by Ken Scholes
Shivering suddenly, Vlad set off at a brisk walk toward the stairs and soon found himself climbing. He slowed when his ascent stitched his side and threatened his breathing, pausing here and there to listen for the bare slap of Mal’s feet on the steps above him. When he reached the top, he saw another open hatch and found himself reeling from a kind of vertigo when he passed through it and found himself surrounded by water, above and below and around him. It was a corridor of crystal that stretched out across an expanse to end at another hatch.
Mal Li Tam worked the wheel of it and then slipped inside. Vlad followed carefully and quickly after.
He followed his grandson for what seemed hours, up stairs and down ladders, through crystal corridors and red-lit chambers with purposes now lost to time. Finally, as his scout powders showed their first sign of guttering and burning out, he passed through another hatch and came to a sudden stop.
This chamber was also crystalline-vast and round-and hanging in the center of it, suspended by silver wires thick as palm trees, was a massive and dark orb. A circular staircase led up from the bottom of the round chamber, stopping at a platform just beneath the stone, and already Mal was taking those steps two at a time.
This is what he seeks.
And Vlad knew that it must be the same for him, though he did not comprehend what it was exactly. Still, with the younger man’s sudden burst of energy he felt his own sense of urgency grow.
He felt heat just beneath his skin as the scout magicks guttered again, and he tightened his grip upon the handle of the knife. He moved as quickly as he could without making sound or wind, his feet whispering across the floor and then upon the stairs.
Mal had reached the platform now, and from Vlad’s new vantage point, he could better see the orb that hung above them. At first, he thought it was fractured, but as he drew closer he saw that the glass was shot through with silver veins. Already, his grandson had dropped his knife and was climbing up into the thick wires that supported it, moving along the dark surface of the orb.
Vlad reached the platform, scooped up the knife, and leaned back to watch the young man climb.
What is he doing?
Mal Li Tam stood upon the top of the orb now and laid both of his hands upon something that protruded from it. Vlad heard the youth grunting as he tugged on it, and when it began to give, it slid out of the stone with a sound that was nearly music. As he withdrew it, the veins of silver dissipated, and even below on the platform, Vlad felt a tickling in his ears as something, somewhere stirred to life with the faintest vibration.
It built, and he realized that as it did, the light in the room grew. When the long, slender staff was completely free of the stone, Mal Li Tam extended it upward with both hands with a loud cry. The light radiating from the stone’s core reflected white and hot from the surface of the silver staff, but an even greater light, from beyond the crystal room, rose to cast its eerie reflection.
The room itself began to move, the stone rotating with it as the wires that supported it whispered and sang. Vlad placed his back to the railing and crouched, trying to keep his focus on the movements of his grandson as Mal made his way down, the silver rod clenched tightly in one hand.
When his feet are on the platform I will strike.
But the rising light pulled at his eyes, and as it did, he found tears welling up again at the beauty of what he saw. Blue-green light from all sides drove away the shadows as d’jin filled the sea beyond the crystal vault. Writhing and twisting, they danced through the waters, and the vibration in his ears became a familiar song even as the knife within his hands became an antiphon of its own-a response to that song that he would soon give.
One d’jin, larger than the others and moving with a fluid grace he knew very well, separated itself from the others and descended into the silver veins, flooding the glass stone and transforming it into a blinding moon.
Mal’s feet dangled over the platform now, and Vlad held his breath.
When those feet touched down, Vlad Li Tam smiled and let loose his fury, bathed in the light of a love he could not comprehend, knife-dancing to a song that required his response.
Petronus
They moved through the caves at a rapid walk, often reduced to single file as they followed their metal guide. Petronus walked at the front with Grymlis and Rafe Merrique, while the others spread out behind them.
