Chapter 7

7

Aiz

Among Aiz's people, the Tohr was the hunched wolf of bedtime tales, a fetid maw from which few emerged unscathed.

The prison was built into a great granite mountain that abutted the western edge of the capital. Two huge slabs of black and purple stone stood sentinel on either side of an iron gate, with a third slab resting across the top. As Aiz passed through the doorway, her windsmithing, already skittish, faded into nothingness. The mountain's rock dulled magic.

Tale-spinners said the bones of Mother Div's enemies were ground into the dust of the Tohr's lower levels, their spirits haunting the prison's depths.

Not long after Aiz entered, she began to suspect those stories were true. As the jailer walked Aiz, Sister Noa, and more than two dozen other clerics through the low hallways, the rock seemed to close in, whispering, You will die here. Those you love will die here. It is your fault.

Aiz glared back at the rock. "Perhaps I will," she muttered. "But I won't let them die."

One of the jailers, a short, bearded man with skin like a rotted fish's, grinned at Aiz. Half of his teeth were missing. "Already talking to ourselves, are we? You'll fit right in."

"Aiz, my love," Sister Noa murmured. "Do not fear. Mother Div is with us."

"Shut it!" barked the other jailer, a broad-shouldered woman with a scarred face. "Don't you invoke Mother Div. Accursed are the traitors, those who forsake me. "

"You can quote the Nine Sacred Tales," Sister Noa said. "That is heartening."

"Nine," the jailer muttered. "Never understood why they called it Nine Tales if there's only eight."

Noa smiled, a flash of light in the gloom. "I used to ask that too. What is your name, child?"

Aiz prepared to step in front of Noa, expecting the jailer's whip to come down. The woman lifted it, a vein pulsing at her temple; but then she looked between Aiz and Noa and shoved the latter forward roughly.

"We've got a special cell for you, hag," the bearded man said. "Shut your gob and move."

Aiz considered Sister Noa's words. Mother Div is with us. But she wasn't, was she? Not anymore. Mother Div let Aiz fail. Did nothing as Tiral's men beat and imprisoned her loyal clerics, those who shared her Sacred Tales.

If Aiz wanted to get the clerics out of here, she'd figure it out without divine aid.

They wound through long hallways lined with cells, dirty faces staring out at them, lit spectral blue by the lamps. The jailers stopped at a large, dark chamber, and the woman shoved Aiz, Noa, and Olnas inside. They'd left anything resembling sunlight long ago. Aiz could barely make out the cots and slop bucket in the corner.

The jailers disappeared with the rest of the clerics, and Aiz turned to Sister Olnas, who was pale and sweating.

"Her leg." Sister Noa gestured for Aiz to take Olnas's shoulder, and they helped her to a cot. "She needs to get off it."

"I'm so sorry, Sister Noa," Aiz said. "I didn't know they would—I didn't think—"

"It's done, child," Noa said. "Mother Div had trials too. She survived. So will we." She tilted her head, a bright-eyed bird, even in such darkness.

"Tell me a dream, little love."

Vengeance , Aiz thought.

"Getting you and all the other clerics out of here," she said.

"May Mother Div make it so." Noa's eyes went over Aiz's shoulder and widened. The girl turned, scouring the shadows near the other cot.

Shadows which, Aiz realized with horror, were moving.

"Sister Noa," she said. "Get back."

But Noa took a careful step toward the cot. "Come out, little ones," she said. "We won't hurt you."

Three children emerged from the dark, emaciated and covered in dirt and filth. Aiz stared in disbelief.

"Why—why are there children here? What could they possibly have done—"

"We didn't do anything," one of them, a girl, said. She was small, a half foot shorter than Aiz, her head too big for her body. But her eyes were a keen blue and Aiz noticed that she pushed the two other children behind her protectively. "It was our parents who did wrong. They're dead now."

"How long have you been here?" Aiz asked.

"There's scratches there." The girl nodded to the wall behind Olnas's cot. "I mark every day so we don't forget. You better not hurt us." She looked back at her two charges. "You might be bigger, but we bite."

"We would never hurt you," Sister Noa said. "I'm Sister Noa. That's Aiz. That's Sister Olnas. Will you tell me your names?"

"I'm Hani," the girl said after a long, appraising pause. "This is Jak, and Finh." Jak was smaller, but both boys had dark eyes and shorn red hair. Jak smiled shyly at Aiz, revealing a few missing teeth. Finh, Aiz noticed, had a significant limp.

"They're brothers," Hani said. "And I protect them." She looked at Aiz challengingly. "You're not a cleric."

"No," Sister Noa said. "But she tells beautiful stories. Better than me, even. Would you like to hear one?"

