by Ken Scholes
Then the gray finally caught up to him, and Vlad Li Tam collapsed under the weight of it.
* * *
He swam in light, the song all around him now in shades of undulating blue and green.
She was there, though he couldn’t remember her name. She held him, and her dark eyes were full of sorrow and fear. “Oh my love,” she said, “the tools of the parents are not the toys of children.”
Still, even at her words, he reached out for the staff, but it wasn’t there. And the panic from that discovery brought him up from dreaming.
“Where is the staff?”
It hummed to life in Amylé’s hands and lit the space he lay in. They were above ground again and tucked away in one of the convent’s private rooms. “It is right here, Lord Tam.”
His mouth was dry, and talking hurt. He tried to sit up, his eyes never leaving the staff in her hands. “What happened?”
“I carried you back out after I finished with the Y’Zirites.” He didn’t like the look on her face—it was almost beatific as she stared at the staff, and her voice sounded far away.
He looked around. “And the spellbook?”
She laughed. “Not a book after all.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small dark object. “And you were right: I recognized it.”
She held it up to the light from the staff, and Vlad recognized it too, though this one was made of a smooth, black stone. But otherwise, it was an approximate replica of a ring he had seen—and had even kissed—more times than he cared to count.
The spellbook of Y’Zir is a ring. Plain, large, and cut to the same pattern as the papal signet of the Androfrancine Order, though theirs had been made of Firstfall steel.
He climbed slowly to his feet and held out his hand, suddenly unsure if the girl was really going to give it to him. But she dropped the ring into his waiting palm and then passed the staff over to him.
He studied the ring and then slipped it onto his finger.
The voice was in his head as soon as the ring touched his skin. Library access authorized.
His brow furrowed. “It’s granting me access to a library.”
“Yes,” she said. “Back at the Firsthome Temple. The Library of Elder Days.”
Vlad closed his eyes and felt something like wind, only from deep within, tugging at him. He let it pull him, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a forest. Trees scattered across a field of grass, branches heavy with gems that sparkled in the white light.
No, he realized. Not a forest. A room. He blinked. A forest within a room.
Men in blue uniforms were tending a row of saplings and looked up, their eyes wide.
“Where am I?” Vlad Li Tam asked.
He felt a hand on his arm and realized it was Amylé. “You’re still here. But the rod and ring will give you access to the Firsthome Temple.”
He looked back to the room and saw the men in blue leaving at a brisk pace. He stretched a hand out to one of the closest trees, touching the green gem that sparkled from its branch. It sung beneath his fingertip, and as it did, Vlad’s mind opened and information fell into it like boulders into a well.
He sat at the rushing images and closed his eyes against them.
“Oh,” he finally said. “Oh my.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a lot.”
Just that momentary touch had flooded him. The People, ancient and tenacious, had risen up from their first home—had risen and fallen, fallen and risen across millions of years of time and space. He’d felt it. He’d seen it. All within a flash, and it left him slack-jawed.
He looked at the girl, and she made sense now in a way that she hadn’t before. He looked at the staff in his hands and saw that it, too, made sense somehow differently.
“Oh,” Vlad Li Tam finally said again. Then he stood.
Amylé stood with him. “What next?”
And what came next made sense to him now, too, in a way that it hadn’t before. Vlad Li Tam sighed. “Now it is time to bring the age of Y’Zir to a close,” he said.
And the smile on Amylé D’Anjite’s face as he said it assured Vlad that the river of her life still bent where he willed it. But something in her eyes told him that he may not be able to count on that much longer.
Still, that was to be expected of any Tam allies.
And even with that expectation, Vlad Li Tam knew that yet another unwitting ally awaited him in Ahm’s Glory to help him cut Y’Zir from the world.
