So it hurt her to say, "No."
Arrow's face seemed to unfurl, surprise writ large across his features. "But –"
"You have to go to Strength."
"Why?"
"Because most of the rest of the Army is there. And we'll need them to come to Center." She looked at Malal. "He said he wanted him to suffer. So even if Malal starts to lose to the poison, I think the man who did this will want to come back and make the Emperor watch his Empire fall. So we need the Army here – everyone we can get – to keep that from happening."
"Someone else can get them."
Sword shook her head. "The Army won't listen to just anyone. You're the Lord of the Southern Grasslands, and an adviser to the Emperor."
"There are other nobles, other men."
"None who are privy to all that's happening." She drew Arrow close, and the others came with her. She pulled them so tight to her that their heads touched, so tight that her words would carry no further than the few to whom she spoke directly. She glanced back at the Patches and priests who surrounded Malal's bedside; at the guards who stood at the edges of the room. Then she whispered, "And many of them suspect Malal – they know something's changed, and if they know this has happened, too," she added, gesturing to the bed, "then they'll either wait for the end or perhaps even act before then. We already have one enemy fighting against us; we don't need more."
Arrow clenched a fist. "The fool doesn't know that the Empire already fell." His fingers uncurled and he looked at the open palm as though hoping to find answers in his hands. There was nothing. He sighed. "I'll call for air-cars."
Father Akiro shook his head. "I think that ill-advised."
Brother Scieran nodded. "We've already seen that our enemy can stop air-cars – we have to assume the missing one sent to Fear was his work. Besides, the less trace we leave behind us, the less he will know what we're planning, and," he said with an arch eyebrow, "the less any enemies inside the palace will know that the Emperor's friends have left him."
"What of them?" Sword asked, looking at Wind and Cloud.
"I don't think you could peel them away from here with all the Gifts in Ansborn," said Father Akiro. "Which is good. They can be a defense."
He didn't say "final" defense. He didn't have to. The majority of the Army was bivouacked in Strength. The palace had its Guard, and enough soldiers to make anyone of ill intentions think twice about starting anything. But the reality was that Ansborn's palace had not been attacked in hundreds of Turns – even during the Civil Wars, all sides had understood that the palace was the logical place for a government to sit. It was as close to inviolate as any location in the Empire.
We've grown lazy. Complacent on our mountains. And now a threat comes – a real threat – and we're not prepared.
Stupid. Who would have thought to do things this way?
For a moment she wondered if it had been the Chancellor's doing. He had been the power behind the throne for untold decades – perhaps centuries. And he had been –
(is!)
– a man of secrets within secrets, plots within plots.
She shook her thoughts away from that. Perhaps Brother Scieran would be able to find answers with Father Inmil, answers that would illuminate the Chancellor's end game. But that wasn't her mission.
"Get auto-cars," she said.
Arrow nodded. "When do we leave?" he asked.
"Now."
2
Hands on his head. Fever feelings. Ghosts hanging over him. Murmured voices.
Inmil opened his eyes. Or tried to. There was something hanging from his eyelids, some great weight that made such a simple action all but impossible.
He groaned. Something on his head shifted, and he realized that what he had taken as many hands was in fact only one. It pressed on his forehead. It was cool. It felt wonderful.
"He's waking," said a woman's voice. It sounded familiar, though he couldn't place it. His thoughts were jumbled, far away. Like something in the distance, close enough to be sensed but too far to actually be seen.
A cloth touched his lips, slightly damp and just a bit too warm to be comfortable. He licked his lips as the cloth moved away, and tasted the metallic, salty taste of blood.
My blood.
What happened?
Where's –
His eyes popped open. "The book!" he shouted. Then the light above him pierced his eyes and drove daggers into his brain. He groaned and shut them again.
"Shhh," said the woman. A different cloth – cooler, this one, without the blood that matted the other cloth – dabbed at his cheeks. "Don’t move. You've lost a lot of blood."
"The book," he said again, his voice barely a murmur – but insistent nonetheless.
"The Old Book? With the tree?"
Inmil tried to say "yes," but all that came out was a dry croak. He nodded, the tiniest of movements, and even that small motion sent pain up and down his frame. He remembered being wounded, but he had no sense of where – everything hurt so much that it was impossible to discern one place where the pain might have come from.
"It's safe, Innie."
He blinked at that, managing to open his eyes and keep them open for a moment. Only one person he knew called him Innie. "Maci?"
His sister looked down at him, concern etching the wrinkles on her face into even deeper cracks. Still, when he said her name she smiled. "Who else?"
Inmil tried to sit up. She pressed him back, and he realized he was laying on hard stone. "Just stay there, you fool," she said.
"I'm going to tell Mother that you're calling me names again."
"You do that. Just not today; I'd rather not have you going to meet her just yet." She looked away from him, and said, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Inmil realized that the pain in his body was receding, and as it did he was able to turn his head in time to see the other person nearby shake his head.
