“Wayward spirit, stay from my path and be but a wind behind me. Of you I know no ill, and pray that you will walk lightly.”
91
Sikhek
The 13th of Autumn, 1196
We sailed into a harbor thick with misery. The taste of it woke me after so many days upon an endless and indifferent ocean.
Barok’s long vigil over his druid was drawing to a close. The prince began to pray as the druid’s tortured soul leaked across the ship and everyone aboard. The icy touch was honey upon my lips.
Barok finished the prayer of Adanas, growled with terrible anger, and charged me. “Save him. He cannot die. You must save him.”
There were only moments left. There was a way. Barok would not like it.
bind blood soul man
Geart took a shallow breath as the ship came to rest against the pier.
“What did you do?” Soma demanded. “What did you do!”
“I bound his soul to his blood. The magic will not last long without mercury to keep the Shadow close.”
“You made him Hessier?”
“He traveled that road on his own. The Shadow loves him dearly. No man has ever gone so far inside a living body.”
Barok shoved me aside and motioned for Soma and others to help him. They hurried Geart ashore. I followed them down. Barok was stopped there by a large, stricken crowd. A young officer and a pregnant woman stepped forward. Another woman shouldered through them all and made straight for Geart. She kissed his deadly lips and took hold of his shrunken and bony hands. She shoved Barok away.
“I am sorry, Pemini,” Barok said to her. She made no reply, and the tearful crowd caught Barok’s attention. He asked, “Gern, Fana, what has happened?”
“Barok, Dia has been taken,” the officer said with tears pouring down his face. “Dia and the child.”
Child?
Never had a single word so troubled me. Barok had lied. There was another Vesteal, but the child had been kidnapped by the Ashmari.
Barok paced forward, rigid and angry. “Taken by whom?”
Fana stepped in his way, and the prince nearly walked through her.
“It was Aden,” she said with uncommon poise. “He is Hessier—an Ashmari. He brought an army of slaves. The Chaukai lost a third of their number pushing them back south. Ojesti burned. Urnedi and its keep are destroyed. We lured Aden away to the mine, and I pierced his skull with a pickaxe, but he just kept getting up. He took Clea and ran. Dia was the only one left to chase after him. We found her horse here. A ship and its crew are missing. They are gone.”
Barok turned a slow circle. Every man beneath his unreadable gaze shrank back. Soma did not. She took him by the shoulders and beneath the wide brim of her hat, she whispered into his ear. “Hold on, son. Hold on.”
“Oh, Soma.” His voice was faint, and he trembled. “This is what Leger must have felt when he lost Darmia. What have I done? All this destruction and misery. What have I done?”
“Keep it together, Barok,” she said. “All the world needs you.”
“How can I?”
“You have no choice. You never did. This evil was coming for you since the day you were born. Your only choice is to keep fighting.”
He was in the shade of her hat when he let out a big sigh. I caught a glimpse of the living man I had been in the plaintive breath—useless and melancholy.
Geart wheezed angrily, and the girl with him motioned to me. “You, dead man. You too, Barok.”
The soldiers let me approach. Barok and I leaned down so that Geart could speak into our ears.
“Where did Aden take them?” he asked me.
I said, “He would be headed back to the Bunda-Hith and the Ashod priests that made him. The Ashod have a fortress there. They will use the girl’s bones to make a hundred Ashmari.”
Barok grabbed my arm. “You can stop him?”
“I will need more than you can give me.”
“Name it.”
“Your blood.”
“Done. What else?”
“Vesteal,” I said. “You’d best be sure.”
The crowd wanted to get between us. He knocked away the reaching hands of his bondsmen and shouted, “Which of you can rescue my daughter and prevent the Ashod and their Hessier from ruling this earth?”
No one spoke. The reaching hands withdrew. “What else do you need?”
“Mercury. More than—”
“Gern,” Barok yelled over his shoulder. “Do you have the sand you took off of Parsatayn’s island?”
“We do.”
