How long dead everyone she had loved was.
“The demon priest you mentioned gave me that key,” he said finally, in a voice that was dry and soft at once. “He sent me to the northern coast of Serendair, across the straits to the Northern Islands of Balatron, Briala, and Querel, where a failed land bridge once stood. The key was meant open a door in the base of that bridge, so that I could bring back an associate of his from the other side.” He met her eyes in the darkness. “You do understand that Tsoltan was the host of a F’dor?”
“Yes.”
“So do you understand where it is that he sent me, and what I was to do?”
She thought for a moment, her eyes growing wider in the darkness.
“You went to the Vault?”
Achmed nodded.
“The actual Vault? It exists in the material world?”
The Bolg king exhaled deeply. “A gateway to it does. ‘The fabric of the world is worn thin there’; that’s what Tsoltan said when giving my instructions.”
Rhapsody’s eyes were glinting now; Achmed knew she was growing nervous.
“And did you open it?”
He nodded. “I did. I looked into the Vault of the Underworld itself. And what I saw there so defies description that I have never really seen fit to attempt it. But it was enough to abandon everything I had, and everything I was, to risk running, because even a cold-blooded assassin like me, even a reprobate with no use for God or man, and no compunction about administering death as if it were a sacrament, has a limit over which he can be pushed. That experience was the limit.”
“I can believe it,” Rhapsody said.
“Then maybe you can believe that now, as a result, everything I do, every chance I get, is an opportunity to safeguard the world from repeating my mistake. You think I am taking unnecessary risks, Rhapsody, but in truth, I am only taking every opportunity to keep that Vault sealed for all time. It is an endless task; like trying to constantly reinforce a dike of sand against the tide of the sea. There are a limited number of F’dor, it’s true, left over from the dawn of Time, but there are enough of them still out there who escaped the Vault in the first cataclysm, ceaselessly endeavoring to get a key like that one and open it, releasing their fellows. I don’t mean to insult you when I say that even you, a Lirin Namer, cannot fathom what that would be like. I have been the dispenser of death myself, in truly horrific ways sometimes, and even I could not have fathomed it had I not seen it with my own eyes.
“You mentioned when you ripped my skin from me, metaphorically speaking, that the Nain had objected to my building of the instrumentality for which you translated the schematics. There is a reason I didn’t confess all that the Nain said. Do you wish to know how they were aware of our construction? They have already built one of their own.” He took some satisfaction at her intake of breath.
“And I wish you wouldn’t lecture me about primordial magic. I know several things about primordial magic that you don’t. It is not immutable, it is fragile; it can die. The death of Sagia left a huge hole in what was possible for primordial magic. The tools we have now are diminished, the weapons denatured. We lost so much constructive power, so much magic from the world when the Island died. I am trying with all my strength to build up our arsenal in this last, greatest battle of all, in every front.”
“But if your fear is that a F’dor will find the Earthchild, and take her rib to use as a key, and release the F’dor, who will then waken the Wyrm, what good is any of your guardianship if your use of the Lightcatcher bypasses all of this and merely wakes the beast up itself?” Rhapsody asked, holding her baby tighter.
Achmed sat up straighter, shaking a cramp out of his neck. Then he met her eyes.
“On the highest peak of Serendair, guarded at its highest pass in air so thin the winged lions who patrolled it could not fly, could barely whisper, was a Lightcatcher. I saw it, Rhapsody. I saw it used, or at least I saw the results. I spoke with the guardians.
“The reason it was built atop the highest peak was so that the power it drew on was the star, not the earth. Every time Faedryth spies on me he tickles the Wyrm; he roots his movable Lightforge near a vein and rattles the world. The Sea Mages undoubtedly take calculated risks with tremors all the time, which is why the currents near their island run amok.” The intensity in his voice made the cavern walls tremble. “But I know, I know that if you ignore the workings of the earthbound navel examiners like Faedryth and Gwylliam, who only looked to the depths for their power, that I could light a flame with the sun. It wouldn’t draw as quickly, it doesn’t draw on a whim, but it doesn’t reach toward annihilation every time you turn it on, either. I need the information in those scrolls to know what I have to do to make sure my peak is not just a Lightforge, but a Lightcatcher. Taking power not from the Earth, but from beyond it. From a star, from the sun—from before the element of Fire was ever born. I can use that instrumentality to see where I cannot now see, to defend where I am vulnerable, to hold the wall of the world stronger than I can without it, and perhaps, just perhaps, we can keep that Vault sealed if we do not disrupt the earth in which it lies.”
