Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (62 page)

“Would the king send you off again so soon?”

It is not the king who would have me leave
, he
might’ve said. “Tycho Montari is pleased with the wealth I have brought him. He
will not send me away again.”

“Then I am sure we will see each other again, my son.”

Lethari helped his father up. By the time they reached the
front entrance of Eirnan Prokin’s palace, the light-star was rising. He said
goodbye to his father and began his descent from the heights. On the next
street, they came upon him, faces shrouded in darkness, weapons drawn.

“Lethari Prokin?” asked one of them, tightening his grip on
his spear.

“Yes. I am on my way to see the master-king.”

“We have been sent to escort you.”

“I know.”

“We have looked for you everywhere. Why were you not at
home?”

“I was with my father.”

The guard said nothing, only prodded him forward through the
city.

The
luchair
swallowed them in darkness and torchlight.
When they brought him into the throne room, Lethari ripped Tosgaith off his
back and tossed it down to clatter on the floor before the king.

“It appears you have forgotten to clean your sword,” said
Tycho Montari.

“I have not forgotten. Better you see it this way, with the
proof of my corruption laid plain for all to behold.”

“Why am I awake so early in the day, Lethari? Hmm? I was
awoken with some uncomfortable news. News I find difficult to believe.”

“You should believe it.”

“Why would you do this? Why would you add to the charges
against you?”

“I lied to you yesterday. I was false. I was not ready to pay
penance then. I am now.”

“What do you think I am going to do?”

“Take my head.”

“Had you come to me like this before, I would have spared
you. Now, after what you have done… as a fair king, I cannot.”

“I understand,” Lethari said. “I am ready.”

The king stood. “Lethari Prokin, I hereby strip you of all
titles, properties, slaves, wealth, privilege, and rank under my name. I cast
the household of Prokin into shame, to be no longer within my grace for the
rest of time. Further, I sentence you to death in the stadium. I have decreed
it.”

Lethari looked up in surprise. “Death in the stadium.”

“You are well-known and well-respected among our people. This
way, all will see the truth of your betrayal, and all will witness the fate that
befalls a traitor to the master-king.”

Why not take my head off, if he means to make an example
of me?
Lethari wondered.
Unless… he is giving me yet another chance. A
chance to live
. However remote his prospects for survival amid the horrors
of the stadium, they were better than losing his head. “What is my trial?” he
asked, not wanting to know the answer.

“For the crime of treason, you will face four sanddragons,
left hungry to the point of starvation. If you survive, you will face three
brengens, armed and armored, for the crime of murder.”

“And if I survive that?”

Tycho Montari gave him a skeptical look. “That depends. What
other crimes have you committed?”

“The crime of cowardice. For I do not wish to live.”

“Then you need not worry about whether you will survive. The
fates will align their will with your own.”

Lethari nodded. “I am ready.”

The master-king studied him for a moment. “You look unfit to
die, let alone fight for your life.”

“I will not fight, my master.”

“Yet you must appear before a multitude. Summoning the whole
of the city takes time. You may take today to gather your wits, and perhaps
reconsider your cowardice. Tomorrow at midday is when we will learn your fate.”

“As you will, my lord.”
Though I do not see the point
.
“Let me have peace and quiet in your dungeons until then.”

“No. You will spend your last night in the household that was
once yours. Guards will keep you there. I will have your servants sent away and
your slaves given to the families of those you have slain.”

“You are generous, my lord,” Lethari said, more out of habit
than consideration.
The king is giving me every advantage, though I deserve
none. Does he know it was Frayla who bade me keep the goatskin record for
myself? Is it possible he… understands?
Lethari did not think so. The king
dispensed justice where it was needed, without letting his personal feelings
sway him. At least, he had always done so before.

The king’s guards walked Lethari home. Oisen looked hurt and
confused when they sent him away, but he shuffled off without a word.
Years
of relationship between servant and master, gone in moments, and the servant
getting the better end of the bargain
, Lethari thought bitterly.

