by Sarah Zettel
Uary’s terminal screen flared with sudden light. Three words printed themselves across it.
LEAVE ME ALONE.
Basq stood at Uary’s shoulder, his cheeks hollow with shadow and fear.
“Can we answer it?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Uary slowly. He sketched the artifact’s name on the notepad. Nothing happened. “We have to shut off its life-support. Terminate it.”
“No,” said Basq fervently. “We need to tame it.”
Uary turned on him. “And how are we to do that?”
“Outnumber it. All it has had to do so far is trip a few switches. If we all work to regain control of the instruments, it will have to fight us all, repeatedly. We will wear it out.”
“It could be possible.” Sense is the last thing I expected from you, Basq, but I’m glad it’s come. Uary hesitated. To keep the artifact alive even a few minutes longer would be a hideous risk, but as long as it was in the tank the monitors were recording its reactions. If they could find out what it took to overload its telekinetic processes, they would have a real weapon against its counterparts on the Home Ground.
And Uary would have the work of the Ancestors under his eye that much longer.
“Ambassador.” Uary stepped aside. “Take over the terminal. My Beholden and I will work directly on the tank. Witness…” Uary hesitated. One did not give orders to a Witness.
“The communications consoles will be my area.” She cleared the optical matter above the comm boards with deft hands. “We can flood the lab’s interior lines with data.”
Uary was vaguely aware that he was now fighting the first battle with the Aunorante Sangh that had taken place since the Ancestors had taken flight, and nobody outside the lab even knew it was happening. They checked, changed, restarted, and rerouted. It burned, closed, crashed, and jammed. The lab was well stocked with spare parts and every system had backups to its backups. Uary did not like emergencies. They were half a dozen and the artifact was only one and it didn’t know the systems. It would have to tire. It would have to collapse.
Except it didn’t. Everywhere they went, it was already there. Its power gripped the entire lab and shut them outside, leaving them standing helplessly in the middle of their equipment.
Its heart rate didn’t even flutter. It seemed to expend no energy and all the battle took it no effort. It could keep it up until the ship fell apart, and it was still perfectly calm, perfectly regulated.
Uary wanted to throw his head back and laugh at the absurdities. Of course it was, because the tank was keeping it that way. He’d issued the order himself. Total life-support. The tank would feed Born what it needed to keep itself calm and healthy. As long as it was inside the tank, it could do anything and feel no strain.
“It’s reached the comm system,” said the Witness. “It is transmitting, and the terminal is responding.”
“How!” shouted Basq.
How!? repeated Uary in his own frantic mind. They had physically cut…
The line to Caril. His Beholden had physically cut the comm lines and they had missed his line to Caril. But who would there be to answer it?
“The female artifact,” said the Witness as if she read his mind. “The delivery was a ruse. We have to open the doors. We must warn the Captain.”
“No!” Uary laid his hands on the life-support commands. “All we have to do is get it out of the tank, Lairdin…”
“Stop!” thundered the Witness.
Uary and his Beholden froze.
“It has the air supply.”
Basq got to the Witness’s side one step ahead of Uary. The monitor’s message had changed.
I HAVE BURNED OUT THE EVACUATION CIRCUIT. ALL THAT IS HOLDING IT CLOSED IS ME. IF I AM FORCED TO LET GO THE ROOM WILL BE IN VACUUM IN LESS THAN FIFTEEN SECONDS.
Uary cursed. “It even knows the time.”
“Part of the quarantine measures?” inquired the Witness.
Uary nodded. “A last precaution.”
Cierc wiped a huge swath of optical matter away from the wall to reveal a carbonized juncture in the fiber optics. “It’s not bluffing.”
“Suits!” ordered Basq.
Cierc, closest to the emergency locker, broke the seal and swung the door back. Uary walked calmly but quickly to his side, as he’d been drilled to do all his life. Get in the suit, close the seals, check the…
The suits lay in crumbled heaps on the locker floor. Each helmet seal had been burned through. The carbon stench drifted up from them.
