Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2)

by Will Wight

  Calder watched the Elder, chewing on what he’d just heard. What did it mean that Kelarac valued Shera only slightly less than the Emperor’s throne? That he would give up possession of a worldwide network of Intent amplification that could turn any Reader into an army, in exchange for guaranteeing Shera’s death?

  What did the Elders care about one Consultant?

  “The last time I saw Jerri,” Calder said quietly, “she asked me much the same thing.”

  “In some ways, she is a wise woman. In others, she is still foolish, but here she is wise.”

  What had Jerri said? That someone had warned her how dangerous Shera was. Someone who had gotten to her in her cell, and who had returned her Soulbound Vessel to her.

  Kelarac. It had been Kelarac all along. Calder wasn’t surprised, but he felt as though his eyes had been opened for the first time. He broadened his smile until it was almost painful.

  “I think...not. I think I’ll take my chances against Jorin.”

  The Great Elder’s own smile had faded, until he looked regretful. “There are wiser courses, Calder Marten.”

  “If your allies are nearby, tell them to stay away. I have no use for you, you Elder-spawned filth, and you can shove yourself back into the hole you came from.” His anger built with every word. “I’m tired of dancing like a puppet for you, so I’m cutting the strings. If you show yourself in front of me again, we’ll see if the Emperor’s armory might, by chance, have something that can make a Great Elder bleed. You turned my wife against me, and light and life, I’ll make sure you pay for it.”

  His voice was ringing out by the end, until his shouts filled the storm-lit shrine, and he was panting as he finished. The dream didn’t go away. The marble under his feet remained as solid as ever.

  “You’ll be the one to pay the price, little King,” Kelarac said quietly. “Yours is a sad defiance, because defiance requires a choice, and you have none. You are an actor on a stage, speaking lines that have been said a thousand, thousand times before.”

  Calder tried to respond, but his throat was stuck. The shrine and the storm faded into darkness, until all that remained was the gleam of the Great Elder’s blindfold. And the echo of his voice:

  “Dance on your string, little puppet. Dance...”

  Calder returned to reality caked in dust, with Jorin advancing, raising his sword for a strike. He scrambled backwards with hands and feet, trying to stand, knowing that it was all but hopeless.

  Still, he’d defied one of the Great Elders to its face. The stories were filled with noble fools who tried that. They usually died horribly, but Calder found the feeling strangely liberating. He might die, but at least he wouldn’t die a slave.

  He raised his sword to block the oncoming blow, hoping desperately that the Emperor’s armor would be able to take a hit. When Jorin struck, Calder had no choice but to meet the edge of the Regent’s blade with his own. The clash of Intent seared into his mind, and he slid backwards another few feet.

  The dust had cleared away, leaving the sky shockingly blue...except for the dark crack spreading through it. An opening into the void. A fingerhold for the Elders, probably. And below that, the Aion Sea, with a Navigator’s ship just beside him. It loomed over them, so that he was about to die in its shadow.

  Perfect. I’m going to die under a Navigator’s ship, and it’s not even mine. Those gold-edged sails were too gaudy for his taste.

  Jorin walked forward to finish Calder, but his expression changed. He snapped his head up, looking at the ship, and then leaped backwards. Something—someone—enormous slammed into the ground where he’d been standing. A man in slate-gray armor, with a pair of maces strapped to his belt. He carried a helmet under one arm, leaving his head bare. His hair was black, with wings of silver at the edges.

  Baldesar Kern, Head of the Champion’s Guild.

  “I see you changed your mind,” Calder said, as soon as he’d caught his breath. The relief was flooding his mind, filling him with elation.

  Kern shrugged one shoulder without turning around. “Not quite. I told you, I wouldn’t fight for someone I didn’t trust. If you’re willing to stand up to a Regent, I’ll trust you.”

  Jorin had taken out a roll of bandages and had begun wrapping the black blade of his sword. “Baldesar Kern, if I may presume.”

