Citadel of the Sky (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 1) (11 page)

The sick woman and her plague eidolon sat upright, cowering against the wall, away from Kiar, still screaming. Ilsa rushed over to the bed, passing right through Kiar’s phantasmagory-expanded sense of self and tried to calm her mother, while the Elder said something, only words with no meaning. Ilsa was clean and untainted in the Logos-sight, with what looked like new patterns creating a fortification against the screams of the woman. There was something horrifying in the sound, a living madness that assaulted them all. But the Elder wasn’t sensitive enough to Mae’s nature to absorb the madness, and Ilsa had found a way of rejecting it, like white rejected light.

Kiar buried the phantasmagory deep inside and the woman’s screams stopped.
Coincidence?
The daughter stroked her mother’s hair, murmuring to her about nightmares. Kiar hesitated. She could see the Elder’s concern warring with tired cynicism, emphasized in his Logos. Then, under her hand, she shaped a tiny eidolon probe, a dart of rainbow frailty. She felt it against her palm, and no sooner did she feel its half-real substance did Mae begin whimpering and crying out.

Kiar banished the emanation and stumbled from the cottage, past Berrin, past the chicken yard, and crouched down in the dirt of the road.
She reacted to the Blood magic. She felt it.
It made no sense, it was impossible, but she displayed a sensitivity even users of Blood magic lacked.

She heard Berrin’s footsteps behind her. “Your Ladyship?”

“I need answers, Berrin. In the two weeks before the illness appeared, did the mother go to other farms? The village center? Did she meet anybody new? What does she do normally?’

Berrin hesitated and then said, “Yes, Your Ladyship.” His footsteps moved away.

Kiar longed to banish the Logos-sight and go back to being just prickly Kiar. But she’d barely started. There were more people to interview, more victims to meet. More nightmares to see. She could conclude nothing from just one. But she couldn’t let herself fall into phantasmagory while seeing through the Logos.

It was dangerous enough for her normally. But the Logos combined with the phantasmagory would leave her both blind and beyond anybody’s reach. She had to resist panicking, even though she was seeing impossible things, frightening things.

She looked at the chickens, their simple patterns and complex, distinctive traits. She murmured a description of the closest one, a white hen with a red splotch on her back. It was like her in only the most basic ways: a living, mobile thing that ate and slept. It was unable to control its reactions or choose what it feared. It was unable to have courage, only blind stupidity. She was Kiar, half servant, half princess, and she had to have courage.

Two sets of footsteps returned, Berrin and the uneven rhythm of the Elder. The Elder spoke. “Mae mostly stayed on the farm. She didn’t meet anyone new that Ilsa or I know about. She works on the weaving and takes care of the trees when it’s not silkworm season.”

“No changes in behavior? No new interests?” She turned around to face the Elder.

He looked disturbed. “You one of those who thinks sickness is a punishment for misbehaving, Your Ladyship? I suppose it’s easy for castle-born to think that, but it just isn’t so. Maybe you have to be old to understand that.” He scratched his face.

Kiar shook her head. “Not a punishment, just a consequence. I’m sorry.” She turned and looked at the grove of mulberry trees. “I suppose I might as well look around in the stand first. Then I’ll want to see the others who are sick.”

“As you wish,” the Elder said.

Though the day was bright, the grove was cool and shadowed. The mulberry trees in the Royal Garden were small, pruned things, barely more than bushes, and widely spaced. These trees were large and old, with wide-spreading branches and long weeping twigs full of leaves. There were ladders lying here and there on the ground, and large wicker baskets were piled under trees, barely visible beneath the drapery of leaves.

The trees were evenly spaced here as well, she realized. They’d been planted by someone who had anticipated just how big they could get. Under one drapery of leaves, she saw some children’s toys, and she realized what a wonderful hiding place this would be. She stopped, pushed through the drape of leaves and then turned to look out, her back against the broad trunk. It was a little, living version of her phantasmagory world, and she could just barely see outside the strands of leaves. They rustled together pleasantly. There was an old rag doll and two rough clay cups nestled in the roots of the tree.

