by Stacey Berg
“What do you want?” Jozef asked.
She had carefully rehearsed what she would tell him. Her worry about Kennit’s words, and Nyree’s plan to withdraw the hunters from the aircar. Her concern about the unrest in the city, about Stigir and Khyn’s disgust. Her fear that a balance might tip at any moment, and what that would do to the city, and the Saint. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Those were words for another Patri. The man who had towered over the Church, and her life. Who had seen his place in a great order stretching from the forebears to a future he dedicated his life to assuring, though he would never see it.
Who had, in the end, found his comfort in the presence of the Saint.
But this was Jozef. For him, she needed evidence.
“Well? As you can see, I’m busy.”
The fighting hormones had not entirely dissipated. She drew a calming breath, then said, “I believe that our tactical approach to the Preservers may require adjustment.”
“Speak with Nyree. Such things are her responsibility.”
“Nyree does not see—” She caught herself, finished instead, “Share my concerns. But Patri, I believe that my experiences with the Preservers, and the cityens, gives me perspective that might be valuable.”
“I have no doubt that you’ve expressed your point of view clearly. And I am equally certain that Nyree has weighed the evidence and drawn her own conclusions. That is sufficient for me.” He did not have to add that he expected his answer to be sufficient for her; his eyes had already returned to the print she had distracted him from, clear enough dismissal.
Yet she delayed. She must find a way to make him understand why it mattered. Past his shoulder she could see the sanctuary framed in the office window. She wondered if he ever looked out. “Patri,” she asked, dreading the answer, “what if Stigir fails?”
His thumbs tapped lightly, then stilled. “We will find another solution.”
She took a breath. “And the Saint, is she . . .” Again the words trailed off. “Has the wind caused any difficulties?”
He did glance through the darkening window then, one corner of his mouth curving up in the motion that passed for his smile. “You know, when I was a priest in the laboratory, I hardly even noticed the windstorms. They were just an irritation sometimes when I had to come up for meals. Dealing with them was for the Patri. I had no idea Vanyi would be handing me all his troubles.”
The wind was the least of those. Fractious cityens, strangers, weapons . . . “We will find out who is responsible for Marin’s death,” Echo vowed.
“Marin?” His brows drew up. “Ah, yes, the hunter. Once I thought Vanyi’s methods too harsh, but the evidence has proven me wrong. Reason does not work with the Ward, or they would have learned their lesson by now. But we will make them understand. When Stigir’s finished with his work, we’ll see to that.”
Her belly clenched at the memory of the enormous surge burning through the systems, melting the charge splitter to slag, and of the Patri’s fear, knowing the Saint had rejected his command.
“If cityens require punishment, Patri, send the hunters. Please don’t ask the Saint to—” She broke off all at once, but it was too late.
He leaned forward suddenly, studying her with the intensity of a priest examining a specimen beneath his magnifier. Under that sharp scrutiny she remembered again that the old Patri had picked him for a reason. “Is that why you destroyed the mill yourself?” He frowned, perplexed. “Why do you care so much about the Saint?”
Her breath hitched, but she forced her voice to come out steady. “I live to serve.” They were the right words. They explained nothing.
He knew there was more. She saw it in the expansion of the dark pupils within his pale eyes, the faint whitening of the lines beside his nose. If he realized, if he even began to understand—Nyree’s accusations against her would be as nothing. She made her face the hunter mask, empty, blank.
She was not certain what it covered anymore.
After a moment he sat back, frowning. “I’ve been told that you knew the woman before. Perhaps you feel some strange attachment because of it. If so, then it’s obvious that you don’t understand. Think of it like the hunters’ eggs. What is important is passed on, into the systems. The rest is waste, discarded.” The words stabbed like the instruments through Marin’s belly. Not Lia. No. The Patri continued, “Nothing remains but the systems now. Managing them is a matter for the priests. Not for a hunter. Not for you. Let me make it simple: stay away from the sanctuary. Stay away from the Saint, and trouble me no more with childish fantasies.”
