Distant tales of the Dichotomy

Two mornings after the Widow’s Lantern, the letter arrived, and the whole dining hall went quiet to watch it.

Fel had been discharged from the Nightfall Wing at dawn with a bandaged chest, a bag of Karmina’s foul-tasting powders, and a threat about what would happen if he returned before the month was out. He was halfway through a bowl of grey porridge when the big doors at the end of the reception hall swung open and a page walked in carrying a black velvet envelope on a silver tray.

Not parchment. Not paper. Velvet, deep and soft as the inside of a coffin, its edges stitched with silver thread and its flap sealed with a fat blob of silver wax stamped with a crow holding a crown in one claw and a dagger in the other.

Ninety-some candidates stopped chewing.

“Velvet means somebody dies,” Gobu of Grazingrock announced cheerfully from across the room, his mouth full of bread. Raza, seated beside him with his left sleeve pinned to a green stump that already looked like it was thinking about leaves, gave him a gentle look, and the goblin shut up.

The page walked the entire length of the hall in complete silence, past Vili and Loria at their table, past the tables of children who would not look up, and stopped in front of Fel.

“Candidate Four,” he said. “By order of the Sanctum.”

Fel took the envelope. It was heavier than it looked. The page bowed exactly the required depth and left, and the doors shut behind him with a low boom.

Vili had already crossed the room. “Is it a summons? It’s a summons. Open it.”

“Sit down,” said Fel.

“I am standing at a distance that respects your privacy.”

Fel cracked the seal. Inside lay a single sheet of thick black paper written in silver ink, and beneath it a small velvet purse, which clinked. He unfolded the sheet and read it aloud, since it was obvious Vili would have snatched it otherwise.

TO THE CANDIDATE KNOWN AS FOUR, FELANOR TENEDENTE, of the Third Squadron, Team D.

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By the will of His Imperial Majesty, supreme ruler of the three realms, high king of Arboritia and tyrant of Sorrows, and under the seal of the Sanctum of Claws, you are summoned to the Second Trial of the Rising Crow: THE TRIAL OF THREE DOORS.

Your opposing squad shall be Team A of the Third Squadron, being candidates #88, #79, and #19.

The Trial consists of three single combats, one candidate from each squad to each Door. The squad that wins two of three shall carry the Trial. Victors shall be awarded thirty points per candidate. The vanquished shall be docked fifteen. The Sanctum shall not intervene, except to record the dead.

The order of combat is left to each squad and will be declared at the Doors. No candidate shall know his opponent until the Door is opened.

Requisitions for the candidate FOUR, to be acquired at his own expense and presented at the Door of Iron:

I. One third blade, of plain steel, unenchanted and unbound, of no less than two feet in length.

II. Thirty feet of hemp rope, fitted with an iron grapnel.

III. One handbell of blessed bronze, church-stamped, of a size that may be held in the hand.

A stipend of six shims and forty glims is enclosed, being the wage due to the candidate. Leave is granted from the third bell until the tenth. The Trial begins at first bell tomorrow. Failure to present the requisitions shall be recorded as forfeit.

Signed, Kirn Mayfell, Tempest of Daggers, Third Squadron Commander.

Below the signature, in a slanting green scrawl, someone had added: Do try to live. — Boru.

And below that, in a deep, clawed scratch that had gone right through the paper: Don’t.

“Isharv,” said Fel and Vili in unison.

“A bell?” Fel turned the letter over as if the back might explain it. “A rope? Why would I need a rope and a church bell for a duel?”

“The Sanctum does not explain,” Loria said from behind them.

She had arrived without either of them noticing, which was becoming a habit. She was holding her own black letter, folded once. Her right arm was still bandaged, and her eyes did not leave the last lines of Fel’s page.

“Team A,” she said. “The last squad that isn’t the one they’re saving.”

“Saving?” said Vili.

“Ask yourself who has never been mentioned in a trial,” said Loria, and she sat down and began, slowly and precisely, to eat an egg.

Fel poured the little velvet purse into his palm. Six shims, forty glims. More coin than he had held since a Gallows guardsman took the Sun off him. He counted it three times.

“Three items,” he said. “One sword, one rope, one bell. And I get one day.”

“You already own two swords,” Vili pointed out.

“Apparently I’m supposed to own three.”

He looked down at Krashing Fyr on his hip, a faint gold gleam under its black scabbard, and at Falling Star beside it. It seemed a strange request. A man had two hands. But the letter said plain steel, and Karmina had said not to call Silence again, and something at the back of Fel’s mind that sounded a great deal like Orcus said: A blade you can’t afford to lose is a blade you can’t afford to use.

He tucked the letter into his coat.

“I need to go shopping,” he said.