"Is it a scary story?" Finh asked. "I want a scary one."

"You can't have a scary one," Hani said. "Jak's too little."

"I'm not!" Jak piped up. "I like scary ones too!"

"Maybe you shouldn't tell a story." Hani glanced nervously after the jailers. "Kithka leaves us be—she's not so bad. But the other jailer, Gil—he'll throw you in the Hollows if you cause too much trouble." The girl shivered. "People aren't right if they ever come back."

"They won't throw her in the Hollows for a little story," Sister Noa said gently before turning to Aiz. "Tell them the First Sacred Tale. It was always your favorite."

I can't tell tales! I must get you out of here.

"Sister Noa"—Aiz dropped her voice—"you always said that to speak the Sacred Tales when one didn't believe was sacrilege. I am too angry. At Tiral and the Triarchs and myself. At Mother Div, most especially."

"Anger is still belief, Aiz," Sister Noa said. "Tell the tale. Not for yourself, but for the children. Div knows they must get precious little instruction here."

Aiz dug her fingers into her thigh, anger nipping at her mind, demanding to be fed. But the only person who deserved her ire was herself, so she sat on the dirty stone floor and gestured for the children to join her.

"Gather, gather and listen well, for Mother Div's voice must not be forgotten." She started the tale as all the Sacred Tales began. "Long ago and across the sea, there was a fair gold and green land that was ours alone. It had at its heart a Fount of golden light, and that was the source of our magic."

She told the children then of the cataclysm that struck the old country ten centuries ago. Of Mother Div's desperate search for a new homeland for her people. Of her elation when she discovered Kegar, a spit of land ringed by soaring rock spires.

The children listened, and Aiz heard rustles from the cell next door, saw movement through the bars as other prisoners edged forward. Once, someone called a warning and Aiz ceased until Kithka—slapping her whip against her leather pants—had stalked by. When the story was over, Hani, Jak, and Finh watched Aiz with open mouths. Prisoners murmured up and down the cellblock.

"That was beautiful," a rough voice said from across the hall—a Dafra Snipe, judging from his rounded vowels. "Tell another, would you, girl? Passes the time for the littles."

Aiz wanted to say no. But the children in her own cell looked at her hopefully.

"One more, then," she said. To her surprise, her heart lifted. Perhaps the stories that meant so much to her as a child weren't useless. "Gather, gather and listen—"

"Ssst!" a voice hissed. "Questioners!"

Panic whipped through the air like shrapnel as prisoners receded into the dark of their cells. Children cried out and were hushed as quickly. Prayers of " Mother Div, please " echoed through the cellblock as the tha- thunk tha- thunk of the Questioners' boots grew louder.

And louder. Until finally, the boots stopped in front of Aiz's cell. She looked up, summoning her anger. She wouldn't let these bastards break her.

The Questioners were cloaked in blue and black, faces hidden. One stepped forward, a hand on the whip at his belt.

"Clerics." His voice was menacing in its softness. "Rise."

Aiz's anger transformed into panic. "No," she said. "They didn't do anything. I'm the one who—who thought of this plot. I'm the one who—"

"The more you talk," the Questioner said, "the worse it will be for them."

Aiz held her tongue, hands shaking as Sister Olnas stumbled to her feet, Noa by her side, as the Questioners grabbed each cleric by the wrists and led them out, down the hallway to a place Aiz could not follow.

The Questioners brought Noa and Olnas back to the cell a few hours after taking them. They could hardly walk, their clothes soaked with blood and tears and grime.

"Turn away," Aiz ordered the children. Jak and Finh obeyed, covering their little faces. Hani grabbed a box from the corner, offering it to Aiz. Inside, she found a bottle of spirits, gauze, and a few clean cloths.

"Kithka gave it to me," Hani said. "Said it was to keep us from squealing too much."

"Thank you, Hani." Aiz turned to Olnas, but she waved her off.

"Hani can help me." Olnas winced as she ran her fingers through her tangled hair. "Noa took the worst of it. Tend to her first."

Aiz cleaned Sister Noa's wounds: bruises that would take weeks to heal, cuts and lacerations that would take months. Mother Div, let her heal. Mother Div, let it be quick.

"Aiz," Jak whispered, having broken away from Finh. He stared at Sister Noa. "Will she die? When Mam died, she looked yellow and sick like that. I—I'm scared."

Aiz took the boy's hand, her heart clenching at the way his body shook. "It's all right, little love," she whispered. "Do something for me, yes? Tell me a dream. A hope."

"A dream?" Jak appeared to have forgotten the word.

