“As do I,” said Arren with unfeigned fervency. He turned his attention to Turkin. “And you?”
Turkin shook his head. “No one. A mother. My father died before I was born, so I never had the chance to know him.”
“What happened?”
He hesitated only a moment before saying, “Piri attack. He died defending my mother.”
That brought Clarinda to a halt, the first indication that she was paying attention to anything other than their way out of the sewers. She turned and looked at him, and her face carefully maintained its neutral look. “That is why you were suspicious of me at first.”
“I was suspicious of you because you are a Piri. I didn’t really require any more reason than that.”
“I understand. I just want you to know, though, that I was no part of that attack.”
“If you had been,” he said, “would you admit it?”
She wanted to lie to him. She knew that if she did so with confidence, he would likely believe her. Curiously, she could not bring herself to do so.
“No. No, I likely would not.” Clarinda paused and then added, “But I didn’t.”
He nodded. There didn’t seem to be any point in pursuing it.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, save for the water lapping at their feet. They had gone under cover of darkness, Arren hoping to put as much distance between himself and Perriz as possible before it was realized that he was gone.
Although Clarinda maintained her sureness of direction, in her journey from Feend and the land of Subterror to Perriz she had passed through so many time zones and differences in day and night shifts that she had lost all track of time. So she had no real clue how long they wandered through the tunnels. She felt as if the prolonged silence made it longer than it actually was.
Her people had killed Turkin’s father. Taking that into consideration, it was nothing short of astounding that he had been willing to trust her at all. What did it say about Turkin that he had eventually accepted her as their leader when the Piri were responsible for his father’s death? It made her feel…
She didn’t know how she felt.
Yes. Yes, she did. She felt pride. She was unaccountably proud of him.
Why? Why did she—?
And suddenly she felt movement.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Something was moving in her belly. It was nothing more than a stirring, almost a gentle tickling.
The fact that she stopped walking naturally caught the attention of her companions. “What is it?” said Berola. “Is something wrong?”
Clarinda wanted to put her hand on her belly. She wanted to rub the little resident therein gently.
My gods, is that what’s going it? Am I unaccountably maternal towards all of them because of the creature growing within me? Maybe. Maybe the pregnancy is causing me to affect others around me. Maybe I’m generating something…some scent, something like that…and it’s causing them to respond to me in a certain way. Which means…
…which means…
…that when the baby is born, they may stop feeling any sort of affection toward me, and I likewise might feel nothing but disdain for them.
I believe…I would hate that.
“This way,” she said abruptly, the air wafting toward her, calling to her. She moved quickly, so much so that Arren and even the Ocular had to hustle to keep up with her.
There was shift in the light as well. It was still nighttime outside, but even so it was still lighter outside than in. That was enough for the others to realize that they were almost out.
For just a moment, Clarinda felt a burst of concern. What if she had miscalculated? What if they had gone in a tremendous circle and were about to emerge in the middle of the city?
The moment that they got to the exit, she knew that she had nothing to concern herself about.
The water from the sewer was spilling out into a lazily rolling river. Vast countryside spread out before them. It was still cloaked in night. Clarinda sniffed the air several times, as did Arren. “Nothing,” she said. “No scent of any Mandraques.”
“I’m not perceiving anything either,” said Arren. “Still…are you sure?”
“Reasonably.”
Slowly he nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am sure as well. My friends,” she said to the Ocular, “it appears that we will not have to contend with my brethren after all. I hope that you will not be too bitterly disappointed by that news.”
“It is fortunate for them,” was all Turkin said. Berola nodded in silent affirmation.
Berola then shifted her attention to Clarinda. “Are you going to be able to find your way back?”
“I found here, didn’t I?”
“Very true.”
Clarinda took Berola’s hand in hers. It required both of Clarinda’s hands to hold one of Berola’s. “Good luck to you. Come back safely.”
“You know that we will, if the gods wish it so.”
“Yes, well,” and she fired an angry glance heavenward, “that seems to be the issue, doesn’t it.”
Then Clarinda gasped as Berola pulled her toward herself. For a moment she felt as if the Ocular was about to break her in half. Instead Berola embraced her, as carefully as she could lest she wind up shattering the Piri’s light bones. “We will come back to you,” Berola assured her.
“I am counting on that.”
Berola released her, then stepped back and bowed slightly. Turkin did the same, although he obviously felt no need to hug Clarinda. She was grateful for that. For all she knew, he might suddenly lose control and, in a paroxysm of fury, rip her apart.
Then she was left facing Arren. “I was not planning on embracing you,” he said stiffly.
“That is probably fortunate.” She paused and then said, “Make certain that no harm comes to them.”
“I suspect they are big enough to take care of themselves.”
I suspect you may be wrong about that, she thought.
“So,” Arren continued briskly, consulting his map. “We have a long way to walk.”