“Lady?” queried Berrin.

“Just looking,” she said, and pushed her way out of the hiding space again. She walked along the wide rows, concentrating on the Logos-vision, looking for any sign that someone with the family magic had been there recently.

And much to her surprise, that was what she saw.

First, she saw the markings along the ground, as if someone had a drawn a path that blotted out the real path beneath it. She swerved from her route and followed it, walking alongside it down the narrower way. Where she had found it, it was fading, but as she tracked it, the mark grew stronger. It was more like an eidolon than typical magic taint, a stable darkness interrupting the patterns of the Logos. Eventually, it led under the veil of a tree’s canopy.

Kiar stopped and tilted her head. “Do you hear that?” she asked the two men following her.

Elder Whitestaff listened. “Some animal den in the roots, perhaps.” The rustling behind the canopy stopped, and then a low, bestial moan emerged.

Kiar pushed some of the branches aside and peered in. “Lord of Winter,” she whispered.

To her human vision, the creature in the den among the mulberry roots was a monstrosity, a horned mastiff with a mane of spikes and three tails. To her Logos-vision, it was something new, something she only recognized from other wizards’ written descriptions: a sky fiend. Earth fiends were children of the Logos, just as animals were: infused with it, defined by it, controlled by it.

Sky fiends, she’d read, were not part of the Logos, but they affected it and were affected by it in turn. And they were capable of using it directly, just as wizards did, which made them a rare and frightening monster.

She saw the horned mastiff, and she saw the hole in the Logos that it occupied: not a blind spot as the eidolons were, but a place where the Logos curved around
something else
, embracing it. It looked at her with mad, red eyes and roared, pressing itself against the tree trunk and then falling on its side in a violent seizure. The Logos twitched and flowed, and Kiar could feel strands of power grasping at her. She muttered her own words of defense, rejecting the Logos strands, and started to back away.

Then she saw the iridescent shimmer of an eidolon around the torso of the sky fiend, and she froze. It was not a taint on the Logos, for there was no Logos there to taint. But she was just as familiar with the look of family magic in the normal world. Somehow, there was an eidolon inside this fiend.

The spray of pale color shifted and moved, and then swelled out from the thrashing creature’s side. The eidolon within emerged. It had a head and arms, and it moved like one of the King’s companions, almost like a person. It pulled itself free of the sky fiend, and slowly its color darkened to the color of shadow. Kiar stumbled backwards, reached for her own magic, and faltered, remembering the screams of the woman in the house. She didn’t know how the magic was related to the illness yet—

Berrin grabbed her around the waist and lifted her out of the way, pushing her towards Elder Whitestaff. Then he drew his sword. “Not one of yours, Your Ladyship?” He backed away as the shadow-colored eidolon emerged from the veil of leaves. The bellowing of the sky fiend faded away to a sobbing.

“N-no,” Kiar said. “If you can drive it away, please do! But I don’t know what it’s capable of. I don’t know if the sky fiend spawned it or if it was… an illness.” She wondered why she’d said that.

The shadow eidolon twitched and tilted its head, then sidled to one side. Berrin sliced his sword at it. “Feels kind of backwards. Usually it’s the other side cutting at ‘em, hey?” His blade penetrated the eidolon and slid through, and the eidolon stopped, wavering. Then it glided towards Berrin, extending an elongated arm that sprouted claws.

“Lady, we must flee and gather your other guards!” Elder Whitestaff tugged at her hand. She resisted and he released her, planting his feet. She shook her head.

“No, this is my responsibility; this is why I’m here. You go!” He stared at her and then began hobbling out of the grove.

Berrin slashed at the arm reaching for him, and the eidolon recoiled. Kiar ducked under the veil of leaves again and began to describe traits to the Logos, assigning them to the empty space in the Logos where the sky fiend was. It cried out and twisted, clawing at the mulberry tree with thick, heavy claws. The shimmering began around the sky fiend’s torso again.

