Guild Mage: Apprentice

He turned back to where Rika tär Kalevis kæn Bælris, his kwenim, remained wrapped in a nest of furs and pillows, her long hair tussled and spread out around her head like the spray at the bottom of a waterfall. Rika’s cheeks were still flushed, as was the skin just beneath her collarbone, peeking out from above the blankets. She didn’t look like she had the slightest intention of getting out of bed in the near future.

"I want to talk to my father about what we found at Keremor," Keri admitted. "It worries me."

"Your father and Sohvis will have it under control, whatever it is," she assured him. "If it’s kept without you for this long, it will keep a little while more. Are you certain I can’t persuade you to come back to bed?"

For a moment, Keri considered it. He’d never fully appreciated just how enjoyable being bound to a woman would be; he and Rika had grown up together, but this new element of their relationship had most certainly changed things. Instead, he walked back over to the bed of polished larchwood, leaned down, and kissed her.

"I can’t get it out of my mind," Keri explained, running one hand along her forehead and back into her hair. "It’s going to gnaw at me until I know what’s happening. Now that we’ve been joined a full month, he can’t put me off any more with excuses."

"He can’t put you off with this particular excuse," Rika corrected him, with a mischievous grin. "I’m certain he will have entirely new reasons for you to do what he wants."

"You’ll still have the worst of it," Keri teased her. "Now they’ll all be asking you when to expect a child."

"All the more reason for me to stay in bed," Rika grumbled, turning over onto her side and wrapping the furs more tightly around her body. "Close the door on your way out."

Keri did as she asked, though he didn’t expect anyone would be coming into their new quarters without permission, anyway. Their sitting room was appointed in the same style as the bed chamber, matching the rest of Mountain Home in all but details.

While the bones of the sprawling manor were granite, much of the interior was sheathed in wood. The floors, for instance, the frames of the double-paned windows, and most of the furniture were all crafted from larch trees, one of the few species hardy enough to survive in the taiga. Atop the polished wood were thrown plush fur rugs, carefully harvested over the years from a variety of northern animals, including bear, wolf, and fox. Rabbit furs were generally too small to be used for such purposes, even if they became mana beasts.

The carved furniture was ornamented with scrimshaw: door and drawer handles, oil lamp fittings, even the new horologes with the innards purchased and shipped from Al’Fenthia not twenty years ago. It was all quite comfortable, particularly with heating sigils worked into the floors. The enchantments kept everything warm enough that Keri hardly needed the robe, but he wasn’t certain exactly where he would find his father, and he didn’t want to be unprepared if he needed to step outside.

Keri paused with his hand at the door of the sitting room. His Næv’bel leaned against the corner of the room, right where he’d left it. His hand itched to take the spear in hand, but that was only the memories of the shrine in the forest. There was no need for him to go armed here: the guards at the watchtowers would have sounded the alarm at the smallest sign of danger. Leaving his weapon behind, Keri closed the door behind him and set out looking for his father.

As it turned out, he found his cousin Sohvis, first. Sohvis ka Auris kæn Bælris was only a year older than Keri, and closer to a brother than the son of his aunt. He was just inside the armory, with the door ajar, and half stripped out of his armor.

"Need help?" Keri offered.

"It would speed things up," Sohvis agreed, pulling an enchanted vambrace off and setting it in place on his armor stand.

Keri stepped into the room and maneuvered himself behind Sohvis, where he could begin working at the fastenings that held the cuirass onto the backplate. "Father had you out on patrol, then?" he asked.

Sohvis shook his head, sending locks of blonde hair flying in every direction - they were long enough to get in Keri’s way. "No," his cousin said. "The elders sent us down to Cold Harbor. We found the woman who made your altar."

"It isn’t my altar," Keri quibbled, then helped Sohvis out of his enchanted plate. "It was a woman, you said? Just one?"

"One that we found," Sohvis corrected him. "A whaler’s wife named Severa. They’re gathering to question her now, and I wanted to get there before they start."

"I’ll come with you," Keri offered. Between the two of them they had Sohvis out of the rest of his armor quickly enough, and each piece stored in the place prepared for it. When they were done, they closed the door to the armory, allowing the sigils that warded the room to reconnect.

"How’s Rika?" Sohvis asked, as the two young men hurried through the halls of Mountain Home. "I haven’t seen much of her since the joining ceremony."

"She’s well," Keri said, unable to keep a smile from curving his lips. "When I left her, she’d stolen all the furs and gone back to sleep."

Sohvis cleared his throat. "They’re questioning her in the council chamber."

