A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  “But obviously we can’t hold our breaths long enough to get from the closest temple aqueduct into the palace,” Ketchkei put in, crossing her arms.

  Ammon nodded. “I might be able to help with that. St. Issac’s Abbey dedicated to the Earth God has an old tech department. When I studied there to be a sunsmith, they were trying to make something that allowed you to take your air with you when you swum.”

  “Is there any other option than me jumping into the corpse juice?” Copelia asked.

  Silence met her question.

  Sighing, she broke it. “All right. Ammon, can you get us an interview with the Abbot of St. Issac’s on short notice?”

  Nodding, he rose, wrapping up the weapon and putting it back in his pack. “If we are going to see the Abbot, we should take the weapon. He’ll know more about it than anyone except for a Califf worshiper. It’s past nine. If we go now, we should be able to get a quiet audience with the Abbot. Wear something nondescript.”

  “Ketchkei, you’re coming too,” Copelia said.

  Ketchkei nodded and followed Ammon out to get ready.

  Copelia turned to Ildiko. “Are you going to be all right here by yourself?”

  “You could have Priya and Maximo come in. I...” She looked embarrassed. “Stellys used to call me ‘too familiar’ with the children. But I never had any brothers or sisters. And now I’m a priestess, I won’t have any of my own...”

  Copelia blinked, horror struck. “I never asked...but the clergy are celibate, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But, Ildiko...I like men. I really...really like men.”

  Ildiko bit her lip and replied apologetically, “As long as the Goddess is without her resurrected god, the clergy are celibate.”

  Running her hands through her hair, Copelia tried to cope with this new development. “I’ll just have to do something about it...” It was more to herself than anyone else.

  “So it is written, so it is done,” Ildiko said, a tinge of desperation in her voice.

  “It’s important!”

  “What?” Copelia focused back on Ildiko instead of her thoughts.

  “Yes, yes, never-mind. I’ll have the children brought in. We need to keep those two close and safe.”

  She went into her bedroom to change and grabbed her pack on the way back out. The maid keeping an eye on Maximo and Priya was all too happy to turn them over to Ildiko. Copelia told her to put together a list of anything she needed for her work and for the children and then bid them not to wait up. She met Ketchkei and Ammon in the courtyard. A stablehand brought them up three half-breeds saddled and ready to go.

  “What, clergy not good enough for your precious high jumpers?” Ketchkei quipped as she mounted up.

  “I am good enough, and so are you. But there’s nothing else in the city that big, black, or graceful. Unfortunately, this time we go incognito,” Copelia said. It took them nearly half an hour to make it across the night-dark city through misty streets to the eastern edge on the banks of the Tahoi River, where the spires of St. Issac’s rose over the city. The religious house was like a confection of stained glass, chapel and cloisters, gardens, and workshops, whose roofs were covered in azure blue sun panels. The dedicates to the Earth God built and serviced a variety of old tech devices for the city here, and three great paddle wheels turned in the Tahoi River, gathering power for their work. Copelia remembered strange metal antennae of different shapes also crested the spires, though she couldn’t see them now in the dark. Now, the stout gate was closed and the gatehouse dark, but lights lit the stained-glass windows still, and the choir’s singing drifted peacefully into the night.

  They dismounted into a pool of electric light that came from a glass bulb on the wall; Ammon began pounding on the gate. A small door opened and a boy stuck his head out. He was wearing a simple brown robe.

  “Peace be upon you. Who’s there?”

  “Ammon, formerly of this order, brother. I have need to speak to Abbot Dortmund.”

  “Ah! All are welcome.” The boy shut the trap and unbolted the gate. He let them in, bidding them to wait in an alcove while he went for the Abbot.

  “You were a Christian monk?” Copelia asked.

  “A lifetime ago, I studied sunsmithing here before I heard the Goddess’s call.” He fiddled with the hood of his cloak, trying to straighten nonexistent wrinkles.

  Ketchkei huffed softly and said, “Hope they don’t hold grudges.”

  The boy exited a door in the chapel and came running. “He bids you wait in his study. Follow me.”

