All the people who remained from the Tabernacle.
The other Auds, the Danites, the Officiates, and the Elders.
They were gone.
He was the only one left.
And the Fey would catch him soon.
They hadn't heard him, nor had they seen him. But he could see them, from his position near the opening of the cavern.
Nearly a dozen Fey worked in the large room. They were small Fey, shorter than any he had ever seen, and they were working on bodies. First they had carried the bodies to the walls and then they had stacked them, one on top of the other. They had separated the bodies according to those with clothes and those without; those with flesh and those without.
Those without flesh were tossed into a pile. He couldn't tell what it was, but they worked that pile differently. They weren't as careful with those bodies as they were with the others.
While some Fey continued to carry and sort bodies, others were working over bodies on the piles. They were stripping flesh and placing it in pouches. One Fey, smaller and younger than the rest, seemed to be in charge of removing the religious icons. He touched the filigree sword necklaces by their chains, holding them between a thumb and forefinger as if they would burn him.
They just might.
Near the doors, other Fey stood. Taller Fey. They held swords and they watched from all directions. The Fey guarding Con's door hadn't seen him yet. Hadn't heard him slide into the area from the bridge, either, for which he had been very lucky.
The Fey in the cavern were carrying on loud conversations, complaining and arguing over prime specimens. One Fey, a woman, was goading them into fast action. She claimed the bodies would rot if they didn't move quickly enough.
And the Black King would be angry at them.
That comment of hers had frightened him. At first he had thought the Black King had to be nearby. Then he realized that somehow the Black King used or demanded the flesh that the small Fey were pulling off the bodies.
Off the people Con had spoken with just the day before.
If Sebastian hadn't warned him, Con's body would be there now — naked or clothed, skin-covered or skinned, he didn't know. But he did know that he would be there.
And he would have died a horrible death.
The thing his eye kept going to was not the bodies lining the cavern, nor the small Fey working around him, but the lamps they had hung from the torch pegs. It had taken him a while, but he had realized that the lights weren't flames, but small and people-shaped. He thought for a moment he had recognized the movements inside the glass — recognized them as belonging to someone he knew. But he was too far away to tell who it was.
To get out of here, he had to go through that mess.
He had to get past all the Fey guards, past the small hardworking Fey.
Past the bodies of the people he had known.
He had the sword, but he didn't believe it could help him through that many Fey. He had survived the other time he used it because his back was against the wall and Servis helped him keep the Fey occupied.
This time, he would have to go through the Fey army, and his back would be unprotected.
He had no companion.
He had never been so alone in his life.
He wasn't even sure he had God on his side any longer. He had failed at everything. He had lost Sebastian and lost all the people he had known.
The Tabernacle was gone.
The Rocaan was gone.
The religion was dead now.
Except for him. One small Aud with no training. One small Aud whose God might be angry at him for letting everyone down.
He bowed his head. He had no prayer inside him. The only thing he knew how to ask for was his own survival. And that was a selfish prayer. The Roca, in the Words Written and Unwritten, had cautioned that God liked an active man, that a man's strength lay in his ability to rescue himself and others.
God did not like to rescue people. Apparently He did not see it as His duty.
So Con thought before he prayed. He thought for a long time. Then he thought of the Holy One, whose duty it was to wing the prayers to God's Ear, and whispered:
"Grant me clarity."
It was the only thing he could think of. He needed to be clear enough to see what was ahead. And he hadn't slept in a long, long time. At least he had eaten. God had provided food below the Tabernacle, and Con had stashed some in his robe. He didn't want to think of the filth that covered the food, but it didn't matter. At this stage, food was not only nourishment. It was sleep. It was the only thing that kept him sane.
The small Fey were the same size as he was, maybe a little shorter.
He had never seen Fey that short.
He crept closer to the opening, then squinted. Their skin was dark, their ears were upturned, and their eyebrows upswept.
They were Fey, but they appeared to be as small as Islanders.
And they were covered in dirt.
The Fey guard had moved away from the passageway. He was standing near a pile of bodies, staring at them, clearly bored. Apparently, he didn't think anyone would come down here.
But Con didn't know how to get past him.
Then the guard picked up a robe and asked a question in Fey. Con understood only a little of the language; it hadn't yet been required by the Tabernacle, although he had learned a few words before he left home as a young boy.
He believed the guard was asking what they were going to do with the clothing.
Another Fey yelled at the guard from across the cavern. The guard dropped the cloak as if he had been burned.
Con's heart dropped. He hadn't realized how he had been thinking. He had been hoping that the Fey would put on the robe. Con could have pretended to be one of their number and sneak across.
But now his clothing would be suspicious.
He held out a hand. He could barely see it in the dim light. But from here, it looked as dark as a Fey hand.
He was filthy.
He probably smelled as bad, or worse, than they did.
His clothing was wrong, but he could change that.
He needed to look like a Fey.
