Maci's jaw dropped in tandem with Inmil's own. They looked at one another for a moment before returning twin gazes to Brother Luca.
"Is that… all?" Maci tried to find something more to say; clearly failed.
Brother Luca barely glanced at her. "I was worried it might be something important." He shrugged. "But it has nothing to do with the Archive." Now he looked at Inmil, his eyes reflecting the bright light of the glo-globes in this cavern under Faith. "Besides, you act as though everything you say weren't obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention at all to what's been happening around us." He sighed, then mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "This is why I prefer books."
Maci's teeth clenched so hard Inmil could hear them grinding together. "Why, you conceited…." Words failed her again, and she threw up her hands.
Inmil forgot his own astonishment long enough to enjoy his sister's.
Then he turned to Brother Luca and said, "How long have you known all this?"
Brother Luca didn't look away from the book. "You're asking the wrong questions, Father."
Inmil blinked. Brother Luca was, technically, of inferior rank in the church. And though Inmil had never stood much on formality, it was still surprising to hear such cheek – especially from someone as quiet and bookish as Brother Luca.
"What… what is the right question, then, Brother Luca?" he finally managed. Not angry. Actually rather glad to discover that Brother Luca had a personality at all – he thought the Old Books and the catacombs had drained it out of the younger man.
Brother Luca gestured for Inmil and Maci to join him. He pointed at a character in the middle of the page. "The right question is, what is that doing here?"
Inmil looked. He saw nothing but more Old words, though these were arranged rather strangely – not in straight lines, but in meandering paths that ran up, down, diagonally across the page.
"What is what doing here?" Maci asked.
Brother Luca sighed. He rotated the book a quarter-turn. "You see?" Something like excitement began coloring his voice.
"I still see nothing. Just words," said Inmil.
"Words. Yes, words," Brother Luca nodded, now obviously excited. "But not just words – they're locations." He looked around, saw only uncomprehending stares, and added, "They're a map."
"A map?" Inmil looked harder. The way the words crawled around the page, leaving large blank areas between some, thin corridors between –
He gasped. Maci saw it at the same time. "Gods," she said. "It's the catacombs. The Archive."
Brother Luca nodded. His finger stabbed down. "And what, I wonder, is this?"
A single word, separated from the others. Written in bolder letters, underlined with ink that had only faded slightly with time.
"It looks darker than the others," said Maci.
Brother Luca nodded. "That's what first drew my attention to it. And what made me reorient my perspective, since it's written sideways."
Now it was Inmil's turn to push in so close to the page he could smell the dust that clung to it. He shook his head. "It's not just darker," he said. "It's newer. Someone added this later than the rest of the book." Then he jerked back in startlement.
"What is it?" Maci asked. She held out a steadying hand, as though worried he might fall over dead.
Inmil flipped the book again. The single word was sandwiched between several lines that – now that he knew what he was looking at – clearl represented a corridor. "Do you see it?"
Maci and Brother Luca looked at it. "I know where that is," Brother Luca said.
"I think… yes, I do, too." Maci looked down one of the stone halls that led out of the cavern.
"No, not that." Inmil shook his head impatiently. He traced the "walls," then the bold line below the Old word, then several parts of the word itself. "It looks like it's just another Old word, but when you look carefully, some of it is darker."
Brother Luca's breath caught. He looked at Inmil. "It's not an Old word at all," he said, almost speaking in a reverent whisper.
Maci looked confused. "I don't see – what is it, then?"
"It's in our language," said Inmil. He traced the letters again, drawing over them in patterns that followed not the Old word, but the parts that were written in darker ink. "It says –"
And then Maci saw it. "It says, 'KEY,'" she breathed.
Brother Luca was a streak of gray, dashing down the corridor that led to… wherever it was they were going. He was panting something excitedly to himself as he ran, his robes rising up to expose rail-thin legs that looked like twin bell clappers. Inmil followed him an instant later, Maci at his side. He looked at her and smiled. Something was happening. Something important. That it was something important to all that was happening now had already been shown by it's manner of delivery, and Father Akiro's note.
But what if there was even more? What if this was something that would matter not just to the people alive here and now, but to all people? A key – a key – to the Empire? Something that would explain Ansborn's past, that would make sense of its present… and that would forever change its future?
"It could be nothing." The words came between Maci's breathless pants; Brother Luca's pace was unbelievable for someone who, so far as Inmil knew, barely left the Archive for anything. "It could just… be your… imagination. Scribbles… on a page."
"Maybe," said Inmil. But he was shaking his head at the same time. He knew what he had seen. What they had all seen.
Brother Luca turned a corner. The glo-globes in this stretch of the catacombs were sparser, dimmer. These weren't just aging, not even ancient. They were truly Old.
Like the books we can't understand. Like this place.
Like the words in the book of the tree.
Inmil and Maci turned the corner as well, then barely managed to stutter to a halt before ramming bodily into Brother Luca, who was bent over and feeling at the rocks along the side of the corridor.