  Kern inclined his head.

  “I can still make a rousing fight if it’s just the two of us, so I can only assume...” Four more silhouettes stepped up to the edge of the ship, outlined in sunlight. “More Champions, yes, as I thought. Well, that’s just clear as a winter spring, isn’t it? I admit I am overmatched.”

  “You’ll come with us,” Kern said. It didn’t sound like a question at all.

  Jorin tilted his hat back to look at the Champions on deck. “I doubt it. Unless you happen to have some Harrowing wine onboard, which I can’t imagine you do. You’d have to be five hundred years older than you look.”

  Kern shifted his helmet to one hand, still not wearing it, and drew a dark, heavy mace with the other. “If you make me use my Vessel, this doesn’t end well for anyone.”

  “Particularly not for you, if I grasp the—”

  The Champion shot forward, slamming his mace into Jorin’s chest. Or what should have been Jorin’s chest. Instead, the Regent managed to get his half-bandaged sword between him and the weapon. The force still blasted him backwards as though he’d been fired from a catapult, and when he hit the ground, a cloud of black dust and ash billowed up.

  Kern slipped his mace back into his belt, watching the cloud rise. “Too dangerous to chase him. Let him run.”

  Calder thought the words were meant for him until the Champions on deck saluted and returned. Gingerly, Calder walked forward. The fight had done no favors for his still-healing leg. “Thank you, Guild Head. If not for you, I’d be one more pile of dust.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Kern said, giving him a once-over. “That’s some fine armor you’re wearing.”

  “Still, I owe you.”

  Kern shook his head. “The debt’s not to you. I was hired.”

  A chill seeped back into Calder’s bones. “Hired?”

  “Shortly after you spoke with me. A Heartlander man, I imagine a Reader, said he had a good feeling about you. He hired me and as many others from the Guild as we could round up. Paid in goldmarks.”

  “He told you to save me?”

  “Told me to give you a chance,” Kern said. His face cracked into a small smile. “Said he was confident you’d prove yourself. I didn’t believe him, but I do now.”

  Calder didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “You said he was a Reader. How did you know?”

  Kern hung his helmet from a loop on his belt. “Some places, Readers have strange customs. They believe blinding yourself helps you sense Intent more clearly. This man, he seemed like the polite, civilized, educated type, but it looked like he’d blinded himself. He wore a metal blindfold over his eyes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Five years ago

  Upon realizing that they had been mysteriously transported to a towering library that most likely had connections to a Great Elder, Calder’s first reaction was not fear. It was irritation.

  He’d tried to leave a few people behind to protect them, but the entire crew had ended up off the ship anyway. If he’d known it would turn out like this, he wouldn’t have wasted his time worrying.

  Petal’s tiny quicklamp expanded the circle of candlelight, allowing everyone to see the surrounding bookshelves in more detail. Each structure stood as tall as any building in the Capital; ten stories or more of endless books stacked to the cavernous ceiling.

  After staring into the darkness for any sign of movement, Calder carefully slid a little closer to the books.

  On the bottom shelf, dusty scrolls were surrounded by glass cases. On the next, the books were bound by wood and hide—he knelt to examine the spine of one tome bound in polished blackwood, and found that he
couldn’t read it.

  That fact alone confirmed what he’d already suspected: there were Elders involved. And not the lesser Elderspawn, like Shuffles, who seemed to have little more intelligence than animals, but the higher Elders. Maybe even a Great Elder.

  It had been over a thousand years since any language except Imperial was heard among humans. That left two possibilities: either these words did not originate with humans, or they were over a thousand years old.

  Either way, that meant Elders.

  His memory whispered to him the name of the one sealed underneath Silverreach: Ach’magut.

  Without inspecting that thought any further, he turned back to his crew. They had shown their training and experience by standing with their backs to the candlelight, weapons in hand. Even Jerri looked fierce and ready for battle, though she only held a dagger. If Elderspawn attacked, she’d last even less time than Petal, who held a stoppered bottle of acid ready to throw.