Under normal circumstances, neither Keri nor Sohvis would have been allowed to enter the council chamber without an express invitation. On this occasion, however, the guards at the door merely inclined their heads and allowed the two friends to pass. Within, Keri’s father, Imari, sat in the center of a group of half a dozen elders. At his right hand, his younger sister, Väina Tär Väinis kæn Bælris, noticed them enter. She inclined her head ever so slightly to her son, Sohvis, which Keri chose to interpret as approval of their attendance.

The whaler’s wife knelt in the center of the circular chamber, on the floor. She was chained, with two guards standing just behind her. It was strange, Keri thought: there was nothing to pick her out from any one of a score of other young women from Cold Harbor. He wondered for a moment just what trail had led Sohvis on his hunt; Keri’s life had been consumed with ceremonies leading up to the joining, and then celebrations after. He would have to do something to thank his friend for taking up the duties that should have been his, Keri decided.

"Do not think to deceive us," Ilmari ka Väinis, head of the Council of Elders, warned the woman. Severa, that was her name, Keri recalled. "You are bound in chains that have been enchanted with the word of truth. No deception will stand before this council. Was it by your hand the shrine of blood was built in the shoals of Keremor?"

"Not by my hand," Severa said, her voice small in the great chamber of stone. "Though I did sacrifice there, to the Great Mother."

Ilmari leaned forward, his eyes burning with the light of his word. "Not the crime of a lone woman, then. Give me the names. Who built the shrine? Who else worshiped there? Who else took part in these foul sacrifices?"

The woman held her tongue, then smiled. "Your chains can’t make me speak," she realized, with a laugh. "You want the truth, Elder? Here it is, then. I’ve done nothing wrong. You call yourselves the great, the proud, Unconquered House of Bælris. The Eld who were never defeated. What do we owe the traitors, then? Why should we not worship as we wish? I waited and waited for a child, but never was my wish granted until I prayed to the Mother of Blood. And now, will you execute me while a child of the Eld finally grows in my womb?"

"Nothing good comes of worshipping the old gods," Ilmari’s voice broke over the murmuring of the elders. "This lesson has been taught a thousand times in a thousand years. Whatever shadow of them remains at Godsgrave, has become a thing so twisted and evil that all it touches is corrupted. I do not blame you for your sorrow and your grief, Severa, but what you have done is not the way. You would make us all slaves again, out of your own selfishness."

"And yet," his sister, Väina, interrupted, "if she truly is with child, the life within her is innocent. We do not punish the child for the crime of the parent."

"Anything that springs forth from a womb cursed by the Lady of Blood will be corrupt," Ilmari argued. "Better the child never be born, than it be cursed to such a fate."

"You think this is the only one?" Severa asked, then laughed aloud. Keri felt his stomach grow cold and unsettled, as if he’d eaten bad meat. "There must be a score of children, not only at Cold Harbor, but here at Mountain Home. Are you going to hunt down each and every child, and put them to death? Do you think your people would stand for the Council of Elders to stain their hands with the blood of so many babies? And you call what I did evil?"

"I will have the names," Keri’s father growled, leaping to his feet. "Of every person who worshiped at that damned shrine."

"Just the one?" Severa gasped, in between laughter. "Or did you want to hunt everyone who honors the mother throughout the north?"

"Take her to a cell," Ilmari commanded, his eyes turning to the guards. "See that she is examined by a healer. We would know whether she is with child, or not. Perhaps solitude will loosen her tongue. This meeting of the council is at an end."

As the guards dragged the struggling woman away, Keri and Sohvis shared a look, then approached the council seats. "Father," Keri said, inclining his head. "Aunt."

"You should be enjoying time with your kwenim," Aunt Väina chastised him, though she embraced Keri nonetheless. "You look well, though. Sohvis, you did well tracking the criminal down. The Council is grateful for your service." She released Keri and wrapped her arms around her son.

"If her words were true, this is a rot upon our house," Keri’s father muttered. "Could there truly be so many? Have they forgotten what it was like, to serve the old gods? Do they care so little for freedom?"

"Freedom does not bring a child to an empty house," Väina responded. "Walk with us, boys," she said. "Let we four speak away from prying ears."

"Yes," Ilmari said. "Come. What we must do is not for all to know."

Keri and Sohvis managed to hold their tongues until they were not only out of the council chamber, but out of the sprawling manor entirely. Once their steps scraped against the granite walks that wound between the steaming bathing pools, sheltered beneath the spreading boughs of the northern pines, then finally Keri spoke.

"We need to send word to the other houses," he said. "If what this woman said was true, there could be a cult spread throughout the entirety of the north. This isn’t the kind of prey that we can hunt alone, father."

