Lilia gasped.
A few paces away, a young Dhai man sat on a bench drinking directly from a flagon of mead. He gaped.
“Hush,” Elaiko said, waving a finger at him, “or I’ll tell them you’re stealing.”
He continued staring, mouth still open, as Elaiko helped Lilia up. Lilia huffed in a breath, still starving for air. Elaiko was already moving, though, saying, “It’s all right if I help you? We must hurry.”
Lilia wondered where Elaiko’s courage had come from.
“Which way?” Elaiko asked as they came to a branch in the bone labyrinth. “I’ve gotten turned around! Oh no!” Lilia pointed, and they continued on, Elaiko half-dragging her, until they came to the broken bit of the fence.
Avosta peered out at them. “Lilia!” he called, relief in his voice.
But it was Elaiko who shoved herself through first, and he got out of her way. Then reached out to help Lilia.
“Harina?” Lilia asked.
“She isn’t with you?”
She shook her head.
“Harina knows the way out,” he said. “We all knew the risks. We need to get you out of here. Is it done?”
“I got what I came for,” Lilia said. She had seen the temple creature herself. “Ahkio was telling the truth. And… there’s much more to discuss. We’ll talk about it at camp. I need to see the Catoris.”
Avosta led the way to the cliff side. When Elaiko saw how they would travel back down, she nearly turned around. But there were more lights and noise from the courtyard, and Lilia knew they would send out jistas soon. If jistas found them out here, they were done.
Avosta went first, sliding down the great vine until he reached the point where a massive leaf curled, which broke his rapid descent. Then he stepped off, slid again, and called back up at them. “Come on! Hold tight!”
Lilia slid after him, wrapping her arms around the vine and holding tight to the wrist of her new hand with her stronger one to ensure a good grip. Elaiko came last, so quickly she nearly squashed Lilia’s head during several descents.
Lilia came down heavily on the marshy ground below. Her breath was ragged. Avosta held out his hand and she took it. He looped an arm around her waist and helped her to the vine along the rushing water as Elaiko squelched after them.
“Do you see her?” Lilia asked.
“No. If Salifa is still there, it will be difficult for her to see us, too. We need to get into the water.”
A little moan escaped Lilia; she was convinced it was Elaiko, but no. “The last time I swam across a river it was full of sharks,” she said.
“Only fish, here,” Avosta said, “but the water will be cold. Hold on to me.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he plunged into the water. Elaiko shrieked as she followed.
Lilia gasped at the cold. The current pushed them against the massive length of the vine, and Avosta used the heaving current in their favor for a few steps, until the bottom of the river sank away.
She clung to him as water rushed over her, threatening to pull them beneath the vine and off and away. Lilia dug into her pocket for the bag of warded hazelnuts, hoping to reduce her weight, and the current snagged them, rushing them off and away downstream.
Elaiko grabbed hold of her tunic. “Help me!” Elaiko said.
Avosta grunted. The rushing water bubbled around them. His head went under, taking Lilia with him. Lilia nearly let go. They were just halfway across; she could see the other side. Where was Salifa?
Elaiko sagged behind Lilia, letting what felt like her whole weight yank her back.
Avosta lost his grip. All three of them rushed backwards, caught against the heaving vine. Elaiko twisted her hand into Lilia’s tunic. Grabbed the vine with her other hand.
“I can’t carry you both!” Avosta said, spitting water.
Behind them, billowing waves of red light began to creep down the cliff, tangling with the great vine. The smell of burning plant matter wafted over the river. The jistas were searching for them – and burning the vine-bridge behind them.
Lilia released her hold on Avosta and hooked her stronger arm through a tangle in the vine. Avosta, free of them both, clawed forward another few paces and reached back for her.
“Let go of me, Elaiko,” Lilia said. Her fingers were numb. She felt only the dull pressure of Elaiko clinging to her shoulder. “Grab the vine. Let go.”
The smell of burning grew stronger.
