Hymn

by Ken Scholes

  And they brought their bloody knives to my family. Though to be fair, her grandfather had been complicit in that. Regardless, it didn’t grieve her to see Y’Zir fall.

  She steered them toward the center of the city, where the palace and temple awaited, and as they crossed the massive central courtyard, the afternoon sun reflected off the golden statue that lay broken there.

  They paused briefly at the gate, and once it opened Jin led her Blood Guard through the orchards and around back to their barracks, then dismissed them with a reminder to be ready for the next day’s hunt. She let herself into the palace and walked its nearly empty halls until she reached the administrative offices.

  A guard stood at Regent Xhum’s door, and Jin Li Tam inclined her head. “Is the regent available?”

  The Blood Guard, like so many of them, was hollow-eyed still with grief, but her face held the flat affect of military discipline. She returned the gesture. “I will check, Great Mother.”

  Jin waited as the guard slipped inside. When she returned, she motioned her into the room.

  Regent Eliz Xhum stood from a desk covered in papers as she entered. Their eyes met for a moment before he looked away, and she saw quickly why. His own eyes were set in dark pockets of sleeplessness, and the worry lining his face gave the scars of his cuttings an ominous aspect. “Great Mother,” he said, pointing to the chair across from his desk. “How goes the hunt?”

  Jin sat. “He was seen in the market quarter and killed three Blood Guard.”

  The regent sat as well. “He also killed another magister. The chief librarian, actually.”

  Jin’s brow furrowed. “How long ago?”

  “Yesterday or the day before.”

  What is he up to? Her father was the most brilliant and ruthless man she’d ever known, though what he did now was far more forthright in its destruction than his past choices. House Li Tam preferred moving in the shadows, not in the light, using others to accomplish its work whenever possible. “Do you think he’s still looking for the spellbook?”

  The regent shook his head. “I do not pretend to know.” He sighed. “I think more than anything, he’s bent on undermining the empire at its core.”

  Jin forced her face into an expression of empathy and hoped he wouldn’t see the falseness of it. “I concur.”

  Their eyes met again, and the regent’s tone was sober. “Between him and that damnable Marsh girl’s dream, it’s working. Word is spreading both at home and to our forces abroad, with devastating results. I must bear these dark tidings to Lord Y’Zir.”

  The words struck her like a closed fist and Jin stared. “Lord Y’Zir?”

  The regent pursed his lips. “Yes. Lord Ahm Y’Zir.”

  Ahm Y’Zir. She’d known that Amara, the Crimson Empress, was a Y’Zir, but she had assumed some kind of blood magick had brought that about. She’d not considered the possibility that the seventh son of Xhum Y’Zir had somehow survived these last two millennia. The notion of it staggered her, and more wonder crept into her voice than she wanted. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “Our magisters have used what technical and magickal wonders they can to preserve his life. But…” He paused and looked away, to the window and the massive temple of the Daughters of Ahm beyond it. “He has not been well for over a thousand years now. The Daughters of Ahm take care of him as best they can, but it is most prudent to keep him safely out of sight, away from the public.” He sighed, and she could hear the resignation and reluctance in his tone. “Preparing him for travel will be … a challenge. But we will be leaving within the week. If you’ve finished by then you’re welcome to join us. Or I can arrange transport for you back to the Named Lands.”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer him and chose instead to change the subject. “I have some witnesses to interview tonight. And I think Father’s working with the Lunarists; I’ve recommended gathering as many of them up for questioning as possible.”

  Xhum nodded. “They’re a very small thorn in a very large paw, but they’ve stepped up their efforts of late.” He shuffled papers around on his desk until he found a pencil and bit of parchment. “I will order the Daughters to make an interrogator available to you.”

  Jin inclined her head. “Thank you, Regent Xhum.”

  “You’re welcome, Great Mother. I am as eager as you are to see an end to the man.”

  She stood. “It will be soon.”