Cierc swallowed. “The locker has an optical matter backing. It must have got through…”
Because I listened to Basq. Because I wanted to have it in my hands a few minutes longer. Because I had a hidden line to Caril…
“Then we die,” said Basq.
“WHAT?” cried Cierc.
“We die.” Basq stood like a statue of himself. “We cut the power to the tank. We cannot permit its confederates to rescue this thing alive. It knows enough to mount a pitched battle against us, and win. It knows the private technologies. We will lose the Home Ground if it survives.”
Uary tried to find the flaw in Basq’s reasoning, but there was none. There was no other way. If the artifacts understood too much, the Vitae would lose to them, again.
“I’ll do it.” Even though the Witness would not survive to transmit this, he felt better saying it to her.
He heard Basq whisper Caril’s name and realized he could have his revenge now if he wanted it. Before they died he could tell Basq that his son was alive and working for the Imperialists, and that Caril had been in touch with him ever since he had “vanished.” He could do it, now that they were dead and the Witness with them.
Uary looked at Basq and decided it was enough that he knew. Basq could join the Lineage ignorant.
The room shook. It rattled and pitched wildly and a wind rushed through it.
Wind? Uary sat up and dazedly wondered how he had come to be on the floor.
The wind died as abruptly as it started. Lairdin sprawled on the floor. Red liquid smeared around her. And her face was gone.
White foam filled the gap in the outer wall. Something shoved through it. A door. An airlock. Uary couldn’t hear. The Witness wasn’t moving. There was blood everywhere. The airlock opened and a figure in a vacuum suit walked into the lab. Behind the suited person walked an android. The android spoke. Uary saw its mouth move. He couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. The suited one spoke, turned toward the Witness and grabbed her by the arm. The Witness said nothing. She didn’t even flinch. The suited figure dropped her.
The figure turned toward him. Now he could see it was a woman. It was the female artifact and her mouth was moving. He put his hand to his ear automatically and it came away covered in red.
The android was speaking and Cierc teetered to his feet.
“No!” Uary hoped he shouted but Cierc still closed the monitor lines in the tank. The needles and catheters and pipettes extracted themselves. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. The android lifted the artifact free from the tank and carried it to the airlock.
The suited artifact followed, then stopped and crossed to the inner door. Uary tried to get to his feet and fell back. Pain finally broke through the shock. The artifact looked the door over. She threw the manual locks open and shoved the door back. She bent close to Uary and he could see her mouth move.
Run, she was telling him. Run!
He couldn’t even stand. He scrabbled across the floor. The Beholden grabbed him and hauled him forward. He saw figures. Emergency crews. He turned. The artifact and the android were through their airlock and he had time to see it yank itself away from the sealing foam before the lab door slammed shut.
He sagged into the arms of a stranger while the emergency team buzzed around them. Hands grabbed him. Sat him down. Twisted his neck to look at his ear. The technician was an amputant, he saw, with only four fingers on the hand that pressed the anesthetic
patch against his wrist.
We had them, he thought Wearily as the pain began to fade. We had them. Now I understand. Now I really understand how the Ancestors could have lost to these things.
He hoped the Assembly would let him live long enough to tell them what he knew.
11—The Realm of the Nameless Powers, Late Afternoon
“The Aunorante Sangh will return, but know this too, the Nameless Powers will be on their heels.”
—From “The Words of the Nameless Powers,” translated by Hands to the Sky for all who follow.
Jay lowered himself onto his belly and stared at the Narroways gates through a striping of greenish brown grasses. Instead of the usual collection of disinterested cargo inspectors in their turbans and rust-colored ponchos, four alert soldiers in First City’s emerald-and-beige cloaks blocked traffic and searched under tarpaulins for any unapproved or unlevied goods.
