by Pearl North
He hadn’t really believed it was true, but Tala and the boy had. Why had he been spared to witness the Redemption when they, who believed, had died? They were his past and his future and they were gone now.
Nothing could take away his sorrow. If anything, the beauty of the Song only made him feel it more deeply, and to feel also the loss of all the others whose loved ones had perished in the battle. This was not like the previous year, when his prize cow had been lost to the disease of his neighbor’s herd and he had wanted to go over there and kill Gormak’s bull. Tala had barely been able to stop him.
No. He could not even contemplate revenge for the deaths of his wife and child, because all that would bring was more death, more loss, more heartache. No. He wanted to make sure no one ever lost another loved one to violence. No Ayorite, no Singer, no Ilysian, no Libyrarian.
This was what Tala had tried to tell him about the Song, but he hadn’t listened. The Song united all as one. His sorrow was the world’s sorrow. He did not have to bear it alone.
Ock crawled out from beneath the wagon and stood. He lifted his hands to the swirling sky and raised his voice in Song, tears of grief mingling with those of gratitude that he had the opportunity now to do differently. That they all did. They could all work together to make sure that nothing like this ever happened again.
He watched as the snakes in the sky grew brighter and brighter and twisted faster and faster and then, just when he thought the beauty of it would blind him, they all shot down into the ground. One landed very near him and he felt the earth vibrate with its passing. Then he heard a voice say, “And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
The Holy Ones
Iam grateful to God for this gift.”
The words were Anne Frank’s, but Haly felt as if they could be her own. She was grateful. Looking down upon what had been a battlefield, where now former enemies embraced, she was grateful for the Redemption, and that meant being grateful that she was the way she was. Her ability to hear the voices of the books, the gift that she had so long cursed and hidden, was a blessing, and she cherished it.
But that ability had changed. With the Libyrinth powered up, she heard all the voices together in Song. It thrummed through her like her own heartbeat, and like her own heartbeat it faded into the background. The voices no longer intruded upon her thoughts, but she could concentrate, and hear them, and ask for one in particular to speak to her when she wished it.
Through her connection to the Libyrinth, Haly understood that for a moment everyone had been as she was, and each person had heard the book they most needed to know. That had been Clauda’s idea, and Haly had felt her having it, up there in her golden flying machine. Haly scanned the sky and for a moment her heart lurched, for she did not see Clauda’s crescent ship. But there, on the ground just before the gates, it rested. Haly ran to the stairs, suddenly overwhelmed by the need to see her old friend again.
When she got to the main hall, it was to discover yet another miracle. A part of the console had lifted up to reveal a face, just as had happened in the vault. Libyrarians ran from the console to the shelves—the shelves that were moving.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Haly?” enthused Noil, running from shelf to shelf, his arms full of books. “We can find anything now! Anything at all!”
“Except for The Book of the Night,” said Peliac, whose stack of books was even taller than Noil’s. “That was the first thing we tried. But still, look!” She nudged the top volume on her stack with her chin. “Volume two of the Principia Galactica! Volume two! I’ve been searching for this for the past forty years!”
It was a strange feeling, being just herself again. Clauda leaned against the outside of the golden statue in the wing and looked at the book in her hands. Her vision, still adjusting, was blurry at first but quickly cleared. She tucked the book under her arm and flexed her fingers, then ran her hands over her arms. She felt both small and large at the same time.
She looked down at her feet. They were her ordinary, everyday feet, standing upon the floor of the cabin. She blinked and for a moment she felt as if her feet were far, far below her, as far as the ground had been, when she was flying, but then she blinked again and they were right at the ends of her legs where they were supposed to be.
She took a deep breath, and as she exhaled she felt more like herself and less like the wing, and a little bit sad about it. But she felt good—tired, but good. In fact, for the first time since the mind-lancet attack in the vault, she felt completely fine. All trace of the tremors, the unsteadiness, the not-quite-put-together-right feeling—it was all gone.
