Chapter 5
Vailria made a frantic gesture, indicating Marim should follow. She turned and strode a short distance away from the steps. Together, they watched the procession that passed like a string of ghosts in the fog. The rector was in the lead, wearing the red robes of his station and holding the bell on its pole. The sisters drifted after, wearing black and walking in twos. There were six of them. They moved at a steady pace, heads bowed, hands folded in their sleeves, murmuring a prayer as they went. The seventh came behind, wearing white. “They have come for Tassin,” Vailria said. “To release him from life with Delari’s blessing.”
Marim stared in shock. Embriem had mentioned something about this, a tradition here on the island of letting the sick depart their suffering.
“No.” The word slipped out of Marim in a hoarse whisper. She stared at the procession, heart hammering. Why were they here? Surely Embriem hadn’t given up the fight? What was the use of Marim keeping Tassin alive for so long only to be killed?
Angry, fearful, helpless, Marim stared in silent horror as the procession reached the house. She had to stop this, but how? She was only one person. True, she was Tessilari. But she was weak. How she wished now for the company of her more talented friends – the friends who had always made her feel useless by virtue of the magic they could wield without effort, without thought or struggle or care.
“What are your talents?” The question came in a quick, low voice. Marim turned. The woman in the strange dress stood a few paces away in the fog, staring at the sisters, eyes glittering with hate.
“What?” After so many days filled with nothing, days that had dragged by at a snail’s pace, Marim felt as if time had bolted and was now careening at full tilt, with no thought for her safety. She remembered the way she’d used to run down the steep slope behind the academy with the other students, letting her momentum carry her until she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried. There would be that moment: the reckless thrill. Then she’d hit the water of the slow, deep river with a splash and a shriek. She’d go under, the cool water closing around her. She’d hold her breath and come up laughing as her friends plunged in around her. They would tread water, panting, the spice of the river sharp on their tongues as their tessili wheeled on the blue air overhead.
“I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I judge by the look on your face you don’t want this to happen.” The woman gestured towards the sisters filing through the front door, moving as implacably as the sun. “I don’t either, but the cloister has authority I can’t override. So, I will ask again. What can you do?”
Marim heard a small sob escape her. Kix, spurred by her emotional turmoil, clawed his way out of her collar. She was too distracted to contain him. Before she quite knew what was happening, he was in the air, wheeling around her head in restless flight.
Vailria went very still. Her eyes tracked Kix. For the first time, her face was free of anger. Kix settled on Marim’s shoulder, wings outstretched. The woman’s eyes filled with a kind of awe.
Marim heard a hiss. A small movement near the woman’s collar caught her eye.
Vailria’s face changed. The hardness came back, the lips firmed with determination. She brought a hand to her throat as if adjusting her collar, deftly blocking Marim’s view.
But it was too late. Marim had seen. She’d seen the brinlin’s blunt-nosed head, its glittering black eyes and fluttering gills, a pattern of red dots thrown across a purple hide.
Marim felt a surge of conflicting emotions, a combination of hope and fear all mixed with the desperate sense of urgency. “So I’m not the only one on the island who knows what’s happening.”
Vailria’s eyes gave nothing away. She gestured towards the procession again. The last of the sisters were walking through the door. “They know also. Or at least, they know some shred of the truth. It’s why they’re here.”
✣
“I have no particular talents,” Marim said. Her voice came out in a thin quaver. She felt small and useless against the events unfolding around her. Vailria’s eyes were sharp and perceptive. She said nothing, and Marim tried to explain. “Kix is … he … we … nearly died when we were young. It was just before the Tessilari rose again. We were ….” She trailed off. It was impossible to explain in concise terms. “Anyway, Kix isn’t quite right. He’s simple. Mentally, I mean.”
Vailria was still looking at Kix. She answered in a matter of fact tone, as if what Marim had said was to be expected. “I’m strong in the mental arts. I can change people’s minds, alter memories, and I’m good with illusions. But I’m sure you know the limitations. I have to be touching someone to reliably influence his thoughts. Illusions are limited in their usefulness.”
“Illusions,” Marim echoed. She’d never heard of a Tessilar with such a skill. She stared at Vailria’s collar, hoping for another glimpse of the brinlin.
“No one in town knows what I am.” Vailria said this in the same, businesslike tone. “It’s very important they not find out.”
“But they’ll both die.” Marim gestured towards the great shape of the looming house. “If we don’t get them to the lake, they will die. What usually happens to people here who get the hunger?”
Vailria frowned, her mouth a thin, straight line. “Both of them? Embriem?” She sounded surprised.
Marim nodded, and Vailria closed her eyes for a moment, releasing a breath. Was that relief on her face?
Marim frowned, looking at the other woman. “So the sisters, are they acting out of malice? Is it the same way here as it used to be in Masidon? You are hunted and reviled?”
Vailria shook her head. “It is not that simple. No. The rector believes this an act of compassion. Or at least, he forces himself to believe that. He thinks death is the only way to redeem him.”
