The First Lesson
Selena awoke as her chamber window showed dawn’s rays glowing in the east. She sat up and stretched languorously. The bed was stuffed with stiff straw and the linens were scratchy, but she’d slept as if on a pile of silk pillows. The heat of Saliz made the stone walls weep and her chamber smelled of mold, but it also brought her a small measure of relief from the constant cold of her wound. She should not have been so comfortable, she thought, in the home of a Bazira, and yet the morning’s light seemed a shade of gold she’d never seen before.
The god has sent me, through Skye, on the path to healing.
She rose and splashed water on her face from the basin set out by Ori. As she washed her face and neck, she wondered how the rest of the crew faired. Julian hadn’t been pleased last night that the plans had changed, that was plain. But when the natives brought from the old kitchen a feast fit for an admiral and a case of rum to wash it down, he was left with little choice but to accept Accora’s hospitality.
Choice had very little to do with it, Selena thought. They had no idea where on the island they were and, as Ori had reminded them, Saliz was not kind to those wandered its jungles aimlessly.
Julian had fumed, or at least Selena guessed he did. The blank mask had fallen over his handsome features, rendering him expressionless. But for his eyes. The gray-green color had become a murkier shade, as if dark thoughts passed behind them. Likely he brooded over his ship, burnt and broken and left on the shores of Saliz for scorpions to scuttle over. He drank little and ate nothing, watching in stony silence while his crew enjoyed themselves in their quiet way.
But the quiet was short-lived when the natives had joined them, filling the keep’s small feasting hall with their thick-tongued speech. They had exchanged their reeds of poison darts for reedy flutes, and there was music. Even dancing. Cat, Selena remembered with a smile, had swung arm-in-arm with Whistle, her brilliant orange hair like a burst of flame in the night.
Accora had warned Selena that her first lesson would begin at dawn so Selena had retired early, glancing at Julian before Ori showed her to her room. He stared at a candle flame, one hand on a flask of something strong, the other on his dagger that he’d laid on the table. He didn’t look up as she left the small feasting hall, but she thought she felt his attention follow her. Or perhaps it was her imagination. She fell asleep with the image of his face half lost to shadow and his finger trailing along his dagger’s edge, but still her sleep had been deep and dreamless.
Now Selena wiped her face dry and considered herself in the mirror. The wound remained hidden behind her bedclothes, its ugliness unable to mar her reflection. Her eyes weren’t shadowed with weariness and her hair fell along her shoulders in soft waves.
But Accora must know that I’m the god’s warrior.
She braided her hair and, for the first time in weeks, pulled on her chainmail shirt over her linen blouse. Over that, she smoothed her wool tunic, and strapped her sword to her waist. Now the mirror revealed an Aluren Paladin ready for battle. She nodded once, satisfied, and left her small room in Accora’s keep.
Ilior waited for her in the hallway.
Dawn’s light had not yet found its way into the crumbling keep and her friend was a hulking mass in the dimness. Irritation flared. Ilior always knew when to rouse himself to join her.
But my impatience with him is new.
“I hope you’ve reconsidered,” he said without preamble. “It’s not right being here. It’s feels strange.”
“I thought so at first too,” Selena said, “but the situation has changed.”
“Just like that?”
“I know that I am on the right path, Ilior. I slept well. Untroubled.”
“More witch’s potions perhaps,” Ilior said sourly. “You should have let me stand watch over you.”
Another stab of irritation knifed through her. The peace of her deep sleep bled away. “I must defeat Bacchus,” she said tightly. “She will show me how.”
“You believe her? A Bazira?”
“I don’t know that she is still Bazira—”
“You don’t know anything about her!” Ilior’s voice rumbled around hallway like an avalanche. “You trust too quickly.”
Selena clutched her elbows, her fingers digging in hard enough to cause pain. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said tightly. “But I learned much about Accora on Isle Nanokar. I learned many things there.”
I learned you lied to me…
Ilior crossed his arms, his lone wing twitching. “So. You go to meet her now?”
“Yes. She says I must train with her. Alone.”
“Already it begins. She is driving a wedge between us.”