He cast one last glance above him.
“It looks a great deal like this inside, by the way.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Rhapsody said sadly. And while the baby drowsed, she told him the story Elynsynos related of the first Ending, and the building of the Vault of the Underworld.
“I am tormented now, wondering what has become of Elynsynos,” she said softly when she had finished the tale. “I don’t know whether Anwyn killed her, or if she is back in her lair, injured. Otherwise she’d be outside right now, trying to free us.”
Achmed sighed. Comfort was not one of his skills.
“Perhaps she’s alive and is outside, but she merely cannot do anything to free us,” he said awkwardly. “Whatever substance is left when formerly living dragonflesh is fired by the release of elemental powers in Ending, it is impervious to all the magic of the demons in the Vault. I can’t imagine that a dragon has the power to open it. The only thing that might is a key like the one that opened Sagia. And that remains hidden back in Ylorc.”
“Even if she’s alive, I’m sure she is distraught to a level no one but a dragon can fully understand. And I ache for Ashe. Sooner or later he will return to collect the baby and me, and he will come upon his father. And, being wyrmkin, it will devastate him.”
“Unfortunate as that may be, it’s the least of our worries now,” Achmed said. “For when he does come upon our stone prison that once was his father, we will have long since run out of air.”
44
JIERNA’SID, SORBOLD
The middle day of the week in Jierna’sid was known as Market Day. On that day, the red stone streets were even more crowded than they usually were with every sort of merchant and waremonger, sellers of salted fish and shoes, leather and cloth, spice and rope, cutlery and salt and any other possible type of good that one might want to buy. As a result, a majority of the citizenry was in the streets as well, taking advantage of the abundance to stock up on their stores for the winter, unlike the populace of the outlying areas, that had to set their stores in before the snow began to fall, as they might not have another chance at procurement until Thaw.
Along with the merchants and the townspeople, others were out in force as well: ratty children ran through the streets, invigorated by the sense of drama in the air; pickpockets plied their trade, under the increased presence of the emperor’s constabulary; beggars and cripples and all kinds of alms seekers lined the dirty alleyways, hoping to benefit from an increase in traffic, if not generosity. As in all of Sorbold’s twenty-seven provinces, there were soldiers everywhere, their numbers and visibility increasing by the day.
Another sort could also be seen in greater numbers during Market Days—thugs. Sometimes wastrels, sometimes former members of the imperial army, there seemed to be an entire class of them scattered throughout Sorbold, a strata of
human beings whose only living purpose seemed to be adding to the misery of other human beings. Generally harmless, but always irritating, these louts prowled the streets of Jierna’sid from the Place of Weight to the farthest reaches of the mercantile district, avoiding the constable and soldiers but harassing passersby, jostling well-dressed men, leering at or sometimes groping women, threatening children, all of which seemed to generate gales of laughter that could be heard for city blocks.
On this Market Day one such thug came by chance upon a group of sleeping beggars huddled beneath a few tattered rags in an alleyway avoiding the bright morning sun, their breath shallow and stinking of sour ale.
What ho! the ruffian thought, pleased with his find. He sauntered over to the sleeping grizzled men and prodded the first with his toe. When the man didn’t stir, the brute kicked him savagely.
“Wake up, you stinkin’ sot! Get off the street and out o’ my sight; it pains me to see the likes of you taking up space on the emperor’s thoroughfare. Move on, or it’ll pain you, too.”
The man, now awake and terrified, turned sightless eyes that reflected the morning light and his fear onto his tormentor.