  He stood as well and walked her to the door. “Good. We will parade his corpse through the streets.”

  The thought of it jarred her and she wasn’t sure why, but she kept the surprise from her face. It made sense that they would want to show their people justice drawn in stark and brutal lines. Still, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. The work he’d started had unraveled thousands of years of careful plotting and strategy, and without the children their faith relied upon, she didn’t see how the center of control could be restored. Especially when this new dream beckoned.

  As Jin Li Tam moved through the palace into the deeper levels where the interrogation cells were kept, she found herself smiling. She knew it must seem a cold smile to those who saw her, and she didn’t know which added most to it: the image of her father beneath her knives or the image of the blood cult of Y’Zir gasping its last in a fog of plague and blood and fire.

  Chapter

  6

  Neb

  Neb slowed his speed to pass through the Seaway, savoring the surreal transition between the moon’s tropical climate and the cooler clime of Lasthome’s deep Ghosting Crests. The name of that sea had always captured his imagination, and as a boy, he’d wondered if someday he might see the fabled d’jin who supposedly swam those waters.

  But now the Ghosting Crests were empty.

  By day, it was impossible to see it, but at night the oceans of Lasthome were dark now. And the lunar seas were alive with blue-green light. He’d noticed it earlier, and Rafe had encountered the same while sailing. When Neb mentioned it to Nadja Thrall, she’d nodded and her voice had been bright with enthusiasm.

  “Yes,” she said. “The temple summons them to the Time of Sowing. We are not certain of their role, but the light-bearers or d’jin are part of that process.”

  He’d asked more questions, and she’d furrowed her brow. “Frederico’s Bargain,” she said, “touches on the smallest point of a much larger tapestry, and we barely understand that smallest point.” She sighed. “As much as I detest it, there is a measure of faith to the work we do.”

  Maybe, Neb thought, all work required a measure of it.

  He built speed as he cleared the massive arches of the Moon Wizard’s Ladder and turned south. The water returned his shadow, and he lowered himself to fly close enough to taste the salty spray as it moistened his snout.

  The three ships on his horizon surprised him and he threw his wings forward, casting himself back and up to hover. They bore Y’Zirite markings and were bound for the Seaway, moving fast across the water under broad, dark sails.

  Neb twisted himself, climbing higher as he did, to gauge the distance between them and the Ladder. If that was their destination, he could only assume they were bound for the moon, and that was not a complication they needed right now.

  He turned back to the ships. They were small now beneath him, but he could see that they had altered their course, scattering now in three different directions.

  They have seen me.

  Certainly he’d been seen before since returning, despite doing most of his flights by night. But this was the first time the idea of it pleased him.

  A beast in the sky. Let them be terrified.

  But what came next didn’t please him. Still, he didn’t see another viable choice.

  Neb beat his wings against the sky, feeling the sun upon his silver back, and studied the scene below. He couldn’t let them pass. Petronus and the others did not have the military resources to deal with an Y’Zirite force. Not unless their new allies had some hidden armory Neb wa
s unaware of. During his day of talks with the New Espirans, he’d not seen a single weapon. But it was more than them not having the resources.

  I do not want them there. And I have the power to stop them.

  He remembered Grymlis, the old Gray Guard captain who had asked him as a boy if he could kill for the light. Dying for the light was easy, he’d said.

  Neb took in a deep breath. Then he pitched himself forward into a dive. He stretched himself out as he dropped, aiming for the nearest ship and watching as it grew larger.

  Even this far above, his eyes could make out the figures scrambling on its deck. A roar built up in his ears as he fell faster and faster, and at the last minute, Neb closed his eyes and tucked his head into his wings, pulled in his legs, and crashed through the wooden deck of the vessel.

  Then, he felt the cold water engulf him as he tore through the hull and plummeted into the deeps. He unfurled his wings to slow him, and he worked them against the water to guide his trajectory upward. When he broke the surface, he threw back the wings to catch the wind and climbed back into the air.