  They followed the boy into one of the stone buildings and up a winding flight of stairs lit by light bulbs. Finally, they came out on a landing. The boy led them through a wood door into a brightly lit study.

  “I’ll be back with refreshments. The Abbott should be here soon.”

  He left them standing in the center of a rich red carpet, closing the door behind him. Copelia did a slow turn of the room. There were shelves of books, others of great rolls of paper, and more of complicated brass clockwork devices beyond understanding. A telescope on a tripod occupied a window alcove. The great desk was covered in piles of papers, bolts and screws, and small hand tools. A great cross hung on the wall behind the desk, a detailed carving of a man dying on it. “They don’t...uh...do that anymore, do they?” Copelia pointed at the cross.

  Ketchkei rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “No. That’s their earth god. He just kept dying for them.”

  Ammon looked up from a shelved clockwork he was examining. “I’m surprised you know that much, Ketchkei. He dies for their sins and is resurrected.”

  “And they eat his flesh and blood every Sunday,” Ketchkei shot back. “I didn’t choose the Goddess because she was the next temple down the road, you know.” A throat clearing at the door got their attention. His grace, the Abbot Dortmund, stood in the doorway in brown robes and skull cap, a pair of leather goggles with many magnifying lenses perched on his head. He was a big, fleshy man with a round, jowly face and big ears. Copelia noticed he had a rolling gait as he swept Ammon into a jolly hug.

  “Good to see you, Brother Ammon. Always good for a son to return.”

  “I’m glad to see the place is going strong,” Ammon said, as the Abbot released him and went around to sit at his desk.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of guests at this hour?”

  “Hmmm...” Ammon raised a speculative eyebrow at Copelia.

  “You trust him?” Copelia asked. Ammon nodded and Copelia braced herself and stood forward. “Abbott, what do you know of what’s been going on in the palace?”

  “Rumors of unrest and fire. These are troubling times,” he said with concern.

  “The Sybil Alcyenne was murdered, and the marines were ordered to burn the temple. I’ve been called to take her place, and we have need to borrow some of your equipment to get important holy writings and relics out of the wreckage before it can be destroyed completely.”

  “And I recovered this from a dig at Ankathanos,” Ammon said, pulling out the weapon and unwrapping it on the desk.

  “Shaiso’s looking for something called Renzeur. Califfites are traveling with the marines...”

  “You should get more than a boy to guard your gate,” Ketchkei put in. “Back home they get word of this kind of stuff, they’re at your door with the oil and the torches.”

  The Abbot sat back, troubled. “This puts another view on things. First, my charming young lady, how am I to know you’re the Sybil?”

  She slipped castered hands out of her pockets, leaned her head back and stroked the nightlion scars on her neck. They came to light.

  “Oh hoh hoh! That’s enough of that,” said the Abbot as he waved his arms. “You’ll really make a muck of the machinery in here if you do any more.”

  “Sorry.” Copelia touched the scars to make them dark again and dropped her hands. She felt like she had as a girl in the schoolroom back home when the scholars had scold
ed her.

  “I believe you,” the Abbot said with a smile. “This”—he pointed a blunt, grease stained finger to the weapon—“is a gun. We’ve schematics of them deep in the vaults here. I hope you were careful with it, Brother Ammon,” he said with a knowing look.

  “Nearly, sir.”

  “It’s an old design. Predating Califf’s burning by a hundred years at least,” mused the Abbott.

  “How can you tell?” Copelia asked.

  “We have designs for machines much more complicated, and much more efficient at killing in the vaults. Near Califf’s burn the people who lived here had harnessed lightning itself, sound itself, and even light itself to kill.”

  “I trust we can depend on you to keep the plans in the vaults,” Copelia said.

  The Abbot’s belly laugh rolled out. “Young lady, our order has been keeping things like this out of the hands of men for the 1500 years since the burn. We keep the knowledge and we experiment with the safe technology, and sometimes we release the safe stuff, like the sunsmith panels because they can help people.”

  “Why doesn’t Shaiso come to you for the weapons?” Ketchkei asked.

  “Do wolves come to sheepdogs to barter for sheep?” The Abbot motioned to indicate the compound. “They know if they attacked us, here in Aquillion, they’d have the entire city come after them with the oil and the torches,” he said with a shrug.

