Glasswrights' Test (31 page)

Parion suspected that Larinda's masterpiece was part of the massive project of bringing glass panels to the shrine of each of the Thousand Gods. Thinking of that goal, Parion's heart quickened, clearing his mind for the first time since the Fellow had interrupted his morning labors. Parion
would
be remembered as an expert guildmaster. He
would
be spoken of for generations to come. Even strangers would honor his name when they journeyed to Brianta, when they saw the glory and the power that the glasswrights brought to all the Thousand Gods.

And then the guild would be free of petty Briantan politics. No more Fellowship to guide things. No more alms to proffer to the daily priest-collectors. Parion could sit back and watch his empire grow. … His empire of glasswrights. His guild restored.

And when he chose, when he desired, when he deemed that Morenia had suffered enough,
then
he would approach the house of ben-Jair. Then he would offer up his services, and the services of all the glasswrights beneath him. Then he would collect more gold than any guildmaster had ever dreamed of; he would make the glasswrights the wealthiest guildsmen in all Morenia, in all Brianta, in all the world. …

Parion blinked, surprised to find himself still in the journeymen's workshop. He watched as Larinda brought a lamp closer, and for once he did not look away from her Hands. She manipulated the spidersilk and leather with expert twists of her fingers and bends of her wrists. If a god were to descend from the Heavenly Fields at that very instant, without any knowledge of how a human's hands should work, he would not believe that there was anything amiss. He would not think that Larinda was flawed in any way.

“Let me see your drawings, Larinda Glasswright,” Parion said as the girl stepped back.

“Here, Master.” She hesitated only a moment before she lifted a linen covering from her whitewashed table, revealing the heavy charcoal lines beneath.

Parion sucked in his breath. Larinda was more daring than he had ever expected. She had selected Clain as the subject of her test. The god of the glasswrights. Larinda Glasswright had recreated the guildhall of her youth, each flawless line illuminating the home that she had known before she lost her thumbs, before her life was ruined.

Her drawing was perfect. It captured every line, every upright, every arch, window frame, and door. “How could you. …” he started to say, but he let his words trail off. He moved to the end of the table and stared at the drawing from the opposite side. Perfection. “You were only a child when the guildhall fell. How could you capture it so completely?”

“I see it every night, Master. Every night when I sleep.” Larinda's arm twitched as she spoke, and she frowned at her Hand as she brought it under submission. Something about the motion made Parion return his attention to the table, made him study the design more closely.

Now, Parion could see the anger in the memory. He could see the awesomely heavy lead joins that Larinda had sketched. He could see the thick glass that she had designated, unflashed crimson so dark that it would appear black. The panel was not a thing of beauty; it was a landscape of torture, of sorrow.

Parion forced his voice to a steady tone, ignoring his own pang of loss. “Tell me, journeyman. How do you rank yourself in comparison with the others who compete for the title of master?”

“Rank?” She might never have heard the word. She held her eyes steady on him, not looking at her four fellow guildsmen, who watched the exchange from across the room with frank interest.

“Aye. Are you the best of my journeymen? Are you the best the guild has to offer?”

He could see her struggle with the question, balancing pride and modesty in her blatant, calculating mind. Her eyes fixed on her drawing, and her face transformed as she studied its lines, absorbing the anger and sorrow and pain of the glasswrights' guild that had been. “I am better than Sharlithi and Cosino and Tomuru. I work in a different style entirely from Wario and Cordio and Belita. As you know, they learned their craft in the north.”

And the Traitor, he wanted to ask. “And Ranita Glasswright?”

Larinda's lips pursed, as if she had bitten an unripe plum. “She is good, Master.”

“Are you better?”

Larinda met his eyes, and he read her fierce determination, as grim as his own when he had spoken with the Fellow. “She is better, when she is permitted to use her rogue tools and her outland ways. But if you test her guild knowledge, Master, if you test what we have taught her, she is not better. She is prideful of her methods, but those methods are flawed. They cheapen our work, Master. They sell us to her players' troop, like a bolt of silk or a leather strap.”

