Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series

by David Farland

  “I may have erred,” Chaa agreed. “Still, I think that he is our only hope.”

  Phylomon took Darrissea’s hand, held it lightly. It seemed a spontaneous act of affection, and Darrissea wondered at it. She squeezed his hand tightly.

  “This is my world, too,” Darrissea said.

  “What?” Phylomon asked, as if surprised she had spoken.

  “This is my world, too!” Darrissea said more loudly, suddenly angered. “And it belongs to Tull and Fava and the Slave Lords as much as it does to you. Who gave you the right to treat us as children? Who gave you the right to decide for us? You two can’t even make one simple decision, you are so busy bickering.”

  “We are older than you,” Chaa answered. “We know more about this matter.”

  Phylomon arched a brow on his hairless face, looked at Darrissea askance. “You are right,” Phylomon said thoughtfully. “This is your world, too. You decide for us. What shall be our next step?”

  Darrissea sat, gazing at him. To her amazement, Phylomon seemed to be totally sincere, and Chaa stared at her patiently, awaiting her orders, and she suddenly realized what it must be like to be Phylomon or Chaa.

  Everywhere they went, people asked them for counsel, for solutions to problems, as if they knew the answers. And now they were admitting that they had no answers. Both of them feared Tull, and while Darrissea wanted to ridicule their fear as if it had no merit, she had seen Tull fight among the Blade Kin in the arena. He had not merely killed his enemies, he had reveled in their deaths.

  She recalled the last fight, when he had tossed the dying body of his foe over his head into the crowd, much to the applause of the Blade Kin, then cut off his own ear. What had Tull been telling them? Was he truly Blade Kin?

  And if he was a Talent Warrior, and if he overthrew Bashevgo, how could she hope that he would do anything more than take his place upon the throne? She imagined that a thousand years from now her descendants would serve him, the Blue Lord.

  Outside, down the hall in the apartment complex, a board creaked.

  Both Phylomon and Chaa jerked their heads up, alarmed. Darrissea heard another creaking, the sound of a quiet footstep, someone creeping toward the door in the middle of the night.

  “Blade Kin?” Phylomon mouthed, and Chaa shrugged.

  The footsteps came nearer, and someone stopped outside the door, scuffling like a dog trying to catch a scent.

  Chaa unsheathed a dagger, and Phylomon picked up a log from beside the fire to use as a club. Darrissea got up soundlessly and went to the door, yanked it open.

  A stranger stood there, a young man in his mid-twenties. He was handsome, with perfect skin and a disarming smile. He seemed surprised.

  Darrissea glanced at the young man, instantly knew him for what he was. An oddly sweet scent filled the room.

  “I … I’m sorry,” the young man said. “I did not mean to wake you. I’m new to town and I was only looking for some place to sleep.”

  “A strange human,” Darrissea said, looking askance at Phylomon. The blue man’s skin had already begun darkening in hue, preparing to attack. Chaa and the Starfarer exchanged glances.

  “Let him in,” Phylomon said with an undertone that chilled Darrissea to the core of her soul. “He can sit next to me. We have ample room for him to sleep here by the fire. Perhaps he could tell us a few tales of his home, of faraway lands and how he came to be in our city.”

  Darrissea understood what he meant. While they sat and argued whether Tull should live or die, the Creators were moving their plots forward. Phylomon wanted to question the monster.

  The blood eater stood in the doorway smiling his endearing smile, too naïve to understand the dangerous tone in Phylomon’s voice.

  “Thank you, friends,” he fawned. “Thank you!” and as he entered the room, Darrissea took his cloak and set it on the peg beside the door next to where Chaa’s Blade Kin uniform hung, then pulled a pistol from Chaa’s holster.

  “By the way, Darrissea,” Phylomon asked. “Did you ever find the rope in the kitchen?”

  “No,” Darrissea answered, as she stuck the pistol in her belt and went into the kitchen to get Phylomon the rope.

