The Ale Boy's Feast (25 page)

So he trembled now, jealous, willfully bodiless, and miserable. One desire eventually rose up through the turmoil. Gleaming and simple, it gave him purpose.

I want to find my servant. And I want to find him alive
.

Pretor Xa had sculpted Ryllion from a young and zealous soldier into something of his own design—something that reminded him of himself many ages ago.

If I find him alive, perhaps I can still use him. But if I find him dead …

An idea flickered, a rush of sparks in the blue gown of his floating ghost.

He drifted out through the Keep’s wall, wound through the streets. Mistaken for glints of morning sunlight, for glimmers on the water, he reached the mainland and became a shimmer in the trees.

o one but Ryp ben Fray heard the first tremor that pulsed through the hard, dry ground of the Jentan School. Lying on a stone bed in his candlelit cell, he watched the feathers of his extravagant, wall-pinned collection twitch slightly without wind to stir them. Perhaps Deathweed had come at last to shatter Jenta’s foundations. Perhaps the inevitable uprising from Wildflower Isle had reached the mainland.

Ryp rose and pressed his hand to the featureless outer wall of his chamber—the room in which he had studied and slept for centuries. Stone rippled as easily as a breeze-blown bedsheet on a clothesline, pliable from years of obedience to his touch. Rings like ripples spread from his fingertips. A window opened to the hush before dawn. He held the onvora feather out into the air, and it fluttered on a faint breeze as if eager to rise.

Acolytes in their gauzy grey robes patrolled what sections of the wall remained, lost in their thoughts, having long given up any expectation of visitors or disturbances. Submerged in their Skull Chambers like clams in their shells, the Aerial brooded and stewed.
So many fruitless searches
. A familiar shape marked a window in a lighted room across the yard, also watching.
The day will come when my brother will go out too, like a puff of smoke. Poor fool
.

He listened for another rumble, but all he could hear was the sough of the Mystery Sea to the south. On the coast, overcoat herons would be spreading the
inky fabric of their wings, drifting along the shoreline in this, the world’s waking hour.

The freedom to fly. To cut the cords that bind us
.

What if he leapt from the Epiphany Tower and found himself adrift, awake and without any help for himself? What if pain awaited him, with no source of comfort? Out of habit, he batted away doubt’s whispers. He had stopped heeding questions long ago.

There will be a certain satisfaction in being free from the temptation to try and fail again. History is an endless chain of failures. If I feel anything at all, I’ll feel contentment. No decisions to be made. Nothing to regret. All will be determined. I’ll have no choice but to accept what comes. Any and all responsibility will fall on whatever cruel power is behind these horrible games. Let that power accept my surrender as an ultimatum. No more chasing the illusion of meaning
.

He heard his acolyte’s footfall behind him. “Tenderly.”

“Master.” The girl, clad in an ankle-length robe, set a tallow candle on the new sill beside him. At once Ryp knocked it out the window with his elbow.
Learn that, acolyte. Do what you’ve been told, and it comes to nothing
.

Tenderly tucked her yellow hair behind her ear and went on with her errands. She smelled like clereus blooms opening in gratitude during a desert rain shower.
As if there was any sense in gratitude
.

Spreading a clean sheet over Ryp’s stone bed, Tenderly said, “Master, your breathing. You should close the window.”

For a moment longer the mage held the onvora feather out the window, letting the warm wind ruffle and bend its firm fibers. “Did you feel a strange quake just now?”

“Not at all,” she said. “What is the feather, master? Onvora? Did Scharr bring it to you?”

“Yes.” He loved them all—the glasswing’s crystalline sheen, the peacock’s size and pride, the pone’s delicacy, and the skycutter’s curve. And he hated that he loved them, just as he hated the desire that gripped him when Tenderly came to the room. Even more, he hated his regrets, hated his restraint, hated any suggestion that there was a right or a wrong. She would learn hard lessons in this life. What did it matter if he gave her one of them?

