Agu opened his mouth – no doubt to say something crushingly stupid about how his daddy was important or his name meant "Great One" in the Old Tongue (as though he could possibly know such a thing) – but something stopped him. His mouth slammed shut with such violence that Moa heard his teeth clack together.
Or maybe that had been her own teeth. Certainly she saw the same thing that Agu had spotted. And Jon's spot from further down the wall assured her: she wasn't going crazy. What she saw was actually happening.
A man had just… appeared.
He was young, but tall and strong, with a red robe and black velvet tunic that looked costly. His hair was darker than the night, but his blue eyes took in the fires from the torches that blazed on the wall and cast it back brighter and stronger than before.
He caught Moa's eye. Smiled. The smile was so wide and happy and genuine that she felt herself smile back.
Then he drew a dagger and, before anyone could move, disappeared.
An instant later he reappeared – with the dagger buried deep in Agu's throat.
Moa had a moment of mad happiness. An insane giggle bubbled up from within her, and she thought, Not so great now, are you? Then Agu fell, pitching forward against the wall, his blood splashing across the low structure, staining the stone.
Moa realized her dagger had made its way to her hand. She didn't remember yanking it free of her belt, but she must have. The second she realized it, the urge to laugh disappeared. She grinned, but without mirth. It was a deadly grin. She gestured at the man who had killed Agu. Come on, said the gesture.
He just smiled.
Behind her, a horn sounded. Jon had raised the alarm. But no one had blown the alarm horn in generations, and Moa wasn't sure if anyone would know what to do upon hearing it.
It didn't matter. Not to her. All she had to worry about was this man who had killed Agu.
She repeated her gesture.
He made no move toward her.
Something else did.
Agu.
He's dead. He's dead, he's dead I saw it he has to be he –
But if the man was dead, he didn't know it. Because he was standing. As he pulled himself up, the slit in his throat gaped. But no blood came – it was already gone.
No blood. No blood, how is he moving?
Then she saw something that terrified her even more. His eyes. Pure white, filmed over as though he had been dead for days or weeks instead of only seconds.
And that brought another moment of startlement. The realization that she thought of him – knew he was – dead. It was impossible, because he was moving, he was not laying still as the dead must do.
But dead he was.
And, she realized, moving toward her.
Shock had frozen her. Terror had rooted her to the spot. Now she moved. Almost too late, but she managed to plunge her dagger into Agu's heart.
And it did nothing at all. He did not even fall this time.
She felt the sharp bite of a dagger against her own skin. Felt her own flesh part.
Her eyes moved over of their own accord and she saw the young man. He still hadn't moved from his spot near the bloodstained wall.
He smiled at her, and nodded as though to thank her.
Is there someone behind him?
Who…?
Then her thoughts disappeared as her own blood splashed against the wall. Drifted away and fell apart…
… and gone.
10
"Anything?"
"No, sir."
"Well, keep an eye sharp."
"Yes, Cap'n."
Captain Yoro looked around, trying to spot something as well, though if Foka couldn't see anything through the Glass, there was no chance at all of him seeing anything. Still, he couldn't abide just standing here, doing nothing.
No one had told him that would be so much of his job as captain of an air-car: long periods of interminable waiting, punctuated by short bits of terrible action.
Odd, how we always wish for our state to be other than what it is. We wish to rest when we are busy, wish for action when we are at rest.
We are an ungrateful lot, we humans.
The Gods must despair.
Yoro kept looking through the darkness. The men around him moved quietly – almost as quietly as the air-car itself. The Excel was the fastest in the Imperial Fleet. A simple design, as they all were, but this one had extra magic in the hold, and apparently some genius Smith had figured out a way to streamline the design that focused the Pushes' powers so that it propelled the craft that much faster.
The design was a closely-held secret, but because Yoro was to be captain of the Excel, he had been allowed to view the primary mechanism that provided the push for the air-car, and had found it simple, almost to the point of being underwhelming.
But then, how many great things are simple? And great because they are simple?
Several cubes, cut in thin cross-sections, were set around a central track. The Smith who crafted the cubes – working with wind and fire and metal with his bare hands as easily as a normal person might shape potters' clay – had inset thick iron slugs on one side of each cross-section. They actually looked something liked a Rifleman's bullets.
Pushes enchanted the slugs, but because a Push could only enchant something to go forward, the problem was always: how to get an air-car or some other vehicle to move with any kind of control?
The answer was in the track the cubes were set into. The slugs pointed forward normally, driving the air-car ahead. But the track spun and the cross-sections spun and the slugs now pointed back and the air-car would be driven aft. If some on one side of the cube faced to the fore, and some on the other faced aft, the air-car would turn – the ratio determining how fast the turn was.
Simple. But effective.
The track even allowed for the slugs to be pointed up or down, which pushed the air-car into steep or gradual ascents or descents. And the balloon above it all was just there to provide a counter to gravity's pull and make static hovers easier to calculate.
The balloon itself was of a new design, as well: filled with a prototype gas; something that the miners had found recently. Apparently it was very flammable, and that made Yoro nervous – it wasn't like there were a lot of options for getting out when you were hovering a hundred feet or more over a mountain. Even worse when crossing over the chasms that separated the States.