  “What about infiltration? He is good at that,” Copelia said. “We’ve learned that to our cost, sir.”

  “Wouldn’t do any good. The plans for things like this are kept on tiny recording devices, hidden, in unbreakable deadlock vaults that you need the keys and presences of all six abbots of the order across the Empire to open.”

  “Really?” Copelia asked, impressed.

  “No. That’s ridiculous,” the Abbot guffawed, sending Copelia into a blush. “Suffice it to say, they are on tiny records. They would have to hack out all of our brains to get at them, and they would be useless then. If they tried magic, it would wipe the records. As I said, we have been doing this a very long time.” He sat back again. “As to your problem, what kind of equipment do you need?”

  Ammon stepped up. “Those suits Brother Neb was working on when I left. Did he get them to work?”

  “Ahhh. Generally yes. We never had a good way to fully test them in the field. Stick anything like that in the river and people are bound to notice. We have three in working order.”

  “How long before they can be charged up?” Ammon asked.

  “I would say by morning. Come back at seven, we’ll give you some rudimentary training. All this is in exchange for you coming back and telling us at length how they worked, of course.”

  “Sounds good,” Copelia said. She bowed to the Abbot. “Thank you, sir.”

  He nodded, coming around the desk to put an arm around her shoulders. “I see a new age of spiritual cooperation opening before us.”

  “Keep me from drowning, Abbot, and it will be a glorious age for all,” she replied wryly.

  ***

  Aquillion

  Copelia

  The next morning, bright and early, they stood in the garden of a Moon Temple in a blue blood district of Aquillion. A tall wall surrounded the garden, as the lords of the district didn’t wish the funerals to spoil their views. The wall now kept the prying eyes out of their business, as the “closed for improvements” sign on the doorways of the temple kept them free of visitors. On putting up the signs, Copelia had taken a brass incense holder on a long chain and hung it back in the garden. She lit the incense in an act of recognition to the Goddess. It was their tools, but it was mostly Her purpose that had brought them here that day. Ketchkei, Copelia, and Ammon were joined by the Abbott; he had brought with him a very tall, dark-skinned man, Brother Neb, and a tiny woman in a brown habit named Sister Winslow. Neb and the surprisingly muscled Winslow had manhandled two bulky packages out of a horse-cart in the adjacent alley and they were now unwrapping the suits so they lay on the flagstones.

  Ketchkei, Ammon, and Copelia were crouched around an old parchment map unrolled on the ground. It was a copy of the original aqueduct layout as it had been built in the first emperor’s reign. Ildiko had remembered the name of the architect from some of the old books she had read in the library. His descendants were still imperial architects, and Copelia making a midnight appearance with the casters had been enough for his eldest heir to dig through their oldest files.

  “I should be going with you,” protested Ammon again.

  “No offense, Brother, but we’re going to be going through some potentially tight spots. I don’t think you’ll fit. I have Ketchkei to get me through the Temple. I need you here to get our relics to safety,” Copelia said, with a sidelong glance at the Christian clergy. They would probably suspect what was going on when she and Ketchkei packed up the extra suit to take with them, but guessing and knowing were different things. Sarousch would be by later with more carts for the books and relics. “I’m glad to have someone on this end who knows how these things suits work,” she told him, touching his arm.

  He cleared his throat. “You understand the map?”

  “Twenty feet down, take the first left,” Copelia said.

  “A half mile farther will put you under the palace. Just follow the decline into the first aquifer. Follow the wall on the right and count the passages. On the eighth, you’ll have to climb up through the S curves. That should put you in the Sybil’s chamber,” he said.

  “I hope you have plans for the Great Spirits,” Ketchkei said sardonically. “I plan on having a long, full life before they get me.”

  Copelia flexed her castered hands. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  They joined the Christians. Brother Neb leaned his long frame over the suits and began his explanation. “This is a pressure suit based on the ones our ancestors used on the moon. This is the helmet; it locks into the brass collar here. You should have five hours of charge and oxygen. The suit mixes air for you in the pack. This”—he picked up a hose with a weird rubber appendage—“is the emergency piggyback regulator. If something goes wrong with one of your suits, you can get air from the other pack with this.”

