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PAWNS AND PLAYERS

TAHRIK

D avvy is stone-still next to me, barely breathing in the shadow of the Council House. I don’t even know if he’s hearing what they’re saying, and I lay what I hope is a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“We know, we know,” Councilman Raek is calling, trying to quiet the uneasy crowd.

The Father is silent beside him, unmoving.

“It is a sacrifice, a terrible sacrifice we must ask of you.” He looks dreadful, as though the weight of the decision is bending him towards the earth.

“We…” Pausing, he swallows, shaking his head sadly.

“We have no other choice. We feel we have no other choice.” Rubbing a tired hand across his lined face, he motions behind him to the rest of the Council, who stand in similar postures, shoulders bent.

It’s clear this decision was one not made lightly.

Davvy shudders beside me.

Raek continues. “The BoneKeeper has asked the bones, but they will not speak to her.” There is a low rumble in the crowd, something between anger and disbelief, and Raek immediately holds up his hands.

“Peace, friends. Peace. We can’t blame her if they refuse to counsel her.

We have no insight as to why they would hold their voices from her, why they have changed the pattern of hundreds of years.

But is there a reason to suspect it is her fault they will not speak? ”

Narrowing my eyes, I look around me at the gathered villagers.

Raek is weaving careful riddles, slipping strange insinuations in through cracks formed when he called for an Offering of ten villagers to help appease the Gods and grant us an easy Storm Season.

Behind him, Wren picks her head up from where she has been staring resolutely at the ground, standing far enough separate from the Council that it seems deliberate, almost defiant.

“That is not precisely true, Councilman Raek,” she interrupts flatly in a frozen voice.

He’s unable to hide the quick flare of anger that flashes across his face, and the uneasy shifting of the people watching becomes an anxious snake undulating through the square.

“They speak to me. You did not like their answers.”

“Barely answers, Keeper,” Nickolas steps up beside his brother, crowding between Raek and the Father. “You said they wait to see our decision. They offered no tangible steps forward for our people. We have had to take the reins, make terrible, heart-wrenching choices for the good of our village.”

He is not as practiced as Raek; his words seem more staccato and less…

less honest, though the thought of a Councilman lying about such a massive Offering is unthinkable.

Even one like Nickolas. Wren is completely still, no flicker of life visible; her chest seems unmoving though I know she’s breathing, eyes unblinking, hands hanging at her sides.

She looks for all the world like the Maiden reformed on earth, carved from marble into an otherworldly effigy, beautiful, but inhuman, and deadly.

In a sudden, cold rush of fear I realize how she must appear to anyone who hasn’t heard her laugh, who hasn’t seen her gentleness with children, who hasn’t spoken to her but for the bones.

There is little sympathy in her expression, a stark contrast to the twisting, pained faces of the Council that stand opposite her.

No one who didn’t know her would understand that it’s a masque, that inside she is falling apart.

If only she would soften for them, just the smallest amount. Show them her heart.

It’s been more than a week since I’ve seen her, and since all eyes are on her now anyway, I take the chance to study her hollow face.

High on her cheek is a fading, yellow-brown bruise hidden by the curtain of her hair; Bri and Grace made it sound as though she looked terrible, like she had been attacked by a wild animal, but there is little I can see of it beneath her high-necked cloak and hood.

Even the mark on her cheek is more like a shadow in this light, and will put to rest the small scuttle of rumors swirling around the village about the Keeper being brutally beaten in the safety of her own home.

Looking at her now, I think most people will disbelieve the gossip; she is more or less as she has always been.

Which won’t elicit any goodwill towards her, especially with the failed trade.

If she had something more obvious, if she showed any weakness, perhaps the people would feel more for her. But she gives them nothing.

It hasn’t helped that she’s been hiding in her cottage since the Traders left; the last time I saw her was as Grace led me from the table, as I tried to lure the Councilmen away from her, tried to give her a moment of peace.

Even if it was while she was sitting with the overly-familiar Trader.

