by Ken Scholes
One of the scouts whistled for Aedric, and Charles walked with him, watching the prints from invisible feet materialize within the broken snow in an attempt to confuse his footprints. A match flared, and the light and smoke from it dimly illuminated part of a hand as a watch lantern was lit. Its lens of light was turned to the bloody ground, and Charles saw now the massive, dark-furred kin-wolves stretched out in death. The dark iron collars surprised him.
Aedric’s voice was low and muffled by the magicks. “It seems our metal friend has set out watchdogs in the days since we’ve last visited him.” He pointed to the bodies. “Take them up and bring them.”
Then, by the light of the small lantern, Charles followed them to the waiting cave entrance, where they stood and listened. But the booming voice and its impassioned rambling about blood and life and empresses drowned out any sound that might’ve drifted back to them from deep beneath the ground.
“We go in carefully,” Aedric whispered. His finger found Charles’s chest and poked it. “You stay behind us until we know it’s safe.” He was quiet for a moment, then spoke again. “Feris, Grun, stay back here and guard our backs.” Then, in afterthought, he added, “Skin these pups for me while you wait.”
Charles blinked. “Why would you-”
But Aedric cut him off. “It is not your concern. You just worry yourself about finding your missing pages. You’ve only my grace because of the two queens who’ve granted theirs. This is madness, in my mind.”
Charles waited until he felt the wind of them moving into the cave and then followed after. As they moved, slowly, he watched as the light fell upon the stone walls and tried to filter out the thick smell of dung and blood that choked him. When they reached the first room and its line of cages, they stopped again. Within the cages, birds of a dozen nations waited amid their stacks of papers. “In for a drachma,” Aedric muttered before ordering his men to wring the birds’ necks and gather up what intelligence could be found. “After tonight,” he said, “our welcome will indeed be worn.”
They only spent a few minutes in the cutting room, and Charles was glad of it, for that was the worst-reeking space. They left it untouched and moved into its simple working space with its tables of potions and powders, inks and papers.
Aedric’s voice drifted across the room. “Tell us what we look for, Francine.”
Charles went to the table of papers. “Parchment pages,” he said, “handwritten and of varying ages.” Of course, despite the potions the Marshers used to preserve the ancient tomes that held their dreams, some of these pages might not have survived their removal from the books. He only hoped that whatever they might find here would be sufficient for his children’s antiphon to be successful.
Still, as they sifted through the room they found nothing that matched what they sought. They’d stuffed a sack full of the gospels they’d found, freshly transcribed and bound in leather, adding to that sack anything else Aedric deemed worthless to them. And just as they were finishing, one of the scouts whistled them over.
“There is a door here,” a muffled voice said as a buckskin was lifted aside to reveal a small, dark door in the wall. The small dial betrayed a Rufello lock, and Charles pushed past the invisible scouts to kneel and look at it by the light of their lantern. He stretched out his fingers and felt the lock. It was one of Rufello’s simpler models-one of the more common they’d found.
“I know this lock,” he muttered. Many of the inventor’s smaller locks had been designed with a master cipher known only to the Czarist engineer and coded into his Book of Specifications.
“Can you open it?” Aedric asked.
“If its universal release has not been reset, I can.” He licked his lips. “Otherwise, we’d need Isaak or one of the others.”
“We do not have that luxury.”
Charles pressed his ear to the lock and shifted the dial, pressing at the buttons and levers set into the faceplate around it with careful fingers. When the first code brought about a quiet click inside the lock, the old man smiled.
“I have it,” he said, and after he finished, he let Aedric pull him back so that they could cast their light within the chamber that awaited them when the door swung open on oiled hinges.
The familiarity of the room hit him first. It was nearly the mirror image of the same chamber in the northern reaches of Rudolfo’s Ninefold Forest, a sealed hatch set in the granite floor and the walls lined with tables. Upon the tables, he saw the bent and twisted bits of wreckage so out of place here, though in hindsight it made sense.
“Gods,” he whispered, walking into the room. He traced his fingers over some of the objects and drew up his memory of them and of the last day he’d seen them. There were tools and broken artifacts, scorched by the fires of the Seven Cacophonic Deaths. The broken wings of moon sparrows and the warped barrels of hand-cannons kept hidden in deep vaults, unknown even to the Pope. There were bits of metal scroll and broken pens for scripting them.
They’re excavating Windwir, he realized as he felt his stomach sink. They’re excavating my workshop.
But as staggering as that was, it was nothing compared to what he saw next, dead and looking nothing like the petrified remains they’d found in the deepest ruins of the Churning Wastes. This specimen lay stretched out, its eight large legs tacked to the wood of the table and its seedwomb cut open and empty. He stretched back his memory to his studies of this particular madness but could not remember just how many thousands of eggs each one carried. But he remembered how quickly they reproduced, and the knot in his stomach clenched even as he forgot to breathe.
“We need to leave,” he said, and the panic in his voice made it shake. “Now.”
“Gather what-”
“No,” Charles said. “We leave the past in the past,” he said. “We need to go now. We need birds to send to Rudolfo-as many as we have.”
