by Del Law
Blackwell steps up to the Sister’s lower lip and seems to hesitate for a moment.
He looks back at them, at Mircada.
She raises her head as though he’d called her. The exchange a long, wordless look, and then Blackwell cocks his head to one side, as though the Sister has said something and none of the rest of them have heard it.
Then he steps inside and the Sister’s mouth claps shut with a deafening crash.
It’s so loud he wonders if the ships in the fleet have heard it.
Without any transition then, the Sisters are back on their pedestals. The swirling wind is gone. The room is dark and silent, lit only by the wards outside.
In the distance, he can hear the ocean.
Nadrune pushes herself off the floor. Semper knows her incredibly well now. He can see the jealously and rage written there on her face, the deep envy that it was Blackwell the Sisters had spoken to and not her.
And, he’s surprised to see, there’s a good deal of awe in there, too.
See, he tells himself. She is still human in there somewhere. She opens her mouth to say something to him, and then closes it again. He nods. He knows something of how she feels.
A sound of clapping from the doorway startles all of them, and they turned to see Bakron Akarii there, with a phalanx of Stona marines behind him all in their shining white armor.
Semper feels his chest tighten, his breathing go short. What is this?
“Nice effects,” Bakron says to Nadrune. “Very impressive. You get your Sister, and she will not talk to you. You finally get your Beast back again, but oh! Again he walks out on you! Did you capture it all for one of your broadcasts, Nadrune, with some creative editing? Or are you ready to tell the world the truth, that you’ve been dumped two times by the same animal?”
Nadrune sputters with rage, and her eyes light up with the fire that’s always within her. “Lieutenant-Marshall…” she begins
“Spare me.” Bakron makes an obscene gesture at her. Then he turns to the Stona at the head of his group.
“Take them,” he says. “Take them all.”
38. Blackwell
The Sister’s throat is a corpse road, but it’s not like any road I’ve ever seen before. Normally it feels like I’m pushing through fog, or stepping behind the curtain in a theater. I can hear people murmuring, talking, but they’re usually far off and indistinct. I’ll be wrapped in strange smells, and the shadows of things happening on either end of the road will fade in and out.
Not this time. I step down her throat and I’m in a tunnel or some sort of tight space, from the sounds of it. Everything feels close, and the sound of my breathing is loud.
It smells like a kiva, the thick smell of woodsmoke. The rich loam of a dirtnest. I reach out, but I can’t feel any walls. It’s completely dark.
I step forward, and there’s soft dirt beneath my feet now. I walk for awhile. Nothing changes.
Then I hear voices.
They’re speaking the Hulgliev High Tongue, something I haven’t heard in ten years.
One voice, thin and raspy, is talking about hunting. Another is arguing about the ownership of some tool, though it sounds like he’s arguing with himself. A third is calling out for water—he’s terribly thirsty, could someone spare him a bowlful? I can’t tell where the voices are coming from.
All the voices are men’s voices.
“Sibling, I bring you greetings,” I call out formally. There’s no answer. All of the voices keep on talking to themselves, and there are more of them now. Men are bragging about battles I’ve never heard of, fighting over food, sobbing. Someone screams now, over and over again.
“Siblings,” I call. “Where are you?”
“They can’t hear you,” someone says. I jump because it sounds like he’s right in front of me. “They’re dead, you know.”
I can feel all the fur on my neck stand up. “So I’m…”
“In our afterlife, brother.”
“I’m not dead,” I say.
I’m feeling slow on the uptake, but you’ll need to cut me some slack here.
“Cheer up. You will be soon.” He laughs, not unkindly.
The voices are all pretty loud now. I feel like I’m back in that Dead storm, but this time it’s all filled with invisible Hulgliev. “I thought it would be, well, calmer here.”
“I think it is for some. The calm dead don’t need to speak so much, do they? Particularly when no one else will hear them.”
“Who are you?” I ask in Fhirlo, suddenly suspicious. His voice sounds familiar. It’s deep and rough like he’s been smoking and drinking a little too much.
“The guy that’s going to help you get where you’re going, Blackwell. Don’t overthink it. Can you follow me?” He’s moving off to my left.
I nod, like that does any good. I follow the sound of his footsteps in the dirt. I have to swivel my ears around—it’s hard to hear feet over the other voices, but as we walk the voices grow fainter. It also seems like it’s getting a little lighter, but I can’t be quite sure.
“Is it crowded in here?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“There aren’t many of us left. Alive, I mean. I’d think there’d be a lot of us waiting.”
“There could be. But there are more out there, too, than you know right now.”
“Are there any women in here?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.”
I’m sure I blush, but he can’t see me. “Hulgliev women. Waiting, I mean.”
“Again, I don’t know. But I’m guessing not—there never were many female souls. They’re probably not kept waiting very long.”
I swallow, not sure if I want to hear this answer. “So, what else do I need to know?”
He laughs again. “So much more than I can ever tell you, Blackwell. Watch your eyes, ok?”
There’s a blinding light, then, as he opens a round hole in the ground. I look in, and I’m staring down, or up, a long stone well. Rusted metal rungs are embedded into the side of it. At the far end, I see sky and smoke, trash blowing around, a lot of movement that I can’t really make out this far away.
