Acolyte's Underworld: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 4)

by L. W. Jacobs

  Ella rolled to her feet and pulled on her tattered dress, tucking finer clothes into a moth-eaten satchel for later in the day. It felt strange to leave the spear unguarded, the thing they had fought so long and hard for, but an archrevenant was trying to kill her fiancé, she was the only one who could gather evidence against him, and she needed the spear to survive long enough to do that. The safest place to leave it was the place no one would come looking.

  Which meant Brokewater, even more than the Stilts. Only locals knew how to navigate the muddy warren, and even well-paid lawbinders refused to enter the place. It was why she’d run here so many years ago.

  As expected, Zaza bustled about the kitchen below, the kerchief around her thick brow already damp with sweat. “Off to it, tauera?”

  From her, the word was a term of endearment. Praise, almost—Ella had gone from beggar to tauera under Zaza’s care.

  “Sa. I’ll see you darktime or sooner mama. Keep steady, wei?”

  “Wei,” the big woman said, then turned to snap off orders at a slip of a girl cleaning the day’s load of rice.

  Ella left via the kitchen door, grateful to the woman. When she’d left five years ago she’d hoped never to return, but ironically the place felt like home. Much moreso than her family’s West Cove estate would.

  Ella retraced her steps through the winding muddy lanes of Brokewater, children crying and sallow men relieving themselves in nameless streams as the warren woke to another day. She found the place she’d talked to the newsmonger the day before and smirked to see him just arriving.

  “Dream too much last night, hora? You said sunrise.”

  “Sunrise now, tauera,” the man mumbled, dropping his stool and stowing a cloth-wrapped bundle beneath. “Boss man say you give sheets, I bring back moons.”

  “Ha,” Ella laughed, summoning the high pitched surprised-but-not-amused laugh of the Brokewater. “Faregood monger.” She made as if to leave.

  “Okay, okay,” the monger said, holding up his hands. “Bossman coming soon.”

  The fog had mostly burned off by the time the bossman came. He was dressed in the flamboyant style of anyone who thought they’d made it somewhere in Brokewater, copper trinkets and glass beads tied to his belt, a faded purple doublet buttoned over an ill-fitting dress shirt. Studded boots rounded out the attire, but his face was deadly serious.

  “Monger man say you got news tauera?”

  “Could got,” Ella answered, pulling out the first sheet of her article and feeling for her resonance inside. The most likely scenario here was the men jumping her after they decided what she had was worth printing. If they did, they’d get a nasty surprise. “Need moons, sa?”

  She handed the sheet over and the man squinted at it, the monger leaning closer to get a look. Ella wasn’t worried about the quality of her writing—proper grammar and penmanship had been drilled into her at a young age—or the newsworthiness of the content. Reports from Aran would just be coming in, and hers held details no one else’s could.

  “Many pages you get sister?” the bossman asked, looking up. “The whole cheina?”

  “Whole cheina,” she said, patting her bag. “Need twenty moons.”

  It was an outlandish price. She knew that before the bossman gave her the same high pitched ha she’d given the monger earlier. But anything less would be out of keeping with Brokewater ways. The truth was she’d give it to him for free if he’d print it. But ironically, the only way to guarantee printing was to make sure he spent something getting it.

  They settled on three moons and a quarter—enough to buy food for a day or two. His gloating smile once they’d said wei implied he’d gotten the better end of the deal, but that was fine. The real payoff would be getting her story out to the city.

  And just wait till she starting writing about Ayugen.

  “More where this come from, sister?” the gaudy man asked, carefully tucking her pages away.

  “Could get,” she answered. She stuffed the moons into her bodice. “Know where the woman lives, teha? Need six moons next time.”

  “Four,” the man said without pausing.

  “Four and a half. Wei?”

  “Wei.”

  She left then, Brokewater deals not requiring much ceremony. Tai had said they needed a different way to fight, one that didn’t involve making more revenants. “Here you go, love,” she muttered, threading her way around smoldering fires and spilled nightpots. “The first blow in a war of words.”

