Of Sea and Shadow (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 1)

by Will Wight

  So she would count to five hundred, slowly. It would take Calder at least that long to get back to his ship, even if he headed straight there, and she was sure he would waste time looking for the Heart.

  If the signal didn’t come before she was done counting, she was sending the summons anyway.

  It was past time that she checked out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  When the whispered song of the Heart led Naberius to an abandoned meadow, he wondered if he’d misheard. There was nothing here but grass, flowers, and boulders that littered the meadow as though they’d been scattered by a giant child playing with a handful of marbles.

  He stood there for over fifteen minutes, waiting by the boulder and listening to the reassuring sound of the Heart’s whispers, before he noticed the battle.

  A black-clad shape darted from one boulder to another, holding a steel blade in its hand.

  He moved to investigate, then he saw a fleeing figure carrying a bronze knife. Shera.

  She disappeared behind a tree, and he heard nothing. Maybe the occasional scuffle, but no clang of metal on metal, no grunt as of a man suffering a stab wound. He hurried over, checking behind the tree, and saw nothing but a few broken branches on a bush.

  Maybe they had moved on…

  Stay, stay, stay and be reborn, the song crooned.

  So he stayed where he was. Only a moment later, a box tumbled out from between two boulders. Blood had splattered one corner of the box, and it was open slightly.

  The song leaked from within.

  A joyous smile spread over Naberius’ face, and he reached into the box, cradling the Heart like an infant.

  Run, said Nakothi’s Heart. While you sing back to me, run.

  He stumbled through the undergrowth, focusing all his attention on the Heart in his hands. Trying to get the barest sliver of a grasp on its infinite, ancient Intent. It was made for a purpose far beyond anything he could comprehend, but he had to understand at least a fraction of its significance.

