Apostate's Pilgrimage: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 3)

by L. W. Jacobs

  No.

  She could use this uai to break the stone apart and pull Tai out, or at least give him room to breathe. But Nauro had said the shamans had all failed to break the stone, no matter how much uai they used.

  No.

  What she needed was Avery’s resonance back—the mosstongue resonance to complete their harmony.

  Ella started. That was Avery’s resonance because he’d earned shamanic sight, the second level ability of any mosstongue. Which was why he’d given them all mosstongue revenants on the ship, so they could gain shamanic sight.

  She had a mosstongue revenant in her. She could use it to complete the harmony and save Tai if she did it fast.

  Ella stood, determination rising like a waystone in her heart. Good thing she knew about the harmonies. Good thing she’d overcome revenants before. Good thing she used to teach people how to overcome them. Because Tai had one lungful of air, or maybe a half now, for her to overcome hers and complete the harmony before he suffocated in there.

  60

  Someone would soften the stone. Tai told himself this as his lungs began to burn, as the warm darkness of the stone began to feel like a trap, as the current of uai leading to the spear changed from inviting to maddening. They would soften the stone. They had to.

  His chest heaved, but solid rock surrounded him. It felt like he’d lost the strength in his limbs, like he was the one frozen, not the stone. Tai lashed out with air, shoved with wafting, kicked and clawed in an animal upwelling of fear, but nothing worked. He was trapped.

  And dying. He knew that rationally even as the panicking animal mind in him took over, thrusting with his arms and legs, lungs hitching wildly against the stone.

  Mindsight—Tai struck out with mindsight, the endless power of the stone rushing through him. The garden and the old city spread out for him in the strange not-vision of mindsight. He threw himself into it, desperate for an escape from his panic, for some shred of hope outside. He saw the wicked blur of Aeyenor and Nauro’s thoughts, minds focused torrents of shamanic attacks and the stroke and counter-stroke of trained swordsmen. He felt Feynrick’s frustration, flush with strength and no one to fight, saw Marea’s panic and the calm slumber of Avery’s mind. So he was the one who’d fallen out—from Marea’s rushing stream he could see most of Avery’s leg was gone.

  Closest in he saw Ella’s thoughts, like the stormy confluence of two rivers, both flowing impossibly fast. His body convulsed again and he threw his mind deeper into mindsight, into the cool rationality it offered. She must be in slip, which meant she had good reason to do so, which meant she was probably trying to save him somehow.

  It also meant she was dying to do it.

  He could catch only bare glimpses of her thoughts rushing past, thoughts of old age and death and love and determination. The image of a woman looking like a scowling, thin-lipped Ella. Her mother.

  His body convulsed again, a dark halo beginning to close in on his sight. You can do it, Ella, he thought at her, knowing practiced mindseyes could send their thoughts out. And if you don’t, he thought, even the words beginning to grow hazy, I love you, anyway. I love you.

  His body convulsed. His lungs filled with fire. Mindsight narrowed to a single point, but in it he saw one of Ella’s two streams of thought suddenly end. And his next convulsion met not unyielding rock but buttery stone, limbs sloshing free.

  Tai wafted out with the last of his strength. His head and shoulders thrust from the stone near its top and he sucked lungfuls of air. He had never breathed anything sweeter, never seen a sweeter sight than the battle-scarred tableau of the garden and the furious light-drinking battle of two elder shamans in the sky beyond him. As he looked Aeyenor turned his direction, their eyes locking across the distance.

  “I heard you!” Ella screamed up at him, looking impossibly old. “Now go!”

  The spear. Right. Neither Ella nor Marea could waft, Avery was unconscious, and Nauro was losing ground in his flying sword fight. The spear would end all this.

  Tai took a last lungful of air and plunged in. The current spiralled downwards now. He wafted after it, letting it pull him along, spreading his arms out inside the stone to catch the spear if he passed nearby.

  A boom reverberated through the stone, and Tai had the distinct impression of waves in the stone current lapping over him, like someone splashing into a pool where he floated. It had to be Nauro or Aeyenor.