  Beneath him, the vessel was broken apart at the middle and sinking fast. Its crew was scattered in the water or scrambling over the wreckage.

  Neb drew in another breath and gained altitude. The remaining ships were changing direction yet again, having seen what he’d done to their companion, but here on the wide-open sea, there was nothing they could do to escape him.

  He hit the second ship off center, rolling it as he ripped through it, and felt a brief moment of panic when found himself scrambling and tearing to open the hull for his escape. But ultimately, he saw the same results.

  The third ship was sinking behind him when he finally turned south again. Early in his talks with the New Espiran ambassador, he’d learned that Vlad Li Tam had the staff in the Y’Zirite empire’s capital, Ahm’s Glory. What little she’d shared of Lord Tam’s exploits there had Neb uncertain if the kin-dragon would be enough. But after seeing what it had done to the ships, he felt more confident.

  The wastelands she had shown him on her maps broke the horizon ahead of him now, and as the sun set behind him and to his right, he crossed over that dark continent, charred still from the Wizard Wars that had destroyed the world of Frederico and his empire and brought about the Age of the Wizard Kings.

  Neb inhaled the ancient smell of scorched stone and ozone mingled into something like—but far worse—the air above the Churning Wastes. Nothing grew here. Nothing survived here, not this far out.

  Flying low, he moved past the darkening mounds that had once been cities and across mountains that wept for snow, black and cold. When he reached the canal, he turned west to follow it. Here and there, he now saw scattered villages dug into the more forgiving soil near the water. By the time it was fully dark, he had passed over the locks and into the crèche that sheltered Y’Zir.

  The air here smelled of citrus orchards and smoke.

  And something else.

  It was a powerful smell, warm and musky, and the impact it had upon him was instant. His heart began to race, and a dull euphoria mixed with longing tingled through his snout and into the rest of his body.

  Neb twisted and turned in the air, trying to ascertain the direction of the smell. He turned northwest and deviated from his course, a wave of desire washing over him as he tracked the scent.

  The force of the blow was sudden enough that his wings stopped beating, and when he tried to make them work, he found they were pinned to his body by the massive form that clung to him.

  He felt teeth at the nape of his neck.

  Nebios.

  He knew the voice, though it caught him off guard to hear it tickling the inside of his skull. The sound of it, and the pressure of the teeth on his skin, sent another aching wave over him. Amylé.

  They were falling now, slowly, her wings bearing his weight as he struggled against her. Fly the skies with me like we swam the light.

  This was the calling. He remembered it well, though the scent of her—and her dragon—was greatly enhanced by his dragon’s acute sense of smell. No. Return with me to the temple.

  The claws raked his hip and reached under to his stomach as the teeth moved along his neck. I will not.

  Now he struggled harder, and instinctively he used his own claws and momentum to twist around. As he did, his own teeth moved along her throat, and something like ecstasy made the world around them suddenly silent and far away. We might be able to help you.

  Ending this, she said, will help me.

  Then he felt a claw poking at something near the base of his neck and in between his first set of wings. There was a jarring, snapping sound and a moment of intense vertigo as he was expelled from the dragon and cast into the night air. The power of being severed physically from the beast before whatever joined their minds was completely withdrawn sent a sharp, pounding pain through his temples, and he cried out.

  He was dimly aware of his dragon being shaken and tossed aside as he plummeted toward the dark lands below.

  Do not pursue me, Nebios Whym.

  But Neb no longer listened to her. Instead, he bent his voice into a call even as his thumb and forefinger worked the hem of his billowing robes, pulling them into a sheath of light that enwrapped him.

  He braced himself for impact, holding his breath against it as he watched the kin-dragon dive for him. Neb felt the branches of the lemon trees catch at his back as the dragon caught him and took him in.

  He floundered into the trees, rolling and kicking as he went, his wings tearing up limbs and foliage as he found his feet. Then Neb launched himself back into the air, sniffing for her scent on the wind.

