Flesh and Spirit Read online

  Praise for the Novels

  of Carol Berg

  Flesh and Spirit

  “In Carol Berg’s engrossing Flesh and Spirit, an engaging rogue stumbles upon the dangerous crossroads of religion, politics, war, and destiny. Berg perfectly portrays the people who shape his increasingly more chaotic journey: cheerful monks, cruel siblings, ambitious warlords, and a whole cast of fanatics. But it’s the vividly rendered details that give this book such power. Berg brings to life every stone in a peaceful monastery and every nuance in a stratified society, describing the difficult dirty work of ordinary life as beautifully as she conveys the heart-stopping mysticism of holiness just beyond human perception.”

  —Sharon Shinn, national bestselling author

  of The Thirteenth House

  “Chilling…well written.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Terrific.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  The Bridge of D’Arnath Series

  “A very promising start to a new series.”

  —The Denver Post

  “Berg has mastered the balance between mystery and storytelling [and] pacing.”

  —The Davis Enterprise

  “Berg exhibits her skill with language, world building, and the intelligent development of the magic that affects and is affected by the characters.”

  —Booklist

  “Imagination harnessed to talent produces a fantasy masterpiece, a work so original and believable that it will be very hard to wait for the next book in this series to be published.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “[Seri] is an excellent main heroine, her voice, from the first person, is real and practical…. I’m truly looking forward to seeing what happens next.”

  —SF Site

  “Gut-wrenching, serious fantasy fiction.”

  —Science Fiction Romance

  “Excellent dark fantasy with a liberal dash of court intrigue…. Highly recommended.”

  —Broad Universe

  “Berg excels at strong world building and complex, sympathetic characters. Her world is realistic and reasonable despite the obvious magical elements, and heroes and villains alike have complex motivations that make them real.”

  —Romantic Times

  Song of the Beast Winner of the Colorado Book Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy

  “The plot keeps twisting right until the end…entertaining characters.”

  —Locus

  “The characters are memorable, and Berg’s intelligence and narrative skill make this stand-alone fantasy most commendable.”

  —Booklist

  “It would be easy to categorize it as another dragon fantasy book. Instead, it is a well-crafted mystery…definitely recommended for libraries looking for high-quality fantasy and mystery additions.”

  —KLIATT

  Transformation, Revelation, and Restoration, the Acclaimed Rai-Kirah Series

  “Vivid characters and intricate magic combined with a fascinating world and the sure touch of a Real Writer—luscious work!”

  —Melanie Rawn

  “This well-written fantasy grabs the reader by the throat on page one and doesn’t let go…wonderful.”

  —Starburst

  “Both a traditional fantasy and an intriguing character piece…superbly entertaining.”

  —Interzone

  “Vivid characters, a tangible atmosphere of doom, and some gallows humor.”

  —SFX Magazine

  “An exotic, dangerous, and beautifully crafted world.”

  —Lynn Flewelling, author of Traitor’s Moon

  “Powerfully entertaining.”

  —Locus

  “Berg’s characters are completely believable, her world interesting and complex, and her story riveting.”

  —KLIATT

  “Epic fantasy on a gigantic scale…. Carol Berg lights up the sky with a wondrous world.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  ALSO BY CAROL BERG

  Breath and Bone

  The Rai-Kirah Series

  Transformation

  Revelation

  Restoration

  Song of the Beast

  The Bridge of D’Arnath Series

  Son of Avonar

  Guardians of the Keep

  The Soul Weaver

  Daughter of Ancients

  Flesh and Spirit

  CAROL BERG

  A ROC BOOK

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Roc trade paperback edition.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1273-8

  Copyright © Carol Berg, 2007

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For Pete and the greatest of all fantasy adventures

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Part OneThe Cusp of Autumn

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part TwoA Gathering of Wolves

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part ThreeBitter Blue Days

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28 />
  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  Best thanks to my ever-attentive muse, Linda, for prodding my thinking. Heaps, mountains, and really awfully luminescent thanks to Susan, Laurey, Glenn, Brian, Catherine, and Curt for refusing to let me slide over those tough details; to Markus, the Fighter Guy, for combat review; and to the doc-on-the-net, Doug Lyle, for a few gory consultations. And, as always, to my readers for the words that get me through the tough days and my family for their forbearance when I go into hermit mode.

