by Ken Scholes
And Winteria bat Mardic smiled when Captain Endrys Thrall stepped out, splendid in his New Espiran Council Expeditionary Force uniform, accompanied by two of his other officers, each holding slender wooden tubes, as their ship began its descent on the other side of camp.
Petronus
Voices at the door brought Petronus slowly awake, and he instantly blushed at the location of Ambassador Thrall’s hand. “We have company,” he whispered into her ginger hair and then summoned his robe silently.
Clothe me.
He felt the light moving over his bare feet as he put them upon the floor. It wove its way over his skin as he stood. His ears were hot. Everyone knew; he was certain of it. Rafe Merrique harangued him about it when it was appropriate to do so, but the old pirate seemed genuinely happy and had invented an entire new line of papal limericks. Nadja’s people paid it no mind whatsoever, but he found their culture’s sexual values foreign, lacking not just in shame but what he considered a certain propriety.
For the pleasures and privations of the body are a distraction from the light, he thought, quoting the Fourth Precept of P’Andro Whym. Be ye therefore husbands and fathers to the light and let others bear the baser burdens of our animal instincts.
He blushed again and opened the door. It was Captain Mikayl, Nadja’s aide. Like the ambassador she served, she was young and climbing the Expeditionary Force’s ladder quickly.
“Good morning, Father Petronus.” She inclined her head. He felt even less comfortable with the title now but had nothing better to offer.
“Good morning, Captain.”
“I’m sorry to come early, but there is a development that you and the ambassador should be aware of.”
There was a small group behind her. He glanced over his shoulder. Nadja had already put her own robe on and was slipping into the bathing chamber that adjoined their rooms. “We’ll be right with you,” he said.
Five minutes later, they met the others in the large, brightly lit room that served as the command center. Here, he and Nadja both had tables and aides hard at work. As more and more people showed up to claim their new home, the work had grown too. Hunting parties, mapping parties—though that had become moot once Petronus accessed the library. But rooms were being assigned within the tower, and timber was being logged from the jungle as those who didn’t wish to live within that massive structure built homes around it.
He took the mug of chai his aide pushed into his hand. “Thank you. What is this development?”
One of the library tenders stepped forward. His face was flushed with excitement. “I have no idea how it happened. I’ve checked our initial maps of the tower over and over again.”
Petronus sipped the chai and glanced at Nadja. She raised her eyebrows over her own mug. “How what happened?”
“A door,” he said. “But it wasn’t there before. It’s not on any of the maps.” He moved to the door. “I’ll show you.”
Petronus pressed his thumb against the ring on his finger and accessed the library. There, he found the temple schematics and saw the red flashing light. “I think I see it,” he said. He squinted into the aether, but it was a section of the library that had been burned out.
“Let’s go see it,” Nadja said as she placed her mug on the table.
Petronus worked to keep up with her as she set out for the floor that the library took up so much of. When they reached that floor, the librarian took the lead, and Petronus confirmed his suspicions when the door they reached matched the flashing area on the library’s schematic.
Nadja touched it. Most doors required the slightest touch to open, and some even anticipated the approach and opened automatically. But this door didn’t move. Petronus put his hand next to hers and pulled it back at what he felt. “It’s … pulsing.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t feel anything.”
He put his hand down again and felt the undulating skin beneath it. The door was warm and had a pulse. Of course the entire tower did, but it wasn’t as pronounced as here. And he agreed with the librarian: It may be on the schematic, but he and Neb and Rafe had started maps and they’d been validated by the New Espirans. And even on the library’s map of the temple, it showed up red and flashing and without any kind of description. He moved his hand over it. Open.
Nothing. Petronus put an ear to it and could hear the distant, slow movement. “I think we should post a watch on it,” he said.
“I concur,” Nadja said. “Do we have any idea when it appeared?”
Petronus slipped back into the library and studied the schematic closely. There was a notation upon it that he suspected was a date, and when he drew that batch of characters to himself, it expanded to show another number—one that appeared to be reducing itself.