Shadow lay heavy across the compound, except where the juveniles playing in the gated yard triggered the motion-sensing lights. Echo didn’t want them; the brightness made it hard to see the stars. She looked up anyway. The twinkling sparks must be incalculably distant to remain the same here, in the desert, in the Preserve. Priests studied such things; hunters needed only to know the patterns, a guide no matter where their duties took them.
Marin’s eyes had gathered that light, and now saw nothing.
The Patri hadn’t even known her name.
Far brighter than the stars, the spire glowed against the coming night. That had ever been Echo’s guide, even when it was too dark to see. Her feet found their way unerringly. They knew where duty lay, regardless of the Patri’s order.
Echo pushed aside tools and cable to make space on the bench in the cool dimness by the altar. Marin had simply had bad luck. Most hunters would, eventually. At least hers had come in the performance of her duty, protecting a cityen on behalf of the Church. Better that than an aircar crash, or a misstep over the edge of a cliff. And far better than the slow descent of illness that so often took cityens. Most often there was no stopping that. Lia had hated her helplessness, the sorrow fresh each time.
But even the Saint was helpless sometimes. The priests whispered over their blinking boards, things about power, and relays, and protocols that must be invoked. They seemed untroubled, so Echo ignored them, letting the sound fade into the background along with the noises of the machines. So many wires in the crown, and the tubes to carry nutrition and waste; perhaps one of them even breathed for the Saint somehow, as the Saint had tried to breathe for Marin.
What lay before her was not Lia anymore. It was not so simple as putting the crown on or off. Only a child or a fool would imagine that the Saint, transformed as she was into something so much greater than human, felt anything at all that a mere hunter could comprehend. Sorrow, grief, love—none of it could matter to her now.
Yet Lia had asked her once, Don’t you even know when something hurts? Maybe the Patri was right, and nothing remained but the systems. The Saint’s voice might be no more than an echo in the patterns. That could not matter. Echo knew her duty. She reached towards the Saint, all her senses extended into the sanctuary as they would be in the desert when her life depended on the faintest hint of danger. Her vision, unfocused, sought to penetrate the shadowed vaults. She absorbed the sounds around her, the hum of the machines, the priests’ soft murmuring, feeling the vibrations with her skin as much as in the membranes of her ears, reaching with every sense towards the part of the Saint that lay beyond the altar.
I am still here, she said into the silence. While I breathe I will never leave you. Then, not to the Saint, but to the woman who had given herself up to become Saint: Lia. I love you.
For an instant, between one heartbeat and the next, she heard a whisper: Echo. Then the too-familiar alarm began its cry, the sound of systems straining, trying to bridge a gap and failing, falling—
“No!” Echo jerked back from the Saint, in the room and in her mind. The alarm went silent in midwail.
“What was that?” Urgency laced through the priest’s voice; a pattern changed on his panel, throwing a flicker like flame into the darkness around the altar.
“Another fluctuation,” a second priest began, “but I don’t see—”
“No, wait,�
�� the first priest said, with a low whistle of relief. “It was just the wind. There’s nothing there.”
But he was wrong. Echo knew. She had called to the Saint, and the Saint had tried to answer. And the power had surged.
She had done that.
She had.
Every time. Every time she had spoken to Lia, and heard the beginnings of an answer in the closeness of her heart.
Dalto said it was impossible, the Patri did not believe, but Echo knew the truth.
The ache inside swelled until her whole body pounded with it. The Saint could preserve the city, her strength as profligate as a hunter’s; but Echo’s lightest touch perturbed the systems. And when the Saint responded, the power surged, uncontrolled.
Even if Stigir repaired the circuit, stopped the surges, that might not be enough. If the Patri ever found out, if he had the slightest suspicion that Echo could affect the Saint—it was not only Echo who would suffer. We must control her. Whatever must be done.
