Three Coins for Confession (36 page)

Contáedar spoke up as Veassen went silent in Chriani’s mind.
Though her back had stayed toward him as she paced to the farthest platform,
the warrior turned now with a sneer. “And what makes you special in the
Calala’s eyes, Ilmari? What draws their interest to a mongrel half-blood?”

“If the hospitality of Sylonna had armed as well as garbed me,
calling me that would be the last thing you’d ever say.” Quick words, spoken in
the moment. Chriani was too scattered to truly feel anger, but the instinct to
anger had a life of its own, it seemed.

With a fluid motion, Contáedar whipped one of her backswords from
its scabbard, tossing it in a smooth arc across two terraces and the fountain
between them. Chriani didn’t move as it stuck blade first into the wooden
floor, one pace away from where he stood.

He stepped up to wrench the sword out, hold it fast in both
hands. He felt himself assessing the blade’s weight and balance, feeling his
senses shift forward as he slid away from Dargana. Contáedar was moving for
him, drawing her bloodblade and her other sword with mirrored motions across
her stomach and back.

“This action is forbidden,” Laedda called. And with a speed that
spoke to the rigid code of discipline among the Ilvani and managed to surprise
Chriani all at once, Contáedar slid to a stop. She sheathed her weapons with a
dark look, her breath coming sharp, mouth set in a narrow line.

She looked to Chriani as if waiting for the other sword to be
returned. He carefully slipped it to his own belt, mindful of the edge that
would have cut through its double-thick leather as if slicing paper. He was
certain that if he had to draw the weapon, he would leave the belt and his
leggings on the floor at his feet.

Contáedar slowly turned away. As she advanced to the edge of the
central tier, her hand stayed at the hilt of her bloodblade.

“The Calala seek the heir of the exile’s blade,” Chriani called
to her back. His voice carried across the chamber, the anger still in it. He felt
the same subtle shift in the attitude of the Ilvani as he’d felt at the first
council. “They believe that your legends speak of the narneth móir of the exile
warlord Caradar. It was claimed by Chanist when he struck Caradar down in the
dying days of the Incursions. I claimed it when it was stolen from Chanist. The
cult wants it. Now they hunt me for it.”

Where his hand rested on the hilt of Contáedar’s sword, Chriani
felt it shaking. He squeezed his fingers to stillness, cautious of the bare
blade pressing against his leg. An undercurrent of dark tension was twisting
through the Ilvani where they paced around him. The mention of Chanist, of
Caradar, of the Incursions.

“That’s why I’m here,” Chriani said. There at last, a sliver of
truth. But having said it, he realized he had no idea what came next.

Contáedar laughed to set his mind at dark ease. “This fool was
seized from his Ilmari captors in fetters. Arrested and bound by his own
people. Rescued from them by Ilvanghlira riders, who took him stripped of weapons
and armor.” Her back was still to Chriani as she spoke, her words for the
assembled Ilvani. Dismissing him even as she spoke of him. “How does the heir
of the exile’s blade allow it to be taken into laóith hands?”

“The Ilmari didn’t take the blade because it was already hidden
by my hand,” Chriani said. “As it had to be for one who serves in the Prince’s
Guard of Brandishear. One who sits at the side of the prince high.” The words
rang hollow even as he said them, but they were the best point of defiance he
could think of. “I knew to protect the blade. I knew to keep it safe.”

Contáedar spit in response, still not looking back.

“The cult of the confessor is old even by the ages of the
Ilvani.” Veassen spoke to break the tense silence. The seer’s voice carried the
thinness of age across the chamber, even as Chriani felt it strong in his mind.
“Two paths along which its power flows. Ilvani who take the rites of confession
fall under its sway and control. They can be committed to any cause of their
masters.”

Across all three tiers, the Ilvani began to shift again, moving
more quickly than before. No speech passed between them, though. All of them
listening, but seemingly afraid to meet the seer’s gaze.

