So Argian and Marcol and Felax tracked down those resisting the unification one by one, but their true numbers were unknown. Rumor had it in the thousands. Edeard suspected a few hundred, which left him content that his dedicated team would gradually wear down the resistance. It was almost like the good old days of the Grand Council committee on organized crime. Except even that was an illusion, a memory that when examined properly wasn’t so joyful. It was just another achingly long time spent shuffling reports and dossiers.
If anything was becoming a true constant in his life, it was the mountains of paperwork and those endless boring meetings. Can that really lead to my fulfillment? And if not, what?
The evening didn’t start well. One of the girls Hilitte brought to the bedchamber wasn’t used to so much food being available and ate too much during the meal beforehand, which led to her feeling sick when they all retired to the master bedchamber. With unity came minds wide open to each other. That meant the sensations of her nausea spread like a contagion.
After she’d hurried out, leaving those left behind to take deep breaths and calm their queasy stomachs, Edeard decided a quiet night spent by himself might be preferable to the usual frenetic physical performance. Sure enough, his day had been long, uneventful, and ultimately thankless. His one attempt to longtalk Jiska had resulted in the usual quick rebuff. His children had all taken their mother’s side. It was probably the main reason he’d turned to Hilitte and the others; their cheap adoration was an easy way of easing the pain of loss, no matter how shallow and flimsy the act. His one genuine thread of comfort amid the estrangement came from knowing that a unified world would provide them with fulfillment. He hadn’t failed them even though they would never acknowledge it.
He asked Hilitte and the remaining girl to leave him. Hilitte stomped out in a wake of hurt feelings and sourness with just an undercurrent of worry that her time as the favorite was drawing to a close. Such was his languor, he couldn’t be bothered to reassure her. He wove a thick shield around his feelings, cutting himself off from the mellow reassuring contentment of the unified minds glowing around him, and fell asleep.
He was woken out of his outlandish dream by the strength of worry from the approaching mind. For a second he had been back in the forest with the other Ashwell apprentices on their galby hunt, beset with fear without knowing why. But it was only Argian, breezing his way past staff with cool purpose, ignoring any requests to wait for the sleeping Waterwalker to be formally woken and informed of his presence.
“It’s all right,” Edeard longtalked through the bedchamber’s closed door. “Come in.” His third hand hauled a robe over as Argian strode in. Now that Edeard was shaking off the sleep, he became aware of just how deep the currents of anxiety were running in the man’s mind. Bitter regret was like the burn of bile. “What is it?” Edeard asked in trepidation.
“We caught them,” Argian said, but there wasn’t a trace of elation in the tone. That morning he and Marcol had been excited at the new leads they’d gathered, the information that that night there would be a raid on a shipyard in the Port district, where two half-built trading schooners would be burned.
“And?” Edeard asked.
“They fought back.” There were tears glinting in Argian’s eyes now. “I’m so sorry, Edeard. Her concealment was good; we didn’t even know she was there.”
Edeard became still, the hot blood pounding around his body suddenly turning to ice as he perceived the picture forming amid Argian’s thoughts. “No,” he moaned.
“We didn’t know. I swear on the Lady. Marcol hauled her out of the flames as soon as we farsighted her.”
“Where is she?”
“The hospital on Half Bracelet Lane in Neph; it was the closest.”
Edeard flung his farsight into the district, pushing through the thick walls of the hospital. As always, the sense revealed only gauzy radiant shadows, but he could perceive the body that lay on a cot in the ground-floor ward; he knew the signature anywhere. It was ablaze with pain. “Oh, great Lady,” he groaned in horror.
The travel tunnels took him down to Neph in minutes. As he passed under Abad, he sensed someone else flying along ahead of him. Two girls, holding hands as they hurtled headfirst, radiated fear and concern as their long dark skirts flapped wildly in the slipstream.
“Marilee? Analee?” he called. He had no idea they knew of the travel tunnels. Their thoughts vanished behind an astonishingly strong shield. The rejection was as shocking as it was absolute.
