Saradis sat before the taffistone of Zorir-Who-Walks-in-Fire and lit a candle. To all but her this was a sacred relic of Tarl-an-Gig. Only she, the Cowl-Rai, and her second, Laha, knew what this stone really was. Understood that the subtle glow, the seeping blue, was the manifestation of the fire. If anyone found out then, well, she would claim them a liar and she would be believed.
They would not survive long afterwards.
There were definite benefits to being Skua-Rai of Crua, second only to the Cowl-Rai in power.
She watched the candle burn, focused on it and closed her eyes. She visualised the stone in the afterimage of the flame. Grey and as tall as she was, scarred across its face by a great crack. The great “V” where the small fragment from the monastery had been reunited with the great stone. In her meditation she hoped to hear the voice that had been with her all her life, or at least ever since she had first touched the fragment of the blue-tinged taffistone she had found as a child.
Saradis put her hand out, touched the stone and listened. Often, instead of a voice, it was a feeling, something that slid into her mind and gently pushed her in the right direction. Usually she would be unclothed, but today she had much to do, and did not have time for her normal rituals.
“We get closer,” she said. “There have been setbacks but the world will still be wiped clean, the fire will come. We will begin all again as you desire.” She wondered if Zorir could feel her worry, though she did not think the god cared for such human weaknesses as worry. If there were problems it was for her to sort them. Still, she wanted the comfort of her god’s touch, to know her failure could be forgiven.
Nothing.
Saradis bowed her head and sighed.
What was done was done, and nothing was insurmountable. She was the hand of a god, a true god, not some tool of monks used to gain power, and not the lackey of one of their freakishly powerful Rai. Crua had lived under lies and without gods for too long. That was changing now.
She wore the raiment of the pretender, Tarl-an-Gig, but it did bother her. Saradis believed in her cause. She believed totally and utterly and it was that which made her the most dangerous person in the whole of Crua. She would do what was necessary, without guilt and without feeling. She had a higher purpose.
Saradis opened her eyes.
“I give all I am to you,” she said before the shrine. “My life is yours, your purpose is mine. Give me strength to make it through this day.” She felt some joy then. Had a fragment of her god touched her? Yes. It shuddered through her in waves of pure pleasure that made her gasp. She waited a few breaths until she was sure she could stand.
Now there was work to do.
She passed through the grand hall at the centre of Tiltspire. Along the hall were the banners of Tarl-an-Gig, the balancing figure in black on a background of blue. Behind them, and larger than them, as all believed was right, was the star of Iftal on a background of many colours, for all of Crua. At the end of the hall, before the window, a huge sculpture of the star, woven from the smallest, though still huge, branches of the great cloudtrees of Wyrdwood. Before it a statue of the balancing figure, one leg bent, knee and arms out. At the right time of day the light above would shine directly through the star and it would appear Iftal spread light all the way down the hall. In the centre of the light, the long shadow of Tarl-an-Gig.
Fitting, thought Saradis. As Tarl-an-Gig was only a shadow, one cast by Zorir, a far greater god.
Rai stood guard along the hall, in armour of wood so hard and shining that it looked black, carved with grimacing faces and painted with glowing icons that marked their journey through the Cowl-Rai’s army. The signposts of the path of conquest across Crua. If she stopped, looked them over, she would see herself reflected in their breastplates; a strange and distorted figure passing across the chests of her soldiers. A good metaphor for her. Appear as you must appear, but twist and turn and be whatever was needed for the greater purpose.
She wore all the finery of the Skua-Rai, the high priest of Tarl-an-Gig. Long robes, twigs that had been heated and bent into a cage that held her body upright, forcing her to walk tall whether she felt like she could or not. The mask of the god, blank but for a smile, covered her face; all of this marked her as the second most important person in the land of Crua.
She was not the Cowl-Rai but she was their voice, and the Rai looked to her for guidance because of it.
Or that was what they were told.
The resentment they felt towards her would become murderous if more than the trusted few knew the truth.
