Sixty-two
Ki’Loren floated up behind the palace and came to a stop. An opening appeared in the side and a drawbridge extended and came to rest on the low wall behind the palace. Tairus was the first one across the drawbridge, followed closely by Rome.
“I’m going to do it,” Tairus said. “Just like I said.”
“You don’t have to,” Rome replied, trying to catch hold of his arm. “I believe you.”
But Tairus pulled away and as soon as he was on the palace grounds he went to his knees and kissed the ground. Still kneeling on the ground, he tore at the straps and got his breastplate off, tossing it aside. The emblem of his rank was sewn to his tunic and he put his hand on it. “I don’t know what the proper way is to do this, but I do hereby resign, or something.” Then he tore off the emblem.
Or tried to.
It wouldn’t come off. He couldn’t get a good grip on it. Giving up, he peered up at Rome. “In case that wasn’t clear, I quit. I’m done with all this crazy shit. I’m going to buy a farm and get old and fat.”
Rome just shook his head and laughed. “Okay, okay,” he said, pulling Tairus to his feet. “But stand up at least. Do you want everyone to think you’ve gone simple?”
“I don’t care what they think,” Tairus said with mock gruffness. “I don’t care what anyone thinks or says or does ever again. You hear? I’m a civilian now!”
“I hear you. You don’t need to shout. But could you at least wait a few days? The city is a wreck and I could use your help.”
Tairus sighed. “If I don’t say yes, you’re just going to try and appeal to my better nature, aren’t you?”
“If I have to.”
“Okay, I’ll do it. But as soon as things get square, I’m gone. And you won’t try to talk me out of it, you understand?”
“I promise,” Rome said with a smile.
“Don’t give me that look. I mean it this time.”
“I know.” And Rome thought that probably Tairus really meant it this time. He certainly wasn’t a young man anymore. Rome stretched and felt the stiffness in his neck. None of them were young anymore. He saw Jenett walk across the drawbridge and he walked over to her.
“I want to thank you, to thank all your people,” he told her. “If you hadn’t come along when you did, well…I don’t have to tell you what would have happened.”
“On behalf of my people, I accept your gratitude,” she said, lowering her head slightly.
“You can consider Qarath your eternal ally,” Rome continued. “If there’s ever anything we can do to help you, and I mean anything, all you have to do is ask.”
“We will remember.”
Rome scratched his neck. “This feels kind of odd. Maybe I should be talking to your leader. You have a king or something?”
“There is no such thing among my people.”
“What about the crazy guy, Ya’Shi?”
“Following Ya’Shi would be more than any of us could manage.”
“Well…” Rome hesitated, unsure what to say. Where was Quyloc when he needed him? “Just remember, if you ever need anything.”
“Look, there is Ya’Shi now,” Jenett said, pointing.
Ya’Shi was back on ki’Loren’s highest point. There was someone seated beside him. Ya’Shi waved vigorously and yelled something, but Rome couldn’t hear.
“What?” he yelled back.
Ya’Shi kept waving and shouting, becoming very animated. Then, all at once he lost his balance and fell. It was an impressive fall. He did a complete flip, landed on his back, then bounced and continued falling and rolling. Rome watched him with alarm, sure that he was injuring himself, but when he glanced at Jenett he saw no sign of concern on her face. If anything, she seemed almost to be smiling.
Ya’Shi kept bouncing and rolling until finally, with one last tumble, he flopped onto the drawbridge. Groaning, he stood up unsteadily. Rome started to go to him, but Jenett put her hand on his arm, stopping him.
Ya’Shi staggered over to Rome. “Oh my,” he said. “That didn’t work out so well.”
“Are you okay?” Rome asked him.
Ya’Shi looked himself over, then shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t think so. But at my age, it’s hard to tell.”
“What were you yelling?”
Ya’Shi gave him a blank look.
“Before you fell, you were yelling something.”
Ya’Shi’s face lit up. “Oh. Yes. I was saying goodbye.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it.” Without another word, Ya’Shi turned and walked back into ki’Loren.
“What a strange man,” Tairus said. “Or whatever he is.”
“It seems your people have all made it off ki’Loren,” Jenett said. “So I will say goodbye as well.” They watched her walk across the drawbridge, which then pulled back. The opening in ki’Loren’s side closed and the island began to move away.
Rome saw Perganon standing to one side, watching ki’Loren leave, and he walked over to him. “I’m glad to see you made it all right,” Rome told him.
Perganon adjusted his spectacles and turned to look at Rome. “I am as well.”
“How’s that history coming along?” Before leaving for Guardians Watch, Rome had told Perganon he wanted a history of these events written.
“I haven’t gotten much of a start,” Perganon replied. “There’s been a lot going on.”
“I guess you’ll have time now.”
“I hope so.”
“Just make sure you don’t leave them out.” Rome gestured at ki’Loren, which was already sinking under the sea.
“I assure you I won’t.”
