Hymn

by Ken Scholes

  She gasped when he spun it open. The room was lit by lichen that reflected eerily off a quicksilver pond that she knew had to be one of the bargaining pools of old. A white tree at the shoreline waited, its limbs heavy with purple fruit. Cyril Thrall approached the tree.

  He pulled a fruit down from the tree and handed it to her. “Eat this,” he said.

  She held it up to the dim light. It had skin like a plum but was as large as an apple. “I don’t understand. How will this take me to my son?”

  The watchman smiled. “It is difficult to explain,” he said. “But eat the fruit and you will see your son. He is waiting.” He closed his eyes, and his brow furrowed for a moment. “Aedric is with him.”

  Aedric? She vaguely remembered the New Espiran officer telling her the same when she’d sent Jin with the metal man. She’d not seen the Gypsy Scout since they’d landed. But she knew better than to be surprised that Rudolfo’s first captain would find her son. She bit into the fruit, feeling its juice run down her chin. The meat was sharp and sweet and sour all at once. “I don’t—”

  “Chew and swallow please.”

  She did, and his hand was in his pocket again. “Endicott Station translation commencing.”

  She opened her mouth to say something but didn’t have a chance.

  “I’m sorry,” Cyril Thrall said as he pushed her quickly and effectively into the bargaining pool. And as soon as she touched it, Jin Li Tam felt vertigo within a flash of light, and then suddenly she was light, racing veins of silver for seconds that slowed and blurred with speed all at once until she rose gasping and sputtering from the silver pool.

  Her anger flashed. “What in the hells are you—”

  But Cyril Thrall was gone.

  No, she realized, I’m gone.

  The pool was larger, the chamber much larger and better lit, and instead of a single tree, a grove of them grew here. Men in uniform waited to pull her to shore, and an older woman in silver robes stood with them.

  “Lady Tam,” she said, “I am Elyna Gras, chief administrator of the New Espira Council Expeditionary Force. I am pleased to welcome you to New Espira.”

  But Jin Li Tam barely heard the woman’s words, because a curly-haired head appeared at the edge of the grove, joined suddenly by another. “Jakob!”

  The toddler laughed. “Mama!”

  And in that moment, she heard nothing else. Nor did she see Aedric smiling in the background. She pushed past everyone, ignored the little girl who stood with her son, and scooped the little boy up into her arms. She flooded herself with the feel of him, the smell of him, as she crushed him to herself and sobbed with the force of a reunion Jin Li Tam had both dared and not dared to hope for.

  Chapter

  16

  Petronus

  Petronus took the stairs three at a time and still wasn’t winded when he reached the library. He’d been down at the canal welcoming new arrivals from Y’Zir when word reached him. He’d excused himself and ran for the temple at top speed.

  An old man with a staff suddenly appeared in the library. Then disappeared moments later.

  Nadja Thrall was waiting for him there, along with four young men wearing the uniform of the New Espiran Council Expeditionary Force. She smiled and inclined her head. “Father Petronus,” she said.

  He felt blood rushing to his cheeks but didn’t know exactly why. Or I know but don’t want to acknowledge it. It was something in the way she looked at him. A look he’d not experienced often since his youth on the bay, before he joined the Order. And he was always surprised to see her. Other than their work in the library, tending the newly planted saplings, her people had been scarce. She’d been less scarce, turning up for meals or largely unnecessary meetings. “Ambassador Thrall,” he said. “I came as quickly as I could. I heard we had an intruder in the library?”

  She nodded to the men. “Tell him what you saw.”

  Petronus didn’t yet completely grasp their rank structure or insignia but assumed the one who spoke was higher ranking because he was slightly older than the others. “An old man wearing robes. Long red hair streaked in white, tangled beard, slight frame. He held a silver staff and wore a black ring.”

  It’s Vlad. He glanced at Nadja and raised his eyebrows.

  “It is consistent with recent sightings of Vlad Li Tam by our people in Ahm’s Glory. And this means he’s found what you call the spellbook along with the Staff of Y’Zir.”