Marim was keenly aware of time ticking away as they spoke. She felt a pull to go to the house, to find Embriem, to tell him what she’d discovered. “So we explain,” Marim said. “Once people understand …”
Vailria cut her off, her voice coming out in a snarl. “Once they understand, they will kill me as well as the boy and his father, and perhaps you for good measure. This isn’t Deramor, girl. We have no royal decree to protect us. All people fear and hate what is different, what is beyond their control.”
Marim felt a chill settle over her heart. She understood what Vailria faced. Even in Deramor, the years since the Tessilari had come out of hiding had been far from smooth. There had been incidents and confrontations, many of them violent. One night an angry mob had appeared at the gates of the academy. “It’ll be a work in progress, this peace,” Professor Liam had said. “And it won’t be settled during our lifetimes. Or,” he’d amended, looking at her with grave eyes, “during mine, anyway.”
Again, Marim felt a sense of urgency. Where were the sisters now? In the drawing room? Beginning the final prayer? She looked away from Vailria, taking a small step towards the looming house. “Well, none of this matters right now. We have to get Tassin out of there.”
Vailria nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I will need your help. The final prayer and blessing take about twenty minutes. That is our window to act.”
✣
The sisters were in the drawing room, gathered in a small knot near the door. They were murmuring in low voices, preparing the salve. Embriem heard the pop of a seal being released.
The rector stood with him, his lean face drawn with regret. He set a hand on Embriem’s shoulder and Embriem had to resist the fierce desire to shrug it off, to push the man away from him, to gather his son in his arms and run for the door.
He did none of these things. He only stood. Helpless.
The rector spoke. “I must lead the prayer.” His red robes were plain but made of rich cloth. The wide sleeve swayed as he dropped his hand and turned, walking to where the sisters waited.
It was the most counter-intuitive thing in the world, Embriem thought, to stand by and watch someone kill your c
hild. Had Chalsia been there, would she have allowed this? Or would she have fought tooth and nail, never giving up?
Embriem turned towards his son. As the rector lit a beeswax taper and the sisters lined up to light their own candles from his, Embriem looked down at the couch where his boy lay. Tassin’s eyes were closed, his long lashes pale against cheeks. Other than those lashes and that familiar tumble of hair, the boy was unrecognizable. He lay sunken in his clothing, taking up no more space than a skeleton. Only the feeble rise and fall of his chest indicated he still lived.
Embriem could remember a time when those limbs had been soft with baby fat. They’d grown from short and chubby into the sturdy legs of a healthy boy. He couldn’t believe now this slip of a wasted child was his son, his own lively Tassin.
Embriem felt a touch on his ankle. He started in place, looking down with confusion. Crouching by his feet, hidden from the rest of the room by the couch, was Marim.
Annoyance and confusion mingled in Embriem. Behind him, candles lit, one by one. He almost snapped at the girl, almost told her to get up, to get out of his room, out of his house. He never should have brought her back from the ship, never should have trusted her. She had said she was helping Tassin when really she’d only prolonged his suffering.
But her hand was on his ankle. She was speaking in a low, urgent voice. “Embriem.” Her words carried no further than his ears. “We have to go. This doesn’t have to happen. Tassin does not have to die. All we need to do is go to the warmlake.”
Warmlake. The word reached Embriem’s ears and lit that latent desire, the impulse he’d been fighting all day. He did want to go to the warmlake. He would. He would go to the warmlake as soon as his son was free, released from pain and delivered into Delari’s arms.
The sisters were turning now, lit candles held aloft. One last figure, this one wearing white, held the serum and the wand. The black clad sisters formed behind the rector, two by two, the sister in white at the back. They would cross the room now, begin their prayer. They would form a circle around Tassin’s couch. They would call down Delari’s blessing and administer the serum.
Marim’s hand on his ankle began to move. At first he didn’t understand what she was doing, but gradually he realized she was groping up his trouser leg, fingers searching for the top of his sock. He was about to pull away, to snap at her, to tell her to go, but she was still speaking in that urgent whisper and his mind seemed all a jumble, full of conflict. He remembered his wife, dying because the physician could not stop the bleeding that had begun with Tassin’s birth. He remembered her pale lips and her cold hands and what she had said. “Take care of our boy, Embriem. I love you. Take care of him.”
Embriem’s eyes were full of tears. The pinpoints of candlelight were smeared sparks of light. Marim was talking, but her words made no sense. “What you see on the couch isn’t Tassin anymore. It’s an illusion. Vailria has your son. She came in and took him, hiding herself in a cloak that’s woven with a passive echo spell. She’s already gone. She’s waiting outside the door. We have to get Tassin to the warmlake. You have to come as well. Now. Before they realize what’s going on. You have to come.”
As Marim spoke these final words, Embriem felt her fingers come into contact with the skin of his leg. A sudden warmth bloomed through him, accompanied by a jolt of certainty. He blinked, looking at Tassin. He could see now the boy didn’t look quite right. There was a thinness to his form, a quality of unreality Embriem hadn’t noticed before.
