Glasswrights' Master (37 page)

Hal was running across the plain, streaming a crimson banner behind him, stumbling like a madman. She heard the chitter of the little voices in his mind, a scattering like a dead woman's whisper, and then she felt her god-self banish the sounds forever. Hal stood straighter after she had passed, shaking his head as if his ears rang, as if silence were a separate, holy sound. He raised his silk again and continued toward the city gates, but now he walked with a measured tread, like the king he was, returning to his people.

And then, the gods were gone. They swirled about the city in one final flurry, a maelstrom of sights and sounds, of scents and flavors and sensations. Rani became herself again, became a human woman, trembling and gasping from the separation.

She heard the massive chimes that indicated the Heavenly Gates were open, and she saw the souls of all the dead soldiers ascend at once. The Gates clanged shut, and Rani was left, blind and deaf and dumb, shivering and alone in the center of the Fellowship's secret chamber.

But she wasn't alone.

She heard someone else breathing close beside her, and she forced her eyes to open. Crestman had clambered to his feet. He supported himself on the tip of his sword as if he were the oldest man in all the world.

“What are you?” he gasped.

“I am Rani Trader,” she said.

“What did you do?” There was no fear in his voice, no terror, as she had thought there might be. Instead, there was anger–bitter, acrid anger.

“I do not know.” That was the truth. “Berylina first brought the gods to me. I became them. All of them.” Glancing about the room, Rani could see that the Fellowship was stirring. People were struggling to their knees, gasping for breath, retching.

“I hate you,” Crestman said, the words as simple as a child's. Rani had never heard such truth.

“I'm sorry.”

“You lied to me. You lied in Amanthia, when you said that you would stand with me against Sin Hazar.” He seemed unaware of anyone else in the room, unaware that people were standing, whispering, staring at Rani in awe.

“I did stand with you. But I could not stay there. My life called me elsewhere.”

“You left me in Liantine.”

“I would have come back for you. You did not trust me enough.”

“I loved you.”

“I know.” She met his eyes then, seeing the hopeless sorrow and loss and rage. “I know,” she said again, and tears pricked at her helplessness, her inability to be what he had needed.

“Die, ye bairn-killin' bastard!” Rani was startled by the cry. She knew that she should move, knew that she should reach out for Crestman and pull him toward her, snatch him safe from harm. She could not make herself move fast enough, though, could not find the energy to act.

She recognized the blade, even as it whistled through the air. She knew the eight prongs that fastened the pommel to the shaft. She saw the weapon that had been stolen from Crestman himself, stolen from his hiding place in Sarmonia. She knew the knife that she had last seen in a sunny forest glade, pressed against soft flesh, spinning out a thread of blood. She knew the dagger had belonged to Mair, had measured out the depths of the Touched woman's guilt and pain and sorrow.

Rani heard the weapon sink into Crestman's chest, heard his splutter of surprise and then his sharp gasp as the point breached his heart. Even as Crestman collapsed upon the dais, Mair straddled his body, driving the knife further into the dead meat that had been a living, breathing man only moments before. “Tha' was fer ye, Lar. Tha' was fer ye, me puir dead boy.”

Mair crooned the words over and over, her face whey-pale against a Fellowship robe. Rani stepped up to her side, kneeling to gather her friend against her chest. They huddled together on the dais, rocking as if they were children, as if they had all their lives ahead of them and nothing more to fear than a bogeyman in the night.

“I 'ad t' do it, Rai. By th' rules o' th' street, I 'ad t' do it.”

“I know, Mair. I know.” Rani looked at Crestman's withered, broken body, and a whisper at the back of her mind mourned the boy she had met in Amanthia, the boy who had given her her first kiss, beside a leaping bonfire. “You had to do it. We all did. We all did what we needed to do.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 15

 

Rani shrugged a blanket closer about her shoulders, scarcely aware of the late autumn breeze that broke around Tovin and gusted toward her. Some months before, stranded in Kella's cottage, she might have reached for Purn, asked the god of dance to spread his heat across her flesh. She stood without the gods now, though, stood without their constant infringements on her eyes and ears, her tongue and nose, her flesh.

