The cage they placed Cahan in was too small, which was no doubt deliberate. It was set in the centre of Harn, at the edge of the market square where he had come to sell produce from his farm. The stalls stood empty, and one, Gart’s, would never be filled again.
The cage sides were open to the wind and the bottom of his cage sat in freezing mud which had soaked through his clothes. One of the soldiers had taken his winter coat, remarking upon its sturdiness, and left him cold and shivering. Bunched up in the cage he had no room to move. His muscles cramped painfully with no way for him to relieve them. He gritted his teeth rather than cry out when he was wracked with cramps.
The people of Harn were not free to walk about as they wished either. They had been gathered earlier before the shrine of Tarl-an-Gig. Tussnig had harangued them from beneath the badly made effigy of the balancing man. Preaching of their place in the world, and how it was their duty to obey and sacrifice for the Rai. The monk of Tarl-an-Gig seemed well pleased with his duty, full of joy even, though the people of Harn did not seem to share it and their attendance at the sermon was not voluntary. One woman, a farmer who had been brought into Harn by the soldiers, complained that she must tend her animals and the soldiers beat her viciously. After that none complained, they simply stood in silence and listened.
When the sermon was over Tussnig helped the soldiers choose some of the villagers to work, the rest were shut within their roundhouses. Cahan did not see the Leoric, or Udinny, and hoped they were not dead. That his sacrifice would not be wasted. Occasionally, he would see the trion, Venn, skulking about between the houses and avoiding him. But they were never there for long, always called away by the soldiers or the Rai.
Tussnig’s chosen workers were brought to the marketplace of Harn where a pyre was being built before his cage. A stake had been set in the ground and wood was being stacked around it. First a stack of light-coloured burnwood, on top of that the darker harder woods that would burn more slowly and not as hot. The soldiers laughed as they oversaw the construction. Cahan had no doubt this was the means of his execution but they did not speak to him, not even to taunt him. Maybe it had been revealed to them that he had a cowl and they were wary. Maybe it had even been said that he was a failed Cowl-Rai, though he could not imagine it.
The soldiers took great joy in the building of the fire, and in lording it over those who worked for them. They were not slow to use the butts of their spears when they did not think the villagers worked fast enough. They knew their work though, had clearly built such pyres before. Cahan was generally a man who could find delight in seeing work done by people who cared about what they did. But not in this case, fire was a slow way for a man like him to die. The cowl holds onto life to the bitter end.
All of this pain, physical and mental, was deliberate. But it was not the worst of it. He had told himself, again and again over the years, that the cowl was barely a part of him. That he could push it away and forget it existed. But now, in this cage, he knew without doubt that was not true. The dullers, those three strange and shiny domed boxes set about the walls of Harn, were doing their work. Whatever connection existed between the cowl and him was not only dulled, it was severed. It felt as if he had lost an arm or a leg or his sight. Everything was wrong, everything was strange: colour had faded, he could hardly see beyond ten steps because past that all was blurred. Worst of all was the emptiness, the feeling that he was no longer himself. Even in the forest, after expending the cowl’s power and letting it use the life within him, he had not felt so lost, so bereft.
He once thought that he would rid himself of the cowl, this thing willed upon him by priests of a violent god. Even though he had told the trion, Venn, otherwise. But now he knew that could never be. Whatever it was, however it had come upon him, it was part of him. And here, denied it for the first time in his life, Cahan knew only sorrow and pain. The cowl was as much him as the blood that ran through his veins.
A little late, though, for such a realisation. His blood would not continue to run for long.
The troops had a fire going on the Woolside of the market and were roasting a whole crownhead. Cahan had little appetite, and the smell of singeing flesh made him feel ill. One of the troops rapped on the wooden lintel over the Leoric’s door. The Rai pushed the door open.
“There is a skipper coming, Rai,” said the soldier. The Rai nodded. She left the Leoric’s longhouse and walked to the centre of the square, staring out past the growing pyre and through the village gates. He stared in that direction. But could not see the skipper, only a blur. He tracked its arrival by sound. The Rai strode forward and as the skipper neared he began to make out a blurry form, the messenger approaching in huge, bounding jumps.