“Good. Blood and mercury. What else?”
“Geart.”
“What?”
“I am broken. Old. Geart would be a stronger Hessier. As powerful as I was when I was made. Together, he and I could defeat Aden and rescue your daughter from the Ashod.”
Barok stumbled back. He shook his head. Geart asked, “If you make me Hessier, will I remember who I was?”
“No. You will lose all but your last few moments. All you will know is the Shadow’s cries for release and the commands that I give you.”
“Do it.”
Barok said, “Geart, you do not mean it.”
“Yes, I do. Leger taught it to me. We are weapons. We were made to do murder, and all there is for us is to choose who we kill. Leger was a black soul. So is Sikhek. So am I. Do this thing. I beg you.”
“Do it,” Pemini nodded.
“Pemini, no,” Gern said.
Fana took his arm. “No, Gern. She is right. Geart is our weapon—always was.”
Soma said, “The Kingfisher and I will bear them. Give us until the morning, and we will be after them.”
“You do well here,” I said to the prince.
He and his people struggled with the sound of a compliment from a dead man’s lips.
I said, “Kyoden and the Edonians worshipped their women, but they did not listen to them. You make this decision rashly—stupidly. It is good to see that the women who rule here agree. It is a terrible thing that we do, but there is nothing left on this earth that can stop them.”
Barok asked, “How do we begin?”
92
Arilas Barok Yentif
The 13th of Autumn, 1196
The patch of forest Gern led us to was familiar. It took time for his men to dig up the buried sands and for Sikhek to work his magic upon it. The long wait got me no closer to recalling how I knew the spot.
The air there was dead calm, and the hot sun kept us in the shade. Frogs, insects, and sparrows made it a noisy place.
“Have I been here before?” I asked.
Gern replied, “Do you remember the day that Dia first arrived at Urnedi and forced us to ride out in search of you?”
“I do,” I said and pointed at the branch that extended over the trail. “This is the spot where Sahin tricked me. That branch swatted me clear out of the saddle. I ended up in that dreadful fern.”
Gern laughed. “It knocked me off my horse, too, the first time I competed in the spring race. Sahin beat us all handily that year.”
The happy spark died there. Sorrow climbed up my throat and choked me. “I miss them. Sahin is dead. Leger is dead. Dia and Clea are gone. And now Geart …”
“We’ll get them back,” Gern said. “You get Enhedu put back together.”
Sikhek pushed the last wheelbarrow of sand to a distant clearing, and it seemed we should follow him.
“You will want to stay back,” he said, and we waited while he chanted a magic that scratched at the ears. An ugly yellow fog rose up out of the wheelbarrow, and the white sands shrank to nothing. The stink of it, even at that distance, was terrible. The tired old Hessier carefully tipped the wheelbarrow and poured a thin stream of mercury into an iron vessel.
The sight was too bizarre. “I’ve lost control of everything,” I said.
“You never had control, Barok. You’ve been the flick of a branch from oblivion since you arrived. Mad plots, desperate ba
ttles—you’d be dead a hundred times over if not for Leger, Rahan, and all the rest. Today is just another day, and the world will need you just as much tomorrow.”
I couldn’t bring myself to thank him. The forest was full of people who wanted to help. The only one that could was the monster we waited on.
“This will be enough,” Sikhek said, and Gern led us toward the yew forest. I felt like a bull being led away to slaughter.
Lilly caught up to us and took hold of my hand. Soma and Fana were close behind. The girl tugged me forward before I could greet them. “She is awake. Hurry. Fana has explained everything to her. She wants to speak with you.”
It took me far too long to understand that she meant the Mother Yew.
Had it really been almost two years since Sahin had abandoned me to my fate beneath the yew? It was an evil child that the ghosts in the yew spared that day, and I did not know if I should feel older, wiser, or a rotting fool. I was no closer to walking an uncluttered path, and my failure to defend my family—
‘Hush now,’ said the Mother Yew. Her disembodied alto bounced around the inside of my head and made me feel very small. Lilly squeezed my hand.