There. Parion had his answer.

He would let the Traitor work her own demise. He would let her use her diamond knife and her other players' tricks. He would let her bring her eastern toys into the guild's workshop. And if the other masters chose to elevate her, if the Fellowship approved her advancement, fine. Parion would wait. He would ruin her in the future, casting aspersions on her skill. He would note that she had only entered the guild with cheap imitations of true workmanship, that she had only succeeded because she had been permitted to use her players' ploys.

Parion had waited for vengeance all this time, he could spend another few years crafting the Traitor's fall, even if the Fellowship decreed otherwise. If he practiced patience, he could do as he desired. He could reap the harvest he had sown with his glazed bowl and goblet.

And if the other guildmasters decided wisely, if the Fellowship decided she must be cast out from the guild immediately, better.

Larinda brushed her hair back from her face, using her Hand with accomplished nonchalance. “Are you well, Master? Does your wrist pain you?”

Parion glanced from the whitewashed table to her fretful face, and for just a moment, he thought that he saw a streak of white in her hair. Morada. … his heart whispered, but then she took a step closer, and the light shifted. “I am well, Larinda Glasswright. Your words have eased my heart.”

She might have said something more then. She might have taken a step closer to him. She might have raised her cool fingertips to his wound, brushed against it with the spidersilk and metal of her Hand.

Before anything could change, though, the door to the chamber crashed back against the wall. An apprentice stumbled into the room, gasping for breath, even as he glanced, wild-eyed, for the prayer bell. Jamming his fingers against the metal trappings, the boy stumbled toward Parion and Larinda. “Come quick, Guildmaster! To the Middens! The Morenian princess is called out as a witch! And Ranita Glasswright stands as her defender!”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

Berylina sighed, lost in the haze between wakefulness and sleep. She had been dreaming again. She'd seen herself condemned to dig her own grave, sentenced to hollow out a pit in the earth where her body would be cast, to rot for eternity. Her punishment was even crueler because she could see a purifying funeral pyre as she dug. She could see the iron crossbars, the bracing that should have been prepared to received her wrapped body. She could smell the ladanum that should have sanctified her corpse. She could feel Nim whipping up the flames that waited to receive others, taste the peach essence of the god of wind who waited to gather in the wandering souls of the pure.

As she labored, she felt her flesh pierced again and again, shattered by her father's spear. He tested her faith, tested her devotion. He challenged her with thrust after bloody thrust.

She was pure, wasn't she? She had opened up her heart and her mind and her soul to all the Thousand Gods. Why should her father condemn her? Shouldn't she be blessed with a pyre? Why should she be forced into a filthy grave?

Berylina forced her eyes open, relieved to find that she was still in her cell. With shaking fingers, she lifted her gown—Ranita's gown. She could make out the bloody image of the spear, the jagged measurement of her faith. The wound was already closed, though, already converted to an angry crimson scar.

She had only dreamed her condemnation. She had only dreamed that she was brought before the tribunal, that she had been sentenced to death.

Soon, though. Soon, she would be asked to prove her faith.

The notion frightened her more than she was willing to admit. If only Siritalanu had come to pray with her. Then, she would be more comforted. Then, she would feel more hope. But the priest had only come back to the Midden one time. He had still been angry with her for Speaking with Ranita. His lips had been stretched tight in an odd white line, as if he were being forced to cross a rope bridge over a chasm.

Poor Siritalanu. He did not understand her. He was wholly devoted to her—of that she was certain. But he did not begin to comprehend how the gods spoke to her, how they manifested themselves inside her mind. If he did learn, if he did come to believe her, would the Briantans even let him stay at her side? Wouldn't he be forced to denounce her for her strangeness? Wouldn't he be forced to declare her a witch?

The thought made Berylina's heart beat faster, and the skin beside her roving eye started to twitch. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to find the calm place inside herself, where the gods came to her. The place that Ranita had opened by guiding her in the Speaking.

