Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands (2 page)

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Authors: David B. Coe

BOOK: Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands
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“Has it really been six years already?” he heard Eddya ask.
“I believe so,” Jervis answered. Pytor heard surrender in his words, and he hated him for it. In certain ways, he and Jervis were nothing alike.
“Hard to believe six years can go so fast,” Mart said softly. He would go meekly as well.
“It’s been five,” Pytor said, his voice cutting through their chatter.
None of them argued with him. None of them dared. Steffan had died on the eve of the last Feast. Indeed, his death had prompted it.
“Five years rather than six,” Segel said thoughtfully. “It may be that the duke’s Qirsi has gleaned something.”
“I remember back some years we had an early Feast,” Eddya said, cackling. “Turned out there were people dead of the pestilence in Domnall.”
Segel nodded. “That could be it as well.”
“That doesn’t excuse it,” Pytor said, not bothering to mask his bitterness.
“Come now, Pytor,” Brice said. “We all know how rough the last one was for you. But that doesn’t mean that we should abandon the whole practice.”
“The Feasts are a barbarism! They always have been, and I’d be saying that no matter what!”
Brice shook his head. “They’re a necessity,” he said. “And getting all riled up about it doesn’t do you or the rest of us a bit of good. There’s nothing that can be done.”
“You have to admit,” Davor added. “It has worked.”
“Davor’s right,” Eddya agreed, grinning like a madwoman. “Galdasten hasn’t had a full-blown outbreak of pestilence in my lifetime. And my father never saw an epidemic either. Say what you will, but it works.”
“‘It works!’” Pytor mimicked angrily. “Of course it works! But at what price? They could kill us all with daggers beforehand and that would work too! ‘No pestilence there,’ they’d say. ‘Killing them ahead of time works just fine!’”
“You’re being foolish, Pytor,” Brice said. “No one’s been killed. The Feasts are a far cry better than that.”
Pytor took a breath, fighting to control his temper, struggling against the old grief. “And what about those the Feasts don’t save?” he asked in a lower voice. “What about them? The Feasts don’t always work.”
“No, they don’t,” Brice said. “But that’s all the more reason for us to be thankful that the duke is being vigilant. Better we should do this a year early than wait and let someone else lose a child. The risks of doing nothing are just too great. And the Feasts aren’t nearly as awful as the fever itself. You of all people know what the pestilence can do. You and Kara were lucky to escape with your lives last time. All of us were.” He looked around the table and the others nodded their agreement. All, that is, except Segel.
“Yes,” Pytor said, nodding reluctantly. “I know what the pestilence does.” He shuddered in spite of himself. He wasn’t stupid. The pestilence was no trifle. Murnia’s Gift it was called, named for the dark goddess by someone with a twisted humor. It had wiped out entire villages in less than three days. One particularly severe outbreak two centuries ago had killed over half the people in the entire dukedom in a single waning. It had taken Steffan in less than a day.
But though it worked quickly, it was far from merciful. It began, innocently enough, with a bug bite. It didn’t matter where—Steffan’s had been on his ankle. If the bite just swelled and then subsided, there was no need to worry. But if a small oval red rash appeared around the bite a person was better off taking a dagger to his heart than waiting for what was to come. Within half a day of the rash’s appearance fever set in, and with it delirium. The lucky ones lost consciousness during this stage and never awoke again. Such was the one grace in Steffan’s case. But those who didn’t pass out—those whom the goddess ordained should remain awake for the entire ordeal—could expect one of two things to happen: either the vomiting and diarrhea would leave them too weak to do anything but waste away, or they would spend the last hours of their lives coughing up blood and pieces of their lungs. In either case, they were as
good as dead—and so was anyone who came near them within a day of the bug bite. Given their unwillingness to leave Steffan when he fell ill, Pytor still didn’t know how he and Kara managed to survive.
“I’m no stranger to the pestilence either,” Segel said softly, a haunted look in his dark eyes, “but I must say that I agree with Pytor: there ought to be another way.”
