Crown of Vengeance

side than Bolecthindial’s Great Hall—larger, perhaps, than the Sanctuary itself. Every wall she could see was filled with square storage niches, and each niche was filled with scrolls. A gallery halfway up the wall seemed to go all the way around the room, to give access to the niches higher on the walls.

Nor was this place unoccupied.

I had wondered where the Lightborn and the Postulants vanished to all the day, and now I know.…

The center of the chamber was filled with long tables—and because she had spent candlemark upon candlemark tending to the Sanctuary’s furnishings, she wondered who cared for all of this, for no one in the Servants’ Hall had mentioned the library as part of their duties. Several of the tables were covered with stacked scrolls, opened scrolls, and even maps, over which green-robed Lightborn and grey-robed Postulants bent in study.

“I … didn’t know…” she whispered.

“This is only the main room,” Thurion said, turning back and coming to her side. “The others—”

“So many scrolls,” Vieliessar interrupted. “It would be a life’s work to read them all!”

“Praise to Sword and to Star we Postulants do not have to,” Thurion answered, his voice low and amused. “It is a great enough task merely to learn the catalogue which tells us where they are.”

He stepped away from the doorway again, and this time Vieliessar followed him.

* * *

“Any text brought to the Sanctuary and deemed by Cirthoriach Lightsister to be of worth or interest is shelved here. There are poems, storysongs, travelers’ accounts … even histories that the Hundred Houses would not wish preserved, for the tales they hold are not, I am told, the tales sung at feast days,” Thurion said dryly, as the two of them walked along the right-hand wall.

Vieliessar’s eyes were stretched wide at all she saw—and even more at what she imagined. A hundred of these scroll niches would have held every scroll in Caerthalien’s library. And there were hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds more. All filled.

“There is a workroom beyond this to repair damaged scrolls,” Thurion said. “The spell of Keeping ensures nothing decays or fades, but it won’t prevent damage, or staining—or keep the Lightborn from making notes on the edges of the text,” Thurion said, the laughter in his eyes inviting Vieliessar to share the joke. “There is a chamber beyond the workroom which holds texts on spellcraft, locked away lest we be tempted to take a short road to our understanding of the Light. It would not work, in any case—and would certainly do great harm.”

“I don’t understand,” Vieliessar said. “If they are but scrolls … How can one be hurt reading a scroll?”

Thurion came to a stop, frowning with the effort of trying to explain. “It is … as if you or I were given all the articles of knighthood—sword and spear, armor and shield, spurs and destrier—and sent into battle against one who had earned them all through years of honest training. We would die.”

“I would not go into battle unless I were sure I could win,” Vieliessar said firmly.

“But you would think you could,” Thurion said. “Because of the—”

“I would not,” she retorted. “You make it sound as if the Postulants are fools. If a thing is a task beyond one’s strength, one should not attempt it.”

Thurion made a helpless gesture. “To…” He shook his head. “It is a temptation.”

“Those who are so easily tempted are better off without Magery,” Vieliessar said decisively. “But—are you not here to learn spells?” she added.

“There are no spells when one becomes one with the Light,” Thurion said.

Vieliessar nearly stamped her foot in exasperation. Not a handful of moments before, Thurion had spoke of a spell set to preserve the scrolls. “There are either spells or there are not,” she said tartly. “You said—”

“There are. There aren’t. It’s … one must learn to listen first.”

“To what?” Vieliessar demanded, and Thurion simply looked frustrated.

“To the world,” he said.

His words made no sense, though she’d become used to the idea that nothing the Postulants said when they talked about the Light ever did. “How long does it take to learn this … listening?” she asked instead.

“All your life,” Thurion answered. His face softened, and it was as if he gazed upon something beautiful she knew she would never see.

She did not know how long they spent wandering through this other Arevethmonion, as Thurion showed her its treasures with the joy and pride of a War Prince showing his Great Keep to his bride. He plucked scrolls from their niches, saying she must read this one or that. For the first time since she had come to the Sanctuary, her duties and obligations—even the injuries done to her Line—were forgotten. There was a set of scrolls containing a history of the Hundred Houses, one which was a copy of only the major songs of The Song of Amrethion, a scroll on games (xaique and gan and narshir), and the three scrolls of Halbaureth’s Journey, which Thurion said was about Halbaureth of Alilianne—as House Ullilion was once called—who had traveled farther east from the shores of Great Ocean than anyone had ventured since, crossing Graythunder Glairyrill itself. “If you never leave these walls, still, you will travel farther in Halbaureth’s company than anyone of the Hundred Houses can ever boast of,” Thurion said.

She was only recalled to herself when her arms were so filled with leather-cased scrolls that she had to devote most of her attention to keeping them from spilling out of her grasp and onto the floor. When shall I have time to read all these? she thought in bemusement.

* * *

That evening Vieliessar went to her chamber immediately after evening meal and read long into the night. She’d chosen the History of the Hundred Houses, and knew already it would be more than the work of a sennight or even a moonturn to understand it all. It was true that each history was simple enough: founding and lands and alliances made, the names of the heads of the Line Direct, summaries of battles fought and children born. But each account contradicted the next, and the one she knew best—the History of Caerthalien—held both more and less than she’d expected it to. It was only the knowledge that morning would come and be filled with tasks that caused her to hood her spell-lantern and prepare herself reluctantly for sleep.

But sleep was long in coming. It is like a child’s wooden puzzle, she thought. Only with tales of past times. Which is true? Any of them? She wondered if there was enough time in all the world to list the contradictions between the stories and to seek a pattern.

In the middle of the night she awoke sharply, as if summoned to battle. Words she had set aside in her shock at Thurion’s anger—then forgot entirely at the wonders he showed her—echoed through her mind.

“Prisoner, hostage, I care not if you are Farcarinon, or Caerthalien, or the Child of the Prophecy.”

Thurion had the answers Maeredhiel had said were here.

CHAPTER THREE

THE SONG OF AMRETHION

When stars and clouds together point the way

And of a hundred deer one doe can no longer counted be

When peace is bought with maiden mother’s blood

And those so long denied assert their ancient claim

When scholar turns to sword, and warrior to peace

And two ford rivers swelled with mortal gore

When two are one, then one may speak for all

And in that candlemark claim what never has been lost.

—The Song of Amrethion Aradruiniel

Vieliessar had avoided the Common Room in her Service Year out of anger and false pride, and in the year that followed both out of uncertainty as to her place and by Maeredhiel’s design. Tonight she dared it, for there was no other way to find Thurion to question him.

She hesitated long in the refectory after the evening meal was done, for to enter the Common Room, filled as