Regeneration

by Stacey Berg

  Gem came to stand beside her. The younger hunter gazed down at the Saint. “Her courage was admirable. Even though she was not raised to know her duty, she accepted it when she had to.”

  “She always knew. Just not that she was the Saint.”

  “I only met her at the end, but I trust your judgment.” Echo looked up quickly, but saw no mockery in Gem’s expression. Gem continued, “I come to the sanctuary often, and sometimes I overhear the priests. I cannot be certain, but I believe that there is more than the matter of occasional power fluctuations.”

  Echo’s gut contracted in fear. “She cannot possibly be failing so soon. The lights, the power—her strength shows everywhere.”

  “Yes. You can see it all over the city. But I think that the priests in some way—fear her. That they cannot control her as they wish. The beacon, for example.”

  “How could the Saint reject the priests’ inputs? Why would she?”

  Gem lifted a shoulder. “For the first, I know no better than you. Perhaps it is not possible. For the second—no one knows what her thoughts are like, not even the priests. Or if she even has them. I only find it interesting, Echo Hunter 367, that the beacon would not switch off despite all the priests’ efforts. And then you returned to the sanctuary, and it did.”

  Chapter 11

  Gem left Echo alone with the Saint while Khyn answered the priests’ steady flow of questions. Echo should have many questions of her own, about the hunters, the city, all that had happened in her absence, but for now all she could do was sit here, mind oddly empty. That changed abruptly when she heard the sound of worried voices. She leapt up, afraid of another power fluctuation, but it was not the priests, who worked with Khyn unnoticing. Instead Gem returned from wherever she had been, her face so expressionless that Echo knew at once something was wrong. “What is it?”

  “Come quickly.” Echo hesitated, glancing at Khyn. “Do not worry, the priests will not let her out of their sight.” Gem took Echo across the yard to the hunters’ work area. Nyree and Brit were already there. Lying like a dead thing on the table before them was a small device that Echo recognized immediately, though it was broken into pieces. The simple grip looked intact, but the chamber and tube had been separated, apparently by the same force that had peeled one end of the tube open like the petals of a flower. A few small gears had fallen free of their housing. Her hand stole to her arm, which still bore the scar, a puckered reminder of how near she had come to death.

  Others had not been so lucky. Echo had seen it herself, hunters cut down by projectile weapons while she watched in helpless horror. The battle had carried all the way to the Church, the ragged cityen army fueled by ferm and panic and long-pent rage; the hunters driven by desperation to kill those they had been created to protect. Crop-powder explosions had shaken the walls; the air in the Churchyard had been thick with stinging smoke. So close, the cliff-edge of another Fall, and from this one, the city might have slipped irrecoverably into the dark. It would have been, if not for Lia, the end of all the world they knew. So very thin, that margin of survival.

  “What is that thing doing here?” Echo asked, voice harsh.

  “I found it next to the body of a cityen near the Bend,” Brit said. “It appears that he was fatally injured when it exploded.”

  “The weapons are unreliable,” Gem added. “The tech is simple, but the details are difficult to master.”

  Echo scowled at the scraps of metal. “The Church intended to confiscate the remaining projectile weapons after the rebellion. Was this not accomplished?”

  “Do not lecture us like juveniles,” Nyree said. She opened one of the storage cabinets where the hunters kept their static wands and projtrodes. It now held shelf after shelf of devices similar to the one on the table; they had been sorted into groups of those most like each other.

  “It would not be possible to find them all,” Echo allowed. “But why would a cityen carry one against the Church’s order? Was he from the Bend?” That clave had always been the most difficult for the hunters to control, with its warren of tight alleys and ancient buildings that provided plenty of places for small prey to go to ground. Yet it was the Ward that had rebelled.

  “The face was unrecognizable,” Nyree said. “But that is not our concern.” She turned to Gem. “Explain.”

  Gem picked up the chamber section of the weapon. “It is damaged, but not too badly. Look closely.”