Changing the Logos was a lot harder than just describing it, but describing it was where change started. Then she had to find the words to make the changes within her imagination, and if she couldn’t imagine it completely enough, it would fail. Kiar clenched her fists and let the Logos flow through her, taking her desires and tumbling out of her mouth faster than she could consciously shape the sounds. Mist was simple, mist was easy. It could fill the space, push the monster out. The eidolon magic blooming against the creature’s side was a problem and as she realized this, her speech faltered.

Then she lunged forward and pressed her hand against the writhing creature’s side. Her fingers sank into the eidolon, past a barrier of warmth and life, into something terrible and far away. She reached for the memory of what she’d done in Iriss’s room. It had been a terrifying accident then, but now she realized it was a discovery. She opened herself and pulled the burgeoning eidolon into herself, stuffing it into her own magic source.

Something inside her stretched painfully. She was choking, like she’d tried to swallow dry bread. There was a tearing sensation and then alien memories of a place without light opened up inside her head. The Logos-vision vanished. Darkness moved against her skin. There was screaming—

She opened her eyes. Her cheek was pressed against dirt; she lay flat on the ground. The sky fiend was still thrashing, half-banished. She was so tired.

She pushed herself to her knees and shook her head. Then she opened herself to the Logos again, not the gradual raising of the vision she preferred to practice, but a full embrace of the power.

Once again, she let herself become a channel for the Logos as she concentrated fully on her vision of mist, in that place right there, right now. The sounds tore themselves from her throat. The Logos around the sky fiend slammed into it, reclaiming the space it had occupied, forcing the entity back to the place that had spawned it, outside the world.

She fell onto her side again, rolled over, and stared up at the branches overhead. The leaves were still swaying, and a sunbeam flickered through the dissipating mist. She didn’t hear anything other than her own labored breathing. Then the leaves rustled, and Berrin called, “Ladyship? Kiar?” He sounded healthy.

She said, “I’m alive,” and pushed herself to her feet. “Did you dissolve the eidolon?” She emerged from the veil of leaves.

Berrin said, “Yes. More like fighting a shadow than a real man, but it didn’t like being cut.”

“They don’t. Well, ours don’t. They take their reality from us and we don’t like being cut either.” She shrugged.

Berrin lifted a tail of leaves with his sword. “What happened to the other thing?”

Suddenly self-conscious, Kiar said, “I banished it. I don’t know how or why it was doing what it was doing, but sky fiends can be kicked out of the world, just like the books said.”

Berrin grinned. “Lady Wizard.” He bowed and sheathed his sword.

Kiar blushed. “Twist would have been much faster about it.”

He still grinned. “Of course. Here, you’ll want to brush that dirt off before the old man brings back the militia.” He pointed a knuckle at her face and side.

Her blush deepened as she rubbed at her face, and shook soil and dead leaves from her clothes. “I’m sorry I left you to fight the eidolon alone. I wanted to see if I could deal with what created it.”
I don’t understand what sky fiends have to do with rogue eidolons and a screaming plague….

“Lady, I’m your guard. If you didn’t trust me to handle that kind of thing, I’d be ashamed of myself.” He pulled his grin back to a solemn expression.

“Well, thank you.” She walked out of the grove and looked up at the sky. “I really hope there aren’t any more of those around. More sick people to inspect is bad enough….”

J
erya and Lisette
went to the Justiciar’s Court again the next morning, and Tiana thought she’d start the day on a positive note by keeping her sister company. The reception was in the evening, so she could easily spare the morning. This time, however, she brought her long-neglected basket of lace crochet with her.

The Hall was full this morning, with a crowd of finely dressed people brightening the audience. More than once, as she let her gaze rove the Hall, she met the stare of someone watching the Royal Box. She smiled the first time it happened, out of habit, but then she realized why they looked away. Her smile took on a feral edge she couldn’t control.

