Soul of the World

by David Mealing

  Damn Donatien Revellion and his dream of peaceful revolution, and damn Reyne d’Agarre and every one of his fellows for the evil they would unleash upon her city. How could she fail to act? D’Agarre could use his kaas to incite revolution, well and good; she could do the same to sway the lords.

  Today the sewer, tomorrow the council? Zi asked. His scales had taken on a faint hue of gold, mixed with the blue they had been before.

  She took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, I think so.”

  Relief washed over her, the simple act of deciding. Zi nodded, returning his head to rest.

  “Sarine.”

  She started, turning to find Lord Revellion standing in the doorway. He appeared shaken, his skin pale, eyes red.

  “Donatien. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “About last night. I’m sorry. I spoke rashly.”

  She suppressed a surge of emotion. “We both did.”

  “Sarine, they’ve arrested her,” he said abruptly.

  “Who?”

  “My commander, Chevalier-General d’Arrent.”

  “What?” She rose to her feet. “Why?”

  “For reporting on the enemy’s plans to the Crown-Prince. I had it from the corps commander himself, from Marquis-General Voren. The Gandsmen are planning to invade the colonies. A fleet sails across the sea even now to sack New Sarresant.”

  “What? An invasion? And they arrested her for reporting it, why? Why would …” Her voice trailed off. “Because the Crown-Prince really is going to order the army back to the Old World.”

  “Yes. By the Gods, yes.” He entered the room, sitting on the edge of their bed, running both hands through his hair. “Voren confirmed it for us, for all of the division and brigade commanders, this morning.”

  Her heart sank. “The prince gave the order?”

  “No. Voren asked whether we could command our men to refuse it.”

  A moment passed before the weight of his words sank in.

  “Treason,” she said.

  “Revolution,” Donatien said, lowering his hands as he looked up at her. “It’s happening, Sarine. The Lords’ Council convenes tomorrow, to receive the Crown-Prince. And when he gives the order—”

  “Gods above, you mean to seize power.”

  “Not us. Not Voren.”

  “Who then? Voren’s commander? The Duc-General?”

  “Sarine. Voren has been approached by Reyne d’Agarre.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “No,” she said.

  “You must see reason. I know how you feel about d’Agarre, but you cannot consign us to follow the Crown-Prince’s order, not with a Gand invasion already crossing the sea. Whatever your misgivings, you must see this is the wisest course, the only course left to us.”

  His words washed over her in a distant hum.

  “Sarine? Where are you going?”

  “I mean to oppose him,” she said. “With or without your help.”

  She strode past him before he could reply, then descended the stairs and pushed out the door of the Revellion townhouse, into the biting chill of the autumn air.

  She gagged, making a pointed effort to ignore the pliable textures beneath her feet as she walked along the stone beside the main channels of waste. Such filth. No wonder the gangs had abandoned these tunnels. Like as not they’d simply grown disgusted, and invented the tale of some deadly beast living down here to salvage their pride. That or they all fell ill from exposure to the refuse.

  In the east-side tunnels beneath the Riverways and the Harbor the smell had been rank, the aged pungency of stale piss. Here beneath the Maw the slop was fresh, delivered by bucket from the streets above. No river channels to vent away the leavings, not here. Digging out complex waterways must have been judged an expense too far, for the benefit of the Maw. If she’d ever wondered why the streets reeked during rainstorms, well. Now she knew.

  Another squish beneath her boot threatened to have her retching into the stream. She shivered, trying to block it out of her mind.

  Mm, Zi thought to her. This place is strong.

  She coughed when her mouth opened to form a reply, feeling the acrid tang of the smell on her tongue even with her nostrils plugged. “Strong?” she managed, followed by another cough. “Yes, this place is certainly that.”

  Strong emotions.

  She raised an eyebrow. True enough, if disgust qualified. “What do you mean, Zi?”

  Long ago. Not now.

  “How long?” She coughed once more.

