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Authors: Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson
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long, formfitting dress. Her auburn hair was arranged in elaborate coiffure.
Salvador considered snapping back that he’d let them do it, just to get away from her, but he was in no mood to be funny. He turned his back on her and sauntered out of the room. “Come, Roderick. There’s a popular new card game I’d like to teach you. I learned it from my newest concubine.”
At the mention of the concubine, Tabrina let out an annoyed snort, which Salvador pretended not to hear.
Roderick gave a peremptory bow. “If you command it.”
Salvador raised his eyebrows. “Do I need to?”
“No.” The two made their way to the parlor.
During the Jihad, Rossak was defended by the psychic powers of the Sorceresses. They were powerful living weapons who could annihilate the mind of a cymek, though at the cost of their own lives. Alas, those days are gone! Today, fewer than a hundred pureblood Sorceresses remain, and those do not have the powers of their predecessors.
—preface to The Mysteries of Rossak, Sisterhood textbook
While the many acolytes and Sisters continued their instruction inside the cliff city, and youth proctors taught the children in the nursery chambers, Valya descended into the thick jungles for her daily assignment. An important assignment.
The creaking, wooden lift-car dropped through the thick canopy into the murky, twilight world. As she emerged from the wooden cage and stepped onto the moist ground, Valya inhaled the mixture of rich odors from the soil, plants, and animal life. She followed a path into the dense, silvery-purple foliage. Giant ferns curled and uncurled around her, as if flexing their muscles. From far overhead, thin shafts of filtered sunlight changed from moment to moment as the branches stirred. The leaves rustled, and something skittered through the underbrush; a predatory vine thrashed like a cracked whip, stunning a hairy rodent, then encircling it. Down here, she knew always to be alert.
She arrived at a black metal door mounted in an immense tree. As she had done every day for many months, Valya used a passkey to slide open the entrance, revealing a dim passageway beyond, lit only by yellowish glowglobe lamps. She descended a curving staircase that went beneath the tree’s root system, and presently the passage opened into a series of rooms that had been hewn from the bedrock. In the largest chamber, the old Sorceress Karee Marques performed pharmaceutical experiments with electroscopes, jars of powder, tubes of fluids, centrifuges.
The chambers reminded Valya of the mysterious laboratories of a hermit alchemist, with beakers of bubbling liquids and distillations from obscure jungle fauna, fungi, plants, and roots. Sister Karee was unfathomably ancient, almost as old as Reverend Mother Raquella, but she did not have the same precise control over her body’s biochemistry, so the years hung on her small bony frame like a heavy garment. Karee’s large eyes, however, were a strikingly beautiful green that seemed undiminished by age. She had white hair and high cheekbones.
The old woman acknowledged Valya’s arrival without turning from the chemical studies. Excitement tinged her voice. “I’ve had an idea this morning—a breakthrough, I think. We can use a distillation from the mucus secreted by burrowing slugs. It has deadly paralytic qualities, but if we can mitigate the effects, this compound might be the correct balance to send a Sister to the brink of death, freezing her body’s systems, while still allowing her mind to remain active and focused until the last moment.”
Valya had seen the plump, segmented slugs burrowing through the rotting forest detritus—yet another dangerous creature from Rossak. “An interesting possibility. It might have the correct qualities.” Valya, though, did not feel unrealistic confidence. Haven’t we tried everything else over the decades? She was not eager to die in another hopeless test.
Bins held harvested leaves and
Salvador considered snapping back that he’d let them do it, just to get away from her, but he was in no mood to be funny. He turned his back on her and sauntered out of the room. “Come, Roderick. There’s a popular new card game I’d like to teach you. I learned it from my newest concubine.”
At the mention of the concubine, Tabrina let out an annoyed snort, which Salvador pretended not to hear.
Roderick gave a peremptory bow. “If you command it.”
Salvador raised his eyebrows. “Do I need to?”
“No.” The two made their way to the parlor.
During the Jihad, Rossak was defended by the psychic powers of the Sorceresses. They were powerful living weapons who could annihilate the mind of a cymek, though at the cost of their own lives. Alas, those days are gone! Today, fewer than a hundred pureblood Sorceresses remain, and those do not have the powers of their predecessors.
—preface to The Mysteries of Rossak, Sisterhood textbook
While the many acolytes and Sisters continued their instruction inside the cliff city, and youth proctors taught the children in the nursery chambers, Valya descended into the thick jungles for her daily assignment. An important assignment.
The creaking, wooden lift-car dropped through the thick canopy into the murky, twilight world. As she emerged from the wooden cage and stepped onto the moist ground, Valya inhaled the mixture of rich odors from the soil, plants, and animal life. She followed a path into the dense, silvery-purple foliage. Giant ferns curled and uncurled around her, as if flexing their muscles. From far overhead, thin shafts of filtered sunlight changed from moment to moment as the branches stirred. The leaves rustled, and something skittered through the underbrush; a predatory vine thrashed like a cracked whip, stunning a hairy rodent, then encircling it. Down here, she knew always to be alert.
She arrived at a black metal door mounted in an immense tree. As she had done every day for many months, Valya used a passkey to slide open the entrance, revealing a dim passageway beyond, lit only by yellowish glowglobe lamps. She descended a curving staircase that went beneath the tree’s root system, and presently the passage opened into a series of rooms that had been hewn from the bedrock. In the largest chamber, the old Sorceress Karee Marques performed pharmaceutical experiments with electroscopes, jars of powder, tubes of fluids, centrifuges.
The chambers reminded Valya of the mysterious laboratories of a hermit alchemist, with beakers of bubbling liquids and distillations from obscure jungle fauna, fungi, plants, and roots. Sister Karee was unfathomably ancient, almost as old as Reverend Mother Raquella, but she did not have the same precise control over her body’s biochemistry, so the years hung on her small bony frame like a heavy garment. Karee’s large eyes, however, were a strikingly beautiful green that seemed undiminished by age. She had white hair and high cheekbones.
The old woman acknowledged Valya’s arrival without turning from the chemical studies. Excitement tinged her voice. “I’ve had an idea this morning—a breakthrough, I think. We can use a distillation from the mucus secreted by burrowing slugs. It has deadly paralytic qualities, but if we can mitigate the effects, this compound might be the correct balance to send a Sister to the brink of death, freezing her body’s systems, while still allowing her mind to remain active and focused until the last moment.”
Valya had seen the plump, segmented slugs burrowing through the rotting forest detritus—yet another dangerous creature from Rossak. “An interesting possibility. It might have the correct qualities.” Valya, though, did not feel unrealistic confidence. Haven’t we tried everything else over the decades? She was not eager to die in another hopeless test.
Bins held harvested leaves and
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