Edeard didn’t have the energy to protest. The jar contained plums preserved in a sugary syrup. He ate several before she returned, holding up a tube of ointment.
“I didn’t realize I was so hungry,” he admitted. Then he had to grit his teeth as she gingerly stripped his trousers off. Her expression at the sight of his raw flesh wasn’t reassuring. She did her best to brush away her concern.
“This might sting,” she warned, and began to rub the salve on.
Edeard had to clamp his mouth shut hard to prevent the howl from leaving his throat. “Lady!” His fingers clawed the top of the mattress.
“I’ve finished,” she said some interminable time later. “That should start soothing the damage soon.”
“I think it already has. That or you’ve burned the nerves away.” His thighs were definitely easing.
“Don’t be so mean,” Salrana said smartly, and gave him a brief kiss. She pulled a furniture sheet over him. “You rest now. I’m going to see if I can find some clothes.”
“Keep a lookout,” he said. “I need to know if anyone comes.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Nobody knows we’re here. Nobody knows we can be here.”
Edeard started to eat another plum. He was asleep before he finished.
Dreams claimed him, though not his usual bizarre visions of life elsewhere. These were his own and were mostly of Kristabel: Kristabel surrounded by flames, men with rapid-fire guns circling her, the roar of their weapons shattering his skull. Kristabel flying, falling, her nightdress fluttering around her, the very same white nightdress she’d worn on the day they met. Falling down the central stairs in the ziggurat, the same stairs he’d started to reshape, stairs that were now easy for the invaders to mount. Little Mirnatha screaming in terror as the ziggurat was consumed by the flames and bullets of the rapid-fire guns, clinging to her sister. Both of them falling from the tenth floor, a hand pushing them over the rail. Both screaming all the way to the floor. The hand was his own.
He cried out in torment. The sensation of something wrong was like a tidal wave of fear, threatening to send him plunging down into the infinite black of the abyss beneath the world. He was a pitiful broken thing on his way to Honious, left behind by the Skylords, left behind by Kristabel, by Dinlay, Boyd, Macsen, Kanseen; all of them peered down from the rim. One by one they turned away.
“No,” he begged, pleaded, wept. “No, come back.”
But they wouldn’t, because something was wrong.
He woke violently, jerking off the bed as he clawed his way out of the abyss, shaking with fear. It was still dark all around, silent. He fought for breath against panic so strong that it was throttling him. “What!” he demanded, and sent his farsight stabbing out.
The souls of Dinlay, Kristabel, and his parents were clumped together by the end of the bed. Kristabel’s arms were held out to him, radiating tangible concern.
“What?” he repeated as his breathing became less frantic.
“Edeard, we tried to wake you,” Dinlay said. “We tried hard. But you were so tired.”
“I’m awake.” When he squinted through the half-open door onto the veranda, he could see nebula light washing the white-painted rails outside with familiar pastels. It must have been close to midnight.
“Salrana,” Kristabel told him brokenly. “She betrayed you.”
“What?” he blurted in confusion. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” Dinlay said. “She has an exceptionally strong longtalk. She called Owain just after sunset. She told him where you were.”
“Salrana? What do you mean?”
“We couldn’t stop her,” Kristabel said. “We are helpless against the living.”
“No, no,” Edeard said. His farsight sensed Salrana walking across the hallway.
“Edeard?” she said in a light voice. “Are you all right? I thought you were still sleeping.”
“She called Owain,” Kristabel insisted. “His men are already here. They’re coming up the mountain.”
“They can’t be. That’s not …”
“Who are you talking to?” Salrana asked. She was standing in the room, giving him a curious look.
“My wife,” he said levelly.
Salrana’s face remained impassive. The start of surprise in her mind was minute and well shielded. But like Edeard, she was no Makkathran native. “You know I can see souls,” he said. “I even gifted the Pythia that particular vision. Here,” he said, and opened his mind so she could receive his farsight.
