The Duelist 11, page 20
“Only a Councilman or a Silent One may enter the House,” Sha-Kane said. “I should accompany you.”
“Alright, then,” I said with a nod. “In that case, everyone else needs to stay here. We’ve figured out way too much, and we’ve made a lot of enemies, especially here on Alem.”
“Teivel was a tinker, he had an extensive library,” Anwaar said. “Horus and I can scour his books for anything that might be useful, like weaknesses in the machine, or how he made it work. If we destroy his research, it will be harder for someone else to recreate it.”
“And we can’t leave Alem until Jenner and the others get here,” Shay said. “We need to sit tight before we move anywhere. Ideally, before we make a move on the Council.”
“I have no intention of running after we take down the Council,” I said. “Otherwise, it’ll just build itself back up.”
“Not to mention, we might not have the luxury of waiting,” Zoie told the phoenix-woman. “Alex is right, we’ve made a lot of enemies here. We need to move fast, before the Council catches on to what we’re trying to do.”
“Hopefully, they’re still reeling about the Heart of Aventoll being healed,” Amaya said. “They’ll be figuring out how to levy their power when they can’t mobilize demons. They can probably get by on sheer threats for a while, but not indefinitely.”
“All the more reason why we move quickly,” I said. “The sooner we can show Aventoll what the Council and the Order did, how the Hearts of the Islands became sick, the more likely we can stop the Hearts from becoming sick again. So, Sha-Kane, you and I are headed to the House of Silence.”
“We’ll hold the fort here, then,” Zoie said, and she reached out to take my hand.
I raised it to my lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles, and I had just turned to go when something came to mind, so I stopped and turned back.
“Nova,” I said, and the Lakuna woman looked at me blankly.
“Yes?”
“I…” I looked around at the others and then took Nova’s hands and moved us several steps aside, for the barest sliver of privacy. “I spoke to Sera when we first found her, you know. She only agreed to come with us because I told her we had a Lakuna in our Crew, one who was there of her own free will.”
“Auntie Sera mentioned,” Nova said with a smile. “What about it?”
“Well… I also asked her about Lakuna traditions of marriage,” I said. “Apparently, Lakuna don’t have marriage as Ashers would normally think of it, because Lakuna don’t own one another. They’re partners in all things-- sisters, mothers, daughters.”
“They are,” the green-skinned woman said. “We are one family, the Children of the sea and the Fish.”
“So, I understand if you don’t want to, but Sera said that… well, because the way I’ve been doing marriage… I don’t own Zoie, or Shay, or Amaya. They don’t own each other, or me. But we all… belong to each other, in a way, you know? Because we love each other.”
“I love you, too,” Nova said. “All of you.”
“And we love you,” I promised her. “Which is why… when this is over, when we have a moment to breathe… I’d like you to become my wife, too, Nova.”
The Lakuna woman sucked in a soft breath and stared up at me with enormous, dark eyes.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I assured her. “We’ll still love you no matter what, you’ll still be part of our family. But if you want that… that title for it, I guess, then it’s yours. Be my wife, and Zoie’s and Shay’s and Amaya’s. Take us as yours. Only if you want it.”
“Alex,” Nova said quietly. “I very much want it.”
She surged forward and kissed me hard on the mouth as her arms wrapped tight around my neck, and I was stunned for a moment that she’d said yes. Then I wrapped my arms around her, lifted her off the ground, and spun her around.
When I set her down again, I rested my forehead against hers.
“I love you,” I said to her.
“I love you, too,” she replied. “Now, you and Sha-Kane have a mission, and so do the rest of us.”
Sha-Kane knew where the House of Silence was, which was more than I could say, so he led the way. I shouldn’t have really been surprised to see it was located very close to the Council Hall, though I was curious that I hadn’t yet seen the main Temple of the Order, and I said as much to the osprey-man.
“The Order believes it must be removed from the actions of everyday life,” he explained to me. “It is holy, so it cannot mix with the commonalities of government and common people.”