She wondered how the Cowl-Rai was today, calm and useful? Or ranting, smashing things, furious for no real reason. Wondered if she would be able to talk tactics, to pick that wonderful mind clean of knowledge to guide the war in the south. Not by doing what they suggested, not usually. They could not win the war, she could not afford that. Not yet. She was not ready. The news she had been given was bad, but not too bad. It may even help her convince the Cowl-Rai to slow their advances.
Though they would not like it. Not at all.
Beyond the hall was the private throne room. None but Saradis and her second, Laha, were allowed in there. The door was guarded by ten Hetton. She did not find them distasteful the way others did, they were servants of Zorir, good ones. Savage and unthinking. Answering only to her.
In the throne room waited the great secret.
The Cowl-Rai of Tarl-an-Gig, saviour of the north. Conqueror of Crua.
Kept in a cage.
She had her back to Saradis, looking out past the bars and through the window. The light behind the Cowl-Rai was beautiful this evening. The windows of Tiltspire somehow made light more real, infusing it with a warmth like ripening seed heads. It lent a certain beauty to everything it touched, from the wooden chair of twisted branches, to the polished stone of the floor. Usually she would go to her knee before the Cowl-Rai, but today she fully prostrated herself, lying with her arms out to her sides, nose touching the polished stone. The cage of twigs around her body dug painfully into her flesh while she waited, unmoving.
The Cowl-Rai wore cheap armour, the same sort most of the fodder, those destined to be chewed up by the fighting, wore. This had made the common troops love them at the start. A clever trick, but they were clever. They did not rise to be who they were without being clever. Fool so many into believing they had power when they had almost none. Saradis was clever, too; together they had ascended to this place and they had congratulated themselves on what they had wrought. They had found a way to give her power.
Maybe they had been too clever.
Too successful. Too quickly.
Now it all balanced on the edge of a blade.
“Saradis. You bring me news?”
The Cowl-Rai spoke like a leader, despite standing in a cage of wood made from trees twisted by bluevein. It had been hard to find those trees. Bluevein killed most things it touched, but it was all that would hold her. Her prison was comfortable. She had a chair, a bed, a table covered in maps and bark she had written her plans on. She had a beautiful view, they were three floors above the city here, she could look right out over Tiltspire.
But a cage was still a cage.
“That you lie down, Saradis, that does not bode well. Given how proud you are.” The Cowl-Rai’s voice was as warm as the light, as gentle sounding as the soft touch of a lover. “Stand up, Skua-Rai.” The Cowl-Rai turned to Saradis. Face hidden by a visor carved into the likeness of a beautiful girl. She removed her helm, put it on the table. “Tell me what news you bring.”
Saradis stood. She was taller than the Cowl-Rai though she never felt like she was looking down on her. The Cowl-Rai was beautiful. Or had been. Now her hair was lank as she rarely got to wash it, or herself. Saradis could smell her stale sweat mixing with the scent of the cage full of histi in the corner of the room. Despite this she was, somehow, more beautiful than she had been when she was younger, her bone structure accented by lines of blue, and small shimmering stones embedded in the skin above her eyes.
“It is not all poor news, Cowl-Rai. We found the woman, Tamis Du-Carack, brought into being for Hast-Who-Walks, and they are dead. As is Virag Par-Behian, brought into being for Loun-the-Wet-Blade.” The Cowl-Rai said nothing. They both knew this was not what really interested them. Not what they really wanted to know. Saradis waited for an answer and the Cowl-Rai let time pass, the light falling upon them took on a weight of its own.
“Saradis, tell me of Harn far in the north. Does it still stand? Have we retrieved what matters to me. The trion? Can I tilt the world?”
She would never tilt the world, but Saradis knew she did not want to hear that.
“No, Cowl-Rai,” said Saradis. The Cowl-Rai did not move, only stood within her cage like a strange statue. The beautiful face, the clothes of a commoner.
“My army and my High Leoric, Kirven Ban-Ruhn, and Galderin Mat-Brumar. Will they return to me?”