The metal man had said little since admitting them, despite Petronus’s attempts to engage it, and now he’d left the mechanical to its secrets, focusing instead on his unexpected encounter with Neb in a waking dream that left his nose bleeding and his skull pounding. The boy was nothing like the orphan he’d found in Sethbert’s camp two years ago. There was a confidence and strength about him even beyond what he’d attained in the grave-digging of Windwir, and along with that confidence and strength, there was a hard edge and a sadness. It didn’t take much Franci behaviorist training to see it or to speculate as to what kinds of events might have brought it forth in him.
Just his time under their knives would be enough to change him forever. But Petronus suspected more than that had altered the boy. Beyond the cutting, there was the reason behind it-his role as the Marsher Homeseeker, something that until a few weeks ago Petronus had disbelieved.
Until I was pulled into the mythology myself.
And now, he could not help but believe that he stood upon the precipice of something of vital importance, though he had no real information to prove it was so. And equally, he believed that it was likely he and this ragged group of men he led would not survive to see the antiphon do what it was made for.
Still, he knew they would give their lives for it.
Ahead of them, a dim light grew, and when they spilled out into the open, Petronus saw that it was the moon, high and full above the mountain. It washed the valley with blue-green light, reflecting off a large metal mass he saw there.
He’d seen it hidden with evergreen branches upon a massive series of scaffolds those times he’d seen this space in his dreams, but now he saw it standing free of the scaffolds and open to the night.
No, he realized, not standing. Floating. Easily the size of one of Tam’s vessels, made of a burnished gold, the ship hung tethered to the rocky ground. A large door in it stood open, and metal men hauled sacks and crates of supplies along a gangway.
Petronus blinked, taking in the image and recognizing it.
“Gods,” he whispered. “Do you see it?”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Grymlis nod. “Aye, Father.”
He’d seen the drawings-those fragments they’d been able to find in Rufello’s Book of Specifications. It was that old Czarist engineer’s greatest accomplishment, blending ancient sciences and magicks with those considered modern when he served the czars. As a boy, Felip Carnelyin’s One Hundredth Tale had been one of his favorites, though much of the story had been lost over the millennia that had passed. Still, Petronus had no doubt what he saw. It clicked into place the last of this lock’s cipher, and he understood.
It is the ship that sailed the moon.
Somehow, the metal men of Sanctorum Lux had reconstructed it here, in secret, and even now Petronus saw they prepared it for flight.
He forced his feet to their work again and moved out of the cave and into the open air, allowing the men behind him to fan out. He wondered how many of them would recognize what hung suspended in the air before them, chained to the ground as it hummed and sputtered.
He felt a metal hand upon his shoulder, and he tore his eyes away from the ship to take in the metal man before him.
“Father Petronus,” the mechoservitor said, “you should not have come.”
His eyes slid past the amber eyes to the vessel beyond. It is larger than I imagined. Swallowing, he forced his eyes back to the metal man. “Hebda told me I was needed here.”
“He and his kind have been interfering a great deal of late.”
His kind. “Still,” Petronus said, “w
e are here. We will see your antiphon safely into the air.” He could not take his eyes off of it, and quick glances to his left and right told him that it was the same for his men as more and more of them filed into the open space. “When do you launch?”
The mechoservitor’s eye shutters flashed open and closed as steam released from the steam vent. “When the Homeseeker instructs us to.”
Neb had told him earlier that he would come soon, though Petronus was not sure how that could be possible, nor how the boy would wade through the small army that even now was gathering at the gate. Another voice spoke up to his right as Rafe Merrique stepped forward. “I don’t suppose,” the pirate asked, “this Homeseeker will instruct you regarding the return of my vessel?”
The metal man regarded him, and when it spoke, the tone was measured and matter-of-fact. “I regret the loss of your vessel in its service to the light, Captain Merrique, but I would be unkind if I failed to point out that it is unlikely you or your men will have use of it given your choice to come here.”