She could scarcely see her friend in the dim light but she heard the pain in his voice. It is not Accora who is driving the wedge, she thought and her heart grew heavier when she thought of what more Accora might have learned about the Vai’Ensai. Things that Ilior knew as well, but that he kept silent about. Secrets he kept from her.
She drew herself up. “I need her to defeat Bacchus. That is what matters now.”
“What does she get from it? When Bacchus is dead, she will sacrifice herself to your sword? You believe that?”
“That is her promise.”
“A promise from a Bazira.”
“I’ll be cautious.”
“And I will stay beside you—”
“Not today!”
Ilior recoiled as if slapped and Selena felt as horrible as if she had struck him. But her voice was cold and stony in her own ears. “Nothing can interfere, Ilior. Nothing.”
She turned, leaving him in alone in the dark.
Accora met her at the kitchen door. The old woman studied the younger narrowly.
“You’re dressed for battle, but is it only a costume? Your eyes are heavy. If I had to guess, I’d say guilt haunts you. A wasted emotion that saps focus from your goal.”
“All I care about is closing the wound.” Selena said. “Everything else is trivial.”
Accora sniffed. “We shall see.”
She opened the door and led them into the outer bailey. Selena felt the heat of the jungle as a thickness in the air. The lightening sky was orange and purple with the dawn and smelled of rain. Accora wore gray silken robes that whispered as she walked, with blood-red embroidery about the neck and wrists. Gone was the paint she had worn to disguise herself as a native, and her long silver hair was plaited down her back. Her youthful beauty, refined and tested by age, was still very evident.
Their path wound behind the main house and was strewn with fallen rocks and weeds. Here and there, bright patches of green where the jungle sought to claim the castle seeped from under the outer bailey wall and crept up over the sagging stones.
“What is this place?” Selena asked. “Not one brick of it looks as though it belongs here.”
“That is true enough,” Accora said, “which is why I like it. This is Castle Penderlake. It was built during the Age of Horizons. That illustrious Age in which every lord from the Western Watch felt he had the right to plant a flag on every island in the Eastern Edge. Never mind if there were already people landed and settled on those islands since the Breaking. The rich merchants and lordlings from the four big islands claimed more than a hundred islands in the Eastern Edge as colonies of their own alone. Many were overthrown during the Age of Turbulence, of course. Many failed. Castle Penderlake—named for his lordship of the same—is the testament to one such failure. A perfect example of a man overstepping his bounds and so perishing for the hubris.”
“Perished how?”
“The Yu’kri are a peaceful people. Their ‘savage’ naked appearance is the result of living in such heat, the mud they wear to protect them from the bite of a thousand different insects. But when threatened, they show their teeth. Penderlake learned that. I learned that, when I washed ashore five years ago, half-dead of thirst and soaked to the bone with water I couldn’t drink.”
“Why did they spare you?” Selena asked.
Accora regarded her a moment with her sharp, bird-like eyes, and then waved a hand. “That is a long story and one that has no bearing on our present task. I came to show you this.”
They had traversed the entire circumference of the inner bailey and arrived at a structure Selena was certain had not been a part of Lord Penderlake’s original plans. Built into the space where part of the bailey wall had crumbled away was a little cottage made of glass.
Selena had visited the greenhouses on Isle Parish that the Guild kept to cultivate and study different flora from around Lunos. Those greenhouses were uniform in style—long rectangular structures with panes of clear glass supported by plain iron frames. Accora’s greenhouse gleamed like a multi-colored gem in the dawn’s light. The panes of glass were comprised of every color and were not uniform, but cobbled from different sources and patched together. Selena saw shards, large and small, melded like puzzle pieces with lead, and some smaller mosaics of multi-colored sea glass. Selena was awed at its inelegant beauty.
“What is it?”
Accora smiled thinly. “My collection.”
Selena followed her into the glass house through a door made of pale wood. Plants, flowers and small trees lined the walls and covered the tops of three tables that were laid end to end, and had likely once served in Penderlake’s kitchen. The foliage grew from pots made of glazed pottery Selena was sure the natives of Saliz had provided, and the air was perfumed with the scents of soil and flower. At the far end of the greenhouse, the shelves held jars and bottles, pots of unknown substances, and small animals that floated in thick liquids.