Salrana gasped as she found herself surrounded by four souls. “I …”
Edeard slid off the bed. “They told me you betrayed me,” he said in a flat voice as he approached her. “They told me you called Owain himself. I said they were wrong. Are they?”
Salrana took a step backward. “Edeard—”
Edeard sent his farsight out from the pavilion, ranging across the side of the volcanic mountain. Using the gift dear Finitan had bestowed him to uncover concealment, he exposed over twenty men approaching the wooden building, each carrying a rapid-fire weapon. Out in the darkness behind them, more teams were gathering. Then Edeard viewed the base of the mountain. Two entire militia regiments were down there, deploying around the bottom of the slope, encircling the mountain.
“Dear Lady,” he murmured in astonishment. “You really did.” He stared at her, trying to understand. “Salrana, you called them!” A note of hysteria had crept in from somewhere.
For a moment her composure held. Then she simply glared at him. “Yes, I called Owain.”
This can’t be happening. This is Salrana. My Salrana. The two of us together against the world.
“Why?” he pleaded. “Why did you do this? Because of Kristabel?”
Salrana gave Kristabel’s soul a contemptuous glance. “Jealous of that? Me? Hardly. I’m just as beautiful. Probably better in bed, too. Your loss.”
“But … us.”
“Oh, you stupid country peasant. Haven’t you learned anything since we arrived here? Did you really think a thirteen-year-old’s crush lasts for life? That I’d be loyal to you forever?”
“You can’t believe in Owain’s one nation.”
“Why can’t I? Because it doesn’t fit our wretched backward provincial upbringing? This is how the world works, Edeard. Can’t you see that? The Grand Families already have wealth and power, and with Owain’s leadership it will grow even stronger. I can be part of that. I can make myself part of that. Did you think you were the only one with ambition?”
“This is not you,” he said through growing anguish. “These are not Salrana’s words. Not your thoughts.”
“You are so weak. Even now you could claim the city for yourself. You have the power, the strength to make this world your own. Why don’t you?”
“No one person can rule a world.”
She gave a disgusted snort of contempt. “Humility, the refuge of the weak.”
“The Lady teaches decency.”
“And what has her church ever achieved except for instilling a decent sense of obedience in the lower orders?”
“Now I know that’s not you. Who did this to you? Who changed you?”
“I changed myself. I finally understood the world and set out to make something of myself in it. After all, you found your Grand Family bitch.” She waved dismissively at Kristabel’s soul. “A good way into the Upper Council for someone so spineless. Why shouldn’t I have some of the same? I’ve been screwing people who can help me; the ones who hate you are easy to take advantage of. And greatest among those is Owain himself. Did you know he has eight mistresses, but I’m the one he turns to now? He likes it. He likes having me, the Waterwalker’s childhood friend. I saw how resolute and determined he is, so much more than you. He’s smarter, too. You have your virtue; he has ambition and fire and power and wealth and, above all, vision. He will be an emperor, uniting the whole world as one nation. I will have a big part of that. I will be Pythia; he promised me that. O
ur children will be born to positions of privilege and power.”
It was as if his nerves had died. Edeard stared at the crazy girl smiling defiantly in front of him, feeling absolutely nothing. “No,” he said. A lone tear trickled out of his eye. “You cannot build a world on a foundation of violence and fear. He will destroy Querencia just as he has destroyed you.”
“I am not destroyed. I have never been more alive.”
Edeard’s farsight observed the armed men reach the pavilion’s front door. He wasn’t surprised to see that their leader was Arminel. “You would see me dead?” he asked faintly.
“The strong survive. Owain fears you will replace him. You still can. You can take his place, Edeard. You can shape the world to your vision. I would help you. We can be together yet.”
Edeard looked at his wife. He looked at his friend Dinlay. He looked at his parents, who had so much faith in him. “I will not be Mayor, not now. And you; you will not be Pythia.”