  Tull woke in the afternoon, drowsy. Motes of dust floated in the air, lit by the yellow sun. His lips felt parched, thirsty, though his body was cold, and he was deathly tired. It did not bother him. Instead, beneath the nagging pains, he felt only ecstasy—the steady sense that he needed nothing. Thirsty, naked, nearly dead. Yet he needed nothing.

  Tull lay on the floor. He felt no kwea. No fear, no desire. All such things had burned away. If the Blade Kin were to rush in the room and take him back to die, he’d hardly fight them.

  Okanjara, I am free.

  The sense of perfect freedom would not leave, and Tull realized he had no name for this thing he felt. He tried to sit up, eager to explore this strange new companion. But dizziness forced him back down.

  He turned his head. Across the room, Fava slept on the floor in a dark-blue dress. Her hair was braided and slung over one shoulder.

  Tull lay watching her, happy to be thirsty and cold, his belly cramped with hunger. He heard footsteps in another room, and Phylomon walked in, dressed in a loose flowing robe.

  “How did you get here?” Tull asked.

  Phylomon smiled, but there was a look in the Starfarer’s eyes that Tull had never seen before, a haunted animal look. “My skin’s ability to feign death and make a nuisance of itself thereafter seems to have left you all somewhat astonished. Fava tells me that I smelled worse than a family of skunks in a dogfight. To be honest, I had almost forgotten that my symbiote carried that ability.”

  Fava woke, stretched, and smiled gently at Tull. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Water,” Tull said, “and a kiss.” She got up, gave him the kiss first, then went into the kitchen. “How long have I slept?” Tull asked.

  “Six days,” Phylomon answered. “I would appreciate it if you would heal immediately. We need you.” The tone of his voice said that he was serious.

  Fava returned bearing a bottle of wine and a goblet. She sat and poured.

  “While we were all managing to get captured,” Phylomon said, “Chaa has been trying to learn the minds of the Creators. They have already begun to attack outlying communities around Bashevgo with poisonous snakes, and something far more dangerous—beings who look human, but must dine on human blood. I questioned one of these. Darrissea has been out on the streets. Rumor has it that Tantos plans to lead an army to attack the Creators.”

  “I know. I think we should let him,” Tull answered.

  “I fear Tantos will not accomplish much,” Phylomon said. “He does not know how to battle the Creators. None of us do, but he knows far less about them than I do.”

  “What of the gray birds with their snakes?” Tull asked. “Have they attacked the city?

  “Chaa’s prisoners said that millions of gray birds hatched in midwinter. It will take time for them to grow and learn to fly, but if they grow as fast as other birds, I suspect they will be ready to attack this summer, when the skies are clear.”

  Fava helped Tull up, poured a sweet red wine down his throat. He lay back afterward, dizzy, and closed his eyes.

  “I mean it when I say that I want you to heal soon,” Phylomon said. “Now that the ice is clearing, we must set sail.”

  Tull considered. In all his Spirit Walk, he’d never set Phylomon or himself back into the equation. He knew it would change the world, but he did not know precisely how, or how much.

  If Fava had stayed with Mahkawn, the Omnipotent would have been trying to seduce her by now. So Fava too had moved out of the time line.

  Tull considered: it was evening six after the stabbing.

  At this very moment little Wayan and Vo-olai ran in a swamp down by Smilodon Bay, fleeing Blade Kin who would bring them to Bashevgo.

  Tantos planned to attack the Creators, and Tull could not guess the outcome. Theron Scandal,
the old innkeeper from town, was congratulating himself as he tasted soup in the kitchens of Lady Initha, while Slave Lords prepared to party at her house. His cooking skills would serve him well, so long as he served others well.

  The people of Smilodon Bay were scattered across Bashevgo. In five days Tantos would prepare to attack the Creators and think to order Phylomon skinned. He’d discover that Phylomon had escaped then.

  Tull realized they would need to flee the city well before that.

  Fava lay on the floor next to him, stroking his chest, and Tull gazed at her a moment before drifting back to sleep. A great sense of peace flooded over him. She smiled. “Why do you look so happy?”

  “I was just thinking about the end of the world.”