The Rai waited. When the skipper was brought to her it was near enough that Cahan could see it had made a long trip. The gasmaw tethered above it had died, its bag so thin it was almost translucent. Its eyes had been eaten by something and the decaying remains of its tentacles hung limply from the bulbous body. The skipper’s face and body were swathed in dirty blue cloth. The Rai passed them a message.
“Take this straight to Harnspire and put it into the hands of the High Leoric, no one else.” The messenger replied with something Cahan could not hear. “My seal is on the paper, that will get you access. There is a gasmaw farm north of the Forestgate, take what you need.”
The skipper nodded, put the message in their bag and immediately turned around and headed out of Harn to find a new gasmaw. Time was money to them, they were paid by distance and message. She watched the skipper leave and returned to the Leoric’s longhouse. She did not look at him, neither to smirk nor enjoy her victory and Cahan wondered why. Maybe she did not care about him despite what he had done to her. He was clanless, she was Rai. She probably took victory over him as simply the way the world should be. Saw him killing two Rai and stripping her cowl from her as an aberration, maybe as luck on his part. If she had survived the death of her cowl she must have a formidable will.
He spent the rest of the day in a daze, trying to fight off the fog of the dullers and to grab some sleep between bouts of excruciating cramps. He slept little. The only disturbance in the afternoon when two of the Rai’s troops brought in the girl who had come to his farm to warn him. She still clung to the straw doll he had given her, and stared at him with big eyes as she passed his cage. She looked angry, disappointed, and he wondered if that was because he had not listened to her message. She had told him to run and he had come here and been captured instead.
Even to a child, his actions must seem remarkably stupid.
The rest of the day passed slowly and in misery. Without anything else to do he tormented himself with thoughts of what he could have done differently. How he could have saved Udinny and not ended up in a cage. But in those thoughts he was someone else. A man he believed long dead. He had weapons and armour and was not a simple forester from the farthest reaches of Crua. In those thoughts he was a warrior.
The edges of the world wavered in time with the cramping of his muscles. The blurry vista before him changing as his agonies became unbearable. Pain, and the lack of his cowl, began to play tricks on his mind. Twice he heard himself call out. Names he barely even knew he remembered. Sometimes he no longer saw the muddy, brown and humble houses of Harn. Instead he saw walls, brightly painted walls that told the stories of Zorir. He watched the vast burning star of Iftal break apart to sever the gods and Osere from the land. He saw Zorir caper across whitewashed stonework in a wave of blood, remaking the world in fire and sending his chosen to paradise along the Star Path. He heard Saradis, Zorir’s Skua-Rai, as she told him of the god, of his part to play in her plan. He hurt. Inside and outside.
He deserved the pain.
The beatings.
No, this was not real.
Always letting people down.
“Cahan Du-Nahere,” Saradis’ voice so loud and clear, “you have let us down again.”
Boys who did not listen to the monks were beaten, and though his sister, Nahac, did her best to soothe the bruises, his world was one of constant hurt.
He was cold and he ached. He was hot, fire all around him. He was man, not a boy.
In his moment of pain, and cowl-lost delirium, he thought it the voice of his sister. She had always wanted something from him towards the end. To know the words in the books that he could read and she could not. To know the training the monks had gone through with him, she made him show her even though she would never have a cowl. Always determined to learn what he knew even though she had no need to. She was not chosen. She had her own training, her place was to stand by his side. It was written so in the book of Zorir. What-was-to-be danced across the walls. A world soaked in blood and pain and fire in the name of righteousness.
You are the fire.
Blood and pain.
“I am the fire.”
“Keep me from the fire.”
She was blood of his blood, and so they would shed blood in the name of Zorir. Together, to cut a swathe across Crua and bring down the false Cowl-Rai of Chyi. He the general, she his bodyguard. Together forever.
But she died.
He didn’t want to die.
“Cahan Du-Nahere!” sharper, harder. Something hit him in the ribs. He opened his eyes. For a moment he expected his sister. But it was the Rai that stood before him, a stick in her hand which she had used to wake him. The light was gone. Night.
“What do you want?” It was a struggle to get the words out. His mouth dry for want of water.
