“It left?” Miranda said. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Banage admitted. “I have asked myself the same question over and over. But one thing was certain. That spirit was not Enslaved. There was no fear in it, no panic. It was bound through a loyalty so deep, so intense, so primal that even with my panicked strength I could not break its will to be faithful to its mistress. A mistress who wasn’t even there.”
Banage ran his hand through his graying hair. “After that, I knew no peace. I kept wondering what kind of person this Empress was to command such loyalty. As Whitefall’s forces grew and the war began to turn around, I saw several of the Empress’s war spirits go down. Every one of them fell fighting to the last inch, and every time I saw it happen, I wondered why? But the war was over before I could find out. The Empress’s ships retreated as quickly as they’d come, and Whitefall, ever the opportunist, used fear of her return to found the Council of Thrones with himself at the head and Sara’s Relay holding it all together.”
Banage looked down at his glowing spirits. “It was around that time that Sara quit the Spirit Court of her own volition,” he said. “I was furious, of course, but she was within her rights. She’d freed her spirits and received the Rector’s approval, done everything properly. I was promoted to Tower Keeper after the war, but Sara was still my wife, and I stayed in Zarin to be with her. But as she spent more and more time in the caverns she’d built beneath the Council Citadel, I began to wonder. Sara gave me Relay points several times during the war, and afterward I went down to the Relay tank rooms often to see her. Even so, she would never let me near the heart of the Relay that lay at the bottom of the large tank she still uses as an office, nor would she ever agree to tell me exactly how the Relay worked. Every time I asked we would fight, and eventually I became suspicious.”
Miranda bit her lip. “What did you do?”
“There was nothing I could do,” Banage said. “Sara wasn’t a Spiritualist, and the Spirit Court had no jurisdiction within Whitefall’s rapidly growing Council. I also had no proof she was doing anything wrong, but I knew. Why else would she refuse to show me?”
“There could have been a reason,” Miranda said softly.
“Do you honestly believe that?” Banage said, turning to face her. “You’ve worked with her, you’ve seen how ruthless she can be. If you were in my position then, would you have come to a different conclusion?”
Miranda shook her head. “What did she say when you confronted her?”
“Nothing,” Banage said bitterly. “She said nothing. The Spirit Court would not listen to me and call for an investigation. They were too busy courting the Council. Everyone was then. So I went to her one last time and told her that if she didn’t show me how the Relay worked, I was leaving. Again, she refused, so I went. I took our son and went as far away as I could.”
“Wait,” Miranda said. “Son?”
It might have been her imagination, but Miranda thought she saw Banage wince. “Yes, I have a son.”
“But where is he?” she cried. “Why have I never heard of him?”
Banage turned back to the stone-blocked window. “He left. Many years ago.”
Miranda cringed at the edge in his voice and dutifully dropped the subject.
Banage continued as though nothing had happened. “I came back to Zarin only when they told me I’d been chosen to be the new Rector Spiritualis, and the first thing I did was try to use the Court’s sway to finally break open whatever Sara was hiding. But by that time the Council was the greatest power on the continent, and I could make no headway. To this day I don’t know what she’s got beneath the Council citadel, Relay or otherwise, but I understand Sara well enough now to know it can’t be good.” Banage shook his head. “As Rector, I have danced to the Council’s tune along with everyone else, waiting for my chance to force Sara to open up and accept the Court’s standards. When Whitefall asked for my help in the war, I thought I’d finally found it, but I was wrong.” He looked up. “Whitefall doesn’t want change. He wants warriors. I’ve been to war, Miranda, and I am poorer for it. I cannot, will not, order my Spiritualists into that suffering, especially not as ally to an organization that may well be worse than the enemy we’re fighting.”
“How can you say that?” Miranda said, horrified. “I’ll grant Sara’s pretty suspicious, and I’m positive she’s up to no good, but worse than the Empress?”