  Petronus felt his brow furrow. “How in the nine hells did he find his way here?”

  “I have experts on the ship who can explain it better,” Nadja said. She extended her hand. “But walk with me and I’ll tell you what I can.”

  Petronus flushed again but took her hand even with the others watching. They paid no mind to it at all, but it wasn’t the first time the New Espiran culture had surprised him. Her hand was warm and firm in his as she led him deeper into the forested room. “You are familiar with the legends of the Last Weeping Czar Frederico and the Moon Wizard’s daughter Amal Y’Zir?”

  “Some of them,” he said. “Very little from those times survived the Age of Laughing Madness.” He thought about it. “Very little likely made it over in that first migration after the Wizard Wars. And we didn’t have the opportunity to mount expeditions to that part of the world.”

  “When they established New Espira, they left behind careful instructions. You’ve seen some of them in the form of the letter I showed you on the day that we met. Amal Y’Zir spent her childhood in the temple and left behind what information she could for us. Including the care and cultivation of the knowledge trees.” She stopped in front of a tree that Petronus recognized. It was the small one in the center with the dark rings, guarded by a Watching Tree. She touched one of the rings and jumped when the Watching Tree stirred to life. Then she laughed. “This is your spellbook,” she said. “They provide access to the library remotely by way of the aether. But you need the administrator’s rod to grant access.”

  Petronus stared at the tree in wonder. “So you wear the ring and you have a library at your disposal wherever you are.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Somehow. I don’t begin to understand it.” She grinned. “I studied Androfrancine leadership and philosophy. Not ancient technology.”

  Technology, not magic. He’d largely grown to believe that was true the longer he’d studied the teachings of P’Andro Whym. But now it was being proven true, and his own body, now in touch with his heritage as one of the People, reminded him daily that the ancients they’d revered as Younger Gods were actually their ancestors. His chuckle was more like a bark. “Astonishing.”

  She moved closer to him, and he fought the urge to pull back. “Which?”

  Petronus felt his body respond to the look in her eyes. It wasn’t a look he’d seen often, and he felt shame chewing at him. She is a child. But the way she watched him and laughed when they talked over their meals, and the topics they’d spanned, had invigorated him. And there was something charming about it—he the youngest Androfrancine Pope and she the youngest New Espiran ambassador. He realized that he hadn’t answered her and blushed, looking away. “Both,” he finally said. Then he changed the subject. “So Vlad Li Tam paid us a visit. I wonder if he will be coming back.”

  “I imagine he will.”

  Petronus nodded. “I will post a watch.”

  Their small party had grown now, with the arrivals of people called by the dream. Some, he suspected, would eventually return home via the Seaway. But most came with what little they had and wanted to join in whatever was happening at the Firsthome Temple. So some had been tasked with hunting, some with fishing, some with exploring and others with cooking and cleaning, each to their skills. It wasn’t unlike the beginnings of the gravediggers’ army. There was work to be done and new hands arriving to help every few days. And now they had a few new jobs—guards in the library to let him know if his old friend showed up again.

  Maybe I can persuade him to put aside hi
s wrath and give Neb the staff. He doubted it.

  Nadja was walking deeper into the orchard now, and Petronus followed. “I wanted to talk with you about something, Petros.”

  She’d not called him that before, and it caught him off guard. It was a childhood nickname and the name he’d taken after leaving the papacy. That name on her lips stopped his feet. “Yes?”

  They were far from the entrance now, where the light was softer, and the gems upon the trees cast Nadja’s hair in greens and reds and gold. She turned. “The day we saw the ships and I told you we would not involve ourselves. It disappointed you.”

  He shook his head. “I think it surprised me. Your people have labored in secrecy and silence for millennia toward this day, and now it is threatened by war. You have technology that would assure our victory over forces that have sought to keep the tower away from us since the days of this so-called Downunder War Y’Zir started.” He paused and took a breath. “I can understand not interfering in order to capture events as they unfolded. But now, at the end, it seems more prudent to intervene.”

