by R S Penney
She noticed another jar of marbles atop the wooden bookshelf and an ornate vase that contained no flowers. A strange choice, that; why keep the thing if you were not going to use it for its intended purpose?
A second Elite Guardian stepped out from behind the door. Desa had met this one before; his name was Tolan. He wore the same yellow robes that she had seen on every other member of his order, but unlike Audrin, he was pale with short, brown hair.
The pair of them flanked Desa on either side, never letting her get out of arm’s reach. The message was clear; if she tried to run, she wouldn’t get halfway to the door before they put her down.
Daresina Nin Drialla stood behind her desk in a purple dress with sleeves that flared at the wrist. Her olive-skinned face was marked by a small liver spot on her right cheek, and as always, her iron-gray hair was tied up with a clip.
The Prelate’s attention seemed to be focused on the Lessenger 22 that sat atop her desk. Desa recognized the pistol as one of her own, the one without Infused ammunition, sadly. The Elite Guardians were not fools; they would have examined everything they had confiscated before letting the Prelate get within two miles of anything that Desa Nin Leean had carried on her person.
“Fine craftsmanship,” Desa remarked. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
The Prelate spared a glance over the gold rims of her glasses. “I am not so easily impressed,” she said. “Where is the Spear, Desa?”
Folding her arms, Desa felt another smile coming on. She couldn’t suppress the burst of laughter that bubbled out of her. “I should have known,” she muttered. “I guess it was too much to hope that your first concern might be the lives of the people you sent on that mission.”
“My first concern is the safety of Aladar.”
Tilting her head back, Desa shut her eyes and exhaled slowly. “No,” she replied. “Your first concern is expanding your sphere of influence. You wanted the Spear so that you could begin annexing territory from the mainland.”
Daresina removed her glasses, cleaning each lens with a handkerchief. Casual as you please. You might have thought they were discussing a recipe for peach pie. “Marcus told you?” she inquired.
“He told Miri.”
“Well…That one was always soft.”
Desa had to resist the urge to scoff. If Marcus was soft, she didn’t want to know what hard was. And yet this woman disparaged him with such indifference. Marcus had dedicated his life to Aladar, had chosen patriotism over friendship, family and even his sense of self-respect. To hear Daresina dismissing him like that was intolerable.
“He was a good man,” Desa hissed.
The Prelate sat down in her chair, setting her elbows on the armrests and steepling her fingers. “And where is he?” she asked. “Did you kill him?”
A single tear threatened to slide down Desa’s cheek. “Miri killed him,” she whispered. “After he tried to take the Spear. He was going to leave us there in the forest and bring it back to you.”
“Miri killed a Field Binder,” Daresina breathed. “Well, well, well. I didn’t think she had it in her. Of course, she will have to be executed when she returns.”
“You have no right!”
“I have every right,” Daresina countered. “I’m Prelate. Take her to a cell. We can execute her once she stands trial” Her tone implied that the outcome of such a trial was a foregone conclusion. Desa felt the rage rising within her. After everything she had done for this wretched woman…
Tolan came up behind her.
Desa stepped on his foot, eliciting a yelp, then elbowed him in the face. The fool went stumbling, crying out as he fell on his backside.
She rounded on Audrin.
That one was tense like a bull about to charge, his nostrils flaring with every breath. She recognized that glint in his eye. She had seen it before in the gaze of every man she had brought to justice. Audrin wanted to kill her; he was just waiting for an excuse.
Desa threw the marble as hard as she could.
It smacked him right in the groin, forcing him to bend double and clutch his pelvis with both hands. A sharp squeal escaped him. If he had wanted to kill her before, that desire was now doubly strong.
Turning on her heel, Desa ran for the Prelate. She threw herself into a dive and rolled across the surface of the desk, snatching up the pistol.