She turned around to find Ymin and Po sitting sprawled against the hull of the ship, bruised, bleeding, and wearing identical expressions of transcendent wonder.
Po bled from a contusion on his forehead, and Ymin cradled her right arm in such a way that Clauda thought it might be broken.
“That . . . that was integration,” said Ymin. “I always knew it would be like that.” She smiled and looked at Po.
He grinned. “You heard it, too? That song? And then there was a voice telling me the most amazing story. I want to hear the rest of it.”
Ymin nodded and tried to take his hand, but stopped, wincing. “My arm . . .”
Clauda went to her side and knelt beside her.
Ymin’s lips compressed into a thin, pale line. “A simple fracture,” she said, examining her broken limb with professional detachment. “Not difficult to heal, though it will take some time.”
“I’m sorry,” said Clauda.
“I think I landed on you, Adept,” said Po, rubbing his forehead, “the first time we flipped over. Then it happened again, and then we heard that song . . .”
“Integration,” said Ymin. She looked at Clauda. “But I never expected to experience it in this manner. You’ve taken the wing,” she said. “Where are we?”
“The Libyrinth,” said Clauda, and she told them all about the battle and what she had done.
When she finished, Ymin nodded gravely. “I knew it. I knew the wing was much more than a killing machine. And now no one can deny it. The wing is yours, Clauda of Ayor. You are the one who taught it to remember its true nature. You must keep it, even if Queen Thela herself comes to reclaim it.”
Clauda did not know what to say to that, so she pressed her hand to the panel next to the door.
The wing’s nose pointed directly away from the Libyrinth, whose gates were no more than twenty feet away. On every other side they were surrounded by people: Ayorites, Eradicants, Ilysians, and Libyrarians. Some of them were wounded, and those nearest them assisted them as best they could. An Ayorite gave an Ilysian water; an Ilysian helped a Singer to stand. There were dead, too, though not anything like as many as there nearly were. The faces of the living, which turned to her as she stepped away from the wing, were streaked with tears of sorrow as well as joy.
They all stared at her. “The Redeemer,” somebody murmured, and then to her utter shock, others took up a chant: “Redeemer, Redeemer.”
Clauda panicked. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not me. It’s Haly, she’s the one . . .” Clauda turned, and pointed at the gates of the Libyrinth with the hand that held The Book of the Night in it.
“Redeemer! Thank you! Thank you for bringing the sacred book,” said a peasant, a man with a soot-smeared face.
“Read it to us, please,” cried an Ilysian soldier.
Frightened, Clauda shook her head. “No. I’m not the Redeemer,” she said. “It’s my friend, it’s not me.”
And then the gates of the Libyrinth opened and Haly stepped out. The scar on her cheek curved from her left ear through the hollow of her cheek and curled up, ending just below her left eye. She was surrounded by people in black and brown robes. Some of them Clauda recognized, such as Peliac and Burke. Others she didn’t; Erad
i—She stopped herself. Singers. Haly held hands with one of them, a boy her own age who wore a brown robe.
Haly caught sight of her and grinned. She let go of the boy’s hand and ran. The next thing Clauda knew, Haly’s wiry arms were around her and her face was buried in Haly’s thick, curly hair. Clauda breathed deep, taking in the smell of Haly, of home.
“Are you all right?” Haly asked her.
Clauda nodded and pulled back to peer up into Haly’s face. Her eyes strayed to the scar on Haly’s cheek. “And you?”
Haly smiled and nodded, and they hugged again. “We tried, we were always trying to get you back. You have to know that,” said Clauda.
She felt Haly nodding and those arms gripped her tighter. “You know, Selene told me exactly the same thing.”
“Selene? Is she here? Is she all right?”
“Yes,” said Haly. “I have so much to tell you. There were so many times I wished I could talk to you, and now you’re here . . .” Her voice broke at the end and dampness seeped through the thin cloth of Clauda’s tunic where Haly rested her face.