He rose up through the floor of the hospital a few seconds behind the twins. They were already hurrying toward the ward, glimpsed as shadows in the dark corridors, their heels clattering on the floor. He followed, every step slower than the last. The farsight of his whole family was converging on the hospital, their presence like malign souls.
Jiska was lying on a cot, a terrible reedy wail bubbling out of her throat. The level of pain filling the long room was enough to make Edeard’s legs falter. He was crying as he approached. Three doctors were bent over his daughter, trying to remove the burned cloth from her ruined skin. Potions and ointments were poured over the blackened, crisping flesh, doing little to alleviate the awful thudding pain.
He took another step forward. Marilee and Analee moved quickly to form a barrier between him and the bed, minds fiercely steadfast. They were clad in robes similar to his own signature black cloak, hoods thrown over their heads leaving their faces in shadow. Steely guardians of their mortally injured sister, determined to prevent any last violation of her sanctity.
“She has suffered enough, Father.”
“She doesn’t need you here to make it worse.”
“Jiska,” he pleaded. “Why?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Not here.”
“Not now.”
“Don’t pretend your ignorance is some kind of innocence.”
“You’re not ignorant. Nor innocent.”
“You are evil.”
“A monster.”
“We will do whatever we can to ruin your empire.”
“And destroy you.”
The two black-clad figures wavered in his vision, and he saw them on the tropical beach as it had never happened so many years ago, both in long cotton rainbow skirts, bare feet on the hot sand, both clinging adoringly to Marvane, rapturously happy as Natran performed the marriage ceremony.
“I do this for all of you,” Edeard wept. “I am bringing you fulfillment. The Lady knows I try to bring fulfillment to the whole world. Why do you reject me?”
“Your evil would enslave everyone on Querencia, and you ask us why.”
“Evil. Evil. Evil man. Honious will take you.”
Jiska convulsed. Edeard groaned through clenched teeth as he forced himself to share every aspect of her agony. He deserved nothing less. His legs gave way.
“We will bring you down.”
“We are still free.”
“We have taught others how to liberate themselves.”
“Your slaves will rise up against you.”
“Domination does not deliver eternal loyalty.”
“Already your hold on the provinces crumbles away.”
“You?” he asked through the sickening pain. “You are the resistance?”
Then the longtalk he dreaded most spoke. “Who else was left?” Kristabel asked. “Whose mind has your megalomania left unbroken?”
Jiska’s head turned slightly.
“Don’t move, don’t move,” the doctors chorused in concern.
Red scabbed eyelids fluttered, sending a yellow fluid seeping out of freshly opened cracks. The remaining good eye stared right at him. “We will beat you,” Jiska’s weak longtalk told him determinedly. “My soul will wander the Void, but I will die knowing this. I am fulfilled, Father, but not how you desired me to be, thank the Lady.”
Edeard fell to his knees. “You’re not to be lost. I can stop this,” he told her with a whisper. “I can.” Two hours, that�
��s all. Just go back two hours and stop the fire from ever happening. I’ll talk reason to them. We will find common ground.
“If you try-”
“-you will have to kill us first.”
“All of us,” Kristabel longtalked.
Edeard raised his head to the shadowed ceiling. “You do not die. Not again. Not ever while I live. I have suffered too much for that to be allowed.”
In the streets outside the hospital, minds were emerging from their concealment. Their presence shocked him. Rolar, Dylorn, Marakas, even Taralee. The oldest five grandchildren, all emboldened and resolute. But not Burlal-he at least is spared this. And they weren’t alone. Macsen and Kanseen emerged with them, as did their children. Then at the last Kristabel came forth.
“You can rule this world,” they told him with a loving unity whose nobility was infinitely more beautiful than any he had ever imposed. “But we will not be a part of it. One way or another.”
