by Will Wight
His speech continued, but Meia spoke quietly, almost into Shera's ear. “All right. We've seen what we need to see. We'll tell him, and if he sends us right back down into the town, we'll blame you.”
Shera was still watching the old man standing on the box. “No, forget what I said. I think I'd like to stay here a little longer.”
Lucan covered his eyes with one hand and laughed. Meia made a sound like someone had driven a punch-dagger into her kidney.
Instead of explaining, Shera pointed at the old man. More specifically, at the medallion around his neck.
It looked like silver, but was more likely painted tin or other cheap metal. The emblem was filled with detailed decoration that she couldn't identify at a distance, but it was clearly intended to resemble an open eye.
The open eye was a symbol of significance in many Elder cults, as people used it to represent the all-seeing eyes of the Great Elders, or the vigilance one needed to watch for their return, or something similar. Then again, it had also been used to signify a thousand other things—including Readers—so under normal circumstances Shera wouldn't have given it a second glance.
But these weren't normal circumstances. Elders were involved.
So she stayed to listen to the man with the fake silver medallion.
Lucan and Meia didn't bother to acknowledge what they'd seen; they knew what the open eye meant as well as she did. They responded by taking action, each moving off in a different direction to spread themselves throughout the crowd.
The old man had continued, elaborating on his vision of a glorious future. “Instant travel! Can you imagine visiting friends in the Heartland, or family in Axciss, in hours? Not weeks! Imagine getting news from the Capital fresher than this morning's milk! Imagine a world where a man of eighty was just getting into his prime, and dying at one hundred meant you'd left this world too young!”
There was a scattering of laughter at that. Most people only stayed a few seconds and walked away, smiling and shaking their heads, but a handful stayed. He was attracting an audience, if a small one.
He didn't seem bothered by the people who left. If anything, he seemed encouraged that anyone stayed. He ramped up the energy of his delivery, pouring passion into every word. “Now, listen very carefully to what I have to say. This is no fantasy! The ability to do these things exists in our world! Readers know all about it, the Blackwatch know all about it—”
At the reference to the Blackwatch, four or five people waved their hands in a circle in the air, a folk gesture warding off misfortune and evil. You tended to see that sign after the mention of a Great Elder's name, or something equally inauspicious.
There's something wrong when people think of the Blackwatch the same way they think of Nakothi.
“—but they won't tell us!” The man continued. “Living longer, moving faster, it's all a matter of learning how. And they know how we can find out, but they won't let us! Why? Because they control all the information.” He tightened his fist, raising it to show 'their' tight grip on knowledge. “The only way into the future is a free exchange of information, and that means educating the whole world.”
“They promise everything,” Maxwell had said once, regarding scam artists. “But they never deliver anything. Only the worst kinds of people say they're selling the future.”
At the corner of her eye, Shera caught Meia whispering into the ear of a young man carrying a bottle in each hand. His cheeks were red, and he looked as if it took all of his concentration to stay standing straight. He laughed a little too loudly and raised one of the bottles. “That's right! She's right. If you know all this, how come you're not...you know. A million years old, or...”
He trailed off and took a drink.
Far from looking defeated, the old man raised a finger to the sky as though he'd heard a brilliant point. “Aha! I'm glad you asked. We remember these techniques because the memories have been handed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, for generations beyond counting! But we can't build the future. We don't know how; we're ordinary men and women, just like you.”
He leaned forward, sweeping the crowd like he intended to make eye contact with everyone. “But we know who does know, and the Empire is keeping the truth to themselves. Our ancient lords, who used to rule the world, disappeared long ago. We're told they were killed.”
He laughed, shaking his head at the silliness of it.
“How? By us? By ignorant humans? Pssht. We're the only ones concerned about death! If we knew the truths of the universe, like they do, we'd be beyond death! No, they're only sleeping, and all we have to do is wake them up.
“As all men know, that which sleeps will soon wake.”
That which sleeps will soon wake.
She'd heard the words before, and seen them written in a Consultant file. The motto of a mysterious Elder cult that had survived into the modern day.
The Sleepless.
~~~
When they reached the base of the lighthouse, Shera couldn't see the Emperor. Not that he wasn't there; she was fairly certain he was. But the crest of the hill, and specifically the spot where they'd left him, was now blocked out by a levitating patchwork of woven wood, as though some invisible giant had decided to weave a basket out of a live tree. It looked almost like the outline of a ship under construction.
The Emperor's voice came from within the floating planks, sticks, and boards as they approached. “I've never been able to make a functional flying machine,” he said. The intertwined branches slid away, leaving a window that revealed his face. “I should have done it. The theory is solid. But today...today I think I can make it work.”
Shera noted that the tree, which had once stood on the hill, was missing. At least she knew he hadn't created the wood out of thin air.
“What have you found?” The Emperor asked through his floating window.
