Siege and Sacrifice (Numina)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  He turned toward Rone with a wan expression, as if he’d seen a ghost. “By the Celestial, you were right. These are Noscon ruins.”

  Rone shrugged. Sandis’s muscles tensed like they’d been tightened with a corkscrew.

  The men made quick work of the wall until there was an opening roughly the size of a short doorway. Jachim went in first, followed by one of the excavators.

  “Mr. Comf, Miss Gwenwig, come in here!” he called out through the hole. An excavator peeked in, but Jachim said, “There isn’t much space. Hand me your light and wait there.”

  Taking Sandis’s hand, Rone led the way into the exposed cavity.

  It smelled like mold and stale water inside, and slime grew over the walls. The ground was covered with two inches of water. The excavators had set up four lanterns to illuminate the space, which was about twenty feet long and twelve feet wide—or would be, were the far corner not collapsed in a jumble of rock and concrete. Sandis wondered if this was the same collapse that had injured Rone’s shoulder three years ago.

  Jachim moved to a stone tabletop and set his lamp upon it, running his hands over the surface as if oblivious to the slime. “Look at this workmanship,” he said, stepping back to examine the legs. “This is Noscon make.” His grin stretched ear to ear. “A new secret to explore.”

  Rone took up his lamp and walked the length of the room. Sandis began following him, but something on the far wall caught her eye.

  “Jachim,” she said, “come over here.”

  The scholar crossed the room, humming excitedly under his breath as he saw what she had spotted. When he held up his light, Sandis gasped.

  Swathes of stone were covered in Noscon writing—fat, looping symbols like the ones branded into her back. Jachim reached forward and touched one of them, then traced his fingers higher to a line etched in the wall.

  “Tablets,” he said, mystified. “Look, they slide—” He pushed his hand into the side of one, grunted, and the tablet moved over an inch, colliding with its neighbor. Sandis saw what he meant—the thin stone slabs were held between tracks in the wall.

  “Can you read it?” she asked.

  Jachim pressed his lips together, studying. He moved between tablets. “I need to dry these off and take etchings . . . but yes. Well, almost. Noscon writing is so complex; no living man can comprehend the various levels of meaning. I’m familiar with many of the symbols, of course, but I cannot translate the language verbatim. Hardly.” He shook his head and squinted, spouting random syllables as he recognized them, moving slowly across the tablets. There were six in total. Behind him, Rone had set his lamp on the floor and was examining the fallen rubble in the corner.

  “Here.” Jachim paused at the second tablet, holding a pale finger to its center. “This says something about a portal. A portal? How interesting. A portal, and . . .” He dragged his finger past several symbols. “Light? And this arrow has an X on it.” Jachim turned toward the opening. “Gula! Get me my pack, quickly!”

  “I think this is gold.” Rone’s voice tightened with excitement as he swept aside some of the rubble. His lamp gleamed off a yellowish metal shaped to the divots in the stone floor. Lifting his lantern, Rone inspected the rest of the rubble, reached forward, and dislodged a stone from about head level.

  When he did, part of the ceiling came down. Rone stepped back just in time to avoid injury.

  Sandis ran to him, assessing his condition, but he coughed and waved his hand. Despite the wetness around them, the rubble still spat up dust.

  “Thought maybe there’d be a hallway or something,” he said. He picked up his lamp, and its light rocked back and forth in his hand. The bit of gold he’d found on the floor was buried now, but wouldn’t take long to dig up. “But I don’t think so.”

  Sandis was about to chide him for not being careful, but a glimmer in the rubble caught her eye. She turned toward it, searching.

  “Rone, light.”

  Rone stepped closer and stretched out his arm, letting light spill over the pile. He must have seen what Sandis did, because he swore.

  A gold loop, peeking out from between uneven rock.

  Handing the lamp to Sandis, he carefully climbed up the pile until he was high enough to stick a finger under the loop. He pulled gingerly, and Sandis, with her free hand, dug at the stones around it.

  The gold came free, and sliding rock forced both Rone and Sandis to backpedal to avoid crushed feet.

  Rone cursed again. Sandis held the light aloft.