Landing on the other side, she raised the gun in both hands, pointing it at Daresina. “Nobody moves.” The hammer made a distinctive click when she pulled it back. “And if I feel even the slightest twitch in the Ether…”
Daresina backed away with her hands in the air. The woman’s face was ashen, her confidence gone. “Think this through, Desa,” she gasped. “You can’t hope to get past two Field Binders. Not when we took away your Sinks and Sources.”
“No,” Desa agreed, watching the two men out of the corner of her eye. Tolan kept rubbing his nose while Audrin grunted and forced himself to stand up straight. Neither one made any move toward her. “But they can’t stop me from killing you.”
“And what will that accomplish?” Daresina countered. “You will die soon after.”
Desa felt her lips pulling back from clenched teeth. Her heart was pounding, her body tense.. “Justice will have been served.”
“Justice?” the Prelate exclaimed, her eyes widening. “But what of your great cause? Who will stop Hanak Tuvar if you are dead?”
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” Desa growled. “So, I don’t see that there’s much of a difference.”
It shocked her when Daresina fell to her knees, raising clasped hands in supplication. The woman was trembling. “Please, Desa. You can’t do this!”
Striding forward, Desa pressed the barrel of her gun against the Prelate’s forehead. “You ordered Marcus to betray us,” she hissed. “Because of you, Miri had to kill her own brother. You put your ambitions over the fate of the world.”
“I’m sorry,” Daresina croaked.
“Remorse?” Desa scoffed. “You’re not capable of it.”
“Please! Please!”
The rage was surging, demanding satisfaction. This woman had brought nothing but misery and pain to everyone Desa cared about. She deserved to die. Sweet Mercy, the world would be better for it. Daresina was every bit as dangerous as Timothy Delarac. If she had her way, Aladri soldiers would pour forth from the island and conquer everything in their path.
It was logical; it was ethical. So much suffering could be stopped if Desa just pulled that trigger. Her hands trembled. She could end the pain right here. End all of it with a twitch of her finger.
Instead, she uncocked the hammer.
Turning her face away from the other woman, Desa squeezed her eyes shut. Tears welled up as she sniffled. “Damn you,” she whispered. “I will never forgive you as long as I live.”
Everything went black.
Her eyes snapped open, but the blackness remained. She was lying on a rough, stone slab with nothing but her duster for a pillow. The air was musty, stale and painfully dry. Every breath she took scraped its way past her parched throat.
She was keenly aware of every Sink and Source that she had created, and they were all right where they were supposed to be. Her Infused bullets were loaded into a gun that sat on a nearby shelf. Her Light-Sink pendant was tucked safely into her shirt, her rings still snug around her fingers.
Desa triggered the Light-Source, illuminating the interior of a small hut with stone walls. Walls that looked as if they might collapse under the onslaught of a strong wind. She gasped when she saw the robed figure standing over her. Mercy offered a comforting hand, smoothing the hair off Desa’s forehead.
“It was an illusion?”
Mercy nodded.
Sitting up despite her exhaustion, Desa glared at the goddess. “Why?” It came out as a hoarse whisper. “What could you possibly hope to gain from this farce?”
Mercy didn’t answer. It took a moment for Desa to remember that the other woman could not spea
k in this form.
Clearing her mind enough to find the Ether was difficult even with the crystal’s assistance, but when she did, the world changed before her eyes. Mercy became an angelic being wrapped in a halo of pure, white light.
She was a motherly woman of average height, slightly plump with a round face of dark-brown skin. She smiled when she sensed that Desa had made contact with the Ether. “Thank you,” she said. “This makes things easier.”
My question?
Mercy closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “It was a test,” she said. “To see if you are ready to learn what I have to teach.”
I assume I passed.
“You did. The days ahead will be difficult, Desa. You must put aside your need for retribution and embrace a larger view of the world. You cannot overpower Hanak Tuvar with brute force. Together, we will find a new way.”
