The Rot's War (Ignifer Cycle Book 2)

by Michael John Grist

  The woman nodded. "Yes, you did. And very likely you've turned around the lives of the two others. Even as we speak, the Oyster-eyes is home facing up to his drunkard father. The father wanted to join the revelers in Sharfield Park, but the boy is insisting he stay. I imagine things will come to blows soon, and since the father is a drunkard weak with the brew, the boy will beat him and cast him out. At the park he will likely spend the last of his dime on a buxom damask with barely a shred of paint. In all likelihood he'll be high on Scarab-smoke within the night, and within a week he'll be out of money and ready to die. Shortly after that, I expect, he will die."

  Freemantle only stared. "You know this? You've seen the future?"

  The old Sectile smiled with surprising warmth. "I don't know it. It didn't happen yet. But I expect as much."

  Freemantle's head spun with legends; of the darkness and the light, of the promise his world lived upon, of Kelly and his boys and the boy dying in the park. "Are you never surprised?"

  The old woman laughed. "Oh, Freemantle, I'm surprised every day."

  "You seem happy. Aren't about to die?"

  "I am," said the old woman, "but I'm old and my time has come, brought about by events in the world. This is not my choice. You are familiar with the Bunnymen?"

  Freemantle frowned. Already his concern for the fires below was dimming away. "Of course. They overpopulated the city. The famines hit us all, but the genocide ended five years earlier. There have been none in all that time."

  "No," she said, "the genocide finished tonight. The Malakite called Killin Jack has been hunting the last few holdouts; Bunnymen who went to ground. I've watched his long slaughter for years. Tonight Jack found the last Bunny. He murdered him and took his infant child. I thought Jack might relent at the last, but he did not. With the baby in his arms, he jumped into the Levi River and drowned."

  Freemantle leaned forward in his chair. "And that caused the clock to stop? How?"

  The old Sectile smiled, and pointed to the spar in her heart. "It broke my heart. I can't watch anymore, Freemantle. I've seen more sorrow than any caste alive. I've lived more lives than you can imagine, and I can't live any more."

  "Can't live?" Freemantle asked, and shook his head, trying to clear away the fog of legends. "From what I've heard, you only watch. None of it is real for you. But I have a wife and two boys. Do you understand? They are real to me. My debt is to them. When I hold my wife in my arms, I know what I must do."

  The old woman chuckled. "Perhaps. Perhaps you're right. But I've known love, Freemantle, of a sort you can not yet imagine."

  "Not real love. You can't love from a tower. You can't love with a spar through your heart."

  "I remember it, from the days before Lord Quill swept away the Drazi plague. Such fierce joys. I know you would die for your Kelly, even kill for her. Already you have accepted the death of the boy in the park, because what if their victim had been your son? What if the attackers had been your own?"

  "My boys will never be like that."

  "I think you're right," said the old woman. "I believe you."

  Freemantle looked at his hands in his lap. They were trembling.

  "I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way."

  Freemantle looked up. "You said you were married. Did you have children?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh sweet Heart," said Freemantle, resting his heavy head in his hands.

  "I was married and I had children. Do you know what became of them? My husband re-married after two years. For two years he wore black, thinking me dead, and then he met a new woman. She was a seamstress for the Heart, she sewed millenicruxes all day, and she loved him as much as I ever did. She worked hard and she raised my girls well. Of course they all died long ago, but I have great-great-grandchildren now, and I love them all."

  Freemantle's head drooped into his hands. "It isn't fair. You can't ask this."

  "It's more than fair. The Heart knows, Freemantle. You will be part of its plan for us all. It asks an enormous sacrifice, but it will repay you ten times over."

  "But what's it for?" he demanded, raising his voice. "This dwindling, the stopped clock, the dark sky, what is it?"

  The old woman smiled. "Everything dies. You've heard the same tales I did as a child; that our world has been dead since before it was born. We call it the Corpse World for a reason, because the Darkness that came before is always gnawing at it. What right does a corpse have to life? Only that which we give it with our own hands. We must breathe life into it with every dawn, and now that duty falls to you. Think of yourself as the wick for the world's candle. When the flame burns you may not see the wick, but it is always there. Without it, what happens to the flame?"