Jerya said, “What a frightening expression,” and Tiana wilted. Jerya patted her hand. “It’s all right.”

The clerk went to the Justiciar’s table and passed a message to Lord Warrane. He read it, covered his eyes and then glanced at the box, meeting Tiana’s stare. This time, he smiled. Then he scribbled something and passed the note back.

After the third case, a request for arbitration on who was responsible for fixing a washed out bridge, Jerya and Lisette consulted. Then, Jerya announced her approval of the decision, her voice firm. The Justiciars muttered, except for Lord Warrane and Lord Donatien, who both frowned at the Royal Box.

The audience, however, murmured and moved in response to Jerya’s approval. A bearded man called to the favored plaintiff, “Bad luck, getting the Blood’s attention.”

Tiana transferred her gaze from Jerya to the audience, and the neighbors of the unwise speaker moved several steps away from him. It was funny, she told herself, and tried to bring her best glare to the surface.
The monsters are back.
And the murmuring stilled. Hysterical laughter bubbled to the surface, and she giggled before she managed to calm herself. She was the perfect patron princess, everything Jerya would be proud of.

As the morning wore on, she amused herself by trying to guess what each group or individual standing in line was there for. The servants were almost always dressed in some kind of livery, with the absent-minded attentiveness she’d come to recognize. The peasants were far more aware of their position in line. Some of them huddled close together, while others were rivals and shared a case, but no amiability. The scholars occupied a third category of petitioner; their clothing varied wildly, but they almost always had documents, or even portfolios, with them.

An example of the third set was next in line. There were two men and a woman. The woman was wearing the sigil and stole of an astrologer, and she held a case. One of the men was dressed like a well-to-do merchant, the kind who would ordinarily have a servant stand in line for him. He was holding a chain with a number of small clocks attached to it.

The other, bearded, was dressed in the simple homespun robes of a monk. Tiana leaned forward, and around his neck she could see the wooden torc of the Firstborn Keldera, plowman’s patron, with a blue and yellow bead on each side. She couldn’t remember what the colors of the Keldaran beads signified, but she knew that only two meant he wasn’t highly placed in Keldaran hierarchy.

The center of Keldaran power was far to the east, at Lachan and Lake Morning. The priests appeared at Sangwys to welcome the summer and at Nomenflor, Keldera’s high holy day, but otherwise, she had little experience with them. She wondered if they’d come to report on the harvest.

The trio moved to the white line. The merchant introduced himself. “I am Gregori Yale. I make fine clocks. This is Mistress Vanelle Petring, a customer of mine. Several years ago, she expressed a complaint about my craftsmanship and, in doing so, brought something very disturbing to my attention. She said that over the past seven years or so, my attention to detail had slipped and that my clocks were no longer as precise as they used to be. I take pride in my work, so I investigated.”

Tiana glanced at the Justiciar’s table and saw members frowning, several shifting impatiently. Perhaps this wasn’t a scholarly report, as she’d thought. Perhaps this was some sort of dispute they needed settled instead.

“Her specific complaint was that my clocks were losing time much faster than they used to. She produced records of certain astrological events which happen reliably, at the same time, on the same day, every year. She brings those with her today.”

He gestured at the woman and her case. “I checked my mathematics and they were sound. The materials were not degrading more quickly. We could find nothing that would account for it.

“Eventually, I invited her to my shop, which has hundreds of clocks of my own and others’ craftsmanship. There we observed and timed the display of a certain stellar phenomenon known as the Winterdark Companion. Its passage, two days before Pyrvalis, is very predictable.”

The man paused and took a deep breath. “It was late. By every clock, by every calculation of dusk and dawn, it was late.” He looked around, at dozens of puzzled faces, and nodded. “I was confused. I turned to another correspondent of mine, Brother Jan Black, of the Keldaran Canticlars.

“Once I explained what concerned us, he was able to corroborate our findings. But what we concluded was so… disturbing that we decided to spend several years seeking opinions from others before we decided that it was worth reporting to the Court.”