He glanced at his robe, tugged the sleeves, pulled on the skirt. He could rip it, try to mold it into Fey clothing. He peered out again. The short Fey were wearing long sleeves and britches. The guards were wearing leather jerkins and britches as well. Their boots went to their knees.
Con was barefoot. He had no way to tie his robe to make it look like britches. No way to sew it to a new form.
He had to steal clothes.
Or wait.
If he waited, he might not get out. Or they might catch him. Or Sebastian would die.
Sebastian might die anyway.
Con's only other option was to try to sneak across.
If he snuck across and they caught him, he could fight them with the sword. He could hope that the sword's power would be enough.
But he didn't think it would be.
If he snuck across, and the sword failed him, he would die. If he brazened his way across and they caught him, he would die. But if he made it …
If he made it, he had another problem. He had to go through the ruins of Jahn. He had to go to Sebastian's friend.
Fey clothing would make it easier. Especially if Con didn't clean up.
He swallowed, hard.
He could kill the guard. That would not be a problem. He had the sword and it would make short work of that Fey. But the idea of facing all the others, unprotected, terrified him.
And made him feel vaguely ill.
He had killed Fey before, using that magickal weapon. And it had bothered him. It had given him nightmares. It had made him wonder about his own commitment to God. And he had managed to blame it on the situation. He had stumbled into that situation, and had no choice.
This time the choice was his.
This time, it would be his idea to kill.
He sighed. He had no other choice. S
urely God would forgive him. A man had to kill if his survival depended on it. Con would die in these tunnels if he didn't do something now.
The key was to catch the guard by surprise, and kill him quickly. Quietly. And then to sneak through the Fey.
Somehow.
Con wiped a hand over his face. That cavern was awfully big. And filled with Fey.
If Con died, he would be of no use to Sebastian.
He would be of no use to anyone.
He took a deep breath.
He would wait. There would have to be a time where the guards weren't paying attention. Or where the numbers of Fey were fewer.
Or when they left. They couldn't stay here forever, could they?
He took a small breath. He would go to one of the side tunnels that led nowhere, and he would curl up.
He would sleep. And if they saw him, maybe they would think he was dead.
It was his only choice.
It was his only chance.
"I'm sorry, Sebastian," he whispered, and bowed his head. Then he began to crawl away from the cavern, away from the Fey, in a direction he had never gone before.
FORTY-SEVEN
Rugar traveled the Link. He flowed through the white, along the purple, moving swiftly along a great distance.
This Link, between the golem and Arianna, Rugad's great-granddaughter, was fine and thick and solid. They loved each other. Rugad had not realized that golems could feel such affection. He had not realized they could feel anything at all.
He got closer to the end of the Link. He felt his great-granddaughter's presence more strongly than he would have if she had been in the same room with him. She was mercurial, this child, and emotional, and smart. But she had not yet learned how to tame the emotions so that she could use her intelligence better.
She was young.
So very young.
If he could have smiled, he would have.
He slowed. She would have this end of the Link protected. As he neared the area, he imagined a body for himself. Always the body was his young body, strong and vibrant. He put his hands in front of himself, braced for impact —
— and fell into the girl's unprotected body. He tumbled for a moment inside her mind until he remembered that he had no body and didn't need to fall. Then he stopped.
The girl screamed — physically screamed. Her entire body shook.
This would not do.
He shoved her essence aside, pushing it into a corner of her mind. The essence was fluid. As he pushed it, it became a cat, then a horse, then a man, then a girl, and then a flat piece of flesh before becoming a girl again. He held her against her own mind with the power of his, and looked out her eyes.
It was dark. He was on a mountainside and it was cold. The girl's physical body was exhausted and hungry. He had never felt someone quite so fragile before. He doubted he had ever been that way.
And it was not an fragility of essence. Her essence was strong. It still fought him from the corner he had shoved it to. Her essence became a bird and pecked at his imaginary hand. Then it became a knife and cut him, but he willed himself to feel nothing. She didn't yet understand what he was. Then she became a woman again and bit and scratched and fought, and fought, and fought.
All in silence.
Poor thing. She didn't realize that one of the few weapons she had here was sound.
He held her in place with one part of himself. Then he extended his hand, brushed her mind with his little finger, and let a piece of skin fall off. She struggled again. He shoved her back harder.
Then he stepped closer to her eyes.
Rugad forced himself to concentrate on what he saw through them.
The darkness. The mountainside.
The cold.
Ahead of him, the old woman. The girl's eyes were adjusted to the dark. He squinted, just a little.
The old woman, as the girl thought of her.
The old woman.
He recognized her.
The Shaman he had sent with Rugar. She did live, just as Rugad thought.
She did live. She had survived somehow. A Failure who had made it.
And she was with his great-granddaughter.
Rugad felt a hand on the girl's shoulder. He glanced at it. It was a male hand, Islander from its paleness and its short stubby fingers. He looked directly at the person the hand belonged to —
— and almost smiled in triumph.
The Islander King.
Nicholas.
