by Ken Scholes
As he danced, he laughed low and savored the jarring of his arm and wrist each time the knife found purchase.
When he finished, Vlad Li Tam wiped his grandson’s blood from the knife and stooped to recover the shining staff. The boy tried to move, his mouth opening and closing and his chest whistling from the wounds that punctured his lungs. Vlad stepped carefully around the pooling blood as he moved back and squatted on his haunches to watch.
Mal Li Tam’s eyes rolled, a mumble on his lips that gradually took form. “My. last. words.”
Vlad shook his head, never looking up from the staff. “Lord Tam hears the last words of his kin. You are not my kin.”
More muttering, and in the wet-sounding words, Vlad thought he heard something about love. He scowled and was not going to answer, but suddenly words found him as image after image of his family upon the cutting table flashed before his eyes. “What would you know of love?”
The voice was a whisper, and Vlad leaned forward to hear it. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for love.”
He felt the anger first; then it resolved into something calm and quiet. He did not know if it was the exhaustion and last dregs of the scout powders that made him so or the hypnotic way that the blue-green light danced the room, bent through crystal and water. Regardless, he sighed. “Perhaps you have,” he said. “And perhaps you’ve loved the wrong thing.”
Then he stood, placed his foot on the neck of his fallen grandson, and let his full weight settle upon his heel as he crushed the boy’s windpipe.
Child of Frederico.
It was a woman’s voice. He heard her clearly above the moving crystalline room, and the radiating stone hummed. Vlad looked around, feeling gooseflesh rise on him. Then, he realized he was not hearing the voice with his ears.
It spoke again. My love.
He looked to the d’jin that throbbed and twisted, captured in the stone. When he found his words, they were a whisper. “Is it you?”
She continued, as if she hadn’t heard. You have drawn the Moon Wizard’s staff from the heart of the ladder and can now make right that which he has made wrong. It must return to the tower before Lasthome falls or the Continuity Engine of the Older Gods will fall with it and the light will be extinguished. Seek the heir of Whym and place the staff in his hands; he will know by his birthright how to wield it. Find Shadrus’s children. Bid them follow the song home.
Vlad stretched out a hand toward the stone. It hung above him just out of reach, and for a moment, he was tempted to tap the stone with the staff he held. But something in him resisted.
Use the staff to aid you; but use it with care. For the tools of the parents are not made for the hands of their infant children.
He recognized the quote but had thought it was P’Andro Whym’s, possibly from one of the earlier gospels. Another question arose and he asked it, though by now he suspected perhaps this wasn’t a conversation as much as it was words rehearsed and now reproduced. “Who are you?”
Frederico’s Behemoth will bear you to the Barrens of Espira. I have hidden my father’s spellbook there. The staff will lead you to it. It too must return to the tower and be locked away in the Library of Elder Days. My family stole both when they took the tower and raised their fist against the Engine of the Gods.
There was a pause, and it was so long that Vlad thought perhaps she was done speaking. When the voice returned, it was quiet and low. My love has called you forth and will continue with you, Child of Frederico. We have bargained in the Deepest of Deeps that the light once more be sown in the darkness that contains us all.
One of the silver lines broke free and moved, slow as a python, and its tip touched the end of the staff. Light moved through it, and he felt the steel grow warm in his hands as it vibrated. The surprise of it caught him off guard, and when he tried to release the staff, he found that his fingers would not move. The vibration increased as the rod burned first white, then blue, then green.
But it wasn’t only the staff the light penetrated and suffused. He felt it moving over his skin, then moving into it through his pores and beneath his nails, entering him through his ears, his nose, his mouth and every other orifice on his body. Stronger than the heat of the guttering scout magicks, it crawled into him from the point where the tendril touched the staff, and he resisted.
Another silver vein detached itself and encircled his waist, anchoring him in place as his scars began to itch and then burn. He opened his mouth to cry out and swallowed it as yet another and then another line reached and pulled at him.
Vlad felt himself lifted up and carried closer to the glowing stone and the d’jin-the light-bearer-that blazed within it.
She fills it like she fills my heart.