  No reply, only a dim sensation, like the last flickers of a candle before it burned out.

  She shook her head, spitting to get the taste out of her mouth. No doubt murders and worse had happened down here. And if d’Agarre had something hidden, that could account for strong emotions as well. All she had to do was find it.

  She took a left turn at a three-way junction on a whim, then another left down a side channel ahead. She’d procured a hooded lantern for the journey, though she tried to keep from shining light to illuminate the filth beneath her feet more than absolutely necessary. She knew from living on the streets above that the Maw did not have extensive sewer tunneling, only drain grates along the most populated avenues. Even so it seemed she walked for leagues, making left turns and rights, searching for some sign of d’Agarre’s presence. Nothing. And no patterns, no familiar turns or corridors, though she must have retraced her steps at least once or twice.

  Finally she came to a halt in frustration. “Do none of these tunnels connect to each other?”

  Strong emotions.

  “Not helpful, Zi.”

  She shone light back the way she’d come, toward a large room that had four connecting passages. She could have sworn it was only three connections when she’d come through moments before. Was the smell playing tricks on her other senses? She trudged back, sweeping her lantern to be sure she hadn’t confused a shadow for a tunnel. Sure enough, there was a fourth way. Strange. But wasn’t that why she was down here? After what felt like an hour or more trekking through filth, anything strange was a welcome sight. She took the new corridor instead.

  Three more turns revealed nothing new, and nothing familiar. Gods take this place, and its rotting stench. Once more she cast light the way she’d come, with a vain hope of another mysterious passage. No such luck, only the same stone walkway covered in filth beside a channel nigh overflowing with more of the same.

  Still, whatever was down here, she meant to find it. With a sigh, she turned back, resolved to continue on.

  She’d almost started walking again when a shadow bent at the edge of her vision. Something had moved.

  She whipped back around.

  “Who’s there?” she called out, shining her lantern back down the passage.

  Zi flared in her mind before she even saw it.

  MOVE.

  A brilliant white glow snapped into place around her, only the barest sliver of a moment before the creature’s jaws closed around her leg. She caught a glimpse before the thing released its hold, jolting back into the sludge of the channel. Scales. Not metallic, like Zi’s. A reptile’s scales, and a long snout filled with teeth that might have been enjoying her leg for a snack if Zi hadn’t reacted on her behalf.

  And fast. By the Gods, even with Body, Zi’s gift, and the mareh’et’s blessing together she wasn’t sure she could move like that.

  Only one way to find out.

  A nimbus of the Great Cat surrounded her, Zi pushed her heart to beat faster in her chest, and she laced the threads of Body into a binding with all of her strength. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, the droplets of moisture collecting on the ceiling falling toward the floor as if suspended in glass.

  There, again in the channel.

  This time she saw it swimming through the waste, so fast a cloud of steam rose around it, solid waste turning to vapor before it could touch the creature’s scales. She dove to the stone floor as it lunged, ignoring the filth that caked her as she hit the groun
d and the rattling clank of her lantern rolling across stone. The beast sailed through where she had stood, seeming to hang in the air as its massive jaws snapped closed around what would have been her torso.

  Gods, the thing was fast. Time was running out. She had enough Body, and Zi’s gifts usually held for some time, but mareh’et would not grant his blessing forever, and she needed all three at once to begin to match this thing for speed. Rolling onto her back, she slid her eyes shut, searching for Entropy. Any moment now …

  It came again, skittering its stumpy legs on the stone walkway beside the channel. The creature looked as if it would have been at home lazing by the side of a river somewhere, basking in sunlight. It had no cause to move like this; nothing about it suggested such unbridled speed. Even so, it came. And this time she was ready.

  A hairbreadth before it connected with her leg, she tethered a thick binding of Entropy into the body of the beast, as thick as she could manage.

  It exploded.

  And the world dimmed.

  YOU KILLED HER.

