Revelation (8 page)

“Thank you, Howel, but I think not, unless . . . is Hoffyd in?” Catrin’s husband, a quiet scholar, was a good friend.

“He’s not been home nigh on three weeks now.”

“His sister’s not ill?” His demanding, ailing sister Ennit, who lived in a nearby village, was the only thing I knew that could draw Hoffyd from home now we had come back to Ezzaria.

“No, sir. Mistress Catrin won’t say where he’s gone, not even to Mistress Ennit, and Mistress Ennit is about to pester all of us to death with her asking.”

Unusual. Hoffyd was the least likely man in Ezzaria to be involved in a mystery. “Perhaps he’s hiding from Ennit, do you think?”

The boy grinned. “Likely.”

Seeing Howel’s books made me reconsider, and I did go in to wait for Catrin, taking the opportunity to poke through a few journals where Galadon had recorded his demon encounters. Howel seemed to be impressed that I would sit and study without Catrin’s direct orders, so he got back to his own work with diligence.

I flipped through three thick cloth-bound books that covered some fifteen years of Galadon’s career as a Warden, but all of the entries, so meticulously recorded in my old mentor’s bold hand, were familiar. None spoke of demons who were not as we expected. There were several more journals on the shelf; Galadon had fought as a Warden for some thirty years. But instead of these I lifted out the large folio where Catrin kept copies of the Scroll of the Rai-kirah and the Scroll of Prophecy. The originals were in Ysanne’s care, kept in stiff paper cylinders in a stone box, but Catrin’s copies were exactly scribed and illustrated to match the originals.

I read for an hour, forcing my eyes to stay on the spidery script, trying to decipher the archaic language anew from the page rather than speak the words in my head as I had learned them in my schooling. Perhaps a word had been dropped or altered by constant repetition. But I found no change. The story of the demons, the warnings against corruption, the chants and rituals, and the florid language of the prophecy of the Warrior of Two Souls were exactly as I remembered them. I marveled again at the brevity of the manuscripts, scarcely twenty pages between the two. Not much to chart the course of a race, much less that of the entire world.

As I traced my finger over the carefully reproduced sketch of the winged warrior in one margin, I felt the familiar prickling in my shoulders so like the return of warmth to numbed flesh. Always it was there, just below the surface of my senses. Why could I feel it so vividly when it was only beyond the portal that I could change into my winged form? Nothing in any Ezzarian writing even mentioned the change, much less explained it. Until I had first experienced it when I was eighteen, we’d only had the drawing and the rumor of such a possibility.

There in Catrin’s quiet room, with life at its lowest midnight ebb, I closed my eyes, held myself still, and focused on the sensation, blowing on it gently with the breath of my awareness as a freezing man blows on his last hope of fire. My throat ached. My heart swelled with profound longing, a craving so deep my eyes watered. My veins pulsed with melydda, yet the transformation remained just beyond my reach. Just beyond my control. No burst of fire in my body. No explosion of glory in my mind.

I expelled my held breath, jerked my head, and felt shamed at my greed, seeking some kind of perverse personal pleasure from a gift dedicated to the defeat of demons. I forced my eyes back to the page, but the lamp was failing, and I couldn’t concentrate. Young Howel had blotted his writing with his cheek, and when I nudged him, he slipped off his chair and onto the striped rug in front of the cold hearth. I threw a blanket over him, then pulled off my boots and sprawled out in a chair in the farthest corner of the room by an open window, lulled by the night smells of damp clover and mint.

I had just drifted off to sleep, when I heard the door open. “Just about gave up on you,” I said drowsily, sitting up and trying to clear the thickness from my head and my tongue. “Came to report, as my mentor commands. Let me get my wits about me—a cup of something hot might help—then I’ll tell you the most astounding story you’ve ever heard.”

