The Spirit War (45 page)

“Yes, Lord Illir,” the wind whispered, trembling as it repeated the bright wizard’s words.

“Thank you,” Illir said, freeing the little wind with a toss of his gale. “You may go.”

“Yes, my lord,” the wind whispered, bowing. “Thank you, my lord.”

But Illir was already gone, flying across the sky with the impossible speed only the greatest winds could dream of. With a great sigh, the little wind sped away to brag to its brothers about how Illir himself had stopped just for it, the wizard’s deal already forgotten.

CHAPTER

19

A
fter ten hours of sleep, a bath, and an enormous breakfast, Miranda was a new woman, and the first thing she’d done with her newfound energy was attack the restricted shelves of the Spirit Court archives. She’d spent all morning reading spectacular stories of Spiritualists doing the impossible—talking down erupting volcanoes, brokering peace between warring rivers, even ending a five-year drought by freeing a wind spirit whose capture by an Enslaver had so angered the wind courts that they’d held off the rain in retaliation. There was even a description of the meeting four hundred years ago between the first Rector of the Spirit Court and the Shaper Mountain that had led to the raising of the Spirit Court’s Tower in a single day. The actual deed the Tower was in thanks for had been carefully omitted, but Miranda’s frustration was soothed by the dozens of secrets that hadn’t been crossed out.

For someone who’d given her life to the Court, it was breathtaking reading. It was also infuriating. All of the restricted reports dealt in one way or another with a star. Of course, they were never
called
stars, but now that Miranda knew what she was looking for, it was easy enough to read through the sometimes excruciatingly
vague language and find the truth. The Spirit Court had encountered stars numerous times over centuries of enforcing the good treatment of spirits, but every time the real nature of these greater than Great Spirits had been hushed up and locked away in the archives. It was enough to make Miranda grind her teeth to stubs.

“I don’t understand,” she said, yet again. “What’s the point of hiding this? If we were only taught about stars, told these stories… Look here, the great river Ell that runs through the southern kingdoms is a star. All that time we spent two years ago badgering the Felltris River to flood the fields and not the houses? Wasted. We could have solved the whole thing with one trip down to the southern delta to chat with the river all the others have to listen to.”

Gin flattened his ears against his head with a whine. “Can you
please
stop talking about stars? You’re going to get us all in trouble.”

“
In trouble with whom?
” Miranda said, slamming down the report and spinning around in her chair.

Gin looked away.

“You mean the Shep—”

“Stop,” Gin growled, lashing his tail. “Don’t say her name. It attracts her attention.”

“Fine with me,” Miranda said, crossing her arms. “There are several things I want to ask her.”

“Get in line,” Mellinor rumbled bitterly. “But if the Shepherdess could be appealed to, I wouldn’t have spent four centuries locked in a pillar of salt.”

“Mellinor,” Gin said in a warning tone.

“No,” Mellinor said. “I don’t care if it’s forbidden to speak of the Shepherdess’s business with humans. The Shaper Mountain already broke the edicts. Why should we bother keeping them?”

“The Shaper Mountain is one of the oldest spirits in the world,” Gin said. “He’s also the biggest. He can afford to take risks.”

“So can we,” Miranda said firmly. “Slorn said the Shaper Mountain showed us the truth for a reason.”

Gin snorted. “Yes, because the mountain knows you’re ignorant. The old rock pile wants you to take the fall for asking questions spirits shouldn’t ask.”

“What do you mean?”

The ghosthound sighed. “There are things that it’s better not to know, Miranda. And just because some great mountain and his pet bear man are fed up with the Shepherdess’s antics doesn’t mean you should go putting yourself in danger.”

“If the Shepherdess isn’t doing what she should, then I have to take action, danger or no,” Miranda snapped. “I’m sworn to protect the spirits.”

“Good,” Gin snapped back. “So do that. Kill Enslavers, stop abusive wizards, but don’t go poking your nose where it’ll get bitten off.”

Miranda turned away with a huff. Gin crouched low, his swirling fur moving in quick little patterns, and Mellinor began to rumble.

“Listen,” she said, calmly now. “Whatever happens from here out, I’m always going to choose the path that leads to a better, fairer world for all of us. That’s my job. That’s why I became a Spiritualist. And if that path leads me off a cliff, then so be it, but I will not turn back. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to follow.”

