Reign of Shadows (8 page)

The
Elder came around his desk, frowning with daunting severity. He pointed his
finger at Caelan. “Men risked their lives to find you in the dark forest. They
searched all night, before at last you were found, half-dead of exposure and
blood loss.”

Remorse
touched Caelan. “I didn’t mean to put anyone at risk,” he said softly. “I just
wanted to get away.”

“You
were brought in at dawn. Master Grigori and Master Hierst labored hard within
severance
to save your life. Had
anyone been lost to lurkers or worse out there, what could you have done to
repay your debt to them?”

“I
don’t know,” Caelan said miserably. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology
is not enough.” The Elder beckoned to the proctors. “Cast the truth-light over
him.”

Caelan
turned around in protest. “But I haven’t been lying about any of this. I swear.”

“It
is not your words they will test. It is you.”

The
Elder nodded at the proctors. They glided forward and tossed the tiny balls of
blue light at Caelan. Light burst against his forehead and sprayed down to his
feet in a shimmer. It changed color from blue to yellow to green, then faded to
white and seemed to vanish altogether.

“Enough!”
the Elder said, sounding shaken.

The
proctors stretched forth their hands, and the light flickered feebly back into
existence at Caelan’s feet. It surged away from him, split into two halves,
then reformed itself into two tiny glowing balls of light.

“It
is decided,” the Elder said.

“What?”
Caelan demanded, puzzled. “What’s decided?”

The
Elder gestured, and the proctors stepped back. “You, Caelan E’non, are in grave
danger of losing your soul. You have deliberately sought the ways of shadow.”

Caelan
gasped in shock. “I haven’t—”

“By
your own confession you wrongfully used
severance.
You betrayed the safety of this hold. You willfully
exposed every inhabitant to possible death or worse. That crime is attempted
murder.”

“But
I didn’t mean—”

The
Elder held up his hand. “Rebellion is as much a gateway to the center of the
soul as is obedience. By your actions, you prove you are becoming a vessel for
that which is foul and otherworldly.”

“No!”

“We
want no part of you here among us, infecting the other boys.”

“Fine!”
Caelan said furiously. “Then let me leave.”

“We
have laid the matter before your father,” the Elder said as though Caelan had
not spoken. “He has asked us to purify you.”

Caelan
stared at him. He felt frozen with growing apprehension. “I don’t believe you,”
he said through stiff lips.

“Do
you understand purification?” the Elder asked. “It means to enter with the
masters for forty days of fasting and surrender. They will
sever
you completely from
everything, root out the evil from your mind and soul, and then allow you to
return to your body.”

Long
ago, as a child, Caelan had heard the servants talk about someone possessed at
another hold. Healers had been called in—not his father, but others—to cleanse
and purify the man. The fellow had been quite mad when they finished. Nor did
he ever regain his sanity. The healers said the possession was so strong it
could not be driven from him. Others whispered that he had been
severed
too long and could not be
made whole again.

A
shudder ran through Caelan. He knew he wasn’t evil. Not in the sense the Elder
claimed. He’d never tried to harm anyone here. He wouldn’t knowingly expose
them to danger. Yes, he’d been foolish and selfish, thinking only of himself
when he ran away, but his carelessness didn’t warrant this. As for having
Master Mygar—so cruel, so heartless— walking through his mind, reshaping him—

“No!”
he cried. “I won’t let you touch me, none of you! Not like that. You’ll kill me,
or make me insane. I’d rather you’d let me die in that ditch than face—”

“Enough,”
the Elder said icily. “You have made your refusal quite clear.”

“Father
didn’t request this,” Caelan went on. “I don’t believe that. He wouldn’t.”

“Beva
E’non was my star pupil,” the Elder said, his voice as sharp and cold as the
icicles hanging off the roof outside. “Aside from the principles of
severance
which teach us to place no
man above another, I loved him as a son. For his sake, for the memory of how
eagerly he took learning from me, I offer you this final chance to redeem
yourself. Accept the purification, Caelan E’non, and remain with us as your
father wishes.”

Caelan’s
heart was pounding. Without hesitation he looked the Elder square in the eye. “Never,”
he said. “I don’t want to remain here. I deny your charges. I refuse
purification.”

The
Elder stared at him for several moments without speaking. The room grew still
and oppressively quiet except for the fire hissing on the hearth.

“Master
Beva wanted to teach you himself, but you were not a willing pupil at home. No
doubt a father’s love for his son has clouded his usually clear perceptions. He
sent you to us with a father’s pride and a father’s hope, expressing special
concern that we might be able to teach you where he had failed. He thought our
discipline would be more effective than his own. We have also failed.”

Caelan
knew no way to make this old man understand. “It isn’t Rieschelhold,” he said. “It’s
me. I belong elsewhere, in another kind of life. I was not meant to be a
healer.”

“You
were born,” the Elder said gravely, “to be nothing else.”

He
waited, but Caelan faced him without flinching.

At
last the Elder bowed his head. “Very well. I expel you now from Rieschelhold,
that you can cause no more harm to the other novices by example or by deed,
that you can spread your evil influence no longer within these walls, that you
can never again commit blasphemous acts to disrupt our harmony. In this
expulsion, I pity your father, for the son he has, for the son he must again
deal with.”

