Acolyte's Underworld: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 4)

by L. W. Jacobs

  The shaman had seemed unperturbed by Ella’s appearance. They’d run through a few more practice sessions before calling it a day, Uhallen ending with another word of caution to pass on to Ella about trying to take down the archrevenant, whoever he was.

  Was Ella really trying to kill another god?

  Marea hoped the woman would be waiting for her somewhere. Her emotions had been a jumble while Ella had been there—well, the whole day, really—but as she walked the quiet streets back towards the heart of the old city, she realized she’d been happy to see Ella. That despite being back in her home with her family, or what was left of it, Marea missed her. She’d started to think of the woman as an older sister, and truth be told felt a lot closer to her than any of her family, even Cauleb.

  But Ella wasn’t waiting in one of the quiet teahouses along Uhallen’s narrow street, or sitting under Puahi’s statue in the square, or leaning against one of the piers along the docks. Marea sighed and booked passage on a rivertaxi back to Widow’s Hill. Apparently Ella didn’t want to see her. Maybe she still blamed Marea for getting Tai’s hand cut off.

  The boatmen made to shove off, then a familiar voice said, “One more for Widow’s Hill, please.”

  Marea spun, rocking the narrow-bottomed taxi and causing one of the oarmen to curse. “Ella!”

  Ella beamed at her, stepping in just as the boat shoved off. “Thought it might be nice to talk where there are fewer ears.”

  “Mecking right,” Marea said, southern slang popping into her speech. “Though it’s weird to see you here, somehow.”

  “Isn’t it? It’s weird for me to be here at all.” Ella gazed at the pale walls of Ylensmarsh as they shoved off. “Couple of southern girls out of place, right?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Marea said. “I’m still a northern girl.” Though that didn’t feel quite right, now that she’d said it.

  Ella sighed. “Not me. I hated this place before I ever left. Doesn’t it just—smell, after all the wild places we were?”

  It did, of course. They were passing through the Churn, the dirty bay where the Ein split into its main channels, and where all the sewage from Ylensmarsh and Widow’s Hill seemed to circulate in the current rather than running out to sea.

  Marea breathed deep. “Smell of money, my dad used to say.”

  Ella turned back from the view, eyes sympathetic. “How is it, being back here without them?”

  “It scats,” Marea said, looking away. She hated sympathy. “My cousin got married, my uncle’s an ass, and the whole House is in arrears trying to find a replacement for all the timber Tai cut off when he blocked the Genga.”

  “Is that what you were doing with Uhallen?” Ella asked. “Trying to work something out with Alsthen?”

  Marea glanced at his tower as they rounded the southern tip of Ylensmarsh. It wasn’t the broadest or tallest, but by now she knew it at a glance. “Hardly. I’m trying to fix things with Eyadin’s family. That archrevenant you’re looking for gave his daughter bluefoot.”

  “I know,” Ella said. “Nawhin’s the one who pointed me towards Uhallen.”

  “What?” Marea asked, head jerking back. “What do they have in common?”

  Ella gave her that sympathetic look again. Or maybe concerned this time. Either way, Marea squirmed.

  “Uhallen is involved in what happened to Eyadin,” Ella said. “That’s how I found him—Nawhin gave me a tip.”

  Marea shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. What would he want with them? And how do you know Nawhin?”

  The older woman bit her lip, glancing at the other passengers around them. “Maybe we ought to find someplace quieter to talk.”

  23

  Ella followed her friend to an ice bar once they’d docked in Widow’s Hill. She’d grown up in West Cove and didn’t know this part of the city well. The bar was posh like the rest of the Hill, with tasteful hanging gardens and dark polished wood grates over melting slabs of ice, palm-frond fans circulating deliciously cool air inside the dim space. They took a private booth at the back, flowering vines draping the entrance.

  Marea leaned over her iced glass of mavenstym. “Now. What do you mean Nawhin sent you to Uhallen?”