  Otherwise, it would never Awaken.

  ~~~

  Calder emerged from the concealed tunnel entrance leading to the dungeons, stalking his way through the forest with Andel and Foster behind him. He couldn’t seem to think straight anymore. Now, all he wanted to do was leave—he’d found out about Jerri, and Naberius had run off. Far from worrying, he was relieved; now that the Chronicler was gone, someone else could deal with him. Maybe the Consultants would kill him, maybe he would escape, but it didn’t much matter.

  The Heart was important. To the world, and to Calder’s future. Anyone who held it could make a case for the Emperor’s throne, and thus get in Calder’s way—he couldn’t live in a world with a second Emperor just like the first. He wouldn’t do it. He would change the Empire first.

  But he was having trouble remembering why that mattered.

  “Which way to the coast?” he asked. The gray horizon, swallowed up by that intimidating wall of fog, kept him from getting his bearings.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Foster grumbled. “I’ve got no idea where we are.”

  The instant Calder had stepped off his ship, he’d left orders for the Lyathatan to take the ship around to the back of the island. He had a feeling that they’d be making a hurried exit, and Urzaia had tracked his Consultant target to the far side, away from the docks. The plan had been to hurry and reunite with him after meeting with the Guild representatives.

  Calder knelt and placed a hand against the ground.

  “You think that rock has relevant information, sir?” Andel asked. On the surface, his tone was completely respectful.

  There was no Intent invested in this rock whatsoever. It was as if no living humans had ever come this way. But Calder hadn’t expected anything else. He broadened his senses, reaching from the stone to the island as a whole, Reading the aura of the Gray Island.

  The technique was of limited use, under normal circumstances. He couldn’t get any detailed visions from an object that large, and he certainly couldn’t invest any Intent into everything on the island. Reading such a broad area was like listening to a crowd of a thousand people all whispering their stories at once.

  But among those whispers, there were a few screams.

  Calder focused his attention on one such point of intense significance. “Join with me,” Naberius whispers. “Tell me your secrets.” With power like this he will be immortal—he will be unstoppable. He will be able to end all the fighting, on the island and in the entire world, and create a perfect utopia designed just so. And overlaid over Naberius, a second voice, chanting to an unheard rhythm. Rebirth, rebirth, join and be remade.

  The thoughts held the same icy, nauseating, unspeakably old feel that he’d come to recognize as the signature of the Dead Mother. The Heart of Nakothi was in Naberius’ possession.

  But that wasn’t the only significant event on the island. In the distance, close to where The Testament should soon be making landfall, a building filled with ancient purpose waited underground. In that arena, two figures did battle.

  One was Urzaia Woodsman, drawing on the strength of a Sandborn Hydra and carrying two hatchets that yearned to split his enemies in half. His Intent felt like a collapsing mountain: heavy, inevitable, and overwhelming. Calder couldn’t imagine him losing.

  But his opponent…Calder didn’t believe what he felt from her. She was a killer, no doubt, but she wasn’t alone in her body. Where Urzaia was drawing on the power of a single Kameira through his Vessel, she was bursting with the fury of a dozen beasts. Strong wills tore at her muscles, pressed against the inside of her skin, and shredded her from the inside. The Kameira within her seemed to fight each other as much as they fought Urzaia.

  Just from what he was feeling now, he couldn’t understand why Urzaia’s enemy hadn’t torn herself apart. She seemed to be restraining all of those Kameira with nothing more than the sheer force of her will.

  And if she ever succeeded into focusing that power into a single direction, even a Soulbound wouldn’t stand a chance.

  So Calder had to go help him.

  Just as Calder was going to break off the trance and end the Reading, he caught a third shout among the crowd. Something was beginning.

  Close, only a hundred yards behind Calder and a little below, the Consultant prisoner was bending over a bronze blade. The weapon’s lifetime stretches back through the entire history of the Empire. There is no life it can’t take, no power it can’t steal, no defense it can’t break. And even among others of its kind, this blade is unique. It has harvested lives of unimaginable significance, unfathomable depth...and Lucan needs it to do so again. He begs for every shred of power the blade can offer him.

  To protect Shera, he needs this knife to Awaken.

  The trance broken, Calder snapped back to himself, staring up at Foster and Andel. The two of them looked away from him, weapons drawn, keeping an eye on the clearing while he gathered information.

  As much information as he had managed to gather, anyway. Now he was torn. Naberius seemed to think that he could take control of the entire Gray Island if he succeeded in bonding with Nakothi’s Heart. Calder believed him. If the Heart gave the Chronicler any fraction of the Emperor’s power, even the Imperial crown couldn’t stand against him.

  But that was only if Naberius could Awaken it. Usually, Awakening an object took time and strength in conjunction with the object’s power of Intent. Anything as significant as a Great Elder’s heart should take months to Awaken and years to bond with. There was always the possibility that Nakothi herself was helping Naberius along, and Calder had no idea what she was capable of. Still, he had more urgent threats than Naberius.

  The blade behind him, for instance, was beginning to feel very dangerous.

  Calder wasn’t sure what had changed to give Lucan the prisoner access to a Consultant’s blade, and if he had access to a weapon, why hadn’t he broken free? Especially as a Reader. There was something about that situation t
hat Calder didn’t understand, and that scared him.

  On top of his own unease, Lucan seemed to think that he was on the verge of Awakening a deadly and powerful weapon, which he intended to pass on to Shera. If Calder could stop that, he wanted to. And he was closer to Lucan than to either of the other two.

  “When in doubt,” Sadesthenes said, “seek first to preserve life.”

  That wasn’t Calder’s favorite quote, but it seemed appropriate here. Rather than trying to pin down Naberius or killing Lucan, supporting his crewman came first. Especially when it might result in a dead Consultant assassin.

  Calder stood, adjusting his crown. “Follow me. We’re heading for Urzaia.”

  Foster joined him without complaint, but Andel turned and swept his hat on his head, bowing to the spot where Calder had just knelt.

  “Thank you for the intelligence, rock. We are in your debt.”

  “Shut up and follow me.”

  Maybe he could arrange a way to leave Andel on the island filled with angry Consultants. It was worth considering.

