by Ken Scholes
The captain returned the gesture. “Thank you, Great Mother.”
The gardens around them were quiet with morning, the air heavy with the smell of smoke. Jin took in the surroundings, noticing the charred skeletons of trees torched on that horrific night her father and his followers had stormed the palace. Of course, those fires had gone out days ago. The smoke she smelled now came from the city that burned. In the distance, beyond the wall and gates, she saw the massive structure of the Temple of the Daughters of Ahm. Not long ago, a gigantic gold statue of Ahm Y’Zir had adorned the top of it. Now, it lay in broken pieces in the central courtyard. And though it was under constant guard, she’d heard tell of looters making off with bits of their cast-down messiah under the distant, unseeing eyes of disillusioned soldiers.
“I will see as many of them home to you as I can,” she said.
The captain’s eyes were hard. “If their blades find a home in that Deicide it will be enough for them.”
Jin regarded the woman. “Still,” she said, “enough has been lost us. I’d just as soon not lose more.”
“They are yours to command, Great Mother, even unto death.”
She had no reply and turned back to the scouts. Twenty-four women of varying age and height, all scarred with the marks of their faith and all craving recompense for the sudden, terrible negation of that gospel. “Stand easy,” Jin called out to them.
As one, they relaxed into a resting posture as their hands slipped behind their backs.
“I am Jin Li Tam,” she said in a loud voice. “I am the forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam, Queen of the Ninefold Forest.” The next words broke her voice as she uttered them, but she forced them forward. “Great Mother of Jakob, the Child of Promise and Betrothed of the Crimson Empress.” She paused again. “And I will be avenged upon this murderer of children. Will you hunt with me?”
They spoke with one voice. “Aye.”
She raised her voice even louder. “Blood for blood,” she shouted.
“Blood for blood,” they echoed.
She opened her mouth to say more but closed it quickly when a shadow fell over them and a loud noise the likes of which she’d never heard filled the morning air.
It was a roaring initially, but a metallic, shrieking cry twisted out of that roaring with a force that hurt her ears, and Jin Li Tam looked up.
What she saw, hurtling down from the sky above them, defied explanation and brought with it a kind of fear that turned her legs to water and made her cry out. And whatever it was had similar effect upon the others; she was vaguely aware of the captain shouting out.
“Hold. Hold your ground.”
It was large and long, with silver skin. Its thick neck supported an arrow-shaped head with dark offset eyes, a blunt snout and a wide mouth lined with jagged teeth. Two sets of wings moved at a blurring velocity as the creature landed heavily in the garden, its six legs bending as they absorbed the impact.
The beast shrieked again, and Jin heard gasps of terror among the Blood Guard.
A bright light burned at its core and grew until it left her eyes blinking and watering. The light built to an intensity that forced her to look away and then subsided. When she looked back, the large beast crouched silent and still and a woman clothed in silver stood beside it, a hand stretched out and laid across the creature’s face the way one might touch a beloved pet.
An alarm now rose as the guards and scouts patrolling the garden ran for them. The captain beside Jin whistled, and several of the Blood Guard—already magicked—became a wind that moved across the grass.
The woman held up her other hand, her eyes fierce, and Jin understood the implied warning even as the beast’s wings began to buzz and its mouth opened to unleash another shriek.
When the woman spoke, it was a voice like the roar of an ocean, and the words rolled out with power. “Stand clear, Downunders, and you will not be harmed.”
Jin found her feet and bid them move her a step closer even as she studied the woman. She looked to be young—perhaps twenty—and her long blond hair hung in a single braid. She was tall and slender, and even as the Y’Zirites slowed in their advance, her robes moved and tightened over her body to form a silver skin that Jin Li Tam recognized.
When Neb had arrived in the north in search of Winters, he’d come in similar garb to do battle with that ancient mechoservitor, the Watcher. Jin had not understood exactly how or why he’d come into such power, but she’d seen that suit protect him and lend him a strength and speed impossibly beyond him and beyond even the scope of what blood magicks could do.