Then an even worse fear stole Echo’s breath: what if, despite the Patri’s conviction, some remnant of Lia did sleep within the Saint’s great mind, dreaming peacefully as her thoughts parsed inputs, flowed without effort into the myriad outputs, calm, quiet, until Echo’s presence disturbed her, and she struggled as a sleeper who could not awaken, trapped within a nightmare . . . .
Once sleep was disturbed, every sound was louder, every touch made it harder to slip back into the sanctuary of rest. What if, instead of comfort, Echo’s very presence was the nightmare?
The thought filled her with horror.
Echo’s mind reeled. Think, she commanded herself. Not like a hunter, not this time, but like the woman who had stood in this sanctuary in the midst of the rebellion, the old Saint dying, the world about to tumble to its death, and made a choice.
Echo knew what she must do. For a last moment her heart clung to the woman she had loved. Lia, who was more than the Saint. Who would not let go of Echo, if Echo were the one condemned to the shadows, alone . . .
But: Lia had let go, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. A splinter of anger shot through the pain. How could you leave me?
No. That was not what had happened. Lia had given up all she loved to ascend as Saint, to serve as she was meant to. It was Echo, even now, who grasped at what she wanted. That her mere presence might endanger the Saint—might, somehow, hurt Lia—the enormity of that would reach her anywhere, would penetrate any hiding place, follow her as far as she might ever run. She could not even recognize her own feeling as pain; it was, instead, as if she had empty stumps where her hands should be, and still tried to grasp for a last hold as she tumbled over a cliff . . .
But Echo knew. Until she let go of Lia, she would always be a danger to the Saint. She must give up that connection. She must never try to reach Lia again.
It was like telling herself not to breathe.
She shut her eyes and stared into the empty dark. Empty, that was it. She knew what she must do. Lia was a memory, a sensation, like hunger, like the pain that shook Echo now. She took the pain and squeezed it into a tiny ball, then wrapped it in the emptiness, layer upon layer, like something fragile she must not break, or the shards would pierce her heart. She breathed in and out, carefully, adding layers of nothing until the feeling was far away. It seemed to take a long time. When she was done, she felt weak as after a long illness, when the fever had barely passed.
The Saint lay there still, peaceful, remote. Echo would serve her. Only her. Without expectation, or hope. That was where duty lay. That was what the words meant: I serve the Saint.
It was not enough. It would never be enough.
The shadows deepened as the priests clicked through their rituals. Beyond the panels, the dials and switches, there was no response.
Echo stood to go. The lights came on brighter; the disciplined voices filled the silence. She waited one last moment for a voice to call her back. The silence only echoed louder. Then she turned and walked away.
Halfway down the steps she had to stop as the leaden sky whirled above her. The juveniles were still out here, nuns watching over them, hoping they would burn off the excess energy in this last little while they could be out before the storm chased them inside. The wind made the nuns’ robes flap and sent bits of plant material and dust swirling unpredictably across the yard. The juveniles had invented some kind of practice that involved stalking bits of blown debris and pouncing when they stopped moving for more than a second. Snippets of the nuns’ chatter, less animated than usual, carried to Echo on the wind. She heard the words but hardly processed them. “There, there, Luida,” someone said. “You still have all of us.”
“I knew he wasn’t really just hiding in the desert after the rebellion,” the girl said, voice catching the way cityens’ did when they were not quite done crying. “But I always hoped one day, maybe I could see him once again. I just didn’t want to believe as he could really be gone . . . Oh, Loro, my poor brother . . .” Her words dissolved into quiet sobs.
Echo closed her eyes, willing the dizziness to pass.
Something slammed low into her, wrenching her weak ankle with a stab of pain. Losing her balance, she tumbled into the yard amidst the laughter of the juveniles, the alarmed cries of the nuns. She landed on top of something that wriggled and poked her with a sharp elbow. She rolled off the child and onto her feet, hauling the girl up with a fist bunched in her shirt. Fury bared her teeth at her, eyes glinting in triumph.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Echo demanded, shaking her hard.
