Glasswrights' Test (43 page)

Rani listened to the familiar words with new ears. She could clearly see the god of death's green-black wings in the high summer sun that flamed behind Siritalanu. Rani was certain, as the princess had been certain, as Berylina had proclaimed through years of witnessing her faith.

Rani's deep breathing carried her into the Speaking place, into the deepest caverns of her mind. She had slipped there more and more often in the past two weeks, as she and Hal had met long into the nights, plotting, planning, outlining how they could take back their lives from the Fellowship. She thought that maybe she relied on the Speaking strength because her own body was so tired, so drawn out from her trials in Brianta.

But perhaps she reached for the peace of Speaking because it reminded her of Tovin. She longed to hear from the player, if only to know that he was safely arrived in Sarmonia. After all, she knew that she was the one who had hurt him; she was the one who had driven him away with her harsh judgments.

She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the metallic taste as she lifted her chin and focused on the religious service. Tovin had chosen to leave. His own pride had dictated that he could not stay with her. He had acted, and there was nothing that she could do. Truth be told, she had never had the ability to control the man.

That had been part of the excitement of him.

That was the reason that she was better off. Here. Alone in Morenia. Alone but for Halaravilli, and Mair, and Farso, and all the rest of the court that she had come to know over the past eight years.

Rani forced her attention back to the funeral rites. Father Siritalanu raised his hands over the bound prie-dieu and said, “Hail Vir, god of martyrs, guide of Jair the Pilgrim. Look upon this Pilgrim with mercy in your heart and justice in your soul. Guide the feet of this Pilgrim on righteous paths of glory that all may be done to honor you and yours among the Thousand Gods. This Pilgrim asks for the grace of your blessing, Vir, god of martyrs.”

It was a courageous choice, dedicating the ceremony to Vir. Rani tasted the complex fire of cinnamon on her tongue, momentarily drowning out even the metal that she had become so accustomed to swallowing. The spice surprised her with its strength, and her eyes watered, even as she struggled to catch her breath.

As she swallowed, Rani pictured Torio, the fat priest who had conducted the Briantan curia. The vision sent a shiver through her, a shudder more powerful than any of the tremors she had come to expect from her besieged body. The man had committed murder in his drive to protect his church from visions such as Rani had just experienced. What would happen if he learned that she, too, could taste the gods? How far would he reach to purify the church? Could he stretch from holy Brianta to punish her here?

Rani raised her hand in a rapid religious gesture, flitting the sign across her chest. She looked about to see if her movement had been noted, but she was relieved to hear Siritalanu intone, “This pilgrim asks for the grace of your blessing, Tarn, god of death.” The flicker of green-black wings was so familiar that Rani almost forgot to worry.

And then, the hard work was done. Siritalanu thrust a torch into the oil-soaked wood at the base of the pyre. The flames caught rapidly, chewing their way into the afternoon sky. Despite their heat, they remained nearly invisible against the dying summer's light.

Rani leaned her head back, the better to see the pyre open the doors of the Heavenly Fields. The motion made her dizzy; she was far more unsteady on her feet than she should have been. Black shadows swept in from the edges of her vision, and an ocean roar filled her ears as if she were buried in tidal sand. Cinnamon surged again across her tongue.

She felt Mair grip her arm, and she leaned against her friend, murmuring, “I'll be fine. Just give me a moment.” She forced herself to swallow hard, to fill her lungs with air. Hal looked at her, his dark brown eyes filled with concern.

Father Siritalanu was suddenly standing over her, blocking the sun. Rani could make out his green robes, impossibly fresh. The priest took her other arm, providing a tower of support. “Stand easy, my lady. The ladanum can be overpowering in the summer heat.”

“It wasn't ladanum,” she protested. The effort to speak made her bring air into her lungs; at least she was returning to some semblance of normalcy.

“Of course it was. You know the way of the priesthood. You know the efforts that we make to purify the bodies, to make them joyous for the gods.”

“I know the smell of ladanum, Father, and that was not it. I tasted Vir.”