The only saving grace was that I knew, I knew , Wren would never entertain someone like him — he was too loud, too bright, too much for her.

Wren is a mountain bird meant for a safe and quiet nest in a cozy tree, not a hawk or a harrier screaming through the storm-drenched skies.

Bri went to see her, and Grace, and I left her a gift early one morning before she woke, but I didn’t want to risk knocking on her door, and she would not come out.

Not until today, when the Council bell called us to the square, and the twelve men on the stage announced the path forward into blood and death.

It is too much for so many here. With the weight of the Storms approaching, there is unfounded resentment growing in the air — about the failed trade, the lost grain, the hope given and taken away, and now, the Offering.

And somehow, somehow the blame has shifted like dust in the wind, and the memory of our Council arguing in low tones with the Traders has been replaced with vague blame directed towards Wren.

Did she invite someone in? What did she do?

How did this happen? What did she say that broke the trade?

It is always in the shadows, never in the open light of day, but the attack and subsequent events have become tangled in strange ways.

Nickolas has earned some minor goodwill from the villagers though; the loss of his eye and the violent break of his orbital socket a testament to how hard he tried to protect the Keeper from her unknown assailant, how he must have taken the brunt of the attack.

But even that twists and transforms into Wren’s fault.

She shouldn’t have…Why wasn’t she more careful… Why would the Keeper invite a Trader…

The questions wove through the streets like snakes over the past week, slipping through shadowed corners, under window sills, tiny barbs that stick and sting, impossible to get rid of.

And suddenly we’re here, lungs constricted, watching the panicked faces of ten people in front of us, feeling the guilty relief of thousands behind us.

And something more, something that I don’t want to look at too carefully.

Because, at the heart of it, I believe in the goodness of our people, the ways of our city.

I have hope for our future, trust in our past, and am praying, desperately, that there is an answer which will not result in the path the Council has cleared for us to walk.

Bri stands in front of the stage facing us, white-knuckled, grasping hands with her friend Grace, shoulder to shoulder with several others.

Her face is forcibly cheerful as she blinks away tears, making soft cooing sounds to her toddler who is clinging to her legs.

Their youngest is mercifully asleep in Davvy’s clutching arms.

“It is much to ask, but there is much to ask for. Please know, if we were able, we would each step forward and take the place of one of these villagers, but who would lead us through the winter Storms? It’s a great and terrible thing that they do for the good of our people.

And perhaps it will appease the Gods, our gift and Offering, our return to the adherence of the First Lesson.

Our willingness to abide by the rules of our village, instead of flouting them.

” Raek stares pointedly at the Keeper, then glances to the wriggling infants in the arms of their stone-faced parents.

“So we must. BoneKeeper, if you will? Five to the Rending, five to the Reaping.”

From the shaded mountain curve behind him, several of our Renders and Reapers come forward, reluctance oddly gaiting their movements, slow stutter steps of hesitancy clear.

It has been years since anyone other than the Keeper named an Offering and it sits like a wrong sized shirt on our skin.

If there is a Keeper, healthy and able, to have the Council name the Offering is not done.

I can see it in the faces of our people, the tightening of eyes at the way Bri’s child sobs when a village woman peels her grasping hands from Bri’s skirt.

The way the parents clutch their infants to their chests as though physically unable to pass them to the waiting arms of the Reapers and Renders.

The way the crowd rocks forward on their feet, almost as one living entity, then settles back on their heels.

But Offerings must be made. It is the path of our payment, the price of our history. There is nothing else for it. And everyone knows. All must pay their due.

“Stop.”

Wren’s voice rings out louder than I’ve ever heard it. Louder than the Council Bell, louder than the Hunters’ horns, louder than the Earth when it is hungry. Behind her, the mountain rumbles as though in reply, and she calls out again, staring behind her at the black rock face, “ Stop. ”

As though it hears her, the mountain quiets, and the entire village freezes as one. If she were not so frightening it would be funny to see how the Council almost cowers at her single command, but she is terrifying, stark lightning across a black sky.