  She booked a private taxi to The Racks, shocking the man rowing by pulling her dress off and replacing it with the much nicer one from her bag.

  He kept his eyes on the water, Einswater bay thick with taxis and barges in the morning light. “So you a rich girl slumming in Brokewater or a swamp girl trying to blend in The Racks?”

  “Neither,” she said, reaching back to tie the dress’s clasps behind her. She thought about telling him who she really was, just for the hell of it, then thought better. What would she say, anyway—I’m a runaway House daughter who helped defeat an army and kill a god?

  As well say she was mad. Which might be true anyway, given what she was here to do.

  She pushed an extra half-moon into his hand and stepped onto the immaculate The Racks pier. First step in tracking down a god: find his victims and gather clues.

  By the second toll of the ninth hour clock Ella was outside Eyadin’s home, an unassuming redstone over-and-under in one of the newer and blander sections of The Racks. The entire district was essentially spillover, the next-cheapest place to build once West Cove filled up. She had always despised visiting relatives here—West Cove wasn’t much better, but at least whole neighborhoods weren’t built with a single house design.

  Ella took a deep breath. Eyadin’s house was her only lead in tracking down Teynsley. If she didn’t get useful information here, there was a very real chance she wouldn’t find it at all.

  And of course she couldn’t do it without also discussing Eyadin’s death, which the woman may or may not have heard of yet. Ella straightened her shoulders and pulled the chimes. She was greeted a few breaths later with a woman’s scowling face.

  “What do you want?” she asked, looking her up and down. “Charity? Got nothing to give here.”

  “Are you Nawhin Mettek?” Ella asked, steeling herself for the conversation likely to follow.

  “I am,” she said. “And if you’re here to tell my husband’s dead, I already know.”

  Ella paused. Well that answered that. “Oh. I’m, ah, I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Were you there?” the woman demanded through the cracked doorway. “Do you know this Marea Fetterwel?”

  “She is an acquaintance, yes,” Ella said, mind spinning. She needed to step lightly—if things hadn’t gone well with Marea, tying herself too close to the girl could negate the only lead Ella had. “I was there when he died,” Ella said carefully, “if you’d like to know more.”

  Nawhin chewed at her lip. “I would, and I wouldn’t.” Her face softened, and Ella glimpsed a woman trying to stay strong in a world that had dealt her only bad cards. Trying and failing.

  “This must be so hard,” Ella said, voice softening with sympathy. “I cannot imagine losing my partner.”

  “No,” Nawhin said. “You can’t. But you might as well come in.” She opened the door and gestured inside. “We’ve scant little to offer in the way of food, but I can brew you some tea.”

  “Please,” Ella said, “I don’t mean to take much of your time. I believe your husband was under threat from someone here in Worldsmouth, and I’ve come to bring justice to that person.”

  “To this Marea?” Nawhin asked. She seated herself in a rocking chair in their spare sitting room and motioned Ella to the other.

  “To the one who sent him to Aran in the first place,” Ella said. “I don’t know how much you know—”

  “I know he was under a lot of stress. Eyadin didn’t like to tell me about it, but I knew
. And every time she’d come there’d be some bigger message he’d need to take, some longer journey to go on. And every time a threat and a promise with it.” Her jaw stiffened. “Until the last time, when the threat was my own daughter.”

  The girl had bluefoot fever, if Ella remembered right. “It isn’t right,” Ella said, letting her own anger at the attacks on Tai come out. “It isn’t right and I’m not going to let it continue. I believe I can bring them to justice. But I need your help doing it.”

  Nawhin’s jaw worked again. “Will it put my family at risk? My daughter?”

  “No. I swear to you it will not.” A vow she could make because Falena had filtered her thoughts against mindreading. Otherwise, the moment Teynsley met her the entire thing would unravel. But no need to say that.

  “Why do you care?” Nawhin shifted on her chair, looking torn between trust and doubt. “You’re no lawbinder, and I doubt anyone would pay to see my Eyadin’s case brought to light.”

