by Tammy Salyer
Further fueling these doubts was the memory of Eisa’s words the night before, burning inside her: “Power is a living thing, novice. It needs to feed and it grows. Its ultimate end is more power. Why would a Verity be any different? A being of all power. What’s left for it to gain but more . . .” Words she had said to explain their circumstances but which only served to cloud Mylla’s understanding of all that had come to pass in the last two days. If Eisa truly believed Vaka Aster, and all Verities, existed with only one principle—to rule with absolute dominion and feed a need for more power, even at the cost of their own creations—how could she or any of them reconcile their honor with devotion to a being who didn’t value it? Was Eisa’s allegiance to a Verity she believed to be innately indifferent, at best, and outright malicious, at worst, what made her so endlessly bitter, almost cruel? Was it Mylla’s fate, and the rest of the Knights’ as well, to become the same?
She would lose heart if she thought about it any more. As luck would have it, or maybe wouldn’t, she didn’t get the chance.
Over Lock’s shoulder, she could see a thin slice of the horizon beginning to darken with shadows, though the daystar glowed directly overhead. Fixating on the strange sight, she wondered if this was some kind of secondary shock and she was on the verge of passing out from the drop from the Vigilance after all. Then she realized what they were seeing, hundreds of the usurper’s attack ships filling the sky surrounding the city of Asteryss. The sight dispelled her doubtful, anxious thoughts instantly. Which might have been nice, had they not been instantly replaced by new fear.
The hovering sickle-shaped ships had taken a defensive formation as they hung motionless in the sky like black crescent moons. Havelock eased the ship’s engine down until they slid forward barely faster than a horse could trot. She guessed he didn’t want to run the risk of being detected because of a draft as they flew unseen by the hovering ships, yet her instinct told her they should get past them as fast as possible. Regardless, airborne tactics, she had to admit, were not her strength. On this, she would defer to the Wing pilot.
Instead of aiming directly for the largest gap in the formation, as Mylla would have anticipated, Lock circled wide around the city until they flew past it and over the western sea, then doubled back. Did he suspect a trap? Eyes straight, lips pressed tight, she sat still as they penetrated a gap within the circle of attackers. Her dueling tensions about crashing and being detected kept her thoughts embattled until she realized they had moved past the circle undiscovered and now floated directly over the high steeple of Vigil Tower atop the city’s seaward ring wall.
Occasional pillars of black smoke rose randomly throughout the city, meeting the seaward breeze and scattering before rising too high. From up here, the city seemed quiet, but the smoke belied the fact that things were not right. These were neither hearth nor forge fires but the smoldering remnants of buildings ablaze. Knowing Asteryss had been attacked and seeing it herself were two different things, and again her thoughts strayed to Lock. Asteryss, his home and where his family still lived, had stood for thousands of turns and had been peaceful since the Cataclysm seven hundred and some turns ago. Even for a soldier, such a sight would be rattling.
Nervously, she scanned ahead until spotting the corner bastions and flat roof of the Conservatum’s expansive hall in the city’s center. Mylla blew out her breath in relief—it was still intact—then gasped as something buzzed the glazed shield of the cockpit just in front of her eyes.
By Vaka Aster, they’ve found us! Frenzied signals from her brain prompted her to cry out a warning. But they were instantly overridden when she realized: No, that wasn’t one of the attackers, it was Yggo.
The sentry’s silver wings flapped ahead of them, reflecting the gleaming daystar’s rays. The second hawk, Urgo, shot down from above moments later, and they flew side by side ahead of Mylla and Lock. Unlike whatever force controlled the usurper’s attack ships, the bruhawks’ wystic sight detected the dragørfly scout clearly, and Mylla’s relief at their presence relaxed her tensed muscles. Safran was watching.
The brief relief Mylla felt upon landing safely at the Conservatum lasted only as long as it took for her boots to hit the roof. They had a mission and no time for indulgences like relief. The open halls of the Resplendolent Conservatum, though lit brightly by Halla and unchanged, nevertheless pressed in forbiddingly on Mylla as she led Havelock to the last Fenestros in Vinnr.