The guards posted themselves at every exterior door and
window large enough to fit through, save the wide opening in his bedchamber
overlooking the mountains and bordered by a pair of ornate pillars. That was
the one place he was allowed to be alone. Lethari spent the day wandering the
household, regarding its lavish excess as if seeing it for the first time. He’d
grown so accustomed to this lifestyle, yet what good was any of it? He wondered
who would live here after he was gone.

There was food in the kitchen, but he did not eat. Now that
every hope in his life had left him, what was the point? What purpose did the
master-king serve in making Lethari wait for death? When the guards weren’t
looking, he took a knife and slid it into his waistband.

He managed to sleep that night, but only a little. Alone, the
bed felt enormous. He lay against the headboard and watched a line of daylight
slip over the mountains, every inch bringing him closer to sweet relief. The
stadium was filling up; he could hear the noise of the crowds filing into the
bleachers far below. No doubt they were curious to see what the great warleader
would do with his final moments.

He fished out the knife from where he’d hidden it beneath his
nightstand. The blade was stainless steel, serrated for cutting meat; something
manufactured in a time long past. He could feel the blood pulsing in his wrist,
see the veins snaking blue beneath the skin.

Scanning the room to distract himself from what he was about
to do, he noticed one of Frayla’s necklaces hanging on a hook beside her
mirror. A silky white undergarment lay over her privacy screen. It made him
smile to think of the way she used to tease him as she undressed, tossing each
item of clothing over the top to land on the floor beside the bed.

When he looked down again, the knife was hovering close. His
knuckles were white with the effort of holding it, his other hand clenched into
a fist. Just one movement was all it would take; one quick stroke, and the
congregation jammed into the stadium would never obtain the satisfaction of
seeing their champion reduced to a spectacle. One clean cut and he was free.

There was a knock at his bedchamber door. “Time to go,
Maigh
Prokin.”

“I will be out soon.”

Now was the time. The moment. The instant. He would get no
other chance.

He willed his hand to move, saw it happening in his mind. But
he remained still.
I am too big a coward even for this
, he thought. Now,
even when everything had been taken from him, he could not take him from
himself.

He put the knife on the table. He washed his hair, face, and
hands in the basin by the window, then changed into a fresh set of clothes.
I
might as well be clean
. Before he left the room, he tucked the knife into
his waistband again, fully expecting the guards to search him and find it
before they sent him into the arena.

The stadium was built within a deep chasm behind the city,
and the long walk down gave him time to think. He found the empty streets
strange on a market day until they neared the stadium and he saw how thickly
the spectators were packed in. Commerce had taken a back seat to entertainment
on this day.

After bringing him through a rear entrance and down a stretch
of dark tunnel, the guards handed Lethari off to the stadium masters, who stood
him before a pair of massive entrance doors. They did not search him. He
wondered if that was another of the king’s many fortuitous oversights. He could
not say whether they were intentional, though it certainly appeared that way to
him.

A hush fell over the crowd, and a voice announced the
proceedings. The doors cracked open, and Lethari had to squint against the wash
of daylight as the masters prodded him forward. The crowds hissed when he
emerged onto the arena sands. The midday heat raised a sweat on his brow. He
could see the master-king high on his arched platform overlooking the ring.
There were gates on all four sides of the circular enclosure, each of them
closed behind heavy wooden doors to hide the denizens within.

When the entrance doors behind Lethari were closed, the king
silenced the crowd once more. “Today we have before us a traitor from a high
household, a warleader, and a descendant of warleaders for many generations.
His crimes are few, but they are grave. His punishment for these misdeeds shall
be swift. May the fates judge him according to his merit.”

At the master-king’s signal, the gates opened. Not one, but
all four.

The crowd roared.

Slithering from the darkness on powerful legs, hunger
seething from serrated jaws, came the four sanddragons Tycho Montari had
promised. They flicked their tongues to catch Lethari’s scent. Then they
converged, moving faster than he’d expected.

The crowd fell silent to watch.

Lethari stood alone, waiting for death to come. He wanted it;
there was nothing left to live for, and he found himself longing for the end
more than ever. Then he remembered Amhaziel’s words to him while the
feiach
was camped in
coille cenaim
, the forest of bones:
For when the day
comes that you look for allies among those you love, you will find the fabric
of your household turned to molten fire, and the span of your wealth will be as
the space between your fingers
.