Captain Mikayl spoke up. “It was brought to my attention shortly before I woke you.”
“I reported it at the end of my shift,” the librarian said. “I don’t know how many times I passed it before I realized it hadn’t been there before.”
Petronus straightened. “Well, keep us posted on anything that happens with it.” Then he glanced to Mikayl. “I imagine there’s more information on Y’Zir?”
The captain nodded, and her face was grim. “There is, Father.”
Petronus blushed again at the title. He felt a stab of shame. Vlad Li Tam had burned down most of the Empire of Y’Zir, and Petronus had been rutting like a first-year acolyte the night before his vows. Of course it hadn’t started that way. They’d been talking about what was happening, and it had brought back such stark memories of that day he’d seen Windwir’s pyre—and seeing Vlad had brought back such stark memories of the clever, redheaded boy he’d been. And Petronus had found himself suddenly tearing up.
Nadja had reached out to hold him. And then …
He’d been embarrassed later. She’d called it a sixth turn on the Fivefold Path of Grief.
But now, as they returned to their shared office and returned to work, the news settled as Captain Mikayl took them through the day’s briefing.
Forty-one cities across two crèches. And they’d had people near several of them who had been able to send information back. Not all had made it out. But the devastation was not as widespread as it could have been. It was a limited release—the bearers of the spell had not lived long enough to bring the same level of desolation that Isaak or Xhum Y’Zir’s Death Choir had managed. But they had cut forty-one cities out of Y’Zir—and at least half had been unaffected by Vlad’s plague when the New Espirans had withdrawn their assets, which meant much higher casualties. It made Windwir look small. But there was more that he wasn’t hearing. Knowing glances between Nadja and her aide told him he would need to ask later.
“And Captain Merrique reports Y’Zirite ships in the lunar sea. They appear to be scouting.”
Merrique had compelled some of the captains arriving with their pilgrims to help him form a small fleet with which to patrol. Now that Petronus had access to charts and maps, that was making the old pirate’s job far easier. “Do we have any idea how many?”
The captain shook her head. “No. And they are not approaching. They flee once sighted.”
“And there’s been no word from Neb?” He’d tried the crescent shortly after Ahm’s Glory fell but had not been able to reach him. He’d also not responded to the stone he now supposedly carried thanks to the New Espiran he was working with.
“We’ve had little communication with anyone. Our devices utilize the aether and subaether for communication—both of which are less reliable now in those regions.” The young captain paused, glancing to Nadja before continuing. “These kinds of catastrophic events place a great deal of strain on the blood of the earth.”
Petronus nodded, though he barely understood. Vlad had obviously used the subaether to speak to him in the library, though he’d had the staff to aid him. Still, the gap between the Androfrancines’ best technology (still often believed to be magick) and the New Espirans’
was vast. And the gap between theirs and the Younger Gods’—the People’s—was even larger.
He hoped once the dust settled more that he’d be able to spend some time with the library. He’d scratched the surface of the People—his people—and their capacity but knew there was so much more.
He looked at the day ahead of him. There were a few Androfrancines who had heeded Winters’s dream and had requested time. He also had lunch with Rafe to discuss his plans for the small navy he grew. Petronus had thought the old pirate would head back to Lasthome to try once more to find his lost ship. But so far the smuggler had been content to sail new waters in the sleek crystalline vessel they’d found upon their arrival on the moon.
And we have to find Neb.
Mikayl had finished and stepped out, leaving Petronus alone with Nadja. She looked to him, and her brow furrowed. “Petronus?”
“Yes?”
She stood and slipped a kerchief from her pocket. “Your nose is bleeding.”
He sniffed, smelled iron and touched a finger to it. It came away red, and he tried to remember the last time he’d had a nosebleed. It was when Hebda had been speaking to him through the dreamstone, he thought. He’d certainly not had one since.
She touched the cloth to his nose and dabbed the blood away. Her blue eyes narrowed. “Do you feel okay? Maybe you are overdoing it?”