On second thought, one thing was changed: all sounds, from the omnipresent drone of the lecture halls to the chatter of acolytes and teachers to the hurried footfalls and swishing robes of all who dwelled within, were hushed—or had been silenced. Though she and Lock made almost no noise, she worried even their own breathing might be enough to cause their discovery.
Moving with all the stealth of their respective training, they took just minutes to descend to the limestone catacombs below the ancient complex, where the smoke-tinged smell of the outside air gave way to the cooler, cleaner yet still musty odor of the tunnels. Only the highest order of Conservatum scholars, those known as the Resplendolent Prelates, and the Knights Corporealis knew of these underground passages, which eventually wound their way to other corridors, one to Vigil Tower and another to a cave mouth on the cliffside overlooking the brilliant beryl Verring Sea.
Once they reached the concealed doorway to the underground—locked, but Eisa had given Havelock a key—and entered its quiet and safe confines, Lock whispered, “I don’t think I’d have found this so quickly without you, despite Stave and Eisa’s directions. What is it with the Knights and caves?”
Mylla ignored the barb. “I’m glad we made it, but it was too easy. Where is everyone? The city and the Conservatum seem completely deserted.”
“Hiding, maybe?”
She didn’t like this. The Conservatum had too many dark corners, halls and rooms, points of egress and ingress. It hadn’t been built to be a fortress, only an institution where those with both the hunger and aptitude for knowledge came to pursue either scholarship as a Prelate or priesthood as a Cyan or, for the rare few, acceptance into the Knights Corporealis and ordination by Vaka Aster. In Mylla’s memory, the halls had been a place of peace and learning. And never once empty.
But it wasn’t always so, Mylla, she reminded herself. Don’t let your experience cloud the history you know. There were times of unrest when the Knights Corporealis had to flee the Conservatum and even the cities and remain hidden from commoners. Being the servitors to a celestial maker marks us, and that mark isn’t always understood.
She touched the nine-pointed star on her chin thoughtfully as they stood inside the entryway to adjust to the dark they were about to enter. Through every tumult and historical uprising since its inception, the Conservatum had remained stalwart and unharrassed, the contributions made by those under its roof beyond suspicion and always too important to empires to challenge, even when others’, and sometimes the Knights’, deeds and intents were questioned. She recalled Arch Keeper Beatte’s and Commander Brun’s quick accusations beneath the keep the day prior and frowned. It seemed more than possible that the integrity and intent of the Knights would once again fall under scrutiny. All because of the actions of a marauding Verity. The taste in her mouth grew sour at the irony.
“Come on,” she nudged Lock, “we’ve still got some distance to cover. Quietly now.”
“Are there torches or illuminates? It’s so dark.”
Her klinkí stones rolled into her palm before he finished. With a gentle toss, she sent them airborne and blew a puff of breath in their direction. Each emitted a slowly pulsing blue glow and lit the skillfully hewn and decorated walls of the catacombs. “Follow me. Draw your sword. Stay close.”
Forced to skulk, she mused at how like a low insect she felt. Being compelled to hide in her own childhood home, among the halls where she’d grown and learned and finally become worthy of the oath she’d taken to protect Vaka Aster, seemed a cruel twist of fate. As they neared
the Fenestros chamber, a drawn-out shriek echoed toward them from the direction of the entrance.
Instantly, Mylla palmed her stones and snuffed their light. “Hold still,” she said, though she knew it wasn’t necessary to tell him.
A similar cry quickly followed the first, the noise so high-pitched it was more like pressure against the delicate membranes of her inner ear than sound. She couldn’t identify it as human or animal, but it was most definitely not the hail of a welcoming party.
Lock dared a whisper. “I don’t think we’re alone in here.”
“I concur.”
“Do you have any idea what that is?”
Wind? Something large, scaly, and hungry risen from the sea? Perhaps . . . ghosts? “I don’t, but we better hurry. Not far.”