  Echo took the device reluctantly. The grip was made of metal, probably melted and poured into a simple mold. The attached chamber was big enough to hold a spoonful or so of the explosive crop powder. She could still smell the acrid stench the powder left when it burned. There was a sparking device, connected to a short lever—no, two levers. In fact, now Echo could see— “It can fire multiple projectiles simultaneously?”

  Gem nodded. “I have made a study of these weapons.” Somehow Echo was not surprised. “This is the third one of its type we have discovered in the past few weeks. Nothing similar was recovered before that.”

  Gut tightening, Echo looked at the other hunters. “The Patri thinks someone is making new ones.”

  “The Patri has not yet formed an opinion,” Nyree said. “But it seems the most obvious conclusion.”

  Weapons like this had made fools believe they could take on the Church. “Surely they have not forgotten.”

  “Those who have will be reminded,” Nyree said. “You spent many weeks in the city. Perhaps you know more about the weapons than you reported. Such as where to find the makers.”

  Echo set the parts down with a clank. “No,” she said, voice sharper than it ought to be. “But I know someone who might.”

  Exey’s voice floated up from the workshop below. Echo slipped silently down the stairs, Nyree close behind her. “Yes, my friends,” Exey was saying below, “I’m sure it works. I’m the best fabricator in the city. Well, one of them. I know you Northers have a man who’s not so bad himself, but he’s a bit picky about whose chits he takes. No, let’s not argue about that again, this is neutral ground, you know. And since we’re getting along so well today, I’ll give you all the same deal, and I promise it’s better than you’d find any place else, not that anyone else could make one of these . . .” Echo remembered the stair that creaked and stepped over, leaving Nyree to tread on it and give their presence away. The tumbling stream of words dammed up abruptly at the sound. It didn’t matter: there was no way out but up the steps. And cityens with clean consciences had nothing to fear.

  The cityens, a woman and two men besides Exey, backed against the workbench as the hunters entered the brightly lit shop. The well-dressed man must be the Norther; he nodded smoothly at the hunters. The others might or might not be innocent, but it wasn’t fear Echo saw in their faces. Or rather, there was fear, but something else, too, that tightened their jaws and compressed their lips even as their eyes widened. Nyree, sensing it too, took a wide step left, so that no one could engage both hunters at once, if anyone was foolish enough to consider a fight. But they weren’t fools, though the man was close enough that he spat on the floor. Exey raised a forestalling hand. “Esteemed hunters. To what do we owe—you!”

  “Out,” Echo ordered the others, then, as the man who had spat reached to take something off the table, “No, leave that.”

  “It’s paid!” the man objected. “Hunters, same as always. Take whatever you want. That’s not the peace we agreed to.” His lips worked as if he might spit again. Instead he swallowed as Nyree stepped closer.

  The cityen woman grabbed him by the arm. “Come on, Merrone. Don’t argue with them. The Saint knows who’s in the right, that’s all as matters. We’ll take it up with the council.”

  “Good idea,” Nyree said. “Now leave us.” They fled up the stairs. The Norther followed at a calmer pace, a nail in his boot clicking on every stair.

  Exey was staring at Echo. “I thought you were dead,” he said, pale as if he had seen her lifeless body rising. His face was thinn
er than it had been before, and a few strands of gray wove their way through his long hair. He still wore it pulled back; the decorative clasp, all golden filigree, glinted when he jerked his gaze away. “I hoped.”

  Nyree picked up the object on the table, a small box with a thick cable entering at one end and several smaller wires coming out the other. Exey must have been demonstrating when they interrupted; delicate tools and a small glowbulb were laid out neatly on the tabletop. “What is this?”

  “Charge splitter,” he said.

  “What do you do with it?”

  “Split charges.” Nyree’s eyes narrowed, and he added impatiently, “From a sun panel. It lets you send power more than one way at a time.” His eyes bored into Echo. “What do you want?”