But he felt fine. In fact, Petronus felt better than he’d felt in years. The only shadows were what happened now on Lasthome, and if he thought about it too much, the end he knew was coming.
And this could be the beginning of that end.
Petronus felt fear rise like a lump in his throat, and he looked to the girl who had suddenly become such a different anchor for his tired old heart than the backward dream he’d served for much of his life. She helps me dream forward, he realized. And in that moment, he wanted to reach out and hold her again.
But instead, Petronus kissed her forehead and excused himself quickly. Then he went to the roof of the temple with the crescent and sat alone with his thoughts.
Neb
Light erupted between Neb’s ears as another fist landed upon his jaw, sending him spinning into a pile of ash and bones. As he fell, he could feel the silver suit straining to protect him.
Amylé’s foot lashed out to catch his shoulder, but this time he swung up and caught her behind the knee, sending her sprawling onto him. She twisted and writhed as he worked to get his arm around her throat, and just as he did, he felt the wind go out of him as her knee found his groin.
“Stay down, Nebios,” she said. “I’ve no wish to kill you.”
And she could. She wore the suit far better than he did, just as she wore the kin-dragon, understanding how both operated and knowing how to push their limits in ways he couldn’t fathom. But as the daughter of an officer during the Downunder War, she’d likely received training on how to use these tools. Neb had fallen into it with the briefest of coaching from the ghost of his long-dead father, and his baptism had been the fight with the Watcher.
Which went about as well as this one. But he doubted Isaak would come back this time and save him. He twisted his head to check on Vlad Li Tam and the staff again but saw nothing but the gray haze of ash they’d kicked up. The nauseating pain was a dull ache, and it joined the thousand other aches in his body. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself up and pulled the suit tighter around him.
I can’t beat her. Neb swallowed. “Amylé, we don’t need to fight.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to help me?”
He nodded slowly. “I want to. You’re ill. And I think Tam took advantage of that illness.” He raised his hands and took a tentative step toward her. “Come back to the Firsthome Temple with me. We have the staff and ring. The library will help us.”
She laughed. “What you are offering is not the help I require, Nebios. But I know where to find that help.”
Amylé took another step closer, and the smell of her, now that he could afford to notice it, intoxicated him.
But he had no time for it. There was a blackened skull in her hand when it came up suddenly against the side of his head, and Neb felt his knees go under him as the light and heat around him spun away into night.
* * *
It was dark when he came to and climbed to his feet. He reached for the crescent in his pouch by instinct. “Petronus?”
Neb tried to orient himself by the glow of distant embers and found where Vlad had been. But the old man was missing, along with the staff and the severed arm. “I’m here, Neb,” he heard the tinny voice whisper from far away. “Are you okay? Do you have the staff and ring?”
“I think Amylé has them,” he said. He felt the weight in his chest. “I think she took Tam as well.” He suddenly remembered the stone Captain Vanya had given him and reached for it. It was gone as well. “She also has my talking stone.”
“Do you have any idea where she is going?”
The light of the moon was hazy through the ash that clung to the air around him. He scanned the scattered pockets of Ahm’s Glory that still glowed and summoned the blood of the earth. “I don’t know, but I would keep an eye out,” Neb said. “I’m going to try to find her.”
“Be safe, Neb.”
“Yes,” he said. He stubbed his toe against something and uncovered the hand cannon. He scooped it up and tucked it back into his pouch. Then he called his kin-dragon.
There was no answer, and he felt a panic rise. The beast had never failed to answer his call. He shrieked again, this time pouring himself into the cry.
In the distance, Neb heard a whimper. Clothe me.
He pulled the fresh sheath of silver close to his skin and ran in the direction of the whimper. The noise grew as his feet flew over the uneven ground. He crested a crater and spotted the kin-dragon.
It lay in a twisted heap in a pool of silver fluid, twitching and kicking the one leg that worked. Two of its four wings had been torn loose, and one of its eyes had been gouged away and dangled from a wire that dripped fluid.
