--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—
Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, choosing a champion
King Cizco Salvado, Quill of Infinzel, Kingdom of Infinzel, frequently dipping his quill
An assortment of prospects of the Garrison
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2 New Summer, 61 AW
The pyramidal city of Infinzel, North Continent
298 days until the next Granting.
King Cizco led the way onto a balcony overlooking the training ground. The domed room was cooler than the hallway outside, ventilated by ducts that connected to the tunnel network running beneath Infinzel. Cortland gazed down on the field of sand and stone where a decade ago he had gotten up before the dawn to prove he was ready to join Infinzel’s party. Back then, it would’ve been King Cizco and Ben Tuarez judging from this perch.
“Hammer is a workman’s weapon,” Ben had said to him that day.
“That’s right,” Cortland had replied. “You won’t find me shy about rolling up my sleeves, sir.”
Shaking off the memory, Cortland studied the ten hopefuls on the sand. All of them wielded different weapons or practiced unique arts. Some sparred with each other, while others engaged with the targets and dummies arrayed around grounds. Cortland knew all of them by name. Champions partly oversaw the Garrison and so, at one point or another, he had trained with all of them. A ripple went through the men and women exerting themselves as they realized that the king and Cortland had arrived. None of them were so graceless as to look up and bow, but Cortland sensed movements sharpening and speed increasing.
“That’s one of mine, isn’t it?” Cizco asked.
Cortland grunted. Of course, the king’s eye had been drawn to the dead center of the field where Orryn es-Salvado shaved down a series of targets with his throwing knives.
“Your grandson, I think,” Cortland said.
“My grandson,” Cizco said, as if not quite believing it. “Ah, right. One of Ferdy’s children, isn’t he?”
“You’re asking me?”
King Cizco shrugged. “He’s handy with those knives.”
Even Cortland had to admit that Orryn’s aim was impeccable and his movements precise. But, more interesting were how Orryn’s knives returned to him, scuttling across the sand.
Cizco leaned against the bannister. “What’s he got those knives on? Strings?”
“Rats,” Cortland replied.
It was difficult to see from their position, but Cortland knew well enough that a small squadron of trained rats dragged the weapons back to their master. There were always one or two of the little beasts hidden away in Orryn’s uniform.
“Rats?” The king shook his head. “Someone should have bought that boy a dog.”
“His doting grandfather, maybe.”
Cizco ignored the barb. “I didn’t know we trained animal bonding. Never studied that myself. You don’t see it much outside Besaden.”
“Something of an accident that,” Cortland said. “Ben and the quartermaster thought he was a bit jumped-up when he joined the Garrison…”
“A grandson of mine? Impossible.”
“They put him on rat duty,” Cortland continued. “He was supposed to be cleaning them out of the weapons cellar but instead he discovered an affinity.”
“I grow less disgusted and more fascinated with every word.” Cizco glanced at the hammer on Cortland’s hip. “Would it relieve some of your tension to have some furry friends carry that smasher around for you?”
Cortland flexed his fingers. “My hammer comes back on its own. I have Ink for that.”
“It was a joke, Finiron,” Cizco said.
“Orryn’s a gifted man in the Underneath,” Cortland admitted begrudgingly. “Those rats have saved lives.”
“How gallant of them.”
“If Vitt were here, that’s who he’d vote for.”
“Yes, well, Vitt isn’t here, is he?”
“Orryn would be a solid addition to the party. I could work with him.”
“You compliment him through your teeth.”
“Like you said, he’s one of yours.”
Orryn was indeed part of the royal bloodline, but he was an es-Salvado, which meant he carried no special distinction. He had not been elected First, Second, or Third among potential heirs. Cortland knew Orryn had thrown his support behind Vitt during the last kinsmete and was thus part of the reason why Vitt was now Secondson. The two were too close for Cortland’s taste, but he didn’t feel comfortable broaching that subject with the king.
As if sensing his reluctance, Cizco groaned and turned to regard Cortland. “Please, Finiron, spare me your attempts at tact. It’s like a horse clomping around in slippers. I have scarves I know better than some of my grandchildren. Speak freely.”
