A Season of Rendings Read online

The Pulse was sealed, Iggy said. I don't know how long it's been, exactly, but thousands of years, at least.

  Like he had with Kahls, Iggy felt Ciir-goath's sorrow borne on the wind—but this time, it spread. First to the fireflies, whose intensity abruptly dimmed. On to every blade of grass and drifting seed, which spread it to the trees that ringed the meadow, whose leaves and branches drooped with its burden. Carried in the roots and mingled canopy of the wood, it emanated outward: a shockwave of grief.

  A chorus of distant wolves took up the howl, then another, and another. The low mourning of owls echoed between their cries. Others joined them, beasts great and small, until all the wood wept.

  Iggy felt the sharp heat of sorrow in his own chest, the sting of tears leaking down his cheeks. He couldn't begin to understand what had happened, where the grief had come from, but it didn't matter. He couldn't deny it.

  Lost, the wood lamented. The soil beneath his feet. All lost.

  Every nightmare, every terror, has bloomed.

  No, Ciir-goath finally admonished them. Not every. Mother Ordlan stands yet.

  Hush now, he went on. We are made for this. Life pushes on. The seed finds a way. Always. Even now, yes, especially now—always. The seed finds a way.

  Are we not here? Kahls asked. Are we not as one in mourning? That alone is cause for hope.

  Slowly, the wood's lament quieted—in Iggy's ear, at least. He could still feel it trembling in the soil, could smell it in the air's dampness.

  At last Ciir-goath turned back to him. The elder speakers failed, then. They went to Trinity Hold at the last, to stop their madness by force if need be. But they were few, as ever. And I remember— The stag gasped. By fire's curse, I remember. The sky. The colors.

  Yes, he continued. They tried, I'm sure—they would suffer nothing less. But they failed.

  Kahls asked about them, Iggy whispered. I . . . I hate to give you more bad news, but they must be long dead. I had never even heard of them before today. So far as I know, I'm the only one of my kind. I've never met anyone else like me, or even heard news of one.

  Ciir-goath's head drooped at this. It is sad to lose them. Great allies they were, and greater friends. His gaze came back up. And yet, all is not lost. You answered the call.

  I did, Iggy answered, fiercely.

  And it is well. Ordlan Green thanks you, Ignatius Ardenfell.

  Iggy nodded.

  What else can you tell us? Ciir-goath asked. Has the—

  He cut off, rack swiveling a threat toward Iggy's friends. Kahls dropped, hackles up, growling. The fireflies flared like a shout of surprise.

  WHO REACHES? the stag roared. WHO DARES?

  "What are you doing?" Iggy demanded. Syntal hadn't chanted, but she was preparing to; he could feel the slick nausea that preceded a spell, the shudder in the Pulse as she touched it. "I told you not to chant!"

  "I'm not!" she snapped between gritted teeth, her hands clenched in pain. "I just Ascended, I wanted to see―"

  He sprinted to her, propelled by rage, ready to slap, to roar. "Stop!"

  The feeling vanished. Syntal doubled over in a surge of agony, whimpering.

  "Iggy!" Helix said. "She didn't―"

  Iggy whirled on him. "It doesn't matter! Don't you get that? I said no chanting!" He had brought them to his mother's home, and Syn would―?

  He turned back to Syntal, railing as she fought for breath. "You're going to press it? You're going to split hairs?"

  Ciir-kahls! Ciir-goath growled. You bring chanters to the wood? To the Deep-Tree's meadow?

  The speaker swore— Kahls started, but Iggy interrupted him.

  They're mine. I insisted. It's not Kahls's fault.

  With a glare, Ciir-goath strode forward. Iggy looked up to meet him, heart thundering. I know you are young, the stag began, fury straining in every word, but has the world changed so much that speakers know not the threat of chanters? Naïveté I can forgive. Idiocy, he snarled, I will not.

  It wasn't idiocy, Iggy threw back. Just calm down. I've told them not to chant, and they won't. Syntal—the girl in pain—she knows more than I do. She can answer your questions.

  You would have me trust a chanter? You would trust a chanter? The stag bugled, a nerve-jangling shriek like nails down a slate. What madness is―?