She was not a witch.

Of that she was certain. The gods spoke to her in mysterious ways. They carried messages that she could barely comprehend, but she did not use her godly powers for evil. She did not corrupt herself or others.

Even as Berylina completed the calming litany in her mind, she heard the guard clank down the hallway. This was the leader of the day watch, the one who breathed heavily and whose body always stank. She imagined him sitting at the entrance to the prison cells, carving off hunks of bread and swallowing them whole, with blocks of cheese and wedges of onion to complete his constant meal.

As if she were spurred by the unclean guard's habits, Berylina sat up straighter. She ran her fingers through her wiry hair, hoping that she was taming it rather than making it stand out even more. She pushed her hands against her skirts, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. Only three days had passed since the glasswright had visited, but the dress seemed to fit Berylina better than it had before. Perhaps she had lost weight on the miserable prison rations. Or maybe the fabric had stretched.

Or maybe the Gods had provided for her. Berylina cast a quick word of thanks toward Jol, the god of cloth. He might have added to the garment. He might have kept an eye on her, in her solitude. Jol responded with his expected sound of a cow lowing. Berylina smiled. How could she be condemned for her familiarity with the gods? How could it be wrong to let a deity speak to her?

“On your feet!”

Berylina had nearly forgotten about the guard. She truly must focus. Today was likely to be her test, her trial. If she failed, her nightmares might spin into reality. If she failed, she might die.

“May all the Thousand bless you,” she said to the guard.

“And you as well,” he said, automatically completing the familiar greeting and weaving his fingers into the appropriate gesture. Then he seemed to remember that she was a corrupt prisoner. “On your feet!” he repeated.

She stood, taking a deep breath against the sudden wave of dizziness that swept over her. She was light-headed, as if she had a fever. She'd been seriously ill only once, when she was still a child. Then, her Amanthian nurse had stood over her, laying cold compresses on her brow. The woman had called on all sorts of gods—Zake, the god of chirurgeons, and Nome, and others whom Berylina could not remember through the fog of her illness.

She still associated her occasional light-headedness with the gods the nurse had invoked. Nome's piping always left Berylina feeling like a silk banner drifting in an easy wind. Zake's astringent mint flavor on her tongue always summoned the feel of cool, damp cloths, of a nurse's compassionate hands.

“Let's go,” the guard said, clearly unaware of Berylina's thoughts.

“Where are you taking me?” Her voice sounded strange in her ears, too high, too breathy.

“To the Gods' Court. The curia is called to judge you today.”

“The curia?” She knew the term of course, but she had no idea how such bodies worked in Brianta. She had no idea of the forces that would be arrayed against her.

“Aye. And they'll only be more disposed against you if you keep them waiting.” The guard's lips twisted into a frown that might have been tinged with pity. “No reason to start off any worse than you already are.”

Nevertheless, Berylina took the time to pause on the threshold of her cell. She looked back at the narrow window, and she whispered a quick prayer of gratitude to Par, the god of the sun. He had kept her company when everyone else seemed to have abandoned her. He had visited through the tiny, unglazed slash. As if in reply to her grateful words, she felt the warm wash of water that was Par's signature.

The guard caught his breath in an impatient sigh as Berylina bowed her head. She took special care in phrasing her prayer. She wanted the gods to know that she did not bear them any ill will. After all, they were not responsible for how the Briantan priests interpreted—or misinterpreted—their words. To the contrary, the gods suffered when humans failed, suffered even more than Berylina might at the hands of the curia.

“Please,” she said, just before leaving the cell. “I'd like my Thousand Pointed Star.”

“You are to have no weapon before the curia.”

“It's a Star!” Her voice broke, surprising her. She had not realized how desperately she missed the outward trappings of her faith.

“It's a brooch, with a spike of metal as long as your thumb. You're a prisoner, and you'll be treated like the criminal you're accused of being, especially when you stand before your betters.”