Caelan
realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out now, hardly able to
believe his ears. Jubilation lifted like skyrockets. Was this all there was to
expulsion? What a relief. He barely held back a grin.

The
Elder picked up the scrolls from his desk and threw them on the fire. The
parchment caught, sending up sparks and curling into black cinders as the fire
ate through it eagerly.

He
looked past Caelan at the proctors. “Prepare him.”

The
proctor opened the door. One of them beckoned to Caelan. He rushed out,
grinning broadly now, almost skipping with joy. All he had to do now was gather
his belongings. They were few enough. A pair of soft traveling boots, fur-lined
for winter. His thick cloak. A book of music and his flute. A drawing made for
him by his sister Lea. A smooth, fist-sized stone of marble which he’d gathered
in Ornselag at the seashore when his mother still lived. These things had been
taken by the purser upon his admittance, locked away for the day on which he
would leave.

That
day had finally come. He couldn’t believe it.

But
as he stepped out of Elder Sobna’s office, he heard a bell start ringing, a
deep somber bell he’d never heard before.

At
the foot of the stairs, the same servant waited for them. But instead of
leading them to the door, the man pointed at a narrow hallway.

Caelan’s
high spirits dropped. “What now?” he asked suspiciously. “Where are you taking
me? I just want to get my things, then go.”

The
proctors shoved him down the hallway and into a tiny room containing only a tin
basin and a stool. There was no heat and no window. Only a small, face-sized
hole cut high in the door provided any kind of dim illumination.

Caelan
took in these details with one glance as he spun around. “But why do I—”

One
of the proctors drove him back with its staff. “You will remain here until you
are prepared.”

“No!”
Caelan shouted. “It’s a trick! You won’t purify me. Do you hear? You won’t—”

But
they slammed the door, bolting him into the gloom.

Ouon
Bell tolled
ominously over the silent expanse of Rieschelhold, its deep, sonorous voice
echoing across the courtyard, orchard, buildings, and snowy forest beyond. Ouon
Bell rang seldom; it was the bell of death and tragedy. It began tolling at
midday, when Caelan was led from the house of the Elder, and it did not stop.

The
sky remained slate gray. Intermittent snowflakes fell. Ushered by the proctors,
all the students assembled in somber silence in the courtyard. Big-eyed, the
young novices in their short indigo robes stamped their feet and blew on their
hands to keep warm. The taller disciples—gangly and awkward in their long cyan
robes—looked frightened or grave. The most advanced, the healers, marched along
in gray robes trimmed with pale fur, their expressions blank within
severance.
White-faced and nervous, the
serfs clustered at the rear. The proctors moved back and forth among the
assembly until not a sound could be heard, not a rustle, not a throat being
cleared in the crowd. Only the soft sigh of the falling snow and the low peals
of the bell broke the silence.

The
masters, robed and cloaked in white, walked the ramparts, stopping at each
corner of the walls to sprinkle cleansing herbs of rue, hyssop, borage, and
camphor. Then they came down and took their places on the dais before the
assembly. Pale figures in the falling snow, their faces might have been carved
from stone. Their eyes held only
severance.

Crushed
in among other bodies, with someone’s elbow in his ribs and another student
almost standing on his heels, Agel sought the calming refuge of
severance
within himself. But his
heart was beating too fast and his breath came short.

For
the first time in months, he could not find his concentration, now when he
needed it most of all.

The
bell rang like a dirge. He wanted to weep with anger and humiliation. How could
Caelan have done such a risky, foolhardy thing? How could he have let his
stupid temper get the better of his good sense? Agel could not forgive him for
it. He felt betrayed by his cousin, betrayed and bereft. Agel had thought they
would spend their lifetime together, working for a common good, sharing the
same occupation and interests, but now there would be no more friendship, no
more companionship.

Caelan
had thrown his opportunities away. Whispered rumors said he had refused the
Elder’s generous offer of forgiveness.

The
fool. Agel’s hands clenched into fists inside his wide sleeves. What would
become of Caelan now? No one had been disrobed at Rieschelhold for at least two
decades. And now, for it to be the son of Beva E’non was incredible,
unbelievable.

Agel’s
throat stung with embarrassment.

He
saved you from a demerit,
a small voice reminded him, but Agel brushed it
angrily away. So he still had his perfect record thanks to Caelan. Did that
excuse Caelan’s own behavior?

A
stir made everyone crane to look. Agel saw his cousin coming, flanked by an
escort of six hooded proctors walking three on each side. The proctors in front
and the proctors at the rear held their staffs crossed, thus creating a cage
around Caelan.

The
boy walked tall, with his shoulders straight and his chin high. He was a
strapping lad, taller than nearly anyone else, still growing out of his
clothes. His hair blew back from his forehead like ripe wheat tossed by the wind.
There was no shame in his face, no regret. His blue eyes were eagle-keen,
almost happy.

Agel
felt his eyes sting, and he could have kicked Caelan then and there.

Didn’t
the idiot understand what disrobing meant? Once expelled by the masters, there
was no coming back.

Agel
watched his cousin stride through the parted center of the assembly, the bell
tolling over him as though he had died in the ditch. Maybe it would have been
better if he had. He had apparently learned nothing from his near fatal
adventure.