Lord Aubin, eldest of the Council, said, “What were your conclusions, Master Yale? That the astrologer’s art is less precise than previously thought?’

Gregori Yale shook his head and glanced at his companions. The monk raised his voice. “My Lords, My Ladies, honored Justiciars, today will be approximately ten minutes shorter than this day three years ago. The night will be that much longer.” He paused and added, “That is what I tracked, you see. The dawn. It comes later and the sun sets earlier, each year. Once, this was not so.”

Jerya spoke abruptly, “Do you know when this changed?”

The astrologer worried her lip with her teeth and stepped closer to her companions. “We are not sure, Your Highness. The change seems to have… accelerated in the past few years. I first began noticing irregularities a decade ago. At first, it was a change of less than a minute from year to year.” When Mistress Vanelle fell silent, the Hall was so quiet nobody seemed to be breathing. Then it exploded with the clamor of voices.

Jerya looked at Lisette and then across the crowd, chewing on a finger. Lisette was doing math on her ledger. Tiana stared at her sister, trying to understand the meaning of what the scholars were claiming. The days were getting shorter and the nights were getting longer. “Some kind of eclipse?” she called. The crowd quieted.

Mistress Vanelle lowered her gaze. “That is one way of understanding it. It is not a phenomenon documented in any of my art’s tomes. But we may hope it comes and goes with no more import than an eclipse.”

Jerya said, “Brother Jan Black, has your order no thoughts on this? Keldera is the mother of dawn, is she not?”

The monk bowed deeply. “Your Highness. While she does look with affection on the dawn, Keldera is the mistress of summer and agriculture. The movements of the celestial bodies are the province of all the Firstborn. My order is concerned by this, but we believe it to be a consequence of a greater ill, just as the disrupted weather patterns are.”

“Which is?” Jerya demanded. The audience caught its breath, anticipating the answer.

The monk shifted his weight and looked at his feet. “Opinions vary on the source. Some blame Vassay’s recent activities. Some call it a Blight—” The crowd rippled.

Lord Warrane interrupted, “And what do the Niyhani and the Logos-workers say, sir?”

The monk weighed his answer carefully. “The Logos does not seem to directly indicate anything has changed. However—”

Lord Aubin said, “Ever since Benjen, it has been popular to blame any ill on a Blight. But history tells us that there is perhaps one a generation. Doesn’t it seem far more probable that some sort of new phenomena is distorting your figures? Perhaps you should reanalyze the basic tenets of your discipline. Or redo your math. In any case, leave your charts with a clerk, and we will consult experts in the field and decide what is going on.”

Silence pooled around the three scholars. Then a clerk took their documents and the audience came back to life, rustling and murmuring as if nothing very interesting had happened. Jerya stretched, elaborately casual, and then leaned her chin on her palm. She held up the back of her other hand to the Justiciars, unfolding her fingers, one, two. Tiana realized she was keeping count of each major problem the Court was ignoring, and that somehow, just by moving her fingers, she was making a threat. She wondered if they were as intimidated as she was.

Jerya’s voice was light as she said, “It’s not a universal conspiracy to suppress information, whatever our Uncle Yithiere tells me. I spoke to him yesterday and—” She shook her head. “Well. That isn’t happening here. The guards screen the petitioners. Those they deem inappropriate or dangerous are turned away, without recourse. Somebody decided their story needed to be publicly heard.”

Tiana leaned forward. “What’s the worst way to interpret it?”

Lisette looked up at Tiana, pushing her chestnut hair aside. “If the days keep getting shorter? Between that and the weather, there will be a famine. Life is already hard for the farmers and peasants. If their discovery is true….” Lisette shook her head. “It would be very bad. I’ve never even heard stories of anything like this, have you? But even if it’s a cycle that will peak and end, like the year itself, the Court can encourage people to start planning for it.”

Tiana pushed her own hair back behind her shoulders. “Isn’t that good? I thought stores were how one survived famines.”