  She nodded. “I do not disagree with you. It was a difficult decision to abide by, but…” She smiled, and her eyes took on a playful note that caught him off guard.

  “But what?”

  “I am not a pope. I answer to the council, and they give me my orders. But I was tempted. You are a pope, after all.”

  Petronus laughed. “Technically, I am no longer a pope.”

  “True,” she said. “But you are a Younger God.”

  In that moment he felt a bit like one, and Petronus smiled.

  Her eyes went serious. “Still,” she said. “I do not always blindly follow even my own backward dream.” She paused and met his eyes. The stark blue of them was disorienting. “When Nebios arrives in Ahm’s Glory, there are elements within the council that are inclined to aid him.” Then she smiled slowly and inclined her head.

  Petronus returned the gesture. “Thank you, Ambassador.”

  “You’re welcome, Petros.”

  He blushed. Then he stepped deeper into the forest and changed the subject as any good Androfrancine would. “This is truly astonishing,” he said. “But you should have seen the Great Library.”

  She followed him. “I did see it. Through the aether projections our people captured over time.”

  That fascinated him. The stones they carried allowed them to communicate, and other stones allowed them to capture images, sounds and other sensory detail for use in the aether. It was all somehow related to the dreamstones—both the large one they’d used to reach him with the Final Dream and the smaller ones the Y’Zirite Blood Guard carried. He’d seen a facsimile of the Great Library himself—pulled from his own memory—when Aver-Tal-Ka had him cocooned.

  The wonder of it all made him blink. “And now all of that is here in the Firsthome Temple?” The saplings had seemed to be thriving when he’d looked in on them earlier.

  “Yes,” she said. “You—Pope Petronus of the Androfrancine Order—you are in the library. And also as a Younger God brought back from the depths of time.”

  “And you, Ambassador Thrall?”

  She grinned. “I’m young. My story is still being written.” Then Nadja looked around. “But yes. Someday my story should be here, too.”

  Petronus paused as a thought struck him. “Did the New Espirans capture the Final Dream?”

  Now her cheeks flushed. “Some of us watch it daily.”

  And in that moment, when her eyes met his, they shared a moment of awe. Then, as she pulled him close to her and began to kiss his mouth, Petronus felt more shared awe and wonder as he kissed her back and kept on kissing her until his body joined hers in knowing exactly what it was meant to do there in the shadows of such ancient, primal knowledge.

  Neb

  The morning sun was cast in brown light as Ahm’s Glory and its dead smoldered, belching smoke into the sky that Neb knew made the far horizon hazy after weeks of burning. He’d flown in from the south, passing over the canals and tipping his wings to the vessels that sailed there. They’d stripped their Y’Zirite colors and flew instead the flag of the white tree.

  There are more and more of them. And there were others, too, trickling out of the city from all directions as they fled. They’d noticed the kin-dragon, but once he’d landed and sent it out to patrol, they’d paid him no mind.

  He clutched the satchel tightly and stayed to the shadows as he went. His flyover of the city had revealed that most of the military were focused in the vicinity of the palace, with a small force attached to the Imperial Magisters. No one seemed to notice the white-haired man in silver robes as he hurried toward what had once been the market district.

  He slipped a hand into the satchel, finding the crescent and drawing it out. “Okay,” he whispered into the silver artifact. “I’m close now.”

  Petronus’s voice was tinny and distant. “I’m assured by the ambassador that you will be met. Proceed to the fish stalls on T’Erick’s Way.”

  Neb looked around. The streets were marked, but not in any language he comprehended. “I’m not sure how to find that, Father.”

  There was silence on the other end for a moment; then Petronus spoke again. “The street off the main thoroughfare leading to the palace. It’s marked with a statue of Ahm’s brother.”

  Neb continued, his eyes moving over the few passersby he encountered. The city was nearly abandoned, and when the meditation bells chimed, no one paused or even gave it any mind.

