Guardians Watch

by Eric T Knight

  “That happened because of the wound those birds inflicted on your spirit-body. The wound let some of your Life-energy drain out into the place. There was no chain, actually, that was just the way your mind interpreted it. It was simply your Life-energy—Selfsong, to use the Tender term—that was slowly draining out of you. That can’t happen this time because you didn’t actually go there.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Lowellin got up. “I need to learn more about the creatures the Guardian used to kill Tu Sinar, so I won’t be around much. Keep that weapon safe and do not use it. You remember what happened when you killed those assassins with the bone knife.”

  Of course Quyloc remembered. Some sort of hole opened into the Pente Akka and through it he saw the gromdin for the first time. It wasn’t the sort of thing he could forget even if he wanted to.

  “How long do you think we have before Melekath finishes breaking open the prison?”

  “A few months at least.”

  “That’s something.”

  Lowellin left without replying, walking through the door into Quyloc’s quarters. When Quyloc followed him a moment later, Lowellin was gone.

  Quyloc looked at himself in the mirror again. There was still no mark from the bite. Lowellin must be right. It must have been a dream.

  Quyloc needed to talk to Rome. He should be in the audience chamber. Twice a week he spent the morning there, listening to the problems of his subjects. If he hurried, he could get there before Rome started.

  There was already a long line in the hall outside the chamber, but Quyloc saw with relief that the doors were still closed. That meant he’d be able to speak to Rome without having to listen to any supplicants. Rome was fussy about being interrupted, said he’d made an oath to himself to never forget his people. Once Quyloc needed to talk to him and had to wait while some old woman told Rome an endless story about her pigs that kept getting into her neighbor’s garden. Most of her story was just rambling nonsense and Quyloc would have sent her on her way after just a few seconds, but Rome sat patiently through the whole thing.

  As usual, there was a wide variety of people in the line, merchants, farmers, shopkeepers, tradesmen. At the very front of the line was a beggar, his shoes little more than rags, pants and shirt torn and badly stained. Next in line was a noblewoman wearing a satin dress, her hair piled up in a towering, powdered mass on top of her head.

  The beggar was talking excitedly to the noblewoman and—Quyloc had to look twice to be sure—waving about a dead possum as he did so, using it to punctuate his words. The noblewoman had backed as far away from him as the line would allow and she had a scarf shoved tightly up against her nose, while her eyes darted this way and that, following the possum’s progress. Beside her was a middle-aged manservant who kept trying to interpose himself between his mistress and the beggar, but every time he did so the beggar shifted to keep an unobstructed view of the noblewoman.

  The guard at the door opened it for Quyloc and he went through into the audience chamber. During Rix’s reign there’d been a throne on a high dais at the far end of the room. Not his official throne, but still a fairly imposing piece of furniture.

  Early on, Rome tipped the throne over so it crashed down the steps and broke into several pieces. Then he’d had the dais torn out.

  “I won’t sit above my people like some kind of god,” he’d said. “When they come see me they’ll look me in the eye.”

  Now there was a large, comfortable chair for Rome, with a couple of other chairs facing it.

  When Quyloc entered the room, Rome was just sitting down. To the side was a small desk where his secretary sat with parchment and ink, ready to jot down whatever Rome needed him to.

  “Quyloc!” Rome boomed. “Good morning! What brings you here? I thought you hated this.”

  “I just spoke to Lowellin.”

  Rome’s smile faded. To his secretary he said, “Wait in the other room for a minute, will you?” The man bowed and scurried out. “Sit down. What did he say?”

  “You remember that cloud of smoke to the north?”

  “How could I forget? It looked like the end of the world.” Ash was still falling on Qarath.

  Quyloc rubbed his eyes. He felt terribly tired suddenly. “It might be.”

  Rome sighed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Lowellin says it was caused by a god dying.” Quyloc decided that he’d explain to Rome about Shapers at a different time. Now didn’t seem like the best time.

  Rome gaped at him. “Did I just hear you right?”

  Quyloc nodded grimly. “A god. Dying.”

  Rome looked pained. “Which god?”

  “Tu Sinar.”

  “I don’t know that one. Maybe Lowellin is wrong.”

  “Tu Sinar was one of the Eight, the gods who built the prison. Lowellin says he was killed by one of Melekath’s Guardians, Kasai.”

  “How? How do you kill a god?”

  “The Guardian used some creatures from the abyss.”

  Rome groaned. “What creatures? What’s the abyss?” He rubbed his temples. “I already know I’m not going to like the answer.”

  “The abyss is some place at the center of the world. I don’t know anything more about it except that it’s basically poisonous to everything in our world. I don’t know anything about the creatures. I don’t think Lowellin does either, which is why he’s putting a lot of effort into finding out.”

  “So what does this mean for us?”

  “I don’t know yet. Not exactly. All I know is that it has Lowellin worried enough that he actually came to me and made nice.”

  “I thought he hated you.”

  “He does. But he hates Melekath more.”

  “Don’t you ever have any good news?”

  “I do. The spear—the rendspear—is apparently a powerful weapon, more powerful than he’d thought I was capable of making. Maybe powerful enough to kill Melekath.”