“This is my greenhouse,” Accora said, “but it is also laboratory and shrine: a shrine to learning and a place to give fealty to not the Shining nor the Shadow face of the god, but to the realm in between where balance lies. Where most life lives.”
“It reminds me a little bit of the library on Isle Nanokar,” Selena said, watching Accora’s reaction. “I think Byric would approve of your greenhouse.”
Accora smirked. “Don’t try to be sly, dear, it doesn’t suit you.” She sat on long wooden bench among the vials and bottles, and slapped her hands to her knees. “So Byric has spilled my secrets, eh?”
“Not all.” Selena remained standing, her hand resting lightly on her sword. “He couldn’t answer the one question I need answered more than any other.”
“And what might that be?” Accora asked. “No, no, let me guess. Byric told you that I arrived on that frigid island full of blasphemous questions and theories, and you left his cave worried that you’d been sent to kill an apostate.”
Selena crossed her arms. “That’s the short of it. Is it true?”
Accora smoothed her skirts over her knees. “No. It’s not.” She heaved a sigh. “Rest assured, sweeting, that when it comes time, you will plunge that pretty sword into the blackened, withered heart of a Bazira faithful.”
A peculiar sensation of relief and dread warred over Selena’s thoughts. “Why do you go so willingly to your own death?”
“I don’t,” Accora said. “Not yet, anyway. After your training, after you kill Bacchus…” She smiled to herself. “I will be ready for my rest.”
“If you teach me how to slay Bacchus, killing you after will not be easy.”
“Aye,” Accora said. “Another weakness, and one that is too ingrained to scrub out, I fear.”
Selena ignored the jibe. “If you’re still Bazira, why did Byric believe otherwise? He spoke at length about the doubts you had regarding both faces of the god.”
Accora waved a dismissive hand. “That was twenty years ago. The musings of a younger woman. A distraction.”
“A distraction from what?”
“From my task. Powerful Bazira adherents—such as myself—are often commanded to mentor younger pupils who show promise. I was so commanded, but my pupil was…difficult. I sought temporary relief on Isle Nanokar. A small rebellion against the duty, a rebellion that no doubt colored my discussions with Byric.”
Selena frowned. “Byric described you as fervent. He mentioned a book you tore a page from a rare book—”
“Yes, yes, I ruined his pretty book.” She laughed dryly. “You should have seen his face. As if I’d pissed on the Chainbreaker Treaties, and then set them afire.”
“What was that page?” Selena asked. “Byric said it had Ho Sun writing on it. Did you find a translation? Do you still have it?”
“No,” Accora said. “I do not.”
Selena was about to press her further when the old woman waved her hands as if the questions hovered in the air around her head.
“There was nothing of import to that page but what I infused into it myself. No, I was intrigued, for a time, by silly fables and the like, but as I said, that was an exercise in distraction.”
“From your pupil,” Selena said.
“My nightmare.” Her eyes grew cloudy with memories and Selena wondered if the woman realized she was speaking aloud. “The atrocities a man can perpetrate on woman are inconceivable to the man. Pain is but a small part. I can abide pain. Bazira are trained to withstand agonies of the body. But there are deeper agonies that cut deeper than flesh or bone, and leave scars that never heal.” Her gaze flickered to Selena and Selena saw she meant for her to hear every word. “You understand the pain of an open wound. That is why I know you will succeed where others have failed me.”
“Bacchus,” Selena said, her voice low. “He was your charge.”
“Yes,” Accora said, and infused her voice with strength again. “Once returned to his service—after Nanokar—I stopped searching for answers to silly mysteries, because it was all rendered so trivial in light of what I faced with him. Fables and translations…distractions, all. There’s no power in old history. There is only what you take for yourself in the here and now. The longer I served Bacchus, the less and less power I had. I realized that if I were to survive, I’d have to leave my faith that did nothing to stop him from damaging me. And that’s precisely what I did.”
“Didn’t you just assure me you were still Bazira?” Selena asked. “I thought—”
“I am Bazira, but no longer of them. There is a difference.”