"Well…I dream of shoes. Thick, warm ones, with fur on the inside." Aiz wiggled her toes in the dark, and Jak's mouth turned up, just a little.

"I dream of sugar," he said. "Da brought it once. From the market."

"I dream of chicken." Finh limped over. "A big, juicy one, with red pepper and lots of salt."

Next to Olnas, Hani spoke without looking over. "I dream of the wind," she said. "I miss the sound it makes in the spring."

"May Mother Div hear you," Aiz said. "And bring you all of your beautiful dreams."

"Aiz, love." Noa's voice was a weak croak. Aiz trembled with relief that the cleric lived, followed by rage that she might have died.

"I'm sorry, Sister," Aiz whispered, trying to temper her anger. "I'm so sorry—"

"No!" Noa glared and gripped Aiz's wrist so fiercely that she flinched.

"Don't you give up, girl," Noa whispered. "Hold on to your anger."

Aiz stroked the cleric's short curls. "You're never angry, Sister."

Noa smiled. "I'm angry all the time. At the world and the Triarchs and us Snipes for accepting our lot. I'm angry for myself and for you. Better anger than despair. Anger will get us through this."

She collapsed back and Aiz shook her head. There was no through this . There was only the Questioners finally understanding the clerics had nothing to do with the assassination attempt. The quicker Aiz could get them to take her, the quicker she could convince them of this fact.

But at sunrise, the Questioners took two other clerics. Two more each dawn after that. Again and again, Aiz watched as they dragged the clerics, tormented and beaten, back to the cellblock after their interrogations. Once, the Questioners took Olnas to the Hollows. She was only gone for a few hours, but when she returned, she didn't speak for days.

"Take me," Aiz begged the Questioners, then reasoned, then screamed. "I'm the one who tried to kill him!"

They ignored her as if she were a dead beetle, too insignificant to even be kicked out of the way.

"What can I do?" Aiz held Noa after the second time she was taken. The cleric felt so frail, as if a little pressure would wither her bones. "How do I fix this?"

"Tell the stories, my love." Noa squeezed Aiz's hands. "We all need to hear them. Tell them with wrath. Tell them with hate. But do not give up. Despair is death."

When Aiz told one of the Sacred Tales that night, her voice shook with fury. She did not care if the jailers heard and punished her.

"Gather, gather and listen well," she snarled. "For Mother Div's voice must not be forgotten!"

Aiz had told the Nine Sacred Tales often, and by now the cadence of her voice quieted all who heard her. As her anger roared out of her like a great wave, faces peeked through bars up and down the cellblock. Snipes who were sick and wounded and hopeless, yet listening.

So it went, day after day. Week after week. When the clerics returned from interrogation, beaten and broken, Aiz took her place near the cell door and preached, the Sacred Tales imbued with a fiery righteousness that made even the weakest prisoners sit up.

The girl's anger grew to an inferno, something beyond her control. The storytelling helped, but it wasn't enough. After weeks in the Tohr, Aiz felt her ire press for release. She found herself snapping at Hani, Noa, even at dear old Olnas.

Curse Tiral for keeping the clerics here, when the Questioners must know they were innocent. Curse the Triarchs, who were descendants of Holy Div and did nothing as Div's disciples were tortured. Curse the jailers who kept children like Hani and Jak and Finh locked up in the noxious dark for the crime of being born Snipes.

One day, after Aiz finished the Eighth Sacred Tale, Hani interrupted her.

"Aiz, why are there only eight tales when they're called the Nine Sacred Tales? What's the Ninth?"

"It has yet to be revealed," Aiz said. "Mother Div whispered the Ninth Sacred Tale to the wind in a faraway land. When the wind circles the earth and returns to Kegar, we will finally hear the tale. Its telling will herald the Return to our homeland."

"Until then," Olnas said from the cot where she brushed Jak's hair, "we start back from the beginning to see what we missed the first time."

Aiz smiled. "Long ago and far away…"

She was midway through the tale when a figure stepped from the darkness. Kithka. Aiz didn't know how long the woman had been lurking in the shadows, but it didn't matter. Aiz refused to stop.

"And Mother Div ordered the early builders to lay the foundations of our capital, first and foremost the cloister in Dafra."

As Aiz spoke, Kithka gripped her whip, gaze darting from cell to cell, clearly uncertain what to make of the sheer number of prisoners listening to Aiz.

"What the bleeding Spires is going on?" Gil barreled through the door at the far end of the block, behind Kithka. "What's the racket?"

As if his voice had shaken her out of her indecision, Kithka wrenched open the door to Aiz's cell. "Enough yammering from you." The jailer grabbed Aiz by the scruff of her neck and shoved a rag in her mouth. "You're going to the Hollows."