by Martha Wells
Where anything was possible.
How absolutely fascinating, Elen thought, and as soon as the thought was articulated, she realized, This is not a dream.
And the voice faltered.
Elen sat bolt upright, hands clapped over her ears, a scream rising in her throat. The scream came out as a coughing fit; her throat was too dry.
By the time she had her breath back the voices were gone. She looked around the Remnant, dazed, trying to understand why she was here. It was night, and there was a small fire, not in the hole in the pit's floor as it should have been but close to the doorway into the ramp chamber. Near it were a couple of travel packs and a clay water jar. The slab on the outer door was down, shutting out the Waste.
Elen had no idea how long she had been unconscious; her limbs were heavy, and her throat might have been stuffed with cotton batting. She flattened her hands on the dusty surface of the stone floor.
It was reassuringly warm and solid. She thought, This is real. Maybe everything else was a dream. All she could hear was the natural silence of an isolated place.
She closed her eyes, and carefully extended her senses. Far in the distance, as if separated from her by some great chasm, there was one low voice, singing one deep note ...
Elen shivered, glancing around the chamber again, making sure she was alone. It was all real, though her dreaming mind could hear it far more clearly than her waking one. Now that she knew where to listen she could hear the resonation of that single voice, just on the edge of her awareness. It meant the other voices were real, too, though she couldn't sense them at all now. And somehow she was very glad of that.
Elen tried to stand, and it took more effort than it should have. Once on her feet she staggered, as if the solid stone of the Remnant had swayed under her. Her head was pounding in rhythm with her heartbeat. She frowned, and felt the back of her skull for knots or matted blood. No, she hadn't been struck there, though she certainly felt like it. Drugged? she wondered. It was so hard to think.
She staggered toward the fire and managed to reach the supply packs before her knees gave way. She lifted the lid of the water jar first, and sniffed cautiously. Her nose was city-bred, and she couldn't tell if it was drugged or not, but best not to take chances. Up in the well chamber there was far more water than she would ever need if she had to stay out here for years, and just the thought of it was comforting. When she finished here she would crawl up the ramp and duck her head into the cistern.
She searched the packs slowly and thoroughly, making herself check the inside pockets again when her scattered wits couldn't remember if she had already done it or not. There was not much here except a few packets of travel food, a bronze sextant and compass, and a coil of rope, but the packs were strained at the seams, as if several heavy things had been removed.
Then in one pocket she really had forgotten to search she found a small knife. Idiots, she thought, testing the blade carefully. They probably knew it was here, and just didn't trouble to take it. She could imagine them saying casually to each other, "Oh, don't bother, she won't know what to do with it." She went to tuck it away into her boot and found herself staring uncomprehendingly at her own dirty toes. Of course. Elen bit her lip. She had worn sandals when she went to see Rasan, and someone had taken them, small protection that they were. Her memories of her last trip out here were confusing her.
Elen put the knife away in an inner pocket of her kaftan. There went the half-formed plan of putting all the useful articles in one pack, refilling the jar from the cistern, and striking out for the city. She wouldn't last three steps in the Waste, not dressed like this. Elen frowned, trying to think, wanting to pound her forehead in exasperation but unable to summon the energy.
Aimless, she got to her feet again and stumbled toward the pit.
As she drew near it she could see something was different. Someone had filled in the hole in the floor of it, the cavity that was used as a fire pit. She could see where they had cleaned out the layers of ash and scraped them into a corner.
It had been filled in with a block of dark stone that had a strange metallic sheen, with fine lines in complex circular patterns etched into it.
Her knees trembled, and she sat down hard, muttering to herself, "Oh, I see."
It was their big ugly block, of course. She supposed the crystal plaque that had brought her out here the first time was safe in its place in the antechamber wall, as well.
The ugly block was resonating with the voice of the Remnant. It was so powerful it made her teeth ache.
Someone was coming down the ramp from the well chamber. She felt his footsteps on the stone as if he was walking down the length of her spine. She knew the taste of his mind, too. It was Riathen.
Elen shook her head, wondering at it. The presence of the block in the place meant for it seemed to make it easier to use her power. The humming stone of the Remnant seemed alive and oddly responsive to her inner sense. Perhaps it was also that she had touched that other country of the mind, where the voices came from. The thought was not reassuring.
She felt Riathen cross the chamber, and stop just behind her.
"What is it doing?" she asked him. In a way it was still as if she was dreaming, and she didn't think to question his appearance.
"What it was meant to do," he said. He spoke calmly, as if they were in one of the garden courts of his house, discussing some fine point of power. "There is a tendency to think of arcane engines as engines, as if they resembled steam engines, or clockworks. Oh, some of them did, I imagine. This is rather more sophisticated. It was meant to last a long time, untended, to survive fire and rockfall and other disasters. There is nothing special about the stone in itself, only that it has been imbued with the intent of the most powerful Mages of the Ancients."
