Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2)

by Becca Mills

  Cordus listened, nodding occasionally.

  “Yes,” he said when I finished, “I have heard of this discovery. Mr. Yellin found it nearly as exciting as you do.”

  “Oh.”

  I felt myself turning red again. Of course Yellin would’ve reported all information about the Thirsting Ground. Cordus had to decide what to do with the youngling fragment, after all.

  “But the connection you are suggesting — that the Brooklyn fragment represents a living link to the practice of object-fixed workings … that is intriguing.”

  His gaze grew distant for a few long moments, then came back to me.

  “Are you thinking that the Thirsting Ground may have gained some of its creator’s gift, and that the Brooklyn fragment could thus have helped Lord Limu make the object that was stolen from him?”

  I nodded and tried not to squirm. Now that Cordus was spelling it out, the idea sounded ridiculously far-fetched.

  “I do not know if that insight will help us, but we are in no position to dismiss good ideas. Thank you, Miss Ryder.”

  That made me feel a bit less silly.

  The silence stretched for a number of seconds. Cordus showed no sign of picking the conversation back up. He just sat there, looking at me. I started feeling antsy.

  “So, um … what did you find out about Eye of the Heavens?”

  He sighed. “Nothing, really. I spoke to no one with first-hand knowledge — and no one with second-hand knowledge, for that matter. Most scholars seem to believe Eye of the Heavens is a myth with little basis in reality.”

  “Wow. Bummer.”

  I felt my face added a third layer of red. The foot was going in the mouth more than usual, even for me.

  Cordus’s lips quirked. “A fair assessment. Fortunately, the trip was not entirely wasted. I gathered some important information about the device Lord Limu is thought to have created.”

  He studied me, apparently weighing the choice to share what he’d learned.

  “Have you broken your oath, Miss Ryder? I ask you to speak truly, but I will not demean you by forcing you to do so.”

  I shivered. “No, I haven’t. I was tempted to, a few times, because people were so worried when you were gone.” I paused, wrestling with my ambivalence. “Maybe if I’d said where I thought you were, not so many people would’ve defected. They were so sure you were dead.” I looked up at him. “Did I make the right decision?”

  “Yes. Unequivocally.”

  Relief washed over me.

  Cordus’s gaze grew more intense. “Lord Limu has, in fact, created a weapon. Humanity is his target.”

  “Humanity? All of humanity?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “What do you understand of the structure of this planet?”

  I blinked at the sudden change of direction, then cast my mind back to high school.

  “Well, there’s a rocky crust. Underneath, everything is molten. The crust’s broken up into plates that move around. When they push together, you get earthquakes. And volcanos.”

  Cordus nodded. “Lord Limu is known for two gifts — the working of fire and the working of solid minerals. In combination, these gifts give him mastery over magma, volcanism, and the like.”

  I nodded. What he said certainly fit what I knew of Limu.

  “He plans to use his gifts to trigger a massive eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera. Any eruption of Yellowstone would cripple the United States. An event of the scope Lord Limu plans would destroy most life west of the Mississippi and trigger a volcanic winter lasting more than a decade. This world’s agriculture would struggle to feed even a fraction of the survivors.”

  I gaped at him. After a very long silence, all I could find to say was, “Yellowstone Park has a volcano?”

  “Yellowstone is a volcano. Or more properly, the park sits atop a large chamber of magma, perhaps fueled by a plume rising from the Earth’s lower mantle. The three most recent eruptions created the caldera as we now know it, but the larger area has a history of eruptions going back sixteen or seventeen million years.”

  I sat in silence for a minute, absorbing the information.

  … destroy most life west of the Mississippi, and trigger a volcanic winter …

  “I don’t get it. Even if Limu hates humanity and wants to destroy it, what you’re describing would destroy everything else, too.” I thought again. “Actually, I bet at least some humans would survive. I mean, we have canned food, bottled water. Shelter. Fuel for generators. All the species of bugs and birds and rodents and fish — they don’t have those resources. They’d die for sure. And tons of other species all around the world.”

