52. The Singing Bowl (Gadarien)¶
As they climbed out of the grotto, Gadarien glanced directly at Jovadão’s torch and spent the next several minutes blinking away purple blotches in his vision. Fitting, since he’d been blind to so many things.
Their cell was one of several built atop a narrow underground chasm. Although Rilão’s tunnel system was tiny compared to Thelenza’s, only connecting a few buildings and storerooms, the area below the Sagradhão led into a system of natural caverns honeycombing the hill. Gadarien knew about them, but had never been inside.
“You were captured, badly wounded,” Gadarien said to Jovadão as they walked. “How did you get away?”
The commander gestured for Gadarien to keep his voice down. “It’s a long story. I had help.”
“From who? Teira?”
“No one you know.”
Gadarien stared at the older man’s back. “How many sides are you on?”
Jovadão laughed softly, glancing over his shoulder. “Just one.”
At the end of the service tunnel, a narrow crevice led into a cavern the size of a bedroom. Broken wine jugs were scattered across the floor, along with a few candle stubs and one decaying sandal. “It will be a while before you’re missed,” Jovadão said as they squeezed into the chamber. “No one was even guarding the grottos.” He sounded genuinely disappointed, as though he’d expected more from the Tementeira, although Gadarien couldn’t fathom why.
Jovadão opened his pack and withdrew their travel bags, which were intact minus a few larger essentials like sleeping rolls. Vaye sighed with relief as she withdrew her tzashim. Even Gadarien’s nownow pipe was still there, although the Tementeira had taken the nownow itself and what remained of his money. The guards probably just hadn’t gotten around to dividing up the rest.
Once they had sorted out their belongings, Jovadão handed them each a large oilcloth bag to keep their packs dry, as well as a few fig rolls, which the three of them devoured. “This was all I could find on short notice,” he said apologetically. “When you’re ready, we need to move.”
“Where can we go?” Vaye said. “They’ll hunt us as soon as they figure out we’re gone.” Her features wavered in the torchlight, the shadows making her expression difficult to read.
Jovadão paused, staring at Vaye as though deciding something, then reached into his pack and handed her a coil of raw witchglass and a short section of bamboo sealed with a cork. Vaye’s breath caught as she extracted a slender parchment roll from the tube. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jovadão warned.
Vaye slid the page back into the tube, and tucked the witchglass into her pack, eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but Gadarien heard the deceit in her tone. Vaye glanced at him, then scowled, remembering who she was talking to. “Fine. What do you know about the page?”
Jovadão crossed his arms. “I think it’s from the Book of Shedach. Specifically, the spell to create a Gyre.”
“That’s suicide,” Adranaya said, startling them all. It seemed like a long time since she had spoken. “You taught us that yourself.”
“Without the text, yes,” Jovadão affirmed. “Those who’ve tried to create a Gyre have all gone mad or died. But they were trying to recreate the spell from scratch.”
“But the Vorkyrda did have it,” Adranaya said, pointing to the scroll. “The Healer had that page. He kept asking me what it was.”
Jovadão shook his head. “They couldn’t read it. High Anashic isn’t like other languages. You have to understand the relationship between the words, the arrangement on the page, like solving a puzzle. The Anashi don’t share that knowledge with outsiders.”
“Yeah,” Vaye said, placing her hands on her hips. “So how do you know it?”
“I don’t,” Jovadão said. “I can’t read it. But I know what it is, because someone told me, someone with inside knowledge.”
“Who?” said Gadarien. “The person who helped you escape?”
“And where did the scroll come from?” Adranaya said. She turned to Vaye. “What does it have to do with you?”
“We can sort all that out later,” Jovadão said, growing frustrated. “The important thing right now is what the spell can do. The Anashim used the Gyre to gain power over the entire world, even though they were heavily outnumbered. It was what made them so dangerous.” He paused reluctantly. “And it was why the rest of the world destroyed them.”
Vaye blanched, looking down at the bamboo tube. When she looked up, her eyes shone. “And you want me—us—to use this thing that killed Anash? To do what, exactly?”
“The spell didn’t kill Anash,” Jovadão said gently. “Sarmala and Dzhar did, fighting over the scraps of Anash’s power like jackals. They tore Anash apart, and the secret of the Gyre was lost, or so everyone thought. But the Vorkyrda thinks there’s another way to unlock it, hidden in the ruins of Anash.”
“What does she think she’ll find?” Gadarien said.
Jovadão settled his gaze on Vaye. “The thing that can give her the power to use the Gyre as the Anashim did. Grandmother.”