Elen gripped the edge of the pit and slid down to the bench, then to the floor. Riathen said nothing to stop her. On her knees, she ran her hands over the block. Its fit into the square cavity was seamless; she couldn't wedge her smallest finger between it and the rock, even if it hadn't been too heavy for her to pry out.
Pry out? she wondered. Why was she so sure it should have been pried out? Her heart froze. The Remnant itself had indicated it to her, in the subtle message carried in its song.
Perhaps it had been so firmly imbued with the intent of the Mages that it had been imbued with life, as well. She looked over her shoulder at Riathen. "It wants you to take it out. Can't you hear it?"
He frowned down at her, concern softening his expression. "You're confused, Elen. Try not to worry."
She snorted, only partly in amusement. "And why is that, I wonder. What did you drug me with?"
"Asphodel. It won't harm-"
"I know what asphodel is," she snapped. It dulled the senses, lulled the victim into a heavy, unnatural sleep. It was also supposed to inhibit arcane power. Trade Inspectors used it on fakirs and ghost-callers when they arrested them, and fortune-tellers were always being accused of slipping it into a rival's tea. It had no effect on the powers of mad Warders, though it made them as dizzy and sick as it did everyone else. Maybe she had gone mad. Or they thought her as weak as a fakir, that the drug would dull what little power she had.
The Remnant wanted the block pried out now. The configuration the stars were assuming was dangerously propitious. Over vast distances she could feel great masses of air, astral bodies, the lines of force that crossed the world, the draw of the tide in the Last Sea, the smoking heat in the belly of a nameless mountain far out into the Waste, all clicking into place like the works of a clock about to strike its hour bell. Soon it would be too late. I know, she thought, I will. I'll do it as soon as I can, I promise, but I can't think if you nag me.
Elen's awareness of the world as a vast body that she was an infinitesimally small part of gradually faded, leaving her shivering in wonder. She saw Riathen staring at her, his brows drawn together and his eyes worried. She said, "At least try to hear it, can't you?"
; His frown deepened, and he didn't reply.
Someone else was coming.
Kythen Seul.
Elen's eyes narrowed. It was Seul who had caught her in Justice Rasan's house, who had forced the first drops of the drug down her throat. The memory of it burned.
Seul came up to Riathen, watching Elen intently. He said, "It's as I thought, then. She's mad."
Riathen shook his head, his face bitter. "No, merely confused. I-"
"She killed a High Justice of the Trade Inspectors," Seul said, as if trying to persuade Riathen to face the sad fact. "You can't deny that."
Elen shook her head, disgusted. So that was his game. "I can deny it." She remembered Rasan clearly, and everything he had said. The Heir was somehow involved in this, in Seul's treachery. She remembered what had really killed Rasan. "What was that ghost?" she demanded. "Did you send it?"
Typically, both men ignored her. Seul kept his eyes on Riathen. For an instant Elen saw past his facade of worried concern to the man beneath, the greed and the guilt, the irritation with Riathen's hesitancy, the barely restrained impatience.
"I never believed it could happen," Riathen was saying, more to himself than to either of them. "Her powers were always so tentative. Certainly I didn't expect it to happen while I-"
All bitter regret, Seul said, "She pushed herself too far. She wanted to serve you too well."
"What are you talking about?" Elen interrupted. They were speaking of her as if she were dead. It was hard to think and she felt awful, but she wasn't dying. Not unless they killed her with asphodel. "Why have you brought me here?"
The Doors of the West, the surface of Riathen's soul said. "For your own good," he replied, gently, aloud. He turned to Seul. "Perhaps when the engine is completed, something can be done for her."
When the engine is completed. Elen's fingers still rested on the Wock, and it throbbed under her light touch, faster than her heartbeat, urgent, compelling. Its message was more vital than anything the two men said, and her attention drifted.
"Perhaps," Seul admitted.
Elen had a brief glimpse of the Waste from above, as if she looked down on it from some city tower or the top of the Remnant itself. There was a sensation of air rushing past, of an unaccustomed height. The light was the very earliest brush of morning, with stars still visible on the dark horizon.
Something else was there, and its presence was an intrusion, an invasive touch, a disease rotting the body...
"Something's coming," she said aloud.
Elen was still looking up at Seul, though her eyes had been temporarily blind. He turned, startled, toward her, then flushed and said, "We should give her more asphodel. If it wears off while we're performing the awakening..."
Riathen closed his eyes briefly, as if he was in pain. What Elen read on his soul was relief. He said, "Very well."
Seul pulled a stoppered vial from his mantle, but Riathen didn't comment on this evidence of preparation. He stepped toward her, but the older man stopped him. Riathen said, "I'll give it to her."
Elen gathered her scrambled thoughts, removed her hand from the block to try to shut out its beguiling call. Riathen was kneeling before her, lifting the stopper and holding out the vial. "Please, Elen."
She could dash it from his hand, but she had a better idea. Seul was facing toward the door slab, frowning. Riathen's eyes were on her, and his guard was down.