Turning away from Desa, the goddess shuffled over to the door. She paused there, looking back. “I’ve left you water,” she said. “Make sure you drink it. You are still very dehydrated. When you feel up to it, I’ve prepared some vegetables from my garden. It’s not much, but it will serve.”
Thank you.
The Ether fled the moment she stopped trying to hold on. She was too tired to remain in contact. She found a copper bucket full of crisp, clean water and drank most of its contents before lying down. The stone shelf was hardly comfortable, but Desa didn’t care. She snuggled up with her head on her folded coat and fell asleep in seconds.
When she woke, sunlight was coming through the doorway. It was already starting to warm up. Her body was aching, but she felt as if she had come through the worst of it. And she was hungry. Sweet Mercy, she was hungry!
Sore and stiff, Desa sat up with a grunt. She winced, pain flaring through her body. “Sleep on stone,” she muttered. “And wake up miserable.”
Standing required some effort, but she was able to hobble over to the door. The harsh glare made her eyes smart, but the pain passed in a few seconds, and she found herself looking at the small orchard she had seen last year.
The water collector – a thick pole that stood taller than any of the ruined buildings – shimmered in the morning light. Copper tubes extended from it like tentacles, each one filling a bucket. The peach trees had not yet flowered, but they were growing strong and healthy. A tiny slice of paradise here in the desert.
Of all the things she had seen in her travels, the strangest by far was the shrouded figure of Mercy lifting a bucket for Midnight so that he could drink his fill. The goddess turned her head when she heard Desa’s approach.
That hood offered nothing but a glimpse into a pit of darkness, but there was no malevolence in Mercy’s stare. Once, Desa would have been terrified, but every scrap of fear had evaporated long ago. What could have happened to Mercy to trap her in this form? She was reminded of Vengeance – a withered crone in the heart of a rainforest. Left alone for centuries.
Somehow, Desa got the impression that they had done this to each other, each woman cursing the other with a form that she would find intolerable. For Vengeance, that was impotence. The woman that Desa had seen in the blue crystal’s recordings was hard and relentless. Marcus would have liked her. The one thing that Driala could not abide was helplessness.
And as for Mercy…
If Nari had been the sort of woman who wanted to help people, then trapping her in a form that inspired terror would be the worst thing you could do to her. What could have possessed them to turn on each other like that?
Desa strode up to the other woman, craning her neck to peer into that hood. “Stay still,” she said. “I want to help you.”
She found the Ether with almost no effort, and Mercy transformed into the beautiful woman she had seen last night. Extending her awareness, Desa searched for a clue, some sign that something was amiss.
She found nothing.
The halo around Mercy was overwhelming. Pure, perfect light. Almost as if the woman were made from the Ether itself. Rojan had said something to that effect once; he had told Desa that the Al a Nari believed the crystals to be physical manifestations of the gods. The bones of the goddess, he had called them.
The crystals were calcified shards of the Ether, and when shattered, they released its healing power. Some of the Al a Nari believed that they were conscious. Which would make sense if they really were pieces of Mercy and Vengeance. So, if Mercy was formed from the Ether…
Desa focused on the halo.
At first, she found nothing wrong – just warmth and light – but she refused to give up. There had to be something! Gathering all of her willpower, she delved deeper. The nimbus that surrounded Mercy was so thin a speck of dust could not fit within it, and yet, when Desa directed her thoughts into that light, it was as vast as an eternity. She searched and searched. And there it was.
Emptiness.
The Ether that comprised Mercy’s body had been cut off from the Ether that existed everywhere else. The gap was thinner than the width of a particle, but it may as well have been a mile across. A chasm of darkness exactly like what she saw every time she looked at Adele with True Sight. Desa couldn’t just force the Ether into that gap. That might hurt Mercy. This was going to require some delicacy.
She let go of the Ether.
The world became a place of solid objects, and Mercy was once again a robed phantom in a black hood. She could tell that the goddess was intrigued. Had no one ever tried to help her before today? “I’m sorry,” Desa said. “But I can’t think of any other way to do this.”