Lisette shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. Ask Yithiere.”

Tiana frowned and sat back again. It was disheartening. Something was going on. Somebody was trying to keep them out. She wasn’t sure about getting involved in ordinary politics, but it
was
the ancestral duty of the Blood to protect Ceria from supernatural threats. She worried that this was both politics and a supernatural threat, though. And who did you kill to keep the sun in the sky longer? She closed her mouth over another burst of shocked laughter. What would they do in the theater?

She entertained herself in this way for a while. Then she noticed that another homespun-garbed monk was in line. This one carried a bundle wrapped in burlap, which prevented her from seeing which of the Firstborn he was associated with. He was alone, and he kept looking at the Royal Box, his eyes feverishly bright. She met his gaze, and he smiled and nodded to her jerkily. His smile was a frightening, gap-toothed thing, with no sense behind it. She lowered her eyes and watched him more furtively, braiding a loose lock of her hair.

When he approached the white line, Lord Donatien smiled grimly. “Brother Helliac,” he said. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

The monk nodded eagerly, trying to bow around his bundle. “I’ve come and come and waited and thank you so much for allowing me in today. It’s been so important. I’m glad you finally agree. I spoke with a young man about the night, is that why? No matter, but now you understand.”

Lord Donatien said generously, “Oh, of course we do. You had a gift for the Blood and they’ve been so unavailable. But today, we have two members with us, observing.”

Brother Helliac turned his bright gaze to the Royal Box. “I know.”

Jerya tilted her head and called, “What is this about, my lord?”

Lord Donatien said, “Brother Helliac here has been petitioning the gatekeeper for access to the Blood. He has a mysterious gift that he resists identifying, Your Highness. Normally, we strive to protect the Blood from dangerous wastes of their time, but since you’re here anyhow, I thought perhaps you’d like to meet him and accept his gift.” The monk nodded throughout Lord Donatien’s words, the absent smile never changing.

Once again the Hall was silent. Encouragingly, Lord Donatien added, “It doesn’t seem to be a poisonous snake, but if it were, I’m sure you could handle it.” The silence rolled back across the room.

You’d better run, because I’m not going to.
Tiana rose to her feet. Lord Donatien closed his mouth abruptly, and Lord Warrane scowled. She looked down at Jerya’s impassive face and said loftily, “I’ll accept his gift in the name of our family, if you don’t mind, my darling sister.”
The monsters are back.
But laughing was inappropriate. So was crying.

Jerya nodded once, and Tiana approached the white line and the monk standing before it. Slater shadowed her, two steps behind. The monk held his bundle close, staring at her. His smile faded, and he rasped in a voice suddenly rough, “You’re of the Blood? You’ve the hair and the eyes, but show me your power.”

Tiana resisted rolling her eyes and looked around at her observers. The Justiciars wore a mixture of amused and concerned expressions. Lisette shook her head almost imperceptibly, while Jerya nodded approval. This was probably an attempt to humiliate them, but she felt supremely unconcerned about the possibility.

She rose up on her toes and then hoisted herself into the air, floating on an emanation. She folded her legs beneath her into a dignified sitting position, for all that her skirt remained hanging down. Murmurs rippled across the audience.

The mad smile returned and the monk said, “Oh, wonderful, wonderful, you’re real this time. The games they play….” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Come down, come down.” He fumbled under his bundle and pulled out a small pot. From her vantage point, Tiana could see that he wore no church insignia at all.

He laid the bundle on the ground; it was almost as big as he was. Then he waved her closer, within easy reach. She heard Slater hiss a warning behind her, but she ignored him and drifted closer, letting her feet touch the ground just a step away from the monk and his bundle. He was barely taller than she was, a shriveled old man with a bald pate and big, bushy eyebrows. In his pot was what appeared to be some kind of blue salve or cosmetic. He dabbed his fingers into the substance and then held them out to Tiana, as if to put the substance on her face.