  A second boom sounded. Both of them, then. It changed nothing. Ancestors send Nauro could hold Aeyenor off long enough for Tai to take the spear.

  He increased his pace, breath beginning to burn in his lungs, body not fully recovered from being trapped inside but no time to take a break. Instead he used the massive power of the stone to push air in towards him, creating a tube out to the surface, and gulped lungfuls through that. Then let it melt away, closing his eyes and following the swirl of the current in his bones, in and up inside the dark stone.

  His hand brushed something solid, and he started. The spear! He twisted, wafted himself toward it, but found only stone.

  Then a pair of hands seized him and slung him outwards. Tai wafted against it on instinct, but the throw was so powerful he flew out of the stone.

  Aeyenor. It had to be. Tai flipped himself as he slowed, then shot feet-first for the place he’d come from, aiming to break something in Aeyenor’s body.

  And slipped through the stone like an arrow through ripe melon, coming out the far side.

  “Stains,” Tai cursed, and pushed himself back in. How had the shaman found him? Mindsight. He must be using mindsight.

  Tai struck his own, slipping into the stone. The world opened up again, Ella and Marea outside and the further-off minds of shamans spreading out against the pitch black of the stone. There was no one inside the stone. No—Nauro and Aeyenor were here, they were just blocking their thoughts.

  Of course. And here he was broadcasting his thoughts into the world. No wonder Aeyenor had found him. But if the shaman wasn’t attacking now, that meant he had something more important to do.

  Tai cursed internally, feeling for the current and wafting after. And he would be able to sense Tai coming just as easily, and Semeca had already shown him the hundred-mind defense they’d used on the streets wouldn’t stop a real shaman. Tai had no idea how to block him out.

  But he knew someone who did.

  Nauro, he thought, as though speaking to a revenant. Nauro, can you block my thoughts from him?

  I can try, came the man’s dry voice, as though he were whispering right in his ear. I…was wounded badly in the fight. I am trying to heal, but I may need to seek a new body.

  Just give me this, Tai thought, racing after the current as fast as he could follow it, bracing for the moment he felt something solid again, hoping it was the spear but ready for it to be Aeyenor. I will take him down.

  There is little you can do to each other in this place, Nauro’s voice came again. We are all equals in power here. You have to find the spear.

  The current banked left and Tai followed, then swooped down a long decline, like a waterfall in the current, rock curiously smooth as it rushed across his face. Was this even the right way to find the spear? The stone was so large, he knew he was missing sections of it. What if the spear was back there?

  Something solid again—a shred of cloth? Tai grasped it and pulled. A boot connected with his jaw.

  Something cracked. Pain blossomed and Tai swirled backward in the stone, blood metallic on his tongue. His jaw was broken—but he had the power of a god flooding through him. Power and belief. So he believed himself healed and in a shock of ice the pain was gone.

  Tai grinned. This changed everything.

  He shoved himself back toward where he thought the kick had come from and connected with something. A fist, an arm, a shoulder, kicking and flailing. Movement was awkward in the stone, like fighting underwater, but Aeyenor was incredibly strong. Another kick connected and Tai tumbled backward. He healed h
imself even as he spun, catching himself with a waft.

  In here we all share in the spear’s power, Nauro had said. Tai imagined himself an incredible brawler, like Sigwil had been on the day he overcame his revenant during a Broken attack, and suddenly his limbs were suffused with power.

  He shot himself back at Aeyenor, and for some unknown amount of time they grappled like gods, bodies twisting and gripping and punching and kicking, limbs breaking and reforming, the darkness a chaos of force and pain.

  Tai’s lungs burned. He tried believing himself full of air again, but apparently there were limits even to the stone’s power. Then Aeyenor got an arm around his throat and it was all he could do with wafting and punching the man repeatedly in the eyes to get away.

  As he did his hand touched something solid. Not fabric, not flesh, but smooth wood.

  61

  “Yes!” Tai roared, air bubbling from his lungs into the stone. He seized the spear.

  It pulled against him.