Selena nodded. “High Reverent Coronus told me that Bazira and Aluren are not merely the names we give to our magic, light or dark, Shadow or Shining. I am not called Aluren because I heal and call water and weave light. I do those things because I am Aluren. Being Aluren or Bazira is a mindset—or, more accurately—a choice that is made in your heart.”
Accora sniffed. “Perhaps your Temple is not entirely peopled with fools.”
“The High Reverent Coronus was returned to the sea before the war,” Selena said stiffly. “He is still mourned.”
“A pity. The Aluren are desperately ignorant these days.” Accora waved off Selena’s affronted look. “Take no offense. The Bazira are no better. Worse, even. While the Aluren kill themselves to the point of extinction for all their good-deed-doing, the Bazira cannibalize their own.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Bazira mentality is very much like that of a ravenous beast. The hungrier and more powerful the beast becomes, the less it is able to distinguish—or cares to distinguish—enemy from ally. But don’t mistake my departure from the Bazira temple as a sign that I’ve seen the light or the error of my ways, or any other such foolish claptrap the Aluren pass off as wisdom—or worse—dogma. Words mean very little. Names mean less. I wield the icy magic because my soul was born to the dark side of the moon where there is very little warmth and nothing that is bright or shiny or silvery.” She peered at Selena with mock curiosity. “Feel better? I didn’t need the kafira ritual to glean that you had reservations about killing me in cold blood.”
Selena was already adept at ignoring the old woman’s jibes, and instead thought of the larger implications. She is Bazira. There is no doubt.
“But I doubted Skye,” Selena said aloud, “because she and my wound are forever linked. That is unfair. I see that now.”
“Unfair?” Accora’s gaze turned to a large tray that hung on a wooden support beam. The tray displayed two dozen insects: beetles and boll weevils, moths and mantises, spiders and scorpions, each pinned to the board with nails or needles. The smallest of the specimens was bigger than her palm, the largest a kind of centipede that ran the entire length of the tray’s edge.
“Have you seen this? Part of my collection.” Accora rose to her feet to admire the insects. “Saliz’s most deadly weapons. Each one of these lovelies has the ability to maim or kill or sicken with its poisonous bite.”
Selena examined the tray. The pincers on one beetle looked sharp enough to take off a finger. Another, a black mantis, had a flat chitin-covered body and wickedly sharp mandibles beneath its bulbous eyes.
“That one is called a stowaway mantis,” Accora said, “named so because, unlike its green and pious brethren, this creature is secretive about its meals. It clings to its prey and nibbles away at its flesh much like humans might gnaw a leg of mutton. The victim does not feel that he or she is being made a feast as the poison in the stowaway mantis’s saliva gland numbs the affected area. Unfortunately, that poison is highly toxic and the prey begins to become feverish, sickens, and dies long before the little bug can finish its meal.”
Selena peered at the insect. “It is both beautiful and ugly.”
“How so?”
“Its form is somewhat beautiful: sleek and black. Almost elegant. The ugliness is in its purpose. To kill in such a horrible manner—secretive and covert—so that its victim doesn’t even know it is waging a battle for its life until it’s too late.”
“Aye,” Accora said. She regarded Selena with hard eyes. “The stowaway mantis changes the color of its skin in order to blend in with its host. An ingenious deception, is it not?”
Selena met the woman’s stare, wondering at her sudden intensity. “Is there a purpose to showing me this?”
Accora held her gaze a moment more. “When Bacchus is dead you will understand.”
An ugly, hollow feeling expanded in Selena’s stomach. “Understand what?”
“Everything.” She released Selena from her penetrating stare and resumed her seat on the bench. “But first, death must be achieved, mine and his. Mine will be simple. Bacchus’s will not. I will show you what I’ve learned so that you may defeat him.”
“Why?”
“Why else? Revenge.” Accora leaned forward, her eyes now full of icy zeal that erased any lingering doubt as to which face of the god she had sworn allegiance. “I want to see it happen. I want to watch his rotted soul slip from his body like a vapor, dissipating until there’s nothing left but a carcass to burn.”
The murderous hate in Accora’s eyes made Selena’s hand itch for her sword. “Revenge will not bring you peace,” she said quietly.
“Your sword will.”
The old woman went to a shelf upon which stood many glass vials, jars, vases, and bottles. She drew one small vial of yellowish-brown liquid and sat again. She indicated for Selena to do the same.