“Walk?” said Turkin disdainfully. “Who said anything about walking?” He grabbed the startled Mandraque and swung him up and around. Arren landed on Turkin’s back and was clearly about to climb down, having no idea what Turkin was up to, when Turkin started to run. Berola kept up with him easily as the two Ocular proceeded to sprint in the direction that Arren urged them to go.
Clarinda stood there at the mouth of the sewers and wondered, as the dawn remained hours away, whether she was ever going to see them again. She strongly suspected she would not.
And with that realization, to her shock and frustration, crimson tears began to run down her face. She wiped them away with an annoyed sweep of her arm and retreated to the sewers.
the spires
I.
The skies were gray and overcast when Graves’s ship made port in the Spires.
Graves had remained at the prow for most of the rest of the trip, simply staring off into the horizon and mentally picturing Jepp’s bloated body sunk to the bottom of the Vastly Waters.
She had been, without a doubt, the single most infuriating female that he had ever encountered. And that included Tania, the harridan who had transformed his brother into…
What? What the hell had she changed him into?
Tania had refused to tell him. He had raged at her and shouted at her, but she had simply stood there with her arms folded and that damned smile on her face, saying, “He had it coming, Graves. If I had it to do again, I would do so in a heartbeat. And were the situations reversed, you would have done the same—”
“If they were reversed? How so? Gant ill-used your sister and so you punished him. You ill-used my brother! How should I not then punish you?”
Tania had tilted that pointed chin of hers challengingly. Her skin had not yet acquired the silver tint that all Phey were slowly developing since they had first arrived on this godsforsaken sphere. “Go ahead and try,” she had said.
He had not done so, and had subsequently cursed himself for his cowardice. He had thus been left wondering about his brother’s fate.
And now he had to continue to do so.
“You look depressed,” said Trott.
He hadn’t heard Trott come up behind him, but that was fairly standard. Nothing moved more silently than a Phey; even they couldn’t perceive each other. Graves finished tying off the ship at the dock as Trott stood behind him. “We had her, Trott. She was a Fated One.”
“We don’t know that.”
“We do know that. We were drawn to her. We would not have been drawn to her had she not been a Fated One.”
“That’s circular reasoning.”
“The circle is nature’s most useful shape. Why not employ it for logic as well?” He shook his head. “Perhaps her purpose was to somehow lead me to Gant. To reunite me with my brother. I literally had Gant’s salvation in my hands and it slipped through.”
“That is a great deal of responsibility to ascribe to one female Mort. A dead female Mort.”
“Dead because of me.”
“Dead because of the storm,” Trott gently corrected him. “How much responsibility are you planning to place upon your shoulders? You didn’t cause the storm to come upon us.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Oh, you cannot be serious.”
“She was getting on my nerves. Despite the possible connection she represented to Gant, her attitude was infuriating.”
“You’re not a climate sensitive.”
“Who knows what the hell we are anymore, Trott? I mean, look at us!” He tapped his glistening metal skin. It made a hollow, ringing sound. “Our ability to adapt has always been our greatest strength! Now it’s a liability! This world is poisoning us, Trott. We’re dying by inches, and we remain fortune’s fools.”
“We are not dying. Don’t be so overdramatic. As for the Mort, I don’t disagree that she was a Fated One. But perhaps her fate was to die at sea.”
“And she needed us to enable that to happen?”
“Apparently so. We are but the playthings of the gods, my friend.”
“I don’t mind being the playthings of the gods. I mind being like unto excrement on the feet of the gods.”
“It is what it is, Graves.”
Graves looked at him disdainfully. “You are one of the great thinkers of our race, Trott. Do you know that? Just incredibly deep.”
“I need to speak with you.”
The voice sounded in both their heads, accompanied by the chiming of bells. It hit with such force that Trott and Graves staggered slightly as if from an assault.
“Damnation, Spense!” shouted Graves, which was not necessary since Spense was nowhere within hearing distance. “What are you going on about?”
“The old man has lost his mind.”
“What else is new?”
“I think we may have to kill him.”
Trott and Graves exchanged looks. Trott shrugged, indicating that he had no idea how to respond to that.
They began walking toward the vast hall that was the home of the Travelers as the rest of the world knew them, and the Phey as they knew themselves. “Spense,” Graves said with forced calm, “we cannot kill him.”
“We can find a way.”
“Yes, there is a way. We kill him and our entire race dies. That is the way.”
“We do not know that.”
“We do know that.”
“No. We believe that. We do not know that.”
“Trott,” Graves said in frustration. “Talk to him.”
“What would you have me say?”
“That what he’s suggesting is madness. He would risk the existence of our people.”
“You call this existence? Living in thrall to a demented, armored creature who gets madder with every passing turn? Should we not be taking the quality of our lives into account?”
“I am not going to keep discussing this until we are face to face.”
“As you wish.”
Spense’s rantings faded from his head. He looked at Trott in annoyance. “Well, you were of no help at all. ‘What would you have me say?’”