  Cordus nodded. “Humanity is among the most adaptable and resilient of species. But human culture is not. Human culture is fragile, ephemeral.” He paused. “I saw what the fall of Rome wrought in the west.”

  It was weird to be reminded how old he was. He didn’t look a day over twenty-five. The powers could keep themselves young. They could keep themselves anyway they liked. Sustained form-workings were one of their signatures.

  “Europe lost a lot of technology, right?”

  He waved his hand. “Some, yes. But more importantly, they lost who they had been. The cultures that grew up in the empire’s wake had different values, different priorities. The stories they told themselves about what it means to be human changed radically.”

  I thought again.

  Cordus sat quietly, gaze intent, a slight smile playing over his lips. He was clearly waiting for me to get the picture.

  I wished his confidence in my intelligence didn’t feel so good. It gave me the sense of being his loyal puppy, or something. I sat back in my chair, trying to put some symbolic distance between us.

  “So,” I said, “Limu understands that humanity will probably survive, but he thinks it’ll be greatly changed. There’ll be way fewer of us, and we’ll be preoccupied with survival. We’ll lose lots of our technology …” The light bulb went off. “We won’t be a threat to the Second-Emanation anymore.”

  Cordus nodded.

  “And by the time we rebuilt,” I pressed on, “maybe our values would be different. Maybe we’d be more peaceable. Not so eager to invade and conquer new places. And if not, maybe he could reset the clock on us again.”

  “My dear Miss Ryder, your mind is wonderfully quick. I had not considered repeatability as part of his long-term strategy, but I believe you are right.”

  With utter predictability, I blushed right down to my collarbones. I looked away, embarrassed and uncomfortable.

  Cordus gracefully ignored my reaction. “According to my information, the device Lord Limu has created will enable him to enlarge the magma chamber beneath the Yellowstone Caldera. The chamber already holds magma sufficient to equal the last massive eruption. I believe he plans to triple its size.”

  I felt cold.

  “The working is probably fixed in some object very resistant to heat and pressure — a diamond, perhaps. It will contain both a protective barrier and the main working.”

  “Maybe it was the stone in Justine’s engagement ring, or something. Before she was Justine, I mean.”

  Cordus’s eyebrows went up. “It is hard to believe Lord Limu fool enough to put such an item on his consort’s finger. Then again, he has ever been one to appreciate the grand gesture.”

  “How did you find out all this?”

  “That must remain confidential. Suffice it to say that I believe the information is accurate.”

  I nodded. I could understand his wanting to keep his source on the down-low. I wasn’t strong enough to protect the information.

  Something warm and strong enclosed my hand. I didn’t need to look down to know he’d wrapped his own around it, but I did anyway. I was struck by the way our bodies contrasted — my wrist was pale and wiry, dusted with light brown hairs and freckles, and marked with two long scratches from the run through the woods to battle the youngling. His hand was beautiful
ly contoured, with perfectly smooth olive-toned skin and manicured nails.

  “Miss Ryder,” he said, softly.

  I looked up and found him studying me with obvious admiration.

  “Now I must ask of you something difficult, something beyond your years and training.”

  I cleared my throat. “What is it?”

  “As I’ve said, none of the scholars I consulted about Eye of the Heavens was able to tell me anything useful, but a number of them did suggest I research the matter in the library of the ice mothers.”

  “Who are they?”

  “It is the preferred term for the females of the ice man species.”

  “Oh, right.”

  I clamped my mouth shut before I could make some inane joke about how weird it would sound to talk about “ice man females.”

  “The females of that species are unlike the males. The males are violent, competitive, animalistic.”

  That doesn’t sound much like Bob, I thought, and weathered the blend of sadness, guilt, and anger that came with my memory of him. Bob the ice man had been a gentle soul. My actions had led to his death, indirectly and by accident.