“I will leave the window open,” he sighed. “My brother’s up to something. We must watch him.” He glanced at the moonlit shadow cast by the chimneyhouse smokestack, then turned toward the bell tower. “The bell-hammer’s late again.”

“Master?”

“The dawn arrives without a bell. Since our volunteer disappeared, so many tasks are done improperly.”

The acolyte flinched. “Some say he wasn’t well treated.”

“We took in that hunched old beggar and gave him shelter.” Ryp saw her ears redden as she took up the broom to sweep. “Best blunt your barbs, child. Most your age never see the inside of the School.” He waited. Still there was no bell. “You’ve been wise to wean yourself from any desires, save for an escape into oblivion, the great sigh of death.”

The girl slumped down on the edge of the bed.

“I know, Tenderly. The world is burdensome. We’ll help you slip out of it. It’ll feel as good as casting off your robe.” He clenched his teeth, hating himself, and hating himself for hating himself.

“Why did your brother return?”

“Scharr found no end to his ridiculous questions. All pursuits led to nothing. He’s back, empty-handed.”

“Except for the onvora feather. Which is beautiful, no matter what you say.”

Ryp fashioned a retort, but the morning bell suddenly pealed. “Too loud!” he shouted.

“Never mind,” said Tenderly. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Maybe you should work on your wings. To calm your temper.”

Ryp wanted to carve out a fistful of stone and throw it at the girl. Instead, he walked to the corner and untied the cord around a bundle of rods and canvas. After unfolding the roll, he spread the wings and fitted together the rods of their frame. “Perhaps it’s time to put the feathers on my wings. Scharr has completed my collection.”

“What did your brother do to deserve banishment?”

Ryp laughed softly. “He tells everyone we cast him out. In truth, he rejected
our order. He’d prefer to make himself a myth—a man who carries secrets, unbound to any house or authority.”

“But why come back?”

“He wants to see the scrolls of Tammos Raak. Just the latest curiosity to distract him from the emptiness. He hopes he’ll find something there to help King Cal-raven establish New Abascar up north.”

“Why bother with Abascar?”

“Cal-raven adores him. Adoration is a powerful thing. Cal-raven is moved by a foolish children’s story about the Keeper, and my brother can use that to his advantage. By setting up a kingdom in the shadow of the Forbidding Wall, he’ll dwell on the border between all he does and does not know. He’ll have resources—armies, even. He’ll go over the Forbidding Wall and try to learn the truth about the curse that Tammos Raak fled. Then he’ll set himself up as revealer of that truth to Cal-raven and the world. He’ll shape stories that will shape future cultures across the Expanse to his liking. Stories and histories—they’re just tools in his grand manipulation.”

“So you mean to refuse him access to Raak’s Casket?”

“He’ll have to steal them.” Ryp lay down and rested his head on the stone pillow. “It will be interesting to see him try. Try and fail.”

The acolyte was silent at the window, searching night’s last shadows.

“It’s a burden, isn’t it? Knowing that great secrets may be just out of reach.” Ryp ben Fray pressed his hand to his chest. “You feel it here. A maddening desire to know what isn’t yours to know. Imagine carrying that ache for hundreds of years. Now ask yourself which is worse—not knowing the secrets in the casket or learning that there is nothing inside the casket at all but ashes and dust? Either conclusion will lead to madness. We must waste our time with comforting distractions or death. Come. Lie down with me. I’ll take your mind off your despair.”

The alarm bell—with its weight, its metal, its worldly harshness—shocked him as if the hammer had struck his skull. The acolyte rushed to the window.

“What do you see? My brother, where is he?”

“He’s still at the window.”

“It cannot be.” He joined her there. Stars shone fiercely in the storm-scrubbed sky. The air seemed charged with conspiracy. “That’s not Scharr ben Fray. It’s a statue. Rebellious as ever, my brother.” Ryp spit two teeth into his hand, then shoved them back into their places. “Where is he then?” Drawing his heavy cloak around his shoulders, he trudged wearily to the door.