  The cusp of autumn arrives untimely. Dun haze. Tarnished gold. Leaves…glory dulled…whipped from their branches. Wolves gather, howling, gnawing the light. No more the culmination of summer, but harbinger of bitter blue days and ever longer nights. The dance is finished, and my heart aches for the waning season. Hollow. Wanting. Dare I sleep?

  —Canticle of the Autumn

  PART ONE

  The Cusp of Autumn

  Chapter 1

  On my seventh birthday, my father swore, for the first of many times, that I would die face down in a cesspool. On that same occasion, my mother, with all the accompanying mystery and elevated language appropriate for a prominent diviner, turned her cards, screamed delicately, and proclaimed that my doom was written in water and blood and ice. As for me, from about that time and for the twenty years since, I had spat on my middle finger and slapped the rump of every aingerou I noticed, murmuring the sincerest, devoutest prayer that I might prove my parents’ predictions wrong. Not so much that I feared the doom itself—doom is just the hind end of living, after all—but to see the two who birthed me confounded.

  Sadly, as with so many of my devotions, some to greater gods than those friendly imps carved into the arches and drainpipes of palaces, hovels, latrines, and sop-houses, my fervent petition had come to naught. I’d been bloody for two days now, the rain was quickly turning to sleet, and I seemed to have reached the hind end of everything…

  “I’ve no quarrel with ye, Valen, ye know that.” The hairy brute stuffed my sweetly chinking leather purse into the folds of his cloak and returned to burrowing in my rucksack. “Ye’ve been a fine comrade these months. But ye’ve need of more care than I can give ye, and I’ve told ye, I can’t be hallooing with no monkish folk. If I thought so much as a slavey’s hovel lay within thirty quellae, I’d drag ye there.”

  “And as you’re going to abandon me here, well…no use wasting good plunder on maggot fodder,” I said bitterly, teeth chattering, lips numb. The cold rain sluiced down the neck of my sodden jaque and collected about my knees in the ruts of the ancient road. My elbows quivered as I tried to hold my chest above the muddy water. This damnable goat track had likely not been used since they hauled in stone and wood to build the ghostly abbey tucked into the misty, folded land below us. “I’ve watched your back for a twelvemonth, you devil. Not a scratch have you suffered since Arin Fay.”

  One by one Boreas pulled out the remaining carefully wrapped bundles: the onyx jewel case crammed with chains, bracelets, and jeweled brooches, the gold calyx, two daggers with ruby-encrusted hilts—the finest prizes of our infamy. Just one of the daggers could outfit a man with a decent horse, a sword, a thick wool cloak with no holes in it, and a pleasant trimonth of meat, drink, and fair companionship. I’d paid a pretty price in blood and flesh for collecting this bit of plunder, and—Magrog’s demons devour this beast I’d foolishly called friend—I wasn’t even to profit from it.

  He stuffed my goods into his already bulging sack. “None o’ this lot’ll do ye no good. Wasn’t a monk bred won’t steal whatever he lays an eye on. And yer in no fit state to argue with them…or me neither, come to that.”

  The arrow point embedded deep in my thigh and the fist-sized gouge that had started seeping warm blood on my back again bore ample witness to his verity on the last point. I did need help more than I needed my booty, and a wounded man could do far worse than a monastery. These concessions did nothing to ease my mind, however, as I was not yet at the abbey gates and not at all sure anyone would be traveling this particular road with night coming on and a three-year civil war and a sevenday’s deluge to keep folk by their own hearths.

  I ought to have been angrier with Boreas. But gods knew I’d have done the same were he the one collapsed in the muck, wailing that fire-eyed Magrog himself could not make him take one more step. And I was certainly in no fit state to forcibly reclaim my belongings.

  “Just get me down to the gate,” I croaked, another wave of chills washing me closer to the grave. “My share ought to pay you for that at least. And leave me one luné for an offering.”

  “I daren’t. The baldpates’ll have me swinging ere I kiss ye farewell. No worry, lad. One of ’em’ll pass by here and see to ye. And their Karish god teaches ’em to give alms to them with naught, so you’re better off with no silver in your pocket.”