Like many things about the Order, I kind of disagreed with this. I’d never been an especially devout person, but I’d always thought that what made faith holy was the fact that it was everywhere. People lived their entire lives with faith, so it permeated every aspect of their lives. But this sounded like a more difficult way to keep the Order in power, to make it look like some dangerous, powerful thing that needed to be obeyed, so of course they didn’t care if their faith was strong, only that it was obeyed.
“I meant to ask,” I then said to Sha-Kane. “How are things with Shay and Horus?”
“Well, I think,” he replied. “It’s… an adjustment period, for all of us. But I am beyond thankful to have my children in my life, and to have them know that I’m their real father. Archus… he wasn’t a good man, by the end. I’ll never forgive myself for all I put them through.”
“You did what you thought was right,” I said to the osprey-man, and I patted his shoulder. “You were trying to keep them safe.”
“I was, and I still am,” he agreed. “If one thing has been proven, it’s that I absolutely cannot ‘go public’ with the truth. Not until we’ve dealt with the Council. They’re both already targets-- Shale-Lea for being the Incarnate, and your wife, and Horus for being your close friend.”
“We’ll deal with it,” I promised him. “It will be safe for the truth eventually. You guys can be a proper family.”
“That is all I have ever wanted,” the osprey-man sighed.
Eventually, Sha-Kane and I came to the House of Silence. It was a perfectly cubic building, about the size of a regular house, and it was entirely scarlet. It had a small garden around it and was walled by a perfectly circular wall of pure white stone but not marble. There was a single gate to enter this garden, and the house had a single black door and no windows.
I couldn’t decide if it looked incredibly like a holy place or incredibly like a prison.
“This is the holiest place in all of Aventoll for Ashers,” Sha-Kane explained to me as we came to the gates. “Like the Sanctum for the Order. The Silent Ones are an all-male order, and they are as much priests as they are historians. They contain the full record of the history of Ashers, including everyone who was ever named to the Council, however briefly.”
“Depending on how in-league they are with the Council, I’m not entirely sure if that’s true,” I said to the osprey-man, but there was no denying this red cube emitted a certain power. I could feel it in my bones, like it was channeled through my Duelist Stone and into me. “But that’s what we’re here to find out.”
“It is,” Sha-Kane agreed, and like with the gate to the Council Hall, he pushed the gate to the House of Silence open with total ease.
Yet, I was sure that if a non-Asher tried it, the gate wouldn’t have budged.
The osprey-man knocked on the door when we approached it, and I realized two things. Firstly, the garden was so small, and the white wall was so high, that it felt very cramped in here. Secondly, the black door had no knob. It seemed it could only be opened from the inside.
A few moments after Sha-Kane knocked, the door was opened by a man in a robe the exact shade of red as the House itself. I couldn’t see underneath the hood, or make out any of his facial features, so I had no idea what Island he was from. He just stood in the doorway silently, like he was waiting for something.
“I am Councilman Sha-Kane, of Nata,” Sha-Kane said to the Silent One.
“I’m Councilman Alex Brightwood, of Aventoll,” I said in the same tone. It was as accurate as I could hope to be.
After a long pause, the Silent One bowed deeply to us, turned away, and walked further inside. Sha-Kane beckoned for me to follow the man, so I did, and we entered the gloom.
It was dim inside, and it looked like the walls were painted the same shade of red as outside, which meant the Silent Ones blended in very easily. I nearly bumped into several, and it was probably more because they saw me coming than my own reflexes that I didn’t collide with them.
“You serve the Council, don’t you?” I said to the Silent One who was leading us along a corridor.
Everything in here was square or rectangular, and even the corridors only had corners of ninety-degree angles. It was like walking through a Pac-Man maze.
I didn’t really expect the Silent One to answer my question, and he didn’t. It had maybe been too obvious a question, anyway, so I tried again.
