by Leigh, J.
“But what about the fire on the off-island? Wasn’t that connected to the mine?”
Mikkal raised his hand, a sheepish grin on his face. “That was me. I can’t explain it to you, Jathen, but Nosalia knows what I was about.”
Jathen snorted. “More of your group not talking to each other?”
“Mostly,” Nosalia said. “The group monitors certain things other than Artifacts. There was something that was part of the archeological dig that needed destroying. Though I could have been trusted to handle it.”
Mikkal smirked. “But you weren’t.”
“So the only question left,” Jathen said, “is where the hell is the Artifact that caused the ruddy earthquake?”
“After discussing it at great length, we can only think either it’s an insanely massive coincidence, or you must have seen something, Jathen,” Mikkal said. “Dumas saw something. We’ve all felt the effects of the earthquake. It must have been with Hatori, and thusly you, at some point, even if it wasn’t used to detect the mine.”
“So everyone keeps saying,” Jathen said. “Dumas was like Hatori, except instead of seeing spies everywhere, he saw Artifact leads. I mean, I’d have noticed if something like that was with us.” He held up Hatori’s sword cane. “This isn’t anything.”
Nosalia shook her head. “No, Jathen. This wouldn’t be something like that. If you did have it—and I’m not certain from what Mikkal’s said that you ever did—it would only be half of it and small.”
“If it was assembled,” Mikkal corrected. “If not, it’d be just the pieces.”
“Pieces?” Something coldly terrifying crawled up Jathen’s spine. “Like a puzzle in a puzzle-box?”
Mikkal narrowed his eyes. “I knew it. But I thought you might be suspecting of it as well, with the questions you were asking about negation.”
“Negation?” Jathen asked.
“The box it would have been kept in is made from negation stone to protect the pieces. Unless they were out of the box, no Talent would be capable of discerning their true nature. Boxes like that are part of why Grand Artifacts are so elusive.” As Mikkal shifted to the edge of his seat, Jathen found himself sinking deeper into his own, as if to shy away from a truth he didn’t want. “You truly could have had it the whole time, and no one would have ever known.”
“But that’s not… that’s not possible.” Jathen felt something inside his chest start to panic. His voice came out in heaving spasms. “There’s no way it could be that. I mean, Hatori never had it! Some silly little Tazu girl gave it to me the day we left. I mean it wasn’t even in play thirty years ago for the first earthquake! It just can’t be!” As his breath became more and more ragged, there was a shudder in the air, and then it was just… there, hovering between the three of them.
Seren’s star.
Nosalia gasped, and Jathen recoiled from the appeared puzzle as if it were a ral. Mikkal reached for it. The star shot toward Jathen in a streak of light straight into his chest. Jathen spun around, looking for it, only to realize the deep strangeness of the reality happening around him.
“Did that just merge with Jathen?” Nosalia asked, her eyes wide.
“It would appear to be that way, yes,” Mikkal said, sounding more puzzled than alarmed.
“I was friends with Yvette Ashton and knew Hatori from infanthood and a dozen other charm masters, not to mention Rhean himself.” Nosalia shook her head, flabbergasted. “But I’ve never heard of an Artifact, Grand or otherwise, doing that.”
Still shaking, Jathen could only babble, “The Native Near-Siders and the ghost at the inn… I thought they were taking it… but…” Spirit. Every time that damn watch buzzed, it must have been moving in and out of me.
Jathen swallowed hard as the faces of everyone he’d known, living and dead, who had come across him since he’d opened that box on the table, flitted before his eyes. “This is all my fault, isn’t it? Everyone who died… they died because I was playing with that stupid box.”
“Jathen, no.” Nosalia came over and put her arms around him.
Jathen barely felt them, barely felt anything but a numb buzzing of guilt and horror that permeated his pores.
“Artifacts are pieces of the Children, Jathen,” Mikkal said softly. “We have even had reports of them thinking, planning, and deciding things. The hand of fate…”
“I took it out! I assembled it! It was in me!” Jathen exploded, thrashing against Nosalia’s embrace. “How else could it have been triggered if I didn’t do something to force it? Explain that!” Mikkal was silent, and Jathen felt as if he might vomit. “I thought so.”
“Even if you did, Jathen,” Nosalia said, stroking his hair despite his squirming. “You couldn’t have known. Hatori didn’t know. I didn’t know. And we were supposed to know, trained to know.” She took his face in her hands, forcing his eyes to meet hers. “This is no one’s fault, least of all yours. Do you hear me?”
He nodded but only to get her to let go. She held him a moment longer before releasing him, looking defeated.
“Why is it in me?” he asked Mikkal.
The Gray shrugged. “Because you assembled it? Because Bree thought it would be a lark? Or perhaps it’s simply doing what it’s meant to do: Hide within what was never hidden, if this is indeed that half of it. It could be any of those or none. I just… I honestly don’t know for certain.”
“Who would?” Jathen tapped his chest. “I want it out.”
“Bree? Bron? Yvette Ashton?” Mikkal drummed his fingers along Nosalia’s mahogany desk. “Amongst the living, I don’t even know of anyone in Tar’citadel who would possibly… although…” He stopped, shaking his head. “No.”