  “I care because they are targeting my fiancé now,” Ella said, fists tightening at her side. “And I will do anything I can to stop them. Anything.”

  Nawhin sucked in a breath, eyes hardening. “So they’re trying to do it to you too. Well. In that case, what do you need to know?”

  Ella’s stomach relaxed despite the anger she felt. Nawhin had chosen trust. If there was useful information to be learned here, she would find it.

  “A name,” Ella said, “if you have one. You said there was a woman who would come?” She’d been expecting a man, but maybe Teynsley came in disguise. Or more likely, he’d sent someone to do his work for him, as he had with Eyadin. Her foe was a cautious one, for being a god.

  “Yes. She never gave us a proper name. Would just walk in here like the gods were at her heels, spout her message and leave again. Do you think she’s behind it?”

  Ella shifted in her seat. “I doubt that. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Eyadin’s message to Aran was a command to the entire garrison stationed there. Whoever is behind this has the power to command that kind of force. This woman was likely an intermediary of some kind.”

  Nawhin caught her breath. “A Councillor?”

  “Them or someone high enough in their ranks to convince them to sign and seal such a thing,” Ella said. “What about appearance? Anything unusual about her?”

  “She works for Alsthen,” Nawhin said. “Wore their uniform half the time she came here—clerical department, I think. Otherwise?” She spread her hands. “About your age, tall, lighthaired with a just a few straws black, sounded like a native.”

  From Nawhin’s precise vowels and clipped speech, Ella guessed she had been born in the Yershire. “Good, thank you. That’s helpful. Anything else about her? Or anything Eyadin might have said?”

  Nawhin twisted at her hands, eyes distant. “No. I don’t think so. Like I said, he didn’t like to tell me much about what was going on. Wanted to protect us.” She huffed a laugh.

  A whimper sounded from the far room, and Nawhin’s head jerked up.

  “I should go,” Ella said, standing. “Thank you.”

  Nawhin stood and clasped her hands. “Thank you. I—things have been hard for a while now. But you’re the first person I’ve met who cares. I hope you find whoever it is, for your sake. For your fiancé, whoever he is. It will bring me some measure of peace.”

  “I’m going to do more than find him,” Ella said, standing and brushing off her skirts. “I’m going to bring him to justice.”

  Starting with a fyelocked woman in the clerical department of House Alsthen.

  13

  “Everything starts with power,” Uhallen said, sea breeze lifting his raven-black hair. “Political power, physical power, resonant power—these are the things that shape the world, and that shape your destiny. Let no one tell you differently.”

  Marea shifted her feet, glancing at the city and bay spread out all around them. After agreeing to help the shaman on his quest to defeat his enemies she had followed him up the spiraling stairs to the top level of his tower, a stone-floored space the full width of the tower, open to the air on all sides through a row of columns supporting a quartz cupola. The view from five floors up was disorienting, as was the amount of wealth this man must possess to rent or own it.

  Marea took a deep breath and unfocused her eyes, even as she listened to his words. This was to be her first lesson—one in concentration, and in refining her ability to grasp revenants. He’d tasked her with keeping up her end of the conversation even as she watched for and tried to grasp revenants. Only so far, she hadn’t seen any.

  “Power,” Marea responded. “That’s all Harides wanted, and Nauro.”

  “And what you are here to get,” Uhallen said, smoke trailing from his half-burnt cigar. “Resonant power, at least. Which I think you will find is the key to the other two—with enough uai you can give yourself physical strength, or leverage your way into the upper eschelons of society.”

  Smoke drifted over the edge of the balcony—no! That was a revenant, barely visible in the unfocused sight of shamanic vision. She readied herself, imagining an arm reaching out to grasp it.

  It slipped off and Uhallen tsked smoke. “Focus, Marea. Believe you can grip the thing and you will. And do not lose the conversation.”

  “I don’t want to get into high society,” Marea said, refocusing on her imagined arm. “I just want to heal a dying girl in The Racks.”