Gin bared his teeth. “Don’t even try,” he growled. “I go where you go, no matter how reckless or stupid. But that doesn’t mean I have to keep my mouth shut about it.”

Miranda couldn’t help grinning at that. “Nothing could make you keep your mouth shut, mutt.”

Gin snorted and put his head on his paws. “Better put away your reading. Someone’s coming.”

Miranda glanced at the door a split second before the knock sounded. Gin gave her a superior look, and Miranda rolled her eyes. She stood up, carefully marking her place before closing the record book, and walked to the reading room door. A young man in apprentice robes was standing on the other side. His face lit up when he saw her.

“Spiritualist Lyonette? Master Banage wants to see you at the top of the Tower. He says it’s urgent.”

“The top of the Tower?” Miranda said, wrinkling her nose. “You mean his office?”

“No, ma’am,” the apprentice said, shaking his head. “He said the top.”

“The top?” Gin said, suddenly behind her. He grinned, showing a wall of teeth. “I’ve never been to the top.”

“Neither have I,” Miranda said, elbowing her dog. The apprentice was staring at Gin’s teeth like he might faint. “Take us there.”

“Yes, Spiritualist,” the boy said, starting down the hall sideways so he wouldn’t have to put his back to Gin. “This way.”

Miranda shook her head and followed. Behind her, Gin crawled through the door, slipping his long body through the small opening with practiced ease. They climbed up and up, past floors of meeting rooms, guest rooms, and storerooms, until they reached the landing outside the Rector’s office. This was where the stairs usually ended, but now there was a new opening in the wall beside the Rector’s office door, a set of stairs Miranda had never seen before, leading up.

“We can make it from here,” she said, smiling at the apprentice. “Thank you for your service.”

“It is an honor to serve, Spiritualist,” the boy said with a halfhearted bow. After a final, terrified glance at Gin, he vanished down the stairs like a frightened rabbit.

“That one knows his place,” Gin said, flipping his tail smugly.

“Stop it,” Miranda muttered, starting up the new stairwell. “You’d better stay here.”

Gin growled and sat, ears turned forward so he wouldn’t miss anything.

The new stairs wound up for a dozen feet before stopping at a little stone door barely larger than she was. It opened when Miranda touched it, and a blast of wind nearly blew her back down the stairs. The door let out on the very top of the Tower’s spire. Below, she could see all of Zarin and the plains beyond. The white buildings were almost blinding in the afternoon sun, and the Whitefall River was little more than a glittering thread between the dark shapes of the bridges and barges. The wind roared around her, and for a moment Miranda was afraid it would blow her off altogether. Thankfully, the door was set back in the Tower’s spire, and the tiny alcove provided just enough shelter to keep the wind from ripping her off the Tower. Master Banage was already here, standing with his back pressed against the stone and his head tilted up toward the sky.

“Miranda,” he said in a voice that carried over the wind. “Glad you could join us.”

The moment he said it, Miranda felt the truth. The wind howling around them wasn’t the usual gusts found this high up. There was a familiar heaviness to it, a great spiritual pressure that made her ears pop, and she didn’t need Eril’s frantic clamor to know who, or what, she was facing.

“Lord Illir,” she said, clutching her wind spirit’s shaking pendant against her chest. “It is a pleasure to meet you again.”

“Pleasure tainted with crisis, I’m afraid,” the wind hummed around her. “Let the little one pay his respects before he bursts.”

Miranda let Eril fly at once. The smaller wind tore out of his necklace, spinning in a reverent circle before returning to Miranda’s side.

She exchanged a brief look with Master Banage, and then the Rector Spiritualis stepped out a fraction and addressed the wind. “Lord of the West, Miranda Lyonette is here, as you asked. Now, how may we help you?”

“I bring a message,” the great wind said. “From Osera.”

That threw Miranda. Who in Osera could use one of the four great winds as a messenger?

“The Immortal Empress has arrived,” the wind continued. “Her ships will reach Osera by evening, if not sooner. War is here.”

Miranda and Banage exchanged a wide-eyed look, and then Miranda looked toward the Council’s citadel. It looked the same as ever—no panic, no surge of troops.