  She recognized it at once, this formless void. The place where she had met the spirit of the Great Cat. Even without vision she knew, and she could sense the presence of another entity, one that spoke directly into her mind.

  She was bloody fast.

  YES. SHE WAS LAKIRI’IN. IT IS HER GIFT.

  What was she doing in the sewers?

  Silence stretched on for a moment, and she sensed … anger?

  COMPELLED, it thought to her at last. FORCED HERE, BY THE POWER OF THE GODDESS.

  The title sparked her memory. The cat spirit had spoken to her of a goddess as well. What did it mean? Some goddess of these spirits? Either way, the compulsion of some wild beast in these sewers pointed exactly toward her purpose here: Reyne d’Agarre’s secret. Could the kaas control these beasts?

  You were forced here, she thought. For what purpose? Was it to serve Reyne d’Agarre?

  LAKIRI’IN SERVES NONE SAVE THE GODDESS. SHE WAS CALLED HERE TO PROTECT TANIR’RAS’TYAT.

  Tanir’Ra …? The words sounded foreign in her mind. Somewhere deep within, another voice sounded. The Birthplace of Storms. Zi’s voice?

  ARE YOU CHOSEN?

  I don’t know, she responded truthfully. The spirit had asked this before as well. What does it mean to be chosen?

  YOU ARE A WOMAN WHO WIELDS THE POWER OF THE GUARDIAN. THIS IS NOT KNOWN TO US. A CHANGE.

  And that means I am chosen?

  YOU ARE STRONG. BUT YOU WOULD KNOW, IF YOU WERE MEANT TO STAND FOR THE WILD.

  Another silence. Should she claim it, without knowing? Whatever customs to which this spirit adhered, they were foreign to her.

  No, she finally thought back. If I would know already, then I am not chosen.

  VERY WELL. WOULD YOU HAVE THE BOON OF THE LAKIRI’IN?

  Yes.

  Light surged within her, and she felt her senses mold themselves into a scaled form, one that walked on four legs. Her stumpy limbs seemed barely able to support her weight, and it took a great effort to move. She had a long snout, lined with razor-sharp teeth, and a tail that curled around half again the length of her body, ribbed with spines and knobbled ridges. Water. She needed liquid. And the sun. Without them, her body was languorous and slow. Better to rest, to conserve energy. To wait. In time prey would approach. She was no hunter, to stalk and chase down her kills. Such was beneath her. She felt the pleasure of watching, waiting for the moment when it pleased her to strike. She felt her muscles surge with the life of fire stored from the sun, all outward sign of sloth dispelled in a glorious instant of unleashed fury. A single snap of her jaws and the mightiest beast fell dead before it saw her stir from the water. A fine meal. And then back to rest. She was lakiri’in, the swiftest of all predators, and her speed condemned any creature fool enough to draw too near to death.

  REMEMBER HER.

  The voice echoed through her head, and she slid back into her body.

  She coughed and sputtered, gagging on the fumes of the sludge that caked the side of her face. By reflex, she raised a hand to wipe herself clean, only belatedly realizing her hands were every bit as filthy. That was all her stomach could handle, and she rolled onto her side, heaving yesterday’s meals into the channel.

  You’re back, Zi thought to her.

  “Yes,” she managed, this time having sense enough to wipe away the flecks of bile with a clean sleeve of her jacket. “And with some idea of what d’Agarre concealed here. Tana’Rastir … or was it …”

  Tanir’Ras’Tyat, Zi spoke into her mind, even as she simultaneously heard his voice speaking different words, in her own tongue: The Birthplace of Storms.

  “So that was you, translating what the spirit said. Could you hear it, while it spoke to me?”