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“He’s vicious and of a dark temperament,” Cortland said. “And that’s not such a bad thing, except that Vitt and I have those roles well covered. Ben was our tactician. Our defender. We won’t be able to replace his skills exactly, but we should at least vary our angles of attack.”
The king nodded and gestured off to one side. “Well, you know what they say about apples and trees.”
Cortland winced as Cizco forced him to acknowledge the presence of Issa Firstdot-Tuarez. She hadn’t mentioned trying to fill her father’s role in the party when Cortland saw her yesterday, but then she’d have been a fool to bring that up in front of her mother. Issa favored a tall shield, nearly as big as her, and a spear. They were the same armaments her father had used in his twenty-six Grantings. She moved well, advancing methodically into a barrage of rocks and bolts fired by a couple of other candidates. Her movements were so smooth that it took Cortland a moment to notice that she was stabbing some of the projectiles right out of the air.
“She’s young still,” Cortland said.
“Young just means more time for the Ink to spread,” Cizco countered. “She clearly knows what she’s doing.”
“Her mother would kill me.”
“Now there’s an honest reason,” Cizco said. “I won’t have her go into a Granting with revenge on her mind, anyway. Not a productive state of mind.”
Cortland said nothing to that. He suspected he would have revenge on his mind for the entirety of the next year.
“Who else, then?” Cizco asked. “Don’t tell me you came down here without someone in mind.”
“It should be Arris, sir.”
Unlike the others who demonstrated their skills with various weaponry, Arris Stonetender’s hands were empty. She was a sturdily built middle-aged woman who kept her hair shorn, as befitted an elementalist of her particular specialty. As Cortland and Cizco turned to watch her, two snakes of fire sprang from her palms and scorched their way across the training ground.
“Arris, I see,” the king said. “I’ve always found her casting to lack a certain delicacy.”
As if in response, Arris’s twin fire snakes grew into a wall of flame nearly ten feet high. The heat of the inferno sent some of the other prospects into retreat, including Orryn and his rats. Although she’d been a young woman then, Arris had demonstrated her skills alongside Cortland ten years ago when he’d been elevated to the party. She had tried again three years later when Henry Blacksalve had been chosen, and again two years ago when Vitt Secondson-Salvado had been selected. Approaching forty now, she was the oldest prospect on the sand. Cortland suspected she’d keep trying until the magic at last burned her out.
“I don’t fuck with delicacy,” Cortland told the king. “I want somebody that will burn a bastard alive.”
Cizco nodded sympathetically. “Do you understand anything about the state of the magical arts?”
“Polite of you to ask as if you don’t know the answer.”
“There’s a bargain that must be made to exert change on the world. Something must be given. Skilled practitioners can get away with giving less, but there’s always a trade. A sacrifice. Arris wears the scars of her bargains. You’ve seen them on her arms and I’m sure that’s only the beginning.”
Cortland nodded. It was true, the woman’s flesh was a ridged mess of pink welts and scar tissue. Cortland had always assumed those were simply the drawbacks of training with fire.
“The Ink changed things for those of us who practice the traditional way,” Cizco continued. “The Ink asks nothing of its users. You call upon its power and the gods answer. There’s no bargain. No cost.”
“Aside from the yearly fight to the death,” Cortland said.
“Fair enough,” Cizco said. “Regardless, outside the Magelab, I am perhaps the only man left alive who knows how generous the gods used to be. Their bargains have grown harsher since the Ink. Arris has been under strain for so long, I wonder what’s truly left of her.”
Cortland considered all this for a moment, rubbing a hand across his stubbly cheek. “Wouldn’t letting her have the Ink be a mercy, then? Let her draw upon the Ink for power.”
“In a way, yes,” Cizco replied. “Until the day she wants to take the wash. That might kill her.”
Emelia Tuarez had told Cortland how often she begged Ben to retire, but in all their time together Ben had never once mentioned taking the wash to Cortland. “Not all of us plan to quit one day,” Cortland said. “Some of us understand better than others that we’ll meet our end on the island.”