  He swiveled again to Syntal and Angbar. Wait. His eyes narrowed. Wait. Back to Iggy, nostrils flaring. They are chanters. He gave a panting groan that dissolved into a series of hot snorts. They are chanters, yet you said the Pulse is sealed. The only reason for sealing the Pulse was to annihilate the chanters. There can be no chanters while the Pulse is smothered. He glanced at Kahls. No ciirs. No speakers. Yet here we all stand.

  A knife's edge crept into his voice. Where is the lie, Speaker? Premonitions of betrayal flickered in his eyes, intimations of pain. Do you come at Her bidding? Have even the speakers fallen to treachery?

  No! Iggy swore. No, for the love of winter, slow down. Listen. The Pulse was sealed, but we're . . . He jerked a finger at Syntal. She found a way to free it. There's these books . . . look, that's why I brought her. She understands it all. She knows a lot more than I do.

  The stag regarded Iggy in silence. In the glow of fireflies drifting about his antlers, Iggy caught glimpses of fear.

  Let me speak with her, Ciir-goath finally said. I ask permission to use your voice.

  Iggy nodded. M'sai, yes, that's why I brought her. What do you want me to ask her?

  Nothing. Only quiet your tongue.

  The wind that bore his words strengthened and heated. A desert gale flooded through Iggy's nostrils and down his throat, where it pumped his lungs like a bellows at the flame.

  "Chanter," his mouth said in a voice that was not his own. "Tell me all you know."

  Seth's face darkened; he hefted his spear. This time when Helix tried to stop him, Seth shoved him away.

  "What is this?" Seth demanded. "Who are you?"

  "I share the speaker's voice, with his permission. He is in no danger. Chanter—speak. The Pulse is sealed, or it is not. Why are we here? What do you know?"

  Syntal sat in the grass, rocking, and shook her head. A vein pulsed visibly at her temple.

  "She needs more ensilla," Helix said. "Iggy! Please!"

  "I don't have any more," Iggy said, before Ciir-goath filled his chest again: "What is wrong with her?"

  "A curse," Angbar said. "Lyseira, can you―?"

  Lyseira gave a curt nod and prayed over the girl. "It's not enough," she said when she finished. "It might dull the pain some, but without the ensilla she still can't―"

  "I can help you, chanter. I know a way to end your pain."

  Syntal glared at this. Within his own mind, Iggy shouted a protest. Don't hurt her! She won't chant!

  Iggy felt his eyes roll. "Your pain," his mouth said. "Not your life. But you must speak."

  "Help her first!" Helix snapped. "Can't you see she's hurting?"

  "What are the hurts of a chanter to me?" Iggy's voice retorted. "I already help her by keeping the wood from slaughtering her where she sits. That is all the good she will receive without recompense. The answers, then the aid.

  "Speak of the Seal! Now!"

  "Lar'atul crafted a set of wardbooks to break it," Syntal spat. "Is that what you're asking?"

  "Lar'atul the tei'shaar? Servant of the Raving Witch?" A bile of confused suspicion boiled in Iggy's chest. "A chanter himself! He is no friend of the wood. Why would he do this?"

  "I don't know why. I only know―" She gnashed her teeth, struggled to keep her balance in the grass.

  "Syn!" Helix crouched next to her, propped her up. Angbar did the same.

  Syntal spat blood, leaked from the ravaged mess of her bottom lip. "We found a book, near his body. It was in a grotto, a—a cave under the lake near our house. The book had a sigil closing it. I figured out―" Again the pain throttled her. "Ah, God!" she shrieked. "Angbar―" Gasping, clutching at him. "Slumber, please, ah God―"

/>   "No!" Iggy shouted. "You swore!"

  "Get the ensilla, Iggy!" Angbar roared, his face streaked with horror. "A'jhul, look at her!"

  "I'm trying!" And then, from his own throat: "You figured what?"

  "I figured out the mark," Syn whimpered. "Salgo. I spoke it, and the book opened. The first Storm came. The Seal . . . I didn't know it then, but the Seal . . ." A grimace, a sob. "The Seal started unraveling."

  "The Seal fails? It decays as we speak?"

  She panted, her breath coming in sharp wheezes. "No. I need to find the other wardbooks. I've opened three so far. There are ten altogether."

  "And with each, the Seal weakens."

  She nodded, sagging against her friends.

  "When was this?" the voice from Iggy's throat pressed.

  "The first book?" Angbar asked. "The first Storm?" He glanced at the others. "Ten years ago?"

  "Impossible. We have only awoken recently—days past, not years."