“Caught th’ hunter,” Fury answered, the shaking snapping her teeth together. The other juveniles stared at her in stunned admiration.
Echo let go so suddenly the girl nearly fell. “Get back to your place and leave me alone.”
Fury’s expression froze. She wiped a bit of blood from her mouth where she’d bitten her tongue. She turned her head, barely, and spat, the red-tinged glob landing an inch from Echo’s boot. Then she spun away, running out of the side yard, the gate clanging behind her. The other juveniles whooped and gave chase.
The nuns rose wearily to follow, their rest spoiled. Luida, last of them, paused at the gate. “She didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It does not matter what she meant,” Echo snapped. Luida turned away, not before Echo saw the tears start down her face again.
She tested the ankle with a cautious step. It held; she didn’t care about the pain. She bent to re-tie her boot. As she knelt, she saw Stigir and Dalto on the landing at the top of the stairs. She didn’t have to wonder how much they had seen: the Preserver’s lips thinned; he shook his head in a faint motion of disgust. Dalto drew him away, towards the laboratories. He glanced back once over his shoulder as they left.
She snapped the laces tight. Then she forced herself to straighten. She tried to think the way a hunter should, assembling the facts she had barely attended to in her distraction. The weapons she had found in the mill, that Gem had said were all defective. The unrest in the city, and Kennit’s fear of it. The Preservers. The Patri’s determination to punish the Ward for its defiance. Her own fear that he would try to use the Saint to do it, and she would reject the command . . .
The pieces meshed together like Exey’s gears, turning in some in explicable pattern whose purpose she could not see. Echo had set much of it in motion, one way or the other. She must stop it, to serve the Saint.
She limped down the stairs as fast as her ankle would let her. The confiscated projectile weapons sat in the locker, some intact and others disassembled in Gem’s investigations. Handholds, cylinders, a few tiny gears . . . The actual projectiles were no more than metal pebbles. Such small things to cause so much destruction, and so few. Echo touched the puckered skin where Lia had cut one from her arm. It was not the weapons themselves that created the danger. It was the illusion of power they gave the men who held them. A cityen had dared attack a hunter; the Wardmen had dared rebel against the Church. And
now another hunter dead. But something did not make sense. The Ward was making weapons, so everyone believed; but the Wardmen had nothing to gain from another war, and everything to lose. They had not even tried to defend their mill when she destroyed it, only gathered up the pieces and started over with the machinery, which was not so different from the parts scattered on the tray in front of Echo now.
Cylinders and gears. All her attention snapped back to the weapons before her. Cylinders and gears. She had seen them before. And she knew where.
Chapter 23
A few cityens were still out in the streets under the lightstrings, struggling with their baskets and handcarts as they tried to ready themselves for the storm. The wind caught a stooped old woman as she stepped out of the shelter of a wall to cross the street. Fighting her own impatience, Echo spared a moment to assist her, righting her cart and stuffing the goods that had not blown away back into it. The woman started to chase after a bag that was scudding down the alley. Echo caught her arm. “It is not worth it. Take what you have and go home, quickly.” She raised her voice so the other cityens would hear. “All of you, go back to your domiciles. Seek shelter before it gets worse.” An inopportune gust blew away her words. She could not tell if the cityens had heard her; a few looked her way, hesitating. Then, as if to belie her warning, the wind died suddenly. The calm seemed more ominous. The cityens shrugged and continued on as they had been.
She left them to their foolishness, debating where to search first. The tower seemed unlikely in the night and wind. She would have chosen the shop. A cityen, though, facing the prospect of long days isolated and confined . . . she found him at his brother’s small habitation in the Bend. He was sitting at the single table, making odd noises and contorting his face at the baby in his arms. It appeared to be amused rather than alarmed, drooling toothlessly and trying to pluck the shiny yellow bauble from his hair. The expression dropped off his face when he saw her.