  “We have reason to believe that cityens are still making projectile weapons.”

  “That’s nothing to do with me. You know how I feel about those things. At least I thought you did. Maybe I was wrong. I was wrong about you in everything else, wasn’t I? To imagine that I thought you were trying to save her, that I thought you ever cared for her—”

  Echo took one step forward before she could stop herself.

  “Ask your questions,” Exey said. “Or are you going to break my arm this time just for entertainment?”

  “I didn’t think you were making them. Who is?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Would you know where?”

  His lips pressed together in a thin line. “This isn’t a game to me. Those weapons started it all. Benders killing Wardmen, Wardmen killing hunters, and hunters—the whole thing was a mess. My friends died, on both sides. Lia—but you would have taken her anyway, wouldn’t you? That’s all you came here for, from the very beginning.”

  Nyree, perched on a corner of the table, was watching with interest. Echo made herself speak calmly. “I don’t want it to start again, Exey.” She pulled the pieces of the broken weapon from her pocket. “Take a look at this.”

  Disgust fought with curiosity on his expressive face. Curiosity won: he studied the parts with grim fascination, using a magnifying glass for a better view of the sparker, squinting to sight through the exploded tube, finally sniffing gingerly at the chamber. “Shoddy workmanship.” He swept the parts together and dropped them back in her hand. “But I have no idea whose.”

  Echo believed him. He was right; she remembered the anguish on his face the first time he had described projectile weapons to her. He had given the information to her for free, hoping she would tell the Church, hoping the Church would stop the coming battle. The Church hadn’t, but Lia had.

  “Speak of this to no one,” Nyree said. She stood, tossing Exey the charge splitter in the same graceful motion. He made no effort to catch it. Pieces tinkled across the concrete floor. Shaking her head, Nyree took the steps two at a time, disappearing out of sight.

  “Come see her,” Echo said suddenly.

  “For what?” The pain in his voice lanced through her.

  “She isn’t dead, Exey.”

  “That would only make it worse. You would know, if you cared.”

  She drew a long breath. “If you think of anything we should know, send word.”

  Echo was almost at the landing when Exey called out. “It was made from scrap parts, but the metal is too soft. They’ll probably figure that out. Look for a smithy that can work harder blends. There can’t be that many.”

  She nodded and turned to leave. “Echo. Would she recognize me?”

  She thought again of the still face, the silence, where there used to be a voice whispering her name. Exey’s liquid eyes held hers, pleading. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Sunset stretched in a forbidding red line across the horizon by the time they got back to the Church. Echo was tired, this walk on top of the long desert journey. Her ankle ached, and she had foolishly expended extra effort not to let Nyree see her limp. The spire cast a sharp shadow down the great steps, the tip pricking Echo’s heart, where Exey’s question burned. “We must report to the Patri about the smithies,” she said reluctantly.

  “He requires facts, not mere speculation. Besides, the information may not be accurate. The hunters must investigate first.”

  “You can tell them, then. My presence is not required.” Her heart ached too. Seeing Exey had brought back too many memories.

  “Is there something you wish to avoid reporting?”

  “You were there the whole time, Nyree. It was a simple interrogation. I have no doubt that you can summarize it accurately.”

  Nyree only raised an eyebrow. “You stayed behind to talk with the fabricator. What did you discuss?”

  Echo’s face burned with the heat still radiating from the sunbaked stone. “Nothing important.”

  “I shall report that then. I hope for your sake it is accurate.”

  Echo slapped her palm against the access panel.

  Chapter 12

  She slipped into the sanctuary so silently that the priests at the panels took no notice. Neither did Khyn, who sat slumped on a stool, fatigue evident in the line of her shoulders, the droop of her head. It had been a long day for her too. Echo found a place in the shadows by the altar. The rose window floated disembodied against the darkness of the vault; the metallic shroud over the Saint’s body seemed to glow faintly. An illusion, Echo knew, like so many things that seemed true. She stood with her eyes closed, trying to still the chaos of her roiling thoughts.