  Iggy took his voice back. "A week ago—the third wardbook. She woke you by opening the third wardbook. New . . . things have happened each time. Different creatures wake, different Stormsign . . ."

  Syntal looked up, her eyes filled with contempt. "Different chants."

  Iggy heard himself growl at this. "You know where the next book lies?"

  "No," Syntal said. "I've been in too much pain to―" As if summoned, the curse seized her muscles, clapping her teeth down on her tongue.

  "The 'dark of the dragon,'" Lyseira said. A jolt of surprise rippled through the heat in Iggy's lungs. "That's what he wrote—that's all we know. Now. Will you help her or not?"

  Ciir-goath hesitated. Then Iggy's head gave a sharp nod. "You will have aid—ensilla, as requested."

  "You said you could end her pain," Helix demanded. "Ensilla just puts her to sleep, it doesn't―"

  "I will do as I promised, but only as she leaves. She cannot chant while she slumbers, and that incapacity is the wood's desire. You." Iggy looked at Angbar. "You reek of chanting. You will refrain while Ordlan Green keeps you."

  "M'sai!" Angbar retorted. "M'sai, yes, I understand already!"

  The heat fled Iggy's chest, leaving him gasping. Kahls trotted forward, a wad of single ensilla leaves clutched in his teeth. Iggy snatched them.

  You should work on your hospitality, he snapped as he started mixing the medicine.

  There is no hospitality for chanters here, Ciir-goath said. Never, ere the last tree falls.

  Without Slumber to hasten the process, even a double dose of ensilla couldn't put Syntal to sleep immediately. The pain kept waking her. As Helix and Angbar tended to her and Seth and Lyseira retreated for a quiet conversation, Iggy heard Kahls behind him.

  Fear not, the fox whispered. The bloodleaf will take her.

  Usually Angbar chants her to sleep, Iggy explained. Between that and Lyseira's miracle to help with the pain, it's enough to put her out, and the ensilla keeps her out.

  A heartbeat. The bloodleaf will suffice, Kahls repeated.

  Speaker, Ciir-goath said. Ignatius Ardenfell. The stag had pulled away from the chanters and stood now near the meadow's edge. Come. We must talk.

  Iggy sighed. "I'll be right back," he said to his friends.

  The dark of the dragon, Ciir-goath began as he approached. There is no chance—

  Did you have to be so mean to her? Iggy accused. Couldn't you see the pain she was in?

  The wind spiked with an odor of bewilderment and affront. You ask this? Ciir-goath accused. You? The only one who can see the pain we are in?

  A week ago, to my eyes, Ordlan Green stretched like a verdant ocean to the south and north and east. Nigh-limitless sanctuary for the wilder things. A promise kept since the dawn of time, since before the rise of tall-walkers, before even Alohím. Devastated, now. Butchered by tall-walkers over thousands of years. Why? Because the ciirs were put to sleep, the animals' minds deadened. By whom?

  He leaned forward, lips curling back to reveal his yellowed teeth. Chanters.

  Chanters sealed the Pulse? Iggy whispered.

  They alone could. All other arts are bound by the laws of creation. Chanters alone can write the laws of creation.

  Iggy's thoughts whirled, trying to absorb this. Are you saying—

  I am saying you need to open your eyes, pup, and there is precious little time for you to do so. The terrors visited upon our north, east, and south are terrible, but it was the west that suffered the worst. Ordlan Green—

  He choked, the wind catching against his grief. A groan leaked from his throat, a pale imitation of the furious bugle he'd released earlier. Ordlan Green, he breathed, once stretched over the foothills of Moshun Dar. It tumbled into the valley, reached nigh unto the western sea.

  Iggy had seen the maps. He knew what lay west of the Scar today—an endless, cracked wasteland.

  This was mere moons ago, by my eyes. I remember the morning it happened—I will remember until the last tree falls, and the earth and the moon will remember it after me. A desecration to pale all others.

  The clouds opened. They vomited flame. The wood didn't burn—it flashed to nothing. Every living thing, incinerated. Even a dawn's length away, we felt their loss. The flame was so hot it scorched outward, its heat alone igniting everything. I heard their screams, Ignatius Ardenfell. I heard their screams as the Deep-Tree called for us to return, to escape east of the mountains, because she knew it would all die. Even the forest that still appeared green and living to the naked eye in the days after—for the soil beneath their roots had turned to ash, and the flames would spread to the very mountains.

