On the first tier’s platform, he forced her to sit, calmed his breath, and focused. A trickle of emotion at a time he attempted to influence her, plied her with pleasure and joy, love and pricks of pain. None of it mattered, no smile or grimace curved her lips, no reaction at all.
Rubbing his eyes, he tamped down the tides of grief assaulting him and switched to his mercy skills. Perhaps the recoil of her power didn’t affect her as it did the others. Maybe her shield offered some protection. With a breath to calm his desperation, he probed her brain, worming between the outer layers that encased the essential core. In the deepest center were the kernels of human identity, the seeds of memory and emotion forming the core of life. He floundered, nothing to grasp, nothing to repair, nothing to tether. Nothing at all.
His hands raked through his hair, fingernails digging into his scalp as he struggled with his fury at her, at himself, at his dead guild, at the war, at Ellegeans and Cull Tarr. All wasted. Such a travesty of years and energy, talent and life itself. The insane pursuit of power and wealth and influence hadn’t mattered; none of it made any difference in the grand pattern of life.
“I need to learn what’s happening out there, and you have to stay here. Don’t move, just sit and wait for me.” He didn’t believe she’d stir, her impulses lacking any motivation. Grasping her limp hands, he squeezed. Her eyes remained unfocused, staring at the center of his chest. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He hoped so, or she’d sit there until she died.
He hung the cord with the key around his neck and let himself out into the alcove. The roar of rushing water filled his ears. He ran to the promenade and around the bend. The sea surged into the delta carrying The Sea God on a momentous wave. Cull Tarr ships listed or lifted, some spinning as the river clashed with the pouring sea. Only one conclusion made any sense. Guardian had lost the war, Ellegeance defeated, and whatever magic kept the Shiplord from claiming her victory had been vanquished.
Turning on his heel, he sprinted back to the pylon, jammed his key in the lock, and wrenched the door open. Catling sat where he’d left her. He gripped her arm and heaved her up. Holding her hand, he dragged her out and towed her to the promenade. Panicked Ellegeans materialized out of nowhere, running for the docks, juggling children and baggage, shoving and shouting orders.
He towed her down the ramp. Any vessels remaining more or less upright rose with the returning water. Captains wrestled for control of their crafts. Several boats remained wedged under the piers. Others caught on tangled lines or sunken wrecks or pieces of damaged planking. Those that the river had swept into overlapping piles threatened to swamp as they labored to right and jostled for space.
Catling’s lack of urgency irritated him, and he yanked on her hand, tempted to carry her. A woman fell and a man, desperate to avoid tumbling over her, plunged into the river. Kadan swept them all with tranquility and the frantic elbowing and bumping eased. He added a touch of fear to anyone who saw him coming, influence clearing his way.
A small ferry with its rails torn and flapping like hinged gates, popped from beneath a pier. The captain stood on deck, breathing hard and bellowing to his crew.
“Captain of the ferry!” Kadan threw his authority forward, and when the captain spotted him, Kadan filled him with a sense of fatherly affection.
“Hurry!” The captain beckoned with a frantic hand. Kadan strode down the pier, flashing a gold coin to hold his place and pulling Catling behind him.
He turned and stopped her, afraid she’d walk off the edge of the pier, all interest in self-preservation lost. “Wait, here.” He jumped to the deck and lifted her down. Other people piled in until the captain cursed a string of warnings. With a ripple of fear, Kadan challenged those trying to shove their way aboard. They backed up and ran for another departing boat.
The crew tossed off the lines and pushed on the pier. A rivermaster called to the waterdragons. The ferry surged south with the rising delta water, spinning among the other fleeing vessels. A single harnessed waterdragon dove, and the ferry straightened. Kadan let out a breath as they rode the reversed current beyond the last of the Cull Tarr ships.
The delta narrowed into a river, and night crept across the sky in slow steps. The Slipsilver once again flowed north, the ferry drawn by two waterdragons, a second harnessed with ease when the danger ebbed. Kadan sat on the deck, holding Catling’s hand as she stood beside him. She stared somewhere into the falling darkness, the fading sea-light, and the mournful haze around the moons. He pulled on her hand until she sank beside him. “I don’t know where Whitt is,” he said softly. “The guild is gone. I don’t know how many of us are left. But Whitt told me where Rose is.”