Clauda found her own tears answering her. There were plenty of things she’d done in the last month that she didn’t like. And so many times that she’d been afraid, and had to keep going anyway, and now—it was as if now, reunited with her old friend, the true enormity of it came to her all at once. Clauda didn’t know what would happen next, but one thing was certain. They’d never again be just a clerk and a pot girl, sneaking food and hiding in the laundry yard to gossip. “The Libyrinth is safe?” she asked Haly.
“Yes,” said Haly, who took a deep breath and steadied herself. She released Clauda and stood back, looking at her. “Thanks to you. What did you do? One minute I was struggling to make myself heard, and the next the Song was everywhere, everyone heard it. It was the Redemption, Clauda. The real Redemption, and it has made the Singers Libyrarians, and the Libyrarians Singers.”
“Holy One, read us the book!” cried the Ayorite man who had thanked her for bringing The Book of the Night. He was kneeling and he lifted his hands to Clauda in supplication.
“They think it’s me,” said Clauda. “I’m sorry. Because of the wing, I guess . . .”
Haly shook her head. “They’re not wrong. At least, no more wrong than they are about me.”
The crowd around them parted and Selene appeared. “Clauda!” she shouted and charged forward, seizing her in a hug that would have been terrifying for its strength if it were not so welcome. Clauda buried her face in Selene’s robes and hugged her back for all she was worth.
Their reunion was disrupted by a commotion at the outer edges of the surrounding throng. People were pointing at the crest of one of the low hills that surrounded the Libyrinth, and someone muttered, “Queen Thela.”
Clauda and Selene stared at each other and then Clauda scrambled up onto the wing for a better view. There, just descending from the hilltop, were a chariot and two outriders. The golden chariot glinted in the sunlight. It was drawn by two white horses and the figure driving them wore white. One of the outriders carried a standard flying the flag of Ilysies: a red bull upon a green field. Clauda swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.
Selene and Haly climbed up and stood beside her. “Oh, shit,” said Selene.
Clauda nodded, frightened all out of proportion to the apparent situation. Thela had two escorts, nothing more. What could she do? Anything.
“What in the Seven Tales is she planning?” said Haly.
Selene shook her head. “I don’t know. She meant to send her army to the Corvariate Citadel, to conquer it once the Singers had left for the Redemption.”
An Ilysian woman holding a helmet with a brilliant red crest on its crown looked up at them from the ground and said, “But rather than disclose to me her true intention, she ordered me to take the army and follow the wing.” Clauda recognized the woman’s voice. It was General Tadakis.
“And I stole the wing and flew here,” said Clauda, meeting the general’s eyes.
Tadakis smiled and tilted her head to one side. “And so here we are.”
“She can’t be pleased,” observed Adept Ykobos, who stood near the door of the wing, Po beside her.
“No. I don’t imagine so,” said Selene.
“I suppose she’ll want the wing back,” said Haly.
“Unless she means to carry it away on her back, there is nothing she can do about that,” said Clauda. “She can’t fly it.” She looked at Adept Ykobos, and then at Tadakis. “If she could, she never would have sought another pilot.”
Adept Ykobos and General Tadakis both nodded their heads. “That’s right,” said Ykobos.
“Well, her army, anyway,” said Haly. “Surely she’ll take that back.”
Tadakis shook her head and threw her helmet on the ground. She unsheathed her sword and unslung her rifle and laid them on the ground as well. “I cannot speak for all my countrywomen. But I am a soldier no more.”
Around her, those Ilysians who had not already abandoned their weapons dropped them.
Thela and her retinue rode right up to the throng surrounding the front gates and halted. From her elevated position in the chariot—a beautiful thing of gold and mother of pearl—she surveyed the crowd surrounding the wing. “My sincerest congratulations to all of you who have received the blessing of Redemption today,” she said, her voice pitched to carry far and wide. “This is truly a moment that will live in the memories of all those who have witnessed it.”
