by Jack Conner
Get a grip, Avery thought. The bastard just ate seven people!
“What do you want?” Avery said.
“You … I can feel the emanations … she’s touched you. Your whole being is entangled with hers. I can smell her on your soul.”
Avery shivered. “You mean Anissa, don’t you?”
The Blue Ghost nodded. The others on the platform were watching all this with open mouths, but no one said a word, not even the High Priestess, who had crawled closer in case she was needed, or maybe just to find out what was going on. Why was this bespectacled, Tainted little foreigner consulting with her god? Further away, the Triarch opened his eyes, coming out of his fit.
“You’re the father of the Waker,” the Blue Ghost said. A strange smile split his face, but sadness still claimed his eyes. “We have felt it, you know. The Waking. The whole world has changed. And that is only the beginning. Soon a new era will come.”
“A … new era?” Avery said. The thought made him grow cold.
“The Once-Sleeper will restore the Tree and call them all back. The other Masters. They will return, and the world will bask in their splendor.”
Not if I have anything to say about it. “Can you feel him? The Sleeper?” Maybe the ghost would know where the Sleeper’s head brooded in its strange semi-death. Maybe he could help Avery find Thraish, be able to tell where the Muugist would be coming from and when.
But the ghost shook his head, once, his grave eyes never leaving Avery. His brows lowered, turning him even more serious. “She will not be your daughter anymore, dear fellow. It brings me no pleasure to tell you this. Once she feeds, she will change. She will become like me—oh, not as I am now, no, but as I was. And as she’s the last of us, or at least the greatest left of my line, she will have to help the Once-Sleeper more intimately than it would’ve been otherwise. It will be hard for her, and for you.” Lightning blasted down from the sky as the ghost lifted a hand and laid it on Avery’s shoulder, and Avery leapt at the discharge of energy; that was all he felt, not weight, but electricity. “You will have to let her go.”
Avery would have shrugged the hand off if it had been solid. Angrily, he said, “I will not. She will not. If feeding will change her, I won’t let her feed.” Panic gripped him. Has she done it already, drained someone? Has Issia shown her how?
But … Issia …
“She doesn’t have to turn evil,” Avery said. “I’ve seen people of your line feed that didn’t go that way. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“‘Evil?’” The word seemed to surprise the Father. “I didn’t say evil. Those primitive notions serve no purpose in higher moral structures. Yes, I see. You are not there, not yet, perhaps not ever. But she will be. And you need to be prepared to allow her to get there. To grow. To bloom like the flower she is. And so that you don’t mistake me, when I say feed, I mean to completion.”
Ah. Issia didn’t kill her victims, only drained them a bit, enough to put them to sleep for a few days, at the most. Apparently absorbing the complete lifeforce of a victim wrought some, yes, alchemy, that altered the absorber permanently, and Avery didn’t like the sound of that change.
Arguing with this dead man would do no good, though. As civilly as he could, Avery said, “Thank you for your words, Father. I know you only meant them in kindness.”
The Blue Ghost nodded—again, once. His hand lowered. “Your daughter has a great role yet to play in the changing of the world, my friend. You see, the Masters have not been idle during their long absence.”’
“No?”
The Blue Ghost grinned, and for once he didn’t appear grave, but full of an ominous sort of mirth. “They have learned much in the Crystal Planes, communing with the Herald of Gosg-gah’onn. When they return, things will not be as they were before. You think the Atomic Sea has changed the world? Wait for the new world to begin, my friend! Wait for the new world to begin!”
He laughed, long and loud, and then, to the accompaniment of a burst of lightning, flickered out of existence. A trail of smoke rose up from the spot where he had been. Avery turned from staring at it to regarding the sea of shocked faces looking back at him. Awe and amazement filled the eyes of the High Priestess. By her expression, she had just decided Avery was part of her pantheon, and perhaps he was.
Avery glanced, as briefly as he could, at Ista. She looked subdued. Fearful.