“But we must be one,” he shouted back frantically. “One-” Nation. With that he crumpled to the ground and cried out in anguish as the shock of what he now believed in hit him with a physical impact. Oh, my great Lady, I have become my enemies: Bise, Owain, Buate, the Gilmorn, Tathal, all the others I struggled to overcome. How was I so weak to let them win, to adopt their methods? This cannot stand. This is why fewer Skylords have come. Fulfillment is slipping away from me, from all of us. I knew that. Lady, I always knew that.
He had sworn not to go back again, but that was an irrelevance now-he was going back to save Jiska. Not two hours. That would not be salvation. There was only one option left.
“You are right,” he told them, and opened his mind so they could see whatever love and humility he had left. “I have fallen to arrogance and sin, but I swear to the Lady I will show no more weakness.” And reached for that wretched moment-
– to land on the ground at the foot of the Eyrie tower. His ankles gave way, and he stumbled, falling forward. Strong third hands reached out to steady him. A blaze of concern and adoration bathed his bruised thoughts.
The crowd drew its collective breath in a loud “Ohoooo” at his dangerous landing. Then, as he straightened up, they began to applaud the ostentatious resurgence of their old Waterwalker.
For a moment he feared his jumbled recollections and shaky emotions meant he’d completely misjudged the twisting passage through the Void’s memory. But there was no powerful farsight following him, no Tathal, no nest. This was the time immediately after he had vanquished that foe, when events were so close to what they had been the first time, the genuine life he’d forgone so long ago.
Macsen gave him a derisory sneer, while Dinlay’s hardened thoughts registered his disapproval at the madcap jump from the tower. As they always do, thank you, Lady.
Kristabel’s expression was one of unwavering anger. He looked at her and smiled weakly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered inaudibly. “I’m so sorry.”
Her fury subsided as she measured the confusion and sadness filling his mind. He held his arms out to her. After the briefest hesitation, she walked over.
“Daddy,” Marilee scolded.
“That was so bad.”
“Teach us how to do that.”
Edeard nodded slowly. “One day I might just do that. But for now there’s a young man I want you to meet, a sailor.”
“Which one of us?” Analee asked, playfully mistrustful.
“Both of you. Both of you should meet him. I think you all might be very happy together.”
The twins turned to give each other a look of complete astonishment.
Kristabel moved into his arms. “What’s wrong?”
Edeard took a long time to answer. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been lately. I’m going to stop that now.”
She shrugged awkwardly inside his embrace. “I can’t be the easiest person to live with.”
He pointed out across the city to the Lyot Sea. “The Skylord comes.”
“Really?” Like everyone in Makkathran, she extended her farsight to the horizon as the astounded residents of Myco and Neph gifted their sight of the giant creature.
“It will bring such change to our lives,” Edeard said quietly. “I think I know how to moderate any difficulties. But I don’t know everything, I truly don’t. I will need help. It will not be easy.”
“I’m here,” she said with a soft reassuring hug. “As are all your friends, and together we will live through this. So just banish that horrible old Ashwell optimism, Edeard Waterwalker. This is the life you were made for.”
“Yes.” And this is the last one; whatever happens, this is what I will live with. Sweet Lady, please, in your infinite wisdom, give me the strength to get it right.
SEVEN
THE CAPSULE CAME DOWN close to the center of Octoron’s little township. Acrid smoke layered the air. Several of the buildings surrounding Entranceway Plaza were damaged; energy weapons had briefly turned the iron structures molten, causing them to sag and twist as they started to lean over. The wreckage of crashed capsules was sticking out of the ruins. Heat from the impact in combination with all the munitions had ignited a great many fires, which the chamber’s drones were only just extinguishing. They’d used a lot of crystalfoam, covering vast swaths of the plaza in blue-green mush that was still emitting sulfurous belches.
Human paramedics were scuttling around, performing triage. Serious cases were carried to waiting capsules to be ferried off to the hospital on the edge of town. Thirty heavily armored and badly pissed Chikoya were strutting around, getting in the way of the human emergency teams. Resentment was starting to rise on both sides. There’d be another clash if tempers didn’t start cooling quickly.