Cizco breathed out through his nose. “Heroic deaths do nothing for me, Finiron. I send you four there to survive so that Infinzel continues to work.”
“And Arris will help us survive more than any of these others,” Cortland replied. “She’s experienced. The Ink will probably reveal her to be at least fourth renown. I’ve trained with her. So has Henry. The combination works. Ben was our shield, she can be our wall. Our wall of fire.”
Cortland left out the other reason why he wanted to add Arris to the party. Like Cortland, she wasn’t married and never had any children. Unlike Cortland, she had a woman that she was close with, but they were more off than on these days. Her family had been miners and they were mostly dead. In short, Arris didn’t have many attachments. After yesterday, Cortland didn’t think he could stomach comforting another grieving family.
“You make a convincing case,” Cizco said. “Shall we make it official?”
Cortland nodded, and leaned out over the railing. “Arris Stonetender! Get up here!”
The elementalist immediately extinguished her barricade of flames and jogged to the staircase that led to the overlook. Some of the oomph went out of the other prospects after Cortland’s shout, although some of the first time applicants went on practicing in the hopes that Arris had been summoned to stand before King Cizco for reasons unrelated to the party. Orryn es-Salvado sheathed his knives and left the field entirely, trailed by his legion of rats. Cortland sensed Issa Firstdot-Suarez trying to catch his eye, but he pretended not to notice her.
Arris arrived smelling of sweat and smoke. She dropped to a knee before King Cizco.
“Oh, stand up,” Cizco said. “Otherwise, I’ll have to crouch.”
“Arris Stonetender, to whom do you swear allegiance?” Cortland barked, reciting the words that Ben Tuarez had once said to him.
There were tears in the woman’s eyes. “I swear allegiance to Infinzel, the pyramidal city, whose walls protect its loyal citizens, and to the ageless king whose power is our foundation."
“As the Quill of Infinzel, I put my faith in you, Arris Stonetender,” the king said. “We have chosen you to wear the Ink. Do you stand before us with a full understanding of the responsibilities of this honor? Will you lay down your life for Infinzel?”
“I do,” Arris said. “I will.” She was already unbuttoning the top of her shirt so that Cizco would have access to her neck. Beads of sweat formed on the pyramid symbol tattooed on her throat. That Ink wouldn’t be lonely for long.
“Then let the Ink reveal what you are, and what you might yet become.”
With that, Cizco drew the phoenix feather from its golden inkwell.
Cortland remembered what it felt like when the Ink first touched his skin, the warm sensation as it spread across his neck and chest. He remembered his first encounter with the strange creature called the symbologist. He remembered how his mind had unlocked to the language of the gods, how he could read his Ink simply from feeling the marks against the skin. All of it happened so fast, from the first touch of the Quill to the gods guiding Cizco’s hand as he sketched out the patterns. There was something intimate and profound in the process, even if it meant death in the end. He edged around Cizco’s shoulder to watch how it happened with Arris.
Oddly, the king’s hand was still. And even though he had touched the quill to Arris’ neck, it had left no mark. Her eyes did not go far away; she was not called to join the symbologist. There was nothing but a dry scratching sound.
“Ah,” Cizco said. “That’s unexpected.”
“What’s wrong?” Cortland asked.
“The inkwell is dry.” Cizco stepped back awkwardly, returning the feather to its well. “Truly sorry, Arris. This is something of a rarity. A blessing, supposedly, although it surely doesn’t feel that way for you.”
Arris was doing all she could to keep herself from breaking down at the feet of the king, but tears nonetheless streamed down her sooty cheeks. To come so close and have it snatched away… Cortland felt for the woman. But, his prevailing feeling in that moment, was confusion.
“What do you mean it’s dry?” he asked Cizco. “We only have three in the party.”
“No, Cortland, we have four. Somewhere, out in the world, is our new champion,” the king replied. “My inkwell is dry because the gods have chosen them for us.”
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