The woman regarded them with cool eyes, and when they found Jin’s, they held. “I seek the administrator’s rod,” the woman said. “This place reeks of its handiwork. Bring it to me and I will leave you in peace.” And even as she said the words, an image formed in Jin’s mind. It was a long, slender, silver staff, and she recognized it instantly.
The staff of Y’Zir.
She glanced to her left and right, and when neither the captain nor Elsbet spoke, she took another step forward and raised her own voice. “We do not have the rod,” she said. “But we seek the man who wields it.” She paused, careful in the words and the feelings they might betray. “He has caused great harm with it.”
The woman fastened her eyes on Jin’s. “Yes. The tools of the parents are not toys for children.” Her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. “You,” she said to Jin. “Come forward.”
Jin kept her hands clear of the knife hilts they itched to draw and walked toward the young woman. The others stood well clear, watching warily. As Jin approached, the creature growled, and she heard the woman hush it like she might hush a child stirring in its sleep. She hesitated, then continued forward until she was an arm’s length away.
The woman’s eyes were blue and clear but Jin sensed a kindred darkness in them, and behind that darkness, she saw something more. Something she’d seen in Sethbert so long ago.
This one sojourns in madness. And simultaneous with that realization, Jin knew that made the woman dangerous. As if reading her mind, the woman now smiled. “Do not be afraid, Downunder. I will not harm you.”
Jin said nothing and wondered if her face betrayed the calm that reasserted herself. She waited for the woman to continue.
“Who is this man who wields the rod, and where can I find him?”
She hesitated, but only for a moment. “His name is Vlad Li Tam. He is in the city somewhere.” She looked over her shoulder. “These women and I start our hunt for him today.”
The woman took a step closer, and Jin caught a sweet and unfamiliar scent. The blue eyes narrowed again. “He has indeed caused great damage.” Jin felt something pulling at her mind like fingers, opening it. Show me, a voice whispered beneath her scalp.
She tried to resist but couldn’t. The fingers pried at her, and the memory was too close to the surface of her every waking thought. She closed her eyes against the fire and against the wind upon the rooftops as her father swung the sack.
The woman gasped, and her voice became a whisper. “Your own father did this,” she said, her voice husky with horror.
“Yes,” Jin said.
They both shuddered, and something about that shared and visceral reaction gave Jin an affinity for the woman despite the madness and danger she saw there.
“He will be easier to kill once I’ve taken back the rod,” the woman said.
Uncertain of what to say and caught off guard by the sudden connection she felt, Jin repeated herself. “Yes.”
Then the woman nodded once, slowly. “Very well,” she said. “Hunt well, Downunder.”
“And you,” Jin replied. Then, instinctively, she stepped back as the woman laid her hands upon the beast that had borne her.
Jin continued her retreat, walking slowly backward, her eyes never leaving the woman before her. As the light built, she blinked at it, and when the next shriek was released onto the morning air, she did not flinch and did not feel af
raid as the woman vanished and the beast launched itself into the air.
Instead, Jin Li Tam smiled and savored the thought of her father falling beneath her knives, stripped of his power by something larger and more fearsome than the monster he’d become.
Chapter
4
Neb
Neb chewed slowly, savoring food he’d not tasted in more months than he could remember. For the longest time, it seemed, he’d lived from rations or from what could be easily gathered. And with the exception of the fruits he’d sampled on the moon, most of it had been rather plain fare, nothing like this.
When he’d finished with the officer of the watch, they’d brought him to the manor. He’d not recognized the steward, and when he’d asked his escort about Kember, a shadow had crossed the man’s face and he’d shaken his head. Still, the new steward—Waryn—welcomed him in the Gypsy fashion with food and drink. So now, Neb sat in the midst of a half-dozen platters. For his first plate, he’d settled on roast rabbit served over a wild rice thick with mushrooms and green onions, chased with a light, sweet beer.