“Are Silent Ones ever allowed inside the Council Chamber, or is it strictly Councilmen only?”
Still no answer.
The Silent One turned another sharp corner and stopped before a large doorway. This room must have taken up about a quarter of the entire space of the House, and it looked like some kind of shrine, but there was nothing actually visible in the center of the room. Several Silent Ones were kneeling before a scarlet square stage with nothing on it. I could feel a certain pull, though, similar to the magic of the machine on Eng, the one in Teivel’s basement. Transformation magic, ancient and powerful, summoned by those who couldn’t transform by themselves, repurposing existing magic for their own spells.
That was when I realized. It wasn’t a stage at all. It was an altar, a place for a spell.
Of course the Silent Ones were robed in red.
They were the ones responsible for the Red Skies.
Chapter 13
Adrenaline crashed through me at this realization, but I forced myself to remain calm. We still needed to figure out how to get into the memorial chamber, where the machine was being kept, and now that I knew the Silent Ones were causing the Red Skies, I needed to figure out where the source of their power was coming from.
It had to be something to do with Ashers, because the Red Skies were transformation magic, and Ashers were the only form of transformation magic left in Aventoll.
“You feel it, too, don’t you?” Sha-Kane asked from my side, but he didn’t say anything further.
Just because the Silent Ones never spoke didn’t mean they didn’t have perfectly functional ears, and if they were responsible for the Red Skies, then they were definitely in league with the Council.
“How?” I whispered to the osprey-man, and I glanced at him as the Silent One we were following led us past the shrine-altar. I knew Sha-Kane couldn’t answer that, not when we were here, but I needed to put it to words, and my mind raced.
If the machines on Eng and in Teivel’s basement required an Asher to sit in it, then surely the same was required here. Turning the skies red was transformation magic, after all. So if Ashers came here to pray, then their magic was probably siphoned here. Whether they knew about it or not, I couldn’t say for sure. The Council would definitely know, but other, lower-Ranked Ashers on Alem probably didn’t.
All this to hold onto power. People murdered, Islands Cursed, magic siphoned-- all for power. Aventoll was a paradise, unlike any I’d ever dared dream of, and it had been poisoned by simple greed. The Alda brothers made things worse, but the potential had already been there. The Council had been corrupt long before Kavo Alda started whispering in their ears.
The Silent One eventually led Sha-Kane and I into a library, which actually had proper lighting, though it was still walled entirely in red. He gestured to the shelves, then to the lecterns, but I knew even before I picked up one of the books that there would be nothing of any use. Everything would have been sanitized to the Council’s satisfaction, their crimes ignored.
History was written by the victors, after all.
“Thank you, but I think we should be going now,” I said to the Silent One, and I bowed to him respectfully. Hopefully, Sha-Kane and I would be able to get out with minimal problem, but as we both turned back the way we’d come and saw a half-dozen robed figures advancing upon us, I realized hope was futile.
If I’d had to guess the Silent Ones’ intentions, it would have probably been to take Sha-Kane and I prisoner, so second sons of other Councilmen could do to us what the Council had done to Lycae all those centuries ago. But Sha-Kane and I were trained Ashers, tested by real Duels, and though we were outnumbered, the Silent Ones were priests and historians.
“What’s the rule on bloodshed in the House?” I asked the osprey-man as the Silent Ones advanced upon us and tried to back us into a wall.
“It is a holy place for Ashers and Duelists,” Sha-Kane replied. “And it’s entirely painted red. I think that’s answer enough, don’t you?”
He had a point.
I reached for my belt and drew not Decisiveness, but the earth guardian blade, and in the dim crimson light of the House it glowed almost white. The Silent Ones all faltered for a moment, but they didn’t stop advancing.
It seemed they believed their mission from the Council was worth their lives.
“This is your only warning,” I said as Sha-Kane drew his own sword. “Let us leave in peace, and no one will be harmed.”