“The coins are of
Talaeria, the lost province. The lands
that are now Crithnalerean, where the power of the
lóechari
rose
and was abandoned millennia past for fear of the destruction it might reap. Two
coins are placed in the hands to pay the price of service, one in the mouth to
pay the price of confession that is the vow of service.
Then the ritual
of confession sees the coins bound into the body by arcane force. Magic fueled
by the power of the memory that is the price of admission to the cult.”

“These things are told,” Laedda said. Chriani heard the words
pass through a third of the assembled Ilvani, rising as a whispered reflection
while the master continued. “The act of confession during the rite burns away
what has been confessed. The acceptance of the lóechari’s power is a corruption
of oath to clan and Valnirata, even as the act of acceptance burns clan and
oath away.”

Chriani could hear the unease in Laedda’s voice. Could see it
reflected in the faces around him.

“The rites grow more powerful with each new lóechari claimed,”
Veassen said. “The bond of the coins burns bright. It compels action, coopts
the mind and spirit. And if that action fails, if the agent who commits life
and strength to the rites of confession fails in the missions assigned by the
cult, the coins exact the price for failure. A death of mind and spirit even if
the body has already fallen. The faithful twisted and left broken from within.
Two coins in the hands, one in the mouth. As this envoy has seen and
described.”

Whispers again from the other Ilvani. More of them this time.
These
things are told…

As the seer’s words filled his ears and mind, Chriani felt the
fear grow stronger. No sign that Veassen was anything but calm as he spoke, but
his thoughts carried a revulsion sharp enough to turn Chriani’s stomach. He
felt words that weren’t words. Not interfering with what the seer was saying,
but working on a deeper level. Some kind of meditation. A whisper of thought
expressed as the faintest hiss of voice, subconscious.

It was the sensation of making the moonsign, he realized. The desperate
hope that came from the familiarity of a gesture, from the connection of body
and spirit and faith. Except this was a symbol not of the body but of the mind,
the Ilvani with their own wards against the darkest magic.

He felt something shift into place. He tried to focus his
thoughts, distanced himself from Veassen, though he felt the Ilvalantar still
come easily to his mind.

“The act of confession during the rite burns away what has been
confessed.” Chriani repeated Laedda’s words, heard them echo in his own mind
and Veassen’s at once. The seer was listening to him now. That was something
new.

He remembered the Ilvani at the camp, their eyes clear as they
fought, as they surrendered. The eyes clear in those who had died at once. Then
the terrible transformation, the power tearing through them with no warning.

“If the rites take the confession from mind and memory, then can
the confession itself be forced and then forgotten?”

All the Ilvani were whispering now, Contáedar and her four
followers the only ones who stayed silent.
These things are told.
Chriani
heard Dargana’s voice join in from behind him. No fear in her, though. Just a
razor-sharp hatred for what she had come to understand even as he did. He
fought the urge to make the moonsign himself.

“The rites grow more powerful with each cultist claimed.” As he
said the words, Chriani felt the thoughts shifting in from somewhere unseen.
Felt the pieces fall into place, even as he realized the puzzle was one whose
full scope he hadn’t seen before. “And with that rise of power, what if the
confession burns deeper? What if knowledge of the cult itself is taken by the
rite, leaving those afflicted with no sense of what they’ve done. No knowledge
of who they serve until their orders are triggered. I’ve seen it.”

The faint hiss of whispering faded, silence hanging for a time.
Chriani wasn’t surprised when Contáedar was the one to break it for a second
time.

“This is laóith trickery.” The war master’s voice was ice. “We
patrol the Crithnalerean frontier as we always have. Where is this cult? Where
are these golden warriors of legend, building an army for Calala?”

“Hiding,” Chriani said. More pieces falling into place. “Because
they know that to reveal themselves would bring the Laneldenari down on them.
They’re setting things in motion, testing their power first against the Ilmar.”

Contáedar sneered. “So if the cult fights against the Ilmari,
both sides do our work for us. Let them kill each other…”

“And what’s your plan for after, then?” Chriani saw the war master’s
expression darken, noted how his interrupting her was raising her ire. Good.
“War against both sides of the forest? Or are you waiting for Calalerean to use
its cult magic against Brandishear, then planning on striking after both are
weakened?”

