Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (8 page)

Waking and sleeping, the days of the Candidates were governed by the sound of magical bells that chimed sourcelessly in empty air: bells to wake them, bells to send them to their meals, bells to send them to their scant candlemarks of leisure and from there to their beds. Each third fortnight their sleeping rooms were changed, and that was all to the good: if you misliked your bedchamber companions, six sennights would see you with different ones. The prohibition against naming their Houses was heeded by almost no one, but at least Vieliessar was not the only one to refuse to name her House. She felt daring enough in claiming her name.

Spring became high summer, then dwindled away into autumn. Vieliessar’s body hardened to her new work and her mind grew quick to find the best and easiest way to accomplish each task she was set. Though she began to find leisure in the evening, she kept from the Common Room, where Candidates and Postulants alike gathered for games of
xaique
and
gan
and
narshir
. She wanted no friends among those who had slain her family—for the destruction of Farcarinon had not been Caerthalien’s alone, but the work of many Houses—nor did she wish to befriend those she would some day be called upon to serve. No, she would use her free time to plan her future—her
true
future, not the one Caerthalien meant her to have.

But somehow her plans of escape and vengeance grew no further.

Winter stalked the bounds of the Sanctuary like a great white wolf. Each day was much like the next—no feast day celebrating a House’s triumph nor Festival to mark the turn of the year was celebrated here. And then, it was spring and the first new Candidates were soon to arrive to begin their Service Year.

Now it was Vieliessar and her fellow-Candidates who were sent to the Long Chamber. They would sleep there until their final fates were revealed, as the caravans of their Houses arrived, and the new Candidates would occupy the familiar dormitory rooms. There was excitement and confusion when they arrived, as for the first time in a full Wheel of the Seasons they were free to choose where they might sleep, and among whom. And each contemplated the future to be so soon revealed with both excitement and dread. None of them knew—even now—who would stay and who would go, and while the shared year of toil had forged many strong friendships, the next time many of them met might be when the battle lines of their House’s armies clashed.

This is why we were told not to name our Houses, so those of us who go on to become
komentai’a
might be spared the knowledge they had slain those who once were friends,
Vieliessar thought, surprising herself. None of them had understood that until it was too late.

And each night the Long Chamber held fewer tenants than the night before. Some departed with the caravans. Some donned the green tabard of a Postulant. There seemed to be no metric for knowing who would go or who would stay.

Baramrin and Eradrin and Feinel had shown no hint of the Light in all the moonturns they’d been Candidates—or nothing more than any other had, since all save Vieliessar had been sent here by the word of the Lightborn—yet now they were Called.

But they never tested us! They never asked!
Vieliessar thought, half indignant, half disturbed.
They never even taught us anything.…

But in looking back on the matter-of-fact spellcraft she’d seen in the last fourteen moonturns—Silverlight and Silversight, Healing, Calling Fire with a snap of the fingers, speaking with beasts and awakening the soil with a touch, Vieliessar realized that wasn’t true. They’d all learned without realizing they were being taught: When and how the Magery was used. The cost of using it. The things it could do.

Perhaps the teaching itself is the test.

Vieliessar knew that true understanding of what it meant to be one of the Lightborn could only come if one were Called. The Postulants had all been willing—even eager—to talk with the Candidates about what they learned, but much of it was like one who was blind attempting to understand what sight was.

It’s like flying,
some said.
Like running before the wind and knowing every current in the ocean beneath you,
said others.
Like dancing. Like riding a fast horse.

Like a hundred other things that only one of the Lightborn could understand.

It was a full moonturn before the last of the Candidate caravans came and went. This year Hallorad was the last: a Less House so far to the east that beyond its eastern border lay nothing but leagues of windswept grassland and Graythunder Glairyrill itself. Hallorad left no new Candidates, but bore away Inadan, Thadaniach, Gaen, and Dirthir—the last four who’d shared the now-echoing Long Chamber with Vieliessar.

Her Service Year was over, and she had not been Called.