Good, Avery thought. Then maybe the time is right to get the hell out of here.
But first, the transmitter.
Chapter 6
Still shaking off the ghost’s words, Avery descended the interior of the pyramid, accompanied by his guards. Lightning and thunder still shook the world outside, but Avery’s mind proved too jumbled to be perturbed by such as them. Ani, changed? What exactly did the Father mean? Would Ani become twisted and malevolent like the Duke if she killed someone with her mind? Is that what the ghost had meant? Or had he intended some other meaning, implying something more … inhuman? And just what had he meant by the “changes to come”? That had sounded quite disturbing.
Avery wandered the halls for a time, unable to rest his mind, but at last he forced the thoughts aside and paused on a landing. “Take me to the transmitter room,” he told one of his guards. “I need to send off a message.”
“I will need to get permission from the colonel,” the soldier said.
“Then do it.”
The soldier sent a messenger off, and the group waited anxiously. It seemed that the colonel was busy, however, as no word came back from him. What could be the hold up? Fear filled Avery as the certainty came over him: I've been found out. Yet still Hurisvecta kept him waiting.
Frustrated, Avery told his guards, “While your colonel decides, I'd like to visit with Colonel Sheridan, the woman who captured me. I have some harsh words for her.”
“We know who she is. Colonel Hurisvecta expressly forbid us from giving you access to her.”
Avery mulled on that. “What if I were to decide to leave? Is that forbidden, also?”
“He said to send you to him if you wanted to leave the pyramid, sir.”
“Very well. Then take me to Lady Ista. Unless that’s forbidden, too.”
The soldiers raised their eyebrows, but they escorted him up a flight of stairs and down several halls until at last they reached the room Ista used as her own. Two soldiers stood guard at the doorway, and Avery’s guards joined them as he knocked on the door, then was admitted inside. Ista was heating up a pot of hot water on a broad, flat stone Avery knew was warmed by alchemical means, while alchemical lanterns lit the chamber in low red light.
Ista, a pretty young woman, even by local standards, glanced up from where she knelt on some thick blankets spread across the floor. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, offering him a smile. “I didn’t expect a visit from a king.”
She made to rise, but he motioned for her to stay seated and joined her on the blanket-covered floor. He saw that she arranged tea leaves, some ground, some whole, upon a large filter. This then was what the hot water was for.
“Would you like some tea?” she said, when she saw his interest.
“I would love some, thank you.”
She finished heating the water and dunked the filter (now wrapped up; apparently she had created her own special blend) inside. After waiting a few moments, she poured them both a cup, and Avery smiled at the pleasing herbal scents.
“It’s been too long since I’ve enjoyed a cup,” he said, and sipped. “Mmm, quite nice.”
She watched him over the brim of her mug, her eyes slightly distorted by the steam rising from the cup. “Just what does a great lord want, come visiting a shy maid at this hour? Or is that too bold to ask?”
He smiled again in what he hoped was a harmless fashion. “Nothing unseemly, I assure you.”
She sipped her tea, and her lips curled up at the corners. “Perhaps I don’t mind a bit of unseemly.” She had donned a silken robe since the sacrifice, and as she leaned
over Avery began to realize she didn’t have anything on underneath it.
His throat constricted. “I … uh …”
She laughed. “Just teasing, Your Majesty.” She sobered. “Seeing what happened up there … all those people rendered, what?—braindead?—it quite takes the sauce out of one.”
“Yes. It does.”
“And when that thing spoke to you …” She shook her head. “I’ve heard tales about the ghosts all my life. I knew they were real, there’s too much evidence that they are to doubt it, but I didn’t think … didn’t think they were that real, if you know what I mean. I thought, maybe, just an echo … sunlight on water, or something like that, if you follow. Do you know what it meant by those things it said?”
He sipped again, trying to frame his answer carefully. “More or less. Listen, Ista, that’s not why I came.”
“No?”
He glanced around. “You’re a prisoner, aren’t you?”
