by Tammy Salyer
Chapter Nine
Halla rose over the chamber atop Mount Omina as Havelock Rekkr finished describing the events that Eisa was sure would come to be known in heroic terms as something like The Great Salvation of Vinnr or The Days of Vaka Aster’s Blessing. Commoners enjoyed their overblown descriptions of events, even those bordering on the mundane. But the truth, as Eisa could discern it from what she’d seen and what the Wing had explained, was simple: Vaka Aster had found a new vessel. Those who’d been taken captive aboard Balavad’s great warship had seen her appear and defeat the usurper, thus ending his designs of ruling Vinnr for himself. Then they’d all been delivered to Mount Omina through the wystic starpath, something none of them fully understood. As far as the Ivoryssians and Yorish were concerned, they were saved by their maker and all would be well again.
Upon questioning him, Eisa also learned that the Knights had been seen amid the fight on the warship and had also been returned to Mount Omina. All of the commoners had disembarked for home before them. Had anyone seen the new vessel? The Wing thought not. It was assumed the Knights protected whoever it was inside the mountain sanctuary.
It was all so convenient, Eisa thought, but she could find no reason to believe his story was untrue, even if it wasn’t the full story. The commoners lives, and the fact that Vaka Aster had saved them, Eisa guessed, were simply a byproduct of the whole affair. Commoners did like to think they were special somehow, but once one lived as long as Eisa had, one came to realize that few things were special—or even mattered at all. Time passed, Verities created and destroyed, and all the little, pointless lives that flowed in between these two intractable pillars were happenstance at best.
But she didn’t say any of this to Havelock, though it wasn’t hard to imagine how he might respond. How could a Dyrrak, someone who claimed to be among the worthiest and most faithful of Vaka Aster’s people, have such a bleak perspective about their maker? The answer was simple. A Verity was the greatest of all things. What choice did one have in the face of such greatness but to submit to it and be honest about one’s own worth? Imagining Vaka Aster, or any of the Verities, as compassionate beings who cared for their creations was as foolish as it was absurd. If you didn’t understand that and lived your life expecting something from Vaka Aster—compassion, mercy, anything—just because her celestial kind brought you into existence, you were destined for nothing but misery. One’s role as a selfless servant to the Verities was the only honest role one could play in these worlds.
Eisa had taken a seat on the dais to listen to Havelock’s tale. She now stood, wiped a bit of dirt from the blade of her glaive, and stepped to the storage chest where the Knights kept a few wystic implements. She needed to replace her Mentalios with a spare and get back to Vigil Tower now that she knew it was safe.
Aside from some books and a few mechanical and crystal odds and ends Ulfric frequently tinkered with, the chest was empty. Fickle fate, Eisa thought, realizing she would have to pursue other options for returning to Asteryss. She turned to the commoner. “Where is your Wing scout, pilot?”
Havelock, blood dried on his face from a cut to his cheek and beginning to show wear after his long night under scrutiny, asked coolly, “Why?”
She glanced at him, surprised at the challenge in his tone. “Why? Can’t you see? You’ve broken my Mentalios lens and left me without the ability to open the interrealm well. It’s time I return to Vigil Tower with haste. So I’ll be taking your craft.” At his scowl, she couldn’t help but taunt him further. “But don’t worry. You won’t be derelict of your duty. You’ll still be here, guarding the starpath.” She wanted to laugh at the self-deceit of the Ivoryssians to think they could mount any kind of resistance if another foreign force came through the well. Hadn’t they learned anything the first time?
“I’m not guarding it. I’m watching it. And I need my scout to report back to Asteryss if anything comes through again.”
She grew serious. “Take me to the scout, right now, or I’ll find it myself and you’ll be reporting the loss of your eyes next time you see Asteryss.”
Jaw tight with resignation, he rose from where he’d been sitting against the wall. He grumbled something that, though she couldn’t make out the words, definitely did not sound like, “It would be my pleasure to assist you, Knight Nazaria.”
Before she could question him, he said, “Follow me,” and paced toward the outer chamber and exit of the mountain sanctuary.