  “The females,” Cordus continued, “are intellectual, artistic, and political. They are an older species than we and have been collecting knowledge in their great library for hundreds of thousands of years. The information we need may lie there, but the ice mothers allow no males among their books — not of any species.”

  I nodded, waiting for him to continue. Then I realized where he was heading.

  “Hold on a sec. You want me to go to the ice mothers’ library?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. “In the S-Em? By myself?”

  I pulled my hand away. He let it go easily.

  “That’s crazy.”

  I leaned back in my chair, half-expecting him to get angry, but he just arched an eyebrow.

  “Is it, Miss Ryder?”

  “Yes! I’m a newbie. And even if I weren’t, I’m broken. I still can’t see through. This world I’m in now, I walk through it blind. I have no abilities, no working gift. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

  “Look at it from my perspective.” He held up a hand and began ticking off points. “You are a woman. Of all my household, you alone understand my interest in Eye of the Heavens. You have a personal stake in the matter — the fate of your brother’s family hangs in the balance. You have applied yourself well to Baasha and, according to Mr. Yellin, can now read and comprehend it passably. And you have a scholarly bent. I know you enjoy research and would dedicate yourself to this task with great attention.”

  “But —”

  “And lastly, there is little you can do to help here as your colleagues and I reestablish control over this territory. Instead of that responsibility, you can assist with one of far greater import — the protection of humanity itself.”

  “Someone else should have that job.”

  “Who?”

  “Gwen.”

  “Miss Hegstrom is a capable fighter, an excellent planner, and a reliable manager, but she is in no way a scholar. She has no knowledge of Baasha.”

  “One of the women from Phoenix.”

  Cordus leaned back, studying me. “Did it occur to you to wonder why, among all my teams, the one in Phoenix suffered no defections?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Me too,” he said softly.

  His tone of voice and dip into colloquial speech sent shivers up my back.

  “Would you have me send the profane Miss Sanchez? She would antagonize the ice mothers and be eaten in short order. Or perhaps Mrs. McCallister, who gives true meaning to the term ‘broken’?”

  “There has to be someone else.”

  Cordus leaned toward me, his face intent. The feeling of the room seemed to change, growing quieter, warmer, more intimate. I found I couldn’t look away from him.

  “Miss Ryder, I have no one else to send. But even if I did, I would send you. I do not believe you can do this. I know it.”

  The certainty in his voice was unmistakable. A hot tide of joy and satisfaction swept through me. The feeling was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It was profound. I found myself rising in my own estimation.

  “Do you really think so?”

  He nodded.

  He trusts me.

  “Is it a long way?”

  “Not at all. Only two strata lie between here and Fur, where the ice men live, and the journey in this world is short — the strait is in North Carolina.”

  “Do I have to go alone?”

  “Miss Ryder, really, need you ask? I would never send you alone. You will have a team to assist and protect you.”

  With every answer, my confidence grew. Why had I been so reluctant to take on this mission? Lord Cordus wanted to protect me. I was valuable to him. He would never give me more than I could handle or send me into a situation where I wouldn’t be safe.

  As I thought about it, my sense of purpose grew. Not only did Lord Cordus trust me, he needed me. Humanity needed me. The world needed me — all those bugs and birds and fish Limu was going to kill. Someone had to save them. And Ben’s family — someone had to save Justine. That could be me. It would be me. The mission was perfect for me. For once, I could really help.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go. When do I need to leave?”

  Lord Cordus smiled, his face full of happiness and relief. “Tomorrow, Miss Ryder. Just after dawn.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me once, chastely, on the forehead and then sat back, just looking at me and smiling. I stared back at him, drinking in his obvious faith and admiration. It felt so good. The more I looked at him, the more perfect he was. The rest of the world seemed to fall away.

  Chapter 8

  “Beth?”

  I turned around, my hands full of clothes.