She nodded vaguely. Her own gaze went to the stone walls, then to the door. “These rooms used to be used for the sacrifices to the Blue Ghosts, I suppose. In the long ago. That’s what this whole place was made for, I guess. What all of them were made for. Although … well …”
“Yes?”
“Some say these buildings are even older than that. That they go back to the time of the Masters.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me, either. But I don’t like this place. I’m rooming—we’re all rooming—in the cells of the condemned. This whole place is just a hindli chute, a waiting area before the big finish. Before the Blue Ghosts would drink your mind. Or the Masters, if they are that old.”
He sat his cup down. “Ista. When I was a prisoner of Colonel Sheridan—I assume you know how I arrived here—I had the chance to study local events, and I learned of your situation and that your mother was very concerned about you.”
“I’m sure she is.”
Avery studied her. “Don’t you want to return to her?”
He expected Ista to say Of course, but instead she sort of laughed. “Why would I want that? I’ve found my place with the gods!”
“But … the Blue Ghosts … you seem to hate them.”
“The ghosts? No, no, don’t be silly.” She laughed again, and it was a delightful sound. “I meant Lady Jivini! The Collossum. They’re the true gods.”
The ground moved under Avery. “You’ve … converted to the faith of the Collossum?”
“Oh, yes! Aren’t they splendid? I mean, a ghost is one thing, but I’ve seen Lady Jivini’s godhood. I’ve seen her cross over and take souls into her bosom. I myself have volunteered for the Holy Road and hope to go to the House of Joy later this very night.”
Avery felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. “But … but … you can’t.”
She laughed again. “Don’t be silly! I’m my own woman, and I can do what I please. And I will. The Collossum are real. They exist on other planes, and I’ve seen part of what lies on those other planes. To us it’s strange and nightmarish, but that’s only because we’re not used to it. And it’s real. It’s not some mystical mumbo-jumbo. Those other planes exist, and I’m going to cross over into them. Oh, I’m tired of this world. So consumed with pettiness, stupidity. It will be a glorious thing to ascend to the House of Joy, to know the wisdom and warmth of the Collossum in that other dimension.”
Avery wanted to slap her. “But you’re a royal ward, or the next best thing. Surely the Triarch won’t let you kill yourself. You wouldn’t be much good to him dead.”
She rolled a shapely shoulder. “He has no say in it. Lady Jivini rules here, and she’s already told me that I’ll be granted access to the Holy Road if I want to go down it.”
“If you do, Triarch Nethem and your mother will unite. They’ll attack this place.”
“Yes, but Lady Jivini will be strong then, after the big sacrifice tonight, and will be able to hold them back.”
Or to escape to her ships still at sea. Avery figured that was really what Jivini had in mind. She would escape and let her allies on the island go hang. There was no way Jivini could take on an entire army by herself, or at least no way that she would. Jivini had given up on seizing Eberlith, and no wonder. With the Device activated, the war was done.
Unless …
Jivini could return to the Rim, solidify her rule there and lead the ngvandi in preparations for modern warfare, turning them into a fighting force to compare with those of the Core. She had allowed the people of the Rim to languish in barbarism for hundreds of years, possibly thinking that ignorance and backwardness suited the needs of a largely absent goddess, but now she would have no choice but to mobilize them for modern combat. If she decided to stay.
In either case, it meant that after the sacrifice this little siege was over. Avery had to act fast.
“Surely there’s a way I can convince you,” he said. “A way to get you to allow me to return you to your mother. There might very well be a way to sneak you out, if we put our heads together.” Our heads, and Sheridan’s guns.
“You seem more worried about me than you do yourself, Your Majesty.” Was that a hint of suspicion in Ista’s voice?
“It’s just, you’re so young, that’s all. I hate for you to throw your life away.”
Ista laughed again, and again it was paradoxically delightful, so full of life and youthful vitality. It was the laugh of someone who considered herself immortal even as she prepared herself for suicide.