King Silver lost then. Jay lowered his head and mopped at the mud drying on his face. The rain had come down hard twice since he parted ways with Cor, and although the sun had succeeded in drying out his skin, his clothing was still drenched. It clung close to his skin like a soggy, heavy blanket. Jay looked back over his shoulder toward the road. The line of travelers waiting in front of the gate was as solid as
ever. Additional soldiers patrolled the sides of the road, guiding their oxen between gaggles of Notouch. They probably had specific orders to look for him. He couldn’t believe that the new masters of Narroways wouldn’t be interested in the King’s Skyman.
For a moment he considered leaving the city to its fate and making his way down to the Lif marshes alone to meet Cor. But night was closing in behind him and he not only had no tent or blanket to help stave off the cold, he had no supplies for what could turn out to be a multiple-day journey. Even if he could make it to the marshes, once Cor brought him to the Notouch, he had no tangible authority, and no power to intimidate, except for the gun at his side. Although the Notouch were supposed to obey whoever gave them orders, recent experience had taught him that this was not always what happened. Cor had left him still stating confidently that the Notouch would be amenable to friendly persuasion. But would Empty Cups lie to her own family about the state she’d left Broken Trail in? Jay frowned. Whatever else they had or did not have in their genetic makeup, even the Notouch had a drive for self-preservation. Without a threat that was more tangible than die unknown nightmare in Chamber One, they might very well decide to run away from Cor rather than go along with her.
Then there was Cor herself. Jay suppressed a sigh. Her resolve was wavering. If there were too many more assaults on her sense of what was right and just, she might just do something foolish. He had to make sure he could deal with Stone in the Wall’s family without Cor’s help if it became necessary.
I’ve got to at least get some supplies, whether I have to beg, borrow, or steal them. Maybe die fighting’s not quite over yet in there. If I can find one of Silver’s staff, or even a sympathetic Bondless…
Wrapping his hopes around him, Jay crept away from the road and toward the one entrance to the city that might not be guarded.
The wall around Narroways was solidly built of quarried stone and mortar, but it was breached in a number of places to create gutters and drainage ditches. Filthy water flowed into trenches and away down the slope toward the distant marshes. Jay made his way forward on hands and knees, with one eye on the city walls. No soldiers paced along the tops, and he took courage. Maybe First City hadn’t quite secured the place yet. If Silver was still free to fight, she might still be free to help him.
The idea helped harden his nerve as he crawled the last few meters to the foot of the city wall.
Climbing through the drainage hole was only a little more unpleasant than Jay imagined it would be. He came up drenched and filthy, but only slightly more so than he had been. As such, he matched the rest of the population in the muddy streets. He stepped carefully through the crowds, keeping his hands well hidden under his cloak and casting furtive glances around himself.
That also seemed to match the rest of the inhabitants. They weren’t walking, they were scuttling. Everyone clustered together in groups of three or more. Even the young men walked swiftly with wary eyes and hands hidden under their wraps.
Hoofbeats and rhythmic footsteps sounded on the cobblestones. A troop of the green-and-beige soldiers marched in a ragged column down the middle of the street, with yet more soldiers on oxen following behind. Jay let the crowd press him back against the rough wall of a house.
A blob of mud flew through the air and smacked against the face of one of the cavalry. The soldier shouted and swung himself off his ox, diving into the crowd after the offender. He managed to grab hold of someone, and with ugly-sounding shouts, the soldier dragged a squirming figure out into the street. Jay sidled toward the corner of the house. Stones flew now and shouts accompanied them. The troop leader drew his ax and it flashed in the air. Jay’s fingers found the edge of the wall and let the press of the crowd back him into the narrow alleyway beyond it. The shouts between the soldiers and bystanders were getting louder. All Jay could see was a writhing blur made up of people’s backs. Somebody screamed. Metal clashed. Jay turned away from the noises and ran.
Darkness hit.
All at once the world was puddles of greasy orange-and-gold light. Jay tripped over the uneven cobbles. The wind gusted over some wall or the other and Jay shivered. The temperature was already beginning to drop. He glanced up and saw the solid night sky, the Black Wall, and he cursed himself for not having checked the cloud cover while he had the chance. In Narroways’ perpetual stench, it was impossible for him to smell rain coming, which at night was likely to become an ice storm without warning.
