Canticle

could not imagine a small band of Gray Guard, unfamiliar and inexperienced with the magicks they now used, standing against a half-squad of the fierce Marshers that had killed Hanric and Ansylus.

The violence of that night returned to him and he shivered. That scene, he realized, had played out across the Named Lands. And at his core, he knew that they had been timed with the perfect coordination of forces converging all at once upon their chosen targets.

No, not him, the voice had said. He’d been intentionally spared, and even that knowledge had not been withheld from him-or from those within earshot-by the attackers. Once more Rudolfo wondered why, and as he turned the wheels of the Rufello lock over and over in his mind, he came no closer to an answer. Instead, more questions emerged from each twist and click of the mechanism.

When sleep finally reclaimed him, those questions infused his dreams with a sense of foreboding that he could not evade.

For the rest of that night, Rudolfo pitched and tossed upon his bed and dreamed he fled a great and bloody rising sun.

Winters

Winters watched the old men shuffling into the cavern throne-room, their faces pale from what they’d just seen. Nearby, the meditation statue of P’Andro Whym held his mirrors and dared them all look inside themselves. Winters was afraid of what they would find when they did. There was disease within their House, and these men had now seen its proof.

Not even an hour had passed since her arrival, and Winters sat beside the empty Wicker Throne. And she could delay no further. She tapped the handle of the Firstfall axe upon the hard stone floor of the Dreaming Cave, and the old men took their seats.

After days in the saddle riding across the frozen northern marshes it was good to be home, though the night’s business ahead filled her with apprehension.

The furnaces spat and hissed throughout the great stone hall, and the hot, moist air tasted earthy in her mouth. Before her, the hall narrowed to a corridor leading out into the village and the night. Behind her, the tunnels spiraled down into deeper chambers that held the Book of Dreaming Kings.

As the old men sat, they looked up to her, their faces lined with care and sadness. Once she made eye contact with each, she convened the Council of Twelve with the words of Shadrus, the first Marsh King. “Home calls to us as we sojourn in this land of many sorrows,” she said as she looked around the cave at the old men who formed the council.

The Twelve replied in unison. “May the Dreaming Kings call forth the Homeseeker that we may find our way.”

She nodded slowly and looked from man to man. “May the Homeseeker guide us true into our Misplaced and Deeded Land.”

“Come soon, Homeseeker, and find our Home,” they said in one voice. They were the oldest and most venerable of her people, chosen by their clans for unmatched wisdom and understanding. Most, in their day, were warriors who had raided in the Named Lands as headmen, leading bands of mud-and ash-painted skirmishers to keep their neighbors fearful and supplement their scarce resources.

No one traded with Marshfolk unless compelled to do so. Until her father first saw the fall of Windwir in his dreams, blade and blood were the Marshers’ first and best means of compulsion. And taking what they needed was easily justified-their very lands had been taken from them by the gray robes and their guard.

But then King Mardic had seen Windwir fall and watched darkness swallow the sun. Then, he’d seen the light suddenly appearing in the sky as it moved from the Androfrancine city east and north to settle upon the Gypsy Forests, and he’d known in that moment that the Gypsy King’s blade would guard their way Home. The next morning, he had personally led a band of skirmishers against Lord Jakob’s woods.

Of course, Winters had not even been born at the time. And her father was all but a stranger to her, dead for most of her fifteen years. But she’d read his words added to the Book of Dreaming Kings, and she’d added her own words to his and those of their forefathers.

Winters looked to the old men now, pushing her memory aside. There were troubling matters to attend to. “Discord has visited the House of Shadrus,” she said. She could hear the sorrow in her voice as she said it, could feel the lump in her throat. She gestured to the mouth of the cave. “Beyond lay six of our own, dead now by magicks their bodies could not sustain. And the body of our Hanric lies resting in the Gypsy King’s ground as his soul wanders the Beneath Places, dead at the hand of his own tribe.” She hesitated as the sorrow washed her again-a grief that went deeper, beyond Hanric. She’d received the bird just yesterday, while still making her way home slowly, and had wept at the news. More unexplained and unprovoked attacks, similar to the one that took her shadow and the Crown Prince of Turam, and one of the slain had been a child sleeping in his bed. It broke her heart. She swallowed and felt the water in her eyes. “Beyond our own loss,” she said, “others have been slain, and though the Androfrancine logics are not our way, it is reasonable to believe that these assassinations were also carried out by the Children of Shadrus.”

The oldest and wisest of the Twelve locked eyes with hers, and she saw they were red and watery. “These are dark tidings,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’ve looked to the bodies, and my grandson is among them.”

Her breath went out of her, and she hoped that the sound wasn’t as audible as it had sounded in her own ears. But the worry was irrelevant as others responded in similar manner.

She’d ordered the bodies displayed discreetly in a tent that they might be identified. It was a gross violation of custom, not burying them where they’d fallen to keep body and soul near the place they’d parted company. But extreme circumstances called for extreme measures, and she could not let custom, no matter how sacred, interfere with finding the truth at the center of this Whymer Maze. Still it grieved her that their souls would wander the Above now, never finding their path through the Beneath Places to the home beyond.

She looked around the circle now. “Were they familiar to anyone else?”

Slow nods with downcast eyes. One cleared his voice. “My youngest sister’s son lay among them,” he said.

Others joined in now. One was familiar but not a kinsman. Another was bound-husband to a friend’s granddaughter. Of the half dozen, only two were unknown. But eventually, Winters knew, they would be found out. She turned them now to other matters.

“Had this been simply the attack in the Ninefold Forest Houses it could readily have been the isolated act of a handful,” she said. “But at least a dozen have fallen in nearly as many Houses.” She looked around as the old men nodded. “These were well planned, timed to the moment and careful as a Firstfall Dance on the night of the greenest moon.”

“And under the cover of the Old and Forgotten Ways,” one added.

Forgotten and forbidden, Winters thought. The only blood magick left to them after the Purging had been the voice magicks used for war and coronation. But somehow, those old ways had been restored and employed without the knowledge of council or queen. “I fear discord and division is now sown in our House,” she said. “We must find it and heal it by whatever means necessary. But beyond this, we must also look beyond our borders. We’ve long held our neighbors’ respect through force and fear, but it is not a far leap from sorrow to rage. And Marshers have done these dark deeds-it is not unknown to them; they’ve bodies to show it.”

The oldest spoke up. “How we respond to their rage will speak louder than any War Sermon.”

Winters nodded. “I concur.”

“We should be prepared for war,” another said.

She looked at him. “We are the House of Shadrus. War prepares for us, and ever we meet it as our sorrow commends us to.”

The oldest looked to the other. “To do more than necessary will send a message. Our neighbors, though misguided and affected, may see these attacks as something more than what they are. We would do no less. But that our own Hanric was among the fallen-he they perceived as our king-may soften the edge of their fear.”

But not their wrath, Winters realized. And for all she knew, the assassinations were more than what they were. So shortly on the heels of Windwir, it certainly felt like more.

“What do you propose?” another asked her, and she sighed.