“Head towards the light,” he says, joking. “I’ll see you back here in a little while.”
I look over at the other side of the well. He’s all in shadow, and I can’t see his face.
“How little?”
“Climb,” he says, pointing down.
I nod, lower myself into the well and get going.
Before long, I realize I’m climbing upside-down—things have turned and my feet are in the air instead of the other way around, and I have to swing myself around on the ladder.
I’m near the top when I hear the explosions. A dark shape swoops low over the mouth of the well, and I duck. I hear the hiss and splat of magefire. I take Semper’s knife in my teeth and peer over the rim.
The first thing I see are two Hulgliev, pinned down beneath a giant black bird of some kind. Then bird is immense with these gigantic black wings, a long and narrow beak, a huge cranial ridge that stretches back along its head, and massive talons that dig into the stone floor of the room we’re in.
The room is a hanger of some sort—a high ceiling, some big doors open to the outside. More of those birds fly across the opening, some of them with marines in their claws. Beyond the two Hulgliev is a podship that looks pretty familiar. There’s a creature there I don’t recognize, with a head that’s all snout and five eyes spread across the bridge of his nose. She’s dressed in an elaborate gown that looks like it’s made from fog and strips of silver, and she’s holding a long wooden box in six-fingered hands that have long, curled nails and many rings.
The Hulgliev themselves are wearing powered armor like Tel Kharan, only this armor looks much sleeker than anything I’ve seen—there are none of the clunky steam joints, and parts of it are clear, like glass. Their helms are pushed back, and their faces are painted in sliver and red. One of them is bleeding pretty ba
dly from a head wound, and as I watch the bird leans forward and plucks him up in its beak. It shakes him back and forth like a dog with a rat in its mouth. The other Hulgliev crouches and throws a blast at the bird, but it doesn’t seem to have much effect.
The bird doesn’t see me.
I climb out of the well, keep behind it, and then I crouch and leap with Semper’s knife in my hands. I catch it in the back, between where it’s wings come together, and I drive the small blade as deep as I can. I put as much aether as I can behind the thrust, and I smell something awful burning in there. The bird lights up from within, but then it drops the other Hulgliev and tries to turn on me. It howls like a wolf and slashes at me with its wings while making this tremendous thunder from its cranial ridge that shakes the entire floor, throws me off balance.
It opens its beak and lunges at me.
But then it staggers and falls backwards against the wall, smoke curling from its chest.
The standing Hulgliev nods to me, and then rushes over to the fallen one, who is crumpled in a heap on the ground. He kneels down next to him and rolls him over, but it’s clear the one on the ground is dead—his chest is all caved in and bloody, and his head lolls back on his neck.
“Help me get my brother to the ship,” he says in the High Tongue, getting his hands under the other Hulgliev’s shoulders. And then he looks at me more closely. He opens his mouth to say something else, but suddenly there’s a massive explosion outside of the room. I can feel it coming from far below us, up through the floor. The walls shake and the floor cracks open, and the whole building tilts off to the side.
“Farsoth’s done it,” says the Hulgliev, and he looks strangely relieved. “Tilhtinora is coming down. Lasser and his birds will not succeed.”
He looks at me, and I’m not sure what to say. I’m still trying to catch up. And then I do. The rumbles grow louder, and the building slumps even more. He looks over my shoulder to where the well is, and then back at me again. I’m guessing that the well wasn’t there two minutes ago.
“How are you called,” he asks. He’s much taller and wider than I am at the shoulders. He has a broad, open face and something in the way he cocks his head to the right reminds me of my secondfather, though he’s probably no more than my own age.
“Blackwell.”
“What the fuck kind of a name is that?” It sounds fancier when he says it in the High Tongue.
“It’s not important. Oberhoi. I’m Oberhoi.” I say.
“You’re awfully short, Oberhoi. I am Krieste.” He calls the other creature over and she holds out the long, narrow box. “This is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
“I think so." I say. "Yes.”
“Farsoth said you might come, if we succeeded. Take it,” he says. I accept the box from the snouted woman, as something gives way beneath us and we all fall ten feet or so before the building jerks to a stop. I hear the sounds of metal, straining almost to the breaking point, and outside there’s another explosion.
We pick ourselves up on the slanting floor, and the Hulgliev gestures me over. He bows his head forward toward me, and I do the same until we touch foreheads together. “I wish you the power of your conviction, and the wisdom of our mother’s breaths,” he says.
“And you the fortitude of your fathers and the fathers of your fathers,” I say, really touched.
I’d never recited this with anyone other than my secondfather before.
Then he stands and steps back. “Are we really that short where you come from, Oberhoi?”
I shrug. “Do you need help getting his body in the ship?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Tilhtinora will be a fine grave for all of our bodies,” he says. “But make sure the rest of Hriglo gets to the right place, will you?”
“If I see him, I will,” I say.