The thought of falling below the clouds… Gods, now that was the worst thought of all. He didn't want to end up on one of those pikes outside the palace.
"Can we get this thing to go any faster?" Normally the kind of question that would shatter a crew's confidence in its captain, but given that this was only their third flight in the Excel, allowances could be made. They were still feeling her out.
The engineer ran some calculations on the small, illuminated table that sat in the center of the bridge. Looked up with a grimace and shook his head. "Sorry, Cap'n," he said. "We're locked as fast as we can go. Even if I bleed off some gas, the air differential is going to return less than it takes away."
Yoro nodded and tried to look as though he had expected that answer; had just been testing the crew.
The engineer hesitated a moment, then asked, "What do you think we'll find?"
"No idea."
The mission was simple enough: go to Halaw, recon the area. If possible, get to the listening post and gather whatever information there that could be gleaned.
The reasons for the assignment, though – those were not simple at all.
As though he had been reading Yoro's thoughts, the engineer – a short, jolly-seeming man with a topknot who actually came from a small town in the south of Knowledge not far from where Yoro had been born – asked, "What do you make of it? What they said?"
Yoro pursed his lips. The Imperial Air Corps had a much laxer idea of discipline than did the Army, and usually he was glad of that fact – how many hours a month did they lose just to saluting for al
l the Gods' love?
But sometimes – like now – he wished they had a bit more control in the IAC. It would save him having to give answers he didn't have.
"I don't know," he finally said. Three words that no ship commander should ever admit to. But there seemed to be nothing more to say. "It seems impossible: the Walled City of Fear has stood as it is for six hundred Turns. For something to bring it down, to shatter its walls, to let those inside escape – and to do it in a single day?" He shrugged. "It seems impossible, but…."
"Why didn't they just send an Eye to See the place?" mumbled the engineer.
Yoro realized that the rest of the crew on the bridge was listening. The Excel was designed to operate with minimal crew: two engineers, two navigators, five riggers, an executive officer/first mate, and three Riflemen on loan from the Imperial Army who mostly kept to themselves. Everyone but the riggers and one of the navigators was on deck right now, and even the Riflemen were acting interested for once, though they still managed to seem irritatingly aloof.
Yoro realized he had to answer the next question well – not just for the engineer, but for the rest of the crew. They were afraid. Heading into a night marked not just by a thin sliver of a moon, but by terror of the unknown, by the fall of something that had existed since long before they were born.
"You know many Eyes who've been to Halaw? Perhaps on holiday?" Yoro said, and forced a laugh. Everyone knew that Eyes could only See places they'd only been before, and the idea of an Eye going to the Walled City for any reason at all – let alone for a holiday – was a ridiculous one.
One of the Riflemen spoke. Yoro didn't know his name, but thought of him as Surly. He was tall and angular. Not just physically; Yoro got the impression that if you cut the man open you would find a soul as hard and jagged as any geode brought up from the mines.
"There had to have been one that had been to the listening post, though," said Surly.
The crew grew silent again.
"True that is," muttered the engineer. He felt at his topknot, as though it were a talisman that might stave off the darkness that crowded in from outside the air-car.
"Perhaps," said Yoro. He resisted the urge to glare at Surly, and instead clapped the engineer – Rin was his name – on his shoulder, as though he was playing into some master plan of Yoro's.
"Always have a plan for leading the men," Yoro's teacher at Command School had said. "And if you don't have a plan, pretend like the Nethers that you do."
"In fact, I'm sure you're right, Rin," said Yoro. "I'm sure some Eye has seen the listening post at least, perhaps Halaw itself." Surly mumbled something darkly – no doubt upset that Yoro had given the credit for making that observation to Rin, rather than to the Rifleman. Yoro ignored him. "Yet have you ever known an Eye to make a truly accurate observation? How many times have you gone into a battle on an Eye's information, only to find it missing some critical component, or to discover that some vital element had been overlooked?" He looked out the front window, that dark expanse that lay beyond the glass.
Bright spots could now be seen in the darkness: the perpetual spurts of magma that dotted the landscape of Fear.
Almost there.
And what will we find?
"No," he said. "We are needed to find out what happened. Not some Eye's second-hand, untrained Sight. The Emperor is wise, and he knows. He knows that we are needed to truly see."
The men murmured among themselves, but it was a different kind of murmuring than he had heard at earlier times in the flight. Bereft of fear, now there was purpose, now pride held them safe in its palm.
They would die for a cause they believed in.
But they would actually live – much harder than dying – if they had the pride that comes with believing they are important to that cause. These men believed now. They believed in their importance. To the mission, to the Empire, and in a very real and personal sense to the Emperor himself.
At that, Yoro felt that twinge. The one that had followed him around over the past months, worrying at him like a mountain Claw at weakened prey.
Malal. Something was wrong with the Emperor. He had heard the whispers for weeks. "Malal is seized by a plague." "Malal is possessed of a demon."
"Malal is not himself."