“I’m not throwing my life away at all,” she said. “I’m running to my life. My existence beyond this world. In a little while, the bell will ring, and I’ll make another pot of tea, comb my hair, put on my best clothes and go down to meet my fellow Journeyers. Some will be willing, some will be conscripts, but all will be made welcome. I’ll do my part to ease their nerves. I’ll sing to them, I’ll give them tea, and we’ll all go smiling into the Joyful Spheres.”
You little fool. You’ll be burned away by otherworldly acids and that will be that.
“Your Majesty, are you all right?”
His eyes flicked to the teapot. “Yes,” he said slowly, as a new plan occurred to him. “I’m quite all right. And I suppose I should leave you to your final contemplations.”
“You don’t have to go. I’m just as happy to have company.”
“Thank you, but I’m too old to be sitting on the floor, and too tired to be imbibing caffeine. I need rest and sleep. Yes, that’s the thing.” He rose, and so did she. As she showed him out, he kissed her hand and said, sincerely and sadly, “I hope the next world brings you everything this world did not.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I will pray for you to join me, as well as all those who are worthy.”
He nodded, accepting this as the compliment she no doubted intended it to be, and left her there. He was sorry for her, sorry for them all, but perhaps what he was even sorrier for was that their sacrifice opened the door for a possibility he hadn’t even allowed himself to consider before now. Once again I gain advantage from others’ misfortune. He would give anything for it to be otherwise.
“Take me to the larder,” he told his guards.
“The Triarch’s man will have to approve whatever you take,” one said.
They marched down several floors to the cold stone room used as the larder. Stacks of food lined the shelves, and alchemical ice steaming in the center of the room kept the food from getting hot. It was guarded by another pair of guards overseen by the Master of the Larder, who made sure no one got more of the stolen canned and dry goods than could be dispensed with. They were rationing food.
“We’re closed for tonight,” the Master of the Larder said.
Avery raised his eyebrows, enjoying this. “Even for me, the King of Ghenisa?”
“Well … I suppose you could have something. But only certain items. We can’t go hungry, now can we?” He smiled to take the edge off.
“I just want that,” Avery said, pointing to the
bundled dried sap. “It was confiscated from Colonel Sheridan when we entered, but it was originally mine.”
The Master of the Larder sniffed it. “Smells funny.” He opened it and peeked inside. “Is this sap? It is!” He looked impressed. “This is worth a fortune.” He shot Avery a glance. “And it’s illegal. What is the King of Ghenisa doing with it?”
“What do you think?” Avery held out his hand expectantly.
The Master studied him for a long moment, but did nothing, said nothing.
“Well?” Avery said.
Slowly, the Master handed the package to Avery. Avery took it, nodded to him, and set off back through the halls, his soldiers falling in behind him. Avery felt the beating of his heart recede, but not fast enough. That had been too close. The Master of the Larder had doubted him—about something, anyway. Avery didn’t think the man had any inkling the sap could be deadly to Lady Jivini. The Collossum would want to keep that sort of thing to themselves. Hi’il’ichi had only known because it had happened in his household, in his presence. Avery figured Lady Jivini meant to have everyone who knew killed once she was gone.
He returned to Lady Ista’s room and knocked on the door. When the door opened, steam wafted out, and the face of a priestess with blue scales peered out. “Yes, may I help you, Your Grace?”
“Is Lady Ista available?”
“I’m afraid she’s busy, sir.”
Avery heard feminine voices and the splash of water. Of course. The priestesses were washing and dressing her before the sacrifice. Avery swore inwardly. Outwardly, he said, “Then would you please give her this.” He handed her the bundle. “Tell her it’s spice for her tea. And tell her to use a lot; it needs it. But it’s very worth it.”
“I’ll tell her, sir.”
“Very good.”
She closed the door as Avery turned to go. Please work, he thought. If it didn’t, he was a dead man.
To his guards, he said, “I’d like to see Colonel Hurisvecta about getting access to the transmitter room now. If there's some hold up, maybe I can smooth things over."