Brother Luca was a thin, pale, shade of a man. Not quite as old as Inmil, he seemed a decade older – probably because he so rarely left the catacombs. He was also rare in the priesthood: most Gifts either set up small shops in city bazaars, or went to the Great University to be trained in the best ways to use their powers. Few made their way to the Faithful, and fewer still stayed the long decades that Brother Luca had done.
And Inmil was glad for that, because without a Patch attending him he suspected he would be dead right now.
The aches in his body continued to ease, though the ghost of his agony settled into his joints and his mind, and he knew it would be some time before he fully healed. Patches had their limits.
A thought struck him, and he twisted to the side in near-panic. He was still in the catacombs. Glass was sprayed on the stone floor at regular intervals: the remains of the glo-globes his attacker had smashed, glittering now in the light of the glo-globes that Maci and Brother Luca had brought with them.
The body of his attacker was still there. Wide-eyed, staring into whatever afterlife the Gods had decreed for him. He was nothing special: just a normal-looking man, not too thin, not too fat. The most interesting thing about him was the stripe of gray that ran through a head of otherwise vibrant red hair.
Still, to Inmil's eyes, the man looked deeply evil.
Not for the first time, Inmil was glad he didn't have the job of deciding the disposition of souls. He suspected he would have sent far too many people to the Netherworld.
Just shows that I'm still not a good man. Not even after all these Turns.
He looked at Maci. His sister still dabbed at him with a cloth, though his bleeding seemed to have stopped. She had run with him to Faith, come with him to seek sanctuary after his crimes, even though she could have stayed behind.
She'd be better off without me.
Maci seemed to know what he was thinking. She sniffed and rolled her eyes. "Don't get maudlin on me, Inmil," she said.
Brother Luca jerked a bit when she said that. He was a stickler for titles and res
pect – both things Maci had little care for, especially when her brother was the focus of them.
"How do you know what I'm feeling, Maci?" he said. He tried to sit up again, and this time managed to do so. Without waiting for her reply, he pointed at the dead man. "Do you know him?"
"I was about to ask you that," she said.
Brother Luca moved forward slightly. "You're as well as I can make you," he said. "You should get to the sanctuary and rest."
Inmil shook his head. "Thank you, Brother," he said. "But I don't think we've got time."
"Well, make time to at least tell us what happened here," said Maci.
Inmil shook his head. "I'm not completely sure," he said. He recounted what he knew: receiving the book, Father Akiro's note, hurrying down here, then the attack.
"You've never seen that garbage before?" said Maci, looking with distaste at the dead man.
"Sister," said Brother Luca with a touch of reproach.
"He tried to kill my brother," she said. "I'm sure the Gods will forgive me for calling him a name or two." She growled at the body. "Lucky you're already dead."
Inmil looked at the dead man. "I don't know… He looks a bit familiar. But not as someone I know. Perhaps a man I've seen working at the building site, or someone I've seen at worship service, or…." He threw up his arms. "Gods, it could be anyone, anywhere. Or no one at all. I don't know."
Brother Luca closed his eyes, as though he were a toddler who insisted that if he hadn't seen a thing, it couldn't have happened. He sighed, then opened his eyes. "We should get you to the Archive, then."
"No, we shouldn't," said Maci. "We're getting him to –"
"We have to move quickly," interrupted Brother Luca. That surprised Inmil: just as he was a stickler for titles and other signs of respect, so he was fastidious about matters of courtesy. For him to interrupt was unusual.
Maci's jaw dropped, her own surprise evident. "Brother Luca," she said, "I didn't know you had it in you."
A bit of color rose to Brother Luca's pale cheeks. "Whatever the book is," he said, pointing at it, "it must be important. Perhaps something about what happened to the Ears?"
That was a sobering thought. Even around the building site of the new Cathedral, a place where the workers saw to their duties with quiet reverence, whispers could be heard. That there was an enemy among them, within the Empire. That the enemy was dangerous, and crafty, and could strike at any time. All were on edge, and though they kept on with their work and mostly pretended not to worry, it was easy to sense that as a lie.
Brother Luca stared at the others for another moment, then nodded and went to the book. He picked it up, looking at the cover. "It's a copy," he said.
Inmil nodded. "I thought it might be."
Brother Luca opened the book, and gasped. "But it's definitely one of the Old Books. A copy, yes, but…." He ran his fingers along one of the pages, tracing the strange characters within. Then he turned on his heel and began walking down the tunnel, toward the Archive.
Maci reached down to help Inmil stand. She brushed off his robe – a foolish gesture since so much of his clothing was still soaked with blood. "You do keep things interesting, Inmil."
He grimaced. "Would that I didn't."
"We are as the Gods made us." She looked into his eyes. "Someday you'll have to accept that. You might even find that you are able to forgive yourself if you do."
Inmil didn't answer. There was no answer to some things. Just faith, and steps into darkness that you could hope would lead eventually to light.
The glo-globe Brother Luca had been carrying illuminated the tunnel ahead, the light bouncing slightly with his stride. The priest must have a beginning in mind – a starting point to the investigation of the book with the tree on the cover. Brother Luca, of all the priests and priestesses who worked in the Archive, was perhaps the most gifted. Quiet, a bit stuffy, but his mind was a trap that captured everything. Inmil would have asked for his help anyway, though he could have done without the need for a Patch.