“They don’t know,” the wind said, answering her question before she could ask it. “And they won’t, unless you tell them. Osera’s Relay points were destroyed by a traitor on the inside. That is why I’ve come.” There was a shift in air pressure as the wind turned to focus on Banage. “I know you have declared that your Court will not enter the human’s war, but I am here to ask you, on behalf of all spirits on this continent, not to let the Empress land on this shore.”

For the first time in all their years together, Miranda saw Master Banage look completely bewildered.

“How do you know…” he said, and then shook his head. “Never mind. Why do you care what human rules this land? The Court will always look after you no matter who calls themselves Merchant Prince or Empress.”

“You don’t understand,” the wind rumbled. “If the Immortal Empress were only human, I would agree with you. But she is more, far more.”

Banage scowled. “What do you mean ‘more’?”

“I cannot tell you,” the wind said. “It is forbidden, even for me.”

Miranda frowned. Forbidden? Even for a spirit as great as the West Wind? But as she tried to puzzle out what Illir meant by that,
the wind shifted and grew colder. Suddenly, she could smell cold stone, snow, and thin high air. The smell of the mountain filled her lungs, and everything came together.

“The Empress is a star.”

“What?” Banage turned to her. “Impossible. The Empress is human.”

“Humans are spirits as well,” the wind said. “And the Empress is not called Immortal for show.”

The blood drained from the Rector’s face. “Then the obedience I saw?” he whispered. “The war spirit’s devotion?”

“Any devotion you saw is the result of the obedience stars command,” the wind said. “She is no Enslaver, so I doubt you would feel anything wrong, but the truth of her control is almost worse. Enslavers are human. They can be defeated. They can die. But the Empress is immortal, her life held sacred by the White Lady. Her control over the spirit world is complete, eternal, and inescapable. To disobey a star is to disobey the Shepherdess herself.”

The West Wind grew cold enough to make Miranda shiver. “The Empress comes here to bring the whole world under her control, but I am the West Wind. I am freedom itself. The winds have no star; we have no need of one. It is not our nature to serve, but if the Empress comes here, we won’t have a choice. Nothing will. So I am asking you as a spirit, as the voice of all spirits on this continent who as yet have no idea of what they are about to lose, fight the Empress.”

“How?” Miranda said. “My spirits couldn’t go against the Shaper Mountain even to set me free. What can we do against the Empress?”

“Your spirits could not,” the wind said. “But you are different. Even a star cannot change the laws of magic. Immortal though she may be, the Empress is still human, and no human spirit can force another. That’s why she needs an army to beat her human opponents
the old-fashioned way, and that’s why you humans are the only ones who can stop her and save us.”

Miranda looked at Banage, but he was gripping the Tower wall, his face deathly pale. “How could I have been so mistaken?” he whispered. “All this time I thought spirits obeyed the Empress out of love and respect, as our spirits obey us.”

“That is our own fault,” the wind said. “We are forbidden from speaking of the stars to humans. It is the Shepherdess’s will that you stay ignorant. Really, I shouldn’t even be talking to you, but the secret’s already out, told by a star, no less.”

“Wait,” Miranda said. “The Shaper Mountain told you about us?”

“No,” the wind said coyly. “But I always find out. The wind is everywhere, Miranda. You should know that by now.”

“Our path is clear,” Banage said, straightening up. “We must fight. Star or not, the Empress is human. Though she’s not technically an Enslaver, I think we can all agree that controlling spirits by force is an abuse the Court cannot tolerate.”

“We must warn the Council and get down there as soon as we can,” Miranda said, looking up at Illir. “You said she was landing in Osera?”

“Yes,” the wind said. “And precious little stands in her way.”

“Then we will ride at once,” Banage said.

“Hurry,” the wind whispered.

“Wait!” Miranda cried as the wind turned. “Why did you not ask our help earlier?”

“I could not,” the wind sighed. “All spirits are forbidden from interfering in a star’s affairs by order of the Shepherdess. The Shaper Mountain might have told you about stars, but talking about them and asking for help in fending one off are entirely different matters. Were it not for this message, or, more correctly, for the wizard who sent it, I couldn’t have asked your help in this at all.”