Quyloc was standing there, staring at the vine-wreathed tower. Several hours had passed since their return. There was no one else nearby. Everyone else had moved on, some to the tents set up for them on the palace grounds, others back into the city itself. Relief and excitement mixed equally with grief and resolution. There was a great deal of rebuilding to do and so much had been lost. Rome walked up to stand beside Quyloc.
“I was kind of hoping that would be gone too,” Rome said.
For a time Quyloc said nothing. Then he pointed at the sand dune in front of the tower, just barely visible underneath the vine, and said, “It has grown larger.”
Rome winced. “So it’s not just my imagination then? What are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we could just build a wall around it?”
“You remember the Gur al Krin, don’t you?”
Rome winced again. “Yeah.”
“There’s a hole here, a rift in the Veil. Just like there is by the prison.”
“Are you saying that’s going to keep growing and we’re going to have another desert like the Krin right here?”
Quyloc sighed. “I think so.”
“Isn’t there any way we can seal the hole?”
“The Kaetrians never figured out how. The Shapers never figured out how.”
“We’re going to have to abandon Qarath, aren’t we?”
“Not right away. But eventually.”
Rome looked over his shoulder. Night was falling and someone had started a fire. People were gathering around and throwing wood on it. There was scattered laughter. “I can’t do that to them. They’ve been through too much.”
Quyloc looked down at the spear in his hands, then at the dune again. “It’s my fault,” he said in a low voice.
“What is?” Rome asked, turning back to him.
“The hole. It was caused by me.”
“Wait a minute. The hole was caused by that gromdin thing, when it had us tied to the top of that volcano. If anything, it’s my fault.”
Quyloc shook his head. “The gromdin merely focused the energy it stole from us on a weak spot in the Veil. That weak spot was caused by me, going back and forth into the Pente Akka. If I hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t have been able to break through here.”
“That’s n
ot fair,” Rome said. “You were searching for the spear. You were doing what Lowellin told you had to be done. There was no way you could have known.”
“No. That was only an excuse. I went into the Pente Akka because I wanted power. Lowellin just gave me the excuse. I would have gone anyway.”
“We wouldn’t have survived without that spear. Kasai would have beaten us at Guardians Watch. Reyna would have overrun us before we could fall back to the palace grounds.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that the hole wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t been so obsessed with my own desire for power.”
“I’m too tired for this, Quyloc. You’re too tired for this. Let it go for now, okay? We’ll figure this out. For now, let’s just go join the party.”
“You go. I’m staying here.”
Rome stared at him for a while, then walked away and left Quyloc standing there alone.
“Now that the Children are gone,” Ricarn said, looking at Nalene’s sulbit, “what will you do with those?” They were sitting on the steps of the palace. It was dark, the only light coming from the bonfire that had been built out in the middle of the circular drive. Jugs and flasks were being passed around the fire. There was a great deal of laughter, most of it too loud, too raucous. It was the laughter of people who have survived when they thought they were dead, relief and horror all mashed into one. Someone was playing a violin. A few people were dancing unsteadily.
Nalene’s sulbit was pacing back and forth across her shoulders. She put one hand on it, trying to calm it. It did no good. “I hadn’t gotten around to that yet,” she admitted.
Ricarn just looked at her.
“There’s no rush,” Nalene said defensively. “We can do a lot of good with them still. There’s a lot of rebuilding to do.”
“And how, exactly, will you use them to rebuild?”
“I don’t know,” Nalene said irritably. “I’m tired. I haven’t had time to think about it yet.”
“You are afraid to lose what the creature has brought you.”
Nalene meant to deny it, but for some reason the truth spilled from her. Maybe she was just too tired to hold back any longer.
“You can’t imagine what it was like before,” she said. “They scorned me. They treated me like dirt. And I had to just take it. I was too weak. There was nothing I could do.”
“Do you really think, after all that has happened, that things will go back to the way they were?” Ricarn asked.
Nalene glanced at her. The firelight flickered off her porcelain skin. She looked away. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m just…I’m afraid to be alone again. I have gotten used to having the comfort of Song around me.”
“You do not need that creature to know your connection to LifeSong. You know that.”
“No, I don’t know that.”
“I can teach you.”
“Can’t we just wait?” Nalene asked. All of a sudden she felt panicky. “We’ve all been through so much. Can’t we just wait a few days to make any big decisions?”
“The sulbits have grown a great deal in the last few days,” Ricarn observed.
Nalene looked at her sulbit. She remembered when it had been the size of her thumb, so small and helpless.
“How did this happen?” Ricarn asked. “How did they grow so much, so fast?”
Nalene answered slowly, knowing where this was going. “We fed them. We had no choice. We had to do it, if we were to have any chance against the Children.” Her heart was speeding up.
“What will you feed them now?”
“They won’t need as much now,” Nalene said, trying to find some way to slow this down. “Now that the danger has passed.”
“Do you really believe this?”
An angry retort came to Nalene’s lips, but then she hesitated. She could feel her sulbit’s hunger. She could feel the hunger of all the sulbits. It was steadily growing stronger. She remembered what happened on the return from Guardians Watch, the guards who died during the night.
“You think we need to return them to the River,” Nalene said numbly.