The seer had foreseen the very situation in which Lethari now
found himself. He began to think of Amhaziel’s vision, of a creature both beast
and man. And he thought that if the seer had predicted this, then maybe his
other vision was meant to come true as well. If such a creature existed and
Lethari had not encountered it yet, perhaps he was meant for more.

The sanddragons slithered toward him.

The crowds waited to discover whether the man standing before
them was truly Lethari Prokin, son of lords and ancestor of kings; blood of the
sands, and the one they had called champion for so long.

CHAPTER 49

The Unraveling

The harder Sister Bastille tried not to be angry, the
angrier she got. Sister Dominique had allowed three strangers to enter the
basilica grounds and walk out alive, a blatant violation of the Order’s laws.
So what if she was one of the Most Highly Esteemed? The Order’s secrets were at
great risk indeed if its adherents resolved to treat its statutes with such
disregard.

Bastille wondered how it was that someone as stern and
stringent as Sister Dominique could’ve been so suddenly possessed by the urge
to break the rules. She had made an exception to save the life of someone she’d
known before she joined the Order. To Sister Bastille, that didn’t sit right.
Over the weeks that followed, the memory of the incident began to eat away at
her.

With the starwinds gone, the Order had started trading with
the heathens again, so Bastille had found herself even busier than usual. Brother
Belgard was walking a razor’s edge, having come within days of a full admission
of his fraudulence and total storeroom bankruptcy before the trading began. His
secret was safe for now, but Bastille wouldn’t hesitate to call in a
much-needed favor in return for her silence, if it came to that.

She had met in secret with her other ally, Brother Lambret,
each week since their first conversation about the storerooms. Lambret hadn’t
turned up any new information about dead Brother Froderic’s elevation, though
he claimed he was nearing a breakthrough. Bastille found herself in a continual
state of frustration with him, but no one was closer to the affairs of the Most
High than Brother Lambret, so there was little more she could do.

As for Brother Travers, Bastille had taken every measure to
avoid being alone with him since that day in the hospital when he had revealed
to her his deranged predilection. She had suspended classes until Sister
Severin was well again, and was now convinced Travers could not be allowed to
continue under her tutelage. She couldn’t very well train a surgeon who was as
likely to defile his subjects as to perform the required procedures on them.
A
person like that shouldn’t be allowed in the Order at all
, she reflected.
Yet she feared his retaliation if she were to alert the Most High and they
chose to relocate him instead of eliminating him altogether.

It wasn’t long after the basilica returned to its normal
operations that the Most High called upon Bastille to deliver a progress report
on her pupils’ training. She stood before them in the meeting room expecting a
thorough tongue-lashing, but too disgusted with their flawed leadership to
respect their judgment. Dominique, who let strangers come and go as they
pleased. Gallica, with her back-door subversions and nonsensical
decision-making. Liero, the blinking, spineless pacifist. And Soleil before
them, who had worked with Brother Froderic to squander the Order’s resources
for his own personal gains.

Against their ilk, Bastille knew, she was powerless. She was
subject to the whims of hypocrites who did as they liked because they could.
She had no doubt they’d each risen to power thanks to their knack for bending
the rules and escaping unscathed. Now they had only to force her hand; to make
her do what they wanted so they could get rid of her afterward. She had delayed
as long as she could; she had no choice left but to train her students, make
herself obsolete, and perish as the consequence.

“We’ve heard a rumor which I sincerely hope is untrue, Sister
Bastille,” said Brother Liero, when Bastille was standing before them.

“What you have heard is no rumor,” Bastille said.

“Then pray, tell me… why have you cancelled your classes? You
were specifically instructed to teach two training sessions a day until further
notice. This is an unacceptable act of disobedience, and I should very much
like an explanation.”

“Sister Severin has been sick. I did not think it wise to
continue without her.”

“Could not Brother Travers have benefitted from one-on-one instruction
in the meantime?”

Bastille had an unsettling vision of Brother Travers slitting
her throat while she slept, raping her corpse, and eating her innards for
breakfast the next morning. She felt her inhibitions wearing down, and knew she
needed to tell them. “I’ve recently discovered something about Brother Travers
which I have been admittedly hesitant to share with the Most High.”