  Tai grabbed it with his other hand, adding the force of a waft to his pull. The spear pulled back harder, drawing him in.

  A hand brushed his along the spear and he understood: Aeyenor. That was the brush of fabric he felt. Likely the reason he’d run into him the other times. The man had followed him to the spear, and now he was trying to take it.

  Too bad for Aeyenor Tai grew up on the streets.

  Aeyenor jerked on the spear again, and this time instead of fighting him Tai wafted with the momentum, shooting past him in the hopes of ripping the spear from his hand.

  Instead Aeyenor mirrored the trick, doubling their momentum as he rushed past Tai. It was all Tai could do to hold on. He tried a chop then, risking a one-handed grip to slam his free hand down on the shaman’s with all the strength of the stone’s uai behind it.

  He felt bones break in both hands and jerked on the spear, but still the man’s grip held. “Give up,” he growled, precious air escaping his mouth.

  Air. It came down to air. Ice shot through Tai’s broken fingers even as a vicious kick broke his right kneecap, and Tai retaliated with a boot to the crotch. They could fight like this all day and the stone’s power would keep either from getting an advantage. But sooner or later, one of them would run out of air.

  Even as he thought it, Tai felt Aeyenor waft backward on the spear, trying to drag it toward the surface. Tai wafted the other direction, strengthening his grip and pushing all the uai he could muster into stopping Aeyenor. He kicked out, kneecap mended, sending a boot to the gut meant to knock Aeyenor’s wind out of him. Tai’s own lungs burned, but the longer they waited, the more chance Aeyenor would find some shamanic trick he didn’t know about and take the spear.

  Aeyenor pulled back just as hard and they slowed inside the stone, current swirling around the spear, power balanced equally between them. It would come down to who passed out first from lack of air.

  Then Tai had a thought. A mad, wild thought. He broke his mind into a hundred different voices, just in case Nauro’s shielding wouldn’t work.

  And dropped resonance.

  Instantly the soft stone around them turned to rock. A wave of panic rose in him, the animal memory of being trapped there. He shoved it down.

  Tai, Nauro’s voice came. What are you doing? You’ll die in there.

  Good, Tai thought back. Better that than Aeyenor get the spear. You know what to do.

  Don’t be stupid! the old shaman snapped. There must be some other way.

  Trust me, Tai thought back, a calm coming over him. I have a plan.

  A plan that might actually work.

  Tai felt a new resonance hum through the stone, Aeyenor striking a second resonance. The stone went soft, and Tai struck his own, wafting and pulling back.

  Nauro, he thought out. Drop your resonance.

  I can’t, the shaman thought back. I’ll be trapped in here.

  Then get out and do it. I can’t resist Aeyenor forever. Just keep my mind shielded. I have a plan.

  A moment later the stone hardened again. Tai’s lungs hitched, begging for air, but Aeyenor’s had to be even worse, with that kick to the stomach. How long before the man blacked out?

  A third resonance rolled off Aeyenor, tuned to Ella, Marea, and Feynrick below. The stone softened again. Tai struck wafting, making sure it was out of harmony with the shaman’s, and again resisted.

  Nauro, he thought out. Feynrick. Tell him to drop his resonance.

  Ancestors send Aeyenor couldn’t hold all six resonances at once. Was that even possible? Tai had held two before, and even that had been a challenge.

  The stone hardened. Tai’s lungs ached, but he took comfort in the strength of the resonance shaking him through the stone. Aeyenor was just as desperate, and he didn’t have a plan. Not one this good, anyway.

  A fourth resonance rolled from Aeyenor, and the stone softened again. Aeyenor pulled at the spear with desperate strength and Tai pulled back just as strongly, keeping them in the stone.

  Do it, he thought to the shaman on the other side of the spear. Let go. Fly out. Would you rather live or have the spear?

  Aeyenor didn’t let go. Tai’s vision was beginning to sparkle.

  Nauro, he said inside. Ella. Tell her to drop her resonances.

  She won’t do it, Nauro said after a pause. Neither of them will.

  Tell her to trust me, Tai thought back. I’m not dying in here.

