by Giles Carwyn
He and Arefaine stood at the prow, already sweating in the heat rising from the boiling bay. The Cinder was a volcanic island that exploded eons ago, leaving the ragged edges of a vast crater poking above the ocean. The sea had rushed in to fill the crater, forming an island the shape of a crescent moon, with a bubbling bay in its center. Underwater vents created a constant torrent of steam billowing up from the center of the crescent, boiling the ocean and sending noxious gases into the air.
“Is that a dock?” Brophy asked, as they drew closer to shore. Three ships rocked gently against the stone quay. “What could they possibly need a dock for?”
“For the pilgrims who come to this place,” Arefaine said.
“That’s crazy,” he murmured. He remembered the corrupted oxen charging out of the sea, the twisted black birds that dropped from of the sky as he, Shara, and Celinor fled with the child. “I don’t want to be here.”
“Neither did I when the Emperor brought me, but I looked at what he wished to show me.”
The Emperor’s ship slid up to the dock as they dropped the sails, and a few silent sailors leapt ashore to tie her off.
Brophy continued staring at the hated island, watching the mists swirl. No one emerged from belowdecks to go ashore.
“What’s everyone waiting for?” he finally asked.
“For you.” She placed her hand on his. “The Emperor suggested that you go ashore first. We’ll follow a little later.”
The voices in Brophy’s head hovered in the distance like a storm forming on the horizon. He ignored them and said nothing.
“Don’t you want to stretch your legs after so many days at sea?”
“No.”
“As you wish,” she said quietly, taking her hand from his. His fingers felt cold at the sudden absence.
He strode to the other side of the deck, looked into the mist away from the island. When the ship had been moving, the churning anger inside him was tolerable. It felt like his circuitous path would eventually lead him back to himself, back to Shara, back to Ohndarien. But he could not abide standing still, waiting.
Brophy still had his doubts about the Emperor’s motivations. The man was utterly convinced that Arefaine must bring the Heartstone to Efften and make some critical decision that would determine the fate of the world. He practically begged Brophy to remain by her side and help her make that choice. But he wouldn’t give any more details than that.
Coming from anyone else, Brophy would consider the Emperor’s convictions nothing more than the ravings of a madman, a prophet of doom. But the Emperor had such a calm, bone-deep confidence that Brophy didn’t know what to believe anymore.
He never mentioned the Emperor’s request to Arefaine. But he asked her about the Heartstone and what she planned to do with it. The two of them ended up talking far into the night about her dreams of returning to Efften and freeing her sister’s soul.
That night something had changed, and Brophy found himself pitying the girl who had been through so much. He’d asked her about the Fiend he’d faced in his nightmares. She seemed shocked at first when he’d mentioned it, but then her face became cold and unreadable again. Brophy felt he was getting to know the sorceress, but he still didn’t trust her. She was hiding something, and he didn’t know what.
Brophy clutched his father’s spirit in his hand, drawing warmth and reassurance from the tiny light. Eventually he sighed, pushing aside his anger at the Emperor. Like it or not, Brophy was His Eternal Wisdom’s guest and subject to his rule. Unless he planned on taking over the ship and killing everyone aboard, he would have to bow to the Emperor’s wishes.
If his path back home led through the Cinder, there was no sense in avoiding it.
Crossing the deck, he walked down the gangplank to the stone dock. One of the sailors offered a lantern, but Brophy ignored him and headed into the darkness alone. A path led from the wharf along the island’s shore, heading into the narrow canyon he had walked so many years ago. He and Shara had struggled to find the path into the crevice, but now it was paved with square stones.
He stopped, knelt. Intricate carvings graced each stone, telling miniature stories with every step. He shook his head as he rose. Who would spend so much time in a place like this?
The jagged cliffs on either side of the narrow chasm blotted out almost all of the light, but ever since waking from his nightmare, Brophy had little trouble seeing in the dark. Somehow he was stronger than before, faster and more aware, even with his lack of sleep.