Yoro himself had not believed it. He refused. He had been raised by parents loyal to the Empire – a father who was himself a captain of the Imperial Air Corps, a mother who had served as scribe in a listening post –
(Gods what if she had been there had seen what happened to them to the Ears what if she had seen?)
– before marrying and seeing to the family's business affairs.
Then he saw Malal. The different way the boy held himself. Hardly the insecure child he had been, more self-assured, almost cocky.
And there were the others: the priests, silent brother and sister who apparently had some place in his Guard. The boy who was armed to the teeth with every kind of projectile weapon that could be carried.
And the girl who carried no weapon at all, but who stared at Yoro when he entered. He got the feeling that, if she wished, she could kill not only him but every other living soul in the room. And do so without breaking a sweat.
The final touch, though, was when he left. That final moment, when he turned to leave, and Malal reached out for the silent girl's hand.
The Emperor never would have done that before. The regent never would have permitted it.
And where was the Chancellor?
More rumors abounded about that, but no answers.
Questions, questions.
And no answers to be had, so focus on what can be done. Focus on the mission.
The fires still waited. Three vents through which Fear's ever-flowing magma could be seen marked the location of the Walled City: three explosions that never quite extinguished and thus provided an easy way to spot Halaw even from afar.
"I see them," Yoro said. The rest of the crew moved back into position, each taking up their spots at navigation, steering. The Riflemen situated themselves at the sides and front of the cabin, each holding their guns loose at their sides. Yoro had never had occasion to use a Rifleman. Theoretically they were to assist when landing under fire or if somehow an enemy got ahold of an air-car and tried to levy an attack by air, but neither had ever happened in Yoro's career.
He doubted either would happen here. They just had to land, find out whatever they could, and get back to Center. Report to the palace with their findings and then….
What?
He forced himself not to worry about it. It wasn't the job of a military man – at least, not one at his level – to figure out what was done beyond the mission. It was merely his job to see that mission done, and done well.
The navigator made several marks on his table, verifying their course was sure. He frowned. "Sir, one of Fear's Notches is in the wrong place."
"Not possible." Yoro swung to look at the navigation table himself. The three fires were known collectively as Fear's Belt, the individual flames as Fear's Notches, or simply the Notches. For one of them to be out of place was inconceivable. Much of Fear did shift, the volcanic mountain changing day to day. But the Belt had always stood immobile.
Yet what is the saying? Nothing remains in Fear.
Yoro looked at the navigator's map – the markings of the Ploughs and the Northerns clearly visible, triangulations marked to the Belt, the lines that delineated the air-car's course, and….
Yoro squinted. He looked at the far Notch. It was in the wrong place.
And, as he looked at it, it began to move.
Several of the crew noticed it at the same time he did. Rin started visibly and made the sign of Faith, touching shoulder, forehead, then the opposite shoulder in a rough "A."
"What in the name of the Gods…?" Surly grabbed the Glass from Foka, an unfortunate move for the nav-master since the instrument was secured to his neck by a thick leather strap. But Surly didn't seem to care much, just pull
ing until the metal catch that secured the strap to the Glass finally broke, then looking through the eyepiece.
Everyone stilled, waiting with equal parts wonder and terror. What could make the mountain move in a way that it had not done since Eka first climbed above the clouds?
Surly looked for what seemed far too long, then said, "It's not one of the Notches."
He fell silent, and did not seem as though he would speak again, until Rin said, "We don't care what it isn't, you land-crawling Army infant. Tell us what it is."
"I…." Surly squinted. Then he screamed. "Evade! Evade!"
No one moved. Only the ship's captain could order the crew. Yoro felt a flash of pride at his men's discipline. But at the same time, all it took was a look at the normally dour Rifleman's face to know he should take the man's warning seriously.
"Evade!" he shouted. "Hard port! Riflemen ready! Alert the riggers!"
The ship began turning immediately, so hard and fast that it would have been impossible to catch by any other air-car in existence. The frame of the cabin groaned with the change in direction, and the men caught onto straps placed around the cabin for just such a moment – all but one of the Riflemen, who pitched hard sideways, grabbed for a strap, and missed. He plummeted into the starboard window, which cracked.
Surly screamed, "Jac!" and the Rifleman at the window had a single moment in which to reach out his hand. Then the window split in two. There was a great rush of air, and the Rifleman was gone.
Yoro did not have time for horror. He was too busy seeing what had caused Surly to scream for evasive action. The Notch – that impossible Notch, misplaced after so many Turns – suddenly split in two. Part of it flew forward at an impossible rate, a star that streaked toward the Excel and left a river of sputtering, twinkling flame behind it.
"Faster!" Yoro screamed. He saw that the helmsman was already leaning on the wheel as hard as he could; that the wheel had turned as far as it would. Yoro slammed into the lever that would drive the air-car up.
It did no good.
The streak of flame came closer and closer. And the closer it got the brighter it seemed, the faster it went. It looked, Yoro realized, like the shells he had seen in the armored vehicles the Army had been training – the flying tanks. Enchanted by both Pushes and Shocks, the things were huge, explosive bullets.
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