Rudolfo
The forest was hung in ribbons of mist in the hour before dawn, and Rudolfo walked it, pretending he was alone. Someone followed him—he wasn’t sure if it was one his men disobeying his orders or one of Orius’s Gray Guard following their own general’s. Whoever it was hadn’t bothered to magick themselves, but they still did a decent-enough job staying hidden and quiet. And that fact led him to believe it was indeed one of his own farther down the ridge that Rudolfo now slowly climbed.
He forced himself not to look back over his shoulder and instead forced his mind back to the Whymer Maze that robbed his sleep. He’d already been preoccupied, his mind full of the map of Pylos he’d been going over in preparation for his rendezvous with Philemus and the others. But then the messages—both by moon swallow and by courier—had caught up to him at the end of his day as they settled into yet another reclusive hunting manor on their journey north.
Some of it was good news. The cleanup was going as planned, and there really wasn’t much fight left in Entrolusia. There was still fighting in Turam and on the Emerald Coasts, but Rudolfo suspected strongly that Pylos would be the last holdout.
And some of the news, he suspected, could also be fortuitous, though it initially didn’t feel likely.
Ria lives. Rudolfo had not expected that. Somehow, the woman had survived the pathogen despite her use of blood magicks. Lysias had even confirmed that she continued to drink the water without incident. He’d not expected this, and as if it weren’t enough of a surprise, the other bird had brought information from the south.
Winters is preaching a new sermon. For some reason, he’d thought the girl had left the Named Lands. Her people were already in the Churning Wastes, led by the mechoservitors. He’d wanted to send scouts to see her safely out of the Y’Zirites’ care, but Esarov and Orius had assured him that she was provided for along with the Androfrancines who accompanied her. At their word, he’d arranged the requisite letters of introduction and credit in Caldus Bay.
And these sisters—both users of the various blood magicks forbidden within the Named Lands—lived still despite the weapon. Ria had been under the blood magicks when they’d taken her. And Winters moved north, according to the report from Orius’s scouts, using voice magicks—technically, a blood magick of sorts—as she preached about the dream.
It was having an impact. Orius also reported on Y’Zirites and refugees within the Named Lands all making pilgrimage to the coast in search of vessels they might hire. And after years of economic uncertainty, the ship owners and captains—all having experienced the dream—were curious about what resources and opportunities to extend trade routes might exist with the Seaway now granting access somehow to the lunar seas. At the end of two years of war a real end was in sight. Y’Zir’s back was being broken, both here and at home. But what waited at the end of the war? Something new grew on the horizon, and people who had lost everything were gravitating toward it. Orius himself reported Androfrancine deserters, and Rudolfo expected some of his own might join them.
All of it made his head hurt. And it kept his mind from the one place it wanted and dreaded most going.
Rudolfo had been a parent all of two years, and already it had so redefined him that it took vast effort for him to accept the roles and purposes that had once filled his life.
Jakob changed everything.
After being a father, how could any man return to simply being a king and general? And yet somehow I must.
Rudolfo exhaled and watched the cloud ris
ing from his breath. He crested the ridge and followed it north, savoring the damp, cold morning. He’d spend his day on horseback. Before learning of Ria’s capture, he’d thought he’d start west to meet Philemus and the others in the scattered villages north of Pylos proper. But now he suspected he would ride directly north.
Rudolfo found a tree and leaned against it, looking back over the ground he’d covered and the distant lights of the manor. Whoever it was, they were good at not being seen. He squinted back, eyes scanning from tree to tree. Nothing.
Rudolfo jumped at the low whistle just to his left.
“Hail, General,” a voice growled.
Renard.
Rudolfo released the hilt of his knife. “You are good at the woodlands for a Waster,” he said.
The man stepped from the shadows. “I spent time—quietly—on this side of the Wall. Times when Hebda wasn’t digging.”
Rudolfo nodded. He never could fathom Androfrancine chastity and held no judgment for anyone who couldn’t live up to that rather impossible expectation. Of course, until Jin Li Tam, he’d not even been able to consider monogamy as any less impossible. “Well, I thought you were a Gypsy Scout. And they are the best of the best.”