He said the child’s name as if love held some miraculous power to awaken the dead, to spark a heart, and heal a stolen soul. Catling gazed at the brilliant river, the passengers searching out places to sleep, the waterdragons following in the ferry’s wake, and she didn’t care at all.
***
When the invisible dam broke, a mountain of water collapsed in a massive torrent that swept over The Sea God’s stern, coursed across the deck, poured into the holds, and fountained through the freeing ports. Cull Tarr jacks shouted and held on, or the power of the sea swept them to the gunwales with the water.
The sea’s surge scooped up the giant ship without effort, ripped her anchors from the muck, and belched her from the fog into the delta. The Cull Sea crashed head on into the Slipsilver, luminous spray launching into the dusk. The river foamed and churned as the sea battled the current. Water raged into the delta’s emptied channels, filled holes, and replenished sloughs. March grass flattened, and the wet prairie sank below the streaming luminescence.
Whitt stood on the forecastle with Raker, clinging to the stays, a witness to the goddess’s power and demonstration of majesty. Her exhilaration brimmed beneath his skin.
The Sea God heaved and spun, listing from port to starboard and back again. Unsecured gear slid across the deck with the force of a tidal wave. Catapults snapped their tethers and pitched over the sides. The delta swept outward, forcing the river to run backward.
The ship’s pitch eased. Elan-Sia glimmered in one of the vermillion twilights that transforms the world. The fog retreated, a congregation of wraiths creeping across the sawgrass.
Whitt exhaled. A tender knot swelled on his skull where the jack had cracked him, and his lungs hurt if he breathed deeply, but he was grateful to be alive. That fact counted a miracle.
The terms of peace—Tilkon’s preference over surrender—underwent modest refinement as scribes inked copies in the Shiplord’s cabin. Gannon handled it, and Whitt approved, scrawling his name as witness, satisfied with anything that quelled a yearning for more war. He’d suffered enough of death’s cold wings, sufficient to last a lifetime.
Beside him, Raker leaned on the rail, gazing at the gossamer moons, muttering with the goddess and, possibly, convincing her that the outcome was acceptable, at least for the moment.
To the south, a flotilla of boats fled the city. Whitt had missed the conflict in the tiers, and it occurred to him that Gannon’s boasting of victory was a gambit. Gannon had come by sea from Nor-Bis. For all Whitt knew, Guardian might have lost. Ellegeans might interpret the delta’s return and the approach of The Sea God as defeat.
“We need to get to the tiers,” he said.
Raker grabbed his arm. The man’s black hair hung down his damaged face, the intensity of his emerald eye holding Whitt in place. “She says the abomination has been destroyed.”
Whitt’s shoulders tightened. “What abomination? The Cull Tarr?”
“The Influencers’ Guild.”
“What does she mean by destroyed? What about Catling… and Kadan?”
Raker scraped a hand through his hair and drew it back to reveal the glistening gap in his face. “The kari demanded a reckoning.”
“When did she tell you that? How long have you known? Since the start?”
Raker’s sil
ence spoke before his words, “Yes, since the start. But I never knew and still don’t know what that means.”
Disbelief stole Whitt’s voice. He shook loose, loped to the aftcastle’s ladder, and jumped to the deck when halfway down. He didn’t blame Raker, knew better than to pin the goddess’s game on a single man’s back, but that didn’t decrease his urgency to find Catling.
Raker joined him as the jacks assembled makeshift anchors. Tilkon’s flag produced an effect on the other Cull Tarr ships, and their crews swapped signals as word spread. The initial turmoil on the delta had destroyed The Sea God’s tenders, and Whitt paced, stranded until another boat glided alongside.
Gannon and Tiler exited Tilkon’s cabin, Gannon on the pale side of green. The Shiplord followed them out, shouting orders with a greedy glint in her eyes.
“I need to get to the city,” Whitt said, his gaze combing the tiers with his heart. A flag flapped from the second-tier rail, word spreading of the battle’s end. “Catling’s there.”