Yes, the voice said in his mind. And I power the ladder even as my love powers you.
The room spun faster now, and Vlad heard the song beyond its crystalline walls reach a crescendo as a sea full of d’jin danced in the waters above and below him.
He opened his eyes against the light. “Who are you?” he cried.
I am the Moon Wizard’s daughter, the voice whispered in his mind. I am Amal Y’Zir, beloved of Frederico, the Last Weeping Czar.
And then that light became darkness, and when Vlad Li Tam awoke, he lay in the belly of a metal serpent that ground and clanked its way across deep waters. He lay still and clutched the shining staff, taking his breath slowly like kallaberry smoke as his tears dried, the memory of a song echoing in his ears and the sharp ache of love in his very bones.
Petronus
A momentary quiet fell upon the caves, and Petronus closed his eyes in the dark, drawing in a deep breath. He could no longer count the hours or the dead, though he knew there had been plenty of the one and too much of the other.
Most of Rafe’s crew and Grymlis’s Gray Guard had fallen early. A handful of Rudolfo’s scouts somehow held fast, their bodies fortified by scout magicks and the black Waste root, knife-fighting as low whistles counted off their kills in the narrow tunnel. Still, their numbers were dwindling and their lieutenant was down, lost somewhere in the pile of bodies, magicked and unmagicked, that made the floors first slick and then sticky with blood.
When Neb had spoken to him in the aether, they’d just fallen back for the third time. Now, they were far enough back that he could smell the pine trees and sage in the valley where the antiphon stood. Grymlis crouched next to him, and Petronus could smell the sweat and blood on him.
“What do they play at?” the old captain muttered.
“Nothing good,” Petronus offered.
Where is the boy? Certainly, there were many unanswered questions, and Petronus wasn’t convinced he would be alive long enough to get those answers. Once the scouts fell, along with the last of Merrique’s more skilled fighters, he intended to reopen the scar on his neck and let his blood join that of the others who’d given themselves for the light. The Y’Zirites might not be permitted kill him because of his role in their gospel, but he did not doubt that they could visit a worse fate upon him. It was bad enough to be a miracle for their blood-loving faith.
And I’ve already lived longer than I should. He shuddered at the memory of Ria’s knife and wondered if his resolve was such that he could carry it out himself.
“I’m going forward,” Grymlis whispered. “Wait here.”
Petronus shook his head. “I’ll go as well.”
Slowly, they picked their way forward until a low whistle stopped them.
Rafe Merrique’s whisper was loud in the darkness. “They’ve pulled back,” he said, “and not because we were routing them.”
Petronus squinted ahead into the darkness. “How many men do we have left?”
“Less than ten,” Rafe said.
Gods. They’d been whittled down. “How long do you think we can hold the cave?”
“Once they start up again? Maybe thirty minutes. But-” The man interrupted himself. “Our metal hosts are back.”
Petronus hea
rd the whir and clack of approaching mechoservitors. Three had moved into some deeper place within the caves over an hour ago, and now he saw their jeweled eyes moving toward them like three pairs of fireflies, bobbing with the perfect rhythm of their stride. The amber light dimly illumined the enclosed space, and he saw they ran single file with the middle bearing a body in its arms.
The body groaned, and as they approached, Petronus smelled burned hair. “Neb?”
They slowed. “We have the Homeseeker,” the first said. “Lord Whym is wounded but functional.”
Lord Whym? Petronus blinked.
The boy stirred, and Petronus saw that most of his hair had been burned away from his naked body. His closed fist looked blackened and smelled of burnt meat. He moaned again.
Father.
The voice was a whisper in his mind, and as quiet as it was, Petronus felt his temples pound and his stomach seize from it. “Neb. We can’t hold them for long. Do what needs doing.”
We’ve failed. Isaak is dead. The dream is lost. The staff is lost. There was despondency in the words as they dropped into Petronus’s mind.