Renard inclined his head. “Thank you, General.” His face darkened. “How are you doing?”
Something in the man’s tone reminded him of Gregoric, and Rudolfo felt the ache of loss. He thought about his friend more and more and wondered how that man would’ve responded to all of the events that had unfolded since Windwir’s destruction.
If Gregoric had been here she’d have never left the Named Lands with my boy.
He tried hard to keep the edge of his rage away from Jin Li Tam. It was hard to blame her for a nature he’d known existed in the first place. She had been shaped and dropped into his life by the same man who had murdered Rudolfo’s family. Now all of my family, he realized, because he had to accept the hard truth that the woman he loved had never truly been his. She had always been her father’s daughter—a child of House Li Tam. Still, there were times when his anger toward her flared as well, and he was grateful that she was nowhere near.
He looked up at Renard, realizing he had still not answered the man’s question. “I am…” He let the words fall into the snow and glanced away. The sudden tears behind his eyes ambushed him, and he blinked into the cold air, hoping Renard couldn’t see. “I am weary, Renard.”
“I think we all are,” Renard said. “We have all lost a great deal and have had to live in our rage to keep that loss from crippling us.” His eyes narrowed. “It changes us, I think. It’s changed Hebda. He carried his secrets about Neb admirably until Neb learned those secrets and could hate him for it. And the light’s gone out of his eyes the few times I’ve seen him.” He shifted against the tree. “Orius has changed, too. He’s less reasoned and pragmatic now. The man I knew would have never considered using the spell in light of what happened to Windwir.”
Rudolfo nodded. He didn’t need to look far to see the changes in himself. They’d been building one upon the other, and he’d never thought any change could be so profound as the birth of his son.
But the death of his son had brought a profundity all its own, and it crushed and ground him like teeth during his every waking moment. Because it wasn’t just that loss but every loss leading up to it back to that first loss of his twin brother, Isaak.
He wiped a renegade tear away and forced the shame of it down. “It has changed me,” Rudolfo said, “and I fear not for the better in many ways. But I cannot take the time to fathom those changes until I know my home is free.”
“Aye,” Renard agreed. “And that should be sooner rather than later. Orius is moving north to intercept Lysias and take Ria into custody.”
Rudolfo’s brow furrowed. “What does he intend to do with her?” Orius had said very little on the subject when they met briefly the afternoon before.
The Waste guide shrugged. “He’ll interrogate her first. And then I think he means to make an example of her. There on the grave of Windwir.”
This surprised Rudolfo. The war had already left the north. The vast majority of Marshers had rejected Winters’s plea and stayed behind. And the army—supplemented and led by Y’Zirite officers—had largely been wiped out by the pathogen. “That seems out of the way to send a message.” He stroked his beard. “And to whom is he sending it exactly?”
“I think maybe to himself,” Renard said in a quiet voice. He paused, considering his words. “Orius is not well, General. He is also working with Blakely and Symeon to mount an expedition to the Y’Zirite crèche once peace is restored in the Named Lands.”
Rudolfo felt the ice that suddenly settled in his stomach. First the spell. And now the Androfrancine general meant to commit genocide of his own. “Are you certain of this?”
Renard nodded and looked away. “He’s asked me to lead it.” He paused. “But I have no intention of doing so. I plan to find Hebda and head to the moon when things are settled here. If Neb will have us.”
“And what did he say to that?”
Renard shrugged. “I’ve not told him.” Then he met Rudolfo’s eyes. “But I am telling you. And I’m also warning you.” Then he said the words again. “Orius is not well.”
Rudolfo nodded.
Renard nodded in return. Then, without another word, he turned and began making his way back down the tree line. The sky was gray now, and the world was washed in the light of the setting moon.
Rudolfo sighed. Orius would have to be dealt with. The war had changed him, had swallowed the man he had once been.