A hand on Whitt’s shoulder, Gannon called to Tilkon, “Emer, hail us a boat, and I’ll get your gold.”
“Shiplord, to you, Ellegean,” she barked, but they were on their way to the piers without asking twice.
Whitt sat at the carvir’s bow. Beside him, Raker whittle a new toy, its final shape yet unclear. Gannon flipped his dagger in the air, lost in thought.
“Where you getting four hundred whole golds?” Tiler asked.
The hilt thwacked into his palm. “Bankers.”
“What if the sodders don’t see it your way?”
The blade flipped up. “Then I’ll give her the bankers, and she can ransom them for whatever they're worth.”
“Foolproof, Gan.” Tiler sat on the rear thwart and stretched his legs.
The swift riverboat thunked into the pier. Whitt gripped forearms with the three men and leapt to the planking. He sprinted to the dock and up the ramp. On the first tier, he slowed to a hurried walk, his lungs laboring. She could be anywhere; he might search for a week and never find her. He stood in the midst of the ruined plaza, littered with rocks, and bellowed her name.
Cull Tarr jacks ignored him, heading for the docks, arms laden with loot. Guardians formed ten-man units to clear the tiers, shouting orders he failed to heed. “Catling!” he shouted and climbed the spiral stairs.
Voices yelled from the above tiers, guardians issuing commands and sharing information over the rails. Occasional cheers rang out and broken debris sprinkled down in a perverse rain. Shattered glass crunched beneath his boots like Far Wolds’ ice. The Cull Tarr had destroyed everything—windows and furniture, gardens and tapestries. They burned anything too heavy to lift.
Few city dwellers dared the lanes, still hidden behind locked doors. All around him, the structural elements of the tiers had reshaped themselves according to the Founders’ gray design. If only the human soul recovered with equal precision.
“Catling!” he called on the second tier promenade.
A group of guardians marched toward him, ushering sullen Cull Tarr jacks to the stairs. Whitt raised a hand, stopping them. “I’m searching for an influencer… influencers. Have you seen them?”
“Healers set up shop on the fifth tier,” a woman said, pointing up with her spear. “We didn’t go up there.”
He sprinted ahead of them and bounded up a flight, leaping two steps at a time. Winded, his lungs aching, he caught his breath and walked the rest of the way. “Catling,” he yelled. “It’s Whitt!”
No reply.
He loped the promenade, glancing through hollowed out windows. Two bodies lay in the promenade. An Ellegean family huddled together in a tight knot as they edged around the blood. They stopped when they saw Whitt, their eyes flickering across his scars. “It’s over, right?” the man asked. “We tried to leave, but there weren’t any ships. The guardians said the Cull Tarr lost.”
“We negotiated a…” Whitt stared down at Sanson, the influencer’s clothes bloodied. The dead man next to him had defended the south gate in Guardian. “We negotiated an end. You can go home, now.” His voice echoed in his head as he stared at the corpses. “I heard that influencers were healing on this tier.”
“They can’t help you.” The woman held her children tight to her body. “You should head down to the market. Get help there.”
“I…” Her instructions confused him. “Guardians told me they were healing up here.”
“They might have been. Farther down, next to the tailors.” The man gestured behind him. “But it’s no use; every one of them might as well be dead.”
Whitt walked away, silent, and they shuffled on. He found a sign beside the tailor’s door and peered in the gaping window of the next shop. Looms rimmed the walls, and between them, bodies littered the floor. He pressed on the panel and the door slid aside.
Inside the shop, he paused, overwhelmed by the blood and miasma of death, the stench of gore and loosened bowels. Nearly eighty wounded men and women, many in greens, lay in tight rows on the floor, more than half of them dead. Those that breathed gazed blankly at the ceiling as their lives crawled toward closure. Slightly fewer in number, Ellegean influencers and Cull Tarr jacks stared into nothingness, their lives ended despite the beating of their hearts. He’d seen the same vacant expressions in the fane. The work of Catling’s eye.
