by Frank Morin
She grinned. “Sound is amazing. Sounds become visible to us and we can control them.”
“How do you envision the gateway?” He’d learned from Ivor the trick to thinking of each gateway as a physical doorway in his mind. He wondered what personality serpentinite would eventually manifest.
“I don’t see the gateway, I hear it. Affinity with serpentinite triggers a sound in the mind. That’s the focal point to connect with it.”
“What will I hear?” With twilight settling over the city, sounds seemed muted already. Distant conversations, occasional shouts, the braying of a donkey, slamming doors, and the myriad other sounds of such a huge city made a constant background jumble.
“We all hear something different, something that holds a special meaning for the person.”
“What do you hear?”
She hesitated. “We don’t usually discuss our sounds. They’re personal.”
“Oh. Sorry. Forget about it.”
“It’s all right. I’m willing to share it with you.” She gave him a wicked grin. “We are rumored to be having a scandalous dalliance after all.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “Do you really want Verena getting angry with you when she wakes up?”
Her grin evaporated. “Good point. When I tap serpentinite, I hear the sound of laughter.”
“Really?” Connor had expected something more Mhortairish, maybe the sound of a crossbow bolt slicing an apple into eighteen identical pieces, or the sound of a soft footfall in the darkness.
“I hear a child’s joy-filled laughter, the first laughter I ever heard. I found it fascinating.”
“You remember the first time you heard someone laugh?”
She nodded. “I was eleven, in Ravinder, practicing infiltration techniques in a tiny, nameless town near the northernmost of the nine famous lakes.”
“What? You never heard laughter before?”
She shook her head. “Jagdish is a very stern community. There’s no laughter in the kill academy, and that same intensity is reflected through the rest of the enclave.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine a place where people don’t laugh.”
“It seemed normal growing up, but looking back I see the strangeness of it,” she admitted. “So for me, the sound of serpentinite is the sound of laughter. It is the sound that opened my mind to new possibilities.”
That was pretty deep. Connor hoped his serpentinite sound didn’t turn out to be something shallow and foolish, like the sound of Hamish’s championship belch, or the sound of smacking lips after a particularly good sweetbread. Maybe it would be the sound of Verena’s laughter like he always heard when he tapped obsidian. He would love that.
So he focused on the stone and tried to clear his mind. He stood like that for several minutes, eyes closed, just breathing and letting the sounds of the city wash over him, waiting for one to snatch his attention.
When nothing happened, he was tempted to tap quartzite to his ears. He could hear so much better that way, but would serpentinite resist establishing affinity while he was also walking with another metamorphic stone?
The wind picked up. It rushed past, growing quickly into a powerful gale. Only when he opened his eyes did he realize there was no wind.
Student Eighteen stood patiently watching him, her hair motionless around her head. Her clothing did not flap in the strong wind, and neither did his. And yet, he clearly heard wind.
“You hear something,” Student Eighteen said.
“I don’t understand, though. All I hear is wind.”
It continued rushing through his mind, tugging at a memory that he couldn’t quite bring into focus. He liked something about that wind, but at the moment it didn’t make much sense.
“Wind? Are you sure?”
He shrugged. “Better than hearing Hamish chewing, I guess.”
Connor focused on that sound and willed his senses to connect with it, extend out through it the way they did through the other elemental gateways.
All of a sudden, the city lit up with a cascade of lights. He gaped as he watched streams of light bouncing all around the city. Most were soft, flickering around like fireflies, but some were bright and shot into the sky with tremendous energy.
“What is all that?” he asked, double-checking that he hadn’t accidentally activated limestone.
He gaped anew when his words flowed out his mouth as a stream of blue light. He heard the sounds, but he saw them too. And as he focused on them, he felt them, like water from the Wick flowing past his fingers.
The sounds radiated away from him, but then suddenly stopped and returned to flit around Student Eighteen’s upraised left hand like moths around a flame.
“Seeing sounds is only the first benefit of serpentinite.”
Her words gushed forth with the same bluish light as his, and again she caught them, this time circling them around her right hand.
Connor reached out to touch the glowing words, and he heard his own voice again, speaking those words. Laughing, he mentally tugged at the words, drawing them to himself.
“Speaking softly like we are, the sounds are rather weak, and they’ll fade away in a moment unless we grant them more energy to sustain them.”
Without warning, Aifric shouted, a loud wordless cry. The sound erupted from her mouth, glowing a vibrant yellow. She caught it and pulled it back to her. It circled her head, moving at twice the speed of the more sedate blues.
“No one else heard that shout, did they?”
She shook her head. “I prevented it from leaving.”
“How is that possible? Sound moves so fast, but you caught it before it moved ten feet.”
“That’s one of the mysteries of serpentinite. It accelerates our processing of sound somehow so we can see it and manipulate it in the tiny fraction of a second before it would reach others.”
Connor noted that none of the sounds of their voices escaped into the night. They all bounced back from an invisible barrier. Most of their words faded to violet, then to nothing as their energy drained away.
