Glasswrights' Test (34 page)

“Behold!” she cried. All eyes turned toward her, consumed her, but for once in her life, she did not feel the cringing terror, the hateful certainty that she was not worthy of the attention. Her hands stretched above her head, drawing, strengthening, summoning. She knew that her hair must be wild; her jaw must be distorted, but she was speaking now, she was commanding the attention of all within the room. “Behold the power that is mine! I speak with the gods! I know them! They come to me to work their good upon the earth!”

The room was filled with the silence of a graveyard, the eerie still that filled the places where murderers and suicides were forced to rot. “You condemn me for my power, but your words are only jealousy. You wish that the gods spoke to you as they do to me. You wish that you knew the gods with your own eyes, your own ears, your own flesh.”

The words worked magic on her body. As she filled her lungs, she felt the thrust of her father's spear, knew again the driving pain as he had executed her nurse, her first guide in the ways of the Thousand Gods. Her flesh split at the impact; she saw a crimson rose bloom across her bodice.

A flurry of hands moved in pitiful holy signs. Fools. She now knew that the Thousand ignored such symbols. She now knew that the gods listened to prayers formed inside human hearts, to words whispered inside human minds. The gods cared about their worshipers' good works; they cared about dedicated missions accomplished by the faithful. They would not be moved by superstitious trappings, by silly twisting fingers.

“You try me here because I saved a child. You question me because I called on Mip, because I asked the god of water to give back one who was too young to be taken. You say that I'm a witch!”

Berylina heard the gasps of horror, as if she called down the power of evil by claiming the accusation for herself. She stretched her arms higher, felt her new wound gape wider. She could make out muttered prayers, frantic exhortations to this god or that. The name of each deity swarmed across her body, filling her with dozens of sensations.

All of the Thousand were here now, present with their myriad of sensations. Berylina raised her eyes from the horde of terrified humans, and she saw that the room was filled with gods.

Nome, piping in his corner, pleased that his young charge was acting nothing like a child. Kel, who had brought King Halaravilli to Berylina, across the sea, so many years ago. Feen, the god of marriage, who had given up his hold on her when the house of ben-Jair joined with the spiderguild.

Berylina spun about, gathering all of them to her. She glimpsed horror on Siritalanu's face, and she knew that he could not see the gods, that he did not know what she envisioned. The poor man must think her mad; he must think her truly possessed. She wanted to explain to him. She wanted him to know that he was mistaken, but when she opened her mouth, she could only laugh.

The gods were so beautiful! Even the ones who were terrifying, even the ones who were dark and grim and sad. Berylina stretched toward the ceiling, willing her body to expand, to flow, to encompass all the power and the beauty and the glory in the room.

“Stand still!” Torio bellowed. “I order you to stand still!” Berylina could not obey him. She could not make her body stop; she could not still the energy that beat inside her veins. “The woman is possessed!” Torio cried. “We must drive the demons out of her! We must free the witch!”

A part of Berylina's mind listened. She knew that Torio ordered his guards forward. She knew that two of the bravest men caught her arms. Another pair clung to her kicking legs. Torio issued more orders, and additional guards appeared. They grabbed at her, clung to her, weighting her down like boulders.

She knew that she was carried to the stone table in the center of the chamber. Her back was forced upon the altar. She laughed as her spine kissed the rock, giggled like a maiden greeting her young lover. The soldiers bore down on her arms and legs even harder, trying to suppress her writhing, trying to make her submit.

Torio barked another command, and four guards went to the heavy sheet of iron in the corner of the room. They wrestled it to the altar, lifting it with difficulty. Berylina felt the weight settle on her chest, on her belly, on her thighs. San, the god of iron, filled her mouth with the taste of sweet wine, and she swallowed as rapidly as she could, drinking him down, filling her belly, filling her soul.

More shouts, more hasty actions. Some of the guards stoked the fire in the corner. The faithful among the onlookers surged forward, ready to help, desperate to save the witch's soul.

Yot, the god of stones, cried in Berylina's ears, shrieking his heart-stopping wail of a hawk. Berylina heard him count out the stones that the priests dragged from the fire; he cried for each of his creations.

