30. A Learning Opportunity (Gadarien)¶
As a child, Gadarien had often snuck out of the bed he shared with his two older brothers and wandered the streets, savoring the pearly pre-dawn light and the quiet soundscape of the city waking up. That habit had later saved his life, although he sometimes wished it hadn’t.
Today, though, there was nothing pleasant about being up early. His cohort had been roused from deep sleep by their Preceptors, who didn’t seem any happier about it than the novitiates. The Preceptor’s torches barely kept the darkness of the School’s courtyard at bay. In the distance, webs of lightning crawled along the inner surface of the Eyewall, suffusing it with a threatening violet glow.
The only person who seemed pleased to be there was Tadevi Kenem. For once, the Healer was dressed in a standard Sihiri uniform, grinning at the novitiates as they filed into place. Jovadão stood beside him, expressionless as a plank. Once the novitiates were in formation, the grim Cantereian clapped his hands together.
“Listen up,” he said. “Today we have a rare training opportunity. The Sihiri are carrying out a surprise raid, and we’re going along to observe. You’ll form groups of—”
The Healer cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to address the novitiates, Preceptor.”
It might have been the lightning, but Gadarien thought he saw a flicker of anger pass across Jovadão’s face. “Of course, Your Luminance.”
“This is a rare treat for you,” said the Healer, rubbing his hands together. “We’ve uncovered a cell of Feiçeira.” An icy bolt of fear lanced into Gadarien’s guts. He could only hope that the excitement of the other novitiates covered up his shock.
“That’s right,” the Healer continued. “Feiçeira, here in the capital. They’ve apparently been here for years, infiltrating the city, plotting to unleash a War Chord in a populated area, the cowards. But even vermin can’t hide forever. Today, you’re going to witness the fate of those who test the strength of the Helix.” Jovadão stood behind the Healer with a tight smile, nodding, his arms clasped behind his back, eyes as bleak as a winter sky.
“The Sihiri will already be in position when we arrive,” Jovadão said, his gaze sweeping the cohort. “You’ll observe from a safe distance. But remember, these are Feiçeira. If you’re in range of their voices, you are in danger. Stay with your assigned group. Don’t do anything stupid.” For some reason, his eyes connected with Gadarien’s. “We don’t need you to sacrifice yourselves today.”
Gadarien glanced at the Healer and found the man studying him with a faint smile. How much did they know? If Gadarien had been compromised, he’d surely be under interrogation at the House of Breezes already. Perhaps they just enjoyed making him sweat. But something told him this exercise wasn’t just about training. He’d have to be extra vigilant.
The Preceptors shepherded the novitiates into groups. Gadarien was separated from Adranaya and Vaye, but made no attempt to join them. He was going to have enough trouble projecting an air of detachment without having to deceive people who knew him well.
They carried no light as they marched quietly through the sleeping city, their hushed footsteps and the clinking of their gear barely audible above the Eyewall’s distant roar. A few brave stars shone through the tears in the clouds like children peeking though their fingers, afraid of what they were about to witness.
Their party stopped in front of a temple with a marble frieze depicting the Ilahin casting Grandmother into the ice. With a sinking feeling, Gadarien realized where they were. He had always approached from the sobração, but the safehouse was built into the temple’s catacombs.
The Healer gathered the novitiates close while Jovadão and a complement of Sihiri continued on. “The target is underground, behind the temple,” Kenem said, his voice just above a whisper. “We’re going to observe from the bell tower, a safe distance away and mostly out of earshot. Stay quiet and keep your heads down until I give the signal.” His melody carried excitement, as though the whole thing were a game. From across the circle, Vaye caught Gadarien’s eye, her expression troubled. He nodded to her, trying to convey that he was fine, that his heart wasn’t trying to escape the cage of his chest.
They filed into the temple and followed the Healer up the dark staircase of the bell tower, each with a hand on the back of the novitiate in front of them. The balcony at the top was barely big enough for them all, especially when they crouched below the waist-high parapet. Only the Healer lifted his head over the lip.
They waited, their legs starting to cramp, until Kenem finally gestured for them to rise. Silently, he pointed to a courtyard nestled in one corner of the temple’s great outer wall. The sky had just started to lighten, revealing the glint of weapons through the swirling tendrils of fog. Gadarien made out Jovadão’s bald head at the front of a column in a nearby alley. Lines of washing hung from balconies above the heads of the Sihiri, colorless in the gloom.
A separate group of soldiers emerged from an adjacent alley with a heavy log suspended on ropes. They descended a stairwell at one end of the courtyard and positioned themselves in front of the door in two rows, the battering ram slung between them. The strangled song of a rooster drifted past the tower as the Sihiri officer held up his fingers, counting down as the soldiers began to swing the log back and forth.
Before the ram could strike, the entire stairwell collapsed into a sinkhole with a shocking crash. The four soldiers at the front fell into the cloud of dust, their brief screams suddenly cut off. Gadarien gritted his teeth, squeezing the parapet and sweating through his uniform.