There’s another rumble, and we’re falling for sure this time. Krieste, the snouted woman, and I lift into the air, and the podship starts to slide. I see Krieste grab the woman and swing them into the hatch of the podship, and I push off of a wall with the box in my hands and leap toward the well. I grab the rim of it with my claws and pull myself inside. I climb down as fast as I can, and above me I hear the massive explosions of a great city, falling out of the sky.
There’s nothing I can say that would adequately describe that for you.
About halfway down the ladder, I have to turn again. There’s another Hulgliev there on the ladder, looking confused.
“Hriglo?” I say. It's the dead Hulgliev with the caved-in chest. He nods, and seems relieved to see me. “Follow me.”
I squeeze myself around him and we climb up to the darkness at the top of the well. I pull myself up over the side, and give Hriglo a hand up. Hriglo stands up and looks around in the darkness. I see his shoulders slump as recognition sinks in. He takes a step into the darkness, and then another one. His eyes soften, unfocus. “Krieste?” he calls. “Krieste, are you here?”
I’m guessing he can’t see me any longer, and he wanders off still calling.
“You haven’t opened the box,” says the shadowy Hulgliev on the other side of the well. I recognize the voice now all too well.
“I’m aware of that.” I don’t look at him. Some dust from Tilhtinora billows up from the well.
“Why?”
“I’m afraid of it, Sha.”
“Afraid of what’s in the box? Or what it will ask of you?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Open the box.”
“Surely there’s someone better to…”
“Open the fucking box.”
I open the fucking box.
Inside is a bright, glowing rose about three feet long. The bloom on the top is a vivid glowing red stone, translucent and bright. It’s on a long, silver stem that has three leaves branching off it, each of which glows with a light of its own. There are no thorns. With the rest of my senses, the rose looks much like a Sister does—it burns with energy in my mind’s eye, teeming with activity just underneath the smooth surface.
I take it out of the box and hold it up above my head, and the light grows brighter. I turn away from the Hulgliev on the other side of the well and hold it up over my head, and it shines out across the dirt ahead of me, pointing the way.
“Will I see you again,” I say, without turning around.
“Of course you will.”
“Soon?”
“Soon enough,” he says. “But not too soon.”
I swallow hard. “How did you die, Sha?”
“It’s a long story,” my secondfather says. “You don’t have time for that now.”
“But I want…”
“We can’t always get what we want, Blackwell. Surely you’ve learned that by now?”
My chest feels tight, and I’m having a hard time breathing. “I meant to come back sooner,” I say. "To the village. I wanted..."
“I know, Blackwell. I know you did. Sometimes worlds get in the way."
I nod. I take a deep breath, then, and start walking, and I can feel him following just behind me. As I go, the light from Te’loria gets brighter, and I can hear the voices in the distance reacting. They’re calling out in the High Tongue as I get closer and soon I can see them, hundreds of Hulgliev old and young. Some of them are dressed in nothing more than old rags. Some of them are in full traditional armor, or even elegant robes of silver and red. Several of them are even wearing crowns. Many of them are carrying the marks of how they died, too. Some have gaping cuts in their sides or at their necks. Some have scorch marks in their fur, or missing limbs.
They each stand up when the light touches them, though, and begin to walk toward it, and then they start to look around them and begin notice each other, too. I see them greeting each other, some formally, some more casually. They’re introducing themselves, starting conversations. As I pass with Te’loria, they don’t seem to see me exactly, but they follow behind the light of the rose, banding together with still more Hulglie
v until I come to a set of silver stairs that stretch up into the darkness overhead.
I turn around, then, and look at my secondfather.
He looks just like he did when I was seven, tall and grizzled.
Except there’s a long spear sticking out of his chest, a huge, red spear that’s covered in elaborate runes.
“When I leave, what will happen to all of you?” I ask him. “Will you all go back into the dark?”
“We might,” my secondfather says, looking around at all of the others. “But the dark might be easier to bear knowing we’re not alone in it now.”
Many of the others in the crowd nod. “Go on, Blackwell. Do what you need to do now.”
I take one last, long look at him, and then nod.
I turn away and climb the Sister’s silver tongue.
39: Semper
Semper struggles momentarily against the black Stona’s grip, and the Tel Kharan snaps his beak at him. He reaches across Semper with his stunted talon and takes the knife from the sheath on his chest.
Well, that’s two of them gone, a part of him thinks. He’s surprised at how calm he is.
Four Stona with knives in hand have surrounded Nadrune with a set of overlapping wards that isolate her from any outside energy, much like Blackwell’s collar. Others have disarmed and bound her guards. Without the constant flow of energy her people provided her, Semper knows it’ll be hard for Nadrune to hold her shape—freed from containment, the ravages of the flame-bonding will eat away at her.
Even now he can see her limbs starting to swell, just slightly. The swelling will accelerate fast. If unchecked it could soon be irreversible.
Bakron knows that, too, Semper sees. He’s looking on with a smirk.
Nadrune stares at Bakron with disbelief and rage on her face. “You will die for this, Lieutenant-Marshall.” Flames spit from her mouth as she speaks and black carbon streaks her lips.
Bakron studies Nadrune closely and grins. “Not too long, Nadrune, eh? I think I will enjoy this more than I expected.”