  ***

  Chapter 22: Song of the Pwi

  Two days later, Tull was able to sit up for short periods of time. With a bit of food, his energy began to return. Chaa had been gradually filling the apartment with refugees—Phylomon, Zhopila and her children, Darrissea.

  “Tull will be able to travel soon,” Chaa said to them all, “and he must get out of the city. I want him to go with Phylomon, to fight the Creators, but though I have tried to walk the future, even I do not know what chance he has. Phylomon will need others to help handle the boat. And so we will send Fava and Darrissea. Wertha and I must stay here, for we have work to do.”

  “I won’t be well enough to travel yet,” Tull said. “I can’t handle the rigging.”

  “The slavers have small iron boats,” Phylomon suggested, “with huge engines that they use to pull barges from Craal. They are powered with ancient energy cubes made by the Starfarers. Such a boat requires only two people even for long journeys.”

  Tull considered, and decided that it would be a good means of travel. Chaa added, “You must leave soon, Tull, for you are a Spirit Walker. As your power grows, Atherkula will become more and more aware of you. Even now I am shielding you from his eyes, but I cannot do so for much longer. If he finds you, he will kill you.”

  “Why don’t you come with us?” Tull asked.

  Chaa sat beside Tull, cross-legged. “Wertha and I have much work to do here in Bashevgo. I saw little on my last spirit walk, and I know nothing of the future. But I know some slaves who will die without my help, people who must be freed—somehow.”

  Chaa looked up at Phylomon and added, “You say that you do not think Tantos can kill the Creators? What will you need in the way of weapons?”

  Phylomon answered, “I’m not sure. My ancestors provided the great worms with symbiotes like mine, but theirs are twenty times thicker than anything a small human could wear. Conventional guns could not harm them. Even a laser cannon would not do the job.”

  Tull creased his brow, and asked thoughtfully, “That eel creature that I saw back in Smilodon Bay, its symbiote struck me with lightning. Will a larger symbiote be able to attack more fiercely?”

  “Yes,” Phylomon answered. “Yet that is not the worst of it. My symbiote has a small, crude brain. But I suspect that the Creators will have an enhanced design. Their symbiotes will be far more resourceful, more intelligent, than my ally.

  “If their symbiotes are even four inches thick,” he continued, “then for a worm sixty feet long and twelve feet in diameter, the symbiote itself will weigh over fifteen tons. My own symbiote is about one-eighth neural material. If this holds true for the Creators, then each of them will be defended by a brain that weighs more than a ton. Our intellect, even boosted by culture and enhanced through drugs, is dwarfed in comparison. I believe that the Creators themselves pose little threat, but their symbiotes, I’m sure, will have devised numerous ways to protect themselves.”

  “Then,” Tull asked, “you are telling me that the symbiotes are a completely different threat from the Creators?”

  “The Creators are simply biological machines,” Phylomon answered, “operating according to instructions given by our ancestors. But their symbiotes are living, learning beings, capable of forming new ideas.

  “I’ve been considering, and I believe the symbiotes themselves may be the cause of some of our worries, for we never programmed the Creators to form blood eaters or experiment with worms. It may be that the symbiotes are controlling their masters, experimenting, teaching.”

  “But, the symbiotes couldn’t take complete control of the Creators, could they?” Darrissea asked.

  “Yes,” Phylomon said quickly. “It happens to me sometimes. When I’m forced to protect myself, the symbiote takes control, coordinates muscle groups, causing me to crush an enemy’s esophagus with a palm before I have time to think. Sometimes I become a mere spectator in my own battles.

  “In the same way, the Creators’ symbiotes will defend themselves—by formulating battle plans, devising tactics, preparing escape routes. For the symbiotes, this is all they think about.”

  “You don’t have any weapons that can kill them, do you?” Darrissea asked Phylomon.

  “I have weapons that I can try.” He nodded toward two cloth bags in the corner, where white rods spilled onto the floor, and he crossed his arms, resting his left hand on a small bump that protruded from his right arm. “All I need now is a sharp knife.”

  “A knife, we can provide,” Chaa said.

  The others went their way and talked for a bit, but Fava came to Tull and asked. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel pretty well. Weak.”