Even then, none of the Silent Ones uttered a single sound, and I watched as they drew long knives from the depths of their robes in creepy unison. The metal of the blades was strangely dark, either gray or maybe even black, and glittered menacingly in the glow of my earth guardian sword.
So much for being priests and historians, then. But at least I wouldn’t be cutting down unarmed holy men.
They attacked first, in eerie synchronization. Had Sha-Kane and I been lesser warriors, or even if we’d just been in a larger space where more enemies could have attacked us at once, we surely would have been overwhelmed. The earth guardian blade shimmered in the dimness as I slashed left and right while dodging those dark metal knives that almost blended in with the shadows, and I felt warm blood spray across my face as my weapon found its target.
“Sha-Kane!” I called out to the osprey-man.
“I’m fine!” he yelled back, and his own blade shone for a moment before it sank into a Silent One’s shoulder.
Still, even as we fought back against them, they did not scream.
There had to be a finite number of Silent Ones in this house, but I was willing to bet it was still enough to exhaust Sha-Kane and I, so we began trying to maneuver ourselves back the way we’d come, toward the exit of the House of Silence. Fortunately, the hallways were narrow, so only two or three Silent Ones could attack us at any one time, and soon their bodies began to pile up in front of the others, and they had to climb over their dead brethren to get to Sha-Kane and me.
“Run!” the osprey-man ordered when we had a chance, so we ran.
We ran almost headfirst into another small group of Silent Ones, but they weren’t prepared for highly-trained Ashers like us, and we cut through them almost sickeningly easily. Finally, I could see the black rectangular door of the entrance at the end of the hallway.
We were almost free.
I thought about whether it might be useful to try and kidnap one of the Silent Ones, so we could interrogate them about the Council’s actions, but I had no idea how successful that would be if they didn’t even make noise when we killed them. These robed men were clearly able to read and write, though, because of the library we’d seen, so maybe we could coerce one of them into writing down the explanations.
All of these ideas were abruptly forced from my mind when one of the Silent Ones lunged into me, and I moved too slowly to fend him off with my sword. We grappled for a few moments before I managed to shove him away, and in doing so, his hood fell back, revealing why none of the robed men had made any noise.
Their mouths were sewn shut.
“Fuck!” I yelped, because I’d seen a lot of fucked-up things in Aventoll, but I had in no way been prepared to see the thick, black thread crisscrossing over the Alemic man’s lips.
How the hell did they eat?
The stitches were so tight that the Silent One’s mouth didn’t even twist as he lunged for me again, but I managed to ground myself just in time to slash the earth guardian blade right through the torso, and he collapsed to the ground in two pieces, dead.
“By Mercedes…” Sha-Kane muttered when he saw the hoodless dead man. “I knew they took oaths of silence, but…”
“No time,” I said as I took note of the advancing robed men behind us.
The osprey-man and I made for the door and almost literally exploded through it, into the bright light of early evening and the tranquility of the tiny garden around the House of Silence.
The Silent Ones did not follow us out of the building. The door instead just clicked shut behind us. Sha-Kane and I got to our feet with our blades raised, in case the robed men suddenly burst out to attack us again, but several more seconds passed, and they didn’t.
“Are they forbidden from leaving?” I asked Sha-Kane.
“More likely, they don’t want anyone to see them attacking Councilmen,” the osprey-man answered.
Luckily, because our uniforms were black, most of the blood didn’t show. I wiped the earth-guardian blade on my pants leg and sheathed it, and then I wiped the blood off my face. It was far from perfect, but at least I wouldn’t attract stares.
“Come on,” I said to Sha-Kane, and we walked briskly back to the Tas estate.
Shay literally shrieked at the sight of us and clapped both hands over her mouth.
“What happened?” she cried out as she surged forward to hug us both, but she stopped at the last moment when she saw our black clothes were sodden with blood.
“The Silent Ones,” I answered, and I slicked back my blood-soaked hair with a grimace. “They’re surprisingly violent, for holy men.”