“You will tell me nothing tonight, Seyonne.” Catrin stepped out of the shadowed doorway. Her voice carried no warmth, no welcome. “There will be adequate time for you to explain yourself.” Fiona followed her into the room, and then another woman and three men. One of the men was Caddoc: tall, spare, grim, long wisps of gray hair falling down in his face. The white-haired woman, deceptively plump and motherly for one of the most powerful sorcerers in Ezzaria, was Maire. The other two men were temple guards, eiliddar of various callings who had some fighting skills. We had very little of what anyone would call crime in Ezzaria, but the temple guards took care of such matters as intruders, or Ezzarians who got drunk or picked fights with others.

I woke up very quickly when I saw them. “What’s all this?”

Caddoc stepped forward. “It has been reported that you have violated your oath by permitting a demon to retain possession of a victim without challenge.” He came near spitting out the words. “How do you answer?”

I looked to Catrin, but her expression was unreadable, her best mentor’s face—no anger, no fear, no concern. Only intense listening.

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“We’re not trying to trick you, Seyonne,” said Maire softly. “Only to hear your response before deciding how to proceed.”

“Are these men here to arrest me?” Arrest. I could not fathom it. Perhaps one arrest occurred per decade in Ezzaria. And a Warden . . . It was unthinkable.

“How do you answer?” Caddoc’s voice was as gray as his hair, his skin, and his cloak. “You did not kill the demon. You did not banish it. The only remaining possibilities are that you lost in true combat or that you failed to challenge.”

“Catrin . . .”

“You are not under arrest, Seyonne. But with charges so serious, you cannot be allowed to speak with anyone until the case is heard. You must understand that.”

“Not even with my mentor?”

“No.” It was Caddoc who answered.

“Then, it makes no difference what I say.” I sat down in the chair, and while they watched, I methodically put on my boots and most determinedly did not answer. “I’ll be at home.”

I headed for the door, ignoring the others who stood about like the stone columns of the temple. But when I passed Fiona, hovering beside the door, I paused. She glared at me, as if daring me to strike her. “Consider well what happened today, Fiona,” I said. “Think and feel and remember. When the time comes to speak, tell me what evil you felt when you opened that portal. Tell me what madness you found to pull into your weaving. Find out from the Searchers the things they didn’t tell us. I want to understand it as much as anyone, and I trust you to be scrupulous in your telling.”

Though it was near midnight, Ysanne was not home when I arrived. No doubt she had heard of my trouble. Perhaps she had decided to sleep elsewhere. She had a number of places to go: the homes of friends or her women attendants, guest quarters in other parts of the Residence. I lit the nine candles of our mourning stone and sat beside it for a while, inhaling the sweet smoke and thinking of my beloved parents and sister, hoping that perhaps they could find my child wandering in the forests of the afterlife and give him the tender comfort they had always given me. Then I pinched out the flames and fell into bed, ignoring the two men who sat just inside the door to make sure that no one, not even their queen, spoke to me. I sank into sleep, wondering what they would do to young Howel, who had not known he might be corrupted by speech with the only Warden in Ezzaria.

 

The Council convened three days after my encounter, as soon as Kenehyr could arrive from his home in southern Ezzaria. Such charges could not wait. I spent the days training as usual, though on my own, not with Catrin and her students. In the other hours I read everything in the Queen’s library on demon lore. There was perishingly little. Nothing that hinted of demons who only desired to learn of the world.

Young Drych brought me word of the Council meeting as I sat poring over a manuscript that was telling me yet again that a demon’s only hunger was for death and evil. The young man was nervous and agitated, and spoke softly as if the guards could not hear. “What’s happening, Master? Is it a usual thing to have to explain yourself to the Council? I’m not good at talking in front of so many. And they’ve said none of us should hold speech with you until they say. I don’t understand it, when you are the finest . . . the strongest Warden we’ve ever had.”

I was touched that his faith in me was not shaken by what he had heard. “Don’t worry about it. You must always review extraordinary encounters with your mentor,” I said. “And sometimes the Council wants to hear of them, too, so that we all may learn. Especially now, as things are changing from what we’ve experienced in the past. You must always be ready to learn something new, to stay alert, to listen to your own reason and judgment. Sometimes we forget that. You can only do your best, and that’s all I’ve done. When your day comes, you’ll do very well.”