  Would she recognize me? Exey had asked.

  No one could say. No one knew what the Saint thought, if the patterns that moved in that great mind could even be considered thought. She might recognize Echo, as she might know any hunter, or none. Echo’s breathing quickened. She struggled to control it. A hunter must not fall prey to her hopes or fears. The ancient catechism taught the most basic truth of the world: the Saint preserved the Church, the Church the city. Hunters in their turn had only one duty: to serve the Church in any way required, exactly as required. Over and over Echo had told herself that that was what she had done in bringing Lia to this altar, setting the crown upon her head. Serve, that the city might be preserved. Just as she served by bringing Khyn to the city, in hope of helping the Saint.

  But she had not done that for the Saint alone.

  Do you know me? she asked into the emptiness.

  There was no answer. There could not be. Gem was right: Lia had known her duty. Long before Echo met her she had been a healer, tending all who needed her. When she had learned she was to be sacrificed as the new Saint, fear had not deterred her for even a moment. The tears she had shed were for Echo, not herself.

  And now there was only the Saint.

  Lia . . .

  A whining sound jolted her nerves. “Another surge!” a priest said. Echo hurried closer, where she could see over the priests’ shoulders to the panels. Lights flashed; she saw the disruption of the pattern, a spike where none belonged. “Look at that.”

  “Let me see,” Dalto ordered. The priest quickly yielded his place. “Yes, coming from the input side again. Decrease that channel. I’ll redirect the excess power.”

  “Storage is full,” the priest warned. “It can’t go there.”

  “I know. I’ll bleed it through the mast.” Dalto’s fingers danced over the panel, and the alarm quieted. In a moment the lights steadied, functions returning to normal. Or so Echo hoped. “Can you read the panels?” she whispered from behind Khyn.

  Khyn jumped. “Preservers! How long have you been there?”

  “Can you?”

  “Some. It looks like they’ve got it under control.” Khyn’s eyes tracked the cable leading from the altar up into the vault, where it disappeared on its way to the mast. “I hope no one was standing on the roof when he diverted the power up there.”

  Echo leaned closer to the boards. “What caused the surge?” she demanded, pulse racing.

  Dalto’s gaze flicked to her. “What are you doing here?”

  This morning she had sp
oken to Lia in her mind, then imagined that the Saint moved. And then, the surge in the system, and the homing beacon shutting off. And now . . . “The priest said it came from the input side. Does that mean someone—something within the sanctuary?”

  Dalto shook his head, impatient at her ignorance. “That would be impossible. All the input comes from the Saint—her thoughts, her commands. Our panels only redirect them.”

  Khyn’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t initiate the circuits? Preservers keep us. No wonder you have surges.”

  “We have alternate outputs for the power stream. In the past they were always enough. This Saint—the connections are not yet seamless. I thought they would close themselves in time, as the Church and Saint adjusted to each other, but it has not happened yet.”

  “Are the surges dangerous?” Fear pierced Echo. The Saint at risk, whatever the cause . . .

  “They stress the systems.” Dalto rolled up a cuff that had come undone as he worked. He said to Khyn, “I have work to do here. A room has been prepared for you in the domicile; Echo can take you. We’ll talk further in the morning.” With that, he turned back to his panel.

  The last rays of sun cast their shadows tall against the stone wall of the cathedral as Echo and Khyn crossed the dusty compound. People were still about: nuns chattering in small groups, priests scurrying towards their domicile like tiny desert animals headed for their burrow. One or two stopped short, seeing a woman dressed in hunter clothing who on second look was clearly not a hunter. Echo discouraged them with a glance. She wanted to talk to Khyn alone. Stress on the systems, Dalto said, and the old Saint had withered so quickly. But stewards knew how to balance surges . . .