“There!” Pytor said, pointing to the dark man. “At least one of you has some sense!”
“But what could they do?” Brice demanded. “The duke has healers and thinkers, not to mention his Qirsi. If there was another way, don’t you think they would have thought of it by now?”
“Why would they bother?” Pytor asked, throwing the question at him like a blade. “Their solution doesn’t cost them a thing. And as you pointed out yourself, the pestilence hasn’t reached the city in ages. If a boy dies here or there, who cares? They’re still safe as long as they get their Feast in soon enough. They have no need to look for another way.”
Brice shook his head. “Other houses have to deal with it, too. They haven’t come up with much that’s better. Some of them just let the pestilence run its course. Is that what you want?”
“I’d prefer it, yes!”
Brice let out an exasperated sigh and turned away. “He’s mad,” he said to the rest of them, gesturing sharply in Pytor’s direction.
“They’ve been doing it this way a long time,” Jervis said, his eyes on Pytor, the words coming out as a plea. “Longer than any of us have been alive. I don’t like it either, Pytor. But it has kept our people alive and healthy.”
“‘
Our people’?”
Pytor repeated, practically shouting it at him. Jervis flinched and Pytor realized that Brice was right: he was starting to sound crazed. But he could barely contain himself. Surely Jervis and the others knew the origins of the Feast.
Nearly two centuries ago, the pestilence struck the House of Galdasten, just as it had every few years for as long as anyone could recall. Kell XXIII, who later became the fourth Kell of Galdasten to claim Eibithar’s throne, hid himself and his family within the thick stone walls of his castle, praying to the gods that the pestilence might pass over the ramparts of his home and remain only in the countryside. But while Galdasten Castle had repelled countless invasions and endured sieges that would have brought other houses to their
knees, its moat and fabled golden walls were poor defenses against the pestilence. The duke and duchess were spared, but not their son, Kell XXIV.
In the wake of the boy’s death, Kell ordered the razing of the entire countryside. It was, most had long since concluded, an act born of spite and rage and grief. But because the pestilence is carried by the mice living in the fields and houses of the countryside, and spread by the vermin that infest the rodents’ fur, Kell’s fire actually ended the outbreak. Realizing that he had found a way to control the spread of the pestilence, Kell made a tradition of it. For a time, he looked to his sorcerers to tell him when outbreaks were coming, but it soon became clear that the interval between outbreaks remained remarkably constant: six years almost every time. So that’s when the burnings came. Every six years.
Kell’s younger son, Ansen, continued the practice after his father’s death, but the new duke added the Feast as an appeasement of sorts, a way of softening the blow. It too became a tradition. All in the dukedom were invited into Galdasten Castle to partake of a meal that was unequaled by any other. The duke had his cooks prepare breads and meats of the highest quality. He had greens and dried fruits brought in from Sanbira and Caerisse just for the occasion. And of course he opened barrel after barrel of wine. Not the usual swill, but the finest from Galdasten’s cellars.
All the while, as the people ate and drank, dancing as the court’s musicians played and fancying themselves nobles for just one night, the duke’s Qirsi sorcerers, accompanied by a hundred of Galdasten’s finest soldiers, marched across the countryside, burning every home, barn, and field to the ground. Nothing was spared, not even the beasts.
In the morning, when the people left the castle and shuffled back to their homes, sated and exhausted, still feeling the effects of the wine, they invariably found the land blackened and still smoldering. Pytor still remembered the last time with a vividness that brought tears to his eyes. Steffan had been dead only a day and a half. There hadn’t even been time for Pytor and Kara to cleanse him for his journey to Bian and the Underrealm. But when they returned to their land they couldn’t find the walls of their home, much less Steffan’s body. Such was the force of the sorcerers’ flame.
No, the pestilence hadn’t swept through Galdasten in generations. Instead, they had their Feasts.