In Halla’s full light, the mountain’s face looked far less forbidding. Though the avalanche’s path was still clear, many of the high peak’s larger rock promontories hadn’t been disturbed, and snow still lay in blankets around the dome. Enough of it remained that she could trace Havelock’s footsteps from the night before, which appeared to come from the same direction as her own.
They moved downhill, passing the hillock her ship had come to rest behind. “Landed” would be too polite a term for it. One of its wings had come loose and now lay beside it in the dirt, and the landing gear looked warped and unreliable. Havelock glanced at it but didn’t ask questions.
When they found his scout a little farther down the mountain, Eisa could see its condition was almost as rough as her own scout’s. The metal fuselage bore scrapes and gouges, some blackened as if hit with something burning, and there were visible nicks on all four of the wings, along with cracks in the cockpit windscreen.
When he stopped walking and turned to her, she asked, “You flew that here? Did you expect to arrive in one piece?”
“All the fleet has damage. We barely have two dozen scouts that are still flightworthy,” he said simply. Then added, “You’re welcome to walk if it suits you better.”
“Don’t push me, commoner,” she warned.
“Right, or you’ll have my eyes.”
She approached the damaged ship. She knew how to fly it, of course, as the dragørfly scouts belonging to the Dragør Wing Marines of Ivoryss were modeled after the Knights’ own design. But when she got the windscreen pushed open, she found herself glancing back to the commoner. “When does your relief arrive?”
“Two days.”
“And you’re provisioned accordingly?” She caught the slight widening of his eyes at her apparent concern as he nodded. “Then fare you well,” she finished and climbed inside.
Charging the engine by a hand crank would take a few moments, but she could tell in just a few turns that something was wrong. The gears clanked and thudded against each other in a haphazard way, and she detected no hum as the energy center accumulated power. “Slagging bastirt,” she murmured after giving it far more time than was needed to know the ship was going nowhere. She slammed the windscreen open again and jumped out.
“Lying to me was a monumentally stupid thing to do, commoner. And now it looks like I’ll have no further use for you.” Her hand went to her dagger hilt as she approached him, ready to ensure he never tried a silly ruse to waste her or any other Knight’s time again.
He backed up a step and held out one hand. “Wait! I told you it was damaged. I figured it would give in sooner or later. It’s not my fault it was sooner. Obviously I didn’t know it was grounded permanently.”
She eyed him, not sure herself whether she’d really meant to harm him or just scare him. “Obviously,” she said flatly. “But you have ensured your relief won’t find me in such a reasonable mood.”
Bringing his hand to scratch the scruff on his chin, he thought a moment. “Perhaps we can fix it.” She followed his eyes as they tracked back toward her own dragørfly scout. “Between yours and mine, we may have all the parts we need.”
“How long?” she asked.
“How long…?”
“How long will it take you to fix it?”
He gazed toward Halla and then around the mountain. “With your help, we could be flightworthy by late tonight, I’d guess. Tomorrow at the latest.”
Eisa considered. It was get this craft back in the air or wait for two d
ays before another Ivoryssian arrived. If everything in the commoner’s story was true, and she had no reason to believe he’d lied, the Knights were safe. The Stallari, by some unimaginable twist of fickle fate, had been found, and it seemed the world was clear of Balavad and his Raveners. She had no reason to go to Dyrrakium now, other than perhaps to inform the Domine Ecclesium that the threat had ended. Therefore, the only imperative she had was to reunite with her Order and resume her duties as protector of the celestial vessel. Explaining herself to her companions wouldn’t be easy, but what did she care what they thought of her actions? She’d done what she thought was necessary, as was the Knights’ duty.
She looked back at Havelock. “All right then. Tomorrow at the latest, or—”
“Yes, I know.” He sighed.
Chapter Ten
A day and night had passed as the Knights discussed plans and options for seeking out Eisa and Vaka Aster’s Scrylle. The discussion had come to two options. One, wait at Vigil Tower and hope she came to them. Or two, start their search in her ancestral home, the one other place in Vinnr she had threads of allegiance. Dyrrakium.