Neb approached and it whimpered again, and when he touched its massive snout, he felt the connection between them. The pain was intense, and he lifted his hand as if touching a hot stove.
“I’m sorry,” he told the fallen beast. He stared at his hand and then at the large unblinking eye. Then he braced himself and put his hand back where it had been, taking the pain onto himself and letting it burn away the fog from his mind.
It’s dying. He didn’t know why he’d lent the kin-dragon immortality in his mind. He’d flown the beast as high in the air as it could go and down into the depths of the sea. Neb had never even considered that it could it be harmed, much less killed.
He closed his eyes and breathed with the beast, ignoring the tinny voice that called for him. When it was finally dead, he opened his eyes.
It gave its life to save me, and I’ve never given it a name. He’d seen it as a machine—more so than Isaak, who’d proven himself more in so many ways.
Finally, he answered Petronus. “I have another problem,” he said. “My kin-dragon is dead. I’m going to try to find Captain Vanya. Please pass word to her if you can through Ambassador Thrall.”
The expletives from the crescent were worthy of a fisherman. “I will tell her.”
Neb tucked the crescent away and set out for a run back in the direction of the high ground where he had set the New Espirans down. He gave himself to an easy pace until Petronus’s voice drifted up to him from the pouch.
“She’s lit a fire in the east,” Petronus said. “The council has decided to put its fleet back in the air and is sending a ship for you. They’ve also sent one for Winters.”
It won’t be fast enough to catch up to Amylé. And he had no idea where she might go. But he was certain that her plans for the staff couldn’t be any better than Vlad Li Tam’s. “And there have been no sightings of Amylé?”
“No, but we are preparing for her here.” The old Pope paused a m
oment. “And I don’t want to worry you, but there are Y’Zirites sneaking about the lunar sea. Merrique is organizing a hunting party.”
Neb felt a darkness wash over him. He’d lost the dragon and the staff and ring. The dragon had proven to be their best defense against the Y’Zirites and the staff—in Tam’s hands, he’d destroyed a city and somehow reached even beyond it. Petronus had continued speaking, and Neb had missed some of the words. He pushed down the rising despair and tried to listen.
“And remember, Nebios, how far we’ve come on this dream.” Petronus chuckled. “What kind of prophecy thousands of years in the making has any chance of being enacted without error or misstep? We have enough to work with.” He also heard something else in the voice besides the exhaustion that rode them all. “And Vlad did something—authorized me somehow—so we have access to the library and the other rings. I’ve assigned several of the New Espiran librarians. We may not have that particular ring and we may not have the staff, but we have a home. Don’t lose sight of that, Son.”
He was right, and Neb found himself wondering when it was that he’d gone from a child of P’Andro Whym—an irony that awed him now that he knew his true parentage—to someone who believed in the infallibility of dreams and visions. All along the way, it had been proven again and again that what seemed supernatural or magical was rooted in the advanced sciences of the People. Winters and the Dreaming Kings were experiencing something called the Dream Shadrus Drank—ingested thousands of years ago and activated once they settled into the Lands Beyond the Keeper’s Wall. And the other dream—the Canticle for the Fallen Moon that the mechoservitors of Sanctorum Lux had discovered buried deep in the Churning Wastes, whispering harp strings that played the song over and over again. There had been no magick in it—it was a code that only a mechoservitor could break, tucked away to set this so-called Time of Sowing in place after the New Espirans’ Time of Tending and Gathering, all part of Frederico’s Last Bargain.
And all along this path, I’ve failed again and again. But had he? The things that had gone wrong were beyond his control. He had no way of knowing about Amylé—she’d lured him into the temple in an attempt to stop whatever it was he’d been sent to do. The mechoservitors had tried to recover the staff, and they had learned ultimately that only Tam could—that hadn’t been coded into their dream. Still, Tam found the staff and Petronus unsealed the temple. And the Y’Zirites were no longer much of a threat once the dregs of the empire were dealt with on the moon and elsewhere.