  ~~~

  Four hundred and sixty-eight.

  Jerri thought someone had returned to Lucan’s cell, after which she heard the edges of a whispered conversation. However, when she asked him about it, he had denied receiving any visitors since Calder.

  In the moment, she decided to believe him. It didn’t affect her anyway; she had more important things to worry about.

  For instance, she could once again feel the power of Nakothi in the air.

  The voice of the Great Elder, a voice she had learned to recognize since childhood, was screaming at her now to prostrate herself in the presence of superior power. It wanted to rebuild her, to remake her body so that she would be more acceptable to the Dead Mother. It was clearly the will of Nakothi, which meant that either the Heart was getting closer, or someone was trying to bring out its power.

  She pulled the band of iron off of her arm, focusing on it. The Sleepless cabal had instructed her to use the object only when she felt the power of Nakothi wax.

  Was this it? It was certainly getting stronger. Maybe she should have used it earlier. Or maybe this was one of those signals that she would know without a doubt as soon as she heard it.

  Four hundred and seventy-five.

  After only a moment of thought, Jerri grew frustrated at her own indecision. This wasn’t like her. She didn’t swing between possibilities like a broken weathervane, waiting until time made the decision for her.

  Five hundred.

  Suddenly resolute, Jerri sat down on her cot with her back against the wall, crossing her legs. She placed the iron band in her lap, with one hand on either side.

  And closing her eyes, she focused her Intent. She had used lesser summoning objects like this three times before, and none of them had been exactly alike. But she began the ritual she had been taught as a little girl.

  “I who remain awake must call to those in the dream. My power is lacking, and my wisdom is dim. In ignorance, I seek your light. In weakness, I seek your aid.”

  She waited a few seconds before continuing. The full sequence took about three minutes to successfully complete, and she would need to repeat it until it worked. Sometimes the Elderspawn would arrive halfway through the first sequence, and other times it waited for three or four repetitions. She knew neither rhyme nor reason to the actions of the Elders.

  As she sat and chanted, she clung to one thought.

  I wasn’t at fault, Calder. I was right, and in time I can prove it.