The path grew steadily steeper, and he followed it for a quarter of an hour. It was nothing like he remembered. The broken stone had been cleared away. The walls had been shaped, smoothed, and the paved path was polished by the tread of many feet. Deep into the crevice, the carvings suddenly ceased, as though the artists had only been able to complete that much in the last eighteen years. Brophy continued until he reached the place where he had first met Celinor.
The narrow ledges he and Shara had used to climb out of the canyon to Celinor’s cave had been expanded into steady, evenly carved steps that snaked their way into the mists above. He climbed them slowly out of the chasm and stopped on a little platform at the top, amazed by what he saw.
He stared at a vast, moonlit complex of gardens and temples. Towering monuments, little shrines, and sprawling flower beds ran from Copi’s cave all the way down the hill to an enormous half-constructed dome. Ferns were planted everywhere. Flowering vines twisted around one another as they climbed the face of a vast temple built around the entrance to Copi’s cave.
Sheltered alcoves had been carved into the mountainside on ether side of the cave. Little fires burned inside each of them, and two or three black-robed women worshipped at those fires. The pilgrims all held tiny, silver music boxes, each playing that haunting tune that had become so familiar to Brophy in his last days before the nightmare.
The child’s tune filled the strangely hopeful landscape, but the foul mist still swirled through it all, as though it longed to wither the flowers and tear down the monuments.
Beyond the caves, scores of Ohohhim in black tunics slept in the open air atop simple woven mats. The pilgrims’ gardening or stone-carving tools were stacked neatly at their feet.
The largest temple was being constructed of Ohndarien’s blue-white marble. It rose from the foliage by Celinor’s lookout on the edge of the cliff. Had they actually shipped that much marble from the Ohndarien quarries? That would have taken years, the work of thousands.
An Ohohhim woman turning her music box in one of the caves looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened.
“It’s him. He’s here,” she whispered to the women around her. She descended to her knees, and bowed low, touching her forehead to the ground, still turning the handle of the music box. The women next to her cried out and did the same.
The noise alerted the others nearby, and it caught like wildfire. First the women with their music boxes, then the sleeping workers all woke and silently bowed to him. Pilgrim after pilgrim, all the way down to the unfinished temple, pressed their heads to the ground.
Brophy took a step back, his heel scuffing the edge of the stairway. He stood paralyzed for a moment, then disappeared into the fog.
An hour later, he crouched at the highest point on the island, arms around his legs, chin resting on his knees. His father’s spirit light floated around his head, whispering to him in words he couldn’t understand.
The sulfurous mist never drifted this high, and he had a clear view of the setting moon reflecting off the distant ocean. He could see the temples, moonlight reflecting off blue-white marble half-obscured in the swirling mists. The Ohohhim were down there, still waiting on their knees for all he knew.
Arefaine had been walking up the steep slope toward him for the last fifteen minutes. He wanted to escape down the far side of the mountain, but there was nowhere to go, no way to avoid what hunted him. She took her time with the treacherous slope and wasn’t even out of breath when sh
e finally sat next to him on the craggy peak.
“All you had to do was nod,” she said quietly. “And they would have gone on about their business.”
“Why did you bring me here?” he asked. “Why were they kneeling?”
“They kneel because you are the Sleeping Warden. You and Copi and I are the reason they came here, to build those temples in our honor.”
“Why?”
“Because the three of us are the purest embodiment of Oh’s sacrifice in the last thousand years. We are almost like gods to them.”
“That’s insane. How did they even know who I am?”
“Not many young men with golden curls and glowing red diamonds in their chests wander onto the Cinder.”
Brophy brought the fist that held his father to his mouth and bit his finger.
“They’ve been expecting you,” Arefaine insisted. “His Eternal Wisdom knew you would someday return to these shores in need of guidance. They’ve been waiting for you ever since construction of this place began fifteen years ago. Many have waited years for the honor of coming here for a few months to work on your temple.”