He had to find shelter. Jay blundered forward, squinting up at doorways and trying to figure out what section of the city he was in.
He stumbled around a corner and into a flood of torchlight.
“Name yourself!” shouted someone overhead.
Jay squinted up at what his dazzled eyes resolved into a pile of overturned sledges, loose stones, and bent metal that barricaded the entire street. A figure, black and unidentifiable against the light, held up a javelin, evidently ready to throw it down if Jay gave the wrong answer.
Jay swallowed hard and had to forcibly stop himself from saying the Fourth Grace for hope.
“Messenger!” shouted another voice. It took a confused moment for Jay to realize it was Heart of the Seablade.
A rattle sounded from behind the barricade and metal grated against metal. A pool of oily yellow light fell across the muddy street as an anonymous pair of human shadows lifted away a section of the barricade. As soon as a big enough space opened, Jay ducked inside.
The area behind the barricade was a maze of streets that in the vague lamplight looked just like the streets on the other side. Lumps of shadow Jay guessed were sentries moved on the rooftops.
“Messenger.” Heart strode out of the shadows and clasped Jay’s hand. “I hoped you would find your way back to us.”
“Thank you.” And for once, Jay felt close to meaning it. “I just hope the King shares your sentiments.”
“I don’t know.” Heart shook his head. “She is pleased to have me on her side because I am power-gifted, but she’s not ready to take a Seablade of any standing into her counsels.”
“I need to get to her as soon as I can.” A fresh wind gusted down the alley and Jay shuddered again. “But first I need some food, if there is any.”
Heart nodded. “Come with…”
“Garismit’s Eyes!” screamed somebody. “Oh, Nameless Powers preserve me!”
A clear white glow washed across them, making their shadows stand out against the muck and cobblestones. Jay jerked his head up. The world was ablaze with clean light. A great sphere of pure light shone over the whole night-shrouded city. A silver line descended from the Black Wall, lowering a star that burned without heat into the center of t
he city.
Jay saw the tether and he knew who was inside the sphere.
No, he thought as horror and irrational anger washed through him. No. Not yet. I’m not ready yet!
Voices, screams, sobs, ecstasies sounded on all sides.
“The Nameless! The Nameless Powers have returned.”
The superstitious logic took a minute to filter into Jay’s mind. The stars were the eyes of the Nameless and here came a star to the center of the city. Of course it was the Nameless. Of course.
The Unifiers had landed under cover of night on the salt flats surrounding the Dead Sea. No doubt the contraband runners had done something similar. No sense in alarming the natives any more than necessary. But calm was not what the Vitae wanted. They wanted awe. They wanted their due as the children of the Ancestors.
“Clever, clever,” he whispered. “Descend like the gods, oh you humble Vitae who only wanted a home for yourselves.” He squinted into the light, trying to see how their transport had been hitched to the tether that had, no doubt, been on its way down for days.
Heart had dropped onto his knees in the mud. “The Nameless,” he croaked. “The Nameless have returned.” He covered his face with his hands and groaned.
“No!” Jay hauled the Teacher roughly to his feet. “These are not the Nameless! I know their name! I know it!”
Heart swallowed and his eyes were almost round as he looked at Jay’s face, searching for some hope there.
Over Heart’s shoulder, Jay watched flames shoot out of the top of the star. They faded away swiftly, leaving only three dark figures standing on top of the glowing sphere.
Jay was ready to bet six years of his life that one of them was Contractor Avir. According to Caril, she’d been angling for this chance for years.
“Come on.” He gripped Heart’s shoulder and propelled him forward. “Show me where King Silver is.”
Heart staggered forward, and Jay followed without letting go. Out of the corner of his eye, Jay saw the captain of the Ring’s guard sprawl facedown in the street. All around his prostrate body people flung themselves onto their knees, screaming for forgiveness. A stranger in uniform with Bondless marks on his hand pulled his knife and held it to his own throat. Jay didn’t let Heart pause to see what happened next. He shoved the Teacher into a stumbling run.