Jathen leaned forward. “What?”
“It’s silly, especially with Sister about. Far too dangerous for far too little guarantee.”
Nosalia put a steadying hand on Jathen’s back. “We must put together a plan. We can’t leave him like this, not with that Red murderess about.”
Mikkal nodded. “My initial plan was to get the half of the Artifact and use it to lead Sister into the countryside, where if she attacked, she would do far less damage. But now that you are the Artifact”—he gestured at Jathen—“such a plan is no longer merely suicide but also murder.”
“Which is why it’s out of the question,” Nosalia put in, sounding final. “What about Orrick? He’s an Original and was present during the crafting of the Artifacts. He must know more about them than anyone else living.”
“Not a bad idea,” Mikkal said but then frowned. “The only difficulty is the distance, so many International Teleport Wards to move through to get from here to there. With Sister lurking about, it’s not the safest of plans, sadly.”
“Can’t you contact him and ask him to come here?” Jathen asked.
“Orrick doesn’t leave Clana-Ca’sta,” Nosalia replied. “Not since Yvette died. He might for this, but it would not be wise to fully explain it in a letter to get him here.”
Mikkal went back to drumming his fingers on the desk. “Which is the same reason we’re unlikely to get anyone else from our group out here to help. Perhaps someone could teleport directly from the Great Gate in Tar’citadel, but again, the kinds of covert tactics necessary to protect such secrets would delay such a message getting to them.”
“So what was the silly idea?” Jathen asked.
Throwing his sleek decorum to the wind, Mikkal threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. “I was going to say, hell, let’s head up north and find a Drannic.”
Jathen felt something inside him shift. Images of sheer cliffs flitted through his mind’s eye, and he could sense the Artifact in his chest for the first time, or perhaps it was simply the first time he realized what it was. I wonder if every time I had a burst of creativity, or a moment of clarity, or a d
ream warning me of my fate, it was only this thing. At the moment, it was humming, eager, telling him the path of fate it wanted to tread. “Could you actually find a Drannic up north?”
Mikkal studied Jathen. “Perhaps. As I was a master to Sister, I also had a teacher of sorts within our group. He was familiar with a particular Drannic who lived on the Solki Islands. There is a possibility I could call upon the Drannic in the same manner.”
“But wouldn’t we still run into the same problem of the International Wards?”
“No, not really.” The Gray seemed to be putting actual thought into the “silly” plan. “The trains are up and running past Fauve now, so we could take them all the way to the northern coast of the Republic then charter a boat to the Solkies. We’d technically only cross one border.”
“But it’s just as dangerous,” Nosalia complained, “with this Sister of yours about.”
“It might be our only option. As long as Jathen has this thing in him, he’s at risk. There is a good chance Sister has the other half of the Bree Artifact after all these years of hunting, but I’m not sure. Either way, the half she needs to make it work is in Jathen, and she is obsessed. Now we can try to get it out of him, or we can just sit here and wait for her to come for him. If you’ve a better plan, my dear lady, I’m willing to listen to it.”
“At the moment, nothing need be done,” Nosalia responded, “except for getting a bit more rest and a bit more time to think.”
“But…” they both tried to protest, only to feel the slap of her mighty Manna-gold glare.
“I remind you, sir,” Nosalia grated at Mikkal, “that you are an employee of the Imperial Government of the Clan Lands in the home of a private citizen of the Lu’shun Republic, and even if you had any shred of authority within these walls, it would be nullified the moment our culture takes age into account. Summarily, my Talented Gray, I outrank you several times over. So as for Jathen’s circumstances, as he is the only heart-loved child of two of my closest friends, the customs of our joint culture put him in my care when they departed from this side of the Veil for the other. So for now, Jathen is going to have a bath and another meal then go back to bed. You can brood on what to do the entire time for all I care, but I’ll be damned if I see you rush into anything stupid just because you didn’t put the proper time and thought into it.”
Jathen only barely heard Mikkal mutter, “Well, I suppose that is that,” before Nosalia ushered him back down the hall.
Within Jathen’s chest, the Artifact hummed. The burning sensation did not abate all through Nosalia’s imposed bath or meal. It also stayed through the fitful attempt Jathen made at sleep. Finally giving up sometime around dawn, he left his room to find Mikkal. He guessed right the first try, seeing the Gray sitting in the study, reading.
“Find anything useful?” Jathen asked.
Mikkal looked up at him. “Not a single word, in a single sentence, on a single page, of a single book. You think we should go north, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You are a precognitive Talent, if I recall correctly?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then?”
“Where’s Nosalia?”
Mikkal’s lips puckered slightly. “I convinced her to get some rest as well. She cannot mother the whole of Fauve’s destitute if she is exhausted.”
“Good.” Jathen fished out his things from under the chair. “Then let’s get moving.”
“Without speaking to Nosalia?” Mikkal sounded torn between being pleased and being surprised. “You are certain about this?”