Now letting only a single klinkí stone light their way, Mylla gave up skulking and broke into a scurry. The sounds behind them drew farther apart from each other and at times closer to her and Lock, but they didn’t seem to be moving intentionally toward them. Soon, she and Lock reached the simple wooden door to the celestial stone’s chamber and she pushed it open. Her heart, heavy enough already, took its time on the next beat, as if laboring against the weight of boulders. “It’s dark . . .” she muttered.
“Light it up,” Lock suggested.
“No, you don’t understand. The Fenestros creates its own light. It’s not here.”
He pushed past her into the chamber, able to make out a tabernacle carved into the far wall. An empty tabernacle. “Now what?” he said.
She gently closed the door behind her, careful to do it as quietly as possible. “Unroll this and hold it up for me,” she said, handing him the Scrylle parchment—which she’d taken without Eisa’s knowledge. Given their mission, it made sense for her to bring it, and she was glad she had listened to her instinct to snag it, as well as the instinct to do it on the sly. Her gut was telling her Eisa had an agenda that ran deeper than the one she said aloud, and Mylla never ignored her gut. “It’s not far,” she whispered. “Still in the catacombs, in fact.” Upon closer inspection, she continued. “By Vaka Aster’s light, this can’t be!”
“Shh!” In the next moment, Lock’s curiosity overcame his admonishment. “What do you see?”
“Brun. Commander Brun has the Fenestros.”
“ . . . This parchment even shows the name of who carries it?” He watched her face closely, looking for any sign she might have been joking. Seeing this wasn’t the case, he offered, “That’s good. Brun is a reasonable sort. She will likely be content to give it to the Knights when we explain why it’s necessary.”
“She thinks we’re all traitors, Lock.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t got time to explain.” She re-rolled the parchment and placed it back in a bandolier pouch. “We have to catch her before Balavad does.”
Pacing back to the door, she drew it open—
—and looked into a dark oval of a face overshadowed by a deep hood. Yet the form was nearly as familiar as any of the Knights.
“Irrick?” she said after her throat overcame its paralysis. “Thank Vaka Aster it’s you. Are you hurt?”
The acolyte, standing nose to nose with her, said nothing but reached up with white hands and pulled back the hood. His blank eyes chilled her. They seemed to be lit from within by a dull, sickly glow, and his usually umber skin carried the same pallor, corpse-blue in the light of her stones. His thin lips parted as if to speak. What came from between them, however, wasn’t words.
The shrill keen he issued knocked her back. In pure reflex, she brought her fist, still gripped around the hilt of her sword, upward into his chin in a rapid undercut violent enough to sweep him from his feet. He came down hard, knocked unconscious by the weighted sucker punch. She gasped at what she’d done but couldn’t deny that something was very, very wrong with her friend and Knights’ ally.
Immediately, the catacombs filled with more of the screeches they’d been hearing, now moving in a direction that was undeniably directly toward them. Sheathing her sword and leaning down, she swept up one of Irrick’s arms and looked to Lock. “Help me, grab his other arm. We’ll lock him in the chamber. It might keep him safe.” No matter what it took, she was not going to lose another friend, or leave another behind.
“Let’s do this quick. We have to get out of here!”
But the day had other plans. From the far end of the corridor, seven black- and silver-clad forms appeared in the gloom, approaching on soundless feet. She and Lock froze in place, each with one of Irrick’s forearms clenched in their grips. The members of the approaching party were tall, like the Yorish, and lanky, almost emaciated. Like the priests from Battgjald, Mylla realized. They walked bowed forward, almost as if hunchbacked, and each carried a sword with a crooked barb at the tip. The group contained both women and men, and their features were no different from hers or Havelock’s. Except for one thing. Their skin, bloodlessly pale and grotesque-looking, seemed the very absence of color and heat, as if a rejection of life.