The Thousand had retreated. She knew that they were still nearby. She could sense them hovering in the shadows, soaring in the daylight. She knew that if she needed them, if lives hung in the balance, she could reach out for any, for all.

But she also knew that she was an ordinary woman. She was a simple Morenian, trying to make her way in the world. The gods had stepped back, had let her return to the life she had known and loved before the final battle, before Berylina passed on her holy power, before the Fellowship.

Even now, there were some who were forgetting how the Thousand had flowed across the battlefield at Moren's gates. Many said that the earth had moved, that a temblor had occurred, but nothing more. Some said that Briantan fanatics had fashioned stories about the gods, that the invading soldiers had invented the presence of the Thousand to explain their sudden loss to a force a fraction of their size.

Rani let the stories grow around her. She let the rumors fade. She had other missions to accomplish, other goals to achieve. Now, with Tovin watching, she reached for her closest diamond blade. “I know that I'll need a fresh one to cut the smallest pieces.”

“Of course you know it.” His voice was even, as steady as it had been since he first joined her in her tower chamber. “You know precisely what you're doing. You don't need me here.”

“I do.” She brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand. “I must have a master approve my design, and you're the closest thing this land can offer.”

Tovin answered her more gently than her dismissive words had warranted. “That will not satisfy the guild, you know. That will never meet your Master Parion's requirements.”

Rani set the diamond blade on the table. She had avoided this conversation for days, for weeks, for the two long months since Moren had been regained. It was time, though. If she were going to reestablish her guild in Morenia, she must confront her ancient fears.

She tested her words inside her head before she spoke them aloud. “I no longer measure myself by Master Parion's rule.”

Tovin nodded, as if he had expected her to say as much. “You might not. But there are others who will. There are others who will always say that you are outside the guild, that you do not deserve the commissions that you gain.”

“Some of those others tried to kill me, Tovin.” Her voice was level. She had confronted her fears. “Some of those others tried to poison me in Brianta, to destroy me before I had a chance to complete my masterpiece.”

He merely nodded. They had never spoken openly of Rani's cruel treatment at the hands of her guild, of how Parion had wrought his personal revenge. Rani sighed, and she tried to order the thoughts that swirled in her mind, to explain her compulsion to rebuild her guild.

“This is the end of the circle, Tovin. This is the final arc. I ruined the glasswrights' guild when I was a child, when I scarcely knew what I was doing. I thought that I could right that wrong when Hal agreed to grant me land and stone to build another hall. I thought that I was ready to rebuild when I learned my craft in Brianta. I thought that I could erase all that I had done by mastering skills.

“All of those actions, though, were designed to make
me
accept what had happened. All of those actions were supposed to ease
my
mind. Even my masterpiece in Brianta, my panel of the silk god, was about me, about my life, about what I had accomplished by bringing the spiders from Liantine.

“Now, though, I act for others. Now, I act to restore the guild to its former power, to its position of glory and prestige among all the other Morenian guilds. With the masterpiece I plan now, I can give back what I once took.”

Tovin shook his head, a small smile curling his lips. She was surprised by the expression–it seemed the look of an older man, a father or a grandfather. The player gestured toward her work table. “I understand your thoughts, Ranita,” he said gently. “I cannot say that I agree with them. I cannot say that you will be a better glasswright for finishing this project. I cannot say that guildsmen from all the five kingdoms will hear of your feat and flock to join you. But I understand that you do this thing to right past wrongs, that you act now to erase the final vestige of what was done in your youth.”

He shrugged, and she was relieved to see a flash of his familiar impatience return, drowning his flowery words. Once, that was the energy that had drawn her to his side, that had lured her to his bed. Now, she remembered his restlessness fondly. She wondered if this was how a mother felt, watching her son twitch through his responsibilities.