  Gwen had opened the door to my room a crack and was sticking her head in.

  “Hey! Come on in.” I waited for her to close the door. “Did you hear that I’m going on a mission? I can’t really talk about it, but it’s important. I’m pretty excited. Want to help me choose stuff to take?”

  Gwen stood there, her eyes tracking from me to the suitcase I was loading up. Then she came over and sat down on the bed.

  “Yeah. I heard. Lord Cordus asked me to come tell you more about the ice men.”

  “Great! I’m so glad he told you that much. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to talk about it at all. But if you at least know where I’m going, that’s something.”

  She nodded and then looked down.

  I realized she was upset.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you worried? Don’t be. It’s a short trip — just two strata.”

  “‘Just two strata’? Beth, I’ve never set foot in the S-Em. None of us have. ‘Just two strata’ doesn’t sound reassuring.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess it does sound sort of weird. But it’ll be fine. Lord Cordus wouldn’t send me anywhere dangerous.”

  “Really? He sends me dangerous places all the time, and that’s just in this world.”

  Her face was very serious.

  A tiny thread of doubt tickled the back of my mind. It was, weirdly enough, almost painful.

  Then I remembered that Lord Cordus believed in me. If he was sure I could do this, then so was I.

  “I know, Gwen. And that sucks. But this is different. I can do what he’s asking — no problem. And I’ll finally be able to help. I mean really help, not just be a back-up generator. Even if there’s some small risk, well, being able to help makes it worth it.”

  Gwen studied me for several long seconds. Then a look of profound sadness passed over her face. She turned away and cleared her throat.

  “Well, there’s no need to pack a suitcase. The staffers are putting your pack together. They’ll deliver it in the morning.”

  “Oh.”

  I looked around my room, a bit deflated.

  “Ca
n I bring a few things?”

  “Just some practical stuff that the staff won’t have access to, like panties and bras. Don’t bring any clothes or books or anything.”

  I sighed and dumped the suitcase out on the bed. She’d just identified ninety-nine percent of what was in it.

  “So be it. Why don’t you tell me about the ice mothers while I put this stuff away?”

  She nodded and began describing ice man society. It sounded pretty strange. The basics matched what Lord Cordus had said: the males were violent and competitive, whereas the females were comparatively sedate and oriented toward intellectual and artistic pursuits. The strange part was the society the ice men — maybe “ice people” would be fairer — had built atop those differences. The females were the diplomats, the thinkers, the writers, the artists. They were also the engineers, the scientists, the scholars, and the doctors. They were, in short, in charge of just about everything. The males were basically brute labor: they hunted; made weapons — following the females’ designs; and when necessary, fought battles — under the command of female generals.

  “Wow,” I said. “It’s like some warped mirror-image of the way we used to look. No equality at all.”

  Gwen grimaced. “Yeah, but more extreme. Even very patriarchal human societies have generally had a little wiggle room. The occasional warrior maiden or queen or whatever. There’s none of that with the ice men. The system is rigid. Totally.”

  Maybe that’s why Bob didn’t live with his people — no space for a gentle, sensitive male.

  “It sounds icky.”

  Gwen eyed me. “What it is, is dangerous. I need to teach you some postures you can use to display submission to any younger males you encounter. They’re highly unstable, very aggressive. You should avoid them whenever possible, but contact might happen by accident. If it does, you have to defuse the situation pronto.”

  My mouth felt dry.

  Gwen’s right. This is scary.

  Then Lord Cordus’s faith in me came to mind, warm and comforting.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, show me.”

  Two hours later, Gwen had taught me four postures of submission. Each came with a symbolic gesture — stuff like miming gutting yourself or pretending to rip the skin and fur off your own leg. I practiced them over and over until Gwen was satisfied, all the while telling myself that the ice mothers would surely keep me separated from the males. Lord Cordus wouldn’t send me on a mission that posed a significant risk of disembowelment.