Covering his mouth, he breathed down the bile rising in his throat and wrestled control of his twisting stomach. He doubted she was there but risked quiet steps between the bodies. Starting to his right, he studied the faces of the dead and soon to be dying.
The two doyen sat on the floor beside each other as if they’d forgotten who they were or their plans for the day. Many of those in greens, friends from the southern fortress, had stab wounds in their chests, their other injuries in varying stages of healing. Influencers, most of them strangers to him, stood like sentries between their patients, colorful woads peeking from their wrists and collars. Fifty or sixty of them crowded the room, all of them sightless and gaping.
The kari hadn’t destroyed the Influencers’ Guild. The devastation belonged to Catling. She’d transformed more than a hundred breathing souls—influencers, warriors, enemies, and Ellegeans—into living ghosts.
He traveled the room, numbed by the eerie silence and vacant faces, the hovering presence of death. As he shuffled closer to the place he’d begun, he gazed down at a face that stopped him.
Commander Jagur lay on his back, the crag bear of a man perfectly still as if carved of Fangwold stone. Whitt knelt and touched the cold skin, the man’s face pale yet serene, the expression of one who’d fallen asleep with a sweet dream. Blood covered his clothes, darkening with the day, and Whitt didn’t need to see the wounds to know they’d proved fatal. He rubbed his eyes and let the tears come, all of it too much to bear. He was a little boy at the stead, weeping over Scuff’s grave.
Chapter Forty-One
Mur-Vallis towered above the Blackwater, a tier-city transforming. It felt like home, the place Kadan belonged despite the decades of fear that had soaked into the very market stones. Of all the provinces in Ellegeance, Mur-Vallis demonstrated that a city could change, that the malevolence once shaping its essence hadn’t equated to eternal doom. New life could blossom.
Summertide would soon draw to a close, and Harvest lent a comfortable briskness to the southern air, the sky periwinkle blue and deepening into violet at the fringes. He and Catling had transferred to a hardier ferry at the waystation, one that would deliver them up the tumbling river. There he’d learned the war had ended, word traveling by bird faster than by boat.
As he gazed at his city, the ferry bumped into the piers. The rivermasters freed the waterdragons to cavort in the swift current and ride the purling water downstream.
He grasped Catling’s hand and led her from the cabin to the deck. There, he paid the elderly woman who’d seen to her personal care during the journey. The sum left the matron wealthy though it scarcely covered the depth o
f his gratitude.
Always a wisp of a woman, Catling had withered before his eyes, and she was as light as a sparrow. He lifted her to the pier, and there she stood until he held her hand and guided her through the late-day bustle to the ramp. A few guards nodded a greeting, but they no longer questioned anyone entering the tiers without a guild inking. Without any effort on his part, those markings also had begun to change, more whimsical and reflecting the person rather than their station.
Only seven tiers, the Founders apparently had decided Mur-Vallis didn’t require a lift, an inconvenience frequently annoying him. Towing Catling to the top tier was one such occasion. She walked at one speed and was prone to stalling.
By the time they reached the seventh tier, piles of golden clouds foreshadowed the day’s end. Minessa’s garden thrived, her roses in fragrant bloom and pots spilling with color. The branches of terran plum trees bent beneath the weight of ripe fruit and the central fountain glittered like diamonds. Through the greenery, he watched Nessa playing with Brodie on a camgras carpet she’d spread on the tier, a stack of books set aside for a mound of blocks. He sent them a less than subtle wave of love.
She looked at Brodie with a stern face. “I’m happy that you love me, but feelings are private, and you mustn’t put them inside another person. That’s tricking them. We talked about this.”
His little face puckered. “I didn’t do it.”
“I felt it, Brodie.” She raised a finger in warning.
Kadan groaned. “Sorry, it was me.”
Nessa and Brodie peered up. Delight erupted on their faces, and Brodie ran to hug him. Kadan let go of Catling’s hand and shuffled forward to scoop up his son. “What this? You’re influencing?”
“We call it ‘tricking’ someone.” Nessa hugged them both. “He started shortly after you left.”
Kari's Reckoning (The Rose Shield Book 4) Page 26