He did not know how to respond. So little of any of this made sense to him after a life spent resisting metaphysics and mysticism. And yet he felt in his very bones that something far greater than himself-far greater even than the Androfrancine Order whose foundation he’d loved so much that he’d been willing to euthanize it when it could no longer serve the light effectively-worked its way out in these metal men and their response to the dream. Even now, the canticle played on in the pouch he carried, a twisting and turning song of codes within codes that he could not hope to comprehend.
He swallowed and pulled the pouch from his shoulder. “I do not pretend to understand what is happening,” he said, “but you’ve not failed yet, son, if you still live. Too much blood has flowed to bring us to this moment. You will find another way. Go and do what needs doing for the light.” He handed the pouch to one of the metal men. “He’ll be wanting this back.”
The mechanical took it. “Thank you, Father Petronus.”
Then, the mechoservitors were moving again, back into the valley where the vessel awaited.
They’d been gone only minutes when the sounds of snarling and howling reached Petronus’s ears. He’d heard it before during his time in the Wastes, though distant, and every time it ran long nails of dread along the slate of his spine.
Kin-wolves. But these were not far off and in the open. These growls echoed through the caves, growing louder and louder as they sped toward them. When they intersected with Rudolfo’s men, he heard a cacophonic choir of muffled shouts and feral yelps. Then, he heard the savaging and felt the air rush out of him.
“Hold the cave,” he bellowed, his voice ringing out over the din.
A voice was in his mind again, but this one was not Neb’s.
No, it said. Fall back with your men to the ship. The power of it set his nose to bleeding and his ears to ringing.
He winced. Who is this?
I am called Whym. Parent of P’Andro and T’Erys. Parent of Nebios.
“Gods,” he whispered.
Yes, the voice answered. Fall back with your men to the ship. I cannot go with him. You will accompany my son and save what may be saved of us.
He heard the wolves in the caves, heard the cries as Rudolfo’s men paid for each span of rock they held, and looked in Grymlis’s direction. Then, once more, the man who did not believe in faith took a leap of it.
“We need to fall back to the ship.”
The old captain snorted. “Not a likely scenario.”
Petronus closed his eyes. Dreams. Voices. A ship that sailed the moon, restored and even now rumbling to life behind him, its own growl louder than the wolves that savaged his men. “Fall back,” he said again.
Rafe chuckled. “You mean to take us to the moon, then?”
Petronus gave the whistle himself at Grymlis’s hesitation. The old captain followed it up with a shout. “Fall back!”
They moved backward at first, listening to the sounds of fighting as the scouts fought in retreat. But when they heard the first of the kin-wolves break the narrow line, they turned and ran.
Petronus felt his heart pounding in his head as he went. He and Rafe were nearly neck and neck, with Grymlis just behind. He felt the slight wind of movement but could not tell how many scouts ran alongside them. Certainly not all, because the sounds of fighting continued behind them.
A gray circle of light took shape ahead of them as they approached the entrance of the valley, and the howling behind them increased as more kin-wolves flooded the caves. In the dim predawn light, Petronus felt a large mass of stinking fur lunge past, ignoring him entirely to nip at Rafe’s heels. The pirate went down, and without thinking, Petronus thrust his short sword into the kin-wolf. The beast yelped as the Gypsy Scouts added their invisible blades to its hide.
He reached out and caught Rafe, dragging him from beneath the thrashing kin-wolf and back to his feet. Now, they were in the valley and saw the ship looming over them, its gangway down and its large hatch open as the mechoservitors as one released the chains that held it down.
Something growled deep in the vessel, and it shifted upward momentarily before hovering in place. Overhead, the moon was gone now, and the last of the night stars were fading as the sky moved toward morning.
Another wolf hurtled past, this one racing for the closest mechoservitor. It leaped, bringing down the metal man only to yelp when the metal hands closed upon its neck to snap it with mechanical precision.
The other metal men fanned out at the base of the gangway as more kin-wolves poured from the cave.
Petronus ran, his chest aching from it, and he felt the ghosts that ran alongside of him. Ahead, Rafe reached the bottom of the gangway and paused. “Get aboard,” Petronus shouted.
The last two of Rafe’s men were there now, too, helping their captain aboard, and Petronus was nearly there himself when he heard Grymlis cry out.