“Quiet!” The priest looked about, as if he feared that the Briantan curia had penetrated to the very core of Morenia.

Rani saw Hal's curious glance; she watched the questions form on his lips. She would have to explain later. “You cannot silence the truth, Father. When Berylina and I Spoke—”

“That was my mistake,” the priest hissed. “I should never have given in to her request. I should never have left the two of you to play at your games in that cell.”

The priest's resistance gave Rani strength. When she straightened her spine, she scarcely realized that it was the first time in days that she had drawn a solid breath. “Berylina Thunderspear was not playing games, Father. She had mastered something new and powerful. She knew the gods in ways that we can only imagine, in ways that I am only beginning to comprehend.” Father Siritalanu started to interrupt, but Rani silenced him by laying a firm hand on his arm. “No, Father. Do not speak against her here. Not at her pyre. Instead, think on the lessons that she taught us, the riches that she brought. There was strength in Berylina. There was power. There was the grace of all the Thousand Gods.”

The priest might have intended to respond, but he never got the opportunity. Instead, he was interrupted by a page who came running into the cathedral close. “Your majesty!” the boy cried, and his voice was sharp.

Rani's heart tightened inside her breast. There was no good reason for a messenger to interrupt worship beside a funeral pyre.

Hal turned to the child. “Aye?” There was a desert of command beneath the word. The child collapsed into a bow, actually touching his forehead to one crimson-clad knee before he bobbed back upright.

“Sire, the master of the mews sent me! Two messages have arrived!”

“Two?”

“Aye! Two pigeons, come within ten heartbeats of each other!” The boy's eyes shone with excitement. He proffered up a pair of tiny metal tubes, cradling them in his hands as if they were fashioned of precious stones.

Rani suddenly realized that she was still clutching Mair's arm. Back in Brianta, she had left a pigeon with Master Parion. Weeks had passed. Surely the glasswrights' guild had completed their judging. … Surely they had evaluated the journeymen's masterpieces. Surely they had found the strength to act, separate and apart from the Fellowship, from Crestman's threats.

Rani forced herself to stand tall, to pull air into her lungs, to watch, watch, wait, as Hal fumbled with the metal tube.

A scrap of vellum was curled inside, scraped thin so that it could be rolled into the smallest flexible curve. Hal extracted the scrap and unfolded it gently, taking care not to drop it on the cathedral's green grass. He glanced at it and brought it closer to his face. He started to read, then stopped and turned it upside down. He blinked hard and brought the vellum closer still.

Rani waited, frozen. Even the shudders that had become her body's constant exercise seemed stilled. She could hear her heart beating, a thousand leagues away. She watched Hal's face, waited for his brow to contract in pity, or for his lips to curl in congratulations.

He retraced the message, as if he were committing it to memory, and then he read it one more time.

And then, he handed it to her.

Her fingers shook as she took the vellum. So this was what her guildish life came down to. Nine years spent laboring as an apprentice, struggling as a journeyman. Three months, working in a foreign city, designing a masterpiece. One day, creating the reality from the image in her mind. One moment, waiting to read the verdict. She unrolled the parchment and brought it closer, tilting it to better catch the light, to translate the tiny perfect letters.

The Glasswrights' Guild regrets that the Work of Ranita Glasswright is not judged to be the Quality of a Master, as she relied upon Tools not sanctioned by the Guild.

Not sanctioned by the guild! Master Parion had watched her pick up the diamond knife. He had nodded at her to continue! He had seen her use her tools, and he had said nothing, done nothing—he had not stopped her in any way.

Rani knew that she needed to breathe, needed to speak, needed to take some action to break the spell of the message in her hand. All of those days, working in the guildhall. … All of those hours, grinding colors, preparing plates of glass. … All of the time wasted pounding metal into foil. …

Gone. Worthless. Wasted.

Rani looked up to the Heavenly Fields, wanting to cry out against the Thousand Gods. Why did they hate her so? Why had they abandoned her?