“I never knew sound could be so much fun,” he said and caught the words the way Aifric had. They vibrated against his invisible senses like fish on a line. Their energy tingled down his serpentinite awareness, and somehow he understood how to push more energy back to them to sustain or amplify them. Or pull that energy and suck the life out of them.
He frowned. “Longseers can amplify voices too.”
“But they only amplify sound as it is generated. We own sound.”
She took that last statement, caught it in her hands, and pulled it apart. Connor watched in fascination as she split the words, re-ordered some of them, mashed the remainder together to form new ones, then extended the final product for him to touch.
“Amplify sound only can they manage, but not own them like us.”
“Wait, you changed some words.”
“It takes a little practice, but once we understand a person’s voice, we can easily mimic it.” She extracted from a pocket a crystal, cut into a perfect geometric pattern, like a sphere with flat sides. About the size of her pinky fingernail, it reflected the lights with brilliant clarity.
She held it up for him to see. “We can even capture sounds and preserve them for long periods of time with these.”
“What is it?” Connor asked, touching the hard, cool crystal.
“This is a special strain of diamond, cut into a decahedron, and imbued with serpentinite power. I can capture sounds within and maintain them indefinitely by applying a little energy weekly.”
Connor whistled softly, enjoying how the sharp sound bounced around him with bright green intensity. “A diamond like that is worth a fortune.”
“We have a large deposit of diamonds. Their value is in their unique sound-preserving capabilities.”
“What sounds do you save?” Connor could think of lots of sounds he’d love to listen to again later, but Aifric might not appreciate all of them. Most of all, he wished
for the sound of Verena’s voice. He carried it in his heart, but he’d love to carry it in his pocket too.
“This diamond holds the last words of Mister Five.”
“Really?”
“I am saving them to share with my father when he hunts me down. If I’m lucky, I’ll have time to use them before he takes my life.”
“I’m still hoping Sir didn’t deliver the message.” Connor’s problems seemed a little less dire when he compared them to hers. She had defied Mister Five. By her people’s barbaric rules, her own father would be tasked to lead the kill team to execute her to restore the family honor.
“I have’t heard from him, so I must assume he returned to Jagdish.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “I have no plans to die easily, and this is one weapon in the arsenal I’ll use to preserve my life and help you.”
“You’ve helped me already. Teaching me chert and serpentinite is something no one else could do.”
Her smile turned rueful. “And yet, to my people it will be one more crime I must pay for.”
Connor was moved by how much she had sacrificed for him, how determined she was to follow the path she knew to be right. “I’ll help you restore your good name. We could go to your home together and explain things.”
Aifric laughed, but shook her head. “You do realize they’d try to kill you as soon as they learned you’re Blood of the Tallan.”
“A lot of people try to kill me. You changed your mind. Maybe they will too.”
“Don’t bet your life on it.”
Connor took her hand and said with deadly intensity, “You’ve sworn to help me. I don’t let people kill my friends.”
“Thank you, Connor. I appreciate that, but I must take care of my people. With the queen risen, perhaps they will see reason. For now, back to practicing.”
Connor spent the next hour learning from her how to manipulate and master sound. He learned to divert sounds away from specific people, but not others, how to absorb sounds and prevent their escape, and how to magnify sounds until they boomed like thunderclaps.
Student Eighteen showed him how to examine sounds and memorize their unique structure. The light represented their frequency, but they also contained pitch and inflection. He learned to chop sounds apart, rebuild them, and fill in resulting gaps in ways that sounded natural. It was a little scary to think how he could actually change what a person said so that others heard something completely different than what they intended. He could do it so fast that he could disrupt ongoing discussion at the speed of speech.
“I see why you Mhortair love this stone. You can sneak up on a target in absolute silence.”
“We can deny them the ability to call out for help. We can squash their dying scream.”
She was more than a little scary talking about killing so coldly, but Connor knew she had a good heart. He decided he didn’t want to know any more specifics about any of her kill missions.
She said, “But think more on other ways to use it. We can create wonderful confusion and distractions that can sometimes allow us to slip unseen through areas where we might otherwise be forced to kill.”
She completed the lesson by showing him how to generate sounds beyond the range of human hearing. With eyes closed, he learned to send out waves of high-pitched sound and catch the echoes to create a map of his surroundings in his mind.
“So we can see in the dark,” Connor laughed.
As they tested the limits, Connor discovered that he could hear sounds in a wider range than she could. She decided it must be due to his ascension, and they agreed to test the theory later.
“Maybe we could test it on Kilian,” Connor suggested. “See if we can draw his attention with sounds no one else can hear. He’s ascended even higher than I have.”
“But he doesn’t have affinity with quartzite or serpentinite,” Aifric pointed out. “So I’d be surprised if he could hear more than most.
“Other ascended Longseers might, though.”
She nodded. “Keep that in mind when using the technique.”