“Let her go!” Avosta said. “Come on, Lilia!”
Lilia tried to pull herself forward. Elaiko lost her grip on her and clung to the vine. Lilia crept forward. Her arms burned. She could no longer feel her fingers.
Avosta stretched to reach her. “A little further,” he said.
Elaiko splashed behind her.
Lilia grabbed his fingertips. The vine shuddered. She turned and saw the great red wave of fiery light engulf the vine on the other side of the river.
“No,” Lilia breathed.
The vine snapped. Broke free of the other side. Lilia howled and clung to it with her good hand as best she could. The force of the water whipped the vine downstream with a savage jerk.
Avosta lost his grip and disappeared beneath the dark waves. Elaiko screamed. Lilia closed her eyes and held on tightly, riding the push of the water. She hit several rocks, a dull ache. The vine rolled up against the bank. Lilia’s feet met the shallow bottom and she hauled herself over the vine and up onto the bank on the other side. She collapsed in the mud, shaking violently.
Elaiko crawled up beside her and began to sob.
Lilia sat up. “We don’t have much time,” she wheezed, and patted her pockets. She found her mahuan-laced water bulb and took a great swallow.
She did not wait for Elaiko, but continued further up the bank, breath still coming too heavily. She sank down again, defeated. She needed the rest. Closed her eyes. Focused on her breathing.
“Where is that man?” Elaiko said. “Did he… did he make it across?”
Lilia gritted her teeth. She heaved herself up, using a low hanging branch as leverage, and tottered forward. She shoved Elaiko, startling them both. The shocked look on Elaiko’s face was so satisfying that Lilia did it again, and again. Elaiko shrank away.
“You fool!” Lilia said. “You absolute cowardly fool! You could have drowned all three of us. Avosta was worth three of you!”
“I’m a fool? Me? What did we learn in there, really? That someone is going to break the world? How does that help us?”
Lilia reared back to push her again. Elaiko caught her by her soft new hand and twisted it. Lilia cried out, stumbled, and fell to her knees.
Elaiko released her. Took two steps back. “You aren’t anything special,” Elaiko said. “Ora Nasaka thought she was special too, and they murdered her all the same.”
“None of us are special,” Lilia said, panting. “There are no special people. No one chosen to save us. We’re stuck in some long cycle of death and destruction begun thousands of years before we were born, and it will go on thousands of years after, unless we stop it. Not anyone special. Just us, Elaiko. You’re right. I’m not important. Nor are you. But we found something out today. We found out how to murder the Tai Mora and take back our country. We found out how to use these temples our ancestors built to save ourselves. We may not be special, but that is.”
Lilia waited a moment in silence while Elaiko caught her breath, then slowly rose to her feet, pushing out her twisted leg to get better leverage. Even so, she nearly went over again. She turned away from Elaiko and started up the long, winding path to the cover of the woodland above where the dogs would be waiting, if her luck held.
After a few moments, she heard Elaiko come after her with great plodding steps. The misty red light did not cross the water, but what was left of the vine continued to burn, shedding red-black embers of itself that sailed through the air, dipping and spiraling before extinguishing themselves in the water.
“Lilia? Is
that you?”
A figure at the top of the trail, still a hundred paces further up. Lilia squinted. “Salifa?”
“Yes, come, I’ll help you–”
“Don’t use your gift! They are watching from the temple!”
Salifa came down to meet her. “I can help,” Salifa said, “put your arm around me.”
Lilia looped her arm around Salifa’s waist, grateful for the help. “Who is this?” Salifa asked. “Where are the others?”
“This is Elaiko,” Lilia said. “She has a ward. You’ll need to remove it before we go much further. Just… wait until we reach the dogs. I want to be able to move quickly if they see you.”
They reached the place where they had left the dogs: two more than they needed with Avosta and Harina missing.
“Tie them behind,” Lilia said. “We meet at the rendezvous point. If they make it out, they will see us there.”