“Have you heard of the darkpool?”
“No,” Selena said. “Never.”
Accora sighed. “The Aluren do not send spies into Bazira territory, no matter the advantages.”
“We haven’t the Paladins to spare,” Selena admitted.
“It matters little. The Aluren will learn of the darkpools soon enough, much to their detriment.”
“What are they?”
“None know precisely what they are, or why the waters in them are so tainted. But they form in places where great death, pain, and destruction were wrought, that is certain. That they are powerful weapons for the Bazira is also certain, as the various effects of the darkpool seem to be uniquely tailored to Bazira magic. It is as if the darkpools were meant to be used as tools to those who serve the Shadow face. And its uses are as are numerous as they are dangerous.”
“How so?”
“Drinking a tiny sip of darkpool water opens up the mind of the drinker to the Bazira. Thoughts and feelings, memories and dreams…the Bazira may steal them all, depending on the amount of water consumed.” She held the small vial between two fingers. “I stole this from Bacchus five years ago. And two nights ago, I poisoned you with a drop or two while you sat, enraptured, watching a pretty little flame dance in your lap.”
Selena clenched her jaw. “Why? For what purpose?”
“Information, of course.”
Selena remembered the pirate captain, Jarabax, had told her that information was like currency, and Skye had been rich in it. She looked up from her thoughts to see Accora watching her with a dry twist on her lips.
“I don’t see how prying into our thoughts can offer you any advantage.”
“Do you not yet understand that my every action is done on your behalf? The advantages gleaned from that ritual were not mine, but yours. When used by Bacchus, the darkpool water has the capability to destroy you. I used it for your benefit. So that you may know if there are any among your crew who would stand in the way of your purpose.”
“My companions stand with me,” Selena began, but Accora spoke as if she hadn’t heard.
“Take Niven, for instance. Sweet Niven. He has his own secrets that he is trying so desperately to hide from all of you, from all of Lunos, for he feels exposure will mean his death.”
“You should not tell me this.”
“Do you know which of Captain Tergus’s mute crew is not quite so mute as you’ve been led to believe?”
Selena started in surprise, but quickly shook her head. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“Or why your devoted Ilior has stood by your side for nearly a decade? Are you not a touch curious to know the lies he’s fed you? Lies that you’ve swallowed without question?”
“Ilior…?” The doubts seeded when they discussed the Vai’Ensai translation bloomed, and the ache in her heart was swift and deep.
Accora smirked. “You have already been betrayed by those you trust. Don’t you wish to know how?”
I sometimes doubt his motivations for helping you.
Selena hugged herself. “No. Not like this. This is wrong.”
“No, this is truth! And no game, girl. The eradication of your wound is at stake. Nothing less than that.”
The urge was great. Sour words to allow Accora to tell her everything were on her lips, and she nearly spit them out. Then An-Lan’s prophecy came back to her.
The dark will try to consume you. Make you something like itself.
Selena inhaled deeply, mastered her emotions. “That is between he and I and no one else. He doesn’t deserve this base treatment. I will submit to your tutelage in order to kill Bacchus, Accora. To eradicate my wound. But I will not let you tempt me with Bazira deceptions in the meanwhile.”
Accora sniffed. “Some would call that noble. I call it foolish.”
“Some would say of all of the those in that kafira tent, your secrets would be the most useful to me,” Selena said.
“Pity that you haven’t the Bazira magic to make use of the darkpool water in that manner,” was the reply, and Selena could see that her words had gotten under the old woman’s skin. “Shall I tell you what I saw of you, girl?” Accora sneered. “What I saw in your sweet, noble heart?”
“If you must. It won’t change anything.” Selena said.
“Won’t it?” Accora smiled snidely. “The Aluren are forbidden to fornicate with anyone who is not also Aluren, yes?”
“Yes,” Selena said slowly. “That is true.”
“And your wound…Besides the tortuous cold, it is an ugly thing. Hideous. Your Aluren brethren shun you for it. They’ve turned you into an outcast in your own Temple. But even so, even so…” Accora tapped a finger to her lip knowingly. “Even if there had been one brave Aluren knight in your dwindling ranks willing to try to overlook it, you would have rebuffed him because you know on singular truth above all else: that all good and decent people are repulsed by your wound.”
