Winterfinding (21 page)

“
Poetic.” Jena said bored.
She looked at Addison, “You want me to chaperon this guy to The
Cathedral, it that it?”

“
I could make it on my
own, if I wasn’t being hunted.”

“
What?” Jena’s face
scrunched up visibly annoyed.

“
He claims that he was
taken prisoner by this fleet from the first. That they let him
loose down along the stony shore a little more than a week
ago.”

“
Why?” Jena shook her
head. “Why capture him? Why let him go? And, again, why do I
care?”

“
Capture him because he
was sent by The Cathedral to steal Lappalan secrets, and he
succeeded.” Cochrane’s face was blank as he stared at the floor.
“Release him? I don’t know maybe for sport.”

“
He’s convinced that one
of his captors is tracking him.”

Cochrane nodded, “You care because what I
know could end The Blockade.” He gestured with his head toward
Addison, “And he said, you’d care about that.”

“
What did you tell him
about me?” She demanded.

“
I told him you were a
good person.” Addison said defensively. “Look, what you’re asking
me to do for Moria isn’t quite a one-to-one exchange for nabbing
Heston.”

“
So this is? This evens
us?”

“
I’m just saying, I can’t
spare anyone and I know you’re already heading north.”

“
Convenient.” Jena gave a
mocking smile. “You’re not going to be one of those friends that’s
always asking for favors are you?”

Addison shrugged. “Cochrane is more than
just a free ranger…”

“
I’m a justiciar.
Technically.”

Jena’s eyes widened, “What?”

Addison held out his hand to calm her down,
“It’s complicated. Point is, I have to see to it that he’s set well
on his way.”

“
I doubt a justiciar would
want the aid of a woman.” Jena sneered.

Cochrane shook his head, “I’m not a Bandran.
I’m from Sulecin. Would have been a paladin, but it turns out my
skills are more…” Cochrane held out his hands. “Let’s say, I work
better with a little more moral flexibility.”

“
I wouldn’t think going
from being a paladin to a justiciar would facilitate
that.”

“
I told you, I’m not
Bandran. Take away the fundamentalism and you’re left with this,”
Cochrane gestured to himself, “The Cathedral’s own ranger. And I’m
sent out to do the unseemly things the Light needs
done.”

Jena crossed her arms and glared at Addison.
He didn’t look at her instead keeping his gaze fixed on Cochrane,
“She’s wanted by the Bandrans. Travelling with her, you’ll fit
their bounty perfectly.”

Her jaw dropped, “You knew about that? You
didn’t turn me in?”

“
A vague bounty issued by
the Bandran justiciars is something worth ignoring. If I followed
up on every one they put out, there’d be no one left in this
town.”

Cochrane nodded, “They do tend to overdo it.
There’s always someone to accuse of heresy.”

“
How’s that gonna help
us?” she asked.

“
It’s going to hurry you
along.” Addison said bluntly. “I’m giving you horses and supplies.
You should be able to make it to Sulecin in a fortnight. Maybe less
if you really bear down.”

“
If we survive.” Cochrane
muttered and laid back down with his arm crossed over his
face.

“
His sect’s bounty hunters
and the supposed killer that’s after him.” Addison said. “So you’ll
have to get going.”

“
Nothing about this makes
any sense.” Jena sighed. “I’m sick of this kind of
thing.”

“
An army in the north, a
fleet in the south, and some kind of nonsense going on between
Bandra and Sulecin in the faith.” Cochrane muttered.

“
Fine.” Jena shook her
head. “He can ride with me. But we have to get going. I’m sick of
this town.” She turned away walking back out to the front of the
station. Addison watched her go. Cochrane slid his arms underneath
his head and smiled at him.

“
She’s going to be a
delight.”

Addison left the cell and said over his
shoulder, “He’s your best chance.”