  “That’s good. Very good. So we just need to be there when the prison breaks open and you stab him and we’re done. Right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Did Lowellin say anything about how long we have before Melekath is free?” This was something he and Quyloc had talked about quite a few times. They’d even considered sending scouts into the Gur al Krin to see what they could learn, maybe set up some way to relay the information back to Qarath relatively quickly.

  “He said we still have time. He thinks at least a couple of months.”

  “There’s another bit of good news. We still have a couple of months before the end of the world,” Rome said with a chuckle that sounded forced. “Do you think Lowellin is really going to work with us?”

  “I do. He looked…worried. He was hiding it, but I think he’s afraid.”

  “I still don’t trust him at all, but as long as he’s got the same enemy as us…”

  “I agree.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  Almost, Quyloc told him about what happened last night, but then he shook his head and left the room.

  After all, it was only a dream.

  After Quyloc left, Rome called to the guard at the doors to go ahead and let them in. As the beggar stepped through the doorway, he tripped suddenly and fell down. While he was still rolling around trying to get up, the noblewoman and her manservant hurried up to where Rome was sitting.

  “My Lord Macht,” the woman said, curtsying deeply.

  “Did you just trip that man?” Rome growled, glaring at the manservant.

  “Absolutely not,” the noblewoman said. “They may have gotten their feet tangled together, but Hessman here would never stoop to such a thing.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” Rome replied without looking at her. “Well, did you?”

  The manservant paled. “I…uh…”

  “Go to the back of the line.”

  “What?” the noblewoman cried. “That’s outrageous! We’ve been waiting since sunr
ise! I demand—”

  “What is it, exactly, that you demand?” Rome said in a low, ominous voice.

  The noblewoman fell back, her hand to her throat. “Nothing,” she whimpered. As she and her servant hurried away, she could be heard berating the man.

  “I heard of a place where once a year the servants and their masters switch places for a day,” Rome said to his secretary, who was just taking his seat. “What do you think of that?”

  “Splendid idea, Macht.”

  “Are you just saying that because I’m the macht, or do you really think so?”

  The man hesitated. Rome could see that prudence was wrestling with what he really wanted to say. Finally, prudence lost. Maybe he was finally getting through to these people that he wasn’t like old King Rix.

  “Would that include you, Sire?” the man ventured with just a ghost of a smile.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Rome admitted. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

  The beggar stumbled up then. His long beard was matted and his eyes were very red. “Sir, Macht, sir,” he said, his words slurred. “I ‘ave something to tell you, something I saw.”

  Rome gestured to him to continue.

  “Last night, down by the Pits, I was…” He tapered off. “What was I doing again?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, not really.” The man looked down at the dead possum in his hand with a surprised look, as if just noticing it for the first time. He held it to his nose, sniffed it, then made a face. “It’s been dead awhile,” he told Rome seriously. “Probably not good for eating anymore.”

  “Is that why you’re here, the dead rat?” Rome asked.

  “It’s not a rat. It’s a possum.”

  Rome looked up and saw the chamberlain approaching with a guard, clearly intending to remove the man. Rome waved them off. Sure, the man smelled bad. He was definitely drunk and probably crazy. But he had a right to be heard too. Still, there were others waiting. “Get to the point,” he told the man.

  “I saw a woman down there. She was hiding behind this wall. Then a man came by, name of Sots, at least that’s what we called him. Probably not his real name. Poor old Sots,” he said, wiping his eye.

  “The point,” Rome reminded him.

  “She killed him. She killed old Sots.”

  Rome sat back in his chair. “This sounds like a matter for the city watch.”

  “Wait! I haven’t told you the worst part!” He fixed his bleary eyes on Rome. “It was how she killed him. When he came by, she jumped out and grabbed onto him. She didn’t hit him or anything but he just sagged down on the spot without a struggle or nothing.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t stab him?”

  The beggar shook his head vigorously. “I snuck up close to see and I…” He broke off. He was shaking visibly. “You don’t have anything close to hand to drink, do you?” he said in a loud whisper.

  “No. Get on with it.”

  “There was these two things. They jumped off her and onto him. Things the size of rats, but with too many legs and all the wrong color. I think…I think they was sucking his blood or something.” He passed a shaky hand across his brow. “I thought you should know, what with all the weird stuff happening now.”

  Three

  The five Tenders stood wide-eyed in the midst of the bustling throng outside the gates of Qarath, clinging to each other. People streamed around them, sweating, pushing. Everyone seemed to have somewhere they needed to be, fast.

  “Look at all these people,” Donae said nervously. “I never thought—”

  What she thought was never clear because right then a pig squealed, a man yelled, and two pigs ran right through their group, nearly knocking Karyn down. Cara caught her arm and held her up.

  “How are we going to find the FirstMother?” Cara asked. Leaving the Haven without Siena and Brelisha seemed like a worse idea every day. They should have found some way to convince the two older women to come with them. They were lost without their leadership.