  Just wait for me.

  ~~~

  Calder stood inside what seemed to be a hollow boulder, waiting for another controlled Consultant to show him the secret entrance to the arena. He knew that the structure waited beneath his feet—he could feel its heavy Intent without making a particular effort. And the whole area shook as if under heavy blows: evidence of the battle going on underneath them.

  He, Foster, and Andel had wasted several minutes examining the interior of the giant boulder, finding nothing, before it occurred to Calder to shout for help. Driven by the power of the crown, the nearest Consultant had stumbled out of the underbrush and begged to help.

  “Get ready,” Calder said, hefting his pistol. “Urzaia’s inside.”

  The boulder shook around them, dust drifting down from the stone ceiling high overhead.

  Foster looked up at the shaking rock and snorted. “Oh, really? How could you tell?”

  “Keen intuition and instinct.”

  A roar echoed from somewhere under them.

  “I don’t know where we’d be without your insight, Captain,” Andel said.

  At last, the Consultant finally located the secret door, tracing its outlines in the cracks of the boulder’s rough wall. “Here it is. But the lock should be—”

  He pushed lightly on it, and the door swung open.

  “It seems that we wasted our time looking for a hidden entrance,” Andel pointed out. “We should have just pushed on the rock.”

  “I’ll be sure to try that next time, Andel,” Calder said. “But until then...”

  He motioned to the Consultant, and Foster bound and gagged him in a few brief, skilled motions. From the fact that none of the other crown-ordered Consultants had returned, Calder gathered that the artifact’s effect didn’t last terribly long once he was out of sight.

  Rather than a hallway, this secret entrance led down a ladder on the wall of a shaft that reminded him of a vertical sewer pipe. Foster didn’t seem to mind, but it was Andel’s turn to complain, grumbling about the slick walls ruining his white suit.

  From all round them, the sounds of battle echoed, as though they had been stuck inside a drum.

  When they reached the bottom of the shaft, they stood on a ledge at the top of a tall staircase, looking out over a vast chamber. It looked as though someone had taken one of the great arenas of Izyria, made to seat twenty or thirty thousand people, and transplanted it here, underneath the Gray Island. Calder briefly wondered how the island itself stayed together, if its underbelly was made of such hollow chambers.

  The center of the arena was hardly the wide, sand-filled pit in which Calder had once found Urzaia. It looked like a maze—he was too far to make out details, but boxes and low walls and spiked poles littered the arena floor, arranged in a particular order that was lost on him.

  Of course, it would have been easier to identify the pattern if half of the obstacles weren’t in ruins.

  As he watched, Urzaia swung a hatchet in an arc that sliced a pole in half. The blond Consultant vaulted over the attack, swinging a midair kick at the side of Urzaia’s head. He blocked with his hide-wrapped forearm, sending up a crack that echoed all the way to Calder. Then he gathered his strength, driving his fist toward the Consultant.

  She managed to duck the strike, leaving his punch to hit solid stone.

  The low wall cracked, shaking the entire arena.

  “Praise the Unknown God that we’re here to help him,” Andel said drily. “Quick, let’s go rescue him from his mortal danger.”

  True, it didn’t seem that Urzaia was in too much trouble. But the details from Calder’s vision still troubled him.

  His cook was fighting with the power of a single Kameira, focused into his Soulbound Vessel. His opponent, on the other hand, fought alongside an army. And she didn’t feel like a Soulbound at all; somehow, she contained all that potential inside a single human body.

  If she pulled herself together...well, better to be safe. Urzaia wouldn’t like it, but Calder was not above shooting a woman in the back.

  One of Yenzir’s most famous quotes: “While Honor has never won a single battle, Deceit wins wars.”

  Calder placed his foot on the top of the staircase, and the world vanished. He found himself dragged into a Reader’s trance like a leaf sucked into a tornado.

  Naberius runs through the island, clutching the oozing, gray-green heart to his chest. Its beat has grown stronger with time, pulsing
in rhythm with his own. It is almost bound to him, closer than his own limbs. Now the song guides him. He needs to stand in the right place, at the right time, to finish Nakothi’s song. He spies a huge boulder—one that Calder knows to be hollow. There. Just beyond that boulder is a place.

  “Here,” the Heart cries. “Here you will be remade.”

  Above him, Calder felt the power of the Dead Mother, blazing cold like the fire of a dead star. But his vision did not yet return.

  Lucan crouches in his cell, the bronze knife actually floating in the air in front of him. Sweat runs down his face, but he can’t stop now. He finally realizes that he’s been preparing for this moment for years. Everything he has done for Shera, everything that the two have shared, all of it has brought him to this moment. He shares a connection to this blade almost as deep as to his own.

  The pit is ready. The wood has been prepared. All it needs is a single spark to burst into flame.

  Calder still couldn’t see the world around him, but he managed to speak. “Andel. Foster. I was wrong. We need to leave.”

  They may have responded, but he couldn’t tell. His senses were swallowed up once again.

  “I will be reborn. I will remake this world. I will give my life, and will receive life anew.” With a great effort, Naberius brings all his Intent to bear on the Heart of Nakothi, striking a final, heavy hammer-blow.

  In his cell, Lucan feels the life of the dagger taking shape, the fire beginning to flicker to life. Wisps of pale green light float around the blade, drifting like ghosts. “You are the taker of lives, the thief of secrets. You are that which turns power against power. You are the death of the powerful.”

  At the same instant, Calder saw a new vision. Just a flash of something he hadn’t sensed before.

  Jyrine sits in her own cell, only yards from Lucan. She holds in her hands a blighted circle of darkness, a twisted tool that seems to scream with anguish. But this scream will not bring aid; it is the squeal of prey that lures a predator.