A movement startled me and I could not understand the dark figured half submerged in the tumbling water.
A wave obscured the dark shape, knocking it forward, but it rose and took a step closer to the beach. The man wore tattered linen and nothing more. His black hair and wide face reminded me of Bessradi porters.
I took several steps toward him, and saw that his skin was gray and dead. He walked up beyond the waves and paused there as the icy water poured off him. He was gigantic, perhaps as tall as Geart.
His head came up and he looked at me.
I took a step back.
It was Geart. He was Hessier, and he’d climbed out of the thawing sea.
40
General Leger Mertone
The First Days of 1197
I did not mind being a ghost. That Barok had lost half an arm to make me could not be discounted, but the balance of the experience was better in many was to life in a mortal frame. Others may feel differently about some aspect, food and sleep for instance. I needed neither and was glad for it. I’d always found eating to be a distraction and a bother, and while a soldier loves sleep, in all reality it got in the way. I could not feel pain and there was an amount of authority that came with being a flaming wisp of smoke inside an ancient metal suit. Evela and the balance of Barok’s envoys. Freedom of movement was an issue, but I could get as far away from Barok as a Chaukai arrow could fly without stumbling.
I had a good sense of smell and a great sense of humor—at least, things seemed funnier. I was often the only one laughing, but perhaps it was hard to join in when a disembodied being was ratting metal at you.
Upon the ridge, Barok, bless his heart, was still in that god damned tent. The city had risen around him during the warm Enhedu winter while Mount Virk sent smoke rolling from its side.
I laughed a little.
The story Barok would have told as he looked out across this scene would have include all the boisterous report from northern armies ready to move. He would have detailed the number of jugs of water per peg that poured down each arm of the aqueduct and the count of coins in taxation earned per shop, per street, per something. He would have lamented his army but celebrated that it had one healer for every sergeant. He would have hinted at the plans he had in motions, but only a banker would have cared to hear the details.
Dia would have stood centerpiece to it all. She would have done as Evela had—spending the entire winter with the very strange children that studied magic upon the silver stairs and gotten to know them—the way she did with every child in Urnedi. They would be with her as she prepared for the celebration that would see a half million people raise a mug around that ridge.
For me it felt exactly the same as my last festival in Enhedu—good people taking a deep breath and sitting down when they needed to.
It was only a day away. The army would move after the beer had been drunk and the songs had been sung, and with Barok would go the people who cherished Enhedu, trusted their lord, and wanted salvation for all the people whose lives were in their hands.
Barok emerged from his tent, looked down at the tortured remains of Urnedi as he did every morning—early again that day without aid. I pointed him to his required reading and he went without complaint.
In the pastures east of it all four thousand Akal-Fell were being made ready for war. The songs of Evela’s Sermod had aged them, and when that mighty herd ran each morning, it was Clever who kept watch.
Dia would have wept to see it.
“Are you ready?” Evela asked. She held the lead of an Akal-fell and the blood box Barok had made for us that winter. I retrieved my borrowed Akal-Tak and studied sire and filly as we rode south. Clever pranced high and eager as he trotted alongside his kin, and the well-trained filly bowed its head and licked its lips most of the way. The living horse kept its distance though, as if it understood that its sire was a ghost, same as me.
“You remain convinced there is no risk for me to attend?” I asked Evela.
“No more risk than the girls marching south with the army tomorrow. Every day is a risk for them. They are running out of time and have many words left to learn. Lilly would see Barok visit the silver stairs. You are the next best thing. You should also know what is coming, you are a bit more permanent than Fana and me.”
“Fana objected?”
“She has no say here. I have taken her place, as Barok wished.”
“The Spirit speaks to you?”
“She screams. It is fortunate for us all that Fana did not lose her mind. The Earth lives in constant pain.”
“How are you holding together?”
“I will be glad to depart Enhedu tomorrow. I hope never to return.”
Evela’s skin shimmered then, as if her worry someone piqued her connection with the Spirit of the Earth.
We rode south to the silver mine, and started down the blasted tunnel where Aden’s magic had murdered so many of the Chaukai.
Lilly met us in the scorched square of entrance hall before the opening of the great shaft, and she snatched hold of the elbow of my armor before I could say hello.
“Come,” she said with a smile upon her face. “Come. This will do the trick. I know it will. We will sing to the wounded earth with you in the center of the circle, and she will wake enough to for us to learn the rest of the words.”
“You are missing only the words for the animals now?” I asked.
“A few other words escape us, but yes, the names of the many creatures that walk, fly, wiggled, and swim are locked away as if they do not trust us. We’ve seen so few of them, perhaps, despite the many things that wander the forests. You would think a lynx would give up its name. They continue to refuse and we have no idea why.”
We started out onto a wide stairway. The shaft beyond was not recognizable. All of the many layers of scaffolding and devises put in place to mine the silver were gone. What remained was a well-built stairway of dark wood that descended to a level platform at the bottom of the long shaft. Our footsteps echoed strangely as we marched down. It was as long a trip as I remembered. The lanterns we carried were not enough to illuminate the ceiling far above, but far off across the vast space before us the light would catch the river of native silver. As we got further down, I could make out the stairs upon its bright surface.