“The Sleepless are in town, Highness,” Meia responded, bowing slightly. The Emperor had absolved them of the obligation to bow, because they couldn't do their jobs if they had to prostrate themselves on the ground every time they saw his face. Still, Meia couldn't quite bring herself to addressing the Emperor without ducking her head.
Lucan picked up the report. “Our experience suggests the presence of an Elder. Many townsfolk had unexplained knowledge, as did we.”
Branches flexed and pulled down over the Emperor's head, weaving themselves into a roof. He didn't take his eyes from Lucan. “Did you sense an Elder’s presence?”
“Not directly,” Lucan admitted.
Shera moved a step closer to the Emperor and his wooden shell. “We'll be happy to complete our report somewhere else. We should move.”
“No,” the Emperor said, running a hand along the inside of his half-built wooden ship. “We stay here until I’ve finished.”
So this was it. For the first time, Shera was actually forced to work against the Emperor's command. She'd been dreading this moment for years.
Ice closed around her thoughts, and she put her hands on her hips as though exasperated. In reality, she wanted to be able to draw her knives as quickly as possible.
“Why do you keep three Gardeners with you?” Shera asked, casually moving forward. “You have to know that sometimes you need someone else to make decisions. Because sometimes, under some conditions, you can't.”
The Emperor's face was obscured for a moment behind a shifting pillar of wood, but when it re-emerged, he looked thoughtful.
If he sensed her Intent as she moved closer, he could kill her just by looking at her. She had to close off her mind. She embraced the cold until all her regrets, all her feelings—and hopefully, all her Intent—froze over.
“This is one of those times,” Shera said, staring him intently in the face, watching for the slightest sign that he was about to move. It was possible that she would die here. Even likely.
But it was her job to kill the Emperor before he became a threat, and it was the most important assignment she wo
uld ever be given. If she couldn't handle it, that would make her useless.
And useless people were cast aside. Maxwell had taught her that, and it was just as true in the Gardeners. It was a fundamental tenet of life, she'd found.
Shera would always be useful.
Here, that meant either killing the Emperor or convincing him to escape. She would give diplomacy one more try before the shears came out, since that plan had a slightly greater chance of success.
“We need you to leave,” Shera ordered. “Now.”
She’d been taught to use the subject’s name when delivering a command, but calling him “Emperor” would only remind him that he had the power. And she didn't know his real name, if he even had one. So she had to do without.
The Emperor raised his gaze, as though looking into the stars. Around him, in a deafening clatter of wood on wood, his half-constructed flying device collapsed. His layers of silk, every shade of blue, rippled like ocean waves in the night wind.
Shera moved her hands to her shears.
“Beneath this town, there is a library older than human civilization,” the Emperor began, still staring into the sky. “I am convinced that humans did not invent books, but that we took the first examples from this library and mimicked their construction. It is still a great repository of knowledge, though much of it was destroyed in that last battle between us. I always wondered how he didn't see it coming, why he didn't anticipate me and relocate. But he was always trying to learn, even at the end. And death is no great inconvenience to his kind.”
Meia and Lucan were absolutely silent, so Shera spoke up. “Ach'magut.”
He glanced at her, then looked back to the stars. “In a way, the human world is his creation more than my own. He spared my life, gave me the education I needed to advance Reading and build an empire. He's not a destroyer, he's a parasite. He leeches onto a world until he's learned everything he can, and then he moves on. But he's not above taking something apart to see how it works.”
The Emperor waved a hand over the town of Silverreach. “He won't kill everyone. He will enact his plan without consideration for casualties one way or another. Though I came myself, I can no longer protect them.” He turned his back on Silverreach and started to walk away. “I should have gotten here months ago.”
Shera looked down on the town, still warm with the light of bonfires and humming with music. She didn't dare ask a question, not when she was getting what she wanted. No one would have to die tonight.
But, as always, Lucan needed answers. “What about the town?”
The Emperor responded while walking down the hill, forcing them to catch up. “If Ach’magut is stirring, we have time. Having him free is much better than any of the other Great Elders. He'll have to be put down at some point, of course, but he won't be finished with this world for another ten thousand years. Time means nothing to him, and he likes to deconstruct every speck of data.”
“But what about the town?” Lucan insisted.
“It was a mistake to come here,” the Emperor admitted. “I do make mistakes. Just because I can’t use the Optasia, I believed I had no choice but to do battle. But I now see that I was wrong. As soon as I heard the news, I should have accepted the death of this town.”
He reached his hand up to clutch at his chest, as though he were having a heart attack, but Shera knew better.
“My time is over,” he said, and there were unshed tears in his voice. “I can no longer protect my people.”
He walked back to the ship in silence, his executioners following.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We swear to place the lives of innocents above our own, to seek the good of the Order above glory, and to bring the light where it is darkest. We will live our lives as representatives of the Unknown God.
And to the Elders, those serpents and authors of darkness, we will show neither mercy nor compassion. To the servants of the void, we bring only death.