The pirate’s chuckle was pained, and Petronus winced at it. They’d talked enough in the quiet hours before dawn to know that none of their group expected to survive their latest venture, but he couldn’t blame the man for hoping. Now, Rafe Merrique spoke with a flourish. “Then I shall hope that she served you and the light well.”
Again, the mechanical was blunt. “The vessel was functional. But a misinterpretation of our role in that aspect of the dream has cost us your vessel along with two of our brethren and a combined fourteen percent of the holdings of Sanctorum Lux.”
Merrique opened his mouth to speak, but the mechanical was already moving away, back to the line of mechanicals as they loaded the ship. His jaw went firm for a moment, and that was the only outward sign of the man’s anger.
Petronus turned and took in the last of their company as it emerged from the cave. The men that staggered out into the moonlight were a brooding, weary bunch, carrying only their packs and weapons. They’d sent their extra gear, and that of the horses that had survived, away in the care of Geoffrus and his men, knowing even as they did it that the horses were as likely to be eaten as cared for. if the Waste mongrel and his band weren’t taken by the Y’Zirite forces first.
Grymlis took a step closer and lowered his voice. “What are your orders, Father?”
“We hold the gate until the ship is up.” Certainly, they couldn’t hold it forever. At some point, their enemy had to find a way around the Rufello locks. But if Neb came soon and the locks held long enough, they could hold the cave. In the end it would be only a matter of time before the Y’Zirites reached them, and Petronus was under no illusion over how it would go for them. Certainly, he himself was set apart from the promised violence-his role as the Last Son of P’Andro Whym assured his survival, according to the Blood Guard Rafe had captured, now buried in shallow graves just beyond the gate. But he also knew that he would take his own life, no matter how abhorrent that was to him, before he went into their custody.
“Establish a line in the caves and work it in shifts,” he said. “Mandatory rest for the others; I want them hydrated and steady. Neb said he would be here soon.”
When Grymlis spoke next, Petronus heard the awe in his voice and noted that it was barely a whisper. “And where do you imagine Neb will be going?”
Petronus met his eyes and then looked up to where the moon hung in the sky above them. He did not say it; he did not want to. Many Androfrancine scholars disputed the accuracy of The Hundredth Tale, claiming it to be a story twisted by mythology and mysticism. But the vessel was here-or one much like it-and there were just as many scholars who believed Rufello’s science had once guided a Czarist Lunar Expedition so many millennia before and that it was possible, just possible, that the disaster of that expedition had eventually brought about the Year of the Falling Moon and the wizard who fell.
Grymlis followed his eyes, saw the moon, and then nodded. “We hold the cave until the ship is up.”
Grymlis moved off barking his orders while men scrambled and Petronus pulled aside to think. He had a list of questions longer than his leg but knew this was not the time to ask them. Still, his mind required that he order them, and he was setting himself to that work when the ground shook and a distant rumble tickled his eardrums.
He looked up quickly and saw that Grymlis had stopped, midorder; then the orders came faster and the men who’d been pitching their bedrolls abandoned them, took up their weapons and sped into the cave. The metal men stopped along the line, looking in unison toward the cave entrance before starting up again as one and moving their supplies aboard at increased speed.
Petronus made his way to a white-faced Grymlis, certain his own face was pale as well. “We’ve underestimated them.”
Grymlis nodded. “We have. They’ve brought blast powders to the door, I’ll wager.”
Rafe Merrique joined them, drawing his cutlass and testing its edge with his thumb. “Then let’s hope this so-called Homeseeker comes quickly.”
Petronus looked one last time to the ship and to the moon that hung above it. Then, without a word he entered the cave to join his men in their last work upon the earth.
Chapter 28
Jin Li Tam
They laid Winters out on a bed that had been stripped down to a simple cotton sheet, and as Lynnae set to tending the girl, Jin Li Tam pulled aside with Garyt.
There were white paths upon his painted cheeks from the tears he’d cried, and Winters’s blood dried upon his hands and uniform. Jin could read the despair upon him and understood it at once.