“Yes.” Jathen tucked the sword cane into his belt and slung the crossbow over his back, then he rummaged around until he found a piece of paper. After scrawling a note detailing what to tell his mother if they were never to find him, he told Mikkal, “I could see the look in her eyes. Losing Hatori and Jeph, this attack on her home, all that has taken a toll. She’s hurting too deeply, and she’ll try to protect me no matter the cost. She’ll be furious, but she’ll also understand.” Folding the paper, he left it for her, along with half a prayer.
Please let this work.
PART FOUR:
NORTH
Chapter 38
It smelled different.
The crisp air of the northern Republic contained an odor of dead leaves and dirt, causing Jathen’s mind to dance all too quickly to the recesses of his brain where death lay. He had tucked the memories of his friends into cobwebbed corners until he was free to look upon them with solemnity. Until he was safe. I will mourn, truly mourn, when it is safe.
Jathen watched the blur of the passing landscape, feeling almost numb. “Are you certain we’re secure on the trains?”
“Safer than on the roads,” Mikkal replied. He looked at ease, but Jathen knew Mikkal could launch himself in any direction faster than a man could blink. Such knowledge was both comforting and disconcerting. The Clansman smiled. “Or flying.”
Jathen had no heart for wit, gentle as it was. “You’re sure she won’t attack the trains?”
“Not to the scale she did in Fauve. It’s far too risky. Fanatical as she is, she is no Red Mage to wantonly wake the sleeping giant that is Tar’citadel, especially if she has any control over the quakes. Two unnatural earthquakes this close together? Oh, she would gain their attention and very quickly.”
“But she might risk an attack by other means?”
Mikkal nodded. “She may.”
Oddly, the admission made Jathen feel better. “What should I keep an eye out for? I mean, I never got a very good look at her, between the hood and the armor.” Shifting uncomfortably on the cloth seat, he asked, “For that matter, why was she wearing armor only on one arm?”
“I have no idea.”
“You trained her, didn’t you? And you two fought recently? How can you not know?”
“The last time I saw her up close was over thirty years ago, Jathen. She was in her late twenties then. If things progressed naturally, she would be about two scales shorter than I, and being half human, half Annarite, her skin would be very dark, nearly ebony, and she would have silver-white hair, appearing somewhere in her late fifties or so. However, we are dealing with a Red Follower, and they have means to slow or even halt aging to some extent. She was also trained to alter her appearance through mundane means—disguises, hair dye, things of that nature. You’d be surprised what I could do to myself with just some dirt and a hat.” Tilting his head, he regarded Jathen with an almost sarcastic air. “Of course that’s assuming she would be the one who actually tries to grab you.”
“And the armor?”
Mikkal frowned, his sleek demeanor ruffled. “Its presence does concern me somewhat.”
“Why?”
“As I said, Sister was trained in the same manner as I was, groomed to join our group from childhood. I was able to cull some of her more obsessive tendencies. Without my influence reining her in all these years, I fear what madness she’s fallen into.”
Jathen’s throat tightened. “What kind of madness involves armor?”
“The kind that comes when a trained charm engineer goes to the Red.” Mikkal grimaced. “She was slipping so badly toward the end. I should have seen it back when she started ranting about recreating her own Grand Artifacts.”
“She did that?”
“Tried to. She was good, brilliant even, but no one can make a Grand Artifact without first having a crystallized component of an Awakened Avatar to craft it, let alone try to recreate one without. The fact that she even dreamed she could attempt it was a sure sign of how far she’d gone.” He shook his head. “I should have seen it.”
“We both should have seen a lot,” Jathen admitted, leaning his forehead against the window glass. It was cold. “Now I just want it over and done with.”
“Just keep close to me, Jathen. I will get you there safe. This, I promise.”
“Then home?”
“Of course.” Mikkal nodded. “Faster than the wind.”
I hope that’s not an exaggeration. Though the way these trains cover ground, I’m inclined to believe him. Every stop was a new world, a new jump in time and climate, and colder, always colder. They covered ground in their sleep as well, spending nights cramped in the compartment seats, where lights flickered by to the steady buzz of the moving train and the occasional crunch of the turning track. Jathen slept little, dreaming of thunder, fireworks, and earthquakes, only to awaken in a cold sweat to Mikkal’s caramel eyes catching the passing lights like pulsing embers as he stared out the window.
Mornings always brought such vastly different surroundings that they left Jathen feeling disjointed. The sense fed into the surreal unreality of it all, and more than a few times, Jathen caught himself imagining his friends were still alive back in Fauve, sitting around the shop and wondering where he had gone. Then he’d have to disembark to change trains, and a bitter platform wind would bite at his skin. Jathen would remember, the grief a colder knife jab to his stomach and revenge a hot blaze in his chest.
Not that I could avenge any of them against Sister. But perhaps I can see to it their deaths weren’t in vain. I’ll put the Artifact in Mikkal’s hands and make certain Sister never sees it.
At the fifth major stop, he noticed a scratchiness developing in his throat. By the seventh, he had developed a harsh cough.
Mikkal felt Jathen’s forehead and the sides of his throat. “Forgive me my lack of sensitivity and foresight. I should have bought you a coat, a scarf, and some gloves. I’m sorry you are sick, but we cannot stop.”
Jathen shivered miserably on the train station bench. “I know. But you can make it up to me by getting the coat and stuff now.”