  He shook his head and shrugged his massive shoulders as if the entire mystery of the holy universe was puzzling him at that moment. Then he pulled one last bundle from my rucksack—a flat, squarish parcel, two handspans on a side, wrapped in multiple layers of oiled cloth—and peeled open one flap.

  “Have a care; the rain will ruin that,” I said, attempting to draw one knee up high enough that I could slide my foot underneath me. If I could just get back to my feet, find a thick branch to lean on, perhaps I could stagger down the hill a little farther on my own.

  “Is it plate?” he asked, shaking the bundle and getting no sound. “Heavy enough, but it don’t feel right. I don’t remember nothing this shape.”

  My left boot squelched into place under my hip, jarring the festering wound in my thigh, shooting bolts of white-hot fire up and down my leg. “Aagh! It’s a book. More valuable than plate. More valuable than those daggers to the right people. And I can send you to the right people if you’ll just get me to a leech.”

  Boreas shifted backward, just out of my reach. “A book! Ye’re twinking me, right?”

  He poked his dirty fingers into the corner of the parcel, and then glared down at me dumbfounded. “You donkey’s ass! Have ye an arrow planted between yer ears as well? All the rich stuff we had to leave behind and ye hauled out a blighting book?”

  He threw the parcel and the empty rucksack to the ground and laid his boot into my backside. My shaking elbows collapsed, and I fell forward into the mudhole. Though I twisted enough to avoid a direct hit, I jarred the broken-off arrow shaft protruding from my thigh. Lifting my face from the muck and spewing mud from my mouth, I bellowed like a speared boar.

  Unconcerned, Boreas crouched beside me, rifling my clothes. He tossed aside my bracers and the rag I had used to dry my long-lost bow, stuffed my knife into his own belt, and unwrapped the last bite of sour bread I’d hoarded for more than a day and crammed it into his mouth. Fumbling at the waist of my braies, he pulled out a small bag the size of my palm—a scrap of green wool I’d sewn myself and soaked in tallow until it was stiff. “What’s this?”

  I grabbed for the little bag, but he snatched his hand out of my reach. “By Mother Samele’s tits, Boreas, you’ve got to leave me something.”

  He yanked it open, sniffed at its contents, and then gaped at me as if I had sprouted three arms of a sudden, shaking his shaggy head until the drips flew off it. “Nivat seeds! But you’ve no bent to use such stuff…”

  “Of course not, you clodwit. Would we have scraped and starved this year past if I were some misbegotten spellcaster?”

  Lips curled in disgust, he pulled the silver needle and the jagged fragment of mirror glass from the little bag. “By the night lords—”

  “The bag was hid in the jewel box.” I jumped in quickly to stop his thick head pondering too much. “The nob was surely pureblood. Richer than a prince. And surely Magrog’s henchman to practice such perversion.” I could stanch my babbling no better than I could stanch the blood from my shoulder.

  He dro
pped the things back into the little green bag and crammed the bag into his pocket. “So you decided to sell the nivat on your own and jupe me out of my share. I thought I knew you, Valen. I thought you were my comrade.”

  Rain pounded the soggy ground. My gut sent a warning, like a lightning flash beyond the hills. “I thought we could use the seeds to make feast bread come season’s turn. Offer it to the Danae. Change our luck. Come, you wouldn’t take everything.”

  “Ye said yerself a man makes his own luck. I’m making mine.”

  No plea could induce him to leave anything he thought he could sell. Nivat was very expensive, as were the quickened spells worked from it. Only nobles, pureblood sorcerers, or desperate twist-minds without any choice could afford either one.

  Boreas straightened up and kicked the book parcel and the ragged rucksack toward my head. “The monks’ll heal your hurts if anyone can. Pay ’em with your valuable book.”

  I dragged the rucksack under me, lest the slug-witted ox change his mind.

  “You’re a coward and a thief, Boreas!” I shouted as he trudged off. “You stink like a pureblood’s midden!”

  Only moments and he was gone, the heavy footsteps and ponderous breathing that had been a passing comfort at my side for a year’s turn swallowed up by the pounding deluge. He couldn’t go far. The light was failing. I could scarcely see the slender arches of the abbey church through the sheets of rain. Monks—especially these pious fellows out in the wilderness—put themselves to bed before a meadowlark could sing. Before a whore had her skirts up. Before an owl had its eyes open. Before…