Liero shifted in his seat, rested his elbows on the armrests,
and steepled his fingers. “If this matter might interfere with his progress, we
would hear of it.”

“This matter might interfere with his place in the Order,
kind Brother Liero.” Bastille hoped, even as she said it, that the high priests
would feel the same. It wasn’t just a matter of impeding her successors anymore.
It was her own safety in jeopardy.

“Then I would urge you to treat this no longer as your
prerogative, but as your duty.”

He was right, Bastille knew. “Brother Travers is a cannibal.”

The high priests exchanged looks.

“This is something he… told you?” Gallica asked.

“In so many words.”

“I should think he’ll make an excellent Cypriest one day,”
joked Liero.

No one laughed.

“That is not all. It seems he also has a certain perversion
when it comes to the dead. A fetish, if you will.”

“My, this is a more colorful discourse than I was expecting
this morning,” said Dominique.

If you treat Travers anything like those friends of yours,
you’ll probably let him prance out of here without a scratch
, Bastille
wanted to say. “I assure you, it is the truth. I have no reason to lie to the
Most High.”

Gallica’s face contorted into a smile. “Just as you have no
reason to investigate our doings. Is that right?”

Bastille went rigid. Why was Gallica bringing this up in
front of the other two? Had she chosen to enlighten Dominique and Liero
regarding Froderic’s slave trade and subsequent death? If so, they must also
know about the storerooms and Belgard’s fraudulent record-keeping. It seemed
Bastille’s carefully constructed network of informants was unraveling before
her eyes. How the Most High managed to engender such long-lasting and
unyielding loyalty baffled her. Perhaps it was merely
because
they were
the Most High.

There was only one way out. Bastille would call Gallica’s
bluff and spill everything she’d learned. She only hoped there was something
the others didn’t know. A squabbling priesthood would take the heat off her for
a time, if not for good. Bastille had always been too calculating to resort to
a fight-or-flight defense, but things were different now. “Brother Froderic is
dead,” she blurted out before she had time to convince herself not to. “We all
know it. He isn’t off evangelizing somewhere, and he isn’t coming back. I found
his remains in a clay urn under the name Thiers in the Hall of Ancients. You’ve
elevated a dead man to this empty chair. You’re lying to everyone.” She paused
to let the silence speak.

Sister Gallica leaned forward. “Brother Froderic’s elevation
had one purpose. To reserve the fourth seat among the Most Highly Esteemed for
you
,
Sister Bastille.”

Bastille fell silent for a different reason this time. Her
breath caught in her throat. She stood dumbstruck beneath the high priests’
stares.

“Are you okay, kind Sister?”

She blinked. “I’ve only just received my Esteem. I’m not even
Greatly Esteemed yet.”

“Which is precisely the reason we gave the position to
Brother Froderic: as a means of holding your place until sufficient time had
passed for us to arrange your elevation. Whenever a vacancy opens among the
Most High, you can imagine how Sister Usara and Brother Reynard and all the
other Greatly Esteemed priests clamor for the position. A high priest serves
for life, until such a time as he or she is elevated to Motherhood or
Fatherhood. That, in our opinion, was far too long a time to make you wait. We
would never have heard the end of it until we filled that vacancy.

“Brother Froderic’s unfortunate demise turned out to be a
stroke of good fortune for us in that regard. Since no one knew he was dead, we
could reasonably elevate him until such a time as you were ready to assume the
post yourself. We had hoped the Order would’ve recovered from the attack by the
time you’d trained your successors, thereby paving the way for you to be
relieved of your current duties. The Gray Revenants caused us a great many
problems, which you have been instrumental in solving. There is no better
candidate to receive the honor of the Most High than you, Sister Bastille.”

“You’ve been putting all this pressure on me to train Sister
Severin and Brother Travers. I assumed that was because you wanted to… do away
with me.”