—The oath of the Luminian Knights
~~~
Hightower, the Luminian citadel, waited just outside the borders of the Capital. Shera and Ayana had to abandon their rooftops to follow Darius and his Pilgrim, for which Shera was grateful. Flitting from building to building was stealthy and mysterious, but walking was so much easier.
The Consultants stole a set of clothes as they were on their way out, easy as plucking an apple from a tree, but there were a few drawbacks. Namely, lack of selection. Ayana ended up with a white dress that did nothing to hide her six-inch bladed fingernails and highlighted her ghostly complexion. She had to steal a purse in which to conceal her hands, as though she were rummaging around for something, but she would have probably attracted less attention in her blacks.
And Shera walked along in a man's suit. She had raided a poor man's ragged wardrobe for a reason: because cheap clothes were typically looser-cut and easier to move around in. But apparently this dockworker had spent everything he owned on a respectable suit, as it was the only thing in his closet.
The suit didn't fit, and the shoes threatened to slip off with every step, so she was forced to limp down the road while squirming inside the jacket like a child at a funeral.
“I do believe we could have done better on the disguises,” Ayana said dryly, as a little girl scrambled out of their way so fast that she spilled a water bucket down the front of her dress.
“That sounds like Mason work.”
“You don’t look like a Mason, you look like a boy who doesn't know how to wear a suit.”
“Close enough,” Shera muttered, shoving her hands into the jacket pockets. “Why does anyone wear fancy clothes when they could wear something that fits?”
“Because they want to look refined.” Ayana looked like a corpse ready for burial. “And, by the way, refined individuals don't tend to use the word ‘fancy.’”
They walked along, attracting far more attention than they would have in their blacks, but at least no one recognized them as Consultants. “Sometimes boldness is the best disguise,” Zhen of the Masons had once told her.
He hadn't mentioned how embarrassing it was.
“I was surprised they called you in on this,” Shera said. “I thought I was getting a team.”
“The Luminians can provide auxiliary support in place of the Shepherds. They're not so bad at that. If it comes down to pruning unruly branches, you and I can hold our own.”
“That I'm not worried about.” Ayana had been Shera's instructor in the Gardeners, and Shera had no lack of confidence in her abilities. But the High Councilors had been the ones to send her on this mission, which meant that Yala was involved.
And it was difficult to imagine that Yala had intentionally done her the favor of partnering her with a friend. Were they expected to die here, or did Yala know something that Shera didn't?
“Have you offended the Council recently?” Shera asked.
Ayana glanced over at her, for a moment forgetting to conceal her hands, and a nearby woman spilled her groceries with a shriek. Ayana hurriedly stuffed her fingers back in her handbag. “Most of us are not in the habit of defying our supervisors. Did you imagine being paired with you was such a punishment?”
“If we're going to die in some ambush, then it is.” Shera didn't think it too likely that Yala had arranged a lethal surprise for them on the way, and if she had, it was probably aimed at Shera personally. The High Councilor had no grudge against Ayana.
But then again, paranoia was the best way to extend a Gardener's life.
Ayana laughed, a terrible sound like a spear scraping against gravel, and a trio of boys stopped playing and slid quietly back down the road. “If anyone is planning a betrayal, they shouldn't have involved the Luminians. They'll strike down anyone tainted by the Elders in a second, but an unstained human? We'll be better protected in Hightower than on the Island.”
Anyone tainted by the Elders.
On Shera's belt, under her jacket, Syphren seemed to stir. It wasn't whispering to h
er through Jorin's invested bandages, but she could still feel its presence. And she remembered its voice, so similar to the Heart of Nakothi.
If her Vessel didn't have a measure of power from an Elder or a Kameira, she wouldn't be a Soulbound. And she very much doubted her current abilities came from a Kameira.
~~~
Only a few miles later, they came to the gates of Hightower. The headquarters of the Luminian Order was famous the world over, though most people referred to it as sort of a fortified Guild chapter house. That was how Shera had pictured it, as a child in the Capital: like a version of the Consultant chapter house, only bigger and surrounded by a wall.
The reality had more in common with a dream.
Hightower's walls were built from huge bricks of gray-white stone, looming over the surrounding trees. Shera and Ayana saw them a mile down the road, standing fifty feet in the air. Banners hung from the walls and pennants fluttered from flagpoles on the parapets: red banners sporting a white sun.
Most of the buildings stood shorter than the walls, only visible through the wide-open gates. But one structure loomed over all the rest.
It began as a cathedral, like some of the other Luminian structures she'd seen. A confectionary building of high arches, pointed peaks, and plates of stained glass shimmering in the sun. The White Sun flew on red banners all over the building, but its most arresting feature was the tower that grew like a tree from the cathedral's foundation.
Made of weathered stone, the tower hung over the citadel like a sentry, topped with a glass orb bigger than a house. Arms of bronze surrounded the glass, holding the globe in place as it shone with a bright, pure light. This blazing white lantern cast its light over all of Hightower, a second sun for the Luminian Guild.