The Cloistery.
It was the school where Frell had originally been taught.
Kanthe returned his attention to the alchymist, who had finished his notation and frowned up the length of the bronze scope, as if trying to peer through the roof. Frell’s studies concentrated on the mysteries of the skies, what the hieromonks ascribed to be the lofty sphere of the gods. Kanthe knew that Frell sought to understand what was written in the movement and pattern of stars—though most of his studies had to be reserved to the winter, when the sun sat at its lowest and the barest peek of stars became visible across their section of the Crown.
Kanthe could guess the reason for Frell’s interest in the skies. The man had grown up at the Crown’s westernmost edge, in the shadow of the Ice Fangs, marking the boundary between the Crown and the frozen wastes beyond the mountains. In those territories, the Father Above shone pale, if at all. Frell had once described the spill of stars visible from there, but Kanthe could hardly imagine it.
Here in the starless Crown, Frell had focused his study on what was most readily visible in these skies. Kanthe glanced down to the sheaf of papers, noting the detailed drawing of the moon, freshly inked and swathed in cabalistic notations, lines, measurements, all in different colors. It was quite beautiful in a cold and frightening way.
The other papers sharing the table appeared far older, yellowed by age, the ink faded to near obscurity, but all appeared to delve into the same mystery.
The moon …
Frell finally sighed and gave a shake of his head. “Maybe I’m addled, or moonstruck by the Son and Daughter into delusions.”
“Why do you say that?” Kanthe asked. He had never heard Frell doubt himself, which disturbed him far more than he would expect. In many ways, the alchymist had been his rock throughout his turbulent youth. “What has so suddenly vexed you?”
“It’s not that I’m so suddenly vexed. It’s just that I can no longer deny a hard truth. I can no longer perch in my scholarium, read ancient texts, and continue my idle measurements. Studies can only carry one so far. Eventually speculation becomes inevitability.”
“I don’t understand. What’s inevitable?”
Frell reached over and gripped Kanthe’s arm. “That the world will come to an end, that the gods intend to destroy us.”
* * *
KANTHE STRUGGLED TO understand what followed. Shock continued to deafen him to Frell’s words. Kanthe couldn’t believe the blasphemy being spoken aloud by his mentor.
“… wanted to dismiss it,” Frell tried to explain. “Then two days ago, word from the Cloistery arrived, and I knew all my measurements and calculations could no longer be ignored or pushed aside.”
Kanthe glanced at the black missive, then over to the spread of drawings of the moon. He finally found his voice again. “What measurements? What calculations?”
“Let me show you, so you’ll better understand what I fear will come to pass.”
Frell shifted the older parchments and reordered them in a row. He tapped the parchment on the farthest left. “This limne was inscribed seven centuries ago, near the time when Kepenhill was first founded. Look how detailed the moon’s features were drawn, truly remarkable considering how crude the viewscopes were back then. It must have been painstaking work, especially gauging the breadth of the moon’s face.”
“What of it?” Kanthe pressed.
Frell shifted three more pages closer. “These are from two hundred, one hundred, and fifty years ago.” He glanced to Kanthe. “The last was mapped by the cartographer Lyrrasta, after she turned from her study of geographica to chart the skies.”
“Wasn’t she the one burned at the stake?” Kanthe asked, scrunching up his face as he dredged up an old history lesson. He could easily be wrong. There was a long litany of many who had suffered such a fate—or worse—for questioning matters best left to the gods.
“She was,” Frell admitted. “She made the mistake of doubting the existence of the Son and Daughter, attributing much of their dance to invisible forces. But that’s not the point here. Her map of the moon’s face and its calculations add to a pattern going back centuries, if not farther.”
“What pattern?”
Frell tapped a number inscribed on each page, corresponding to the width of the moon’s face. Even Kanthe could see the numbers had steadily grown larger over the centuries.
Kanthe squinted at the pages. “I don’t understand. Does this mean the moon has been getting bigger?”
“Or more likely it draws closer to the Urth. Still, I could not be certain from historical accounts alone. There could be vagaries in the method of measurement, or the seasons they were recorded, or even the positions along the Crown where they were mapped. I tried to account for those changes, while searching for additional validation.”
“Like what?”
Frell gave a small shake of his head. “Changes in the tides over the centuries. Or the frequency of a woman’s bleed, which we know is tied to the Daughter. I even researched the behavior of nocturnal creatures, which abide to the waxing and waning of the Son’s face.”
“And did these studies reveal anything?”
“Nothing that I could use to definitively corroborate my growing fears. So, I’ve been doing my own measurements of the moon’s face, every time it reaches its fullness. For over a decade now. Yet, I still could not be sure. The changes were so minuscule over such a short time. I feared it would take my entire life to confirm or rule out my worries.”
“Then what’s got you so lathered up now?”
Frell pulled more pages forward. “Over the past year, the changes have become more prominent. With each turn of the moon. And I certainly cannot discount these results.”
“Because it’s all your own work. Right here at Kepenhill.”
He nodded. “The moon’s face grows with each turn. It cannot be denied. Faster and faster.”
Kanthe craned his neck, trying to peer at the moon through the roof. “But what does that mean? You mentioned the end of the world.”
“I fear, before long—certainly within the next few years—the Daughter above will return to her Mother, crashing to the Urth and ending all life.”
Kanthe pictured the moon striking the world, like a hammer against an anvil.
“The king should be warned,” Frell said. “And soon. To that end, you can be of great assistance. I need to gain an audience with your father and his council. Action is required—though I can’t imagine what that might be.”
Kanthe turned sharply toward his tutor. There were some things princes knew far better than alchymists. “You mustn’t do that,” he squeaked out. “My father—like every hieromonk here—believes the gods to be immutable. To even whisper elsewise would get you condemned.”
He pictured Lyrrasta burning at a stake.
“And even if your warning isn’t judged blasphemous,” Kanthe said, “my father is ruled by portents. He has scores of soothers and bone-readers who whisper in his ear. He hardly takes a morning shite without first consulting them. And you wish to tell the king—a man preparing for war with the Klashe—that the gods will soon punish us. To whisper of doom when he rallies for war—he’ll deem it not just blasphemous but traitorous. If he kills you on the spot, you’ll be lucky.”