“I’m so sorry,” Salifa said. “What happened? Were you successful?”
“We were successful,” Lilia said, and she turned to Elaiko, daring her to say something, but Elaiko only shivered atop her mount, cold and miserable.
“Will you please take off the collar?” Elaiko asked.
Salifa reined her dog next to Elaiko and twisted a few breaths of Tira’s power that neatly untangled whatever weave they had put on the collar to keep Elaiko from drawing on her star.
“Another parajista,” Salifa said, nodding. “All right. We could always use another jista, even one with a descendant star.”
Lilia turned away so neither could see her grimace. “Let’s hurry,” Lilia said. “The sky waits on no one.”
17
Taigan thought it quaint that the Dhai had retreated to the Woodland. Perhaps it was inevitable, but he kept imagining them pushed further and further west, until they were caught up against the sea. He envisioned them hurling themselves off the cliffs and dying spectacularly in a grim pile of broken bodies and squalling babies.
He had always enjoyed his vivid imagination.
Taigan suspected they had moved far north, and his interrogation of the local Woodland Dhai confirmed that. He had followed Lilia across the Woodland to a fingerling peninsula that jutted into the Hahko sea before, in pursuit of her and her little girlfriend, the first Gian, the one he had hated less than the second, and certainly the least of all three of them. That Gian had some sense. Lilia’s fondness for that area made it the first he considered. She would be less likely to bury herself in the foothills of Mount Ahya, though that would have been the strategically smarter choice. That would have also been the first place the Tai Mora looked, and from what he gathered, where they were spending most of their time rooting out small bands of Dhai that Taigan suspected were likely decoys.
Luna ate little and spoke less, which he would have considered a blessing if he had not been so starved to hear Saiduan spoken. For a year he had traveled across Saiduan, holing up in little abandoned towns to see what he could do with Oma now that it had risen. He had great fun with that for a few months, but one could only raze so many villages and dismember so many wayward livestock before growing bored.
When he had sought out company, there was little to find but Tai Mora. Unlike in the Dhai valley, they had kept few Saiduan slaves. Once they had their people and armies through, and their world imploded, there was no reason to kill more Dhai, or anyone else, for that matter. All of the doubles in the Tai Mora world who could arrive had already come over. And someone here had to do the filthy work of farming. In preserving her armies, their Empress had had little time to save her farmers. She was a lord with armies aplenty, but no one who knew how to weave a basket.
Being a warlord was one thing. Being a leader was entirely another.
The trek through the Woodland was as awful as he remembered it, though he was prepared for many of its horrors this time. The swinging bone trees, the curling tendrils that signalled a bladder trap, the dreadful little tree gliders that would dart forward and steal food straight from one’s mouth – all of these he could navigate much more easily than before.
It was not long before he found the tracks of a scouting party. He and Luna followed those for a few days to a tree-based camp of what he realized were Woodland Dhai, not refugees. They shouted the two of them off, and deployed a sticky fence that would have trapped them if not for Oma’s fiery breath at his call.
“I’m surprised there are this many left,” Luna said as they continued their long march toward the sea.
Taigan worked ahead of hir, burning vegetation with little tendrils of Oma’s power. He delighted in watching the nasty little plants begin to curl and char and drop. He crushed them under his feet as he walked, and found it deeply satisfying.
“They won’t be able to gather in groups of more than a few hundred,” Taigan said. “They won’t want to draw on their jistas, either. That would be like drawing a great target down over themselves.”
“But… aren’t you doing that, then? By clearing the brush that way.”
Taigan frowned. “It’s not much power.”
“And you enjoy it.”
“I enjoy it immensely.”
A few days later, Taigan found signs of another scouting party. This one was much less careful than the first. Despite the tree cover, he could smell the sea. He heard the scouting pair because they were arguing about food – a common topic among everyone during these hungry times.
“How will we approach them?” Luna whispered as Taigan caught his first sight of them through the trees.
“They aren’t gifted,” Taigan said. “It will be easy.”