  “Not straight to him,” Ella said, keeping her voice casual. Marea’s feelings could be delicate, but it also looked like the girl was in over her head, and probably had no one else to tell her that. “A secretary from Alsthen was delivering messages to Eyadin. Nawhin lead me to her, and she pointed me on to Uhallen.”

  “So you think Uhallen sent Eyadin?”

  “No.” Ella set down her glass. “But I think he’s involved with whoever sent him. I know it.”

  “How?”

  “We were attacked, after you left. A shaman who could take on anyone’s appearance. He tried to kill Tai and take the spear.”

  “So? I’m sure a lot of shamans want that spear, now that all their easy thralls are gone.”

  “We—got confirmation,” Ella said, careful not to use Falena’s name. She’d promised to keep it secret, and whatever she said here Uhallen would see later in mindsight. “The same person who sent Eyadin sent the latest attacker.”

  “And you think it’s Uhallen?”

  “No, it’s an archrevenant. But I think Uhallen’s involved.”

  That gave Marea pause. “Avery—Harides, whatever his name was—he thought an archrevenant had sent Eyadin too. Read it in Eyadin’s papers during one of our stops on the way to Califf. But if Uhallen was the archrevenant, he would have taken us hostage on the spot, to use against Tai.”

  “Or killed us outright,” Ella said. “My thoughts exactly. He’s not the archrevenant, but he’s a link in the chain.” The real question was whether she could believe Uhallen’s tip about Teynsley. Was he throwing her off the trail to protect himself? Or telling the truth in the slim hopes she’d kill Teynsley and Uhallen would be free from whatever hold the archrevenant had on him?

  Marea gave her a concerned look. “What are you here for, Ella? Trying to kill another archrevenant?”

  “Teynsley,” she said. “His name is Teynsley, archrevenant of wafters. And no, I’m not trying to kill him. I’m trying to prove he’s attacking Tai. The archrevenants have a pact against attacking each other, and Teynsley is breaking it. If I can prove it, then the other archrevenants will take care of him.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Ella sighed. “I wish I could tell you, but my source swore me to secrecy. Just trust me that it’s true.”

  “Okay. But you’ll have to trust me when I say Uhallen’s not after Tai. He actually saved me from a shaman who was. A woman trying to force me to lead her cell back to him so they could attack.”

  A chill ran down Ella’s spine. Was everyone trying to kill her fiancé? “And Uhallen’s never mentioned anything about Tai?”

  “No. He’s targeting other shamans in the city, ones who broke their laws by attacking each other while Semeca’s power was loose. That’s our deal—he teaches me, and in exchange I hunt down the people who murdered his friends and take some of their thralls.”

  “And you’re planning to use that power to heal Rena,” Ella said, seeing the connection. “That’s noble. But hunting down shamans? Are you sure you’re up for that?”

  “I killed the last one just fine,” Marea said, a little stiffly. The girl had a sensitive ego. “And don’t worry, I’m not going to join his cell or anything. I’m just going to get the power I need and get out.”

  Ella took a long drink, trying to find the right way to say what she needed to. How she had always seen the desire to be more powerful in Marea—from her dedication to overcoming her revenants in the caves to her insistence that Nauro teach her shamanism on the journey north, and then the way she’d taken to Avery when he started training her in fatewalking. She’d had a good reason for doing it each time, but together it formed a pattern: Marea wanted power.

  There was no way to say that. Not without hurting their
friendship, Marea probably needed a friend as much as she needed advice. Currents send Uhallen was just another victim of Teynsley’s machinations, and not a perpetrator. Because the desire for power was a motivation someone could use.

  “Well just be careful, okay?” Ella set down her drained glass. “Uhallen is connected to all this somehow, and I don’t like you out there working for him.”

  “I don’t like you hunting down archrevenants either. But we’re both doing what we have to, right?”

  “Right,” Ella said, wishing it was that simple. “Well, we should meet up again. Say, three days’ time, same place?”

  “Deal.” Marea stood up and gave her a brief hug. “Be careful out there, sister.”

  “You too,” Ella said, then watched the younger girl leave. Currents send she actually listened.