The rector was a few feet away, leading his sisters, chanting in a monotone. Marim’s face was pale. Sweat had beaded on her brow. “Go,” she said. “Get out of here. Say you can’t stand it. Leave.”
Embriem blinked, turned, and faced the rector, who had stopped by the foot of the couch. “Delari forgive me,” he blurted in a choked voice. “I cannot stand here and watch my son die.”
✣
The fog was heavy, dense, and alive. Cockram had seen it like this before. It was the season for storms. They were ponderous, slow moving systems that could settle over the island for days. The clouds would loom, blotting out the sun and filling the air with reckless lightning. The fog would boil, sometimes maturing to rain, sometimes hanging so thick Cockram would get soaked just walking across the yard. During the worst storms, the ocean would grow restless and high, sometimes thrashing over the seawall to lash at the warehouses and wharves. Once or twice, the waves had reached far enough inland even to damage the Rooster’s Comb.
The conditions suited Cockram’s mood. He stood at the top of Embriem’s driveway, staring after the procession of sisters. He’d followed them from the cloister, listening to the tolling death bell, feeling his heart throb with pain and hate and despair. Memories rose up in him, memories of another day he’d gone to the cloister and asked to speak to the rector. Once there, he’d betrayed the secret his sister had made him swear to keep.
Cockram had been a boy then, nervous and unsure. The rector had received him with warmth, listening to his story with great attention. When Cockram was done, the rector spoke at length. It was a blessing, he said, that there were people like Cockram in this world – people who were bigger, stronger, more insightful than the common man, people who could recognize the importance of working for the greater good. People like Cockram could be trusted with secrets – great secrets only a few people knew.
The rector had explained about the marks, then, and the final test.
Waiting in the fog, Cockram adjusted his scarf, smoothing the knot and trying to push the memories from his mind. He didn’t regret what he’d done. Regret would imply he’d acted in error.
Even now, he knew he’d done the right thing. When he understood, the rector had told him what to do. A few days later, Adni failed the test of the ring. That made three marks for her.
Three marks was the limit.
Cockram had been the one to test Adni. She’d failed at once, taking the ring Cockram offered her only to drop it instantly, a look of shock on her face. She’d sat down, hard, then, collapsing onto the floor as if he’d clubbed her in the head.
Cockram had understood what it meant. He picked the ring up from where it had rolled and clinked against the wall of her little bedroom. It sparked against his palm when he touched it, so he put in his pocket, fast.
Leaving his sister sitting stunned, he’d walked back to the cloister. The rector had been waiting, praising him, taking the ring back. He’d shown Cockram his list, let him read the Directive one more time.
Then he’d given Cockram a potion. “Put two drops in your sister’s tea, once a day. Make sure no one sees you.”
When Cockram had hesitated, Dinon explained. “Sometimes, the gods must act through men. Very special men. Like you.”
No, Cockram did not regret what he’d done. What he regretted was that he’d been forced to act in the first place.
The minutes ticked by, the sky darkening. A distant rumble of thunder made the air shudder. Cockram stared towards the house, able to make out the smudge of lit windows through the fog. He looked at his pocket watch, squinting to make out the hands. It had been twenty minutes since the procession had gone in. It must be almost over by now.
The fog shifted again. Cockram’s ears caught a sound. He straightened, staring. He made out footsteps approaching quickly, and someone’s fast breath. A shape started out of the gloom, details filling in as it drew near.
It was Marim, all but running up the drive. She carried something in her arms, a small body bundled up against her chest.
At first, Cockram could only gape in disbelief. Marim moved easily, not appearing in the least encumbered by her burden. It was impossible. Surely it was not Tassin she carried?
Before Cockram could think or act, she was gone, hurrying past in the fog. She never saw him, but as she swept by, Cockram got a good look at what lay in her arms. He saw the pale face, the closed eyes, the emaciated arms folded on the chest.
It was Tassin. There co
uldn’t be any doubt.
Frozen with confusion, Cockram stood in place. The sound of Marim’s footsteps faded to nothing. He stared towards the house, expecting to hear an outcry, a jumble of raised voices, perhaps a sister or two running in pursuit.
But there was no alarm, no sound or movement at all. For a moment, Cockram felt so disoriented he thought he must have imagined her.
Then, all in a rush, he understood. He murmured the answer under his breath. “She’s bewitched them. She’s got them under her spell.”
Cockram stepped onto the lane, moving now with a renewed sense of purpose. He began to jog, moving in the direction Marim had gone. The rector’s words came back to him, ringing in his ears all these years later. It’s a blessing there are people like you in the world. People who can be counted on to do the right thing, no matter how difficult.
Cockram had done the right thing all those years before. He’d put the drops in his sister’s tea, as instructed. He’d watched her fall ill, watched her begin to waste away. He’d watched the physician come and go, confused, helpless, without answers. At last, he’d stood with his mother and father, tears streaming down his face as the death bell rang at their door.
Tassin was marked, a vessel of corruption, like Adni had been all those years go. Cockram had done the right thing once. He’d simply have to do it again.