  “Your scar looks terrible,” Fava said, lightly touching the dressing on his wound. The scar was covered now, but obviously the memory of it, the kwea, still troubled Fava.

  “My scar?”

  “Wertha healed you. He is a great healer. The wound is fully closed, though there is a blue scar there still, a wide blue scar.”

  He wondered at that. “I should count myself lucky.”

  Fava put Tull’s hand on her stomach and asked, “What do you feel here?”

  “Your belly?”

  “No,” Fava said. “Our child.” She grinned down at him, a broad smile spreading across her face. Tull felt a wild joy leap up in him, total surprise. “Wertha says it will be a son.”

  Tull held his hand there for a long time, wishing he did not hurt so bad, wishing he could do more than merely touch her.

  Later that night while the others slept, Chaa came to Tull and woke him with a touch to the cheek. Tull peered up from beneath his mammoth-hide blanket. The fire in the hearth was burning low, filling the room with a flickering light. Chaa sat over him, his expression anxious. He said, “You are happy now. I see it in your eyes.”

  “Yes,” Tull agreed.

  “That is because you have found your center, and discovered your true name. Laschi Chamepar, Path of the Crushed Heart.” Chaa lightly touched Tull on the chest.

  “You told me my true name long ago,” Tull answered.

  Chaa smiled. “Still, you did not understand it. Hearing your true name and knowing it are separate matters. Few men would willingly walk the path of the crushed heart, even if they knew of the peace that they would find on the other side.”

  “I know.”

  Chaa put his heels up to his buttocks, curled his arms around his legs, and sat with his chin on his knees. “Now that you know your true name, the trick is to remember it, to stay in touch with the center of yourself.”

  “How do I do that?” Tull asked.

  “Each morning, when you awaken, you must sing yourself into existence.” Tull looked at him, puzzled, and Chaa continued. “When you rise, you sing your true name, Laschi Chamepar, and focus on the peace at your center. Then, throughout that day, you will always remember who you are.”

  “I have never heard of this. Do you sing your true name?”

  Chaa laughed. “You would be surprised at how many Pwi sing their true names in the morning. We sing softly, in our hearts, to ourselves. We do not tell children of these things that we do—it would only frustrate them. If they have not found their center, then it does them no good to sing thei
r true name.”

  Chaa hesitated, as if thinking, and said, “Long ago, the Pwi sang more. Each day at dawn, they would rise and sing the world into being, create the world. You see, the world exists as a shadow even without it, but in part, our own attitudes toward it help bring it into being. We shape it, as if it were clay.

  “So this singing was invented long, long ago. We do not do it so much now, but I keep thinking we should start again. When I was young, I tried to get some Pwi to do it with me, but they thought it was stupid.

  “They said ‘Look! The sun rises whether we sing of it or not! The trees and hills and grass are here when we waken! Why do you waste our time?’ and I could not explain to them very well why this one thing is so much more important than they could imagine.”

  Tull grinned self-consciously.

  Chaa continued, “You see, the world is indeed created new every day, whether we desire it or not. It is shaped by the minds of men, to some small degree, everyday. A house is built, a ditch is dug, a war is fought. Change does not just happen. If we leave a pile of dirt, we do not come back and find it fashioned into brick and changed overnight. We take part in creation. So, we change the world, we shape it, often without thinking.

  “That is why we must sing the world into being. We must waken each morning, envision the trees and the wild daisies, and sing the trees and daisies as they should be. We must remember the beauty of the lake, the cry of the loon, and sing these things into being. We must remember the warmth and the majesty of the sun and our campfires, and sing them into being. We must see the strength and beauty of ourselves and our friends, and sing of them as they should be. We must sing from our centers. Otherwise, all these things will become forgotten, and eventually they will be lost.”

  “You sound so sure of yourself,” Tull said.

  “Oh, I am sure,” Chaa said. “You have seen the Neanderthals of the Blade Kin. You have seen the arenas of the Slave Lords in Bashevgo. These people have forgotten the world as it should be. They have not sung the world into being for far too long.