  Freemantle stared. "It's just cold wax."

  "Just wax," she said. "Not alive. It dwindles out. You know what I'm asking, and you know there's no choice."

  Freemantle shook his head. "I can't do it."

  "You'll be more alone than ever," said the old woman, "but you'll never be alone again."

  "I said I can't!"

  "You'll know more than you've ever known," she went on. "You'll see more than you've ever seen. And there will be love, Freemantle. The Heart has chosen you. Before you were even born, you were chosen. You will be closer to the Heart than any other person alive. In return it will let you guide those you leave behind."

  "No." Freemantle turned away, then back again. What good was it returning to Kelly just to watch the world thin out together? Tears sprang to his eyes. What good would it do his boys?

  "I have over two hundred descendants across the Corpse," she said. "The Heart wants that for us. You were chosen precisely because it's hard for you to leave. You are solid to the core, Freemantle, more solid than the steel in that pendulum, and that is why it must be you."

  "You said you can't bear it; the weight of so much death. What if I can't either?"

  "Then the city will die, while you watch. The Darkness will thicken and consume everything, and that will be an end."

  A tear rolled down Freemantle's cheek. "Don't ask me to leave Kelly."

  "It's not me asking. It's the Heart. And now my time is up. Good-bye, Freemantle, and good luck."

  The old woman reached to the silver spar in her chest, and pulled it out. An instant later there was only the length of silver metal clattering on the floor. The old Sectile was gone.

  Freemantle walked over. He picked up the spar and held it to the light.

  "Please," he said, and thought of his wife and his boys, and of the Darkness creeping up over them all. It would not get better. It would get worse. He saw his reflection in the spar's polished silver surface. What kind of man was he, and what kind of man would he become? There wasn't any choice. He had to leave them behind.

  He lifted the spar high, then drove it into his heart.

  For a moment there was darkness.

  Then an explosion came, as the sun flung itself up over the eastern wall and cheers burst across the city. The Sunsmelters flamed to life as the first rivers of morning light raced into the channels of the city, banishing the darkness, until all the shadows were gone and the people below cheered as the Grammaton dawn chimes rang out.

  In the apartment above the clock shop, Kelly Montagne stood at her window with the boys in her arms, and rejoiced as the sunlight crept down the street.

  And for Freemantle, there was everything. He saw the sun kiss his wife and his boys. He watched the light wash over the dead boy in the park, and he saw the Oyster-eyes' drunk father creeping back to the lair of a damask. He saw the boy that blew up the plaster factory, white in his hair, crying by the wreckage. He saw the blazing Sunsmelters pits on the wall, and Skinny Rich dithering, and Flalangers yelling at the men to get it smelted, get it cooked. He saw the King in his Aigle palace, and he saw all the people leave Grammaton Square and return to their lives as the new day began.

  Somewhere far off the next child was born, and somewhere far off
an old man passed on, and Freemantle saw, and watched over them all.

  CELL III

  Sen sagged back against the head of the bed.

  Freemantle's tale was revelatory. It didn't fit with anything he knew; not about the Rot, about the Saint, about their war. Rather it hinted at a world where nothing was as he'd thought it was, where all-knowing clocksmen flitted through the air watching over their lives, but to what end? It didn't make any sense. How could that fend off the end of the world?

  He opened his mouth, closed it, thought again, then finally spoke.

  "You're sure it wasn't the Rot?"

  Freemantle shook his head. "It wasn't the same. I saw the Rot, remember? I saw you fight it. This was different."

  "Different how?"

