Robin McKinley - Chalice

She half imagined she could feel the stairs she walked on crumbling, the broken earthlines sinking farther into the earth, leaving the House nothing to stand on. She could almost feel the first tiny lurch, as the House’s foundations began to slip into the abyss; could almost hear the stirring, the pattering of sand and soil and plaster dust into sudden crevices, a sound almost like humming.

The earthlines were silent; silent as no live thing should be silent.

The Seneschal put a hand out toward her, as if she looked so tired she might not be able to climb the last step. Perhaps she was that tired. Perhaps it was something the crowd should see, the Grand Seneschal putting a hand out to the Chalice, and her taking it. She took the offered hand, and leaned on it.

He glanced at the sky behind her, disinterestedly, and back to her again. “The faenorn will be swords,” he said without preamble.

She was not so tired that she didn’t jerk forward and grunt What? as if his words were blows. His voice had been low, and she struggled to make hers low too to answer him. “Swords. That is no faenorn ; that is slaughter.”

The Grand Seneschal shrugged. “The Master did not protest. And, indeed, what weapon could he have suggested that would suit him any better?”

“Fire,” she said.

“He would not,” said the Seneschal. “You know he would not.”

She shook her head. She had not considered this aspect of the faenorn ; she had tried not to consider it at all, but she had involuntarily remembered what she had read about it, before she had closed the book or gone to answer the door, these last few days, while she was scattering drops and murmuring Be thou one-hearted. It was as if the faenorn itself were a part of what she had been trying to do; as if it were a member of her Circle, and she could not bind round it without knowing its shape. She did not want to know and remember, but she did: that while this battle for the Mastership of the demesne was symbolic, and only the two rivals themselves were involved, it was still a meeting with real weapons. That it was not required that either die of it, but failure was such a disgrace that the loser generally preferred to die, and the victor was considered to have behaved with honour if he yielded to such a request. In the old, barbaric days, when faenorn was almost a commonplace, you wanted your enemy dead; it was the only way you could be sure he would not regroup and attack you again.

Their Master would not have to ask; Horuld would kill him with the first stroke.

By the fourth level an Elemental priest can again go into the world, if he so chooses, because his metamorphosis is complete , the Master had said to her. But they mostly choose not to come, she had replied. And they cannot stay, because they can no longer live among humans. Among us . A fourth-level priest would never have been sent home to be Master of his demesne. And I have never heard of one stopping a forest fire. A fourth-level priest could not be killed by a blow with a sword. But a third-level priest could be killed as easily as a human could.

Before the Master had been sent to Fire by his brother, he would have been trained to use a sword, an eligary and a bow; Mirasol had a faint memory of a rumour that he had been better than his brother at all three. But even if it was true, it was of no use to him now: not after seven years of Fire. While he was no longer as weak or as clumsy as he had been, he still found walking strange and laborious, and anyone watching him climb or descend stairs must look away in distress. There was still too much Fire in him—so much that he still had to remember not to burn what he touched with his hand, even if that meant letting the Overlord fall, and losing his demesne for it.

She saw the people looking up the stair toward herself and the Grand Seneschal; she did not notice that they were looking over their heads, to the sky above the House, where her bees hummed and hovered and where, with every moment that passed, more and more bees joined them. It was a heavy, cloud-oppressed day, and she did not notice the increasing shadow they cast. She thought of her Master, who had too much Fire in him, and wondered why the Seneschal did not ask her why she was not carrying a cup, a crucial, critical cup, to bring the demesne through the faenorn .

She did notice that the great front doors of the House were open, but that there were no Housefolk standing on either side, as there should always be. She did not know if that was by the Seneschal’s order, but she guessed it was. If there was to be a new Master the Seneschal would not want any of his folk to be in danger of accusations of preference for the old Master. As Grand Seneschal, he had to be there. As Chalice, so did she. If they were to be harried later for their suspected preferences, that would be as fate—and the Overlord—ordained. And he probably would ordain, for the Prelate at least should stand with them, and the rest of the Circle should not be skulking with the ordinary folk of the demesne.

The Seneschal was almost an old man; he could be pensioned off; of the Circle, only the Master and Chalice could not retire, and pass their burden on with their own hands. She did not think even this Overlord would see any purpose in harassing an old, retired Seneschal.

Her they needed—they needed a Chalice even above all the rest of the Circle combined; a Chalice to grasp and hold a new Master till he could grasp and hold his Mastership. And they needed a Chalice with an established link to the demesne; they could not afford to—to kill her, she thought almost dispassionately, and let the rods find her replacement. She was sure that news of her activities these last seven days would have been taken to the Overlord and his choice for Willowlands’ Heir; but surely what she had done was wise, whichever way the faenorn fell, for she had been tying the demesne together as well and tightly as she knew—as she could guess—how, perhaps tightly enough to withstand a change to an outblood Master.

Perhaps tightly enough to hold on to the Master it had….

No. The faenorn was swords. There was no help for that.

She hoped the Overlord would choose to see her activities as merely the Chalice’s best effort for her demesne. She guessed that officially he would have to, so that she could marry the Heir—the new Master. Marry him, and bear his child—bear him a son to be Master after him. Even then there would be no escape; a demesne can only contain one living Chalice; she could not retire, nor could she run away, for a Chalice could not leave her demesne; to try would kill her. There is always that last recourse, she thought bleakly. But she had been Chalice long enough to know that, however desperate that hope, her demesne’s only real hope was in her.

She felt rather than heard when the Master came out of the open door behind them. She turned to look at him; he too was alone. He too would risk none of his folk—and that told her, as if she needed to be told, that he too knew how this meeting would end. She felt that his shambling, limping walk was more conspicuous than it had been in months. She looked into his face, into his red eyes, and knew, despite the expressionlessness of his black face and the strangeness of his eyes, that he would not merely fail to raise his own sword but step—stumble—forward into Horuld’s blow. Let it be over quickly, his eyes said. Let my blood tell the land it has a new Master, and that it must obey him now.

And she had to stand, and watch, and witness, with no cup to steady her or her demesne, and hope that the land would listen.

The Master went slowly down the steps; he could not go quickly, or he would fall. She could not watch; she could never watch. She stared out over the crowd; they, too, were looking away—most of them looking up, into the sky, as if hoping for a sign or a saviour. She gazed slowly around. The Circle were contemplating their feet.