We met the rest of the girls at the bottom of the wooden stairs, and I took a moment to say hello. Their faces surprised me. The youngest was a Khrimish redhead covered in a billion freckles. The two oldest girls were most likely from Heneur, sister if I had to guess. Only Lilly and a few others seemed to be from Enhedu. The tale of how Fana has assembled so diverse a group was not one that had been shared.
“Welcome, Leger,” one of the Heneurans said and I recognized the family resemblance as I heard her father’s accent, despite the girl hiding her eyes.
“It is a pleasure to be here. You are Lukan Vlek’s daughters, are you not?”
“Indeed. We started the study with Lilly,” she said, and I noticed as her head moved from side to side that she was blind. Many of the others seemed similarly afflicted.
“It is happening to all of us,” Lilly said. “Even me. Evela will be glad to get us away from the steep stairway tomorrow. But forget about that, its time.”
She tugged me along, and the rest moved after us, arm in arm.
“How is the blood box holding up?” I asked Evela as we approached the far side and more of the dazzling shaft of silver came into view before us.
“It’s gotten a bit warm, but seem fine so far. We should not go much farther away from Barok.”
“See here, see,” Lilly said as we reached the base of the uneven stairway. She ran up the first thirty steps, her lantern swinging in her small hand. “Imagine a singer standing on each step all the way up, our voices loud enough to make the earth shake and warm the silver beneath our feet.”
There were more than a thousand steps. The girls numbered only thirty-one.
Our effort
seemed very inadequate as she spun in circles to watch the many reflections of the lantern light dance upon the walls. Evela and I had debated staying in Enhedu versus going along with the army, but I could hardly feel it made a difference either way. It made sense to keep the girls where the army was so that they were best protected, but even if Barok was to carve a path through the Kaaryon, see Yarik’s armies defeated, and call from all across Zoviya every pure souls untouched by the Shadow, I could not imagine us returning with anywhere near the numbers needed to sing the Song of the Earth.
“This is worse than I thought.”
“This is why She needed Geart so badly,” Evela said. “He had the strength to find singers and learn words. Lilly and the rest are all we have. None of us know how to find more. They have learned a few words as they walk the stairs and dream of things, but most of what we know came from Sikhek.”
I did not see how I could help, and said up to Lilly, “What do you need of me? I am a thing made with words of the Earth and the Shadow. I am corrupted by my very nature against your cause.”
“Are you?” Lilly said, and danced down the stairs to me. “Do you think you could learn any words? Maybe you could try?”
Evela was cross. “We agreed we would tell him after, and he is not here to learn the song.”
“What does she mean?” I asked.
Evela spoke fast and plain. “It hurts them to sing the words. It is killing them, same as any other magic. Lilly and Fana heard whispers from the Spirit about ghosts like you who can sing.”
“That is why Fana made me.”
“Yes. You were a test. Her hope was to begin locking the girl’s souls away as their bodies died. None of them will make it more than a year or two. We dream about filling the stair with singers and waking the Earth with a single performance of the great song, but the truth of it will be something else.”
“Exciting, isn’t it,” Lilly said and I saw the madness then that swirled behind her eyes. “Don’t tell my mom, okay?”
My armor warmed and I felt like I was being tapped on the shoulder. It turned and Evela asked, “You heard her?”
“What? No, but something. She was speaking to me?”
“She began screaming as soon as you approached the stairs,” she said. “Talking to her is not like talking to the Mother Yew. You do not want to hear her, I think. Lilly, please begin. We have been down here longer than we should.”
It did not seem possible that a ghost could be afraid, but as the girls assembled around me at the base of the silver stairs, my armor trembled, and I started to ask them to hold for a moment.
I did not get the chance. Lilly began, and I was jolted back. The silver stairs crackled and began to glow white her angry words beat upon me. The rest joined from time to time as if struggling to keep up.
And then the song stopped, and I was left unwell, as though only half of me was standing there. The stairway faded back to its muted and dusty tones, and the girls lay around Evela as though I’d stuck each with my fist. Evela helped Lilly up. Her nose was bleeding and one of her eyes had gone milky.
“Wasn’t that wonderful?” she asked and dashed partway up the stairs.
Evela’s skin began to shimmer and she flinched as if being lashed.
“What is she saying to you?”
“She hates us. We are children. She wants an army of tall women and the blood of the Vesteal.”
“This is madness.”
“She is tortured. I can hear the Shadow laughing at her pain. The thorns and knives he chokes her with are deep and filled with poison. All these centuries he had been upon her, him awake, her asleep. She is waking to her pain, and I would cut my throat to see Him torn free of Her. Any mother would.”
“Would you cut your son’s throat?”
She did not answer me and moved to help the girls as they began to wake and weep.
Lilly stopped her dancing upon the stairs, and looked down on me.