“No,” said Saradis, and if she could have fled at that moment she would have, despite the cage which should keep her safe. Saradis could feel the rage brewing. Smell the sickly sweet scent of power gathering. “They are gone, Cowl-Rai. Dead. All except the woman named Sorha who escaped. She brought us the news of what happened there.” The Cowl-Rai did not explode, she did not reach for her beautiful, willwood blade. She only cocked her head.
“And this because of the forester, Cahan Du-Nahere? He beat an army of mine. He beat my Rai and my Hetton?”
“And still lives.” A long gap, how to tell the Cowl-Rai what had happened? How to explain it? There was no good way, better to rip the bandage straight off the wound. “He grew a forest, and ripped apart your army. Killed them all.”
Another gap, even longer this time.
“You said he was weak, Saradis.”
“He was. Every time I saw him in his youth I was confronted with the fact that I chose badly and I—”
The explosion came with a scream, her power like liquid, dark and noisome. It flooded out of her body. No control, it was wild and furious, smashing into the bars. But they held, the power could not pass. It splashed back over the cage and its contents. Saradis knew, from experience, if it touched any flesh but the Cowl-Rai’s it burned, and she knew in her fury the Cowl-Rai cared little for who was in her way. All Saradis could do now was wait until she tired herself out.
It did not take long. Saradis kept her weak.
The fury and screaming abated and when the liquid darkness was gone, the power spent, the Cowl-Rai remained. Collapsed in the cage, kneeling, head bowed, body drained, barely breathing. Saradis went to the cage of histi in the corner, took out one of the struggling animals and threw it into the cage. A thin whip of power from the Cowl-Rai encircled it as soon as it was through the bars. The histi screamed as it was caught, the sound cut off as the life was taken from it. The Cowl-Rai raised her head, the blue lines of her power more apparent against the gauntness of her flesh after the show of temper. She blinked. Breathed heavily. Moved hair from her face. Now more lucid than ever.
“Why am I in a cage?”
“Your power is great but difficult to control. You commanded to be kept this way until it could be controlled.” A lie, but one that had served Saradis well.
“Cahan. Where is he?”
“Gone. Fled into the forest with all those that survived the fight.”
“The trion?”
“Went with them. But there is good news. There has been treefall in the Northern Wyrdwood.”
Silence. For a long time all that Saradis heard was the laboured breathing of the Cowl-Rai. When she spoke again she sounded sure, focused.
“We should take a skyraft off one of the families. It will be useful. The Hosteine family are the weakest of the air nobles. Take theirs from them, Saradis, take it in my name.”
“Cowl-Rai,” said the monk, “it is not done, the skyraft families are—”
“Word of Harn will escape,” said the Cowl-Rai. Her tone hard, calculating. Clever. The woman who had won Crua talking, not the woman Saradis had been forced to cage. “We cannot look weak, especially to our own Rai. Taking a skyraft is audacious, it will address any talk of weakness.” She cocked her head to one side. “We will have to slow our advance without the trion. The people will expect the world tilted once the war is won so we cannot win, not yet.” It was hard for Saradis not to smile on hearing exactly what she wanted to. “In the meantime, take as many people as you need from the prisons and those villages that provide us little sacrifice or soldiers. Have them executed in the spiretowns, tell everyone they are from Harn. It will distract the people from the war. They love an execution.”
“I will have this done, Cowl-Rai.”
“Sorha,” said the Cowl-Rai, more to herself than the priest. “She is the anomaly? The walking duller?” Saradis nodded.
“She has failed us, I will add her to the execution list.”
“No,” the Cowl-Rai levered herself up, sat on the chair. Even that small exertion cost her much. “Use her. Send her to find Cahan. Have him brought back here, alive.” Then she smiled, and Saradis saw a glimmer of the madness that the stone had brought upon her returning. “I want my brother to know it was I, Nahac Du-Nahere, who should have been chosen. I want him to beg for his life, and then beg to serve me.” She looked up, stone-blue eyes focused on Saradis, the madness a turmoil beneath them. “I want him to beg, Saradis, just like you did.”
“Of course, Cowl-Rai,” said Saradis.