  So I fled. While my brethren screamed and died, I fled.

  Mere moons later, the chanters worked their will, and I . . . He hesitated, still struggling to accept it. I slept for millennia. Upon waking, we sought the ridge and found the Deep-Tree was right, as ever. There is nothing beyond Moshun Dar now. All roots, all bloodlife, all nourishment or hope is dead, killed over the centuries by the slow plague of that one spell. The first blast, the blinding skyfire, was the weakest part of it. The mountains alone held back its savagery, or only Mother Ordlan can say how far it would have spread.

  And you speak to me of pain?

  Iggy's mind had gone blank, his blood cold. There were no words.

  You call the chanter your friend. Be wary, pup. Be most wary. For this massacre, this cataclysm, was wrought by the Raving Witch. A single chanter with the will to master Her craft became as a goddess, a force to rival the sun. Such power did She command that even the Alohím felt sealing the very Pulse was their only hope to stop Her.

  And Lar'atul, the stag continued, the man who wrote these "wardbooks"—though he betrayed Her at the last, he was once Her ally. The chants he placed in these books may well form a path to Her same power.

  Speaker. A scent of urgency, of sudden apprehension. Do you know if the Raving Witch is dead? Did the Sealing do its work?

  Iggy stammered. I . . . assume so. I've never heard of Her, so— A terrible thought occurred to him. Wait. You came back when the third wardbook was opened. Are you worried She could return the same way, somehow?

  No, Ciir-goath said. At Her core, She was still human . . . or so I suspect. We returned because we were sealed along with the Pulse, but She wouldn't have been. She would simply have been stripped of Her power, susceptible to mundane murder. I only wish to be sure it happened.

  Iggy allowed himself a sigh of relief. It's been thousands of years. Murder or not, She has to be long dead. The stag was unconvinced, Iggy sensed, though he couldn't understand why. Without the power to chant, how could She possibly survive?

  I don't know, Ignatius Ardenfell. That is what disturbs me. He snorted and shook out his mane. It matters not. You are right, of course—if She were alive, we would know. She was never the sort to hide Her presence. Her deepest cravings were for glory and worship.

  Now, though, the Seal has done its work. The Pulse must be restored.

  Yes, Iggy whispe
red. I think so too.

  In the morning, I will travel to the dragon's dark. I ask that you procure your friend's books, and join me.

  Why?

  To find the next wardbook. Why else? This task must be taken from the chanters. It is too critical to risk ruination at their hands.

  But you . . . Iggy shook his head. Did Ciir-goath still not understand? Only a chanter can open the wardbook. Each has a lock that can only be opened by a particular spell.

  Ciir-goath fell silent.

  That's why we need her. That's why I brought her here. She's the only one, as far as I know, who can open the wardbooks.

  So that is his trap, Ciir-goath finally said. He knew we would want to undo the Seal, but ensured we would be dependent on chanters to do so.

  Who? Lar'atul?

  Yes. He is nearly as hated here as the Raving Witch. As I said, he was long Her servant. Only toward the end did he claim She had gone too far, and many of us never trusted . . . He snorted again, breath hot against Iggy's cheek. No matter. None! We are where we are, trap or no.

  Is it worth it? Iggy was sure he knew the answer to this question, but given the unprecedented chance to voice it, he did so. If She was so dangerous, if you're worried someone else could do what She did, is it worth it? Maybe it's best to keep some part of the Seal in place. We've seen things that . . . He thought of the fire trolls that had nearly killed them in Shepherd's Hill. I mean, the world may be better off without some of these things waking.

  Ciir-goath didn't hesitate. It is a fair question, but not a wise one. The Deep-Tree still slumbers, the Pulse too weak to awaken her, because it is not whole. Surely you have seen, pup. The day we woke, the sun had failed to rise. Two days later, a flower in this very meadow finished growing backwards, retreating into the dirt before becoming once more a seed.

  Stormsign, Iggy whispered. We call it Stormsign.

  It is a failing in the Pulse, the gaps in its power manifesting in ways our eyes can see. There are many more manifestations, though, beyond what we can see, and they grow by the day. This partial Seal, this incomplete freedom—it hobbles the Pulse so it cannot speak clearly. Have you not felt this?

  He hadn't. To Iggy's ears, the Pulse had always been glorious and perfect—if also, with each opened wardbook, steadily greater.