  Cara’s thoughts went back to the day the messenger came to the door of the Haven. He was a young man in leather, riding a drooping horse. The days of hard travel showed in his face. He stood at the door of the Haven that afternoon holding a simple cylinder. It was Cara who met him and when she tried to ask him what it was, who it was from, he simply shook his head and trudged back to his horse. “Don’t know. Don’t want to know,” he said over his shoulder. Without looking back he mounted and rode away.

  Cara took the message cylinder back into the Haven and gave it to Brelisha, who was sitting in the common room. Brelisha took it like a woman who already knew what it said. She unsealed it and shook the parchment within into her hand. Taking it over to the sunlight spilling through the window, she opened it and read for a moment. When she was done she stood very still, looking out the window for a long moment before telling Cara quietly to gather the others. When Cara returned, Siena was reading it. She looked grim, but unsurprised.

  “It’s from the FirstMother. In Qarath.” Brelisha sat in a chair to her left, her hair pulled back into its usual stern bun, her hands folded carefully over one knee. She kept her gaze averted, careful not to meet the eyes of any of the women.

  “She commands us to go to her.”

  “But why?” Karyn asked. “What does Melanine want with us?”

  “Melanine is no longer FirstMother. Now Nalene holds that title.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “It doesn’t say,” Brelisha cut in, still without looking at any of them. “It doesn’t matter. She commands our presence. Only one thing matters for you all now.”

  “What do you mean?” Cara asked. “Isn’t she summoning all of us?”

  Now Brelisha did look up, but she looked only at Siena and they shared much in that glance. Neither answered her.

  “But why does she want us to come?” Karyn persisted.

  “Melekath,” Brelisha said simply. “His shadow rises and she would have the Tenders join together to face him.”

  “But how?” Cara asked. “What can we do?”

  Again Brelisha and Siena shared a look. “Lowellin,” Siena said simply. “The Protector has returned. He reforges the Mother’s Chosen.”

  “But this is wonderful,” Donae breathed. Beside her Bronwyn was nodding in agreement. “It means…it means the Mother has forgiven us.” Her voice trailed off and tears stood in her eyes.

  “Apparently,” Brelisha said. She did not seem impressed.

  “How soon will we leave?” Donae asked. She looked like she wanted to walk out the door right then. Considering she was the one who was most frightened by the things that were happening—she would barely leave the Haven to use the privy—she looked like a woman reborn. There was a ray of hope and she was anxious to follow it.

  Siena and Brelisha exchanged another look. Siena took a deep breath and said finally, “This is my home. I’m not going.”

  Brelisha put her hand on her old friend’s shoulder but she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. She just frowned and shook her head.

  “But you have to come with us. We’re a family…” Cara couldn’t finish.

  “I will not take up this fight,” Siena said softly. “Not like this. I’m sorry,” she said, seeing the look on Cara’s face.

  “Listen to me,” Brelisha said. “You five stick together. Whatever happens, just take care of each other…”

  “We just have to ask someone,” Bronwyn said, jolting Cara out of her reverie. “It’s the only way we’ll find the FirstMother.” The tall, dark-haired Tender, only a few years older than Cara and Netra, always presented an image of self-contained confidence, but she didn’t look so confident now. Her head swiveled, trying to track everyone in the crowd at once and failing. There was a sheen of sweat on her face. She ran her fingers through her long, black tresses and then frowned when they got tangled. None of them had bathed in some time.

  “But we don’t want anyone to know wh
at we are,” Donae put in. “Remember what happened in that little town.” Their fourth day after leaving the Haven they had entered a little town. Somehow the people had guessed that the solitary group of females was made up of Tenders and in no time a small mob had gathered and was confronting them, blaming the “witches” for the poison spreading across the land and talking of cleansing Atria of them. They’d had no choice but to hike up their robes and flat out run.

  “Let me handle this,” Owina said. She was the oldest of their little group, already in her sixth decade. Despite her years, her plump face was barely lined. The gentle smile that seemed always to lurk at the edges of her mouth had always comforted Cara. Alone of all of them she did not look overwhelmed. Cara realized that Owina might have even been to Qarath before. She was already approaching middle age when she joined the Tenders at Rane Haven and she had never spoken of her life prior to that. There was something almost regal in her bearing, the way she spoke and moved, that hinted at a past in the upper crust of society. She might have been a wealthy merchant’s wife, or even one of the nobility. Cara and Netra had spent hours when they were little girls imagining that Owina was an exiled princess who had to flee to the Haven to escape a cruel stepmother.

  Owina’s eyes fell on an old couple skirting along the edge of the crowd, out of the worst of the current of humanity. They carried small packages and seemed untouched by the general chaos. What made them stand out was that they were headed for the gates and most of the other people were heading away.

  “Pardon me, good sir,” Owina said, touching the man gently on the forearm. “If you could spare a moment for lost travelers.”

  The old couple paused and looked up at her. Both were bent with age, though their movements did not look decrepit. The old man beamed at her. “Lots of those these days, sure enough.”

  Owina nodded her agreement. The Tenders had seen many other people on the roads in the past days of travel, nearly all of them heading to Qarath and each bearing more outlandish rumors. Most seemed to concern a vast army rising in the northwest and people being burned alive.