Steadfast
Page 23
“Cousin!”
His head snapped up, to see anger in Teresa’s eyes.
“Do we have a choice?” Teresa said. “We do what has to be done by someone. Someone has to step forward. Right now, we have the knowledge, so God must have chosen us.”
Ramiro took a shuddering breath, then acknowledged her words with a nod. “Well-spoken. Someone has to. We helped unleash it. We can die trying to end it.” He got his feet under him and stood. “No point sighing about that. We need to get a message to my parents, the rest of our cities. They must know about Leviathan. Hear what we’ve discovered, cousin.”
“I don’t think any of us should leave.” Teresa gestured toward Santabe and Father Telo, and Ramiro had to allow the soundness of her words. “Can we inscribe a message to Lady Alcalde Beatriz and find a messenger to take it?”
“I believe so,” Ramiro said. “Let me take care of that. That’s a task that fits in this world and doesn’t need a miracle.”
Unlike defeating this impossible monster . . .
The Leviathan had been broken into manageable chunks. It reminded him of his decision made in the cathedral to look at the path forward as just one step at a time. One action would lead to the next.
Right up until the part where they all died.
Chapter 25
Telo left his companions to talk and resumed his seat, watching Santabe. The small block of stone under him could only be the sarcophagus of an infant. A soul robbed of this world before it had a chance to experience life. What mother had lost her hopes and dreams on that day? What family had been reduced to misery? Of all the unfairness in this world, surely the death of a baby was one of the most grievous. To lose out on so much.
The Lord had a plan, but that didn’t make death any easier. Even when the victim was an old man who had lived his life, like Father Ansuro. By the saints, how many millions more would be cut short of their time? Yanked from contented lives? Killed in a way to cause the most suffering?
In attempting to save life, Telo and the others had brought about the monster who would extinguish it.
He more than anyone here knew what they had unleashed. His background and study should have been a warning. Should have insisted they not mess with the profane. Interfering with an unknown god. He had taken his skepticism of Dal’s reality for security when he suggested Claire sing about Dal. Something not real could not hurt them. And now the truth was much worse than some petty and unknown godling.
Leviathan.
The origin of darkness. The source of all evil. The ultimate destroyer of life. Telo had no illusions that the darkness would stop at removing human life. They already knew it extinguished animals as well. Given time it would consume plants from large to small. Wipe the entire world from existence. Take down the stars. Erase everything until only the Light and the Dark remained again.
Then try to swallow the Light.
“I didn’t know.” Telo slumped, his head lowering until his face pressed against his knees. As if ignorance was an excuse.
A heartless chuckle met his ear.
“You will all die!” Santabe cried out. “When I get free I will not even bother to kill you. Instead I will enjoy seeing Dal take you all! Take all the unworthy and rid this world of them.” The gleam of truth in her eye was unmistakable.
No anger rose in him. Instead a sick feeling grew in his stomach. Could she really be so detached from humanity as to celebrate the destruction of countless innocents? Could anyone be that depraved?
On the other hand, could a human be defined with such simplicity? Reduced to one element of personality?
His training said no. That there was more to Santabe than anger and hate, just as there was more to everyone than what appeared on the surface.
Telo said nothing, just continued to watch, as his emotions emptied, really looking at the woman before him. Not at her physical strength or the clean lines of her features that many would call attractive, but seeing her. Another human with all the complexities that implied.
Everything else ceased to exist: Teresa, Ramiro, the room around him, the stone under his feet. All that remained was the woman before him. Layers peeled back before him as they had at the wall with the Northern soldier, Rasdid, allowing him access to all.
“Why do you look at me like that?” Santabe shifted uncomfortably in her bonds, for the first time exhibiting real unease.
The packaging of outward flesh slid back and Telo saw as with other eyes into Santabe’s soul. Saw a streak of cruelty as deep as it was wide. A desire to bully and to hurt and to control. The Santabe he had encountered and that she showed the world. Yet, her downright spitefulness was mixed with a righteousness that the unfit be sent to another life to try again.
He finally saw what she’d been saying all along: a twisted justice without compassion drove her, of a sort Telo rarely encountered—that to punish with death was for a person’s benefit. To Santabe, death was not the end, but just a voyage for the soul to be cast into another life to learn the lessons of truth missed in this existence. She saw most humans as failures who must repeat in an endless loop until they bettered themselves.
And if Dal could wipe away the failure all at once . . . he could see how that’d be appealing to Santabe, instead of the nightmare it appeared to him and his companions.
It was a dizzying prospect, and yet not what Telo needed to focus upon now. That was still something on the surface—something she’d basically shared with them. If he was going to truly understand her, he had to go further.
He looked deeper than her cruelty and found another river—this one of wounds that a mother, aunts, cousins would turn their backs and no longer care what happened to her once she entered a new family at the palace of Dal. Betrayed by her own kin. And deeper still beyond that, a child’s longing, so hidden he could barely find its source. But there it was: a girl on the bed of a wagon heaped with silk and cotton cloth, examining a fresh city, never seen before, with shining eyes.