As he did, the floor shuddered under their feet.

“Did you feel that?” Tenderly gasped.

They both heard a thunderclap in the distance. Such strange thunder—it seemed to emanate from underground, far, far away.

Ryp frowned. “Another trick.”

They moved up the stairs slowly and then onto the curve of wall that stretched out from his Skull Chamber. Ryp cocked his head to one side, holding up his hand to demand silence.

Again there was the roll of some distant, powerful drum.

“That,” he whispered, “is a sound I haven’t heard in almost three hundred years.” His voice deepened to a growl through clenched teeth. “And I was certain I’d never hear it again.”

“Are we being attacked?”

“It isn’t an army.” Ryp gazed out toward the horizon. “Oh, he’s going to enjoy his surprise. But it will lead to nothing.”

“What do we do?”

“Watch the chimneyhouse,” he said. “And stay close to me.” He reached out, seized Tenderly’s shoulder, and drew her body hard against his, seizing the excuse to steal her warmth. “You’re a lucky girl, Tenderly. We’re about to witness something no one’s seen in almost three hundred years. And it may be the last thing we see.”

Against early morning’s azure sky, the chimneyhouse looked like a fat, melting candle in the center of the yard, its east side faintly detailed by the dawn.

At another distant boom Tenderly tried to pull away.

“The creature that approaches,” Ryp sighed, his doubts erased, “has been eating and sleeping in seclusion for generations. During those years its armored shell
has thickened. Its muscles, which it flexes in its sleep, have grown strong. The ancients thought that it flew, for it leaps in strides as long as a man can walk in a day.”

The acolyte’s eyes rolled as if she were searching back through memories of studies.

“We thought they’d lost interest in the Expanse, moving away across the Eastern Heatlands,” said Ryp, hating the jealousy in his voice. “But Scharr has lured one here.”

Boom
.

“If I believed in myths,” said Tenderly softly, “I’d think you spoke of a dragon. Not a puffdragon. But one of the great Fearblind Dragons.”

Ryp pointed to the brightening sky.

A shape—very like a grasshopper—launched into view, stark black against the blue. Its long, thick legs were extended beneath it. But it was still far off. And after it silently descended into the shadow of the dunes, they felt another reverberation, and dust mushroomed skyward. The wall rattled. A haze browned the air around the School.

“It’ll destroy us,” said the acolyte, her voice pinched with fear.

“Perhaps,” said Ryp. “But Scharr’s not bloodthirsty. Just arrogant.”

Again the shape shot up into the sky, growing more distinct as it approached, its silhouette blotting out the moon at the height of its ascent.

Tenderly slipped from Ryp’s embrace and buried her face in her hands.

As the dragon hurtled toward Jenta, Ryp imagined the patterns made by the serrated black shields layered across the belly, protecting the soft flesh. Somewhere in its shielded head, the burning spheres of its eyes would be scanning the scene for its target.

The dragon’s landing sent a shock wave through the School, throwing Ryp and Tenderly down. Sand moved in waves. A plume of dust cast a canopy across the sky. Somewhere a section of wall collapsed. Screams rose throughout the School.

When it leapt again, there was a sound like a gasp—a rain of debris falling from its feet. Ryp looked up in time to see something like a snake wrap itself
around one of the creature’s feet. Caught in midleap, the dragon made a sound, like a shell scraping rock. Then it fell hard and fast, trailing a fiery lacework.

“Deathweed,” whispered Ryp. “Deathweed on our doorstep!”

The dragon thudded to the earth. Then a sphere of blue fire erupted and went out. The dragon leapt again, trailing a strand of charred, crumbling tentacle. When it came down at the edge of the School, it sent a spray of sand gusting across the ground. There were more shouts—Aerial mages calling for arrows, calling for stonemasters to turn the ground to glue, calling for help.

Daring to unshield his eyes and lift his head, Ryp found himself staring into the dragon’s face. It stared back and shook its armored head. Again—that sound like shards of broken plate grating against one another.