  These people have lost their faith. No, he realized. It had been systematically taken from them by the man he came to face. And by today’s end, he planned to have that staff in his hands. The ring, too, that somehow connected Tam to the library.

  He tucked the crescent back into the pouch, his hand brushing against the cloth-wrapped hand cannon he’d left the Ninefold Forest with that morning. He’d not fired it, but he’d practiced loading and unloading it several times under Hezekiah’s careful tutelage. He had five spare cartridges—a handful of lead balls and blast powder wrapped in waxed paper—but he knew that given how long it took to prepare the weapon, he would likely only get one shot. And he would need to be close.

  Neb swallowed the copper taste of violence in his mouth and set out again. Soon, he saw the statue marking T’Erick’s Way and turned right, still keeping to the shadows, until he found the first of the abandoned stalls.

  Hail, Homefinder.

  The voice in his head brought Neb to a stop, and he looked around. A woman separated herself from a group of refugees loading a cart. She was at least a decade older than Neb, her face lined in Y’Zirite scars but the rest of her hidden in dirty robes and a silk head scarf. She briefly met his eyes as she sidled up beside him. Follow me.

  Neb followed, struggling to keep up with her shorter legs. They slipped into an alley before she spoke in a low voice. “I have better-suited clothing for you if you wish it.”

  Neb shook his head. “No one’s paid me any attention. I think it’s fine.”

  Her smile was tight. “They are paying attention, Lord Whym. But there’s no one left to raise the alarm to. The regent has what remains of the Blood Guard and military organizing an evacuation of the government. But they are definitely monitoring the aether with diligence now that Lord Tam has accessed the library, so we must be careful there. So far, the subaether remains out of the Y’Zirites’ reach.” She inclined her head to him. “I am Captain Vanya.” Then she opened a door and held it for him to enter. It was the back room to some long-closed shop, and two men waited there by a table. One held a thorn rifle. Vanya followed Neb inside and closed the door.

  Neb looked at the men and then back to the captain. “Where is your ship?”

  She shook her head. “No ship. We’ve lost three ships since the Seaway opened, and the council has grounded the fleet.” Vanya exchanged glances with her men. “And our involvement is not exactly sanctioned by the council.”

  It was the first N
eb had heard of the downed ships. “Is it the Y’Zirites?”

  The captain looked to one of the men. “No. We believe it’s something that crossed through from the moon. Possibly another kin-dragon.”

  Neb nodded. That made sense. He and Petronus and the others had been brought down by something—the mechoservitors described it as something large and silver and fast. He swallowed, not wanting to ask the next question. “Do you think it’s Amylé?”

  One of the men, the older of the two, cleared his voice. “It is likely a third kin-dragon.” He paused. “Or more. Amal Y’Zir’s memoirs tell of them guarding the lunar skies in her childhood. Our military historians suspect they were used to maintain air superiority during the Downunder War before Y’Zir brought them back to the moon and closed the Seaway. It’s possible that with restored access to Lasthome, they are continuing that mission.”

  Neb’s brow furrowed. “But Ambassador Thrall’s vessel hasn’t been attacked.”

  The man shrugged. “We only have theories.”

  “Regardless,” Captain Vanya interrupted, “we have other business to attend.” She looked at Neb. “Do you believe you can get the staff and ring from Tam? Because if it is indeed kin-dragons, that staff is our best hope of redirecting them and getting the council’s fleet back in the air.”

  That staff seems to be the best hope for a lot of things. And yet Neb still had no idea how to use it. His best hope was that if Vlad Li Tam could figure it out, then he should also be able to do the same, especially given his heritage. But first, he had to find the man. He looked at the captain. “The ambassador thought you might be able to help.”

  She nodded. “We know where he is. He was seen returning late last night. Unfortunately, we’ve already pulled our embedded agents among the Lunarists that he is staying with.”

  And for what was coming, Neb would not want Tam hiding among the Lunarists. He fully expected unless the hand cannon worked, it was going to take everything he had to bring the man down, and he wanted to minimize the risk to anyone caught in the path of this coming storm.