The heart of an explorer, yearning for new places, new situations. The unknown. Capable of joy and excitement just as any other human heart. A heart of innocence and wonder before it had been knocked around and buried under years of calluses. Now pumping the blood of those she’d killed, rather than that which gave her life.
He moved forward to kneel at her feet, gripping her face to turn it to his. “Look at me.”
She resisted, fought to jerk her head away and hold her eyes from his, but eventually she was forced to see. To go past his defenses and encounter his compassion—his desire to save lives, even hers. To go deeper, where his steely determination waited.
Then the sharing ended with a painful jolt like the shattering of a mirror. Walls came down and the outer flesh was all he saw. Whatever insight he’d been granted by this miracle ended, but not before they understood each other.
“You know, child, the evil that comes. You don’t really want it,” he said. “You can help stop it. Talk to us.”
Her face curdled, and he pressed onward, his words slow and gentle, but as inextricable as a boulder sent down a mountain. “Your kin—your mother—she didn’t want to leave you in that place. She did not mean to turn her back upon you. You must know that she thought it the best way for you to survive. She would reach out to you if she could, as I have done. Do you not know, she still thinks of you every day of her life? As any mother would. You know she does. Her lost child—taken from her.”
“Stop!” Santabe shouted. “Do not say these things!”
“She will always love you.”
“Shut up!”
“As does your entire family.”
“I will hear no more of this!”
“They love you. As do I. As does a true god. We are here for you. You are not alone.”
“Stop,” she whimpered. “I will not hear you.” But tears hung in her eyes. One liquid drop trembled on the edge and fell, then rolled down her cheek. “It’s not true. I am alone. No one cares.”
“You do not.”
“I would stop Dal from killing your family. You. All. But I don’t know how. You can help me. How many moons?”
She closed her eyes to avoid him.
“Telling us this betrays no one. Help us fight. How many?”
“A lie,” a whisper so low to be hardly audible. Again stronger. “That was a lie. No one knows why Dal leaves.”
“Thank you, my child. And your people survived how?”
The so-odd light eyes opened to pin him down. “You cannot kill Dal,” she said with conviction, but no heat. “It cannot be done. Though the Living Diviners, the red. They both repel and hold Him.”
Telo sat back on his heels. “Repel? Is that why you were looking for it? Why you said Dal’s name aloud and in the open? I noticed, my child.”
She shook her head, refusing to say more.
“In Zapata there were the most beautiful gardens. Their mild climate allowed practically anything to grow there. Roses. Orchids. Plants impossible for a desert. All manner of exotic bloom and leaf. The smell. To walk in the gardens is to walk into a perfumery. Such color. A paradise for the eyes. Did you see it before it burned?”
When she kept her head down, he continued:
“But you saw the sea. That you couldn’t miss. I saw it once. A sight I will never forget.
“Near Vista Sur there is a canyon so wide that clouds obscure the other side in winter. Even in summer the opposite side is like a mirage. So deep it takes an entire day’s climb to reach the bottom. A river has cut through the stone for millennia, revealing so many colors of rock. A tapestry of shades that takes the breath away, I’m told. Oh, to see the wonder of it. Can you picture it in your head? Does it draw you? But it cannot be seen if we are all dead. So many opportunities lost.
“What do the red Diviners do, my child?” he coaxed. “We, too, cherish the beauty and mystery to be found in this world. I have this same yearning to see more. We are not unalike. Tell us what we need to know.”
Her hands twisted in her lap. “The red . . . the red keep Dal away. Enough reds together can surround and hold Him. Not for long. But it can stop an attack.”
“And you make them with the blood of the murdered. Of course.” Telo flashed onto the line of priests around the army encampment. Not there to keep deserters in—or not entirely. There to keep Dal out. There to protect the Northern army from massacre. How effective was it?
Before he could voice the question aloud, Telo’s thoughts leaped ahead, seeing what Santabe did not say. The more who perished, the more the Children of Dal could save. They could pick and choose who they wanted to ensure would live. Telo did not believe their choices would coincide. The Children of Dal would surely save the priests, those in power, while someone like Alcalde Julian would offer such gift to the most helpless—actual children.
So the Children of Dal had survived all these centuries by protecting their elite and letting the rest perish. No wonder they had developed such a belief in other worlds and other lives. It balmed their consciences to believe the losers of life’s draw simply went back to try again.
If a core always survived, he understood the panic of the soldier class at the gates and the calm he’d sensed from the priests in Her Beauty. Of course the people of Aveston would rate even lower. The priests of Dal literally held the difference between life and death.
He felt too stunned to feel anger for all those deemed too unimportant to survive. His mind ranged further ahead to what it meant for his quest.
Without question, the Children of Dal would not share their red Diviner protection with the people they conquered.
“We know where they are,” Ramiro said, startling him. “Father Ansuro told us the Diviners are in an inner courtyard at Her Beauty. Let’s tie her back up and we can talk about how to get to them.”