Ulfric had finally sent his companions away for a while. The discussion had strained all of them, both from not knowing where to start and from not knowing Eisa’s intentions. He was starting to lose his grip on his agitation and needed time to think before he began raving with anger, grief, and fear.
The training yard where he’d spent untold hours had always been as much a place to perfect his fighting skills as it was a place to get his mind clear. As Jaemus and Stave left, he took a breath and approached the yard’s first pillar.
Forgoing armor, shield, and helmet, he pulled free his klinkí stones, preferring the lightness and lack of being inhibited by the defensive uniform. Simple objects composed of celestial elements, just as the Scrylle and Fenestrii were, the klinkí stones were no bigger than a thumb knuckle. In the light captured from Halla and reflected down to the courtyard between the lofty walls of the Vigil Tower fortress, they looked like radiant ingots of lead in his palm with Elder Veros runes etched along their sides. Yet once he whispered the words of power through his Mentalios, their hearts flared with a cerulean glow, and they became not stones but weapons—or armor or a shield or any number of other uses the Knights could make of them. The true gift of the klinkí stones was more than their form, it was the wystic core of power that came from the Knights themselves, extensions of the celestial spark gifted to them by Vaka Aster.
Gifted, Ulfric thought, bending his knees into a fighting stance and sending the stones floating lazily toward the first pillar, erected in the courtyard for this purpose. The drumming the stones made against the hollow metal tube sent a resonate doon…doon…doon echoing across the yard. What kind of gift makes the receiver wish they’d never laid eyes on the giver? Our duty is to Vaka Aster, but the ends are not to “save” a celestial being. Their nature is eternal; it’s ridiculous to think we affect that. The ends are to ensure continuity of the world and all the people in it. We Knights protect not our maker. Rather, we protect this world.
And these celestial “gifts” have become too much of a burden of late.
He flicked the recovered stones harder and faster this time, first into the original pillar, then into a wider one farther away, creating a louder doon-doon-doon…dun-dun-dun echo, then summoned them back to his palm.
The spark within me is Vaka Aster’s gift to me, and it isn’t in my nature as only a tiny part of the greater Syzyckí Elementum to understand the full meaning of it. But a gift received becomes a gift that can again be given, and I can still position myself to aid Symvalline and Isemay. If I cannot serve both my Verity and my family, my family is who I choose.
But if I cannot serve both Vinnr and my family, am I ready to sacrifice an entire world? Vaka Aster was. Why shouldn’t I?
Recovering the stones, he grew still, staring off into the distance, but unseeing. He wasn’t ready to know the answer to that. He knew Symvalline would tell him not to be a fool, that her life wasn’t worth the whole of Vinnr. But he suspected she’d stumble over making the same claim of Isemay’s life. Was there no correct course of action to take?
From the south side of the courtyard, seventy paces distant, he heard the rhythmic sound of a hammer on metal. Stave in the smithy, beating out what was undoubtedly a new weapon, just another to add to the hundreds already stockpiled within these walls. The Knights could arm every man and woman in Asteryss with the volume of weaponry they’d amassed over hundreds and hundreds of turns. Stave, a blacksmith by trade before Knighthood, found contentment and escape in his old profession as much as Ulfric did when creating music through martial dances with klinkí stones.
He resumed. Until his family was safe, he would not find a lasting peace, so he would create a momentary one through this comforting exercise.
Eyeing the nine variably sized pillars interspersed throughout the training yard—though he didn’t need to; by now, Ulfric could toss a stone from anywhere in the yard in his sleep and hit every pillar—he committed to the old movements.
To anyone but a Knight, the discipline of the Singing Pillars might have seemed an elaborate dance of enviable grace and flickering lights. But all the Knights knew the steps as well as Ulfric did. The ancient training sequence was meant to be practiced and practiced and practiced again until even a Knight’s fleshless bones could perform it if they had to.