I looked up to see that we had arrived at the mossy clearing beneath the massive old yew’s divided trunks. The best I could manage in response was to clear my throat.
The Mother Yew said, ‘You war with yourself, Vesteal Prince. Listening to you lament your failures is exhausting.’
“My failures are my friends,” I said. “They keep me awake and moving. They are also unforgivable.”
‘You are not equipped to make that judgment.’
“But my daughter, I …” Tears came in a rush.
‘Be still, prince.’
Fana put her hand upon my shoulder. Lilly wasn’t letting go of my hand anytime soon, either. Soma’s knowing eyes held me.
The Mother Yew said, ‘You have survived. The rest will be judged in time.’
“We mean to make Geart into a Hessier.”
‘I struggled with this decision. It will invite terrible consequences, but all will be lost if Clea is taken to the Bunda-Hith. The Spirit wished for Geart to learn and sing the Song of the Earth, but even She can be wrong. She made the same mistake with Sikhek. They are the same to Her—perfect voices. She loves them almost as much as She loves you.’
“Me? Why?” I asked.
Soma laughed, and happy tears filled her eyes. She said, “She sees you as Her only child. The rest have all died, and here you are, making messes and being such a noisy boy. You have made Her forget all the rest. You are Her only son, and She loves you more than you could know.”
“I am a fool,” I said. None of them corrected me.
The Mother Yew said, ‘Geart is fading. It is time. You must begin it soon.’
Soma trotted off south to call in the rest. I asked the Mother Yew, “Can you keep Kyoden in check? He will not abide Sikhek being here.”
‘You misjudge things,’ she replied but did not explain.
Gern and the Chaukai were the first forward. A thousand of them came, and they trusted nothing. They moved through the trees as if Aden could somehow be near—a possibility that could not be discounted. I watched them rush by with something close to awe.
The Mother Yew hushed me again and said, ‘Today is going to be a long day if you are surprised by each result of your labors.’
Lilly and Fana giggled. I could not judge what it meant that they could hear the tree and others seemingly could not. I took what comfort I could in the privacy of my embarrassment.
The last forward were Pemini, Ryat, and the Chaukai who bore Geart—Gern and his father, Colonel Kennculli, and the Chaukai healers. Others bore Sikhek’s heavy iron vessels, and a full thirty men hauled a large iron tub toward the center of the circle. It was a blackened thing saved from the burned-out ruin of Chairman Nace’s metalworks that he’d used to bathe tin and copper in acids. The appearance of the ugly contraption chilled the crowd.
Sikhek followed it in, and the moment I dreaded was suddenly upon me.
Thick smoke poured from the trees, and the despairs of the waking dead assailed us. Each tortured black ghost coalesced into the wretched shape of a murdered man, and Kyoden woke screaming as though Sikhek’s axe had just stuck him. They circled and dived around the clearing. Shrieks pieced the air, and hot soot rained down. I would have run, but was captivated.
“Kyoden,” Sikhek shouted over the din. “I have returned.”
The ghosts fell silent and turned. Kyoden’s body became a crackling inferno, and he dived in toward the Hessier. But the battle I expected did not come. He came to a stop before Sikhek and his rage slowly cooled. The dead king bowed his head as though granting Sikhek his pardon.
“How can such forgiveness be possible?” I asked.
Fana turned to me, the word “Adanas” upon her lips, but the Mother Yew spoke before she could. ‘Sikhek is a Vesteal.’
The importance of this worked its way though me. I glanced once at the tree. She was getting ready to hush me again. I shook off the anger and was left with only facts. Sikhek was one of us. His voice was one that the Earth trusted.
The heavy clunk of the iron vessels gathered the crowd’s attention. One load of mercury after another was poured into the tub, and Pemini and Bohn lowered Geart inside. Sikhek and Kyoden were there as well, waiting for me. Pemini had hold of a butcher’s knife with a short blade.