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Teresa said. “Why would they leave such a protection lying around when they could be using them?”
“Agreed,” Telo said. “Remember how few of the priests we encountered carried red weapons with their white. They would hand the red ones out if they had them. The red Diviners are outside protecting the army or being worn by their priests. We need to question her some more.”
Santabe hissed. “Let me go. You got the answers you want.”
“And let you run off to warn them.” Ramiro reached for a strap. “I don’t think so.”
Santabe’s face firmed and Telo tried to shout a warning. She braced her back against the pillar and kicked out, making the pillar wobble, catching Ramiro in the chest, and thrusting him across the room. Telo leaned in to grab her, but used the wrong arm. His stub crashed into Santabe, sending pain rocketing up his arm. He overbalanced, falling into her, pushing them both against the pillar.
The wobble became a wild rocking as the top shifted out from under the ceiling. The bottom gave ground, sliding with a grate against rock. The top ring of stone broke free, crashing downward, even as the next level fell. Telo threw his arms over his head in a flimsy shield and glimpsed hollowness in what he thought was solid stone. The pillar was hollow. No wonder it collapsed so easily.
Teresa rushed in to seize him, tugging futilely before the entire pillar toppled in a rumble of stone and clinks of metal. Something hard crashed into his skull and he knew no more.
Chapter 26
“A short break, Singers,” Claire begged. Bags and bundles, including full water skins, swung against her back and legs as she walked. The weight pulled at her shoulders and made her tire faster. She carried her own possessions as well as a large part of the Elders’ share. Somehow they had twisted her around until she found herself offering to carry their provisions. But the break she requested was not from her load, but from the magic.
She felt less and less like they were an avenging army on the move and more like she’d been drafted into a work gang—one where she did all the work.
Life had been hard enough when she was the protégée of one Elder from the Women of the Song. Now seven Elders had taken her on, and she didn’t get a moment to herself. Judging from her nightmares, one of them probably stood over her as she slept, waiting to pounce and say, “Try just one more time.”
Eulalie assumed the expression Claire had nicknamed “prune eater” and grunted. “A short break. Rest until we reach the road.”
Now it was Claire’s turn to groan. The road began less than a mile away, even at their slow pace they would make that goal in under an hour, giving her practically no break at all. But then Eulalie was the most unyielding of all the Elders. Even worse than Jorga. Eulalie had taken charge of the red Diviner and rolled the weapon into her baggage—the one thing the Elder did carry. She continually waved aside opposition from the other ladies as if their words proved less bothersome than a fly.
If only the Elders had something to put their focus upon besides Claire’s training. Claire appreciated their efforts and all—she most certainly needed the work—but what she needed now was time alone to practice what she’d learned, and not under the intense scrutiny and critical eye of seven meddlesome women. Confidence in her abilities wouldn’t come with them ganging up on her and finding fault with everything she did.
So she hoped for some other distraction. An obstacle of quicksand to go around. The return of the swamp cats. A heavy rain shower to wash the magic out of the air and make it impossible to practice—though even then they would probably still make her Sing the words. An Elder with the sniffles and in need of tending. Anything.
None of the Elders were what you could call fast walkers, and the scenery passed at a snail’s pace. Add into that the fact that they stopped early at night and rose late, and took prolonged break
s for meals and in-between meal munching, yet expected her to perform for them while they rested. At this rate, it would take another sevenday to reach a city once they got to the road, Aveston being the nearest. And longer to find where the Northerners gathered now.
And locate Ramiro.
Her thoughts shifted from her own annoyances. He had to be well—and waiting for her. Surely, his people had found his contributions too valuable to lock him up or punish him. If she could see how much the desert people needed him, they must also. The banging of the bundles against her legs faded as she used the short break to recreate the valuable way his bottom looked in his pants . . . the shapely way his leg tapered down to his high boots . . .
Muriel shouted, “Smoke.”
Claire startled out of her daydream with a gulp and turned to where the dark-skinned Elder pointed. A plume rose above the trees, a short distance from where they believed the road to the desert merged with the swamp. A very thick plume of blackish smoke, not the normal light gray.
“If it’s not a lightning strike, it’s an obvious trap,” Jorga said.
“And a delay,” Rachael added.
“But possibly some Northerners to remove,” Eulalie said and heads nodded.
Claire eyed the low-hanging clouds. It had remained dry for the last hours—such a luxury during the wet months—but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been lightning. Heat lightning was just as possible with such unstable weather. Likely the smoke was natural. But exactly the distraction she’d been hoping for. “We should investigate,” she said instantly. “It could be Northerners.”
Eulalie’s eyes narrowed for her eagerness in a way that made Claire step back. Somehow Claire had gone from being in charge when they left the Rose Among Thorns camp to not being allowed to have an opinion. “So eager, girl? But I see it as the perfect opportunity for you to practice the tricks we taught you.”
“Yes,” Violet agreed. “We can send the girl in to spring the trap, if that’s what it is.”