  It was the loop of an amarinth, curved and twisted just like Rone’s. But it was only one loop, broken at the end. It lacked the glowing center that had mesmerized Sandis on more than one occasion.

  “It’s broken,” she whispered.

  “It’s . . . off,” Rone agreed. “Like it wasn’t right to begin with. See this?”

  He gestured with his pinky at the edge, where the core would sit, but when Sandis leaned in to study it, heat exploded in her head like a fire stoked by bellows. She bit down on a scream and dropped the lamp, clutching the sides of her skull. She fell backward, slamming her tailbone into the stone floor. She smelled iron and . . .

  Heath. It smells like Heath.

  “Sandis?”

  She blinked spots from her eyes. Rone crouched before her, pushing hair from her face, his expression full of concern for her—not the broken amarinth. Jachim loomed above them, turning the gold piece over in his hands.

  “I . . . I don’t know what happened.” She swallowed, throat dry. Something similar had happened to her when she’d stared at the amarinth in Helderschmidt’s firearm factory, where she and Rone had hidden from Kazen’s men. Ireth? What’s wrong?

  “It’s a prototype,” Jachim said reverently. “I’d swear it. And this”—he lowered the amarinth and turned, taking in the stone room—“this is a workshop. The structure, the design . . . it has to be.”

  One of the excavators had joined them in the small space. He’d cleaned the tablets and was meticulously copying them by pressing paper against the stone and running a charcoal nub over it. He finished and handed Jachim the papers just as Rone helped Sandis to her feet.

  Jachim didn’t smile this time. His face was slack and serious, his eyes twitching in deep contemplation. “We must return to the Degrata and retrieve my reference books,” he said, his voice pitched lower than Sandis had ever before heard it. “I think . . . I think these are instructions for creating an amarinth.”

  Rone’s mouth drooped into an O. Sandis shivered.

  Ireth blazed, and amid the pressure and heat, Sandis felt his fear.

  Chapter 7

  Rone could not stop twitching.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so nervous. His fingers kept quivering of their own accord, as did muscles in his neck and back. He tried pacing, but it didn’t help. He was going to get a crick in his neck if he didn’t stop looking at the table where Jachim Franz sat surrounded by books and ledgers. Glasses perched on the tip of his nose, the scholar hovered inches above the etchings they’d taken from that room, despite the fact that the tablets themselves had been laid out on the far end of the table. Every so often, he’d write something down. A small something. A single word, maybe a single letter. Then he’d start riffling through the pages and pages surrounding him, and Rone would twitch and pace and rub eyelids that felt too thick. But he couldn’t sleep. He’d tried, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that room, that broken amarinth, and the promise of what Jachim had said.

  Could he really be unraveling the mystery of how amarinths were created? If so, how many could they make? Could they take down Kazen? Would the magic get out of hand, and soon everyone would be immortal? What would that be like?

  Regardless, they still had nothing to protect them from Kolosos’s next rampage. If Kazen kept to a twenty-four-hour cycle, the monster could appear anytime now. And Rone had no idea where he might attack next.

  He turned, gazing at Sandis, who lay across a le
ather bench with a blanket draped over her. She’d been given a change of clothes after the sewer: a long-sleeved navy dress, simple in design. Both hands were tucked under her head, but she lay awake, staring straight ahead.

  Rone let out a long sigh. She’d pulled him aside earlier and told him about Ireth, plus everything his father had said to her. His father who’d disappeared along with his priests. They couldn’t have gone far. Both the Lily Tower and the cathedral were rubble and ash.

  He moved to the bench and sat in the space beside Sandis’s stomach. When he touched her forearm, she took his hand, but her eyes stayed unfocused. God’s tower, she looked like a doll thrown aside by some self-important kid.

  “Anything else?” he murmured. They had an audience; Triumvir Var lurked in one corner, reviewing ledgers of his own alongside the general. Bastien, perhaps the only one of them who wasn’t tired, thanks to his numen-induced sleep earlier, hovered near Jachim, seemingly fascinated by everything the scholar touched. Whether or not Jachim noticed Bastien’s presence was up for debate; the scholar was hyperfocused on deciphering those tablets.