Gir, the god of fire, measured the heat of his flames, filling Berylina's eyes with gold-flecked waves of white. The god of fire's earnestness almost made her miss Torio's commands, almost covered the priest's bellow for more wood.

Yot came closer then. His hawk-cry filled Berylina's ears, poured into her body. She felt the first of Torio's stones settle on the iron plate.

Fire. Crushing. Pain.

Berylina reached out to Gir, gathered in Yot. The gods swaddled her in their being, collected her in their hearts, greeted her like lovers.

“Will you admit that you are a witch?” Torio's voice rang above the shrieking hawk, beyond the golden white curtain. Berylina could not speak. She could not summon the words to deny the gods beside her; she would not ignore the deities who filled the room. “Another stone!” Torio cried.

Weight. Heat. Agony.

“Admit that you're a witch!” Berylina tossed her head, turning so that Gir's gold-white curtains settled over her. Yot screamed in her ear once again. “Another stone!”

Blistering. Smothering. White hot jagged ripping pain.

“Say that you're a witch! Admit that you forsook the gods, and you'll be free!”

One part of Berylina's mind could smell her scorched robe. She realized that she had soiled her gown—Ranita's gown—and a part of her was ashamed. She tried to fill her lungs, tried to gather together the words that seemed so far away, so long forgotten. … But what was it that she must say? What must she do?

Collecting all the power of the gods around her, she opened her eyes. She could see the edge of the metal sheet digging into her chest. She could make out the lumps of the heated stones, even now searing through the iron. She could see the terrified guards, standing back now, making their silly religious signs across her chest.

“Confess, witch! Confess, and you'll be free!”

Slowly, slowly, Berylina turned her head. Torio stood upon his dais, terror and anger and shame mixing on his fat face. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to tell him to open his heart, to open his soul, to receive the gods around him, but she could not draw the breath.

“Witch!” he cried. “Do not curse me with your wandering eye! Confess! Repent!”

She summoned more of her waning strength and turned to Siritalanu. The priest was stretching toward her, reaching with fingers that seemed like claws. She saw the guards restraining him, remarked in a distant part of her brain that it took four men to hold him back. Four men! She would not have thought that Siritalanu had the strength. His lips were twisted as he cursed the guards, and his face shone with spit and sweat and tears.

“One more stone!” Torio called.

There was little time, then. Berylina craned her neck, gently pushing aside Gir's gold-white curtains. She must find one other. She must look at one other. She must. …

There. Standing on the dais. Still stranded on the platform where she had testified, where she had spoken the words that had provoked Berylina's demise. Ranita Glasswright.

Look at me, Berylina wanted to cry. She fought to fill her lungs, but she could find no air. She struggled to shape the words, but her mouth was pulled into a different shape, a horrific shape, a tortured stretch of flesh. Look at me!

Torio's men struggled forward with another stone, the largest yet. They swayed the burden between them, rocking forward like workmen in a quarry, manipulating the shimmering stone with massive iron tongs. It took them three counts to heft the weight, to lift it onto the others, atop the metal plate, on Berylina's chest.

Look at me!

And somehow, past the hawk cry, beyond the white-gold curtain, Ranita heard. The glasswright locked eyes with the princess, held her gaze across the frantic, scurrying room. You see the Thousand, Berylina thought, and Ranita nodded. You hear them and taste them and smell them. You feel them, with your flesh and blood.

The glasswright took a step closer, reaching out to Berylina with both hands.

“Confess that you're a witch!” Torio's scream echoed in the chamber, bouncing off the ceiling like rays of heat off stones.

Berylina fought for one last breath. Don't abandon them, Ranita Glasswright. Don't forget what they would have you do. Remember the gods in all your life.

The stones were beyond heavy now. The heat had charred her flesh. She could not resist much longer, could not stay with the shrieking hawk, could not linger behind the white-gold cloth.

She cast her thoughts down to the deepest parts of her mind, to the depths that she had plumbed with Ranita during her Speaking. Say that you will walk with the gods, she thought to Ranita. Say that you will work their labors. Say that you will be their pilgrim. Say it, Ranita. Say it now.