The sight of his backside wasn't any more pleasant than the sight of his knobby knees had been, and in spite of himself Inmil had to stifle a guffaw.
Maci, ever more direct, said, "What are you doing?"
"Looking for the key," said Brother Luca, in a tone that indicated he was too busy to answer further questions.
Maci looked at Inmil, and he rolled his eyes. "Zealots," he said. It was enough to get Maci to smile a bit.
"What do we do?" she asked, looking around.
They were in a short length of corridor, a span between two abrupt turns in the passage. And as Inmil realized that, he also realized that – to his knowledge – there was no other place in the catacombs like this. The passages through the rock tended to be fairly straight. The occasional curve and bend, yes, but… no, he couldn't recall any other spot like this, with a short line between two hard turns. It singled the short length out.
Made it important.
Inmil turned to the wall opposite Brother Luca. Began feeling around.
"What are we looking for?" asked Maci. She sounded both confused and irritated, but joined him as he felt along the wall.
"The key," he said, glancing at Brother Luca. "Though I've no idea what that might mean."
"An actual key?" asked Maci. She found a small pock in the wall and reached her fingers in. A moment later she drew them out and kept moving, having found nothing.
But Inmil looked at the pock. He moved away from the wall, staring at the many small holes that scarred the wall. Such were abundant throughout the catacombs, holes left over from a time long-past when perhaps Faith had been a volcano, just as Fear still was.
The holes….
He reached over and took the Old Book that Brother Luca still held. The priest started to object, as though his time examining it had given him exclusive right to its care. But he silenced quickly when he saw Inmil holding the book – again at that strange angle that had allowed them to see the map, and the word that had led them here.
"What do you
see?" asked Brother Luca, still speaking in the low tones of a worshipper in a Cathedral or church.
Inmil's voice was no less reverent. "I see the key."
Maci moved toward him, as did Brother Luca. They stood at his side, and again Inmil traced his fingers along the lines hidden in an Old word, which sent a message to those who would see.
"It's there," he said.
"What is?" Maci asked. She sounded as hushed as Brother Luca now. Something huge was here, something that would change the world.
Still holding the book, Inmil moved back to the wall. The pockmarks were everywhere, but if you looked… just… so, you could see it.
He put his finger in one of the holes. Nothing. Just rock. For a moment Inmil's heart sank. Was he wrong?
No. I saw the word in the book. I see it now.
Brother Luca saw it, too. "It's written in the wall." He moved ahead of Inmil, tracing invisible lines between the holes that were not just random rock formations, but a message.
Maci gasped. She moved to the wall, put a hand out, then looked at Inmil with an impish expression. "You're going to hold this over me forever, aren't you? That you saw it first."
Inmil grinned. "Probably." He moved to the next hole, feeling inside it. Like the other one, it wasn't very deep or wide – just enough to put two fingers in up to the second knuckle. And, seeing the similarity between the two, he also noted what had passed unseen for centuries. The holes that spelled the word weren't natural. Of course, they couldn't have been: nature didn't tend to send messages via geology. But now that he knew what he was looking at, Inmil also saw that the holes were a little too round, a little too similar.
Drilled.
By whom?
He, Maci, and Inmil felt all the holes. Nothing.
They widened their investigation, looking at the pocks that surrounded the nearly-unseen word. Still nothing.
They stood back, and Inmil realized that his heart had been racing almost painfully the entire time he was feeling for… whatever it was they were seeking.
Nothing.
Impossible. Why would this be here if there were nothing to find?
He heard a strange growling and was surprised to discover it was coming from his own throat. He wasn't sure whether it was the constant stress of what had been happening in the Empire over the last few months – the measured change that seemed at once so necessary and so wasteful – or perhaps just the knowledge that he was on the verge of a discovery that would make the Old Books mean something. Either way, he felt like an animal in a snare, caught by invisible ropes and kept from freedom desired and deserved.
Maci glanced at him, and in the look he saw what made him love her more than anything: understanding. Not just because they were brother and sister, but because she loved him, and knew what he had sacrificed for her – just as he would always bear the burden of knowing what she had given up for him.
She touched his shoulder lightly, then her eyes widened. "Wait," she said. She moved back to the wall and began feeling at the holes again.
"We already –" he began.
"Shh," she hissed, and kept inserting her fingers in the holes. It wasn't until she'd done so nearly a dozen times that he realized she wasn't examining them in quite the same way as before. The first time, Brother Luca, Inmil, and she had pressed at and examined all the holes, but in a haphazard fashion: whichever was closest was looked at, then the search broadened out.
This time, Maci was following a pattern.
She's writing it. She's moving as though she is writing the word on the wall.
As soon as he thought it, she reached the last point, the hole that would have been the end flourish of the "Y" in the word they were looking at and looking for.
Something clicked.
"Well, well," said a voice. Inmil jumped, as did Brother Luca. The voice was deep, male, but it belonged to neither of them. For a moment as he turned, Inmil was certain it belonged to the assassin; belonged to someone who wanted so badly to keep this secret that he would return from the grave to do so.