He was considering a second plate when the door to the dining room opened. Neb heard the slightest whistle and the metallic clicking of the metal man as it entered.
“Lord Whym,” it said as it inclined its head. “I am First Generation Mechoservitor Designation Two. I am called Hezekiah. I am the chief officer of the Forest Library.”
Neb felt awkward eating in front of the mechoservitor and sat back in his chair, gesturing to the table. “Please join me, Hezekiah.”
They are all taking names. The mechanicals had been changing ever since the canticle had given them their metal dream. And ever since my true father gave me to them and to the Order.
Hezekiah adjusted its robes and sat. “You have unsealed the tower.”
Neb shook his head and swallowed the shame he felt. “No, I … couldn’t. Petronus did it.”
The metal man’s eye-shutters flashed open and closed. “That is unexpected.”
Neb nodded. “Yes.” Unexpected had been the norm. He was also supposed to have had the Moon Wizard’s staff—no, he corrected himself, the administrator’s rod—so that he could access the Library of Elder Days and do whatever else this bargain of Frederico’s required. But that had gone awry. Just as he’d missed the Final Dream, missed Winters, because he’d been trapped inside the tower unable to access the aether.
The mechoservitor released a gout of steam from its exhaust grate. “Much has happened since you left.”
“Yes.” He’d heard. Rudolfo becoming chancellor and taking the mark had been just some of it. The messenger birds were dead. Isaak was somehow still alive, though missing along with Charles and Winters. Jin Li Tam and Jakob were in the Empire of Y’Zir with Aedric. And then there was the matter of the dream. “Much has happened,” he said, “and much more is coming, I think.”
“It is the fulfillment of the dream,” Hezekiah said, his reedy voice reverential in tone. “My brothers and cousins and I stand ready to serve.”
Neb regarded the metal man and felt a sudden kinship. He’d lost count of how many of them had sacrificed themselves for the dream. And it was a constant weight upon him, knowing that he was a key part of that dream. They have done this for me to do my part. “You have served very well, Hezekiah.”
The metal man inclined his head. “So have you, Lord Whym.”
Neb flushed. “I … I am not so sure that I have.”
“Perhaps it is not important that you be sure,” the metal man said. “Especially with so many others sure of you.”
But that is part of the problem. From the moment Winters had declared him as the Marshfolk’s Homeseeker, others had believed too much of him. No, he realized. It had started with Petronus and the gravediggers’ army. And it stretched back to his infancy when he’d been brought to the Order, in the heart of Windwir where the Androfrancines could keep close watch on their found offspring of the Younger God Whym. “I wish it felt like enough,” he said.
Now the food in his stomach felt heavy as the anxiety chewed him. Usually, it started at the top of his head, settled onto his shoulders, and slowly moved down his spine. The stomach was the last place he felt the weight of it all, and it usually meant that particular wave of fear was moving past him. He forced his eyes to the mechoservitor. “But I know that how I feel is irrelevant. The tower is open. The ladder is working. The path is clear for Winters and her people.” He took a deep breath. “Now I need the staff.”
“Lord Tam is in possession of the staff.”
Neb cocked his head. “He is?”
“Yes. He is utilizing it to dismantle the Y’Zirite faith in their imperial capital.” The mechoservitor paused, and Neb blinked at its matter-of-fact tone. “Father Isaak is seeking him now.”
Father Isaak. “How do you know this?”
“We have been in communication with Father Isaak in the aether.”
In the aether. He’d thought about using the tiny kin-raven but had learned firsthand how dangerous that could be when he’d accidentally used it to bring the Blood Guard upon him in the Wastes. Even now, baptized into his heritage, he didn’t have the experience or training to use the device with any skill. And he knew that even if he did, others were listening. He’d have no way to effectively communicate without giving his enemies more help than they already had. Yet the mechoservitors had managed to. He thought about this. “Are you able to communicate with the other mechoservitors?”