This time Gadarien did laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was insane. “I’m sorry, but...” He looked at Vaye apologetically, but this had to be said. “Grandmother is a myth. A metaphor, something to pray to, like the Deucanta or the Ilahin. Or worse, a reason to blame the Anashim when things go wrong. She’s not real.” But Vaye was staring at Jovadão, stricken. “She’s not real. Right?” Slowly, Vaye turned to him, and her expression answered his question. “Holy Harmonies,” he breathed. “You’re both crazy.”
“How do you know the Vorkyrda’s looking for Grandmother?” Vaye said, ignoring Gadarien and turning back to Jovadão. Her tone was still suspicious. “Surely she didn’t tell you her plans.”
Jovadão actually looked embarrassed, which was something Gadarien never thought he would see. “Tadevi—The Healer, I mean. He, uh, talks in his sleep.” There was an awkward pause as they all took in what he meant, but he forged ahead. “Listen to me. The Vorkyrda is planning to invade Cantereia.”
“What?” Gadarien said, startled. “When?”
“Soon, before the rains make the roads impassible. Before the next new moon.”
“What about the treaty?” Adranaya said. In the back of his mind, Gadarien was glad to know that the scholar in her was still intact. He hadn’t seen her engage with a conversation like this since her rescue. Primarily, though, he was reeling from the implications of what Jovadão had said. Another invasion, especially while Cantereia was so divided, would obliterate all the progress the country had made toward recovery. Countless people would be killed, displaced, or left to starve as their crops rotted. Once again, Cantereia would just be a disposable piece in Sarmala and Dzhar’s great game. “Sarmala can’t just march troops across the border,” Adranaya continued. “Hoshin and Dzhar would have to respond.”
Jovadão shrugged. “Apparently the Vorkyrda has a way around that. I don’t know the details. But the invasion is just an excuse to get her army near Anash. Whether she takes Anash back from Dzhar, and whether she finds what she’s looking for or not, Cantereia will be destroyed along the way. I can’t let that happen.”
“I don’t want that either, but what does it have to do with the Gyre spell?” Vaye said.
“The Gyre allows a group of people to distribute the flowstream between them, feeding the signal back and forth between their minds, amplifying it. Like a singing bowl,” Jovadão said. “If you get the pressure and timing just right, it can grow very, very loud, without much energy being put in.”
“Okay,” Gadarien said doubtfully. He heard the part Jovadão wasn’t saying, which was that singing bowls were also famously fragile.
“The Gyre distributes the flowstream among a group and lets you channel much more flow than one person can handle—even an Apogee.” Jovadão said. “Which means you could create a choke point on a powerful natural meridian. A sort of dam.”
“And if you let it build up, and then opened the dam...” Vaye said, her eyes wide.
Jovadão smiled grimly. “Whoever is downstream would be overwhelmed, like a mosquito drinking too deeply. Someone leading an army, for instance.”
“The Vorkyrda,” Adranaya said. “You want us to kill her.” Her voice was calm, but in her overtones, Gadarien read a bloodthirsty quality he hadn’t heard before. It seemed wrong, like a smell of sickness on her breath.
“In the mountains between Dzhar and Sarmala, there’s a powerful flowspring called The Tine,” Jovadão said. “During the invasion, the Vorkyrda will be downstream from it, drawing from the meridian, which is the only one in the area with enough flow for her purposes. If you can form a Gyre, learn how to use it, and get to the summit at the right moment, we can trap her.”
“The mountains between Dzhar and Sarmala...” Gadarien said. “You mean Anash.” He glanced at Vaye and Adranaya, seeing his dread mirrored in their faces. “And between here and there, the Soundless Marsh and the Whirling Wastes. You want us to cross all that, and then climb the mountains of Anash, all before the new moon?”
“I didn’t say it would be fun,” Jovadão replied. “You’ll need the full power of the Gyre just to make it in time. But the difficulty means that the Vorkyrda won’t see it coming.”
“Even if we could make it, the timing would have to be perfect,” Vaye said. “We’d have to release the dam just as the Vorkyrda started to pull. How can we make sure she’s where we need her to be?”
“I’ll care of that,” Jovadão said. “I can lure her into battle, at a time and place of my choosing. I just have to offer up the Tementeira as bait.”
“You can engineer that?” Gadarien said. “How?”
“Because I’m the Ouvintero’s new military advisor,” Jovadão replied. “The fools are spoiling for a fight. They think the Deucanta are on their side.” Given what Jovadão had asserted about Grandmother, Gadarien thought the criticism was a bit hypocritical, but held his tongue.
Vaye pulled the page back out of the tube and squinted at it in the torchlight. “You said we’ll need the Gyre for our journey. Casting the spell requires a strong flowspring, though. Where will we find one around here?”
Jovadão grinned. “That’s the easy part.”
Beta Readers: Click the that appears beside any paragraph to leave a comment. You're already signed in — no extra account needed.
Your comments are private — only you and the author can see them, and you can edit or delete them at any time.