“Please, please, sir,” he muttered in the throes of dementia. “Please don’t take me ta the army; I’ve lost my sight there once. Don’t want ta do it again.”
The thug laughed out loud. He looked more closely at the other two beggars, both lame, one still asleep, the other waking fitfully, and aimed a kick at the waking one’s head.
“I said get up, you beg—”
His word choked off in midsyllable as the hand of the sleeping beggar shot out like a strike of lightning and grabbed him by the ankle, jerking his calf up high and sharply enough to unbalance him. His balance upended, the ruffian fell backward against the stones of the alleyway, slamming his head against them.
Dazed, the young man tried to rise, only to be gripped by a clutching hand that grasped him around the throat in a clenched fist that seemed to be made of iron.
Before he knew what was happening he found himself being dragged forward on his face over the cold, jagged stones of the alleyway, until he was eye to eye with the beggar. The vagabond’s eyes were unlike any he had seen; Sorbold was a nation of swarthy skin and dark features, where almost all eyes were brown as the earth. But these eyes were an azure blue, and they were burning clearer and hotter than the fires of the streetlamps that lit Jierna’sid by night.
The beggar spat in his face, a mouthful of sour spittle rancid with bad drink and coated teeth.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than to bother the downtrodden, you miscreant?” the ragged man said disdainfully. He slammed the young thug’s head against the wall where the men had been leaning, then, with his other hand, seized the remains of the sour ale in the battered bowl from which they had been drinking, and tossed it down the front of the thug’s trousers. Then he pulled the dazed young man’s ear next to his lips.
“Now, here’s the moment in your life where you will decide to either grow up and be a man worth drawing breath, or where you will sign your own death warrant as a pugnacious fool who owes his mother an apology for being born and will, no doubt, come to an embarrassing end every soon. You can leave this place, go home and change your clothing, and cease from here forward to bother old men who have done you no ill, or you can go round up your fellow reprobates to come back for more. Bear two things in mind if you choose the latter option: First, you will need to explain to them why you pissed yourself. And second, you will not find me here—though rest assured I will come to find you. Unless you wish to earn the wrath of the beggar with the blue eyes, I suggest you choose the former.”
He slammed the thug’s head into the wall again for good measure, then dropped him in the street.
“Go,” he ordered in the ringing tone of an army commander.
The thug scrambled woozily to his feet and stumbled out of the alleyway; he was greeted by a chorus of shocked laughter around the corner.
Anborn waited until the noise outside the alley had died down, then reached beneath the tatters of his cloak for his crutches.
“Find another warm street, friends,” he said to the blind beggar and the lame man. He watched until the two had made it to the corner, leaning on one another, then rose creakily to a stand and hobbled along the streetwall to find another place to spy.
It took him several hours to make his way, clinging to the shadows to avoid notice, closer to the palace of Jierna Tal, rising above the Place of Weight where the massive Scales stood, dark against the winter sky. Anborn had seen those Scales many times, but there was something different about them now, something ominous he could not quite put his finger on. Perhaps it was only the way the light was hitting them, casting long shadows into the streets. But it was also possible that the sights he had been witnessing during his time in Sorbold had been enough to stain his view of everything in the nation.
As he feared, there were signs everywhere that Sorbold was preparing for war. The garrisons that previously had been confined to the borderlands and along the thoroughfares had spread; now almost every few blocks within the city an outpost of some kind had been erected. It was all very discreet; perhaps someone who had never been to Jierna’sid or to any of the other Sorbold states would have even noticed. But Anborn’s understanding of the signals of military buildup, and their efficiency, was legion, having been honed in the most terrible of conflicts.
And what he saw was making him tremble.
Finally he found a warm alcove beneath a small tannery across from the palace, where the fumes and stench would keep any patrol from investigating too thoroughly, and took up residence there. From that hiding place he knew he would see the quartermasters bringing in armor for repair, and believed that what he saw would help him determine even more about the army’s movements. He waited until dark when the tannery had closed for the night, then crawled into the tiny alcove beneath it and settled down, as he had in each of the places between Jierna’sid and Ghant, to watch and make note of what he saw.