  Sandis shook her head. She’d said Ireth could only make his presence known on occasion; he had not done so since their visit to the sewers, where an excavation team continued to dig in hopes of finding something more.

  They’d sure as hell better get out of there before Kolosos returned. One well-placed stomp, and the tunnels could collapse.

  Rone’s pinky twitched. He needed to do something. Cheer Sandis up somehow. But he was at a complete and utter loss.

  “Celestial, save me,” Jachim whispered.

  Rone stiffened, but it was Var who dropped what he was doing and crossed the room to the scholar. “What? What have you found?”

  Jachim shook his head, his eyes darting between three different references. “I’m not positive, I need to examine—”

  “Damn it, Franz, we’ve been waiting for hours. Tell me anything.” Var’s fingernails were leaving dents in the padded back of the scholar’s chair.

  Jachim nodded, even as he read. Then he swallowed. Clasped his fingers together, unclasped them, played with his hair. “I . . . well, how well do you understand the occult?”

  Rone interjected, “I think we’ve all got it down pat. Tell us what you have.”

  Sandis sat up, life returning to her features.

  “It . . . I was correct. Whoever owned that workshop did indeed create the amarinth.” Jachim spoke carefully, never looking up from his work, cross-referencing even as he relayed his inflammatory information. Gooseflesh trailed down Rone’s arms and back. “I . . . I can’t translate all of it. But I believe . . . I believe this”—he touched his finger to the shaded transcription of the fifth tablet—“describes . . .”

  “Out with it,” Var growled.

  Jachim took a deep breath. “It details how to kill a numen.”

  Sandis squealed, both hands flying to her heart. She closed her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead.

  “Sandis?” Rone whispered, dropping to his knees in front of her. “Sandis, are you all right?” Her body was warm through her dress. Too warm.

  Bastien croaked, “B-But they’re immortal. You can’t kill a numen . . . I mean, y-you only kill the vessel.”

  Rone stroked Sandis’s knee with his thumb. When she opened her eyes, her pupils were dilated. “He’s right,” she whispered. “Ireth . . . Ireth wouldn’t react this way if he wasn’t right.”

  The fire horse was listening, then?

  Rone ignored the unease building in his chest and glanced over his shoulder. Jachim moved some books around, then pulled out the ledger he’d been using for notes. “I still don’t understand a lot of this, but Oz’s contributions have helped me interpret some of it. You see, a summoner—like Oz—summons a numen into a mortal body. A vessel.” He nodded toward Bastien. “Numina are spiritual in nature. They’d have to be, for such a summoning to work. But this . . .”

  He gestured to something in his ledger. “This is a mark for the plural. It’s not used anywhere on the tablets. A single person summoning into the same body.”

  Sandis stiffened. Rone’s mind whirled. Could he mean . . . Were there others, like Sandis and Ireth?

  The scholar jumped into action suddenly, throwing his chair backward and crossing to the edge of the table, where the tablets had been arranged in order. Var followed him, watching as he stabbed his finger at different symbols on the tablets. “Same, heart, light, death. Life.” He tapped the last one. “Eternal life, but it has a line crossed through it. Temporary eternal life? It must be.”

  He glanced up at Rone.

  “Do your best to put it in simple Kolin, if you would,” Var said, voice low.

  Jachim licked his lips. Looked at his papers, the tablets, and his papers again. “There is a method of summoning into oneself. I believe the amarinth . . . is made from the heart of a numen. And its vessel. Taken at the moment when the two are one and the same.”

  Rone’s limbs turned cold. Did he mean . . . the glimmering center of the amarinth was formed from the heart of a numen?

  “There is a crucial moment”—he tapped something else on the tablet—“where it must be done. A flash of light. I admit I’ve never witnessed a summoning, but . . .” He glanced to Bastien.

  Bastien was white as an overboiled soup bone. “Th-Th-There’s a flash. A-At the moment of trans-sition.”

  Jachim’s eyes lit up. “Then I’m correct.”