Ilmari grunted. "I understand your view," he said. "But it is too early for such a step. The chains ensured only that she spoke the truth as she understood it. I harbour doubts about how deep in the confidence of such a cult a simple whaler’s wife from Cold Harbor would be. She must have had rumors, certainly, but it is up to us to ferret out the truth of them. We begin by cleansing our own house, by ripping out every weed that has sprouted, root and stem. Sohvis, you will take command of our men. My son has other duties."

"Father," Keri protested. "Let me do what I’ve been trained to do. If our House is truly under threat, do not hold me aside."

"Your task is more important," Ilmari said, halting his steps. He took Keri by both shoulders. "We dwindle. You are my last surviving son, and of all the descendants of Bælris who have lived and died over the last eleven-hundred years, your generation numbers only three. Your cousin can lead our men as well as you can, Inkeris. Of you, I ask something far more important. You must give our House an heir."

Keri blushed. "That hardly takes every moment of every day, father," he grumbled.

"He is correct," Aunt Väina broke in. "Let Keri help, brother. This hunt will begin close to home. If the trail leads far afield, then my son can pick up the hunt, and Keri can remain here with Rika. A child will come when the gods will it to be so. In the meanwhile, let our people see both our sons working together. It will give them confidence."

"Very well, Sister," Ilmari conceded, with a huff. "Inkeris will have command so long as this investigation is confined to our house’s lands. If an expedition must be sent out, then Sohvis will lead it. The two of you will work together, as it has ever been. You have our complete faith, but you will report to the council once each month on what you have found. Any cultists that you capture will be brought before us for questioning. Do you both understand your task?"

"Yes, Father," Keri said, and Sohvis echoed him.

"Good. Inkeris, remain with me a moment," Ilmari commanded.

"Come, Sohvis," Aunt Väina said, taking her son’s arm in her own. "I have a proposal for you from the House of Asuris, and there is a letter included from the young woman herself. Let me show it to you."

"I’ll look for you after," Keri told his cousin, and Sohvis nodded in agreement. His father took him by the elbow, and led him further down the stone paths. Steam rose to either side of them; at this time of day, there were few people bathing in the pools.

"I do not understand why anyone would turn to one of the dead gods," Keri said, once they were out of earshot. "No matter how desperate."

"I hope that you never have cause to say otherwise," Ilmari said. "You know that our numbers are shrinking."

"So they say," Keri said. "But I do not have your many years of perspective, Father."

"Is that a clever way of telling me that I’ve grown old?" Ilmari laughed. "Don’t I know it."

"It wasn’t quite what I meant," Keri said, with a smile. "But if that is the meaning you take..."

"How is your kwenim?" his father asked. "I’ve hardly seen Rika since the joining ceremony, but I suppose that is as it should be. The concerns of the world will crowd in soon enough; I suppose it has already begun. I wanted you both to have at least a little time with each other, to learn what it is to be joined."

"She is well," Keri said. "Though I think we are both starting to get a little restless. I know she spent yesterday afternoon making notes for a new interpretation of the sword dance."

"That will be good, when she is ready," Ilmari said. "A performance will give our people something to speak about other than this nasty business. The truth is, my son, that our creators never designed us to outlast them. We were shaped for their convenience, not to be our own people. And they never needed as many of us as they needed our younger siblings. There is a reason we sometimes call them fireflies."

"Kenthäoria," Keri said. "The field slaves. They call themselves humans."

"Yes," Ilmari agreed. "In their case, numbers were a good thing. They died in the mines, they died fishing at sea, they broke their backs in the fields. There was always a need for more to replace those who were lost, and so they were designed to be fertile. That was never our purpose. I have come to believe the only thing that has carried us this far is the Vædic blood, and that runs more thin with each successive generation. Which is why," he finished, "matching you with your cousin was so important."

"I know this, Father," Keri said.

"Bælris was my grandfather," Ilmari said. "Though I never knew him. One quarter of the blood in my veins is Vædic. For you and Rika, that proportion is only one eighth. By matching the two of you, at least the blood will not dwindle any further. My days have grown late, my son. Let me know that our house will last, before I pass from this world."

"We will, Father," Keri assured him. "You don’t need to worry. You have plenty of time left, and when you are done I will take your place."

Ilmari ka Väinis put one arm around his son’s shoulders. "You’re a good son," he said, after a moment. "Alright, then. I entrust this to you. Hunt down this cult. Find them all. Dig them out of whatever dark holes they’ve dug for themselves, Inkeris, and shine the light of Bælris on them. Burn every trace of this darkness away."