  The stone began to harden. He struck his higher wafting and slammed a column of air into the rock.

  The stone hardened. Something like a scream sounded from a few feet away, where Aeyenor was trapped in the rock. And Tai took a deep breath of fresh air.

  “You meckstain!” Ella’s voice floated through the air channel he’d wafted in the rock. “You shattercocking, thrice-becursed meckstain!”

  Tai smiled, still gasping, lungs only able to fill so far against the rock trapping him. A thought hit him, a wild animal punch of fear from Aeyenor, desperation driving his thoughts even through Nauro’s shielding apparently. It didn’t matter. The man would harmonize all six resonances, or he would die.

  Tai took deep breaths, ready at any moment to strike and resist if Aeyenor managed it. Having no idea what he would do if it happened, but minute by minute his heart slowed, his breathing evened, and nothing came from the stone.

  Strange to think a man was dying somewhere next to him in the stone. A man who’d lived hundreds of years, if he’d heard right. For once Ydilwen had nothing to say about Aeyenor dying. Apparently even he agreed Aeyenor had to go.

  Ella says to ask if you are done being right yet, Nauro’s voice came in his mind.

  Tai grinned. Just about, he thought back. Give me a few more minutes to gloat.

  How long could someone survive without air? No sense in taking chances. Especially if Aeyenor knew some shamanic trick.

  The tube he’d punched through the soft stone was just wide enough that he could see a sliver of sky. The sun was sinking toward evening, light growing redder in the west.

  “Enough already!” Ella’s voice floated up from below, sounding desperate.

  Tai smiled. Okay, he thought at Nauro. Strike harmony once more, for old time’s sake?

  62

  You think they wasn’t doing something in there, asking us for volunteers what didn’t come back? You tell that to all the boys seen men fly up flamin’ and screamin’ from the tents. You tell that to ol Semeca and Tayo, what died when their little project went to shatters. Bad as the Achuri, if ye ask me.

  —Councilate legionnaire, Yatiport tavern

  Ella’s lover flew like a god from the face of the stone, massive two-bladed spear streaming red ribbons in his right hand. Her breath caught. Something in the heavy evening light, in the whip of his long black hair in the breeze, in the knowledge that spear was last held by the Prophet himself—it choked her up.

  He’d done it. No, they’d done it, together. She looked around her as Tai descended: Avery lay wounded but awake o
n the stones, Marea crouched concerned by his side, Nauro watched with an almost reverent expression, and Feynrick leaned on the haft of an axe, grinning proudly. Probably the world’s most unlikely team, but they had made it against all odds. Solved the mystery not even the best shamans could crack, and defeated them all.

  Tai touched down and she hobbled to him, circling her arms around his waist. Overcoming her revenant in slip had aged her even more, but she’d made peace with that. She knew why she did what she did. And she wouldn’t let anxiety about an early death or gods forbid worries about how she looked get in the way of enjoying what time she had left. That was her mother, not her.

  “Did you have to stay up there that long?” she asked, leaning in close. “Some of us are on a timeline here.”

  “My apologies,” he said, and leaned in for a kiss. Uai thrummed through her at his touch, his body become like the stone was, a raging current of power. She reveled in it, reveled in the strength of his arms around her, in the knowledge that they were making history. She could die tomorrow, or today even. Better that than a long life without really living.

  A slap sounded, and Tai’s teeth hit painfully into hers. “You did it!” Feynrick cried. “Always knew ye had it in ye, milkweed. Though ye might have given me one good swing at him.”

  Tai cocked his head. “We could probably pull him out of there, if you really want to.”

  Feynrick blanched. “No need for that. We’ll find more! Whole city of shamans out there, ain’t there?”

  “Shamans without power,” Nauro said, limping up to them. “Now that Tai has the spear, all the power they gathered goes back to him. They’ll be no threat.”

  Nauro’s face still looked drawn, but nothing like it had when he tumbled from the stone. He’d given everything he had to the battle with Aeyenor. Just as he had in the battle against Ollen while she and the rest of them escaped. Shatters, he’d died in that battle.