  Freemantle thought for a moment. "The Rot is a thing. It may not be alive, but it certainly exists within the Worlds. It may not 'want' anything in a conscious sense, but still it acts to take what it 'wants'. It's hungry all the time. But this darkness that enveloped our world wasn't even a thing. It didn't exist, it didn't 'want' anything, it was an absence only. As it spread closer it wasn't like the world was being consumed; it was like the world was growing smaller. There were just fewer places I could look at." He thought a moment more. "The old Sectile told me it was the Darkness from legend; the unending Dark atop which the Heart built the Corpse Worlds, that existed long before the Rot. The Rot is a creation of the Heart, after all."

  Sen breathed out a long, slow breath. "And you were chosen by the Heart."

  Freemantle nodded. "So my predecessor said."

  Sen rubbed his eyes. The sense of his fingers on his eyelids was something real, helping to ground him. "So you were chosen by the Heart," he said, trying to pick a path forward, "but have you ever seen the Heart? Did it ever tell you what it wanted from you?"

  Freemantle shook his head. "Not in words."

  Sen felt queasy. "But still you watched for three hundred years. You gave up your family."

  "I did. I have watched over my descendants to this day. Somehow I have kept them safe."

  "But how?" Sen pressed. "How could you stop the Darkness by watching? How did you keep them safe, if you couldn't effect anything at all?"

  "I don't understand it myself," Freemantle said. "I just know that at times when my family were in danger, that danger soon passed. Not completely and not always, but mostly. Is it because I saw them, and wished for relief? I can't say. Other times I saw my influence directly; through witnessing some atrocity or other, I sensed the course of events shifting, as if impacted by my presence. Wars ended faster when I focused on them. Violence and cruelty were reduced. People still died, there was still suffering, but it seemed to be lessened by the weight of my attention."

  "Until now," said Sen.

  Freemantle sighed. "Until now."

  Sen looked at the plate on the bed beside him. It was good to focus on something real. The white blocks looked as unappetizing as anything he could imagine. He scooped another spoonful of the tasteless white stuff into his mouth and chewed it slowly, though it barely needed chewing.

  "The Darkness came for your world, and by coming here you staved it off," he summarized. "Then the Rot came for my world, and I staved it off with the Saint. I even came here, but still the Darkness finished the job. The two must be related."

  "I am certain of it," Freemantle answered confidently. "Although I don't know how. When the Rot consumes a thing, where does it go? Legend says it returns to the Darkness."

  Sen chewed more, contemplating.

  "I'll tell you this about the Rot," Freemantle went on. "By trade I was a clocksman; it was my business to understand the underlying mechanisms of a thing, how it worked, then model it. Now I've studied the workings of our world for hundreds of years, the underlying organization, and I found no sign of a need for something like the Rot, unless there was also the Darkness."

  Sen lifted one eyebrow. "What do you mean, no need?"

  Freemantle held his hands in the air before him, shoulders-width apart, warming to his subject. "Imagine these are the two polarities of all life on the Corpse, and therefore of morality. On the one hand there are all the good intentions, all the desires to grow, propagate within reason and within means. On the other are the disproportional desires, the will to power over others, the drive to enslave and control. You see, they stand in opposition. Within us, as with all castes, like Indurans, Gawks, Sectiles, whichever, they are not so opposing. They intertwine. One man may have grand wishes but be in the thrall of a certain morality. Another man may have no such morality, but no strong desire to grow, no ambition to rule. You see? This creates a spectrum across which all manners of good and evil can lie."

  "I see that."

  "And where is the Rot in this system? What function does it serve? It comes in and simply destroys the system. It is an unbalance within that scale; but therein lies the confusion, because the Rot exists on a broader scale, not one of morality between living creatures. We often think of the Rot as evil, but it isn't evil. Instead it is a doorway between existence and the absence of any existence. That's the Darkness. So the Rot is a mechanism for rebalancing the Heart's creation. In that I believe my forbear was right, and all this is part of the Heart's plan. You must be part of that plan too. You came here, as I did. Perhaps you're here to bring up the sun on the world again, as I once did."

  Sen pondered that. "Then I need to banish the Darkness. But if I understand you correctly, I can't do that, because the Darkness doesn't exist; there's nothing to fight. I could fight the Rot, but this wasn't the Rot. So how do I fight it?"