“What is it?” Aedric’s voice now took on a quietness that Charles thought must be fear, and he was glad of it. We should be afraid.
But Charles didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and left. He moved quickly through the caves, and when he broke into the fresh, cold air of the winter night he found the forest was full of screaming. He did not recognize the voice, but her agony filled sky.
Aedric caught up to him and spun him around. “You do not have the luxury of secrets or silence,” he said in a voice now obviously afraid and angry about that fear.
Charles took in a deep breath and tried to force the screaming from his ears, tried to keep from screaming himself. “They’re digging up Windwir,” he sobbed. “And they’ve brought back the plague spiders.”
Aedric said nothing, but Charles heard the gasps of his men. Every boy and girl learned about the Seven Cacophonic Deaths in ghost tales passed down around fires and in moral lessons from their parents. “Behave,” they’d say, “or Xhum Y’Zir’s death golems will find you.” “Be kind to your sister, or plague spiders might visit their fevers upon her in the night.” They were cruel admonitions that none would offer if they’d known what darkness truly lay within that spell that had decimated the Old World.
They took all of the birds they had between them, brown and white both, and as three of the scouts worked their ink needles and pulled black threads from their scarves of rank, the others laid a fire to the sack of gospels and what parchments Aedric deemed unhelpful for intelligence.
Then, the sack of documents that remained vanished into a magicked cloak. Three of the ghosts pulled away, and when they returned, Charles felt Aedric’s hand upon his shoulder.
“We’ve not found what you sought, but perhaps what you did not seek will be worth this incursion. This Watcher will not be pleased by this.”
No, Charles thought, but truly the time for secrets and silence has passed. He said nothing.
“I am sending two men back to our borders. If the birds do not reach Rudolfo, at least these men might. And I’m going to ask Lady Tam strongly to bring our stay here to a close imme
diately.”
Charles nodded. “That is wise, Captain.” And I should leave as well. But despite what they found here, what they had not found here still held him to his work. The missing pages were not here. They were either with the Watcher or-and more and more, Charles feared this-they’d been destroyed as soon as they were pulled from the books. Regardless, he knew now that he had to consult with Isaak and the other metal man before he proceeded. “I’ll need to return to the Book of Dreaming Kings.”
“I will see you there,” Aedric said.
The screams were growing weaker now, and Charles hoped whoever twisted beneath the Y’Zirite knife would die soon and be far from the salted pain that racked them.
The fire burned there at the mouth of the cave, its smoke lifting in a narrow trail that blurred the moon. They stood around it in silence, and then, at the last, Aedric himself folded the bloody kin-wolf hides and left them in the mouth of the cave.
Charles watched flames lick parchment and knew that this gesture would be just a raindrop upon an ocean of need. He also knew there would be ripples from it, and he wished he could gauge just how far those ripples would spread.
Closing his eyes and praying to gods he did not believe in, Charles turned and walked into a forest of screams, the ghosts around him whispering across the snow and the ghosts within him whispering along his spine.
Jin Li Tam
The screams at last were weakening, and for the thousandth time, Jin Li Tam forced her face calm and forced her hands to her sides. She’d identified at least six knives and two pouches of scout magicks she could have taken and had calculated at least four paths to the cutting table and three possible routes off the platform and into a crowd that might hide her and the girl.
Of course, she’d done this after handing Jakob over to a distraught and weeping Lynnae, bidding her bear him back to their rooms in the hope that the screaming would be muffled there. Ria had shot her a questioning glance that had gone sour when she saw the rage in Jin’s eyes.
The Machtvolk queen made her way over to her to take the seat that Winters had vacated to take her place upon the table. “I know our ways seem strange to you, but this is truly a great honor my little sister has taken upon herself. And for you and your son to be present for it is the fulfillment of two millennia of longing.”
Jin Li Tam had bitten her tongue and tasted her lie. “The voice magicks frighten him,” she said simply, and then forced her eyes back to the girl upon the table until Ria finally returned to her own place to take up her silver axe with a smile.
Courage, she had willed her eyes to convey to the girl, but Winters had stopped seeing anything many cuts ago.
Now, it seemed the regent’s work was drawing to an end. Her screams quieted as the knives moved slower and more slightly over her skin and as the voice magicks burned themselves out. Jin found herself wondering just how far away her screams had been carried.
With careful fingers red with Winters’s blood, Eliz Xhum reached up now to untie her hands one at a time. Then, he untied her feet and gently rolled the girl onto her back. Jin saw the whites of her eyes, and her moan was the sound of thunder. Once again, she found herself nearly losing her composure and still was not certain she did the right thing.
She makes her own path, and I must respect it. She was fairly certain that the cutting was not a part of Winters’s plan, but the girl had shown some premeditation in smuggling the voice magicks into the gathering and making her loud proclamation. And she’d kept it to herself.
Certainly, Jin realized, they both had their secrets. Aedric had sought her out regarding the missing pages from the book, and she was confident that Winters had known of this as well. She wondered if the girl had picked up the subtle message she’d intended by sending Aedric to her to confirm that fact. And she wondered how Aedric and Charles fared and if, as she suspected, the Watcher had left his cave to watch this first open mass in the Named Lands.