CHAPTER Five

The
1
^st
of
Winterfinding

Sulecin

The night air was crisp as the wind brought
down random snowflakes from the grey sky. From atop the squat wall
that encircled The Cathedral proper, Wynne saw the lights of
Sulecin glimmer. He looked up trying to judge the weather’s intent.
He suspected the first snow of the season would come over the small
hours. It wouldn’t be more than a dusting.

He watched as whirl of light snow spun
across the empty stone expanse between the Cathedral wall and the
city. Snow was collecting in the corners and crevices. He had been
here for weeks and hadn’t made as much progress as he would have
liked. Wynne flexed and stretched the fingers of his gloved hand.
He hadn’t experienced cold like this in a long time. It was only
going to worse.

Already there were reports that Far Port and
the Falkstone River were frozen. The weather wasn’t unusual but a
small part of Wynne marveled at the notion of a city locked in ice
for half the year. Rubbing his palms gazing out over the sacred
city, he imagined Sulecin ice bound. Just beyond the lights,
emanating from the thousands of low buildings stretching out into
the dark horizon would be army pyres. The Spires had amassed its
army—a patchwork of Silvincians, Novosars, and, worryingly,
Bandra’s justiciars.

There was talk through the halls of the
Cathedral, murmurs by the clergy of a schism. The city of Bandra
had always stood slightly apart from the proper faith. At least, it
did in the eyes of the Cassubians. The founders of the faith here
in Sulecin at the heart of the Cassubian nation considered their
southern brethren too extreme in their views, too zealous, quick to
anger, and lacking foresight. It was nothing more than a
transference of their disdain for Silvincian mores. To distinguish
itself within the faith, the Bandrans focused on the letter of the
law. Merging secular zeal with religious fervor, Bandra became the
second most sacred city in the world. The Light shone on Bandra, as
the saying went.

Wynne had seen the golden pagodas once as
boy. He was just beginning his merchant career as his first
commission took him to the eastern half of the sea. Fat teardrops,
he had thought then. Fat, golden tears. The pagodas weren’t
painted; they were gilded in gold leaf. Every year each pagoda was
restored, given a new layer of gold leaf. There was never a time
when the pagodas didn’t shine and they seemed everywhere in the
city. When he had first sailed into the harbor he began counting,
and once they had moored he had lost count. They varied in height,
some were no taller than a small house while others rose hundreds
of feet into the air, but each kept the same teardrop shape. The
smaller ones usually housed an icon of some sort, an image or
sculpture of a passed patriarch or other long dead sacred
person.

He had never been a faithless man, but Wynne
had never seen the attraction or appeal of the Light. It struck him
as a rather silly animism. But it didn’t afford one too much
benefit to dwell on it. After all, he was raised in a city of
ancestor worshipers. Nearly every city had adapted the Light to its
native faith. Yet the Bandrans, they did it in a way that always
felt primal, aggressive. It was almost as though they craved the
faith for their own and wanted to purge its founders in favor of
their own. At least, that was the rumor. A silent campaign had kept
Bandrans from ever reaching genuinely high positions in the clergy.
That is, until recently, and now there were rumblings.

Wynne’s hands were stiff inside the
wool-lined gloves. He wasn’t use to the cold. Making fists, he
folded his arms together inside the sleeves of his cassock and
turned away from the view of the city. Walking along the parapet,
he let his mind wander. What would happen if the Bandrans betrayed
the faith, defying the patriarch? It wasn’t practical. Too much to
lose, it seemed to him. Yet if there was one thing he had learned
about the ardent of the faith, it was that they often were
shortsighted. Most people were. Most didn’t have the time (or
convinced themselves they didn’t have the time) to think beyond the
moment, the immediate. In reality, they often didn’t have the
skill. In reality, they usually didn’t have the patience to raise
their head and embrace the full field. Wynne’s father had called it
distance vision.

“
Does the Light have
you?”

Wynne stopped abruptly. He snapped back the
world around him and saw before him a priest standing in very plain
clothes. Clothes that weren’t made for the out of doors.

“
I’m must apologize. I
didn’t mean to startle you.” The priest didn’t move but gazed at
Wynne with calm, almost sleepy looking eyes.