Gallica snorted. “
Do away
with you? What sort of
conspiracies do you think we have the time to sit around and dream up? Is that
truly what you think of us? No, kind Sister. Just as Soleil needed you to
assume the bulk of his work in the preparation rooms after his elevation, so
you will need Brother Travers and Sister Severin to aid you as you take on the
many responsibilities of your new position. No more wandering the halls,
looking for suspicious activity to investigate. No more hour upon hour spent in
dissection and surgery. I’m afraid your free time will be scarce from now on.
Liero, Dominique and I all believe you have the makings of a high priestess—and
one of the finest quality, at that. We believe you will find nothing but
success in this new charge.”

Bastille was floored. All this time she had believed Gallica
and the others were plotting against her when in fact they had done everything
for her benefit. She felt guilty now, after her attempts to thwart her students
and subvert her superiors. She might have avoided it all, had she only known.
“Why didn’t you
tell
me that was what you were doing?”

“Can you imagine the backlash if it got out that we’d given
the fourth high seat to a dead priest?”

Yes I can
, Bastille thought wryly.
I can imagine
that quite well… as I often have
. She had been days away from proving it,
in fact, according to Brother Lambret. “That would have been quite something,”
she said.

“Yes, it would have. And there was one other reason we held
the position open for you. We wanted to be sure of who was to be the next
inheritor. Since Sister Dominique has refused to accept the honor of elevation,
and Liero has so graciously granted me the opportunity, there was always the
risk that introducing a fourth voting member to the Most High may have
disrupted our arrangement.”

“Sister Gallica, you would’ve been next in line to inherit
anyway.”

“Perhaps. But there is nothing more conciliatory to someone
in my condition than a guarantee. Now, what was this you were saying about
Brother Travers? This is cause for concern, as it pertains to both your
training and your elevation. We cannot leave your position unfilled, I’m
afraid.”

Regret twisted inside her. She’d made a terrible mistake.
I
should’ve been pushing my students to succeed instead of holding them back
.
In hindsight, maybe it was a good thing Brother Travers hadn’t learned more.

Starting a new student at the beginning would mean remaining
in her current position for more than half a year. Now that she knew high
priesthood was within her grasp, six months sounded like a lifetime. “I’ll
train them twice as fast as before,” she promised. “I’ll have them ready to
take over for me in three months.”

“Fully trained in both the surgical sciences
and
the
sacrificial rites in three months?” Liero said doubtfully. “You told us two
months ago that such expertise often requires years of both study and hands-on
experience. You were concerned that half a year wasn’t enough.”

Bastille searched for an answer.
I am such a fool
, she
thought.
All this time wasted. And for what? My own paranoia; my
imagination’s folly
. She was so frustrated with herself that, to her
surprise, she actually felt like
crying
. She didn’t go through with it,
though. Lakalie Hestenblach did not cry over trivialities, no more than she
laughed at puerile jests or smiled without meaning. This was it. Time to pull
out all the stops. “I have doubted my significance within the Order for one
reason above all others: these talents of Sister Dominique’s. With powers like
hers—the ability to heal any ailment in an instant—why bother with Nexuses and
NewOrgans at all?”

Liero and Gallica looked to Dominique as if to yield the
question.

“There are limits to what I can do,” said the high priestess.
“My gift is the reason for my ailment. People like me can’t live in the
above-world for long without feeling its effects. It is as if the whole of the
Aionach is working against me. Each time I use my power, my body dies a little.
Each time I give life, I come closer to death. Therefore I’ve reserved its use
for times of dire need, and to quell the being who lives beneath our feet.
Your
talents, Sister Bastille, are as imperative to the Order’s survival as they
have ever been.”

“Then I will work as hard as I have to for as long as it
takes to train my successors. I will treat my life’s work as a sacred covenant
to the Order. You don’t understand how badly I want this.”

“I believe we do,” said Gallica. “Does this mean you wish to
rescind your previous statement about Brother Travers?”

“I wanted you to know,” Bastille said. “That’s all. The
decision of what’s to be done with Brother Travers rests with the Most High.”

“Consider it your first task as a high priest,” said Brother
Liero, “though you bear the burden only in theory and not in rank, as yet.
Travers is an acolyte. He’s been with us for only a short time. You’ve worked
more closely with him than anyone. Therefore, you know him better than anyone.
If you wish him removed from your service, tell us and it will be done.”