“Fool!” Salrana screamed at him. She spun around and raced out of the bedroom.
Edeard realized that the ability to sense through concealment was not one of the gifts and treats Owain had bestowed upon her.
Arminel and his men charged into the hall, firing indiscriminately as they ran forward. Bullets chewed up the walls, shredding the furniture. Muzzles blazed as they swept back and forth, seeking the Waterwalker.
Salrana’s shield wasn’t strong enough. Eight bullets struck her as she flailed desperately. Huge blood plumes burst across her novice robe. She was flung backward, her body landing inelegantly on the elegant pavonazzetto floor to sprawl inertly. Already her soul was staring down at it.
Edeard dived behind the big bed, allowing the thick mattress to absorb the hail of bullets. Now, as the gang hurriedly swapped their exhausted magazines for fresh ones, he raised his head. “I wish you well,” he told Salrana’s soul. “I hope you find peace in the Heart.”
“Edeard?” she said. “Oh, Edeard, what have I done?”
“Go,” he told her. “Find the Heart. I will join you there.”
Her soul wavered, drifting up through the pavilion’s ceiling. There was a final surge of distress, and she was gone.
Arminel finally slammed the fresh magazine into his rapid-fire gun and brought it up. His farsight swept through the pavilion, eagerly searching for the Waterwalker.
The magazine suddenly crumpled, the thin metal buckling as an inordinately powerful telekinesis squeezed it. The Waterwalker materialized in the bedroom.
“Kill him,” Arminel shouted at his squad. But their rapid-fire guns were equally useless as delicate components and casings were crushed and mangled.
“Last time we say goodbye,” the Waterwalker told him.
Arminel hardened his shield and turned to flee. The pavilion doors slammed shut with a bang that reverberated through the entire wooden structure. Arminel spun back to face his enemy, catching a glimpse of Edeard in the bedroom as his black cloak fluttered around him. Edeard held up both arms, his fingers splayed wide. Lightning ripped out from each fingertip.
Within seconds the entire pavilion was on fire. Joists, rafters, doors, walls, window frames, shelves, furniture, and roofing shingles ignited as they were raked with lightning bolts. Thick black smoke swirled out from the roaring flames, clotting the air.
Edeard pushed the bedroom door open and walked out onto the veranda. Inside, the men in the squad were coughing and yelling in fright as the smoke clogged their lungs and the heat began to roast their flesh. The bedroom door closed. Edeard hopped over the rails and landed on the grassy field. Inside the pavilion, they were blundering into each other. Voices reached a crescendo of pain and fright; several had already fallen. Edeard folded his concealment around him like an outer cloak and walked away into the night.
The trusted Weapons Guild guards Owain had sent to eliminate the Waterwalker skirted the burning ruins of the pavilion. They wrinkled their noses at the stench given off by the smoldering corpses inside but carried on tracking their quarry. Several among them claimed to be able to perceive right through the Waterwalker’s concealment and hurried after the dark figure they said was skulking through the trees just ahead.
At the bottom of the mountain, the militia regiments completed their deployment, forming a tight ring just outside the fringes of the forest. As ordered, they drew their pistols and waited. Farsight tracked the squads high up on the slopes past the smoking pavilion. Occasionally there was a burst of gunfire that made them flinch. But the guards armed with their deadly new guns pressed onward and upward.
Edeard kept ahead of them easily enough. He’d headed up only because there was nowhere else for him to go. A squad was guarding the cliff face with the cave mouth. He’d never be able to climb to it and escape. Salrana must have told Owain about the cave, about the travel tunnels … everything. So up he went. The terrain wasn’t exactly tough; the trees were few and far between above the pavilion. Grass was ankle high. Small streams trickled down the steep slope. Eventually, even the trees were behind him. Now there was just grass and boulders. He could see the summit already.
And that’s when I have to decide.
“I could imprison them,” he told his small ethereal court of advisers. “The city can create rooms without doors or windows. They would have food.”
