by Giles Carwyn
She clenched her fists. Her magic swirled around her, and she longed to plunge her fist into the tree and destroy this horrific, emaciated creature.
“But children need those lies, Arefaine,” Efflum creaked. “They cling to those lies until they are strong enough to see the world as it really is.”
“I’m no child,” she said.
“You were a child. You needed reassurance, and I gave it to you.”
“You actually believe that, don’t you? No wonder your children turned against you!”
“Enough!” Efflum shouted, his thin voice cracking like a whip. “You say you are no child. Then it is time to grow up, Arefaine Morgeon. Your father used you to complete a task he was too cowardly to face on his own. Just like the emperor tried to use you. Just like Brophy tried to use you.”
“Like you are trying to use me now?” she said, forcibly holding her magic at bay. Was that what he wanted? For her to lose her temper? For her to unleash all of the emmeria upon him, upon the tree?
“Yes,” he said. “I am trying to use you. You want truth? Then grow up, and hear the truth. I have been trapped here for three hundred years! You know what that feels like. You know about the madness that threatens to take you when you are trapped, alone in the dark. You escaped from your prison because I was there, because I shielded you. I held your hand through the endless night, through your murderous rages. I am only asking for the same favor in return.” He reached out with his free hand, opening it to her. “You have your freedom. Give me mine!”
She watched him through narrowed eyes, studying the blackened part of the tree, the rotting cavity that used to hold his right arm. “You freed that hand. Why not the rest?” she asked.
“Your friend Issefyn helped me break this hand free when she finally let go of that damned containment stone. A containment stone that you left with her. For that, I thank you. But I am only partially free.”
Arefaine glanced down at her father’s skeleton. “Is that how you killed him, then? With your free hand?”
Efflum’s teeth clacked together in frustration. “No,” he said. “I didn’t kill him. When Brophy smashed the music box, Darius tried to keep me from using the flood of ani suddenly released into the world. He tried to prevent it from reaching me. He wasn’t strong enough. The strain killed him.”
“Another lie for the child?” She sneered.
“No.”
“Again, forgive me if I doubt your word.”
“Arefaine, I never claimed to be an innocent. Efften rose because I stole the power to build her. She survived because I spilled the blood to hold her. And she fell because I was imprisoned by weak-willed fools who refused to let me defend her. I’ve done hideous things to protect those I love, and I will continue to do these things, one after the other, until I die! That is what a father does.”
“That day may be sooner than you expect,” Arefaine said in a dark tone, her finger caressing the Heartstone.
Efflum’s teeth came together again, his shriveled eyes and bony face giving no hint of what he was thinking. When he spoke again, the shrill volume of his voice had lowered. “You have every right to be angry,” he said. “I understand your pain. I, too, was lied to by a man I trusted. I, too, have been abandoned and betrayed. These are the unfortunate curses that have fallen upon us. But should we lash out at our kin because of them? Who do you have, if not me? And who do I have, if not you? We are alone, Arefaine. Our power forces us to be lonely, for no one else can possibly understand what we feel, what we see, what we can do. No one except for our own kind.” He paused, and she watched him. Her hand gripped the Heartstone.
“I am your kin,” Efflum said. “No one else. Even among mages, we are unique. The strongest of them all. Whatever else you think of me. Whatever else I have done, you know that to be true. Who else understands you like I do?”
He fell silent, hanging above her, watching her. She could find nothing to say, and in the suddenly bleak landscape of her future, she saw the truth of his words. She had nothing to return to in Ohohhom. Without her dream of Efften, she might as well be dead.
“You are an extraordinary young woman. I wanted to claim you as mine, and I probably clung to that pleasant fiction longer than I should have,” Efflum conceded. “But I saw the pain inside you, felt it as my own. I didn’t have the heart to hurt you any more. I knew if I could get you to come here, to behold the grandeur of Efften and all that it could be, you would feel the dream within your grasp. With or without your blood father. Your dream of having a family is still possible.”
“That’s nothing but a false dream you planted in my head.”
“I planted it? No. I may have fostered it, but it was your dream. It was an aspiration that couldn’t help but blossom in your heart. And now it is here, next to you, all around you. Am I the father who spilled his seed to create your limbs and the color of your hair? No. But I am the father who will sacrifice his life to make your dreams come true. I am the father who will hold the glory of Efften within his heart and mind, until we call the illuminated scions back to her shores. We want the same things, Arefaine. What does it matter if we are not father and daughter?”
“Because you made my whole life a lie.”
He paused again, his desiccated face expressionless.
“You say you are not a child, but you are being childish,” he finally said. “You are standing here, in the greatest tower of the City of Dreams. And you know it is not a lie. The power you feel here is real. The secrets I have to share with you are real. If you will not listen to me, then listen to your own heart. You have seen Efften’s beauty, her greatness. You have seen what she can be, perhaps even clearer than I. She belongs to you, and to me, and to all of the illuminated scions. She deserves your love. She deserves to shine.”