Her outriders applauded and many others joined in.
Thela put one hand to her breast and swept the other before her as if to encompass the crowd. “I myself saw the lights in the sky and hastened to be the first to congratulate you, the Redeemed. Now we are all one, embraced by the Mother, bathed clean by the ocean. Our families will rejoice for us, and though not privileged to experience such rapture for themselves, will take comfort in the knowledge that their mothers, their sisters and daughters, are now more committed than ever to do their duty, to protect not just their beloved home, Ilysies, but also the incalculable treasures left to us by the Ancients. Treasures such as the Libyrinth.”
A good number of Ilysians cheered and clapped.
Thela acknowledged them with a nod. “I am grateful that this irreplaceable resource still stands, thanks to the efforts of my honored countrywomen and to my foresight in sending you here. It is an honor even more precious than Redemption itself to be the protector of this jewel of knowledge. Preserving it for all is a sacred duty that nothing can transcend.”
This time the Ayorites and even some Libyrarians joined the Ilysians in the cheering.
Clauda, Haly, and Selene looked at one another with concern. “You see what she’s doing, right?” said Haly.
Clauda nodded. “Yeah, taking credit and twisting the situation so that she’s in charge. But what do we do about it?” She was so tired.
Suddenly she saw how tired Haly was, too—she had dark smudges underneath her eyes and a bit of a tremor in her arms and legs. “I don’t know,” said Haly. “I think I’m all out of ideas.”
“It’s okay,” said Selene, touching them each on the shoulder. “I’ll deal with her.”
Clauda and Haly gave each other surprised looks as Selene stepped past them to the front of the wing.
Thela continued. “And so let us be united in defense of the Libyrinth, so that its gifts can be pre—”
“Queen Thela,” said Selene, demonstrating that she could project every bit as well as her mother, when she chose to. Her voice rang out clear and true over the assembled crowd. “You intended for the Libyrinth to fall.”
The people murmured and looked between Thela and Selene in confusion.
“You did not send the Ilysian army to our rescue,” said Selene. “You meant for them to go to the Corvariate Citadel and attack it while the Singers were on holy pilgrimage.”
This sent the Singers and most of the Ayorites into an uproar and it was several
moments before the noise died down enough for anyone to be heard.
“And yet my army is here in full strength. They cannot be in two places at once, my daughter,” said Queen Thela.
General Tadakis jumped onto the wing and joined Selene. “My orders were to follow the wing, and attack what it attacked.”
The Ilysian soldiers in the crowd nodded. “Yes, that’s true,” Clauda heard one of them say. “We didn’t know where we would wind up, remember?”
Selene took advantage of the lull. “You told General Tadakis to follow the wing, and then you told Jolaz to fly the wing to the citadel. But before she could carry out her mission, Clauda of Ayor stole the wing and flew it to the Libyrinth. Clauda of Ayor is the savior of the Libyrinth.”
Haly pushed Clauda to stand between Selene and Tadakis as the crowd erupted into more cheering. As an afterthought, Clauda lifted her hands, still holding The Book of the Night, displaying it to the crowd.
“Clauda of Ayor! Clauda of Ayor!” the crowd began to chant.
Panic gripped Clauda. What was she going to do now? She looked at Haly, who was every bit as reluctant to take over as she was. But someone needed to lead the people, or Thela would take charge.
“Read us the book, Holy One!” cried the Ayorite man who’d made the same request before Thela’s arrival. “Reveal to us the secrets of the Ancients!”
Hoping Haly would forgive her, but also knowing that she could guide them far better than herself, Clauda reached behind her and grabbed Haly by the sleeve, tugging her forward. “I cannot!” said Clauda. “I am no Holy One. I am only the pilot of the wing. This”—Clauda thrust Haly forward—“is your true Redeemer. She is the one who can reveal to us all the words of the last Ancient.”