The capsule’s door dilated, and he stepped out. It wasn’t a bad entrance, he felt; he was wearing some really quite stylish mauve shorts and a loose-fitting shirt of semiorganic white silk open down the front, like the top half of a robe. Top-grade Advancer-heritage genetic sequences and a decent diet had toned him up, and his slightly elevated position gave him that commanding full-of-confidence appearance, as if he’d arrived ready to take charge and everyone else could now relax. The frayed leather flip-flops admittedly detracted from the image, but he’d been in a hurry, so nothing he could do about that now. In any case, no one was looking at his feet; they were all looking up at him. Except the fifteen armored Chikoya who had swung their weapons around to splash their targeting lasers across his pristine shirt.
“Well, this sucks,” Ozzie said.
He trotted down the capsule’s three stairs to the ground and gave the big aliens his best untroubled grin. The Chikoya resembled medium-sized dinosaurs with vestigial dragon wings. Beefed up with armor that resembled black metallic crocodile skin, they were imposing demonic creatures. And really very pissed, Ozzie decided as their minds radiated the paranoia and aggression that only their species could produce in such quantities.
“So what’s up?” he asked.
“You are Ozzie?” the lead one asked. Its thick neck curved down, putting its helmet tip inches from Ozzie’s nose.
“Sure thing, dude.”
Three mirrored lenses in the helmet’s center swiveled slightly to focus on Ozzie’s head. “Where is the human messiah?”
“I don’t know. I like just got here. Right?”
“You are the one who broke through into the realm of the all-perception. You can use it at the highest level. You must know where he is.”
Ozzie took a sad moment to reflect how semantics always betrayed the universe-view of each sentient species. “I don’t know,” he said patiently, pushing an intense feeling of benevolence out into mindspace. “The messiah is powerful. He has mysterious ways of camouflaging himself from the rest of us.” That was a slight exaggeration. Ozzie was sorely puzzled how Inigo had actually managed to conceal himself. One moment he’d been there, his raging thoughts glaring out into mindspace, and the next he’d gone, vanished, the mind extinguished. It was as if he’d died, which, j
udging by the amount of carnage let loose in the plaza, was a high probability. Except there had been others with him, a woman and some kind of psychotic special forces bodyguard who also, oddly, didn’t register in mindspace. For all three to vanish without leaving a visible corpse between them just wasn’t going to wash. Either they’d teleported out somehow, which he didn’t believe because the AI was showing the damaged navy scout ship still sitting on the pad, or they knew a way to circumvent mindspace, which he wouldn’t put past that slippery, gloating little shit Inigo.
“Why is he here?” the Chikoya demanded. Oval vents at the front of its helmet clunked open, allowing a misty stream of phlegm to come spitting out.
Ozzie dodged gracefully, managing to clamp down on his feelings about that particular Chikoya body function. “As I haven’t met him, I don’t know.”
“He is a danger to all living things on the Spike. The Void may know of his presence here. It will seek us out. We will be the first to be devoured.”
“I know. Real crock of shit, huh? When I find him, I’m going to kick his ass right off the Spike. I’m going to be hunting hard.”
“We will locate the messiah. We will make him stop the Void.”
“That’s wonderful. We both want the same thing. But dude, you just gotta make sure to let me know when you find him, please. I got me special supersecret weapons that will cut the bastard to shreds no matter what kind of force fields and military protection he’s brought with him.”
“You have weapons?” Sensor clumps mounted on the Chikoya’s armor rose up like time-lapse mushrooms to scan over Ozzie as another jet of phlegm spit out.
“Hey ho, I used to be one of the Commonwealth’s rulers, you know. Check your database to confirm. That means I had full access to its pre-postphysical technology. Of course I have superweapons with me, dude.” He pushed a starburst of sincerity and determination into his mind and held it there. “I don’t want any more of your herd to be hurt or killed by his soldiers, so please, if you find him, please call me. I can squash him like a Kantr under a Folippian.” Whatever they are.
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