“I think death would be more merciful,” his father said. “Remember what happened to poor Argian when you did that to him, and that was only for a couple of days.”
“He’s right,” Dinlay said. “Locking them up is just for the benefit of your conscience. They have to be wiped out. We know how ruthless they are now. If you don’t remove them altogether, they will come back again and again. How many times do you want this to happen to the city?”
“Once was too much,” Edeard said. “But to kill so many …”
“The Lady will understand,” Kristabel assured him.
“They half expect it,” Dinlay said. “That’s why we are where we are.” He gestured at the groups of men making their way up the slope. At best, the lead squad was twenty minutes behind.
“I’m not so sure I can get past them all,” Edeard said. “Owain seems resolute.”
“Of course he does,” Kristabel said. “He knows you are the only thing left between him and absolute power.”
“Perhaps if I retreat out to the provinces, form a legitimate opposition.”
“A revolution?” his mother asked. “It would take years, if not decades. How many would die in that struggle? No, if this is to be done, it must be done swiftly. That will keep the bloodshed to a minimum. Every day you hesitate sees him consolidate his authority further.”
“You sound so certain.”
She smiled, nebula light shining through her diffuse silhouette. “You don’t grow up in Makkathran without knowing all about politics.”
“You are from Makkathran?”
“Yes. The fifth daughter of the fourth son of the family Herusis. But that was many years ago. My sisters and brothers will have even less status now.”
“Herusis?” Edeard paused, trying to recall what he knew of that family. A wealthy trading enterprise with large land holdings on the Iguru and a small fleet of ships. “Isn’t Finitan a Herusis?”
“Yes. One of my great-uncles.”
“Finitan is my relative?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if he knew.”
“He probably suspected. Akeem certainly did.”
“But … Mother, why did you leave?”
“I was engaged to a lout of a Kirkmal; it was arranged between our families. I didn’t want to go through with the wedding. I wanted my life on my terms, even if it meant giving up the money.”
“That’s where he gets his stubbornness from,” Kristabel said.
“I’m not—” He gave a wan smile. Even now she could tease him.
He covered the final slope quickly. The summit was mainly boulders and loose stone, with tufts of wiry grass growing out
of cracks between pebbles. A gentle breeze was blowing in from the sea.
Edeard stood there and turned a complete circle until he was facing Makkathran. The city’s orange lights cast a strong glow into the air above the streets and canals. He could just make out the jagged outline of the towers. The first time he’d seen the city, it had been so compelling, as if he were finally coming home. That yearning was still there, but the grief was a stronger force. He could barely bring himself to look at it.
I have to decide.
Everything he’d ever wanted or asked for had been contained inside the crystal wall, as had everything he’d ever feared.
“I don’t think I can go back,” he confessed to the souls. “I think Owain and the others are right. I’m not strong enough.”
“You have the strength, son,” his father said.
“I don’t. The suffering I would bring is unthinkable.”
“You only have to take away the leaders,” Dinlay said. “Owain and his cronies.”
“That might have worked at the start, but not now. Everything has changed. The guns are out there in the open. Hundreds of people are flocking to join him.”
“Hundreds more resisted him and died. Don’t they deserve justice? You know you have support. Think of the election results.”
Edeard knelt on the ground, still looking at Makkathran. “I can’t do this. It’s over.”
“We understand,” Kristabel said. “This is what makes you, you. This is what I loved.”
“We’ll be together,” he promised her. His farsight sensed the first squad reaching the final slope up to the summit. All of them were readying their rapid-fire guns. “We will reach the Heart and live there for eternity.”
“Together,” Kristabel agreed.
Edeard drew in a deep breath. He looked out one last time across the Iguru plain, his thoughts serene as he stopped shielding himself. Makkathran’s thoughts brushed against his mind, as slow and contented as always, dreaming in another realm.
The Void Trilogy 3-Book Bundle Page 142