  No response. Ah, but Zi could be frustrating. She rose to sit against the far wall of the corridor, recovering her breath and letting her stomach settle. How long had she been down here? By some miracle her lantern still burned, but beyond that there was no way to tell from the slop and the darkness, and come to think of it she hadn’t seen a vent to the surface in half a dozen turns or more. Was it better to turn back now, or press on? Clearly whatever set the lakiri’in to guard this place did so to protect something of value. And even if she could find it once more, nothing prevented another one of these creatures coming back, diving at her again from the sludge. Zi had been quick with his shield this time, but there was no guarantee he could do it again.

  She rose to her feet. Time enough to rest after she’d uncovered the secrets of this place.

  She retrieved her lantern, lighting the path forward as she began to walk. Only this time the tunnel seemed to extend onward in the direction she’d been walking, her light revealing only more blackness stretching on up ahead. No offshoots, no intersections, no chambers. Her heart beat faster as she made her way down the passage. This was it. Whatever she’d come here for, surely it lay at the end of this tunnel.

  She walked another fifty paces before her light shone on a wall of solid stone, right in the center of the path. A dead end.

  And yet …

  Something about the stone spoke to her. The wall should not be there. It was wrong. She knew without knowing how, a premonition as sure as the knowledge of who she was, the gifts she held, the very essence of her being.

  Corruption, Zi whispered inside her mind.

  She walked forward.

  Take it in, Zi thought to her. It belongs to you.

  At once she saw the pale blue strands, the same energy she had seen in the depths of d’Agarre’s manse, around the Codex of the Comtesse de Rillefort. They hovered here around the stone that barred this path. She raised a hand, and the strands arced away from the wall, drawn to her as if they longed for release, longed to return home. With a sucking snap, the last of them danced along her arm, coming to rest deep within her, and the wall vanished like a shadow cast before a torch.

  Blackness loomed beyond, a void that seemed to beckon, like a mother’s embrace. Fear melted away, and Zi pulsed a sense of rightness in her mind.

  She took a step forward, across the threshold, and once more her body melted away.

  SARINE.

  The voice spoke to her, at once similar to the spirits of cat and reptile, but different. Older. Deeper, anchored to the land in a way that suggested it had seen and weathered trials beyond counting.

  BE WELCOME IN TANIR’RAS’TYAT, DAUGHTER OF SARRESANT. BE WELCOME IN THE BIRTHPLACE OF STORMS.

  43

  ERRIS

  A Prison Cell

  The Citadel, New Sarresant

  The arrest played itself over and over in her mind.

  Almost she wished she had tethered Body, drawn her saber, and rushed the flowerguards. An uneven fight, with the pair of them mounted and her on foot, but she liked her chances better than she liked being caged behind Shelter in the bowels of the Citadel. Those fresh-faced boys had never been blooded. Killing men, feeling the sickening crun
ch as your saber parted flesh to strike the bone beneath, it changed you. It took a warrior to see it, and neither of the flowerguards had the look. She could have killed them both. But what would follow if she had? Flight into the countryside? Defection? Unthinkable. None of those roads led to command, and if there was one thing she was born for it was leading men into battle. She couldn’t give that up for the satisfaction of resisting arrest.

  Besides, with Need she might as well have been free.

  Her reserve was strong today; it seemed knowledge of the Gand invasion force had redoubled her capacity, though Marquand was as stubborn as ever. She’d weighed his objections, and her promise not to bind him again without his consent, and found both wanting in light of circumstance. He would do his duty. She tethered the binding, and found herself once more in the Tank & Twine.

  “Thank the Gods, d’Arrent,” Voren said. “I thought the foot-captain would never cease his whining.”

  Voren settled his spectacles into place and stood, walking around his desk toward the smaller table, strewn with maps, on the far side of his makeshift office.

  “Sir,” she said with Marquand’s voice, “any word on arranging my release?”

  “No. I’d hoped a sober Louis-Sallet might recant his foolishness in the light of day, but he seems committed to his idiocy, not least in the matter of your arrest.”

  The heat behind his words caught her by surprise. She’d done her share of bad-mouthing her superiors, of course, but this was the Crown-Prince.