Nielash Mousa stood in the silence of dawn before the ruins of the monastery and the manse.
Thaw was coming to an end, he knew; even the desert clime of Sorbold had seen a few flakes of snow carried on the cleansing wind that was whipping over the scarred stones, blowing the ashes about in swirling patterns of gray.
Talquist stood behind him, his head bowed respectfully.
“A most terrible tragedy, Your Grace,” he said softly. He gave the benison’s shoulder a supportive squeeze.
“Indeed,” Mousa replied, allowing his dark eyes, red from the ash and the tears, to rest on the irregular metal pool that had once been the manse’s bell; he remembered the clear sound of it, ringing through the rocky mountainside, calling his acolytes and abbot to service in Terreanfor.
He struggled to remain still, to keep his shoulder from shrugging away the regent’s hand, to keep his face set in a mien that was merely sorrowful, not revealing the fury and loathing that was bubbling inside him, eating at his viscera like Pulis, the apocryphal lake of acid in the Vault of the Underworld, where traitors were dipped eternally in endless torment. May the legends of it be true, if only for you, Talquist, he thought bitterly.
As if the regent emperor was reading his thoughts, Talquist squeezed his shoulder again, a little more tightly this time.
“I know this is a terrible blow to you, Your Grace, and so I have made arrangements to assist you in your grief, and in the rebuilding of your monastery and your order.”
Mousa turned then and met the regent’s gaze; behind the sympathetic expression in Talquist’s black eyes he could see a more discerning one, a piercing stare that had sized up the benison’s reaction, and already determined that he had not been misled.
“What sort of arrangements?” he demanded.
Talquist smiled slightly. “All sort, Your Grace,” he replied, his voice warm and respectful but with an icy edge. “You will need a place to live
until a new manse can be built, obviously, so I have taken the liberty for finding you lodging within Jierna Tal, where my servants and guards can be at your beck and call.”
“How kind of you,” the benison said dryly.
“And of course we will want to be interviewing new acolytes as soon as possible, I would imagine.”
Nielash Mousa arched an eyebrow. “We? I hadn’t realized you had any interest or expertise in matters of the faith, m’lord.”
The regent emperor opened his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “How awkward; I do apologize. I suppose Lasarys, may the All-God cradle him gently in the Afterlife, did not tell you that I trained with him in Terreanfor as an acolyte myself, many years ago?”
“I see,” said the benison. “Well, what a loss it is that you did not choose to follow the call into the order, my son.”
Talquist threw back his head and laughed merrily, but the piercing glance did not waver.
“Yes, I suppose that would be preferable to being named emperor,” he said humorously.
The benison smiled benignly and made the same conciliatory gesture that Talquist had performed the moment before.
“Well, some of us would think so, m’lord.”
The wind whistled down from the mountain, bringing the sharp sting of fire ash with it, and carrying away the pleasantries of both men.
Talquist broke the silence first.
“So, since these new acolytes will be under my domain, and many of them will serve at my official investiture as emperor in the spring, I would see to it that we have as loyal and capable a crop as possible, and that their training begin immediately. I have taken the liberty of sending a petition to the Patriarch, under your office’s seal, to begin the recruitment as soon as possible.”
“Are there any other liberties you have taken in my name, my son?” asked Mousa, his voice barely steady.
Talquist’s smile hardened.
“Only the ones that would assist you, and Sorbold, in dealing with this terrible loss, Your Grace,” he said evenly. “There will be a good deal of paperwork in the search for your new acolytes, so I have assigned my own personal correspondent to handle all your communications, especially those going to and coming from Sepulvarta. Additionally, because your health and safety are of utmost concern to me, I have made arrangements for my personal retinue of guards to escort you in all of your travels, so that you never need fear any harm coming to you.” He leaned a little closer to the benison. “I can certainly understand how this horrific occurrence might cause you to worry for your well-being, which is a perfectly understandable concern, however unwarranted. Ofttimes when tragedy strikes, men panic, become fearful.” He looked up to the ruins of the old bell tower, then met the benison’s eye again. “Make unwise choices.”