  She swung again with the imagined arm. It passed through the ethereal tatters of the revenant, itself now passing through a stone column as it drifted.

  Uhallen chuckled. “It is the very force of your desire that is making you so impatient. Focus. I see Harides gave you tools for focusing your fatewalking. Use them to focus your belief in that invisible hand.”

  Uhallen’s ability to see into every recess of her past was unnerving, but Marea ignored it. She tried her fatewalking visualization, like Harides had taught her aboard Selwin’s barge. Instead of just imagining the arm she pictured the individual hairs on it, the cords of muscle rippling beneath the forearm. Smelled the slight musk coming from its skin, felt the wind on its skin, heard its whispered passage air as she reached for the revenant.

  And again passed through it like mist.

  “Good,” Uhallen said. “But use it not just for your side of the battle. It is a fundamental tenet of the Book of Nine that our belief shapes reality. What you believe of your opponent, or in this case the revenant you wish to grasp, has the ability to shape what they in fact are. Especially in the case of this revenant, starved so long it is barely conscious at all.”

  “All right,” Marea said, squaring her feet and summoning the arm in all its reality into her mind’s eye. Alongside it she pictured the revenant—smoke was no good, because it couldn’t be gripped, so instead she saw it as a gossamer sail, like the sorts employed on rich pleasure yachts, only worn and tattered to a shadow of itself. Worn and tattered, but still grippable.

  This time her imagined arm caught it, and she grinned in triumph.

  “Excellent,” Uhallen said. “Now let it go.”

  “What?” Marea asked, still flush with victory. “I got it. Now show me what to do with it.”

  “That revenant,” the shaman said, pausing to pull on his cigar, “is shatters. It will do nothing for you. You must learn to let things go when they do not serve you. Now let go.”

  With an effort Marea opened her intangible hand, and what had been a tattered gossamer sail in her fingers became revenant smoke again.

  “Good. A revenant like that has been so long without uai it is little more than a corpse. The ones we need, the ones alive and emitting uai, will be much more vibrant.”

  “Let me guess,” Marea said, flush with victory but stung it had meant so little. “They’re also a lot harder to grasp.”

  Uhallen blew smoke. “Very good. I gave you this one because it is near dissolution. An active revenant will resist your attempts to shape its reality, as a
living human will resist your attempts to define them as anything other than the way they see themselves.”

  “Fine,” Marea said, “but what happens when I do grasp an active one?”

  A chill passed through her and she cursed, spinning to see a much less tattered revenant passing through her core. She’d gotten too caught up in their words and forgotten to watch. Better late than never, she summoned her intangible hand and grabbed for the ghost, but its form twisted around hers.

  “You saw Nauro and Harides in battle,” Uhallen’s calm voice came from behind her. “They seemed to be doing very little, right? Nauro simply staring at the man crushing you with furs, and Harides facing off with those shamans on the hill outside Aran while you and Tai and Ella did your best to battle them with resonances?”

  “Yes,” Marea said, reminding herself not to pay him full attention. She turned as she listened, determined not to miss the next revenant.

  “That was because they were fighting a battle of the mind. It is the reason I’m asking you to do two things at once today, even if it would be easier to give one or the other your full attention. Being able to focus on more than one thing is the key to winning shamanic battles, because they are fought on multiple fronts. Hundreds, sometimes.”

  “So you’re saying my targets are going to try to talk me to death?” Marea asked, recognizing it was a little cheeky for Uhallen but too focused on shamanic sight to soften it. Still no revenants, just the quartz walls and slate rooves of Ylensmarsh stretching out to the north.

  “No,” Uhallen said. “They will be trying to keep their revenants and thrall yours, but the basic skill is the same. You have seen the musicians of the old city, singing with lute in hand and cymbals tied to their feet? My master had me train with them for years, to learn the multiple focus.”

  She had not in fact seen any musicians like that, though tales told of such bards performing in Shatterbrook, the ancient Yersh capital. An itch started on the crown of her head, and only as she was reaching to scratch it did the strangeness of the sensation occur to Marea.