“Not directly; we do not have enough of the smaller dreamstones. But Father Isaak is able to reach all of us.” As if reading his mind, the mechanical continued. “We are cautious. Each message is meticulously coded, but the Y’Zirite Blood Guard monitor the aether and are able to track those who use it. We are not certain of their code-breaking capacity in the absence of the Watcher.”
Neb nodded. It made sense that they would be careful how and when they used the aether. “I need to get word to Isaak and the others. And I need to find Winters.”
“At last word, she was in Caldus Bay,” Hezekiah said.
Neb hadn’t been that far south in the Named Lands—at least not until he’d arrived with his kin-dragon—though he knew of the town. It was where Petronus had hailed from and retired to after faking his own assassination. He’d seen it and the other dozen scattered villages along the bay from far above. “Who is with her? And how is Isaak reaching Y’Zir?”
The mechanical released another gout of steam. “She is with Arch-Scholar Tertius and Arch-Behaviorist Hebda. I am unaware of how Father Isaak intends to reach Y’Zir. The aether is carefully monitored, so few details are shared.”
Neb knew he could pull the tiny kin-raven from his pouch and attempt to reach Isaak directly. But too many things had gone wrong of late, and he didn’t want to add the risk of revealing wherever they might be to that growing list of things gone awry. He had no doubt that he could protect himself from the Y’Zirites now, unlike when they’d traced him through the aether before. But he couldn’t run the risk of exposing his friends. “When you report in next, tell Isaak I have returned and seek the staff.”
The mechoservitor inclined his head. “A report is already being coded.”
“Good. Have preparations been made for Winters’s people to sail for the Seaway?”
“They’ve been storing supplies for the journey, and my brothers race toward the Ninefold Forest even now. We will escort them through the Keeper’s Gate and to the horn.”
Neb opened his mouth to ask why they were taking the less direct route through the Churning Wastes but was interrupted by a knock at the door. It swung open slowly, and a scout poked his head in. “Master Nebios,” he said, “I have another visitor here for you that was most insistent he be admitted.”
An old man moved past the guard, his eyes wide with wonder and his hair tangled in the mud and sticks of the Marshfolk tradition. “Homeseeker? Is it you?”
Neb stood and the mechoservitor stood with
him. “Yes.”
The old man stepped farther into the room. “Is it true then? Has the Time of Sojourn passed?”
Neb felt heat rising to his cheeks. The awe he heard in the man’s creaking voice, the shine in his eyes as he asked it, made him feel uncomfortable. “Nearly,” he said. “The way home is open.” He paused, unsure of what else to say. Neb glanced to the metal man.
“This,” the mechoservitor said, “is Seamus, first of the Council of Elders.”
Neb had heard of Seamus. He had been captured by the Y’Zirites seeded among the Marshfolk and forced to take their mark. He’d come here with the first of the Marshfolk refugees. “It is an honor to meet you, Elder Seamus.”
The man laughed. “Oh, the honor is mine. And there are many more who want to meet you.” There was more light in the man’s eyes now, and it took Neb a moment to understand what it was.
It is the moment that hope is fulfilled and becomes joy.
The power of that realization caught him off guard, and Neb wasn’t sure of what to say. Seamus rescued him from that moment when he held up a hand and took a step back. “But I see you’re eating now. I’m sorry for interrupting; I just had to know. We’ll wait until you’re finished.”
The words connected for Neb. There are many more who want to meet you. We’ll wait until you’re finished. He swallowed. “You’ll wait?”
“Yes.” The old man nodded toward the window. “Just outside the manor.”
Seamus left, and the scout pulled the door closed. Neb stared after him, then slowly turned to the metal man. “They’re waiting outside?”
The mechoservitor nodded. “They started gathering before I arrived. They wanted to know if Home had been found.”
Neb felt a pang of guilt, realizing how little he’d really regarded their investment in this. He’d been named their Homeseeker and from that time had been tossed about, pulled through circumstances and revelations he’d never conceived possible. And all the while, he’d really thought very little about the people whose mythology he’d seemingly been born to fulfill.