A group of figures scrambled out of the dust, bearing Cantereian knives with their signature forward-canted blades. Even from this distance, and even with all his conditioning, the strange warbling sound they emitted burrowed into Gadarien’s head. All Feiçeira received War Chord training, but he had never before heard one deployed at full volume by an entire cadre. His vision swam and he was glad he had the stonework to hold onto. One of the novitiates vomited over the edge.
The Feiçeira charged, drawing blood with their knives, but the Sihiri had recovered from the initial shock. Their front rank rolled backward and flipped to their feet while the second rank stepped around to encircle the Cantereians. The Sarmalans heavily outnumbered the Feiçeira, and were equipped with armor and witchglass weapons. Their peljaki crackled with light, changing shape in mid-air, curving around in unexpected directions to slash at the Cantereians. There was never much doubt about how the battle would go.
Gadarien tried in vain to recognize the fighters, but the light was too dim, the dust too thick. All he knew was that the people being cut to pieces were his brothers and sisters, and he could do absolutely nothing to help them.
The fighting slowed and the dust settled on at least a dozen bodies, Sihiri and Feiçeira alike. But the Sihiri were still on their guard, warily approaching the gaping tunnel mouth. Apparently they were expecting someone. Jovadão, who had been hanging back and issuing commands, edged closer to the hole and called out.
“We’ve destroyed the body, but now we must crush the head,” The Healer explained, no longer feeling the need for silence. “Watch.”
The quiet of the courtyard was punctuated only by the moans of the wounded. The Sihiri edged along with their backs to the temple wall, moving closer to the tunnel mouth, weapons raised. Gadarien’s knuckles were white where he gripped the railing, his pulse throbbing in his throat.
In eerie silence, the wall just above the soldiers undulated like water, a ring of cracks spiraling outward from the center. Then the stones peeled open with a deafening crash, a few massive blocks crashing straight through the ground into the tunnels below. One landed on a Sarmalan and crushed all of him but his head, which popped out like a cork.
A lone figure climbed unhurriedly out of the rubble, veins crackling with light. “The Guiasa,” said the Healer. Outwardly, his tone conveyed loathing, but Gadarien detected harmonics of reverence that the Healer himself didn’t know were there. For all that, though, the man was wrong.
It was Eiadane atop the rubble, slim and sharp as a stiletto as he unslung his lancoãda. The infamous Feiçeira weapon was composed of multiple staves connected by lengths of witchglass rope, with a narrow spearhead at each end. The lancoãda was famous for being both tremendously difficult to master and unstoppable in the hands of those who had done so.
A cordon of Sihiri formed around Eiadane, cautiously edging closer. The falling stones had killed a few of them, but they were still numerous. Gadarien reached in vain for any slim thread of hope, but found nothing.
Eiadane met the Sihiri with a flickering cage of death. His weapon changed direction in mid-air, the sections extending and snapping back like a scorpion’s tail. He parried a Sihir’s blade and buried the lancoãda in her throat before ripping it out in a shower of blood and turning to his next target. He was a glowing blur of motion, making the elite Sihiri look like raw recruits.
Staying out of the lancoãda’s range, three of the Sarmalans unleashed arrows. Eiadane dodged them all except the last one, which he somehow caught with a rope section and sent shooting back into the stomach of the soldier who had fired it.
Just behind Gadarien, the temple’s great bell suddenly rang, almost knocking him over the wall. He turned, covering his ears and wincing, to find the Healer setting down a great wooden mallet and returning to the parapet.
“Stop,” Kenem called out. Aside from one unfortunate soldier Eiadane had just finishing killing, the Sihiri backed away. The Healer smiled and raised his hand, beckoning.
Jovadão stepped out of the shadows and paused for a moment, looking up at the Healer, his expression as empty as the pre-dawn sky. Kenem gestured impatiently and Jovadão turned to Eiadane, unslinging his peljak and shaping its border into a rigid, killing edge. In his other hand, he held a long knife.
The two Cantereians circled, their glowing veins tracing pennants in the air. Jovadão weaved his fan-like peljak through the motions of a battle form as the Eiadane spun his lancoãda in an intricate geometry. They came together in a whirling mass, streaming through the gloom like the fighting fish in the Vorkyrda’s aquarium.
With a ululating battle cry, Eiadane shot his weapon forward. Jovadão swayed back, barely dodging the blade, but Eiadane managed to entangle one of Jovadão’s arms. Jovadão stepped back, using the momentum to pull the smaller man forward. Eiadane landed a knee kick to Jovadão’s head, but Jovadão simultaneously brought his fan up and sliced deeply into the Feiçeira’s groin before staggering back and falling to one knee.
Eiadane took a step, then crumpled to the ground, the color draining from his face as his blood poured onto the broken cobblestones. His veins slowly lost their glow, and then he was just another spent body among many, his empty eyes watching the sky grow lighter.
Gadarien was filled with the bleak hollowness of a deep wound that had not yet filled with blood. This was how his mind defended itself, by forming a thin crust of fragile indifference to separate him from the icy black water of despair. He didn’t even realize he was weeping until he heard someone else sniffle. He turned to see Adranaya crying, Vaye solemnly watching from just behind her. “That was awful,” Adranaya said, wrapping her arms around him. He embraced her mechanically.
Watching them, the Healer smiled in triumph.
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