“And you think you could do that? Curing the effects of the sickness is not a simple matter. We have tried. Some of the best minds of Prin have tried.”
Tani laughed, “No, Hierophant, I cannot cure it. But, there is no need to cure something that just doesn’t happen anymore. I can make it so no one gets the blood sickness to begin with.”
He looked at her, sitting in the chair that was many times too large, and smiling at him like a child receiving a great present. She felt his discomfort and reluctance.
“How long would it take you to do this?”
She shrugged and pulled her legs up onto the chair with her, sitting cross-legged, “If you let me have full access to your blood depot and process? A few weeks. Once it's done, I’ll start collecting the blood I need the morning before a surgery. If I don’t have any surgeries, I won’t take any blood. I’ll try to schedule only 2 a week, so as not to take too much blood from you at once.”
He observed Tani in silence for a moment, then stood, “You have yourself a deal, Tani. I’ll tell my priests to expect you.” He did not offer his hand for her to shake, but instead turned toward the door. Opening the door, he gestured her out of the room.
8
Fiher
We must share the fruits we have grown. If they will not eat what we provide, we will starve them until they eat or die.
- Sermon of the Void
The Voice droned in his mind, each word floating and ringing, as the words always did, the crescendo building. The thoughts of the sermon echoed around his head, fighting to take the place of his own. Someday he would believe the words. For now, Fiher argued with the Voice in his mind. They want to survive and live just like we do. They have never intended the harm they have caused.
The warm air was wet in his throat as he leaned down close to the muddy ground at the bottom of the ravine, waiting to feel the movements of the patrol he knew was nearby. He glanced up at the western mountain front, admiring the white wall of clouds and mist descending the mountain. It would turn from a warm day to a snowstorm by nightfall. He sensed the movements through the ground, just over the ridge. He smiled, closing his eyes and conjuring up a few carefully selected memories and turning to move to the next ridge when he felt another series of movements from the opposite direction.
Shit.
He froze, still crouched near the ground, and he listened with more caution until he confirmed what he already knew and the weight of what he had caused came down on him. The second patrol and the first would be in clear sight of each other at the top of the ridge behind him. Any attempt to divert one or the other would expose him to both. He dug a hand into the roots of the long grass and mud beside him as he felt a wave of dizziness.
The footfalls of the two patrols changed into erratic patterns. Moments later, he heard shouts and the familiar crack of rifles, followed by the clang of swords. He pushed himself up to his feet as he was running up the hill, using his hands to gain his footing and move him up the steep incline. He grabbed at a branch attached to a fallen tree that was half buried, using it to propel himself up and to the side to get a foothold on a rock. He pushed back on the branch and felt the tree shift beneath the force of his weight, but he had to keep moving. Near the top, he had to move more horizontally to make any headway up towards the sounds of the battle above him. He knelt down and skirted the edge until he found a solid spot of a rocky outcropping to swing up onto.
He came around behind and slightly above the fighting patrols. A single Xenai and a single Terran Pact patrol member remained on each side of the fight. The Xenai had his back to Fiher, for the moment, but the Terran and Xenai were circling each other, looking for an opportunity to strike. Fiher could not wait. He ran across the rocks, launching himself off the edge into the air above the two remaining fighters. He pulled his daggers out of their sheaths in the air. The Terran registered the movement too late to do anything but watch as Fiher arced down through the air. Fiher saw the Terran’s round eyes, and he felt the fear and a flash of loss and regret. Fiher could not see what it was, but he had sensed the feeling from other Terrans before. It was a child. The Terran had a child and their last thoughts were of letting that child down.
The Intuition faded from him as Fiher finished his arc, and his daggers lanced into his target. The Xenai crumpled beneath his weight barreling down into its back from above. One of his daggers stabbed firmly in the back of its neck and the other in its flank. Fiher’s Intuition came back to him as the Terran’s feelings shifted to surprise. He got up off the Xenai’s back, wiping his blades off in the long grass beside the body. The Terran moved back away from him, raising his sword and dropping into a guarded stance, but did not press forward.
“Why would you kill your own?”
Fiher stood silent, dropping his hands to his side, still holding his daggers. He looked over the Terran and ignored his question. “What is your name?”
“Rashad. What’s your name?”
Fiher hesitated, then provided the easy version of his name, “My name is Fur. How old is your child?”
Rashad’s grip on his sword tightened, and he twisted his hand around the hilt as if to show a readiness to swing, “How do you know about Inda?”
Fiher did his best to lean back in a casual stance and tapped his head with two fingers, “Intuition. How old?”
Rashad looked Fiher over carefully, “Seven.”
Fiher smiled, “Six is a good age. Full of curiosity and trouble.”
Rashad was still stuck in a haze, “Yes, yes, they are. How—how do you—?”
“Not my own, but one I have known most of her life. Do you and your child live in Prin?”
Rashad nodded. “Yes, with her grandparents. Her mother died during birth.”
Fiher tilted his head, “Does that happen a lot?”
“More than it used to, before—” he waved his arms around, “—all this. Do Xenai not have that problem?”
“Xenai do not give birth.”