She did not subscribe to the Marsh dreams herself, though she took it more seriously now that she’d had time to get to know the girl.
And now I know just how seriously the girl takes it.
The knives were down now, and the regent was reaching for buckets of steaming water and clean white rags, laid near the table where Winters stretched out naked and bleeding.
Something broke in her, and the rage could no longer be contained. She stood and pushed her way to the front as he squeezed out the excess water, a smile of pure love upon his face.
“No,” she said in a loud voice. “You’ll not touch her again.” She doubted it carried very far, but it carried far enough. He straightened and turned to her as she approached, and whatever he saw upon her face took his smile away.
“Great Mother,” he began, “it is customary-”
But she interrupted him. “I will tend her. You’ve done enough.” Then, she poured every bit of the rage she felt into her eyes and watched him blink at what he saw. She walked to him and snatched the cloth away before he could object.
The words of her sister-if indeed it was her sister-suddenly reasserted themselves, and she could not fathom why under any circumstances she would go with this man. She forced the thought aside and pushed past the regent to stand near the girl. He looked from her to Winters, then nodded slightly and returned to his seat.
She leaned over the girl, taking in the smell of her blood. “This is going to hurt,” she said as she lifted the cloth.
The girl fidgeted and croaked; it took Jin a moment to recognize the word. “No.” Then, the girl mumbled words she could not make out.
She does not wish to be washed clean of this.
She bent her head closer. Behind her, Ria was on her feet and inviting others to stand as another Y’Zirite hymn rose up into the night. It was a song about kin-healing, and despite the noise of it, she could just make out Winters’s whispering.
“And she shall call forth the true Machtvolk by blood,” the girl muttered, and Jin Li Tam understood. Let them see her, naked and bleeding for them. This blood purchased exodus for those who chose it.
She rose up and turned to the regent. Their eyes met. “You will honor your promise?” she asked across the platform, her voice drowning in song.
“Yes,” he said.
Then she turned back to Winters. “Can you walk?”
The girl struggled, and Jin took hold of her arm to help her up. Her hand slipped over the blood and Winters gasped, but she rolled and sat up on the table. Jin cast a glance to her neatly folded dress and furs, but knew that anything she put over the girl would simply add more pain to what she’d already faced. Instead, she tried to find a part of her body that had not been cut and helped pull her, sobbing, to her feet.
“Lean on me,” she said, “as best you can.”
Together, with slow and measured steps, they crossed the platform, and Winters cried out softly with each step, though Jin knew she tried not to. They would leave this place, and when they were alone, Jin would wash the true queen of the Machtvolk clean of the blood and see her to Lynnae’s care for the treatment of her wounds.
When they climbed down from the platform, she guided the girl onto the wooden boardwalk and noted the wash of emotion upon the faces of those they passed. Some wept in ecstasy and others in sorrow. Some averted their eyes in shame and others gazed upon her in pride.
They shuffled their way out of the crowd, and when they were safely into the forest beyond the gathering, Winters slumped against her and nearly fell. The girl was of small frame, but the dead weight of her staggered Jin, and she held her for a moment.
Then, she felt a hand upon her shoulder and looked up into the face of a weeping young Machtvolk soldier. She’d seen this one before, guarding the door that led into the abandoned throne room and the caves that wound their way down to the Book of Dreaming Kings.
The young man scooped the girl into his arms, and Jin heard the sorrow catch in his throat as Winters cried out at his touch. “I will bear you, my q
ueen,” the young man said in a voice that stumbled with emotion.
Jin inclined her head. “Thank you.”
He returned the gesture and then set out down the wooden boardwalk in the direction of Ria’s lodge.
Jin paused before turning to follow him. The night was filled now with song instead of screaming, and she looked back in the direction of the singing.
This must be ended.
She did not know now how that could happen exactly. It was a vastly larger proposition than she had conceived when she’d first seen the beginnings of this resurgence last year. And she’d had no suspicion that anything could be darker and more frightening than the pillar of smoke and fire on the day that Windwir fell. But that pyre, it seemed, had only been the beginning of a darkness she could not comprehend and could not bear to be a part of.
The last thing she noticed, gleaming wetly in the scattered moonlight that penetrated the evergreen canopy, was the footprints in blood leading backward along the way that they had taken.
“We walk a path of blood,” Jin Li Tam whispered, and as she said it, a shudder ran its course along her body, like the kiss of a silver blade over a cold and salted wound.
Chapter 27
Neb
An unsettling calm flooded him, and Neb looked down to where he stood upon the silver pond before looking back up to the waiting mechoservitors.
He could feel their song now vibrating up through his feet, and he could hear the whispering of their processing scrolls in the aether.
And from where he stood, he could sense a myriad other vibrations in the strange waters.
You stand upon the veins of the world. They are yours to command now, something whispered within him. And the aether is yours to walk, but you will need assistance there.
He cocked his head. “Father?”
I am with you, Son, but only for a short while. I cannot follow where you must go. A strong sense of urgency flooded him, and he felt the pull of his inner eye eastward across the aether. But whatever lay there was out of reach.