"Are you all right?" Nicholas asked. "You screamed."
Rugad didn't know the girl. He didn't know how she would normally respond to such a question.
Behind him, trapped in her own mind, the girl froze when she heard her father's voice.
Then she shouted, Daddy! I'm in here! I'm trapped! Daddy!
But Rugad controlled her mouth. The words never emerged.
He was in complete control of her body. He made it smile weakly as it looked at Nicholas.
"I tripped," Rugad said, hoping he got the inflections right. "It surprised me."
"Are you sure you didn't injure yourself?"
"I'm sure," Rugad said.
Nicholas did not take his hand off her shoulder. "I wish we could stop," he said.
"Me too," Rugad said. "But we can't."
Daddy! Arianna shouted. Her voice was loud inside herself. It was all Rugad could do to prevent himself from pulling out of her body's eyes, turning to her essence and make her shut up.
The Shaman had stopped. She was looking at him. At her. He had to remember who he was now. The Shaman was too far away from him to see her expression.
He stopped too. He craned his neck, looked around him as much as possible.
Mountains. Tall, treeless, a trail that was heading east. Snow above him. He wished there were more light so that he could see what lay beyond.
"Arianna," the Shaman said, and in her voice, he heard caution.
She stayed a few feet from him. Nicholas's hand tightened on his shoulder.
"Is there something ahead?" Nicholas asked the Shaman.
The body felt different. Liquid suddenly. Fluid. Almost like it was water instead of flesh and bone. Rugad had never felt anything like that before.
He had to risk a look at the girl.
She was sitting in her corner of her own brain, her imaginary knees drawn to her imaginary chin. She had stopped shouting. She wasn't even looking at him. She appeared to be like most people whose Links he had traveled across, into whose minds he had come to rest.
Passive.
Terrified.
Unable to fight.
It was an act.
He had seen this girl in action. He had seen how coolly she fought under such strange odds.
"Something is wrong," Nicholas said and his voice sounded far away.
"I don't think you should be so close," the Shaman said.
The fluidity grew. The body no longer felt stable.
Too late he remembered that the girl was a Shifter.
Rugad had never heard of anyone invading a Shifter's body. He knew that Doppelgängers could take over other Fey, but never replicate their magick. Did that work for Visionaries as well?
Girl — he started, and then his feet disappeared from underneath him. The body was changing. He clung to it and could find nothing familiar.
Nothing he recognized.
Except the girl herself, sitting in the corner of her brain. As he struggled within her shifting body, she raised her head, and smiled at him.
He cursed her.
She had outthought him.
Again.
FORTY-EIGHT
Arianna could feel him. His presence completely dominated hers. It was powerful, commanding, strong. He held her inside herself with a mere thought. And then he manipulated her body as if it were his own.
She tried everything. Becoming anything she could think of to make him let her go.
It wasn't until she spoke that she had realized that
she didn't have a body. She was Shifting, but only in her mind. It was almost like make-believe. It had no effect on him at all.
Then she had screamed for her father, and he hadn't heard her.
Then the man — her great-grandfather — the Black King — had spoken with her voice.
And her father believed it.
Like he used to believe it when Arianna Shifted into one of the grooms, or into Sebastian's shape.
Her father was too easily fooled.
But the Shaman was not. She seemed to hear the difference. Only Arianna couldn't communicate.
So she had reached into a part of herself that almost no one else had, certainly no Visionary. He wouldn't know how to stand in it, like he had stood in her eyes. He wouldn't know how to feel like she did.
How to Shift.
It had taken her a while.
But she had the Shift now, and it had caught him by surprise. He was swimming in the Shift, in that moment when her body was a mass of flesh without really having any skeletal structure at all.
She could almost feel her own skin, but not quite. Still she could control the Shift.
First she shrunk herself.
First she became a cat.
She watched him get his grounding, find the eyes, look out them. She waited until he saw through them, and she Shifted again, this time going large, a horse, her limbs stretching, her fur becoming a coat, her four paws becoming four hooves.
He turned toward her then, inside her mind, and he took a firmer shape than he'd had before. Before he'd been vaguely Fey, a body that had gone by her and then lost its definition, except for the hand that held her in place.
Now he had a full Fey body. It was younger than the one she had seen before, with a full head of hair that went down his back to his thighs, a hawklike nose, and Fey features that were so sharp they looked as if they were drawn with charcoal.
But his eyes were the same. Dark and menacing, and without any warmth at all.
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her forward. For a moment, she felt as if she had lost her grip on that Shifting part of herself, and then she remembered: she had no physical body inside her mind. Her arm could reach as long as she wanted.
Or she could do it without an arm at all.
She Shifted again, and he fell over as the body rocked. This time she went as small as she could: a lizard, like the kind she used to see in the garden. She would hold that shape because it would unnerve him. The eyes did not see in the same way, and the body did not move like a mammal's. It had taken her two days to learn how to move inside a lizard's body.
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 31