Mastering the steps required more turns than most commoners lived, but the result was part of what made the Knights so indomitable. Just one of their Order could fend off dozens of foes with nothing but a handful of wystic klinkí stones. The melodic pillars served as targets, and if the practitioner’s steps were timed and followed perfectly, the sounds they made created a vibrating hum that seeped into the fortress’s walls, as well as into the flesh and mind of the Knight, imbuing him or her with a sense of harmony, of calm. Two things Ulfric needed desperately.
As he practiced, Ulfric’s worries gave way to deeper senses, ones that perceived things from a distance and granted his thoughts a wider, greater clarity.
Symvalline is among the most capable of the Knights I’ve ever known, a fighter, but even more, a tactician. Whatever’s become of her in Arc Rheunos, she’s strong enough to handle it. And Crumb said she’s being aided by someone there. She is safe…
Regardless, two people, two foreigners in a foreign realm that’s already been corrupted by Balavad won’t be able to stand against threats alone. Not for long. I will send Safran and Stave. Together, they have more wits and strength than a hundred people.
He listened to the drumming of the pillars, punctuated regularly by Stave’s hammer, and spun his body, moved his feet, flung his stones. His breathing barely sped up, and his heart beat strongly and evenly. The nature of a Knight, he mused, is not all that different from the nature of a Verity. We are a duality. As Verities are divided by attachments to their corporal and incorporeal selves, we are divided by allegiances to both our maker and our world. And to those we love.
Safran, Stave, Mallich—they love Symvalline too, as a friend, and as a sister in the Order, as their own family. As did Mylla. They must leave for Arc Rheunos soon, but how can the starpath be opened?
But that answer was easy. Vaka Aster. Ulfric had no choice but to try to recall her, to beg for her aid. Not even his pride, not even his unwillingness to be used as her puppet would dissuade him now.
“Thoa’s aufaorrfaro.”
Jaemus’s voice cut through his meditation. Coming to a halt, he gathered his stones to hover over his open palm and turned to face the entry arch where Jaemus stood. Though, he admitted, the interruption was welcome. It was time to take his mind off his lost loves. He knew what he had to do.
The Himmingazian had spoken in his own language. Though Vaka Aster had given Ulfric the ability to understand Himm, he hadn’t used it in days and wasn’t immediately sure what Jaemus had said. The naked wonder in the engineer’s expression
was enough to give him a hint, however.
“What was that?” Ulfric asked.
“Oh, sorry. Slipped into Himm. Not surprising, given that I am, in fact, from Himmingaze. Which is the reason I’m here, conveniently enough. But also let me just repeat: what you were doing just now was amazing. Simply amazing. Do you have any idea how quickly you were moving? It was almost like watching a water spout spinning. And the sounds—glorious! They could probably hear it halfway up the towers.”
Jaemus had a tendency to prattle, not a habit shared by any of the Knights, who most often channeled their thoughts directly and succinctly through their Mentalioses. It was even unlike the acolytes of the Conservatum, who were trained to revere the Knights as teachers whose time was valuable and not to be squandered with idle or superfluous talk. Ulfric hadn’t spent more than a few moments among anyone besides the Knights and acolytes in many turns. Thus Jaemus’s long-windedness tended to alternately fill him with an expectation that some news of great importance would soon be imparted or, when none was, confuse him as he parsed through meaningless chaff to get to the man’s verbal wheat.
“You want to discuss Himmingaze?” Ulfric posed.
“Indeed. Well, more or less. You see, my crew and I are feeling a bit, how do I put it, confined, I suppose, and would like to know when we can go home. Himmingaze, home.”
“Why? It remains unsafe there,” Ulfric replied. “The Glister Cloud has left your world close to its end.” Did he need to state the obvious? The ’Gazian was much smarter than that.
Jaemus rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his fingers tracing the raised edges of a nine-pointed star there as if he were discovering a new and surprising feature. “Neither, according to all of you, is it entirely safe here. Which leaves the Himmingazians where, exactly?”
Ah, now he understood, and when put that way, it seemed obvious enough. “You wish to speak to Vaka Aster and ask to be sent back to your realm. Perhaps even request she intercede on Himmingaze’s behalf?” Maybe he was putting thoughts into Jaemus’s mind now, but it seemed quicker than waiting until he presented them himself.