Rashad just looked at Fiher in silence for a moment. Fiher let him and just felt the series of emotions as Rashad processed the information.
“Wow, you guys really are aliens.” Rashad said after a minute. He looked down and reached up to the strap to sling his bag off his shoulder. Fiher felt the shock of panic pulse from him and watched him jerk his head back up to look at Fiher.
Fiher put his daggers back into their sheaths, backed up to the outcropping of rock he had jumped off of. He unbuckled his belt for his daggers, and tossed them down by his feet and sat on the rocks, lifting his hands as a sign of surrender. “Get whatever you need.”
The man slung the bag off his shoulders. He took a step over to one of his fallen patrol mates and scooped up his rifle before stepping back over to his bag. He didn’t take his eyes off Fiher any longer than he needed to, but he was comfortable enough to open his bag and get out a ration of dried meat. He paused a second and looked up at Fiher after retrieving it. He threw it at Fiher and reached into his bag, and pulled out a second one. He sat in front of his bag on the grass and pulled the rifle next to him before leaning back on the pack like a pillow, while keeping Fiher in close view as he chewed his own meat.
Fiher ate the dried meat and waited to see if Rashad would say anything else.
“So, why not kill me?”
Fiher shrugged and looked away and ignored his own discomfort and the discomfort from the Intuition. Neither of them said anything else as they ate. Rashad climbed to his feet after finishing, rifle in hand.
“I need to get back. Thanks for not killing me and all.”
Fiher shrugged again, “Until next time.” He leaned down and picked up his belt, strapped it on, then climbed onto the rocks and down over the ridge, feeling Rashad’s relief at him leaving first. Fiher frowned to himself as he felt the man’s presence grow smaller. He thought of when he had first met Shara, at six years old.
Inda.
He stood and leapt over the edge and onto the top of
the rocks again. Rashad didn’t hear or feel anything as the dagger flew out of Fiher’s hand and landed in the back of his skull.
And so we come to our purpose. A grand and glorious purpose. It is us alone who can recreate and reform what lies broken in the depths. The corpses of gods. We are the new Gods of this existence.
In a few weeks, the girl’s city would be dead and Fiher's discarded mission would be complete. Years alone had gone by too quickly. The time neared to return to his kind.
So soon.
He leaned forward from his crouched position until he was balanced on all four limbs, peering over the edge of the broken floor where there might have been a building front in the past. The sharp winds threatened to push him off balance. They were colder now—an omen of the winter to come. It would be bitter. Still, he waited on his perch. She would appear.
Turning his eyes to the skyline of Prin, he sighed to himself. The silhouette of Prin was broken, as it had been for the past 82 years—since the moment that Fiher's former life had ended and the new world came into being. The dead city had found a new life, brought by a ship and all the Gates. The clusters of buildings, repaired as much as Prin's resources could afford, expanded from the hulking ship. A tall white wall enclosed the city just behind where he perched. Even in the dark, the ship loomed, reflecting the dots of small fires that were lit in the city back to him. The source trees could only power the new city during the day.
Fiher liked the view this way. The sharp spires of metal and stone came to broken points, filling the sky until the giant corpse of the generation ship rose behind them and reflecting the lives of Prin's citizens. It spoke to the current inhabitants' resilience as much as it spoke of the tragedy of the millions they replaced. But their time of resilience was coming to an end. They would all be replaced by his kind. He guessed it was a fitting end. All these years stalking through the shadows unseen made him feel as though this place was a second home. Now, it would no longer be a second home, but the primary one for his kind, where they could grow and have families for the first time.
Without lowering his gaze, he looked through the streets for her. Felt through them for her presence. Most of his surveillance was done by Intuition. It was so called because any other word for it made the Terrans uncomfortable. The fact of it was that everyone except the Terrans had it and they could all sense each other and the Terrans. Shara would sense him, too, if he wasn’t careful, even though she was just a half-breed who had never cared to practice the skill.
Finally, he felt her moving quickly and close to the edges of the streets. She came into his view, darting from a dark alley and entering the building that led into the Underground. He smiled at her cautious movements and awareness of everything around her, except for him. He almost pitied her inability to sense the size of the Xenai army, sweeping east towards them as she skirted her way through the shadows.
The city knew it was coming, but they had no idea how many came. The sheer volume of the force that would roll over their fortifications was unknown to them—to her. As they worked day and night to armor and arm as many of their citizens as they could, his kind swarmed toward them. A smoky blot across the land. An inky lake of death.
My kind.
He shuddered.
We cannot question our place. We must forge it and let nothing stop us.
9
Shara
“Go go go!” Jon signaled, and Shara spun off her barstool, drink in hand, and charged for the back corner. The table—her table—had finally been vacated. She reached it only a few steps before a young, tentative couple. They had been loitering by a bookshelf nearby that held only chipped figurines of animals. She slid in with a triumphant smile as Jon and their two other companions, Chloe and Dolores, made their way over to her.
Chloe smiled as Dolores put an arm around her and the two of them sank into the worn, blue fabric of the tufted love seat across from Shara, “I can see why this is your favorite spot.” She raised her wooden mug to Shara.