In the refectory everyone ate together, the servants at one end of the chamber and Hamphuliadiel Astromancer at the other. The meals were plain, simple, and unvarying: tea and boiled grain for breakfast; tea and vegetable soup at midday; tea, bread and cheese, and soup at eventide. Though there might be as many as a hundred of them in the Sanctuary at one time, the Candidates were not the largest group at any meal. The Postulants outnumbered them by half again, for one might be a Postulant for ten years, or twenty, before taking the Green Robe. Each year ten or fifteen—rarely more—increased their numbers. Each year a handful of the Postulants dared the Shrine and departed the Sanctuary.

Caerthalien had arrived on the same day as Oronviel and Aramenthiali, so she did not know which of the dozen Candidates that had arrived that day were Caerthalien’s. Berthon and Athrothir had left with the party, but that evening, when she had come to the refectory, she saw Thurion wearing the green tabard of a Postulant, seated among those others who had been Twice-Called. He’d smiled when he’d seen her, and Vieliessar had been surprised at the happiness she felt at the sight of him in Postulant’s garb. It was not that they were friends, since she had kept herself apart during the past year. But in an odd way she could not put a name to, Thurion’s Postulancy was a triumph in which she could share.

This night, for the first time since she’d come to the Sanctuary, she had no true place: not servant, not Candidate, not Postulant. Having been given no other direction, she seated herself once more among the Candidates. At least she was neither the oldest nor the youngest among them: she’d turned thirteen last Rade Moon, and the youngest this year were barely ten; twin girls who had come on the same day Berthon and Athrothir had left. The eldest of the new Candidates was Iardalaith. He was sixteen, and though Vieliessar did not know quite when he’d arrived, she had heard that he had already been in training to become a knight when he was sent here.

What shall become of me now?
she thought forlornly. With the departure of the last of the failed Candidates, she was certain that she would at last be sent to the Sanctuary’s servants’ quarters to begin her imprisonment in truth.
Weeping over spilled tea does not bring fresh,
she thought. It was one of Maeredhiel’s favorite sayings, deployed whenever she thought one of them was spending too much time in self-recrimination and not enough in fixing the problem.

When the meal was over, Vieliessar stood uncertainly beside the table. Those Candidates—
this year’s Candidates,
she mentally amended—who didn’t have evening tasks were already shuffling out of the refectory, drooping with a weariness she well remembered. She’d nearly made up her mind to return to the Long Chamber—perhaps she was to have it all to herself for the Wheel to come—when Maeredhiel strode over to her.

“If you like the refectory so well you linger here, I’m sure a task may be found for you in the kitchens. If not, then come,” the Mistress of Servants said briskly, before turning away.

Vieliessar followed, confused, as Maeredhiel led her toward the Postulants’ sleeping rooms. Was Maeredhiel taking her back to the Candidates’ dormitory?

But as they passed along the corridor, Maeredhiel stopped and slid a door into the wall, revealing the spare—but private—sleeping cell of a Postulant: bed, chest, standing brazier, and low wooden stool. The shutters across the window were closed and barred, but the room was still chill. The basket of possessions that Vieliessar had carried to the Long Chamber sennights earlier was set upon the bed.

Vieliessar stood in the doorway, not knowing what was expected of her, as Maeredhiel crossed the room to stand in front of the brazier. The Mistress of Servants stared at it fixedly—and suddenly Vieliessar heard the crackle of kindling charcoal and smelled burning.

“You said you were no Mage!” she hissed accusingly.

“I said I had not enough Light in me to become one, but Fire is the first and easiest spell,” Maeredhiel answered calmly. “Come in and close the door. I do not wish to heat the entire Sanctuary, and there is not enough charcoal here to do so, in any event.”

More lost than before, Vieliessar did as she was told.

“You wonder why you have been given the quarters of a Postulant, when you have not been Twice-Called. True enough, you have not. But when Hertherilian was Astromancer here—do not cudgel your brain, girl, that was five hundred years gone, and no one ever remembers the names anyway—it was a thing not unknown for a Candidate to do two and three and four years of service as we awaited their kindling. I cannot bring to mind just now whose demands caused us to shorten the time, but what one House has, all must have; they are like quarreling weanlings with vast armies. It matters not. What matters is that there is precedent for delaying the decision about you. Yet I should prefer you away from the new Candidates, lest you give up all our secrets before they have a chance to discover them.” The faint smile upon Maeredhiel’s lips mocked her own words.