He loves her. She doubted that he knew he did, but she could read it plainly upon him, and she remembered the ache of that kind of love, remembered its own genesis between her and Rudolfo in what seemed a lifetime ago. She put a hand on his arm. “She will be fine,” she said. “Scarred but fine.”
He nodded, and when their eyes met she saw more than his anguish; she also saw his rage. “Why did she choose this? Any of a hundred of us would have taken the knife in her place.”
Jin looked at the girl. She was moving in and out of awareness now that the kallacaine was taking hold, and her body flinched at Lynnae’s sponge as the woman cleaned her wounds and applied her ointments and powders. “I think she saw it was her place to do this for her people, to show both the faithful and the unfaithful among them.”
He nodded and looked to the door, then back to her. “There is much work to do,” he said. “There will be people gathering at dawn to leave with her.”
Yes. But how many? Jin was uncertain, but despite Winters’s choice she suspected the numbers who actually chose to leave their hearth and home to follow the girl would be low. But she also suspected, just as strongly, that it would only be a beginning. What they had witnessed this night would stay with her people, and over time, more would trickle out as the reality of what they saw settled into their hearts.
She looked to the young Machtvolk guard. “What will you do?”
His answer did not surprise her. “I will stay as long as I can,” he said. “I will be her eyes and ears here.”
She nodded. “I would have you bear word to Aedric if you see him.” Now she chose her words carefully. “Tell him that our stay here is finished and to prepare his men for travel.”
“Aye, Lady. I will tell him.”
She thought again for a moment. “Bid Charles and Isaak the same. They would be wise to leave by the way they came.”
He nodded again. “Aye.”
She studied the man. “And the Ninefold Forest is ever your friend, Garyt. You bear my grace and thus Rudolfo’s as well. If you have need, get word to him.”
He inclined his head. “Thank you, Lady. I fear that what we need may be out of his reach to give us.” He laid a hand upon the door latch and paused. “Bid my queen good health and safe journey,” he said.
Then, he slipped from the room.
He’d been gone less than five minutes before the sounds
of third alarm grew beyond their window. It started in the distance and moved through the forest, a growing clamor that soon enveloped the lodge as she heard the running footfalls of soldier and servant alike. Jin went to the window and watched as squads formed up in the yard. She watched a handful of men drink down phials of blood magick and warble out of sight as they ran eastward.
There was a knock upon the door, and Jin turned from the window. “Come in,” she said.
The door opened, and Ria stepped into the room, her face washed in rage and worry. Behind her, still in his furs from the walk back, stood Regent Eliz Xhum. “How is she?”
The concern in the woman’s voice angered Jin, but she forced that anger from her voice, though her words were still frosted. “She will be fine.” She nodded toward the window. “What is happening?”
Ria scowled. “Our perimeters have been breached. And our-”
But she was cut off by a booming voice out of the east that shook the glass and raised the hair on Jin’s arms and neck.
“I come for Winteria bat Mardic, true Queen of the Marsh,” the voice cried out. “Where is she?”
She knew that voice, though she did not know the magicks that propelled it; there was a clarity and power in it beyond the blood-distilled voice magicks she was familiar with. She saw light moving toward them now and watched the Machtvolk scramble toward it. She heard the cries and grunts of those who found what they sought and then saw the light grow until it took the shape of a man.
His run slowed to a walk as he entered the clearing, and Jin blinked as she recognized the voice, though the man it belonged to looked nothing like the boy she’d last seen so many months before.
Neb?
But not the Neb she’d last seen the night of Jakob’s birth. He burned with a hot, white light now from his toes to the tips of his hair, and his eyes were the color of the moon as he strode roaring into the clearing. His silver robe caught the wind and flowed out behind him as he went; and as Ria’s men closed in, he swung his fists like clubs and scattered them like kindling. When the invisible wall of blood-magicked scouts pressed in, he tossed them into the trees, where they thrashed and fell.