Arefaine turned away from the animated corpse and its squat, ugly tree. She looked out over the garden to the top of the magnificent bowl, and at the sky beyond. Reaching up, she wiped her tears away.
“There are a rare few in this world capable of creating something of true beauty,” Efflum said. “Don’t waste that gift. You are an illuminated scion of Efften. You were born to outshine all others in the world, those petty and jealous beings—lesser beings—who will always try to take our home away from us. I wish I could have told you the truth from the very beginning. I wish I didn’t have to kill and corrupt and enslave others to reunite us. But I did it. And I would do it again.”
Fear and doubt, hope and hate, spun through Arefaine’s chest. She couldn’t get a handle on them, didn’t know what to feel. Was this the end of her path, a failed and damnable lie that left her gasping for breath, with nowhere to turn? Or, if she listened to Efflum, was it only the beginning? Could she forgive a deception for the sake of a dream? What, really, had changed?
“What do you want from me?” she asked in a flat voice.
“Oh, child. I want so many things. I want you by my side. I want your advice on how to rebuild our home. I want your help in bringing back the great race and making sure they are never threatened again.”
“With the indentured? With corrupted? Using the black emmeria?” she said, calling it by the name that the Ohndariens used.
“Using whatever methods we need to succeed,” he said.
And that, she knew, was honest.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said. “Not at that price.”
He paused. “I make no demands upon you, Arefaine. You are free to go whenever you wish. But ask yourself this, where will you go? What other home will call to you like Efften? There are none. Not in the entire world. And if you live here and make this city what it must be, there will be those who will try to take it from you. What will you do to stop them?”
“I don’t know.”
“I admire your compassion, but I can’t say I share it. Not anymore. It took me many years, many losses, and much pain and betrayal to understand the way the world is.”
She looked up at him, his
dry, brittle limbs sticking out of that horrible tree.
“Go if you must,” he said. “But I beg you, child, let me touch your hand before you leave. It has been so long. So very long. The mind plays tricks. And I would know, for certain, that you have been here before you leave me.” He reached out his nearly translucent hand toward her, stretching as though he would break himself.
Pity welled up within her, and she went to him, stopping just beyond his reach.
“Can you forgive me?” he rasped in that unearthly voice.
“I don’t know.”
“Can you try?”
She hesitated, looking into those shriveled, yolklike eyes. They repulsed her, but his words had hammered their way into her heart. What would she have done in his position? Fought and clawed and tried every way she could to be free, just as he did. What would she have done if her fellows had betrayed her? Corrupted them, sent them over a waterfall to die.
She closed her eyes and bowed her head. She couldn’t see the light out of this darkness. What if there was no light? What if life was simply this way? Stumbling blindly through the twilight, swinging at shadows. What if those brief beams of clarity were only in her mind? Fanciful notions of her imagination, lighting up for one brilliant moment and fading. What if there was no real truth?
She opened her eyes and looked back up at him. Reaching out, she touched his fingers. They were dry and oddly warm. “What do I have to do?” she asked quietly.
He remained silent for a moment, then said, “The stones. I need the stones you carry in that bag. They have the power I need to break these bonds and bring my body, my family, and this city back to life.”
She reached into the bag that rested against her hip. Her sister’s stone was warm against her fingers, and within her swirled an ocean of power, the legacy of Efften, a dream that had been fractured but had not yet died.
“Please, my child,” he said, clinging to her hand.
Arefaine felt a sudden presence as someone entered the tower, his fiery life force blazing in the distance.
“Quickly, my child. Our enemy approaches.”
Concentrating, she heard something, a distant voice rising from the earth below her. A voice calling her name.
Arefaine took one step away from Efflum, and he grabbed for her. She felt the bones beneath his fingertips as he clutched at her hand, but she twisted free.
“You cannot trust him,” Efflum warned, his voice rising. “He fought for our enemies. He tried to kill you, and he is coming to finish the job. Give me the power I need, and we will destroy him together.”
She shook her head.
“You are making a mistake!” he called after her as she ran. “Don’t let him near you!”
Arefaine slipped between the two massive roots, scraping her legs on their rough bark. She fought through the gnarled vegetation to the tower’s interior.
Someone was running up the steps. His fervent steps clanged loudly in her ears.
“Arefaine!” he roared, bursting into view, a filthy sword held tightly in his fist. He skidded to a stop, his fierce gaze falling upon her.
She stood frozen, one hand on the Heartstone. He was only a step outside of sword range, and she knew how quick he was.
They faced each other in silence, and her heart thudded in her chest.
“Arefaine,” he said softly.
“You’ve come to kill me,” she said, watching. If he even twitched, she would unleash every ounce of magic she possessed and tear his body to pieces.
But Brophy did twitch. He opened his fist. His sword clattered onto the silver stairs.
Her breath caught in her throat. The fire in his eyes faded, and relief softened his features. He hesitated, then moved slowly toward her. A sob caught in her throat.