“I don’t know if I can watch him die a second time,” I said.
“You will have to do more than that,” Sikhek said. Pemini handed me the knife.
“I must murder him?” I asked.
None of them answered.
“Where do I cut him?” I asked. My hands shook.
Sikhek said, “You must open a vein on your arm and then sever the veins on his arms and legs. I have marked the spots.”
My whole being screamed.
The crowd looked on with tears in their eyes, but none moved to stop me. All of them had suffered horribly in my service and the service of our cause. Here was the bill come due. This was the price I had to pay.
“Clea, for you,” I said. “Mother Yew, for you. Great Mother, I do this for all of your children everywhere.”
I folded my arm around the blade and drew the knife through. Blood went everywhere. Sikhek seized my arm and aimed it into the tub.
“Hurry,” he said.
The knife was foreign in my hand. It felt like someone else was doing this thing. I knelt down, and Geart’s flesh opened easily. His blood pumped out to dance upon the silver sheet with my own. But his was wrong—the wrong color and the wrong smell. Gray and decayed.
Oh no.
The calm air began to stir with icy breaths, and the forest grew dark. The Shadow was coming.
Sikhek said. “No. Damn you, Father. Get away from them.” He turned, and called out with human passion, “Chaukai, rally! I must have your blood, my brothers. Geart has none left. Rally!”
Kyoden and his kin swirled around us and burnt my face and eyes with a shower of hot ash. The dead king joined Sikhek’s rally call, and then the Mother Yew pierced my skull with a cry that sent a dozen men to their knees. ‘Hurry children. Hurry!’
The Chaukai came.
The first spray of blood was like a scream, and it seemed I must have fallen to madness. All around me the Chaukai began to carve upon themselves and pour their blood into the iron bath. Everywhere there was blood.
Sikhek took hold of my arm and drank.
Wrong. This is wrong!
Sikhek rose. His eyes turned black as night, and his flesh became perfect.
I screamed against the darkness that he summoned.
All was lost.
“No,” I said, but my voice vanished as Sikhek raised his arms and face up toward the sun and sang.
I have doomed us. We are betrayed!
Sikhek’s voice dizzied my mind with wonder as it wrapped around Geart. So perfect a sound. My despair fell
away as the foreign tumble of words summoned the Spirit of the Earth to dance with the darkness.
Geart’s flesh began to open and gulp the brew of blood and mercury. For a long moment I had hope, but the entire forest and everyone and everything in it screamed. Sikhek’s voice faltered, and the world faded as though the sun had been knocked from the sky.
“Not enough,” Sikhek gasped.
I was cold. I would bleed out soon. I shook my head. “What more do we have to give?” I asked.
He said nothing.
Pemini knelt on the other side of the tub. Hers was the only calm face in the wash of screaming chaos. She reached out and took the knife from me.
“No,” I said, but I could not stop her.
Pemini fixed the blade in her hand, and with the swiftness of a butcher she opened the veins in her arms and legs. She stepped into the tub and lay herself down upon Geart, kissed him once with perfect tenderness, and tucked her head against his neck.
Her eyes slowly closed, and somewhere something snapped.
Geart opened his eyes.
93
Sikhek Vesteal
The 13th of Autumn, 1196
Geart began to wake.
To a Chaukai, I said, “Take the girl away. Her body should not be his last memory.”
“I’ll do it,” said another. His resemblance to her was striking—a brother, perhaps. He hefted her up and bore her away.
Geart’s massive body absorbed the blood and the mercury in the basin like a sponge. He stood up, dry as sandstone. The kind face of the man had been replaced by the dispassionate stare of a black-eyed stranger. He was perfect.
He looked at Barok and stepped out of the basin toward him.
“Stop,” I said, and he froze midstride.
I struggled to hold him. His power was so great. The Shadow pushed toward him, gifting him all the magic that poured from the sorrowful people of Enhedu. Geart relaxed there as the power filled him.
Tanayon Born Page 15