Taigan tied up the two young scouts with a few threads of Oma’s breath and marched down the little gully to them. They could not have been much into their teens. It was almost too easy.
“I’m here to see the little rebel girl in charge,” Taigan said. “She is an old protégée of mine. I assume you are led by this rebel girl, the one with the limp?”
The terrified scouts took some persuasion, but eventually led him and Luna to a large thorn fence that encircled what appeared to be little more than a handful of tents. Something about the whole arrangement seemed off. Was this a forward camp? Surely no one lived here.
He felt the air compress around him, but he had already put up a defensive shield. He noted two tirajistas up in a tree a few paces distant, and neatly cut them off from their satellite using the Song of Unmaking. One of them squealed.
“I’m not here to harm anyone!” he called. “Tell your Kai that Shao Taigan Masaao has brought some information that you may all find quite useful.”
A flurry of movement at his left. A young runner bolted from one of the tents and disappeared below ground. Ah, of course. Underground. Taigan grinned because he recognized Lilia’s thinking in that. Ever the pragmatic strategist.
It was nearly an hour before anyone else approached them. Taigan released the two young scouts, who hopped the fence and sprinted away. Taigan sat on an old downed tree next to Luna.
“You really think they’ll let a sanisi in there?” Luna said.
“They will meet me.”
“What if they don’t? What then?”
“I make them meet me.”
Luna grimaced. “You are just the same.”
“Dire times call for–”
“No, you have always been mean. That’s why Maralah loved you and hated you.”
“What do you know what Maralah thought?”
“She told me. You frustrated her.”
“Good. You know what it is to be compelled by her, against your own wishes.”
“Yet you would do it to these Dhai.”
“You have a bleeding little heart for a Saiduan,” Taigan said.
“I don’t think I’m Saiduan. Not Dhai either. Is that possible?”
Taigan shrugged. “Many foreign slaves exist in the spaces between things. I was never like anyone else.”
A slender, pock-marked man with a mean little face approach
ed them a few minutes later, coming up from the camp with a line of jistas positioned behind him. Taigan kept a thread of Oma’s breath just beneath his skin, in case he needed to cut them off in addition to the tirajistas still powerless in the trees.
“I’m Liaro,” the man said. “The Kai’s cousin. He’s asked you to tell me of your first meeting with him, to confirm your identity.”
“I had an audience with him in Oma’s Temple,” Taigan said. “Though he spoke little and his elders spoke much. I informed him of the importance of finding a gifted omajista, someone we thought could act as a worldbreaker. Your Kai was not terribly pleasant to me.”
Liaro nodded. “We would ask that – as a show of good faith – you release your hold on our Oras and novices and let them draw upon their satellites again.”
“Will that get me an audience?”
“It will, if you would permit them to shield your power in his presence.”
“You realize I am just as deadly without Oma as with it.”
“Which is why this is merely a show of good faith.”
“I permit it,” Taigan said.
Liaro waved back at the line of jistas. Taigan released the Song of Unmaking, and let go of Oma’s breath. He felt the combined weight of several jistas immediately and inexpertly attempt a Song of Unmaking on him. The air went heavy, then lightened as they became satisfied with their work.
It was not a true fix; Taigan could still sense Oma, and knew that if he applied himself, he could break their clumsy spells. But it seemed to satisfy them, and that’s what he wanted.
Liaro led Taigan and Luna back to the circle of jistas. They surrounded a tent which had the flaps of the walls rolled up so that the people sitting around the table inside were clearly visible.
Taigan recognized the Kai first, a pretty young man even with his sad eyes that had dark circles beneath them. Another was familiar, probably Yisaoh, the daughter to one of the clan leaders. He had moved through Clan Garika on his journey to the temple, and she had made a nuisance of herself. The other woman, with fiery eyes, slightly bent over the table, and a large man and skinny man who stood just behind her – either lovers or bodyguards, perhaps both – he did not know.
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 123