“You mean I…?” Vieliessar wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or horrified. A year ago she’d been certain she did not wish to become Lightborn. Now she realized she wasn’t certain of anything at all.

“Impossible though it seems, you may yet be Called to the Light,” Maeredhiel said dryly. “So you will sleep here rather than among the servants. Fear not that you will have candlemarks of idleness to bore you, for you will work harder now than you have before. There are many tasks of delicacy that we servants do not entrust to the Candidates, for I will tell you this plainly: each one of you made more work than you accomplished.”

“We worked hard!” Vieliessar protested, stung by Maeredhiel’s unfairness.
Most of us.

“And so you did, child. But one in a hundred Candidates comes to us with servant’s training. Some are the offspring of craftworkers or Farmholders, but most of you are Landbond, who barely know what it is to live within walls. It takes decade upon decade to train up a skilled servant.”

“The Candidates were older once,” Vieliessar said suddenly. She didn’t know where the thought sprang from, but even the unflappable Maeredhiel looked surprised.

“Indeed they were, though that was much before my time,” Maeredhiel answered grudgingly. “The Archives say that once the Lightborn did not Call the Light, just watched and waited until the Light appeared of its own. But it is of no matter. The world is always changing, and has been since Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor fell.” She stepped away from the brazier and took a step toward the door. “In the morning I shall see to it that you are properly dressed and then we will begin.”

“Wait!” Vieliessar said, for Maeredhiel was obviously about to leave. “You said upon the day I arrived that I was the Child of the Prophecy. What prophecy? Why—”

“Now you see what ignorance pride breeds, for you might have had your answers long ago, had you been willing to listen,” Maeredhiel said. “I am no Lightborn nor patient teacher, so do not seek them from me. I will tell you this: your answers are here, but you will not like them overmuch.”

*   *   *

The Mistress of Servants had spoken nothing other than the truth when she said Vieliessar would have much to learn, and though Vieliessar tried many times to get Maeredhiel to speak further of the Prophecy, she always received the same answer: if she had been willing to listen, she could have had answers moonturns ago. Before Flower had become Sword, she had stopped asking: Mistress Maeredhiel had spoken no less than the truth that night, for she had much to teach and was determined Vieliessar should learn.

To her surprise, she did not find the servant’s garb she now wore to be a shameful burden, simply because no one seemed to care whether she went garbed in servant’s grey or Lightborn green or Farcarinon vert and argent. The new Postulants—even Thurion—were far too busy to notice her. The Lightborn cared for little and saw less beyond their own work. The new Candidates barely saw anything beyond the ends of their noses, as she knew from experience.

Vieliessar saw more of Maeredhiel’s truth as she came to understand that the tasks the Candidates performed were not even a tenth of the labor needed to keep the Sanctuary running smoothly. Worse, it seemed that each task bred a thousand more, all of which must be performed to exacting standards. Maeredhiel had said it took decades to train up a skilled Sanctuary servant. Vieliessar soon decided the Mistress of Servants had been optimistic: two decades, or six, or a dozen would not be time enough to learn all she must know to be a servant of the Sanctuary of the Star.

In her Service Year, the Candidates’ work was confined to the kitchens, the laundry, the stables, and the guesthouse. Now Vieliessar’s duties lay in all the places she had once been forbidden to enter. She began to learn the mysteries of the work rooms where medicines and spices and perfumes were compounded, to clean the delicate equipment after use, to restore each object to its proper place, to note which supplies were running low and must be restocked. She learned what materials each of the meditation rooms required and how to tell if they were running low. She learned which rooms she might enter when they were vacant, and which she must never enter at all. She learned to assist Hervilafimir Lightsister and Nithrithuin Lightsister in the hospital, to pack a travel-bag that contained all one of the Lightborn might need to set a spell or to increase a spell’s effectiveness. She learned to serve tea with self-effacing silence and the beginnings of effortless grace when the princes and great ladies of the Fortunate Lands came to the Sanctuary on business.