“What do you think?”
Nalene put her hands over her face, hating Ricarn, hating how ruthless, how right she was. Why couldn’t the woman just leave her alone?
Ricarn merely waited.
“Okay, you’re right,” Nalene said finally. “But I don’t know if we can. Lowellin is gone.”
“After all this, still you make excuses.”
“I’m not making excuses!” Nalene snapped. “I don’t know how to do it!”
“And I had hopes you would relinquish at least some of your belief in your own weakness. One of our order saved us all by entering the River and still you bleat to me about your helplessness.” Ricarn’s voice was even colder than it normally was. “Do you not yet see that your limitations are self-imposed?”
“That’s outrageous!” Nalene yelled, leaping to her feet. Her sulbit hissed at Ricarn. Several nearby revelers heard and turned to look, openmouthed. “You dare to speak to me like this? I should…” Her words trailed off. Ricarn was simply staring her, expressionless, remote. Nalene sagged back down on the steps.
“You don’t understand. It’s the way I’ve always…I don’t know what to do.” She rubbed at the sudden tears that sprang up when she saw what she was going to have to say. She looked up at the sky for help. The next words were unbelievably hard. “Can you help me?”
To her great surprise, from the corner of her eye she saw the faintest hint of a smile on Ricarn’s face. “Are you laughing at me?” she demanded.
“Not at all,” Ricarn said. “I just heard you say perhaps the first intelligent words I’ve ever heard from you, that’s all.”
“What?”
“Yes, I will help you. I am your sister, after all.”
Nalene sighed and put her head in her hands. “You make me tired.”
“You make yourself tired. Don’t blame that on me.”
Nalene sighed again. She badly wanted to go to sleep.
“Do you know why Tender power waned?” Ricarn asked. “It’s not what you think. It’s not because we angered Xochitl and she took our power away from us. She couldn’t do that to us because our power doesn’t come from her. Our power comes from Song. No, we lost our power because we turned away from our true selves and put our faith in external things. We forgot that our strength lies within us, in our connection to the flows of Life. The first step toward real power lies in recognizing this. If you want to keep your connection to Song, if you want to make it strong, so it never leaves you, you must give up all the false beliefs you have learned. You must become like a child again and start over. Only then can you learn properly.”
“What…?” Nalene said, trying to process what Ricarn was saying. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“If you try, if you are willing, you must succeed.”
“Why would you do this for me?”
“Do not confuse yourself. I am not doing this for you. I do this for all.”
“I don’t know if that makes me feel better.”
“And still you have not learned that I do not care.”
Nalene thought about that. The words seemed cold, but were they really? “When do you want to do this, return the sulbits?”
“Now.”
“Should we not let the women rest first? Everyone is exhausted.”
“No. Stop delaying. The danger will only grow greater.”
“How will we summon the River without Lowellin’s help?”
Ricarn lifted one eyebrow slightly. “You are going to take a long time to learn. Did you not listen? Any of us could do it. I could even teach you, though we would no doubt be dead of old age by the time that happened.”
Nalene lowered her head and gritted her teeth. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”
Together the Tenders walked in the moonlight down the street toward the estate house. A few people marked their path, but none spoke to them or foll
owed them. Already the power of the sulbits’ hunger was such that all could feel it and none wanted to be close to it.
Cara walked near the back of the group. Not having a sulbit, she knew she didn’t need to go with them, but somehow it felt important to her to do so. Why? To show her support? To see for herself that the creatures were actually gone? She couldn’t have said.
Partway there one of the Tenders fell back from the main group and began walking beside her. It was Owina. The older woman took hold of Cara’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
“I don’t know how I feel about this,” Owina whispered to Cara.
Cara, having no idea what to say, simply squeezed Owina’s hand back. It was still strange to her how often Tenders came to talk to her these days. Usually they came in the evenings, when she was sitting alone in her tiny hut in the trees. She didn’t know why they came. It was just something that started sometime after she began leading the morning services. The fact that she never knew what to say to them, that for the most part she just sat and listened, didn’t seem to bother any of them.
“I’m afraid to lose my sulbit,” Owina continued. “It seems like it’s always been a part of me. I can’t imagine life without it.” She gripped Cara’s hand even more tightly. “At the same time, I want to be rid of it. It frightens me. You can’t imagine how hungry it is. I’m glad we’re doing this tonight. I’m so tired, but I think if I fell asleep it would get away from me and…” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Both of them knew what the sulbits were capable of.
“What if it doesn’t want to go?” Owina asked.
Cara gave her a startled look. She hadn’t considered that. “Why wouldn’t it? It already tried once.”
“You’re right, of course. But it was frightened then, they all were. I think it wants to go home, but what if it doesn’t? I’m worn out, Cara. I can’t fight with it anymore. I’m afraid…” She paused, then lowered her voice even more. “You remember what happened to Lendl, right?”
“She came back with two sulbits.”
“And they took control of her. They made her do things and she couldn’t stop them. She hasn’t gotten over that. She might never get over it. You’ve seen how she is.”
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