Connor asked, “So what do you call users of chert and serpentinite?”
“We call Mind Killers those who master chert, and Silent Killers those who alone can hear the true sound of silence.”
“Did the same person come up with both of those?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“They’re good names, but pretty similar.”
She shrugged. “Our targets don’t care what we call ourselves as they die, Connor.”
“Good point.”
He did want to test out the sound of silence idea. What would absolute silence sound like? Probably like a sweetbread with no flavor.
They finished the training by eavesdropping on people passing through the gate below, then creating new sentences in those same mimicked voices. Connor took to the technique so fast he could soon keep up with Aifric.
She gave him a disgusted look. “It took me weeks to learn this.”
“Guess I’m back to breaking records.”
She rolled her eyes. “I could throw you over the battlement so you could practice breaking legs.”
Connor caught sight of a group of Crushers approaching across the bridge and got an idea. “One more test, and I promise to be terrible at voices for at least a week.” He nodded toward the Crushers. “Mattias might have agreed to get along, but I can’t imagine him not trying to make it difficult for me to spend time with Verena. I’m going to give him something else to worry about.”
She raised one eyebrow. “Aifric suggests the plan may not be wise, but Rith heartily approves.”
“And you?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t killed anyone in days. I could take care of Mattias for you.”
“Let’s try it my way first, okay?” He didn’t actually want Mattias dead. Not yet. Once Mattias accepted the fact that Verena belonged with Connor, hopefully he’d move back to Edderitz. Problem solved.
It took Connor only a moment to perfect a copy of Mattias’s voice. He knew all too well the sound of his rival so he crafted some words and cast them off the wall, sending them in a wide arc before draining away most of their energy and floating them past the Longseer of the group of Crushers. They’d sound like a distant whisper, perhaps bounced back from the river chasm.
“I don’t know why everyone is so in awe of the Crushers.”
The Longseer stiffened and gestured to his companions to quiet as he turned his head and listened harder.
Connor continued, making Mattias’s voice sound scornful. “Sure, they’re good soldiers, but with all that special training and all those mechanicals Verena keeps inventing for them, who wouldn’t be? I could defeat any three of them any day of the week.”
The Longseer shared the words with his comrades, and the angry group stormed in through the gate, already shouting for Mattias to show himself.
Connor laughed long and loud, but prevented the sounds from reaching anyone but Student Eighteen. He doubted any serious harm would come of the prank. Mattias worked closely with Lukas after all, but he’d have some fast talking to do, and the distraction might keep him from interfering with Connor’s visits to Verena for a couple days.
“That might not have been wise,” Aifric pointed out through a smile. “Word will get back to him, and he’ll figure out it was you.”
“He might, but the brightest thing about Mattias is his smile.”
“Have a care, nonetheless. We succeed because no one knows what we can do, so they don’t know to question what they hear. If the truth spreads, we risk diminishing our own effectiveness.”
She had a point, but then again, would it be such a bad thing to reduce the effectiveness of the rest of her clan? He needed to think about that. He needed Aifric, but at some point, it might be worth it to spread the word about the Mhortair so they couldn’t victimize the rest of the world so easily.
14
There’s Always a Bright Side. Maybe.
Shona pa
used with her father in the glass-walled antechamber situated directly below the throne room. All nine towers that supported the throne room high above the central palace contained long spiraling stairs that all led here.
The floor was tiled in patterns of rippling blue and silver, as if mimicking the never-ending waterfall that streamed past the enormous window in the southern wall. Flowering plants in ceramic vases stood between each stairwell, but the room lacked any other ornamentation. A white-marbled grand staircase rose to wide, gilded double doors that led into the throne room itself.
“Are you ready?” Dougal asked, sounding unusually breathless. She wasn’t sure if he was winded, excited, or afraid.
She felt all three emotions and her voice shook. “I hope so.”
He took her hands, his expression grave. “You must be sure, my dear. This is your moment, Shona. Focus now. Think only positive thoughts. Fill your mind with the desire to serve, to do your duty, and to meet the legendary queen and learn at her feet.”
Shona nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Her mouth had gone dry in a fit of nerves worse than anything she’d felt going into battle. At least in battle, she knew she had a chance to win, a chance to survive through her own cunning and strength.
Today her survival hung solely on the whim of a mad . . . No, she refused to even think that. Instead she steeled her mind, focused her thoughts like Ailsa explained, settled her expression into a mask of simple enthusiasm. Her armor today was her long, charcoal gown and a carefully prepared facade that matched both internally and externally.
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Dougal swept up the staircase and the guards stationed at the top swung them open for him. Half a step behind, Shona entered the throne room. Despite her nervousness, she still felt the same, undiminished sense of wonder as she stepped into the marvelous room again.
The floor, made of rare, transparent quartzite crystals from the Glenmuick quarry, created the illusion that everyone walked on the billowing waterfall spray. That floor had always made Shona nervous, but as she stepped onto it, she wished it was her worst worry.