“‘Our people,’” Pytor said again, more calmly this time. “The duke doesn’t do this for us. He couldn’t care less about us. He does it to protect himself and his kin, just like old Kell did, and Ansen after him. If the Feast comes a day or two late to save the life of someone else’s child, so what? That doesn’t matter to him. This Kell, our Kell, is no different from any of the rest.”
“Fine!” Brice said, the look in his grey eyes as keen as the duke’s blade. “He does it for himself! And never mind for a minute what we all know: that the Feasts have spared us more suffering than you can even imagine! What do you suggest we do about it? You’ve seen what Qirsi fire does! You think we can stand against that? You think we can fight it?”
Pytor glared at him, not knowing what to say, feeling the color rise in his cheeks.
Brice grinned fiercely, though his face looked dangerously flushed beneath his thick silver hair. “I thought so,” he said at last. “You’re all bluster, Pytor. You always have been. I thought maybe now that you were finally alone in the world, you might have balls enough to back up all the dung you shovel our way every day. But I guess I should have known better.”
“That’s enough, Brice!” Mart said sharply.
The wealthy man looked away and said no more.
Mart turned to Pytor, concern furrowing his brow. “Brice didn’t mean anything by it, Pytor. He just doesn’t always think before he speaks.” He cast a reproachful glance Brice’s way before looking at Pytor again. “Steffan was a fine boy, Pytor. We all liked him. And we know that losing him still pains you. But,” he went on cautiously, as if he expected Pytor to strike him at any moment, “Brice does have a point. I hate the Feasts as well. We all do. But what alternative do we have?”
Pytor didn’t answer him at first. What did Mart know of his pain? What did any of them know? Instead, he kept glaring at Brice, watching him grow more uncomfortable by the moment. In spite of the tone he had used and all he had said, Brice was afraid of him. He had been for some time now. Not because Pytor was bigger or stronger than he. He was neither. Brice feared him because Pytor had lost everything, or at least everything that mattered. Brice still had his family and his farm and his wealth, so he was vulnerable.
He kept his gaze fixed on Brice for a few seconds more, allowing the man’s discomfort to build. Then he looked at the others. They
were all staring back at him. Davor looking frightened and confused, Eddya with her crazed grin, and Jervis just looking sad, like an old mule. Segel was watching him as well, but speculatively, the way a man might regard a piece of land that had been offered to him at a good price. He was appraising Pytor, considering what he might be capable of doing. Pytor grinned at him, but Segel’s expression didn’t change.
“There are always alternatives,” Pytor said at last. “It’s just a matter of having the will to find them.”
Brice let out a high, disbelieving laugh. “And I suppose you have such will!”
Pytor heard the goad in his words, and he knew then what he would do, what he had to do. None of the others would act. They weren’t capable of it. But he was. Realizing this, he felt more alive than he had since he’d lost Kara. He turned slowly to face Brice again, allowing himself a smile. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll see,” Brice replied. He looked scared still, but it almost seemed that he was unable to stop himself. “We’ll see you at Galdasten, lining up at the gates while the sun’s still high so that you’ll be assured of getting your fair share of wine and mutton. That’s what we saw at every Feast before the last one. This one won’t be any different.”
Pytor bared his teeth like a feral dog, hoping Brice would take it for a grin. “And you’ll be there right next to me, won’t you, Brice”
“Absolutely,” he said, laughing nervously. “Absolutely. We’ll sit together and have a good chuckle over this. And we’ll fill our cups with the duke’s wine and drink to our good health.”
The others tried to laugh as well, but they were looking at Pytor, trying to gauge his reaction. When he joined their laughter, their relief was palpable. Pytor just laughed harder. He had made his decision.
He glanced over at Segel and saw that the dark man was still eyeing him closely, a strange expression on his lean features, as if he could read Pytor’s thoughts. Pytor was surprised to find that this didn’t bother him, that in fact he found it comforting. Segel, of all people, might understand.
The others had begun to talk among themselves, all of them in great humor now that the unpleasantness had passed. But Segel’s
expression remained grim as he moved his chair closer to Pytor’s and signaled Levan for another ale.

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