She stood on her toes, reaching into the hood to seize the other woman’s face. She kissed Mercy’s lips. And in that moment of connection, she found the Ether once again.
Its warmth flowed through her, suffusing every molecule of her. She gathered that heat, focused it and then gently guided it into the gap. A torrent of power surged through her like water from a burst dam. After only a second, she was forced to let go.
Desa fell on her backside, raising a hand to shield herself. Cautiously, she looked up to peek through splayed fingers.
Mercy stumbled backward, her black robes brushing the grass. Golden light spread from her chest, washing over her arms, her legs, her hood. The goddess threw her head back with a cry of delight.
And radiance exploded from her.
She was like a woman made of sunlight, blazing bright, banishing every shadow. Midnight whinnied, backing away, but Mercy soothed him with the gentle caress of a glowing hand.
When the moment passed, she was the woman that Desa remembered: plump with rich, dark skin and ringlets of hair framing her face. Her smile was nothing short of beatific. “Thank you.”
“Um…My pleasure,” Desa mumbled.
“This will make things much easier.”
Mercy rose into the sky, spreading her arms wide and transforming into a figure made of crystal. The same crystal that glittered atop the pyramid.
The pieces of stone that littered the streets began to move, gathering together and assembling themselves into the buildings that had once stood tall and proud in this city. Light seeped through the cracks between individual pieces, and when it faded, those fissures were gone, leaving one solid structure.
Mercy floated over the city in a delicate dance, and every time her crystalline hand passed over a pile of rubble, it reformed into a house or a chapel or a library. It was a glorious thing to behold.
Grass sprouted around each building, growing lush and green. Flowers emerged in small gardens. It was like watching time run backwards, the city’s decay reversed by the gentle touch of a goddess. Desa knew that Mercy wasn’t truly divine – she had been a mortal woman who had been changed somehow – but for the first time since learning the truth, she almost believed. Almost.
Sunlight glinted off Mercy’s crystal skin as she landed on the grass. A flash of light made Desa look away, and when it passed, Mercy was human in appearance once again. “There,” she said. “It’s a start. Come, my child. We have
much work to do.”
10
The tip of Dalen’s pen scrawled a few numbers onto the yellow page of his ledger. He looked up to see half a dozen bookkeepers sitting at slanted desks very much like his own. One of those was Jim Potts.
The young man seemed to be perfectly happy working away for Harmon Brothers’ Bookkeeping for twenty cents an hour. But then his previous job had involved mucking out stables with no compensation other than room and board. And poor lodgings at that.
“And how are we doing in here?” Mr. Harmon asked.
A barrel-chested fellow in a white shirt and black vest, he strode through the aisle between the desks with a jovial smile, pausing to clap each man on the shoulder. He was handsome for a fellow in his middle years, tanned with a cleft chin and thick, dark hair that showed only a few threads of gray. “Excellent. Excellent.”
The windows to Dalen’s left offered plenty of daylight, but Harmon still kept a small lamp burning atop his desk. The scent of oil filled the air. The others didn’t seem to notice, but Dalen had grown used to electric lights. This all felt very…primitive to him.
Dipping his pen in the ink jar, Dalen licked his lips and wrote out the next line of a page on fur exports. Mother always wondered why I learned to read Eradian, he mused. “What use could it possibly be, Dalen?”
He almost started laughing.
Between his salary, Jim’s salary and the money Zoe brought in as a maid, they had enough to cover Mrs. Carmichael’s rent with plenty left over for food. As such, Miri and Tommy had given up on finding work, opting instead to go forward with the plan. For the last five days, they had been skulking around the Parliament Building, hoping to catch a glimpse of Timothy Delarac so that they could Infuse his carriage. Dalen had little to do with that. He was content to play his small part.
Besides, he was still angry with Tommy.