She took the vial, brought it to her lips, and pushed toward the edge of Riathen's mind an image of her drinking, swallowing. She couldn't prevent a drop or two from rolling over her lips, but the rest went down her chin.
She knew from Riathen's expression he had seen only what she wanted him to see. Elen wiped her sleeve across her mouth to destroy the evidence, making it a little girl's gesture, and smiled at him like a child.
Satisfied, he took her arm to help her up. "Come back here now, and sleep a little. You'll feel better."
She would. She had to rid herself of the last dregs of the intoxicant. Sleeping it off was as good a way as any.
Elen let him lead her to the pallet near the fire. She had tricked the Master Warder with a veiling of sight. She knew she should not have been able to do that. Not ever.
Perhaps they were right. Perhaps she was mad.
She hoped so. It might be the only chance she had.
***
It was still night when Khat reached the wagon docks, but the sun must be just below the eastern horizon on the far side of the city. The sky was already beginning to gray in that direction.
He made his way out to the end of one of the lesser-used piers, looking back toward the docks for any sign of unusual activity. He had spent the only two copper bits he had to buy a desert robe from a trader in the Seventh Tier market. It smelled of a former owner and itched against his skin, and was probably stolen from a corpse, but he needed some protection in the Waste.
The docks were relatively quiet, the beggars asleep, cargoes piled up for loading onto the early morning wagons, the stokers barely begun warming the engines. But near the center piers were three steamwagons of the light, fast sort used by Imperial couriers and envoys. The cargo space was given over to a larger engine and more room for passengers, and the superstructure was stripped down except for an armored tower with gunports, from which three or four men with air guns could probably hold off a few dozen pirates.
They might be for the Heir; they might also be for Constans. There was no telling. Khat caught hold of a piling and swung down to the loose sand.
The wagons would still be confined to the trade road. He couldn't beat them, but with a head start and taking the overland route directly across the Waste, he might reach the Remnant at roughly the same time. That was the best he could hope for.
Starting the long trek toward the edge of the Waste rock, Khat thought about the time Riathen had already spent in the Remnant.
If it was too late, he was sure they would all find out soon enough.
Chapter Eighteen
The drug was wearing off. Elen sat up against the wall of the Remnant's central chamber, letting the warm stone support her. Riathen and Seul were nowhere to be seen; she remembered they had seemed to spend a great deal of time last night in the upper level, in the anteroom and the well chamber. She tried to struggle to her feet, and gasped, sinking back against the wall again. Her head was one pounding mass of pain; she couldn't stand it. Wetting her dry lips, she started a Discipline of Calm and Silence.
Elen had passed an odd night. Most of it was obscured by the drug, though she had far less of a dose than Riathen and Seul thought. She remembered a strange conversation with Seul, when Riathen had temporarily disappeared.
"You sent the pirates," she had said, wanting to be very clear on that point, for some reason. "You were out there that night, and sent them into the Remnant after us."
"You were lucky. They should have swarmed up onto the roof and overwhelmed you, but I discovered later that a small group betrayed the others and went after you alone, so they could keep the reward to themselves." Seul was confident, indulgent. "But even then they wouldn't have harmed you. I made sure of that."
"No, just mauled me about a bit, and killed Jaq, but they did that anyway."
He had not expected her to be lucid enough to argue, and his eyes had hardened. "Tell Riathen if you wish. He won't believe you."
"Riathen knows already." As she said it she knew it for the truth. Riathen had seen through some of Seul's deceptions, though not all, but he still needed the younger man's help. And what he did with the Ancient relics had become more important to him than the loyalty of his students, the lives of his lictors. It might have been better not to tell Seul this, but there was nothing she could do about it now. The drug and the song of the Remnant reverberating in her soul had given her some strange insights, but it had also made her like some demented oracle, helpless to stop itself from prophesying.
Seul stood abruptly, regarding her with some suspicion. "Maybe you are
mad."
Suddenly weary, she had not replied, and watched him walk away.
Elen knew she must have slept then. It had still been dark during that conversation. Now there was early afternoon light falling through the sandtraps, illuminating the chamber with a gentle bronze and gold glow. She pressed her palms against her eyes in relief; the Discipline was lessening the pain, turning it into a manageable ache.
She got to her feet with the aid of the wall, and paused when her vision went black. The drug had done her no good at all. She wished she could treat Seul to a substantial dose of it.
The Remnant's song murmured just beyond her range of hearing, more distant than it had been but still a presence in her thoughts. I should be terrified of it, she thought. What's wrong with me? She didn't know whether to trust the things that voice had told her or not; so much of the past night was dreamlike. Riathen had said the block was imbued with the intentions of Ancient Mages long dead, and she knew forceful souls could leave vibrant impressions of their thoughts and feelings on stone or metal. She might only be imagining that it actively spoke to her; it might only be a kind of mirror, mindlessly reflecting images from centuries past.