“Go ahead, then,” he said. “You've delayed enough. Is there anything left that you need from me?” Tovin's voice was gruff, and she wondered how much of her emotion he had just read in her eyes.

She shook her head automatically, hesitant to ask the question that she had toyed with all these weeks, all the months since she had returned from Sarmonia. It didn't matter, she tried to remind herself. It really didn't matter. Tovin's eyes glinted as he took one step closer. “What?” he said.

“I shouldn't ask.”

“You've grown shy? Now?”

She curled a lip at his sarcasm. Very well. “Why, Tovin? Why Kella? What brought you to her … cottage?” To her bed, she did not say.

Impossibly, she had surprised him. Unease flickered behind his eyes, and he started to step away from her work table. He did her the honor of meeting her gaze, though, and when he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “She had knowledge, Ranita. She had power. I wanted to learn all she knew. I wanted to collect her wisdom through Speaking.”

“She was ancient!”

He shook his head and raised his chin. She braced herself for words she would rather not here. “Not in ways that mattered, Rani. She had lessons to teach. Lessons of herbs, and other things.”

Other things. Rani's mind flashed to the lavender pallet, to the bed the couple had shared. Rani had been bound on that pallet; she had waited for the Fellowship there, waited for her death.

That was past, though. That was ended. Kella had been executed in Hal's courtyard, her neck severed with one blow of the headman's axe. Kella was gone, and there was nothing to be gained by questioning Tovin, nothing to be learned by pushing for more information. The answers hardly mattered. Rani had no cause to ask. She sighed. “We're wasting time here.”

He gave her a moment to change her mind, to press him for further details. When she remained silent, he said, “Very well. Let us move into the play; the first step's roughest, every day.”

She smiled at the players' doggerel. She would miss the troop when she was finished here, miss their hard-driving playfulness. Later, she chided herself. There would be plenty of time for fond memories later.

Tovin lifted a piece of clear glass from the table, a curve that barely filled his palm. She remembered the first time that he had led her in Speaking. He had used clear glass then to focus her, glass that she had cut with a diamond blade.

She took a deep breath and stared at the pane, exhaling as deeply as she could manage. Another breath. Another. She envisioned a stream running beside her, swift, glittering in brilliant sunlight.

She Spoke about the Instructors who had first greeted her when she arrived at the guildhall. She recounted her introductory lessons, how the Instructors had been patient at first, then increasingly sharp as Rani fumbled with easy tasks. She remembered how to whitewash tables, how to sketch out designs with fresh-made charcoal. She recalled how to scrub out those lines, re-work them, simplify them, strengthen them.

She followed the Speaking stream, moving deeper into her thoughts, into her recollections. Other Instructors had taught Rani how to blend sand and heat it, how to fix the perfect balance for her glass. She had measured out the ingredients, as cautious as any baker, and she had held her crucible with iron tongs. She had stirred the molten mixture, taking care to turn her face away, to breathe as deeply as she could from the colder air over her shoulder.

The Speaking stream moved further, picking up speed as it tumbled over rocks in its bed. Rani navigated around the final craft that she had learned in the guildhall, tumbled over the Speaking rapids to truths that she had mastered at Tovin's side. She spoke of the techniques that she had mastered in exile, pouring glass across smooth stones, leveling it with iron blades.

As if she were manipulating the oars of a boat, her fingers clenched on the tools of her trade. She cradled a traditional grozing iron, curved her fingers around one of Tovin's diamond blades. She nestled tongs in her palms, closed the metal jaws around a point of lead stripping and pulled the heavy metal through a vise, stretching it, shaping it, guiding it into a supporting edge for glass. All the while, she explained what she was doing, what she had learned, how it had shaped her life.

The stream rushed forward, carrying Rani breathlessly past all the tricks that she had mastered. She crimped lead foil around the edges of the tiniest pieces of glass, folding the covering carefully, perfectly. She soldered one piece to another, finding the tiny imperfections, setting them against each other, pressing, smoothing, easing each glass piece into place.