As she gazed skyward, her attention was captured by a window high in the cathedral wall above her. It was the newest of the stained glass there, yet it was already more than eight years old. It had a background of cobalt blue, and a single fine figure, picked out and accented with lead black stippling. Even now, so long after its completion, Rani knew the design as well as she knew the lines on her own palm.

The Defender's Window. The design that had begun her strange journey. The window that Instructor Morada had been completing on that fateful day when Rani had climbed the scaffold, had entered the cathedral, had cried out and drawn Prince Tuvashanoran to his death.

Now, the window stood over her like a stern parent admonishing a naughty child. Rani blinked, and she suddenly remembered standing in the yard of the Morenian glasswrights' guild, stoking the kilns. She had been a loyal apprentice. She had been a dedicated journeyman. She had learned all the skills that were required of a master.

She had wasted her time with the guild's test. She should have ignored the trappings of a house that had been ranged against her for years.

After all, the guild was more than its parts. It was more than an embittered master, more than journeymen who worked with leather and silken Hands. The glasswrights' guild was an ideal—a community of scholars and artisans who gathered together to create works of beauty.

It was a memory, and it could be a future. Rani could build it here, in Moren, even if she did not have the blessing of the old masters. Surely, there were glasswrights who would come to her! There were guildsmen who would rebel against the unfair ways of the Briantan clique.

She
had
made friends in Brinata. Perhaps she could even encourage Belita and Cosino to join her here in Moren.

There were other glasswrights out there, others whom Rani could call. She could create her own guildhall. She could create her new life. She turned to Hal, ready to tell him of her discovery, ready to take her oath to build a future guild, free of the taint of Master Parion, free from the history of the old masters.

Only then did she realize that there was a commotion about her, a noise that rose above the pounding of her heart, the crackling of the pyre. Mair was down on her knees, a mass of spidersilk puddled on the grass. Farso knelt beside her, his arms struggling to enfold her, to gather up her raging grief.

The Touched woman fought off her husband as if she were a wounded beast. She looked to the pyre, and she cast her head back, howling like the wolves that stalked outside the city gates. Terrified, Rani took the second slip of vellum from Hal's stiff fingers.

In the name of Jair, Laranifarso is dead.

Rani felt the words like the edge of an iron sheet digging into her chest. She tried to swallow, tried to eke out a response, but she was unable to think, unable to move.

The Fellowship. Rani's failing her glasswright's test had nothing to do with her using the player's tools. The Fellowship had executed Crestman's threat. They had failed her, and they had murdered Mair's son. No one had been fooled by her machinations. No one had been duped by Hal sending Mareka away.

Rani looked up at the sky, and a chill tripped down her arms. How had the Fellowship learned so quickly? They must keep pigeons here in Morenia, birds trained to home in on their mews in Brianta. And in Brianta, they kept birds for Hal's own court.

That knowledge should not have frightened her more than anything else that the Fellowship did. After all, she was thinking about an organization that had murdered a
child
, an innocent babe who had no say in all the politics of the land.

Murdered Laranifarso.

“I'll kill them!” Mair's voice rose over the crackle of the funeral pyre. “I'll rip their cursed masks off! I'll expose their lying faces to the people of Brianta, and Morenia, and all the rest of the world! I'll see them stripped naked and staked in the road, with only the summer sun for comfort! I'll see their bones picked clean by ravens!”

Farso struggled to get his arms around his wife, fought to smother her vicious vows against his chest. The nobleman's snow-frosted hair bobbed as he fought against his own sobs, and Rani's belly grew heavy as lead. Mair's threats were all the more horrible because they were uttered in her official court voice, in the cultured tones that she believed would serve her better with Morenia. Even in her shock, even in her grief, Mair worked toward careful revenge. She plotted with all the cunning of a Touched girl and all the resources of a noble woman.

And what would she do if she ever learned that Rani had held the power to save her son? What would she do if she found that Rani had been offered a choice—slay the queen or sacrifice the child?

Father Siritalanu moved to Mair's side. He whispered his platitudes, attempting to calm a grieving mother. Mair would take no comfort, though; she shrieked as he laid a hand on her back, screaming like an animal in pain.