  He helped Copelia into the first skintight suit. It was made of a rubbery cloth, which was white with brass fittings and ports. Silvery wires threaded through the cloth like angular spell lines. Copelia rubbed her fingers down some on her left arm, trying to fathom what it was made of.

  “Stop it! You’ll muck up the circuitry,” Neb snapped. “Try not to use magic in the suits. The power will fry it. You also won’t be able to communicate because the radios don’t work.”

  Puzzled, Copelia asked, “What’s a radio?”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s broken,” he said condescendingly. “You’ll have to use sign language. Now, these are wetsuits. The air is only in the helmet.” He zipped the suit closed and fitted the helmet over her head. It was like a fishbowl with a brass safety cage around it like thick lace. He clicked the helmet into the seating, and punched buttons on a command pad on the arm. A soft whoosh signaled the air was flowing. He rapidly went through procedures for something called “decompression,” which Ketchkei paid special attention to, so Copelia could concentrate on not freezing up. The last of the information about gauges barely registered. All she could think of was the dark water of the burial well.

  Ketchkei suited up and Winslow packed the other suit into the pack they were bringing with them. Two small globes with wire handles had bright lightfish inside waiting to light their way. Very last, they put on heavy weighted belts to help them descend. Ropes were lowered into the well and with tense nods, Ketchkei and Copelia were lowered as well.

  Copelia shouted loud enough for Ketchkei to hear as she stared down at the water. “The Dragons and the Temple are depending on us to do this,” she said, trying to convince herself that she was all right. “Ironically, Vansainté said the one thing the Red Dragon couldn’t stand was dark water
!”

  Ketchkei rolled her eyes. “I’m so glad I’ve got you here to guide me!”

  Copelia watched the bricks of the well wall pass as they were lowered, her dread growing with each foot they descended. Down and down into the dark. Ketchkei hit the water first, unhooking herself from the rope as Copelia too made it to the water. Trying not to hyperventilate, Copelia let her weights pull her under, then began pulling herself down the guide rope hand over hand, in a daze from the wonder of weightlessness. Four big watertight metal trunks, which were also lent to them by the Abbot, were roped together and lowered down next. Ketchkei unhooked the bunch and took it in tow down the rope with her. The trunks carried a ballast of rocks now and would be used later for carrying the books they needed to smuggle out.

  They went another ten feet down and settled on the silt bottom. Her own breath the only sound she could hear, Copelia nodded to Ketchkei and they turned left into the gloom. Strangely, the suit didn’t keep her dry but the insulation of it kept her quite warm, though thoughts of a cold death being so close did nothing for her comfort. The lighfish in the globes were excited, twirling a green guiding glow. Glimmers of white in the silt signaled their closeness to the main aquifer: the bones of the faithful churned up by Copelia and Ketchkei’s tread.

  At last they passed into the aquifer, the walls of the tunnel folding out into a vast dark space. The bottom was nothing but bones, and even being prepared for it, Copelia jerked with terror at such a cache. There were millions of bones of every human shape and size, enough to build a palace out of. Thankfully most were cleaned of their flesh.

  They followed the wall toward the right, slowly passing dark passages off to the various other burial wells through the city. They had just passed the fourth when a white light caught Copelia’s attention off in the gloom. It was big and it was coming toward them fast. Copelia grabbed Ketchkei and pushed her between herself and the wall. When she looked back, there were now two great lights coming closer, faster and faster. The great head came into view, the large maw full of teeth, as the huge glowing fish smashed into them with bruising brutality. Copelia screamed, and then screamed again as the fish gnawed on the suit mechanics, her panicked voice all the worse for its echoing confinement in the helmet. She raised a fist to defend herself, and pushed her power into the casters, so the glove glowed with its own might. Ketchkei was pinned behind her, and she had the vague awareness of their helmets grinding together on contact. The fish nimbly dodged aside and took hold of her hand, wrenching at it, shaking it like a dog trying to tear it off. Only the thickness of the suit prevented the sharp points of its teeth grinding at her wrist from coming through.