The group stopped and stood preternaturally still. Though one klinkí stone still hovered before Mylla casting its strong glow, the members of the group moved only their heads, turning them this way and that, looking or possibly listening for something. They are blind, she realized. Short chirrups and hoots came from them, as if they were querying someone. Querying Irrick, she was sure, for she couldn’t deny that his eyes and flesh had taken on the same look as theirs. They had done something to him. But what? And could it be undone?
“Too many,” Lock murmured. “Move back inside the chamber.”
At the sound of his voice, the group of attackers’ strange eyes fixed in their direction. The leader emitted another shriek, and the noise, unnatural and menacing, made Mylla’s jaw tighten while her insides seemed to turn to water. They advanced forward, now with purpose, their strides jerky but able to swallow the distance between them with unexpected speed, their hooked swords raised for fighting. Jumping in front of Irrick’s still form, she redrew her sword and opened her palm, already channeling the klinkí stones toward the onrushing peril.
The stones flew into the group, lighting up the ghastly, thin faces, and striking the attackers’ shoulders, torsos, legs, arms. She wasn’t trying to disarm them, not like she had the Dragør Marines beneath Aster Keep. She recognized a duel to the death when confronted by one. As they usually did, her klinkís created an explosion of chaos among the aggressors—but didn’t stop them.
Why aren’t they falling? Why aren’t they bleeding?! her mind yammered. Aloud, she directed, “I’ll hold them back. See to Irrick!”
Lock remained beside her, stubbornly refusing to retreat and leave her to fight alone. She continued to fling blow after blow into the group, slowing the onrush, yet they still pressed inexorably toward her and Lock. This fight would have to be won by blade-work, not by wystic stone.
The awful shrieking went on as they closed the gap. Mylla took her fighting stance, sword at the ready, and saw Lock do the same beside her.
“Direct assault, go for their heads. Forward!”
The voice caught Mylla by surprise—it hadn’t come from Lock, but it didn’t seem to have come from the attackers either. Then a curious thing: the light cast by the glowing stones showed new faces, familiar because they wore the helmets of the—
“Marines!” Lock said.
Someone hurled a torch into the center of the attackers. Now boxed in from in front and behind, the enemy force flailed and screeched as pandemonium took over. Some turned back, others continued forward, and Mylla let her blade have its fun. The danger of accidentally striking the troop of Marines forced her to retire her stones from the fight and leave them hovering near the ceiling, lighting up the battle. From the corner of her eye, she saw a short Marine swing a mace into the sneering visage of a marauder, caving in his skull. Instead of moving on to the next, the Marine stayed in place and swung her mace again and again, turning the obviously dead attacker�
��s head into pudding. Only then did she rejoin the fray.
“That’s it, Marines! Not a skull left intact!”
Brun?
Mylla and Lock stood back to back, parrying and gouging, thrusting and swinging, managing over and over to puncture and hack their attackers but without obvious effect. Even wounded, the pale fighters barely slowed. She heard a grunt behind her, and Lock’s back shifted, catching her off guard with the sudden absence of a counterweight. She staggered back but would have kept her balance if not for Irrick’s still form tripping her up. Even as she came down on top of him, an attacker brought his blade down over her in a wicked chop. She got her own sword up to ward off the blow and kicked out into the attacker’s shins. He shrieked, then was spun halfway around as someone sliced into his flank. With a lunge, she was back on her feet, but in moments the Marines had finished off the rest of them and smashed the brains from the heads of the two opposing her and Lock.
She looked up and came eye to eye with Brun’s steel. Again.
“Knight Evernal,” the commander said from behind it. “You’ll understand if I don’t seem surprised to find you here.”
With a blink, Mylla pulled her stones to her and set them into a shield pattern between her and the commander. Brun twitched, but she did not drop her sword.
Chapter 25
Jaemus studied Aldinhuus for a while as he stared into the sphere atop the thing called a Scrylle. Aldinhuus’s reverence and concentration were written in the way the skin beside his strange eyes creased and his lips pressed together into thin lines. What in this world or any other could he be looking at? With a clammy tickle along his spine, he said, “What is it that you’re doing now exactly?”