I wished I’d been allowed to review the case with Catrin, but her position on the Council precluded any contact with me until the hearing, even had I been permitted to speak freely. But she was intelligent and clever. She would know how to manage things to get it over with quickly.

 

The five sat in a half circle in a modest, high-ceilinged room with large windows and a softly shining floor of oaken planks. I was motioned to a straight-backed chair facing the Council. The room had no other furnishings. No hangings, no tapestries, no rugs or tables or footstools. Just warm sunlight. The scraping of the wooden chair legs echoed faintly in the emptiness, until all were settled and only the droning of bees and the occasional screech of a jay from the woodland beyond the window intruded on the silence.

Talar began the proceedings. Her iron-gray hair was twisted into a knot on top of her head, her smooth bronze skin taut over high cheekbones, and her jaw well-proportioned, but exceedingly rigid. “Seyonne, Warden of Ezzaria, you are summoned before this Council to answer the most serious of charges . . . ”

She took quite a while to recount them all. The first was, of course, that I had allowed a demon to retain possession of a victim unchallenged. The next was the killing of the slave merchant victim. Then followed Fiona’s list of slighted rituals, suspect teachings, and minor errors. The only real surprise was the inclusion of the lost battle.

A frowning Catrin, seated at Talar’s far left, interrupted the recitation at that point. “I thought we agreed that this particular event would not be mentioned. It is no crime to lose in demon combat. On the contrary, it is imperative that a Warden withdraw when facing an unwinnable conflict. He must put his safety and that of the Aife above pride.”

Kenehyr nodded in agreement, his wrinkled face troubled. The round-cheeked Maire answered. “We know all this, Catrin, and will certainly not hold a withdrawal as evidence of treason. Yet I see value in hearing the pattern of these past days. The complete view of events helps us see everything in proper perspective. But truly the loss should not have been listed as a charge.” This last was directed at Talar, who nodded formally to Maire and made a notation on the paper.

At this point I resigned myself to a very long day. No hope of a quick review of the battle in question, a quick vote, and a reprimand warning me to be more careful in rituals when our understanding of our own traditions was so limited. I had hoped to spend the afternoon and evening talking with Kenehyr. The old man had worked closely with our best scholars through the years, and knew as much as any Ezzarian about demon-possession.

Instead, I would spend the day explaining why I thought wiping the floor of the temple was not necessary after a battle, and why, since one recitation of the closing chant was soothing and healing, did I not see that three recitations were even better? And I would have to be on my best behavior and not insinuate that the innate hostility I detected in Fiona prevented her from giving a fair appraisal of my actions. Although her observations were scrupulously honest, her interpretation of my motives was always the worst it could be.

Indeed, it was mid-afternoon before we got to the crux of the matter. We had been brought food and wine at midday. I had gone to stand beside one of the windows while I ate. Several times I caught Catrin watching me. Of course she could not come and talk to me, but I expected some sign, some gesture of reassurance. Yet she remained expressionless and didn’t eat. I felt more than a little uneasy.

After only a quarter of an hour, we resumed. The Council members moved to the edge of their chairs as Talar uttered the most important command of the day. “Tell us of your last demon encounter, Warden.”

I had to ignore my growing disturbance and bring all of my senses to bear on my telling. I tried to recall every detail, every word, every sensation, every smell and taste and sound, and relay it to the five who sat in judgment, so they could experience it as truly as I had done. I wanted to make them hear and see and wonder at it as I did. Every passing moment led me to believe that my experience was, in many ways, as significant as my battle with the Lord of Demons, a portent that we could not ignore.

“No evil!” Caddoc had a harsh dry laugh that grated on the ear. “You deemed yourself fit to judge such a thing. Interesting that it was after the creature had shown you its prowess with a sword that you made this determination.”

“I have no shame in losing a battle,” I said. “Since you included the one I lost in this telling, then take it as evidence of that, at least. I deemed this rai-kirah not attracted to evil, and that it was not to our benefit to destroy him. Bring other evidence of my cowardice, if that’s your claim.”

“Not cowardice,” said Talar. “No one accuses you of cowardice.”