“No,” he said, opening his arms, “not to kill you. To help you.” And all the fight seeped out of her. She slumped into his embrace and began to cry.
Chapter 8
Shara stood at the rail as Jesheks’s weeping ones steered the ship back toward Efften. It moved with agonizing slowness under the slight breeze. She considered jumping overboard and swimming, but she knew that wouldn’t be any faster.
“Can you feel it?” Jesheks asked, coming up behind her. “Something’s happening at the tower.”
“It doesn’t matter, I’m still going back.”
“I know.”
She turned and looked at him. All the power and vitality seemed to have gone out of his beautiful new body. She reached over for his hand, but he pulled it away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is not the reunion you dreamed of.”
“No, it is not,” he said, his brows hunched over those haunted eyes.
She gave him a soft smile. “Perhaps next time you should avoid kidnapping me.”
“Next time I will.” No amusement filled his gaze. Each word she spoke was like a needle poking a raw nerve.
“I know how my reaction upon waking must have hurt. I’ve been there myself.”
“Have you forgotten?” he said through tight lips. “I enjoy pain.”
“No, you used to enjoy pain.”
“And now?”
“Right now you have nothing to replace it.” She tried to imagine him going off and building a life for himself someplace. She tried to imagine anyone loving him. She couldn’t picture it. “I know you were hoping—”
“What I was hoping doesn’t matter,” he said. “Beautiful young women belong with beautiful young men. That is a truth I have always known, a truth I should have faced long before now.”
She looked into his perfectly sculpted face. “Jesheks, beauty has nothing to do with it. Brophy and I—”
“Don’t.” His jaw trembled as he shook his head fiercely. “There is no need for pleasant lies between us. We both know where your heart lies; there is nothing else to say.”
With a quick nod, he left her at the rail and went below. Shara stood alone for a few moments, staring at the tower, Brophy must be in it. It was not too late. He was still there. She could get there and help him. She had to believe that.
At an unspoken command from Jesheks, the weeping ones snapped to attention as the boat slid up to the dock. They jumped overboard, ropes in hand, and secured it.
Shara leapt after them, ready to run all the way to the tower.
“Wait,” Jesheks called out.
She hesitated, turned. He jumped down the dock and threw aside his cloak. “Take this with you.” He shrugged and a belt slipped off his shoulder. He held forth the Sword of Autumn, sheathed in its scabbard.
“Where did you get that?” Shara asked, suddenly remembering the moment when he’d saved her from Issefyn. The red flash. She’d thought it was his magic, but it had to have been the sword.
“I stole it.”
“I left that with Astor to defend Ohndarien from the weeping ones!”
He shook his head, as if brushing aside a gnat. “They don’t matter. You do.”
Shara bit back her angry retort, let out a breath. “Thank you,” she murmured, taking the sword.
“One more thing,” Jesheks said.
Feeling like she would burst from the delays, Shara spared him one last glance.
“You may be able to use this, too,” he said.
“What?” she asked, exasperated.
“Knowledge. I wanted to explore it with you, but…” He shook his head. “I know how the indentured are created, I saw it in the Siren’s Blood.”
“Jesheks—” she said. She looked at that far tower, aching to know what was happening.
“I believe the weeping ones can be restored.”
“Do you know how?” Shara asked, pushing her impatience aside with an effort of will.
He shook his head. “No. But I am certain that their souls have not been destroyed. They are removed. They are imprisoned within the black emmeria.”
Shara brought her mind to the problem at hand, wrenched it away from her worries. “Yes. And?�
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“And what can be imprisoned…” he let the sentence trail off.
“Can be released,” she said, and she understood. It was as if a white light had turned on inside her mind. “How can you be sure?”
“You’ve seen the swirling lights in the Siren’s Blood?”
“Yes.”
“Those are the souls of the freed. They are weeping ones who were released from the black emmeria. It is their stories you relive when you drink the wine.”
Shara said nothing as she let the information sink in. “That means that someone has done it before.”
He nodded. “Someone has already found out a way to release the souls trapped within the black emmeria. And if the black emmeria is made up of those souls, and they are all released…”
“No more black emmeria,” Shara murmured. “But how? How were they released?”
“That is the most important question of all. If the black emmeria is nothing but a concentration of tortured souls, how did some return to the light?”
“Jesheks, do you know?” she asked. “If you know, you must tell me. It could mean—”
“I do not know.” He shook his head. “I only have a theory.”
“What is it?”
He looked into her eyes. His gaze was penetrating, resigned. “I assume someone did for them what you did for me.”
She remained silent, remembering their night together on the Floating Palace. “I don’t see how—”
“Neither do I,” he said. “That is why I wanted more time.”
“I have to go,” she said, feeling she had delayed far too long already.
“I know.”
“Are you coming with us?”
He shook his head. “I cannot.”
“We could use your help if things go badly.”