Selena’s mouth went dry and her throat felt as if she’d swallowed a stone. “There is nothing awful you can say to me that I haven’t already felt a thousand times over.”
“That may have been true…Until Julian Tergus.” Accora’s ugly triumphant smile widened. “Because of the darkpool water, I know that you sometimes dream of your captain’s arms around you, as if he could free you from the icy prison of your body with his touch alone.” Accora shook her head like a parent reprimanding a wayward child. “Foolish girl.”
Selena felt her neck and ears flush red. “I fell into frigid water and he was forced to warm me,” she said. “That is all you saw and that’s all there is.”
“Liar,” Accora said. “But more important is that he refused the water and so remains closed off to me. And that is dangerous. To both of us.”
“I don’t wish to discuss this anymore. We waste time,” Selena said. “You’ve taught me nothing but that I have even less cause to trust you than I did before. And there wasn’t much to begin with.”
“I don’t need your trust, girl,” Accora snapped, “I need your sword. Your magic. Your power. And you need me if your wound is to close. There is no trust, there is necessity. And my necessity required that I glean from you information that I might use for our protection and for your instruction.”
“There will be no further instruction if you poison us with that water again,” Selena said. “The eradication of my wound is everything, that is true. But I won’t pay for it with the souls of my friends.”
“Friends,” the old woman spat, but swallowed whatever else she had been about to say. She held Selena’s gaze a moment and Selena felt the silent truce between them. An accord based on mutual desperation and nothing more. The old woman was too proud or stubborn or Bazira to say it, but Selena saw that she’d earned the woman’s grudging respect.
Selena lifted her chin. “Let us begin.”
“Hmmph.” Accora gave her a final, imperious look and then held aloft the pallid, pus-colored vial. “The water gave you during the ritual the other night—this water— came from a darkpool that Bacchus now guards. After you kill him, you may destroy it, for what he is doing with it is far worse than the prying I did the other night.”
“What does he use it for?”
“Can’t you guess?”
Selena’s gaze went to the vial in Accora’s hand. The liquid inside was a sickly yellow color. Like the pus that oozed from the dead mermaid’s eyes.
“The merkind.”
“Aye,” Accora said. “It is terrible enough to drink the water. Quite another horror to be submerged in it.”
“Bacchus…he trawls for merkind, captures and then poisons them?”
“Yes,” Accora said. “The darkpool water has a horrifying effect on the merkind that it does not have on humans. It alters them, as you’ve seen, and when they are mindless, half-dead hungry things, he releases them back into the seas to hunt and kill.”
“Where is he?” Selena demanded, her hand clenched around her sword’s handle. “Which island?”
“Information. Do you see its value? It’s quite obvious to me that Bacchus’s location is all I have to ensure that neither you, nor one of your loyal friends, end me before my time. And besides, you are not ready to face him. You would sail to Bacchus, march into his foul temple, hold up your pretty sword in a challenge salute, and then you would die the most excruciating, debased death his blackened mind could devise. He would force you to drink from the darkpool and watch you dwindle into insanity. You would fight foes of his creation—foes culled from your darkest imaginings—and as you fight these phantoms, he will kill you.”
Selena shivered. “So much ugliness in this,” she whispered. “Celestine made it sound so easy.”
She expected Accora to scoff at this and was surprised when the old woman laid her hand on Selena’s. “Your people are fools or assassins in their own right, sending you after the likes of us.”
Selena pondered all of this for long moments.
The horror of your wound is no small thing. Great evil wrought it. Destroying great evil is necessary to close it.
She took a deep, steadying breath and raised her gaze to meet Accora’s.
“What must I do?”
“The key is your healing,” Accora said. “The dark nature of the Bazira enable us to use the darkpool for our purposes. Healing—the Aluren’s greatest power—is its corollary and its nemesis. You must use your healing to barricade yourself against Bacchus. From both the might of his blade and the insidious power of the darkpool.”
“Barricade myself?” Selena asked. “How?”
Accora rose from the bench. “Come. I will show you.”