  “It’s not possible,” Var said, rubbing his widow’s peak. “Oz has said as much. A summoner summons into a vessel. There are always two. You’re reading it wrong.”

  Rone’s body tensed hard as steel.

  Jachim brightened. “No, my liege, it’s correct! Sandis Gwenwig has done such a thing. I’ve witnessed it!”

  Rone didn’t remember moving. Didn’t remember thinking. One minute he was beside Sandis, and the next Jachim Franz’s collar was taut in his hands. The scholar’s glasses lay shattered on the floor, and a bruise was forming over his eye. Rone’s right knuckles stung.

  “Control yourself!” Var shouted, trying to separate the two. General Istrude was halfway across the room.

  “You piece of hell slag!” Rone shouted, throwing Jachim against the table. “She saved your life, and you’re going to throw her under the wagon?”

  Two impossibly strong arms grabbed Rone and wrenched him away from the scholar. Rone jerked one arm free, but General Istrude twisted and blocked him from Jachim. Said something Rone couldn’t hear.

  Jachim looked at him wide eyed, holding his injured face. “I-I didn’t mean to—”

  “Didn’t mean to what, you son of a whore?”

  “Rone.”

  Her voice was so faint, so distant.

  Rone backed off, pulling clear of the general. “No,” he said, then turned to Sandis. “No. It’s out of the question.”

  “I hate to interrupt,” Bastien said, his voice tight with nerves, “but I’ve been thinking.”

  “Not now,” Triumvir Var snapped. “Jachim, hypothetically, do you think—”

  “Kolosos will be summoned soon, if Kazen keeps to his pattern,” Bastien continued. “He’s struck the Lily Tower and the cathedral. I-I think . . . I think it would make sense if the Innerchord were next.”

  The room went silent. All turned to Bastien, except Rone, who hurried to Sandis’s side. She didn’t look scared or worried, just exhausted. Just . . . sad.

  “I won’t let them,” he whispered, taking her in his arms and pulling her tight against his chest, more to reassure himself than her. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “That is an unfortunate point,” Var said to Bastien. “General, round up the guard and see that the tablets are transported. We’ll move to my home in District Two to continue this discussion.”

  “There is nothing to discuss,” Rone snapped.

  Var turned on him, pointing a long, bony finger at his nose. “We may be in a time of crisis, Comf, but t
he doors of Gerech are not sealed. Control yourself, or I will control you. Is that understood?”

  So much for letting us leave freely, Rone thought, remembering the demand Sandis had made of Esgar. But whether they were allowed to do so freely or not, they were leaving.

  “Move out, quickly!” Var barked. “Istrude, prepare your men! Get Oz ready with his vessel!”

  Rone waited for him to yell at Sandis to prepare Bastien, but he didn’t. It struck him that these men still didn’t understand what she could do—that she was both summoner and vessel. That she was worth the lot of them.

  Something else struck him. The triumvirs would be preoccupied with protecting themselves, the scholar with his tablets, and Oz would have to stay close to this flying Pettanawhatever if he were to control it.

  It would provide just enough chaos for them to escape.

  Jachim pulled his hand from his bruising eye and rushed to gather his papers, clutching them to his breast like they were his children, while guards from outside came in to collect the tablets. The scholar shouted at them to treat the slabs carefully, seemingly more concerned for the millennia-old stone than his own life. Var was gone in an instant.

  Sandis was listless, lost inside her own thoughts, and Bastien began to hyperventilate. He spun on his heel twice, as if forgetting where the exit was. So Rone took Sandis’s fingers in one hand and Bastien’s elbow in the other, pushing them out of the room, down a flight of stairs, and out into the cool night. But as he wrapped around the building and chose his own direction, two armed men in blue uniforms stopped him, hands on their rifles.

  “The carriages are that way, Comf.”

  He could take them. The fight played out in his mind; he’d attack the one on the left first, hitting him in his left side and forcing him to lose hold of his gun. Then he’d turn and crumple the second soldier quickly with a blow to the nose before smashing his foot into the left’s stomach—

  Sandis squeezed his hand. He barely heard her murmured words: “We can’t afford to have more than one enemy, Rone. Let’s go with them. For now.”