  And that was a cheery thought, wasn’t it?

  They were still comparing notes. “...I was on the wheel. I didn’t lose consciousness, I didn’t even blink, but I found myself here with no warning.” Jerri.

  Foster had a pistol pointed off into the gloom as he scanned the shadows. “Doesn’t matter how we got here, we’ve got to go. Now. I’ve been imprisoned by crazy Elder worshipers more than enough in my life.”

  “If you’d like to be the first to run off into the dark, Mr. Foster, be my guest.” Andel sounded calm, but he had one hand on his pistol and the other around his White Sun medallion.

  “Might as well die out there!” Foster shouted. “It’s better than standing around here, waiting to die!”

  Urzaia’s voice was even louder than Foster’s. “You will not die here! I will protect you!”

  Whatever they decided to do, Calder was certain that shouting wasn’t the way to go about it. Foster started to reply, and Andel opened his mouth to cut him off, but they both froze when Calder’s cutlass cut down the middle of the group. His blade came to rest inches above the candle’s flame.

  “That’s enough of that,” Calder said, his voice little more than a whisper. “Urzaia, lead the way. Foster, take the rear. Andel on the left, I’ll take the right. Walk straight down the row of bookcases. Petal, leave a mark on every row we pass.”

  “Walk straight down the aisle?” Foster choked out, though at least he stayed quiet. “If they’re waiting for us, that’s right where they’ll be!”

  “Or they’re waiting for us to go back the other way, or waiting for us to stay here, or waiting for the light to go out so they can take us one by one.” Calder kept his eyes locked on Foster’s as he spoke. “We might be playing into their hands no matter what we do, so we may as well try to escape while we’re at it.”

  Foster grumbled under his breath, but Urzaia had already taken up his position and started a slow march. The rest of them followed.

  Every few yards, Petal carefully let a drop of acid fall from her stoppered bottle. It scarred the floor with a hiss and a little wisp of smoke, leaving a mark the size of a breadcrumb in the smooth floor.

  They had traveled for the better part of an hour, according to Andel’s pocket-watch, when Jerri gently rested her fingers on his arm. “Don’t look up. There’s something moving between the bookcases above us. Do not look up.”

  Calder resisted the urge to throw his head back and stare straight up, keeping his movement natural. He continued to scan the shadows around them, as he had the entire time, but this time he allowed his eyes to flow a little higher.

  For the first minute or two he spotted nothing, which was agonizing in its own way. The only thing more frightening than Elderspawn he could see were Elderspawn he couldn’t see, and his imagination told him that they were right behind him, descending to the back of his neck on silent threads.

  But he kept his calm, and finally he caught something—a flicker of movement at the corner of one of the bookshelves, like an insectoid leg being withdrawn.

  His heart pounded, his breath came faster, and he feigned a stumble to grab onto Urzaia’s shoulder. When the Champion looked at him, surprised, Calder whispered the situation to him.

  Urzaia’s face darkened, and his hands tightened around his hatchets, but otherwise he gave no sign that Calder had spoken. He continued marching down the hall as Calder and Jerri conveyed the information to the others.

  Even as he whispered to Andel, Calder’s thoughts buzzed frantically. The position of the Elderspawn left them with very few helpful options. They’re above us, so they’re tracking us. They’ll see everything we do. We have to reach the end of this room at some point, so will they drop down on us then? Will they wait so long?

  They had seen enough curve of the ceiling at this point to realize that the room did in fact have an end; they weren’t sealed in some sort of Elder-generated dream world. The room had walls, though they were unbelievably far apart. In the back of Calder’s mind, he wondered if the bookcases acted as columns, helping to support the weight of the chamber.

  If they stood and fought, the terrain didn’t favor them. How could it, against an enemy capable of leaping down on their backs from above?