  24

  I find it pleasant to walk Worldsmouth’s streets, or to watch its denizens hurrying about their business from the comfort of a shady teahouse. And to think to each one, as they pass: I made you. I made you. I made you.

  —Archenault Teynsley, private letters

  For once Ella didn’t notice the stink as she taxied up the Einsarm back to Ylensmarsh. She kept replaying the conversation with Marea, trying to find where she could have said more. How did you tell someone with a brittle pride they were fooling themselves and getting in over their heads? With any luck Marea was acting like Ella had at her age—arguing against everything she heard, defending Uhallen to her but then taking her words seriously when she was with him.

  The taxi docked and she tossed a halfmoon into the oarsman’s worn basket. If not, she would have to tell it to her straight and let the scales fall where they would. Better that than let her get in over head. Currents send the girl heard it when she did. Ella understood the drive to get more power over your life—it had been all she thought of while she was locked up—but at a certain point you had to accept the world was beyond your control.

  Ella smiled ruefully, letting the current of people pull her into the old city. She wouldn’t have accepted that a few years ago. When had she lost her idealism?

  Probably when she started loving people like Tai and Marea, who still had it, and kept putting themselves in danger because they wouldn’t accept that the world was the way it was.

  Ella felt at her bag for the sheaf of paper she had there, a new article on Aran she’d sold to The Councilate Quill that morning before heading to Uhallen’s. She wasn’t ready to accept the world the way it was either, but you had to fight smart, and sometimes that meant putting off your ideals. She didn’t want to live in any kind of world that didn’t have Tai in it.

  This article was a part of that. Her first piece had gotten several reprints, appearing in The Councilate Quill and a few other mid-range broadsheets yesterday. She’d revised the second one last night, spear cradled in her lap in the dark maid’s closet, trying to strike a balance between her outrage at what the Councilate had done in Aran and the reasonable, middle-of-the-road position that would win the city’s sympathies.

  Once they were on her side, ready to read whatever she printed next, then she would start getting more honest.

  Then she would start talking about Ayugen.

  The Councilate Quill had its offices along the eastern shore of Ylensmarsh, in a stone building that predated the founding of the Councilate by several centuries. Her father had once owned a stake in the broadsheet—House Merewil ran two of its own publications and invested heavily in others. Her parents were voracious readers, and she was thankful reading, at least, was one thing they hadn’t denied her during her imprisonment.

  Pitching the story to the editors had been easy, given that she was familiar with the fiscally-conservative-but-socially-liberal slant they preferred. If the new article resonated with the city as well as her first one did, the Quill ought to be able to resell their rights to several other broadsheets, hopefully bigger ones yet. Then she could approach them directly, and start speaking truth to power in the heart of its own city.

  The interaction went smoothly, editor Martus either believing or being smart enough not to question the pen-name identity she gave him, and Ella left their offices with a smile. Even without Eyadin’s orders, what happened at Aran had been nothing short of a massacre, and the people of the city deserved to know what the military was doing in their name. If the trail lead back to Teynsley maybe he would even lose whatever seat he had in the halls of power, though she expected he was too politically savvy for that.

  Well she had more to write. And he was only one target in this war of words.

  A hand grasped her arm. “Ellumia Merewil?”

  She started, spinning to find two lawkeepers in the white-and-gold uniform of the city. Merewil, they’d said—her real name, not her pen name Malia Galferth or even Ellumia Aygla. Ellumia Merewil.

  As in, the high-born girl who’d shocked an entire city by murdering her brother and escaping the law five years ago.

  “Excuse me?” she said, summoning her mother’s frostiest voice.

  “It’s her,” the man’s partner said. “We’re taking you in for questioning.”

  “I believe you have the wrong woman,” Ella said, glancing around the crowded street and gauging her odds of a quiet escape.

  “Likely so, ma’am, but justice must come first,” the lawkeeper holding her arm. One of the Quill’s reporters was watching through their window.

  No getting out of this quietly, then. Fine. Good, even. Because the casual way this man talked about justice while doing the opposite was getting her temper up.