“
No, no,” he waved away
the concerns, “I needed air to think.”

“
It is bracing, isn’t it?”
The priest took a deep breath and let out a long cloud of breath.
“I too find it clears my mind, allows me to take in more of the
world’s possibilities.”

“
Yes, well…” Wynne was
annoyed at himself for losing touch with his
surroundings.

“
Tonight would be better
if these clouds went away. Do you know that the auroras should be
occurring soon?”

“
I am sorry…” Wynne
gestured to the priest hoping to pry a name from his seemingly
eager lips.

“
Pallas.” He smiled taking
a few steps forward and pass Wynne. Pallas didn’t turn to look back
at Wynne but did continue talking, “Perhaps you should linger out
here a bit longer, Wynne Landis.”

He turned looking after Pallas but the
priest just kept walking with is back to him. When he had first
arrived in Sulecin, Wynne had found a place to stay in one of the
poorer districts. Partly to keep a low profile but also because it
would be easiest to come across the one soul he trusted in the
city, a man named Cyr.

Not an ordinary man, though Cyr would
certainly have referred to himself as nothing more than that, he
was a gyrovagi, an order of wandering monks who served the poor.
Gyrovagi were considered the lowest of the orders serving the
Light, yet this was mostly due to snobbery within the clergy. When
the vast majority of your ranks are made up of third and fourth
born noble sons, the order of the faith tasked with proselytizing
to the common folk and those in poverty tend to be sneered at.

Wynne was under on false belief; there were
some churlish gyrovagi using their position to fleece everything
could from the poor. Cyr, however, was perhaps the model for what
one of his order should strive to be. He was humble and tireless in
his efforts not to just spread the faith but to care for those he
came upon. Cyr believed that through his actions he could inspire
even the lowest. They had met years before The Blockade when Cyr
was tasked with shoring up the faithful of Heveonen and Rikonen. He
had had middling to slim success but you wouldn’t have known it by
how gregarious and kind he had been. Wynne had taken to him
immediately and the two had long discussions about faith and
philosophy, usually over far too many mugs of beer.

He had found Cyr running an orphanage of
sorts, a home for the wayward of the city. When he saw him, Cyr had
welcomed Wynne in with open arms as though no time at all had
passed since they last saw one another. It was from him that he had
been given the name of another gyrovagi, one less scrupulous, who
Cyr suspected of being among a particularly ambitious group of
clergy. There were always factions in any ruling body, but those
within the Cathedral made all others look like child’s play.

The friar Cyr had direct him to (while
expressly warning him to steer clear of the wretched man) had
promised to get him an audience with several vicegerents. Nothing
had materialized, though Wynne had cleared the first hurdle. He was
allowed to occupy chambers in the Cathedral proper as a foreign
dignitary. However, that was where he had stalled. Until now.

“
Ebon Danforth is a
wretched friar.” Pallas said casually. Wynne hadn’t rushed after
the priest but did increase his stride to catch up with him. “It
pains me to have to be in his presence. However, he is a dreadful
liar. Good, really, for only overhearing and retaining choice bits
of information.”

Wynne came alongside Pallas as the two
walked back over the path that Wynne had come. “When I spoke with
him, ages ago it seems, he believed he could help me in my
cause.”

“
Your cause isn’t hopeless
but no one here is willing to weaken their own position within the
Cathedral.”

“
Standing beside me would
do that.”

Pallas nodded, “So they all believe. Of
course, you stand here now.”

“
You’ll have to forgive
me, I don’t know of you.”

“
Nor should you really,”
Pallas smiled, “I belong to a rather obscure order.”

There was silence as they walked along the
parapet. Wynne didn’t want to seem too eager even though time was
running short for him. He had learned over the years that if a
person wanted to speak they would in due course.

Finally, Pallas stopped and gestured down to
the wide, empty expanse between the Cathedral’s wall and the city.
“Do you know what that is?”