“You didn’t hear any of the words, did you?”
The blood from her nose had smeared across her chin and down into her dress. I want to take away her pain. I wanted to lie to her, and made it better somehow. She deserved the truth though. Anyone who stood before such a tortured god deserved to know nothing but the truth.
“No. I heard nothing. But I’ve never had an ear for it. Others might.”
“Would I be happier as a ghost?” she asked.
“Yes, Lilly. I think you would.”
It was most terrible thing I’d ever said while alive or dead.
41
Dia Vesteal
Geart
The shambling form was gray and swollen. I did not want to believe that Geart was Hessier.
I withdrew my breathing tube and asked through my hood, “Are you okay? What happened to the ship?”
No response.
“Did you walk across the bottom of the ocean to reach us?”
He vomited sea water, coughed like a bull, and started up the beach. He said nothing and did not look at me as though he was blind and deaf. I considered standing right there and letting him walk by to do whatever he’d come to do, but my next thought was for Clea.
He was after her—same as Aden. I knew it in my bones. Geart was Hessier and had come for the blood of my child.
I turned, collected up my sled, and marched toward the wall. The Hessier that had been Geart ignored me. I got ahead of him and reached the gates before he was halfway up.
“Who is that?” one of the guards called down to me from the wall.
“I do not know,” I called up and kept moving. “Is he one of Aden’s?”
They began shouting and the wall filled with men and Ashmari. Two rushed to collect me but left me to my slow march as they laid eyes on Geart.
The first shouted down, “Stay where you are. Stop.”
The air tussled about me, cold and full of hate. I ducked and I ran for my life as the magic plied the air above me.
A crackle and a deafening pop were followed by a splattering of wet chunks of meat all around me. Geart’s magic was strong.
I marched forward and tried to calm myself—calm my heart and slow my breathing. The sky darkened, and the cold lick of magic crawled up my body and through my stomach, breasts, and heart.
A gush of flames behind me was bright enough to illuminate the fortress above, and the resulting wave of heat knocked me onto all fours and melted the top layer of snow. For a moment it was the shimmering mirror of a tepid pond, before the bitter cold washed it into a milky sheet of brittle ice.
Two more pops sounded, followed by another pattering of dead flesh. On I walked while the battle raged, and one man after another exploded and fell about me like hail.
I was a fair distance from the wall when the next gush of fire threw me into the brittle snow.
Great pieces of wood and masonry began to thud into the slope around me, and I curled into a ball and wrapped my arms around my son. Small stones and grit pelted me, and one large hunk of wall blasted away the snow right before me with such force that I was able to see the layer of tundra beneath.
When the last of the stones thumped the frozen sheet, silence reigned. I looked back to see that the gate and a third of the wall had vanished as if kicked by a god. I could not see Geart through the swirling smoke and snow, but he was there, and he was coming.
Move, damn you!
I stood and did all I could to forget what was behind me. I corrected my breathing tube, straightened and tightened my hood against the cold, and waited until my heart was calm before I took my next step.
The walk became like any other—as much as it could be. Eyes all but closed to keep them from watering, moving only when I was calm and my breathing was regular.
But it was not any other day. A thousand-year old devil had hold of my daughter above, and below me, one of my few friends on this earth had crawled out of the sea, just as dead, and a far more dangerous to the Vesteal than anything above.
I was
three-quarters of the way up when I finally allowed myself a glance back down.
Geart was already passed the wall, marching relentlessly up after me. His was lost in the snow up to his armpits, as though he weighted so much to push down through all of it. Yet on he marched.
I tried to hurry and lost my breath. I couldn’t get enough air through the tube after my foolish dash, and I was forced to stop and retreat deep into my hood until I’d calmed.
Geart heavy step marched closer and closer behind me. If I didn’t get myself sorted, he would catch up to me before I reached the fortress. All I could think about was Clea. Aden would use every bone and drop of her blood to survive the fight with Geart.
How could I get her away from them?
The iron door would be barred. I would not be able to get inside. The only option left to me was for Geart to win.
I turned to him and opened by hood enough so he could see me. “Geart, it is Dia. Geart, answer me.”
He stopped and his black power hovered over me, but did not fall. He pointed up at the keep. “Aden?”
Sorrow wracked me at the loss of my friend, but I dared not lose my wits or hazard my eyes with tears.
“He is not in the keep,” I said. “There is a cave below. The iron door is the only way in. The entrance hall behind it is aimed at the entrance. They will be waiting for you there. The cave extends west close to the foundation of the fortress. If you can get through the stone wall and earth, you could enter behind them.”
“Show me,” he said, and compelled me to march up the slope. My pack slid halfway off my shoulders and the sled bumped into the backs of my sluggish legs.
My awareness faded until we stumbled to a halt below the west wall of the fortress and the focus of his magic changed. The gray wall quivered and began to melt like custard in the Enhedu sun. It flowed down and away, leaving a gaping hole. I dropped my pack there as he compelled me to step inside.
The Vastness Page 38