“No.” A firm voice rose from the third tier before Contáedar’s
anger could force a response. Chriani looked away from the war master’s cold
gaze to see Farenna there. The Ilvani captain had his hand at the hilt of his
backsword. “No,” he said again. “I speak for myself only, but I speak with the
voices of veteran warriors. The Valnirata do not need war, friend Chriani. We
do not seek it. Our truth is more complicated than that.”

“Captain.” Contáedar took three steps toward Farenna, the
backsword in her hand edging up. A hiss of alarm spread around the two of them
as the Ilvani closest to them both edged away. “You usurp the authority of your
war master at this council.”

“I show all deference to your rank and will in the field, war
master. But I am at this council as captain of Sylonna, and am your equal
here.”

“I will not…”

“The captain of Sylonna will speak.” Laedda’s voice cut across
Contáedar’s with the force of a blow. Chriani saw the war master shudder with
the effort of silence. She lowered her blade, but slowly.

Farenna nodded to Laedda. He began to pace, turning to face the
others by turns. Even so, it was Chriani his gaze returned to, time and again.

“I have fought for Valnirata and Laneldenar for long years. I
have trained three generations of carontir since the wars before. I killed
Ilmari soldiers in those wars. I have killed Ilmari rangers in the time of
so-called peace, for crossing too far into Laneldenar. For pursuing us where
only Ilvani may tread. I have killed exile bandits pressing in from Crithnalerean.
I do these things for duty and order. But also because the love of combat flows
in me, and has since I came of age in battle against the Ilvalachna in the wars
before.”

Chriani saw Dargana tense from the corner of his eye at Farenna’s
mention of hunting the exiles, but his own attention was taken by the rider’s
mention of
the
wars before.
From Barien and the ranger
loremasters alike, he knew that this was how the Ilvani referred to the
Incursions. No formal name given to them, because doing so would force the
Valnirata to admit a resolution to that dark conflict. To remember that they
had lost.

“In battle,” Farenna said, “all Ilvani crave the strength that
comes with victory. We crave that sense of majesty for our people. In war, we
find the strength of life, but our lives are more than war. And we have grown
too used to the strength of war giving meaning to our lives. What we need is
the wisdom after long centuries to see this.”

The incursions were the wars before, the loremasters had said,
because that phrase brought with it a sense that war was a continuous thing. In
the wars before, the Ilvani had pushed out from the Greatwood seeking blood and
triumph, then fallen back under the threat of a unified Ilmar standing against
them. A threat wrought by Chanist, the young prince whose rise none of the
Ilvani could have foreseen. And just as there were wars before, there would be
wars still to come, inevitably.

Chriani wouldn’t have judged Farenna old enough to have fought
against Chanist. Most Ilmari veterans of those campaigns were long retired to
quiet duty, the fireside, or the grave. The Ilvani aged more slowly than the
Ilmari, he knew. A hundred years and more was a good life for them. Something
easy to forget when the similarities between the two peoples were so sharp.

“Ilmari and Ilvanghlira were a single people once.”

Veassen’s voice rose to embrace the brief silence that hung as
Farenna’s words faded. Chriani felt a chill trace along his spine, the words
echoing his mother’s from so long ago. He couldn’t remember thinking them,
wasn’t sure when the seer would have pulled them from his mind. But then he
watched as a half-dozen of the scattered Ilvani whispered the same words in
echo to Veassen’s voice. Some kind of reluctant benediction. A thing the Ilvani
knew, that some of them believed, he realized.

He had never suspected it, would never have dreamed it. His
mother repeating words that his father must have told her.

Contáedar wasn’t one of those whispering Veassen’s words. “The
captain of Sylonna and the seer of Laneldenar speak treason,” the war master
shouted. “This council’s purpose is lost. I call its end.”

“Your call is denied,” Laedda said evenly.

“I speak no treason, war master.” Farenna stepped up to within
two paces of Contáedar, his voice grim. “I speak of the future. And your fear
of that future is your affair, not mine.” He turned away, leaving the war
master ignored behind him. Chriani half-expected her to draw against the
captain, but she simply stalked away.