“It hurts,” she smiled at him, but there was nothing there, as if she was empty of emotion, “to be disconnected from that which you are. I imagine you are discovering that.”
“Water,” he said. She nodded and produced a gourd, held it out so he had to stretch his arm out of the bars to get it. He drank deep. When he had finished she came close, so close he could smell the earthy fragrance of the oil used to keep her armour shining, but not close enough he could reach her. She stared into his face, looking him up and down and her presence made him nauseous, maybe because of the obvious hate. It radiated from her.
“Tell the truth, Clanless, are you blue or red?” she asked. “Tarl-an-Gig, or do you cling to the old ways of Chyi?”
“Neither,” he said. “I want no part in the wars of the Rai, my only wish was to be left alone on my farm.” She stared at him, her eyes a deep brown. She looked old, wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes, and across her brow. Grey in her red hair. She probably was not that old, a cowl aged you, while at the same time lengthening your life.
“This is not a world where you have the luxury of standing apart,” she put a hand on the hard wood of the bars, the other on her sword, “not that it matters for you. Your days of standing are done, but I suppose you must have realised that.” She wet her lips with her tongue. Stood back from the bars and looked over at the pyre then back to him. “I am from Stor, originally.” Smiled to herself. “My family were powerful, close to the High Leoric, one of the Rai then, as it should be. We lived low in Storspire with the best of our people.” She stepped away from the cage and sat on a cutting block, used by the villagers of Harn to chop wood. “We were loyal to Chyi and the Cowl-Rai in Tilt, we upheld the north for them. Like many, we had heard rumours that the cult of a new god was growing.”
“Enough I should die,” he said, “now you choose to bore me with your life story.” She let out a laugh.
“They said you were a surly one.” She leaned a little nearer. “But you should listen, Cahan Du-Nahere, my story will be instructive.” She used her stick to poke him again. “Not that you have a choice.” She looked around, as if worried someone else might be listening but the square was empty. The only guards on the gates. “We heard of this Tarl-an-Gig, some war god of the far north, but we did not worry. Another forest god, who cares, eh? They may rise a little, then we would crush them, as we had many times before with many gods.” She batted at some small flying creature that floated around her head. “Small gods fall and rise and only those few who worship them notice. We took little interest in Tarl-an-Gig. We had the Cowl-Rai, after all.” She was almost smiling as she spoke, digging the end of her stick into the mud – which he preferred to her digging it into him. Her face became serious. “We never saw them coming, and by the time they had moved on Storspire it was too late, we were cut off. The blue flags of a new Cowl-Rai were flying.” She let out a sigh, looked up at the night sky. The night was cold and clear, though it was all a blur to him. “We expected this new Cowl-Rai to come to Storspire in some great show of power. Thought they might tear down our walls like the Cowl-Rai of Chyi had done to Tasspire long, long ago.” More digging with the stick. “I saw the Cowl-Rai in rising. They stood on a hill with their generals, the most powerful Rai they had. There were not even that many of them. The Cowl-Rai could have tapped their life if they so wished. Cast some great cowl working. It was what we expected and our Rai were ready to fight. The High Leoric resplendent, his armour dyed in the red of Chyi, telling us blood would flow like water and our god would feed us the lives of the enemy.” She smiled at him and as she spoke he saw her story unfold like the murals of Zorir on the white walls of the monastery. “‘They will be the crops, reaped by our scythe in battle’, he said, I remember that. I could not wait to fight, to drown those who stood against us in spears and sword and fire.” She stared at him. “Do you know what happened?”
“I am not interested in your war stories,” he said. Pain ran through him.
“The Cowl-Rai of Tarl-an-Gig never needed their cowl, they only wished to distract us. They had been smuggling troops into Storspire for months. Their monks had been among our soldiers spreading the word of their new god. Telling of a time when the north need no longer be cold. Promises of plenty for all, not just the Rai. It had been going on for years.” She caught the creature that was flying round her head, her hand darting out to imprison it. Then she stared at it in the cage of her hand before crushing it, wiping its body off her hand on the side of the cutting block. “While we watched the Cowl-Rai on the hill, those we thought of as our own people were quietly killing any troops still loyal to us. Then they opened the gates. The fighting in Storspire lasted a few hours, and as far as I know the Cowl-Rai never even stepped into the city. Only their generals came in, Dashan Ir-Vota and Istil Maf-Ren. They pushed us back to the spire and brought in dullers to surround it. It was the first time I had experienced being without my cowl. I do not need to explain the panic it caused among the Rai, to be stripped so. No one had heard of dullers then. No doubt you are feeling a similar sensation now.” She smiled, all teeth. “They gave us an ultimatum: come to Tarl-an-Gig and be forgiven, or die at the hands of common soldiers.”