“Yes,” Banage said. “Weren’t you listening? I told you. I met one of the Empress’s war spirits. I saw firsthand the deep loyalty she commands. It’s not so different from the loyalty our spirits give us as Spiritualists. You can’t fake loyalty like that. Think about it, Miranda. On the one hand we the Council of Thrones, an organization of profit and power built by a merchant prince and a ruthless woman on a work of wizardry so suspect Spiritualists aren’t allowed near it. On the other, we have an Empress who commands the abject love and loyalty of the spirits. Put that way, it’s not a hard choice.”
Banage began to pace. “I gave Sara and Whitefall every chance to make good. I flat out told them I would fight if they would only open the Council to Spirit Court inspection, and I was met with nothing but excuses. Sara does not share our respect for the spirits, nor our duty toward them, and I am tired of playing her game. The more I see, the more I’m convinced that the future she and Whitefall are building isn’t one I want to live in. It may well be that the Empress’s coming is the dawn of a new age for the Spirit Court and the spirits.”
Miranda stared at her master, horrified. “What you’re saying is treason.”
“Is it?” Banage said. “I’ve sworn no oaths to Zarin. My only oaths are here, with the Court and the spirits, and I see no reason to take either to war for a government that cares nothing for them.”
Miranda licked her lips. She knew that calm tone in Master Banage’s voice. He’d already made up his mind. Made it up long ago, it seemed. She wasn’t happy at all with the idea of sitting back and letting the Empress conquer her homeland, but she wasn’t about to go against her master, not after everything he’d done for her and the spirits. Still…
“We must do something.”
“We will,” Banage said. “We’ll keep doing what we have done for the last four hundred years—protect the spirits and obey our oaths. Do I make myself clear, Spiritualist Lyonette?”
Miranda swallowed. “Yes, Master Banage.”
“Good,” he said, standing up. “For now, I want you to write up your experience inside the Shaper Mountain. When you’re finished, you have my permission to go through the archives for any information on this Shepherdess and the Great Spirits called stars.”
Miranda perked up considerably. “All the archives?”
“Yes,” Banage said. “The Shaper Mountain did not show you that vision by accident. Far more important than this war is what is happening at the top levels of the spirit world. I want you to find out whatever you can. The Court will not sit idle.”
Miranda couldn’t help grinning. The Spiritualist archives were the repository for the collective knowledge of the Spirit Court. Every Spiritualist report ever written was stored there. Previously she’d had access to only the lowest level of common reports. Now she’d get to read the recollections of the secret missions as well. Bad as everything else seemed, that, at least, was something to look forward to.
“Go on,” Banage said, waving her off. “But get some sleep and food first. You look dreadful.”
Miranda blushed and glanced down at her filthy clothes. “Yes, Master Banage,” she mumbled, dropping a deep bow before retreating. Her mind might still be racing with everything that had happened, but her body was more than glad to put it all off in favor of food, a bath, and a bed. Smiling at the prospect, she closed Banage’s door softly behind her and went to wake up Gin, who was sleeping on the stairs where she’d left him.
Sara leaned back in the tall armchair, heavy smoke trailing from the corner of her mouth. Alber Whitefall sat across from her, his chin resting on his hands. They were both staring at the blue ball on the table between them as the soft, watery light began to fade.
“Well,” Sara said. “I think that should be proof enough.”
Whitefall dropped his head into his hands. “Sara,” he said, grinding his palms into his eyes. “I’m not going to ask how you got a Relay point into Banage’s office. I’m not sure I want to know. The only thing I’m going to ask is why.”
“I thought that would be clear,” Sara said. “You heard it from his own lips, in his own impossibly long- winded style. Etmon Banage is a traitor. He’s sided with the Empress against his own people.”
Whitefall sighed. “We need him.”
“We need the Court,” Sara countered. “Banage is the one standing in our way. It’s loyalty to him that keeps those idiots in the Tower. Break Banage and the Court will come to us. Well,” she said, putting her pipe stem back in her mouth. “Most of them. Some attrition is unavoidable.”