It’s changed me too. Initially, it had changed him for the better. He’d torn down Tormentor’s Row and built its stones into the library. He’d become a father and taken a queen. But then somewhere in the north, after the library bombing and after the fog of firespice wore off, something more fierce and ruthless than he’d known before had risen up inside of him. And then had gone feral at the news of his son’s death.
But even in that place of rage and hatred, Rudolfo could not bring himself to the place of endorsing genocide.
And yet I am keeping an Y’Zirite alive so I can hear her scream again. And though he didn’t agree with taking the pathogen abroad, the notion of Ria being made an example of brought him a satisfaction mingled with shame.
Renard wasn’t moving as quietly as before and made little effort to conceal himself. Rudolfo picked him easily out among the shadows farther down the path they’d made. He set out to follow and found his feet suddenly felt as heavy and cold as his heart.
Still, Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest, General of the Wandering Army, put one foot in front of the other upon his chosen path and hoped the coming day would warm him.
Jin Li Tam
Her dreams were full of the smell of the blasted lands they ran through as Jin Li Tam slept fitfully on the mechoservitor’s back. She’d stayed awake as long as she could, but eventually all of the walking and the aching in her bones from the crash and from the blood magicks had caught up with her and she’d let sleep take her. Jakob had flooded her dreams, too.
He was her last thought before she slept; her first upon waking. He is alive.
A part of her still didn’t want to let herself hope. But she hoped anyway, and as the sun rose, she saw a small enclave of old buildings. Facing her, she also saw a figure stand up slowly from a chair that sat by itself. From a distance, she could not pick out any specific details, but the metal man covered the distance quickly.
The man was maybe a decade or two older than Rudolfo and younger than her father, his hair receding. He wore plain dark trousers and a matching shirt. He smiled as the automaton slowed.
“Lady Tam,” he said, inclining his head to her.
Her voice was sharper than she wanted it to be as she climbed down from the mechoservitor. “Where is my son? Take me to him.”
“I will,” he said. “My name is Cyril Thrall. I am one of the watchmen of Endicott St
ation.” He turned to the metal server. “Automaton Reish,” he said, his tone changing to one of command, “you may return to stasis.”
“Yes, Watchman Thrall,” the metal man said while bowing deeply. Then it moved toward one of the buildings with a liquid grace Charles’s reproductions had lost.
After it vanished through a heavy metal door, she looked around them at the dilapidated buildings. They were old, but not as old as the blasted wastes that surrounded them for league upon desolate league. The rising sun cast them in shades of crimson.
“Follow me,” the watchman said after the metal door closed. He set off at a quick walk, abandoning his plain wooden chair where it sat.
Jin matched his pace and listened to the morning air. The small enclave was wrapped in silence, their feet the only sounds until he worked the lever and opened a rusty door. He ushered her inside and then closed the door behind them as he drew a stone from his pocket. He closed his eyes briefly, then nodded to another door.
They entered the room, and he stooped to push back an ancient carpet. Jin had heard of the hatches leading into the Beneath Places, but she’d not seen one until now. The metal was pitted and ancient, but the wheel spun easily as her guide entered the cipher. It swung open without a sound, revealing the ladder downward.
They are keeping him in the Beneath Places.
“If you’ll kindly descend first,” the watchman said, “I will close the hatch behind us.”
She looked down the dimly lit shaft, then glanced back to the man. The look on her face must have betrayed her sudden lack of trust.
“Lady Tam,” he said, “I assure you I am not your enemy. I was here the night they brought your son and the others, and I am eager to see you reunited.”
Her eyes locked with his. “Where are they?”
“You will see them in just a few minutes.” He offered a weak smile. “You have weathered the most difficult of times, Lady, so your suspicion is fully warranted. But we truly are allies and friends.”
She had question after question, but she knew this was the wrong time and Cyril Thrall was likely the wrong person. So she turned and found the ladder’s rungs with her feet, then climbed down. Cyril closed the hatch and followed, his breathing heavier when they reached the bottom. He led them down a corridor that eventually revealed yet another hatch, this one set into the wall.