“So you rolled your log over to the new god.” She nodded. “Well, thank you for this history lesson, but I fail to see why you felt the need to share.”
“It is not for the history I tell you this,” she said, turning back to him. “It is for what happened after. My secondfather, a stubborn man, one of the generals of Storspire and cowlhard all his life, refused to turn. Even when the trion of our family, Sabjin, told him this was the correct way, that it would bridge the way forward for his wives, husbands and children, he would not give up Chyi.” Cahan stared at her. “The generals of Tarl-an-Gig made a fire,” she pointed at the pyre her soldiers had been preparing all day with her stick. “They let it burn down to coals, and then they suspended my father over it and made us watch him die. He was powerful, could rip the life out of his enemies and feed his cowl from a distance. I had seen him do it many times. But the dullers stopped that. So the cowl used his life to fight death. He burned on the outside and it ate him away from the inside.” She stood. “It took him two days to die and he never stopped screaming.” She shrugged. “I simply wanted you to know what is in store for you, Cahan Du-Nahere.” He stared at her. She had a peculiar expression on her face, as if she had more to say but she was struggling to do it. Then she stepped close, not close enough for him to reach, for what good it would have done, but close. “What you did to me in the forest,” she hissed, “undo it. Give me my cowl back and I will kill you now, quick and clean.” He could see the hunger in her eyes, the need.
“How can you want that, when you know the truth of it?”
“What truth?” She looked confused.
“You saw your secondfather burn, die screaming while the cowl tried to live. You know who the true master is between you and the cowl.” She shook her head.
“Give it back,” she said, each word hard as heartwood. “Give back what you stole.” He shook his head.
“I cannot,” his throat dry, “even if I wanted to, it is not possible.” Then she was near, hands on the bars, face against them. All caution gone and her features twisted by need and anger.
“You must!” she said. “I am nothing now, a pariah. Unwelcome among my own. I am Rai without a cowl, I am cursed. How do you think that is?”
“Be thankful you have your sanity,” he told her, “few who are stripped of the cowl hold onto it.”
“I wish I had not,” she said, “it would be better not to understand what I have lost. How I am regarded.”
“You have been freed,” he told her. She stepped back, picked up her helmet from the floor and put it on. Used the action to give herself space. Compose herself.
“Tomorrow morning we light the fire,” she said, “it will burn well, and when it is coals we shall place you over them. Few here know it, but you are far more powerful than my secondfather was. You will last much longer and I will make sure you are not alone in your pain, Cahan Du-Nahere,” she spat the words. “You seem to care for the people of this village—”
“You do not need them, they are nothing to you,” he said it too quickly, betrayed himself. Betrayed the people of Harn.
“You are right, they are nothing to me.” She took a deep breath. “But they are something to you, Cahan Du-Nahere.” She glanced back at the village. “The trion said you were soft, that you hid it but you cared for people.” She spat. “It is unfortunate for them. You will die a slow death over the fire, and while you die you will hear these people curse your name and curse that you ever came to their village. It will be a chorus so loud it will bring the Osere from below to claim you.” She stepped back. “The monk you like will die first. I will burn her with you.”
“I cannot give you what you want.” He must have sounded broken, it was what he felt.
“That is a pity,” she said, “if you could, I would have left these people to grub about in the dirt to their hearts’ content.”
She turned away from him and as she did he screamed, rattled the bars and tested his strength against them. But the cage was well made, and he was well trapped within. He fell, deep into despair, expecting to hear a familiar voice slithering into his mind.
You need me.
But for the first time since he had been dragged unconscious out of the blooming rooms by monks of Zorir, his cowl was silent.