He stopped and turned.
The Gray Guard lay on his stomach, two kin-wolves worrying at his legs as the last of Rudolfo’s men, unseen and barely heard, moved about them, their knives drawing lines of dark blood upon dark fur in the predawn gloom. Petronus glanced back to the unmoving metal men where they awaited.
“Help us,” he said.
When they didn’t move immediately, he cursed and ran back. Three other kin-wolves had joined the skirmish, and another two had sped past Petronus, oblivious to him.
He reached Grymlis and swung his short sword at the closest wolf. It yelped, snapped at him and turned, yanking the blade from Petronus’s fingers. Grymlis had flipped onto his back, but his flailing and kicking had slowed.
Petronus grabbed up the fallen soldier under his arms and pulled at him, putting his full weight into dragging the man free from the wolves. He tried not to notice the blood that soaked the man’s shredded gray uniform, focusing instead on moving them toward the waiting gangway behind them.
The wolves closed, and the last of the scouts danced backward beside him as he pulled his friend. One grabbed at the tattered remains of Grymlis’s boot, nearly pulling Petronus over as the old captain cried out.
Then, metal hands were upon them, lifting them, and they were on the gangway. The vessel groaned again and shifted, but the sure-footed mechanicals carried them aboard, kicking at the wolves that tried to pursue.
The last moments were a blur. Petronus found himself in a large metal room stacked with crates and sacks bearing the Order’s seal upon them. He lay propped against a metal wall across from a crystal porthole, cradling Grymlis against him as the gangway was brought in and the large hatch was closed. Inside the ship, the growl was nearly a roar, and he felt the room shake and then sway.
He clung to Grymlis and glanced quickly around the room. One of Rafe’s men tended wounds he could not see on the last three surviving Gypsy Scouts while another tended Rafe. The mechoservitors had vanished up
a ladder into some other part of the ship, and there was no sign of Neb.
“We made it,” Petronus whispered.
Grymlis mumbled something, his voice thick. He’d lost a lot of blood. Petronus felt it warm on his own hands, seeping through his own clothes. He leaned his ear in close to the working mouth but could not distinguish the words.
“Rest easy,” he said, then looked across the room. “I need a medico over here.”
Grymlis muttered again, and this time he heard names in the muttering. Lysias. Resolute. “I can’t understand you,” he said.
He felt the hand, weak, upon his leg. At first, he thought the old man simply squeezed it, but his mind put together the words he was pressing into his thigh.
I helped Lysias kill Resolute. Tam forged a note for us.
It was a confession, he realized, and he knew why now. “We do what we must to serve the light,” he said. “I killed Sethbert and ended the Order.” He thought for a moment. “What was it you used to say to the orphans you recruited? That it is easier to die for the light than it is to kill for it?”
And now, he held his dying friend in the belly of a ship that bore them slowly upward. Voices that called him out to serve. Dreams that pointed the way in whispers he could not comprehend. Promises of home and promises of violence. These all moved across his inner eye, going back two years to the pillar of smoke that marked Windwir’s grave.
Petronus looked up and saw the bloody sky of another sunrise over the Churning Wastes.
“Look Grymlis,” he said. “We’re flying.”
But Grymlis had already flown, and Petronus hoped his friend would find home and light awaiting him in whatever place he landed.
Weeping, he lay still and watched the porthole as the sky shifted from red to black. When they came to take Grymlis away, he let them, his eyes never leaving the expanse of night they now flew.
Rudolfo
A cold wind whistled outside as Rudolfo sipped chai made over an Androfrancine camp furnace. Sleep had eluded him, and he’d eventually given up his cot to spend the night going over reports that he’d been too drunk to read the first time they’d crossed his worktable. As he read, he’d packed those that needed to be packed into his administrative chest and fed the rest into the furnace, watching the fire gobble down the words. Once he’d finished that, he’d laid out traveling attire-doeskin pants, a heavy wool shirt, a coat made from beaver pelts that had been a gift from one of his house stewards, and his green turban of office. He laid his father’s knives and knife belt next to the clothing.
