scorched the autumn-dry grass outside the city walls, the heat that rose in waves as Davin's defensive engines worked according to their maker's plan.

She became all the gods, all the Thousand. She marched with them out of the Fellowship's chamber. She shattered the cathedral glass, sent fragments of cobalt and ruby and emerald and lead raining down upon the cold stone floor. She swept through Moren's streets, gathering up green-clad priests who had masqueraded as soldiers, fanatics who had tainted a faith that was good and pure.

She boiled onto the plain in front of Moren, inspiring good men to take up their arms. As she passed, injured soldiers recovered from their wounds, and men who had wavered stood fast. The part of her that she had known as Tarn gathered up those who were already lost, collected the dead in a brilliant green-black cloak.