  Once he’d regained his altitude, he caught the scent, but he also now saw the lights of a vast city stretching out before him.

  Ahm’s Glory.

  From that direction, he smelled death and smoke. And something else, he realized, but this was not her scent. Fear. Widespread fear.

  Now what he’d done at sea caught up to him. How many Y’Zirites had he killed? He felt the knot in his stomach and chose a different path for his memory to follow. The memory of those knives upon him, the sight of the scars upon Winters, and every other cut upon them all—going back to that razing blade of blood magicks, the Seven Cacophonic Deaths, that felled Windwir—massaged any guilt out of his soul.

  They earned their ending, he thought. And he realized as he thought it that it applied not just to those he’d killed at sea earlier but to all of them. Even those now under Vlad Li Tam’s knife.

  For the first time, he wondered if taking the staff now wasn’t premature.

  Then Neb took in a great lungful of the air above Ahm’s Glory and shuddered at the taste of death and smoke and lemons upon the wind.

  Winters

  They waited, huddled in the cottage with their belongings packed and ready to flee once the night deepened. Winters sat in the corner and listened to the pounding rain outside. She’d said very little since returning, sharing the information with Hebda and Tertius along with her decision to join the New Espirans.

  They were more suspicious, and their questions had reflected their lack of trust. It hadn’t helped that she really couldn’t answer their questions. But in the end, they agreed that waiting here was as untenable as fleeing.

  And it is time for trust. She felt the weight of a burden growing within her, and she recognized that it slowly alchemized into a calling that she must respond to. When she’d first left the Beneath Places, what came next had seemed so clear there in the face of Enoch’s words. Maybe my people are only those within my reach, not those beyond it. She’d had clearer vision in that moment, so fresh from the Final Dream. But that had faded, grown foggy since arriving at Caldus Bay.

  So she would go with the New Espiran captain and meet his ambassador. But the sense of calling that grew within her told her that their offer of safety and asylum might indeed be the opposite of what she actually needed. Still, they knew more about
her than she’d known about herself until recently. And they were also aware of Y’Zirite military movements. Getting answers from them couldn’t hurt. And if these new allies could provide transportation as well, discreetly, that could be useful.

  A sharp knock at the door startled her, and Winters’s breath caught in her throat. She looked to Hebda and Tertius. Hebda stood, drawing a knife from his belt, and she did the same, slowly. Tertius watched the door with wide eyes. They said nothing.

  There was another knock. “Winteria bat Mardic, we know that you and your companions are within,” a woman’s voice said.

  Winters glanced furtively around the room, taking in the small windows. But there wouldn’t be time for anyone to get through them and to safety. Sheathing her knife, she walked to the door and unbolted it.

  It swung open slowly, and the Y’Zirite Blood Guard stepped inside, dripping from the rain. Her black uniform was soaked, her boots caked in mud, and she pushed back the hood of her rain cloak to reveal a hawk-like face beneath short-cropped black hair. The officer had dark circles beneath her eyes, and her demeanor was more resigned than threatening. Three other Blood Guard stood behind her, and Winters suspected that the remainder of the half-squad watched the cottage from various points of cover.

  The woman looked at them and their packs. “Gather up your things,” she said, “and follow me.” She raised her hood and turned back into the rain.

  Something is amiss. She had faced the Y’Zirite Blood Guard before; they were ruthless hunters. But these women looked lost, sleepless and nothing at all like the others she’d encountered. She took up her pack, not bothering to wait for Hebda or Tertius. As she slipped out of the cottage, she felt hands drawing the knives from her belt and she let them do so, her mind spinning to grasp this new development.

  The other Blood Guard fell in around and behind them as they set out through the town. It was already dark, the rain turning the streets to mud where it wasn’t rushing toward the waterfront in ditches. The streets were empty, but people watched, faces blurred behind curtained windows.