He looked back at the dead man with the red/gray hair. He hadn't been very attractive, even when alive. Death just sullied his features further, the slackness of his face making him appear slightly demonic. "What should we do with him?" he asked.
He was musing more than seriously questioning, but Maci answered. She spat on the ground. "I'll have one of the Adherents come clean it up. There are a few who know about the catacombs."
"Make sure they keep it quiet."
"Of course. I'll watch over it personally." Her eyes twinkled. "It will give me an excuse to admire the young men as they work."
He sighed. "You're a very poor priestess sometimes."
"I appreciate the Gods' handiwork."
"Handiwork that is a good fifty Turns younger than you are."
She shrugged. "Even less harm in my admiration, then."
Inmil let it go. He wasn't going to win a battle of wits with his sister. He never did.
Just one more reason she's always been too good for me.
Again she sensed his mood. She shook her finger at him. "Don't go there, Innie." She pulled him down the tunnel. "Let's just see if we can catch up to Brother Luca." The twinkle came back into her eyes – if it had ever left. "He's a fun one to annoy."
Inmil shook his head. But seeing her eyes, the laughter in her gaze, was as healing to him as the work of the Patch had been.
They found Brother Luca hunched over an outcropping of stone that served as a natural desk. Several Old Books lay open on the rock. Inmil and Maci both looked at which books they were, then began their own search, trying to find meaning in the book that they had been given.
We go in faith. And hope.
Inmil was weak. He felt parched and hungry. He should rest.
Luca handed him a spare robe, nodding at Inmil's own blood-stained, shredded frock. "Don't get blood on the books," he said somberly.
Inmil almost laughed at that. He only didn't because he was too tired. Instead, he changed and then bent over the books before him. Searching. And praying for help in the search, because just as the others had sensed this might have something to do with the Ears, so he sensed that the time they had to find answers was short.
3
The travel began quickly. Then continued almost as fast.
Sword didn't need much: some food and water, the clothes on her back. She was offered a driver, but refused: that would just be a distraction in the event of trouble, one more person she had to watch over.
The auto-car she took was one of the palace's. Which meant it was one of the fastest in the Empire: as fast as a horse in full gallop, but without such a creature's need to rest, eat, or drink. It was sleek and dark; it reminded her of a bird of prey, or perhaps a dangerous insect designed to fly and kill.
It suited her.
The roads around the palace were well-kept, then a long stretch of road that was bumpy enough to make her teeth slam together when she hit each rut, each hole in the road. Then she was back to the place where she was born.
Of course it wasn't her real birthplace. She had no idea where that was. She supposed she could have found out, but that was a part of her past long done and dead.
No, this was the place of her second birth. Her entry into the life of a Dog, the place where she learned that life meant death: death for those around, followed inevitably by your own.
It was wrong, of course, but as she drove the bazaar, passed the kennels – now closed, thank the Gods, they had at least done that much since taking over – she felt the pull of a life long left behind.
But still there. The past never disappears. Not completely. It is always there, waiting as a comfort or a curse.
She wondered, not for the first time, what it would have been like had she lived in a normal family, with a normal father and mother. Her parents had been members of the Imperial Guard, and had given her up to the then-Captain during an attack on the royal family. They had intended the Captain to protect
her, perhaps raise her as his own. Instead he had used her as a decoy to protect the Imperial princess.
She understood what the Captain had done. She lauded him for it. She also hated him every day, for the happiness he had robbed her of; for the long Turns of death at her hands.
And yet, if I had not been a Dog, would I have become a Greater Gift? Would I have become one of the Blessed, then one of the Cursed? Would I have met Armor, and Garden, and Brother Scieran and Arrow and all the rest?
The past. It reaches out and touches us, and in the final analysis its touch is neither good nor bad. It simply is, and only the present moment matters, for the present is the refining fire that changes past to gold, or simply burns too brightly and leaves behind only worthless dross.
She had slowed while passing through the bazaar – it was so full that to go through the place at full speed would have meant mowing people down. She had actually thought about going around the area, bypassing it on side roads, but determined that would take more time than simply going through.
At her current crawling speed, she wondered if she had made the right choice.
And as she drove, she became aware of something.
It was nothing but a vague tickle at first, the kind of mental itch that barely registers, and is certainly not enough to merit your full attention. But as time went on, as she continued to inch her way through the bazaar, the itch grew, and moved from subconscious to something that must be attended.
People were looking.
It wasn't everyone, but it was too many to ignore. Certainly auto-cars were not something that everyone had: both the building and the enchantment involved were laborious, expensive processes that rendered the vehicles unattainable for most. But enough of them passed through the bazaar – rich men and women, lords and ladies out for a lark, shopping at a place so far beneath them it became a game – that no one should have looked twice at her vehicle or its occupant.
And yet… people were looking.
Child of Sorrows Page 18