  "Through the veil. It must be the only way."

  Sen sighed. "For which there are risks. But I'm ready to take risks."

  Freemantle nodded. The panic of earlier had faded, now, replaced with resolve. "Then it's simple, and I'll help you." He pointed to the low white chair that faced the wall. "The first time, I sat there and thought of my Kelly and the boys, and then she was there."

  "As simple as that?"

  Freemantle shrugged. "Perhaps. My first passage through is a long time ago now. What I do remember is that at first, I thought it was some magic of the chair itself. Soon I learnt otherwise. I had only to close my eyes at the desk, on the bed, wherever, and I was with them; watching them laugh, watching the boys grow up. It was like a dream, but real."

  "And after that you stopped trying to escape."

  "For a time."

  Sen peered at him. "What do you mean?"

  Freemantle withdrew slightly. "I don't mean anything. Just, it wasn't easy for me. After she died, after I'd been here for forty years, I didn't know what to do."

  Sen stood, and moved to the chair. Sitting down felt like a statement of defiance. "So what did you do then?"

  "Nothing. I kept on watching the world."

  Sen tried to imagine that sense of loss, for everyone you knew to be dead, then realized he was feeling it now. He loved Feyon, but she was gone. They hadn't shared a lifetime, but they'd been through so much together. He remembered her as a spoilt young girl asking to stroke his scars, and he remembered her as a young woman too, standing in the Carroway rabblehouses and leading men and women in recitations of stories from the Saint.

  "You thought of your wife?" he asked. Freemantle nodded. "I'm going to try."

  "Good luck. Be careful."

  Sen closed his eyes and pictured Feyon; her rich red hair, her beautiful, puddingy Blue cheeks, hoping it might bring them back together, that the veil would work its wonders, but nothing happened. He squeezed tighter and held his breath, turning over moments with her in the millinery; clinking glasses and kissing under the moonlight, laughing at something Gellick said, arguing for hours about the best lead article for The Saint, but still nothing came.

  When he opened his eyes, Freemantle was watching him still.

  "It didn't work," Sen said.

  "Try again," said Freemantle. "I must have thought of my Kelly many times before the veil f
irst opened to me. Perhaps it was tied to one specific memory; my sense of home. Think of home, Sen."

  Sen closed his eyes and tried to think of home, and again his first thought was of Feyon. He imagined her poised to smile, red hair cascading, teasing him about his serious expression. She was laughing. She was serious. Her face was afraid. She was outside the Aigle as the Darkness swamped down.

  Still nothing happened, and no veil opened up.

  He opened his eyes. "No."

  "What did you think of?" asked Freemantle.

  "Feyon," said Sen.

  Freemantle rubbed his large chin. "Your lady friend? Hmm. Then perhaps she is not your key memory. She is your future, I can see that, but is she your home?"

  "I suppose not," said Sen. "That would be the millinery. Or the Abbey? With the others."

  "Then think of that."

  Sen closed his eyes and thought of the Abbey. He imagined the others; Gellick walking round the rounds with Alam, talking about rocks; Mare laughing at them all as they tried to catch frogs down by the pond; Daveron telling stories of cruelty by revelatory light at night; Feyon standing outside the grounds, ordering the Adjunc in.

  Nothing came.

  He broadened the scope of the picture, including the Abbess and the Sisters. He pictured the Abbey grounds in summer with him and Sister Henderson running around in a joyful game of catch, falling over each other and laughing and starting up again so giddy they could barely breathe. He imagined Sharachus watching from the cathedral top, scuttling over friezes depicting Saint Ignifer. He thought of Sister Henderson beneath her white sheet, where her remains lay shredded and trampled by the Adjunc, but still nothing came. Last of all he thought of his mother, Avia. He pictured their final moments standing by the revenant, only seconds before she stepped through into the blue.

  Then something happened.

  He opened his eyes on white. For a moment he thought he was back in the room with Freemantle, but it wasn't the cell, and the lantern-jawed clocksman was nowhere to be seen.