“Yes!” Ranita cried. “By all the Thousand Gods, yes!”

Berylina heard the words like the creaking of the Heavenly Gates. All the gods around her exploded in their joy. The Thousand danced and sang and laughed and cried, accepting Berylina's transfer, blessing the bargain she had made.

“Confess!” Torio cried again, but Berylina scarcely heard him.

Instead, she closed her eyes and threw back her head, letting her clenched fists relax. She settled into the depths of her memory, the core of her being, sank down the pathways that Ranita Glasswright had shown her only three days before.

Then she was beyond the iron plate, beyond the stones, beyond the frenzy and the panic of the curia. She was alone and not alone, alive and not alive. She found the last gate in her mind, the final barrier that stood between her body and the Heavenly Fields. She set her thoughts against it, spread out the very core of her being in acceptance, in glory, in joy. She unfurled the last turn of her cavalcade, took the final step of her pilgrimage. This was the power Jair had promised her when she first prayed in his house. This was the wholeness, the oneness, the glory that he had pledged.

She recognized Tarn's familiar rustle before his green-black wings filled her soul.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

Rani listened to the bells toll across Brianta, each metallic clang echoing like the ache behind her eyes. She twisted her hands as she looked out the window, ignoring the whisper of her dry, powdery flesh. “Let me get my cloak, Mair. We can go back to Nome's shrine, see if the priests there can offer us any further guidance.”

Tovin answered before Mair could respond. “You were supposed to be at the guildhall by sunrise.”

“I cannot take the test. Laranifarso is more important.”

“That's absurd.” Tovin said, and Mair gasped.

Rani rounded on him, anger sparking her words like the pinpricks that tormented her palms. “Laranifarso is a helpless child! Besides, the test is beyond me now. How could I think of going through with it after what I saw two weeks ago? Berylina was murdered in front of me, murdered by the fanatics in this city!”

She had broken a vow. She had promised that she would free Berylina or die trying, and she had done neither. Rather than fighting free of the curia, rather than testifying about truth and power, Rani had watched helplessly as the breath was crushed from the princess.

Tovin seemed unaware of her failure, though. “I know that. But Laranifarso has been gone for those same two weeks. You've said that the Fellowship has no reason to harm him, yet. You cannot bring back Berylina by refusing to submit to your guild. You are trying to find excuses not to complete the glasswrights' test.”

“Now who is being absurd?” Rani settled her hands on her hips, applying an old player's trick to seem more commanding. “Tovin, you have no idea what it was like in that chamber with Berylina! You were off somewhere in the streets.”

“Off somewhere—” He bit off a furious retort and when he started again, his voice was frighteningly calm, smooth like a pool of oil waiting to burn in a lantern. “Ranita, you have made it clear from the day that we arrived in Brianta that you have no use for me. You swore publicly to avoid me. You have ignored my advice with every step you've taken. If I was ‘off somewhere', it was because the man who pours ale at the Star and Horse provides better company than you.”

“Aye,” Rani snapped. “The man who pours the ale, and the woman who tends the chambers abovestairs!”

“You have no business accusing me—”

“Stop!” Mair's voice cut between them, sawing apart their arguments like a forester downing trees. “Yer fightin' 'll get ye nowhere!”

Rani raised the heels of her palms to her eyes, pressing hard. She felt stretched, pulled, as if she were ready to sob for days, and yet she had no tears. This cursed Briantan heat. … She'd been parched since the first day that she arrived. She could see a flagon of water on the mantel, but she had not yet broken her vow, to eat and drink only at the guildhall. She would not fail at that at least. She could keep that promise. She swallowed hard as Mair continued: “Rani, ye'll go to yer guild'all 'n' ye'll complete yer cursed test. Ye've wasted enow time trippin' about th' city wi' me.”

“But Mair—”

“I willna 'ear more fro' ye. Laranifarso 'as been missin' for near a for'night now. Either th' Fellowship is good t' its word, or it isna. Our 'opes mean nowt. Yer takin' yer test means nowt. Finish yer business wi' th' guild so we can all return t' Moren 'n' plan our response.”