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A figure had pushed through the belligerent crowd facing Endest Silann, and the priest saw sorcery curling round it.
The seller of songbirds saw the newcomer and smiled. ‘Cryba! Have you heard? I am condemned by my finest customer! Forbidden from selling ever again these wretched creatures! Why, if not for these eager followers of his, I would kill every bird here just to spite him!’
Cryba nodded a warning at Endest. ‘Get out of here, fool. This is commerce, not faith. Different laws here, different codes.’
‘No doubt,’ said Endest Silann. ‘Yield your magic, sir. I have found my own power, in the name of decency. You would be unwise to challenge it.’
The man sighed and shook his head. ‘So be it.’ He flung out his right hand. An arc of actinic light erupted, stabbed into Endest Silann’s chest.
He felt it tear through him, racing along his limbs, swirling in his chest, and then vanishing inward as if swallowed by a whirlpool.
Cryba stared in disbelief.
‘Why, sir, did you think anger, aggression and pride would have any power over decency?’
Cryba raised both hands—
The hundreds of cages sprang open. The birds rushed out in a whirling mass and converged on Cryba, whose scream was quickly muffled beneath swarming wings.
The acolytes behind Endest Silann had one and all fallen to their knees. The crowd before him had retreated before the raging tumult of freed creatures, each bird an affront to their belief in mastery. The seller of songbirds was huddled on the ground, arms hiding his face.
Moments later, the flock swirled out from beneath the canvas awning, winging up into the sky above the city. Endest felt them leave, racing southward – bright sparks of joy.
Where Cryba had been there was now nothing, not even a scrap of clothing.
The hawker lifted his head. ‘Where’s Cryba?’
‘Given another chance,’ Endest replied. ‘An unexpected gift. It seems that my sorcery, such as it is, hides unanticipated depths of forgiveness. They carry his soul now, I believe. Well, tatters of it, perhaps.’
‘Murdered!’
‘To be honest,’ Endest said, ‘I am most surprised that they did not kill you instead.’
Staggering, the seller of songbirds – his skin suddenly seeming more grey than black – turned and fled, deeper into the maze of tunnels beneath the awnings.
Endest Silann glanced back at his followers. ‘What you will make of this,’ he said to the still kneeling figures, ‘is of no consequence. The sorcery within reach defies your compass, and mine. It may well usher forth from the Citadel’s Terondai, or rise from the earth itself. It may ride the currents of winter’s breath, or swirl beneath the ice on the river. Perhaps it bridges the stars themselves, and straddles the chasm between the living and the dead.’ He shrugged. ‘It arrives bereft of flavour, as open to abuse as to uses guided by moral considerations. It arrives raw as clay from a pit. Awaiting the grit of our imperfections, the throwing hands and the spinning wheel, the glaze of our conceit and the rage of the kilns. Today, I do not act in the name of Mother Dark. I act in the name of decency.’ He paused again, and then said, ‘So, rise you all, and attend to me. I have only begun.’
Endest Silann swung round to face the bowels of the Winter Market, with its masses, and all the private needs, the hidden fears and worries, the stresses of livings barely maintained, seemed to rise in ferment before him. And through this heady mix, he saw as well the pain of captivity, belonging to animals destined for slaughter; even the tubers, lying naked and arrayed for the taking, exuded a faint yearning for sweet earth.
Cages for our lives. Just another prison of necessity, wildly walled with every justification imaginable – these bars truncating what we believe to be possible. So many traps of thought.
Mother Dark, is this not what we all ask of you? Where is your promise of relief? For the joys we cling to are but islands in a sea of torment, and every moment of contentment is becalmed peace, edged with exhaustion.
Watch then, Mother Dark, as I deliver a day of release.
He felt her recoil.
But not retreat, and her gaze remained, and saw all there was to see, as he set forth, reaching out with his power to deliver the blessing of peace, from which none escaped. His followers wailed in his wake, while before him hardened men and women – with their wary but hungry faces, their knife-sharp eyes and their scars of toil – flinched before falling to their knees, before covering their visages as every struggle, every inner turmoil, was, for a short time, eased. For many, Endest saw as he moved down the aisles, such release loosed tears – not of sorrow, nor even of something like happiness, but of simple relief.
He moved among them like a drug, delivering a gift of the insensate, delivering to each person, in their turn, the benison of inner silence.
Tethered goats, hens in crates, tiny Eleint in their tall, net-walled prisons. Bats scrambling against the insides of wooden boxes, hares bound by one ankle – tearing the ligaments in their own legs as they bolted again and again, flinging themselves into the air – bawling myrid, tender dog pups, yet more songbirds, and squealing monkeys from the south – Endest Silann opened every door, severed every tether, and then, whispering home, sent the creatures away. Home to your mothers. To your flocks, your herds, your forests or jungles. Home, in the name of some simpler justice, some simpler promise.
Figures loomed before him, charging in fury, only to halt as their rage vanished, as his blessing devoured them and made of each wounded soul a small thing that could, if one so chose, be cupped in loving hands.
Even death was open to refusal, as he came upon long tables crowded with dead fish that suddenly began flapping, gills working, eyes shining. And with a gesture he sent them away. Go then, to your rivers and lakes. Today, the world returns to an untouched state. Today, I freeze all of time, and free you all to linger in the instant, this thing between breaths. This mote of peace.
Mother Dark watched as he strode through the chaos, as he unravelled the market, stole away food, denied to all the press of hunger. She watched, because she could do nothing else, for her eyes were inside wounds in his hands, and wounds did not blink.