“Don’t they know what I’ve done?”
“Yes, Brophy,” she said, her voice stern for the first time since he had known her. “They know exactly what you’ve done, and exactly who you are. You are the only one who doesn’t seem to know.”
“And what have I done?” he said, louder than he intended. “Besides cut down my aunt from behind, besides slip into darkness inch by inch for the past eighteen years?”
“They came here to honor you because you followed in the footsteps of Oh—”
“I didn’t—”
She touched his chin, turned his gaze down to meet hers. “Yes. You did. You walked a path that no one except the god himself has had the courage to tread.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you know about Oh? About his life as a man?”
Brophy sighed and looked up at the stars. He willed his thoughts to quiet, willed his heart to slow. “I remember some of the legends Vallia taught us when I was a child. He was the first emperor of Ohohhom. He ended all the wars and united the nation, then disappeared into his cave.”
“There is much more to the story than that. Oh wasn’t only the first emperor, he was the world’s first and greatest magician. He and his apprentices discovered the ten paths to power and perfected each one of them.”
“But I’m not a magician.”
“Just listen.” Arefaine put her hand on his leg. “As Oh’s power grew, so did his ambitions. He longed to bring his gifts to every corner of the world. He imagined one vast nation ruled by peace, justice, and beauty, but he grew impatient with the slow progress of his dreams. He began to use his magic to push his followers harder and harder. He began to slay those who opposed him rather than taking the time to win them over to his side. An insufferable pain grew in his belly, and his hungers grew worse and worse. It was said that his eyes grew black as night, and none could bear to meet his gaze.”
“He corrupted himself,” Brophy said, remembering Shara in the Wet Cells.
“Yes. He succumbed to the emmeria of his own making and nearly destroyed everything he had created.”
“Who stopped him?”
“He stopped himself. In a moment of clarity, Oh realized who he had become and where that path must lead. So he created a containment stone from the enormous diamond that adorned his throne and purged himself of all tainted emmeria. Then he placed that corrupted stone within a solid silver coffin and buried it in a cave. He vowed never to use magic again.
“Less than a year later he stood upon a battlefield where his magic had just laid waste the entire Vizai army. He watched as his bloodthirsty men tore down the gates of the enemy’s capital and began to rape and slaughter all those within. And the Emperor began to cry.
“He knew he could never resist the allure of his power. So he marched his army back to Ohohhom, dug up the silver coffin, and climbed inside. The man’s power made him a god. He could never be killed, and he could never be trusted to resist temptation for long. The allure of his power was too great. So he ordered his followers to bury him alive in a silver coffin. He willingly sacrificed his life to play eternal guardian to the sinister power he had unleashed upon the world.”
Brophy nodded, seeing the connection at last.
“The Ohohhim set aside their weapons and bent their hearts and minds to the difficult task of following Oh’s example. Greed and ambition became the greatest sins in their eyes. They turned their backs on power and learned to embrace duty, obedience, and self-sacrifice as the greatest of virtues.”
Brophy unclenched his fist and let his father’s soul fly around the two of them until it eventually landed on his shoulder.
“That is why they are building those three temples. One for me, one for Copi, and one for you. We fought a foe that Oh himself could not overcome, and we defeated it. You are the greatest of the three because you did so willingly. You knew exactly what would happen that day atop the Hall of Windows.”
“I only did what the Heartstone told me—”
“Did you truly not know what you were doing?”
Brophy shook his head and looked away. “No. I knew.”
“Exactly.”
“But I never defeated it,” he said. “I lost over and over again.”
“Before you went to sleep, you held the corruption at bay for ten days on your journey back to Ohndarien. Most would have been overwhelmed in ten seconds. The Emperor himself succumbed to the corruption. No one has ever resisted it that long. Ever. I had the music box. It was that artifact, not me, that kept the black emmeria contained. Every time the music box stopped, I tried to wake. But we had to pull you from your dream, Brophy, even after the Heartstone was corrupted, even after the Zelani stopped singing. You held the emmeria with your own will, with no hope of rescue, no hope that the battle would ever end.”