  “Justice?” she asked, trying to wrench out of his grip. It was too strong. “You might need to look up the details of the Merewil case before you start talking about justice.”

  She struck resonance, his mouth just beginning to open, and thought fast. Timeslipping didn’t make her stronger, so she wasn’t going to be able to break out of his grip. But it did give her time to do things that would never work otherwise.

  Ella bit the sleeve of her free arm and started working the lace sun jacket off. Foot traffic had slowed to nearly a standstill around her, the buzz of the city and voice of the lawkeeper dropping to a low rumble. She hated using her resonance, knowing every moment here took minutes from her mortal life, but there was nothing for it. If the lawkeepers took her they would stick Telen’s murder on her, and the facts were stacked against her, regardless of what had actually happened. She would be killed, and Teynsley would keep sending assassins until one succeeded.

  Fortunately, fashionable Councilate ladies had taken to wearing lace sunjackets, and she’d been insightful enough to go shopping the day before. Ella got the sleeve off her free arm, shook the jacket from her shoulders, and pulled on her other arm. The lace fabric absorbed enough of his grip to let her slide out, though the lace grated on her skin.

  Ella pulled free and turned to take her jacket, then thought better of it. One or two seconds had passed in regular time—the lawkeeper was still calmly telling her something infuriating, the reporter’s face still pressed to the window. No, she’d leave the jacket. People here weren’t used to real resonances, with diets so starved of winterfoods and only the rich able to afford yura. They likely wouldn’t even connect what she’d done to the mildly speedy powers of a northern timeslip using yura.

  Which would make it all the more sensational—a woman disappearing in broad daylight, with just her jacket left behind.

  And sensations sold stories.

  Ella spun and began weaving her way through the street. The crowd was thick—people became immovable stones in timeslip, their regular-speed inertia multiplied in the slip.

  So she climbed onto a barrel and from there onto a nearby man’s shoulders, then began stepping lightly over the heads and shoulders of the crowd. It felt wrong somehow, even though they’d only feel a quick tap and a rush of air. It also felt exhilarating, and Ella found herself whooping as she ran over the crowds of Ylensmarsh, the frozen city suddenl
y hers alone, leaving the lawkeepers streets behind.

  It was only as she reached a western dock and dropped into an alley to still her resonance that the reality of what had just happened set in: lawkeepers had come for her. They’d been waiting for her, which meant they’d known where she would be. And they knew her name. The one she hadn’t used in years.

  Someone had tipped them off.

  But who would know her real identity and guess where she’d be?

  A chill struck Ella as she stepped onto the northbound taxi. She could think of only person, if you could still call him a person. Teynsley. But how would the archrevenant have found out about her?

  Ella sat, Churn’s reek in her nostrils as the taxi pushed off. No, something about that didn’t fit. Why would Teynsley want her arrested versus outright dead? Even if he knew about the spear, or about Falena, the easiest thing would be to kill her.

  A vendor’s boat pulled up alongside, redfin skewer sizzling over open coals as the oarmen grappled their taxi and his wife called their wares. Ella bought a wrapped pastry—she did love the variety of food in the city—and bit in, trying to see things differently. Who else knew she was here?

  Uhallen. He could have sussed out the truth of her situation from comparing her filtered thoughts to what he saw in Marea’s mind. But what was his angle? And how would he know to send lawkeepers to The Quill? If the shaman actually was Teynsley, which Ella doubted after thinking through it, he again would just kill her. If he was who he claimed, he shouldn’t care much for her, or at best want her as a link to Tai and the spear. No matter what Marea thought, or what other vendettas Uhallen said he was working through, Ella couldn’t believe a shaman wouldn’t want to get control of the spear. But how would getting her in jail help that?

  The taxi docked in Moorhaven, three stops down from the familiar wood pier leading to Zaza’s. So likely not Uhallen, then. Marea? But the girl hadn’t known about Ella until a few hours ago, and had even less motive to see her arrested, so far as Ella knew. So who else? Her mother?