Then the voice continued: "I leave you alone for a little while, and what happens?"
Inmil saw the speaker even as he placed the voice, and he beamed. "Father Scieran," he said.
The old priest scowled. "I've told you, it's Brother." Then he looked at the wall, where Maci still had two fingers hooked into the last hole. "And what has your sister discovered?"
"How did you –" Brother Luca seemed nearly unhinged by Brother Scieran's appearance. "How did you get here?"
Brother Scieran beamed, and he winked. "I'm sneaky," he said conspiratorially. Then he looked at Maci. "Well, sister, don't wait on me. Finish what you've begun."
Maci nodded. She twisted her fingers a bit, as though catching hold of something in the hole that had not been there before. Then she pulled, her arms straining –
(when did we become so old?)
– and, with a grunt, yanked the wall apart.
10
People were dying, and Cloud didn't know how to stop it.
Malal was still alive. That was something.
Though exactly what it was, Cloud wasn't really sure.
When he saw the woman jump from the window, he knew it was going to be bad. She wasn't just some first-Turn soldier, some spoiled child of a minor noble. She was a woman of intellect and measured decisions. You didn't get to be a High Academic without both of those qualities.
But she had decided to end her life. To kill herself rather than face what came next. And the decision had not taken days or hours or even minutes. Mere seconds after she realized what was happening, she had thrown herself to her doom.
At first, Cloud thought she must have made a mistake. Or perhaps that whatever had begun eating away at her hand might actually have started somewhere deeper, like her mind itself. Perhaps she had gone mad.
But that couldn't be true. Someone else would have noticed, and when he and Wind spoke to the other men and women who had been working with her, none of them had had a clue anything was wrong with their colleague.
It had taken them all by surprise.
The first case happened less than a day after Malal was afflicted. The second less than an hour after that.
An hour later, three of the Academics who had been in that room were in beds of their own, unheard screams resounding in Cloud's mind.
No one was with them when they died. That seemed wrong somehow, but he understood it. Malal had been the only one hit by the darts, and yet others had contracted what some were already calling Malal's Sickness.
It was a sickness. And no one – even Cloud – wanted to catch it. So no one – not even Cloud – stayed with the sick woman and men as they died.
Though he did not completely abandon them. The infected were being kept in a trio of adjoining rooms, and as soon as the doors had been sealed shut – nailed closed so none of the stricken could lose their wits and try to leave – Cloud called for the best Strong in the castle.
A tiny man with hair so dark it was nearly black arrived and, under Cloud's direction, jammed a thick spike through each of the three rooms' doors. When he yanked the spike out of each door, it left a two-inch holes behind, through which Cloud could look.
No one wanted to be with the afflicted. Not even he.
But he would not leave them completely alone. He would watch. He would speak words of comfort to them – he was not born deaf, and speech still came fairly easily to him.
And, unlike others who might stand here, he might actually be able to remain… for the simple fact that he would not hear their terrible, terrifying screams.
Wind was at Malal's side.
No one else was in the hall.
It was just him and the unheard shrieks of the dead.
And soon even the shrieks ceased. Soon, as he moved from door to door, he saw their frenzied, panicked motions cease. Saw them finally relax – though, in truth, they were so corroded and eaten away that it was hard to really tel
l when that moment came. Hard to see anything of what had once been a human.
All the fault of the man in armor, and those who came with him.
He hoped Father Akiro would find some antidote to this poison in Knowledge. But almost as much, he hoped that Sword would find the man and his friends and kill them. Horribly.
Finally, only one man still screamed in his room. At least, Cloud thought it was a man. He had lost track of who was in which room, and there was no way to tell just looking at him (her?) anymore if he was a man or a woman.
The man died.
Cloud slumped. He raised a hand, gathering magic unto himself. He would call a storm, funnel it into the room. Would call forth sheets of lightning to burn all within, then rain to put out any fires. The men and women in Malal's room – including Wind – were quarantined there, so hopefully there would be no more spread of the disease.
Something moved in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and spied a guard running toward him. It was a man named Garek, one of those who were stationed in the hall outside Malal's room to make sure no one went in or came out.
Garek had learned enough Sign for basic communication – probably the reason he was chosen to come to Cloud. He wasn't supposed to be here. Cloud had given instructions to seal off the corridor with him in it, the same rules that applied to Malal's chamber.
As horrible as what had happened to Malal might be, it would be much worse if this affliction spread.
Cloud almost shouted at Garek to get out. Then changed his mind. Anyone who came in here, so close to the place where the sick had been, must stay. Even those Academics who hadn't been stricken, but were in the room with the sick man and woman, were taken into other rooms in this corridor. Cloud would have welcomed their company, had they wished to stand watch with him, but all retreated to the rooms and shut the doors.
This was a place of danger. Of death.
So why was Garek in here?
As the guard came closer, Cloud saw his face. And knew even before the other man Signed.
"Others. Sick."
"How many?" asked Cloud.
Child of Sorrows Page 24