Brophy stayed silent.
“That’s why they treat you like a god, Brophy. Because you did what only a god could do. They come here to keep fighting the battle that you started, to keep striving to reach the perfection you achieved.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No more ridiculous than Donovan’s dream of creating Ohndarien. The building of Efften, too, was once a flight of fancy.”
Brophy picked up a rock and hurled it into the darkness. It was a very long time before it clattered down the scree slope far below.
“Fifteen years ago,” Arefaine continued, “the Emperor returned to the Cinder to bury Copi’s bones. As he dug her grave with his own hands, Oh spoke to him. That night, he decreed that the Cinder should be transformed. This place of pain and misery would be reclaimed by joy and life. Those modest gardens are just the beginning. He wants to remake this entire island. With the grace of Oh, generation after generation will add beauty to this place, and tend it, and keep it. It will serve as a reminder that humans can only push back the darkness with constant attention and diligent care. This monument is meant to stand as a testament to the human spirit, to our courage to stand, even flourish, in the face of evil.”
Brophy scooped his father’s spirit light off his shoulder and cradled it within his hands. The faint glow warmed his face. “But why this, why here? Why would they waste all this time, this effort, trying to change something that can’t be changed?”
“Because it can be changed. The Emperor was once corrupted. You were nearly corrupted. I have wrestled with the darkness my entire life. And all three of us must believe that we can come back from that, that we can be whole once again.”
Brophy shut his eyes as her words tugged at his heart.
“This temple is a monument to the battle we all fight in our own hearts, our own lives. You are the greatest hero in that battle. You are living proof that a single courageous soul can hold back all the evil in the world.”
He blinked his eyes, looked away. “But it still has me,” he
said in a hoarse voice. “The Fiend crept into my bones, and I don’t know how to get him out. I hear him day and night. And I want to keep hurting people. Like I hurt Bae…Like I hurt Shara…” He twitched his head, shutting out the memory.
Arefaine nodded quietly, then said, “But you never gave up, and you never will. Together, we’ll get those voices out of your head. We’ll get them out of your dreams.”
She stopped, looked up at him again. “And we’ll get them out of mine.”
“Arefaine, you don’t—”
She grabbed his chin fiercely.
“I know how hard it’s been. You were very nearly destroyed. So was I. But we weren’t. We held the darkness back.”
She forced his gaze down the hill.
“You look at that, Brophy, at all of those people willing to spend their lives for only the gesture of defeating evil. Look on that, and tell me that you lost.
“If they can do that,” Arefaine said softly, letting him go, “imagine what else can be done. Imagine what the two of us could do with a place like Efften.”
CHAPTER 22
Lawdon pulled herself dripping from the dark waters between the boats of the Floating Palace. The rain fell steadily, dripping into her eyes. She grabbed a rope ladder with shaky hands and climbed the rungs as quietly as she could. The weight of her wet coat chafed at her armpits and elbows. Her skin was rubbed raw and inflamed from the seawater. It felt as if she’d swum the width of the Summer Seas.
Quietly recovering her breath, she checked her dagger. A surge of memories flashed through her mind, sharks frothing in the water, teeth gnashing, but she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth so hard she thought they would crack. But when she opened her eyes again and looked up, the tears had not come. She wouldn’t let them. Not yet. She had one thing to do, then she didn’t care what happened.
Silent as an eel, she peered over the edge of the empty ship. She was certain she would find Vinghelt’s murderers waiting for her, swords in hand. But there was no one, only a quiet rail along the deck, curving into the rainy darkness. From the color of the banners she was flying, Lawdon knew the ship must belong to some minor branch of the Koscholtz family. Lord Koscholtz strongly supported Vinghelt, but Lawdon couldn’t remember where his cousins stood.