  Since they couldn’t stop, that left only one option: move forward as fast as they could.

  Calder increased his pace, and as soon as the others realized, they matched him. Within ten more minutes, the crew had effectively doubled their speed, and was all but running down the library aisle. They maintained complete silence, so only the pounding of their shoes and their harsh panting breaths cut through the quiet.

  Overhead, the flickering movement of the Elderspawn hurried to match them. Calder began to catch them more often, even when he wasn’t focusing, as they hurried from case to case. With enough fragmented pictures—jointed, alien legs and eyes that waved on flexible stalks—he confirmed what he’d already suspected. These were the spawn of Ach’magut, the ten-legged spiders with innumerable eyes. The same ones that had haunted Silverreach four years before. The Inquisitors.

  But this time, they were keeping their distance, watching. Observing. Calder was forcibly reminded of Ach’magut’s title: the Overseer. It made sense that any minions of his would keep their distance and watch before engaging, but if that was the case...

  Why hadn’t they done so last time?

  On the crew’s last visit to Silverreach, the Elderspawn had attacked outright, forcing them into the hands of the cultists. They were acting differently now, more cautiously. What had changed?

  It was sheer madness to try and guess the mind of an Elder, but Calder had a disturbing thought. What if they had acted this way, four years ago? What if the two Inquisitors they saw were just the Imperial Guard of their kind, sent to take them into custody, while hundreds more watched?

  An image formed in Calder’s mind, of Silverreach above with its streets of “empty” buildings. He was beginning to see the town differently now.

  Not a town at all. A hive.

  But ultimately this was all just speculation, and in reality, the Inquisitors hadn’t attacked yet. The sooner they reached the end of the room, the sooner they could find an exit. The ceiling had curved down low enough now that they should come upon the end any second.

  No sooner did the thought come to him than they reached the end of the library, the ceiling flowing down to meet the floor in a polished gray wall. The light of Petal’s quicklamp spilled onto the wall in front of them, illuminating a vast door of bronze.

  He wasn’t sure it was a door, at first. There were no hinges he could see, and the bronze was almost a perfect circle. It only made contact with the floor at one point. Its surface was covered in symbols and diagrams, interacting in a way that reminded Calder of ancient astronomy texts. Like someone had charted the movements of the stars on this ancient panel of bronze.

  It was only when he extended a hand, intending to Read the panel for instructions, that he became certain it was a door. Its Intent flooded his mind, hammered
his awareness, as though this was the very picture of a door and anything that he had once recognized as a doorway was only a feeble delusion of his pitiful mind. This was a door, and all else was but a pale copy.

  He trembled at the overwhelming gut-punch of Intent, sucking in a deep breath.

  The others had begun to quietly debate what this bronze circle was, and what the diagrams on its surface meant. Maybe they were a map, maybe directions, maybe a dire warning to travelers.

  “It’s a door,” Calder said, walking up to it.

  “Are you sure?” Urzaia asked doubtfully.

  Calder’s nose tingled, as though it was about to bleed, but he put two fingers to his face and they came back dry. The aftermath of his attempt at Reading. “I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life,” he said.

  He quested around the edges of the bronze doorway until he found three symbols in a row—like human thumbprints, though the lines were too twisted and irregular. Calder pushed on them, only the slightest application of force, and the door began to slide upwards into the wall.

  “Wait,” Andel said, as the door began to move, but it was too late.

  If Calder had thought his impressions of the entrance were overwhelming, if he thought the previous wave of Intent was too much for his senses, they were nothing compared to the seething ocean of information that violated his mind now.

  On the other side was a writhing, pulsing, squirming mass of limbs, eyes, tendrils, ears, appendages without name and without number.

  On the other side was a vast book of endless pages, containing all the knowledge of countless years, such an unknowable repository of truth that a thousand humans could not hear it all with a thousand lifetimes of study.

  On the other side was a world unto itself, a complex and ancient dream more real than waking.