Shara toasted Chloe’s full cup and finished the last sip of her own drink, then settled back to enjoy the buzz of the bar as all the sounds blended and blurred together. The conversation at her own table and those nearby slipped away, and she let them all float past her until the talk turned to a conversation that interested her.
Dolores’ voice was rising in pitch as she spoke, “It is getting crowded. I don’t care what they say in the pushes, they are sending more refugees down here than finding them homes Topside. Those Topside fuckers wouldn’t want their precious—”
Shara felt the movement from Jon, unabsorbed by the worn cushions of the couch, as he swung his leg under the table and kicked Dolores. She turned into the conversation, waving her hand, “Those Topside fuckers wouldn’t want their precious clean streets filled with refugees? It’s true. That's why they are putting them all in tenements in the Nagata—or down here.”
Dolores turned back to Jon, waving at Shara, “See? Even the Peace of Prin knows it.”
Shara pushed down the anger she felt at being called that after attempting to separate herself from the other Topsiders, telling herself that the title gave her statement more weight to Dolores, which was why she used it. She forced a smile, “I need another drink.”
Chloe reached across the table and grabbed her cup, “Let me get it for you. Dolores will enjoy pumping you for more insight into how the Topsiders are doing us all wrong.”
Shara laughed, “She is welcome to!”
Chloe had not got up off the love seat before Dolores was leaning in as close as the table would allow, “It's all about connections, right? Your mother is throwing a big fucking party about the Artificers being made an official craft Guild again, and in the meantime, the BloodSmiths are reforming and growing stronger—bigger than the damned Artificers, and better too—and they are stuck in a pit in a sewer!”
Shara was glad her drink hadn’t arrived yet, or she might have snorted sangria out of her nose before she covered the involuntary response to someone seeing the Bloodsmiths in such a beneficent light. But she went with it, “That’s true too. Quite a few of the Guild heads have had ties to the Artificers for generations. Even in their worst—most experimental days—where they made the most progress but also broke the most rules, they always had strong ties Topside. At least now that they are an official member of the Guilds again, they’ll probably stop doing anything worthwhile.”
Dolores was the one that snorted now before wagging a finger at Jon, “This Topsider bitch can join us whenever she wants.” She swayed to the side before giving Jon a serious and drunken stare, “But only this one.”
Shara burst into a laugh and leaned into Jon just as Chloe showed back up with her drink. Chloe slid into the seat and whispered to Dolores. Dolores’s giddy laughter dried, and she nodded at Chloe, turning to Jon, “We need to go.” She looked over her shoulder, “You probably should, too.”
Jon stood and stretched, using it as an opportunity to look past the bar. Shara moved to stand next to him, but he waved a hand at her, signaling her to stay down. Dolores and Chloe made no motion to leave until Jon waved again. The three girls all got up and followed as he moved along the back of the crowd. They were close enough to catch the spread of information as more people noticed whatever happened that Shara didn’t see. Shara felt her Intuition rumble with restlessness from the surrounding people, then it turned into a mixture of anxiety and anger. Jon reached behind him, holding his hand out to her. She grabbed onto it and did the same, reaching back for Chloe. She felt Chloe grasp her hand and when Jon looked back to check a moment later; she nodded to him.
Her head still felt light, and she had to use all of her focus to keep up with Jon as they moved out from the bar to the market. It was just a transition from one section of tunnel to a wider section, decorated differently, and she became more aware of how horrible sizeable crowds of angry, panicked and trapped people could get. The echo of footsteps behind them grew louder as more and mo
re patrons exited the bar tunnel. Others were coming in from other tunnels that had been turned into shops, restaurants and brothels. In just a few minutes, the closed marketplace would be packed full of people. It forced Jon to slow his pace, but their group was close to one of the tunnel exits that led Topside.
The first waves of people were those looking to get out, as her own little group was. The next waves were those that were looking for their loved ones. Then she heard the shouts of those that came to fight. Shara heard the yells and taunts between the Undergrounders and the few Prin Guard that were stuck in the crowd. She felt the swell of the crowd and was pushed closer in to the surrounding people. She tightened her grip on Chloe and Jon, but could see neither of them as the packed people pushed them back and forth. The crowd came to a stop. She felt Jon tug, and she tugged back, signaling to him that there was no way she could move and she doubted that Chloe or Dolores could either.
She closed her eyes and focused on her amulet, hidden beneath layers of clothing. She used it to channel a small Stromcast, creating a subtle breeze in the stifling air around her, then pulled in the air closer to her, increasing the pressure of it. She moved her hands up to Jon and Chloe’s wrists and grabbed them tightly, tapping their arm and hoping they understood that she wanted them to do the same. They both latched onto one of her wrists. She waited another moment, hoping Chloe passed along the obscure message to Dolores and was holding her the same way. She reversed the pressure of the surrounding air, pushing it out from around her, which pushed the crowd away as she yanked Jon and Chloe towards her. Dolores was right on Chloe’s heels as the pressure collapsed back in around them.
Song of Sundering Page 7