“I’ll admit my support for you was a bit tepid…”
“You would have to leave it out in a blazing sun for many turns in order to get it warm enough to qualify as tepid.”
“You know Spense. He lives in extremes. He rants one day and is calm the next. As much as he may be making declarations about the Overseer today, by tomorrow it will likely be forgotten.”
“And if it is not? If he winds up mounting some manner of attack against the Overseer? If he does somehow, against all odds, manage to kill him, what then?”
“Then I guess we’ll have to see.”
“Have to see?” Graves could not believe what he was hearing. “And if we see our people shrivel and die?”
“Except…”
“Except what?”
“Well…Spense is right. How do we know? We do not really. We ‘know’ because the belief has been placed within us by the Magisters. We believe it because they have forced us to believe it. But what if it is a lie? What if we could seize control of our destinies instead of being bound to the Overseer? Would that not be something worth pursuing?”
“And would it be worth the lives of all Phey living throughout the Damned World if it turns out that what we believe to be true is, in fact, true?”
“I don’t know,” said Trott. “But what I do know is that nothing worthwhile is attained without some degree of risk.”
“Well, if it is all the same to you, I do not feel inclined to risk the collective life of our race.”
“There is a difference,” Trott said, “between ‘life’ and ‘existence.’ What we have right now, at this moment in time, is an existence. Whether you could truly call it a life, I could not say.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Spense.”
“Well, if I’m right, and Spense is right, then that would explain the similarities.”
Graves rolled his eyes, having had more than enough of a conversation he felt to be nonsensical.
They approached the great hall of the Phey, the enormous building in which the Travelers dwelled. It was one of the largest meeting halls in the Spires, and the Phey had adopted it for their home because of its considerable spaciousness. There were, after all, not all that many Phey left in existence. They were long lived, but more and more of their females turned out to be barren. It was not a phenomenon that was new to this world; their numbers had been steadily diminishing back when they were still in residence in the Elserealms. Matters had simply become aggravated since the transition.
“At least Spense stopped his complaining,” said Graves as they approached the bank of glass doors that were the main entranceway to the great hall. “Although when we’re face to face, I imagine he’s going to start in immediately with his incessant…”
His voice trailed off and he stopped walking. Trott, who was just behind him, nearly bumped into him. Considering the typical grace with which the Phey moved, this was unusual.
The Overseer was standing just outside the doors. He was holding Spense’s head in his hands. The rest of Spense’s body was nowhere to be seen.
“Greetings. How fares it with you gentlemen this fine day?”
“It…” Graves was doing everything he could to hold himself together. Spense’s vacant eyes nevertheless seemed to be gazing at him accusingly. “It fares well, Overseer.”
“You two are newly arrived in town, correct?”
“That is correct, Overseer. We have been in your service from the beginning, but recently our presence was required…elsewhere.”
“Where? And I suggest you tell me truthfully, because if you don’t, I’ll know, and you’ll end up like your friend here. He wanted to kill me. Can you believe that?”
“It is hard to fathom, Overseer.”
“Could scarcely credit it myself. Yet it was, tragi
cally, true. He thought I wouldn’t find out. He was wrong. I always find out, as you boys can readily see. Am I right?”
“Yes, Overseer.”
The Overseer seemed to be considering them. Trott was paralyzed, unable to say anything or even contemplate saying anything, for fear that a stray thought could result in their immediate annihilation.
“I was speaking to your associates about a plan of mine, and this individual seemed reluctant to implement it. Instead he was going to his brethren and trying to convince them that they should consider rising up against me. You don’t feel that way, do you?”
“It is our function in life to satisfy the needs, wants and desires of the Overseer.”
“Needs, wants, and desires. Well, you gentlemen certainly have all the bases covered”
“If I may ask, Overseer, what is the nature of the plan?”
“Quite simply, I want the remainder of the human race to be wiped out from the face of the planet. Just put an end to them. After all, if they wound up losing this world to your kind, they’ve already proven ourselves too stupid to live. Don’t see any reason why the job can’t be finished once and for all. Am I right?”
“Of course you are right, Overseer. You are the epitome of rightness.”
“Excellent.” The Overseer turned and glanced back at the building behind him. He seemed to find it amusing. “It totally breaks me up that you guys took up residence in the Javits Center. Of all the damned places. Hundreds of four-star hotels in this goddamned city, and you live in a convention center. You people crack me up, you know that? You really do. So…get on that other thing with the remaining humans, would you? And don’t let me down. It doesn’t go well for people who let me down.”
He casually tossed Spense’s head to Trott, who caught it more out of reflex than anything else. “You…make your point quite well, Overseer,” said Trott.
“I almost forgot. You still haven’t told me where you two were off to?”
Graves did not even consider for a moment the possibility of lying. “We were drawn to a Mort woman. Her name was Jepp. We were in the process of bringing her here because we believed she would be of some importance.”