The Light of Life

by Edward W. Robertson

  Blays landed lightly. Beneath him, the dragon headed for the canoe only to bonk into a wall of ice. It slammed its head into the wall, but the ice held.

  Blays popped from the netherworld. He made way for the canoe, skidding on the ice.

  "No!" Gladdic thrust his finger toward the shore. "Deliver the crab!"

  "You've got to be joking!" Blays turned back to the island, certain it would be futile, yet his eyes latched onto the crab at once: a dark lump near the water's edge, pebbles stuck to its back, a beard-like plume of moss hanging from its chin.

  Under the water, the swamp dragon took another bash at the wall of ice, cracking it with an eerie groan. Shaking his head, Blays dashed toward the island, squishing into the mud at its edge. The alarmed crab shuffled toward the water, left-hand claw opening and closing as it went. Blays maneuvered behind it and scooped it up. Its pointed legs scrabbled at the air.

  The dragon slammed into the ice yet again. A crack shot toward the surface, opaquing it. Blays made a run for the canoe. When he was ten feet from the boat, the ice snapped underfoot, spilling him forward. He tucked the crab to his chest with one hand and reached out with the other, seeking the ground and guiding himself into a shoulder roll. The ice breathed cold through the thin fabric of the jabat. He came to his feet and hopped into the canoe.

  Bek was paddling before Blays' butt hit the bench. The canoe sped away from the island and toward the narrow tunnel through the growth. Behind them, the swamp dragon crashed through the fragmenting ice, surfacing amid a turmoil of bubbles.

  Gladdic wriggled his fingers. A ball of darkness enfolded the dragon's head. It shook itself, trying to free itself from its blindness, but under Gladdic's close concentration, the shadowsphere followed the beast's every movement.

  They entered the passage through the trees. As Bek took them through a curve, blocking line of sight, the dragon was still thrashing its head in fury.

  "I never thought I'd risk my life for a crab." Blays held the poky little thing away from himself. "Especially one I wasn't going to poach in butter."

  In the aft of the canoe, Gladdic was twisted about, watching for pursuit from the dragon. "How did you know it would be there?"

  "The flowers growing outside the inlet," Bek said. "The little yellow ones shaped like hands. The crabs favor the fruits the flowers grow."

  Blays winced as the crab poked him with a foot. "How exactly is this supposed to help us reach the stream?"

  "I don't know."

  "I see. Remind me why I just risked getting bitten in half trying to grab it, then?"

  "I don't know how the crabs help. I only know that they do. Thought is the bridge between your self and the world around you. The Odo Sein is what exists between these two realms. Existing between land and water, the crabs are a bridge as well." Bek paddled thoughtfully. "Also, their beards signify their wisdom."

  "Are you being quite serious?" Blays held the crab up for a better look at the moss hanging from its face. "This thing is special because it's got a bit of moss growing where its chin would be if crabs had chins?"

  "That's what I was told. If you don't believe me, you should try to prove me wrong."

  "How do you use it?"

  "How do you think?"

  "Gods damn it, if I have to hear that one more—"

  "There's no trick," Bek said. "Just keep it near you as you access the stream."

  Gazing into the crab's beady little eyes, Blays was glad Dante wasn't around to witness what he was about to do. Finding the creature's constant jabs and tickles distracting, he set it in the bottom of his traveling cup, then started daydreaming about long-gone forests.

  Once he had a few motes of gold making figure-eights near his right shoulder, he swooped down on them with the grace of a pouncing cat. Impressive though this maneuver was, the flecks of stream remained stubbornly unconvinced of his authority, failing to so much as twitch from their pattern.

  Blays tried again and again until the last of his stream faded away. "I'm not getting anywhere. Are you sure this crab's beard isn't defective?"

  Gladdic had been keeping one eye on Blays efforts and the other one out for patrols or other dangers. They all swapped roles, with Blays taking up the paddle.

  Twenty minutes later, Gladdic shook his head. "I cannot see any difference at all."

  Almost like it was an afterthought, Bek conjured up a thread of stream, drawing it to himself. "The fault isn't with the crab. The crab is fine."

  Even though he'd just watched the knight seem to put the crab to use, Blays would have taken the whole thing for a bizarre prank played on gullible outsiders. Except for one thing: he himself had used a sea snail as a part of his own training in the nether. So why was it so ridiculous to think a crab might not be able to do the same thing with the stream? Shaden were filled with nether. Kappers and swamp dragons were resistant to it. If humans could manipulate the light and shadows, why wouldn't animals be able to interact with them as well?

  He picked up the cup. Earlier, the crab had been scrabbling at the smooth tin sides, but it now rested at the bottom, seemingly resigned to its fate. More than a few philosophers and farmers claimed that the ability to make peace with your lot in life was a virtue. Perhaps the highest one there was.

  In that this idea made for the perfect justification to kick back and do nothing, Blays favored it. But he'd always been suspicious that it was little more than an excuse that the timid used to justify quivering behind locked doors when the day called for strong people to go forth and kick ass.

  He set down the cup, closed his eyes, and got back to work on the stream.

  ~

  They exited the woods, unveiling the lights of Dara Bode. Behind the sprawling raft-houses and docks, stone buildings and towers stood on hills that, despite rising no more than a few score feet high, were the highest points of land Blays had seen in Tanar Atain other than the Wound and the Hell-Painted Hills. At the city center, the Bastion's spires lorded it up over everything.

  They'd bided their time waiting for nightfall arguing about whether to approach the front gates or try to sneak in elsewhere on the perimeter, which wasn't walled, but which was enclosed by two separate fish nets and was heavily patrolled. Gladdic had eventually won out on the idea that if they tried the gates, there was at least the chance they'd be allowed inside without further issue. And even if they were apprehended, they could dash back into the wilds to hide, and then try another way in.

  It sounded reasonable enough. Yet as they paddled into the light cast by the the sentries' lanterns, Blays' instincts cleared their throat and informed him that they had made the entirely incorrect decision.

  The sentries were already standing up and watching them, spears planted beside them, meaning it was much too late to turn the canoe around without making themselves look extra guilty. Blays donned his best "I am but a stupid foreigner" expression, which he'd had many opportunities to perfect over the years, and removed his paddle from the water. Bek sat in the canoe's center. He was out of his armor, and as far as Blays could tell, he looked like your average, everyday Tanarian. Gladdic sat aft, back hunched and chin down, as if he was asleep.

  "Travelers?" One of the sentries lifted his lantern, dousing the canoe in yellow light. "Identify yourselves."

  "My name's Cren Nalen, of Raga Don," Bek said. "These are my two servants."

  "What brings a villager to the capital in the middle of the night?"

  "Raga Don was attacked. I've traveled for days, but the war is everywhere."

  "The gates are closed."

  "Sirs, the capital is the only place I can find safety. You have to let me in."

  "Every village is given the chance to surrender," the sentry said. "If it didn't, then it was attacked with good cause. We owe you nothing."

  "But we're countrymen!"

  A second man laughed. "Not anymore. You want safety, then you'd best leave Tanar Atain, to slink away like your coward emperor."

  Bek went ver
y still in a way that almost always meant fists—or far more lethal weapons—were about to get flung around.

  "Pardon me," Blays interrupted. "For I am but a worthless hari, and if not for the fact I'd be eaten alive otherwise, I wouldn't taint this boat with my presence, let alone your grand capital. Our master spoke at great length to convince the others to turn Raga Don over to the virtuous liberators of the Righteous Monsoon. By the end of his words, even a lowborn worm like myself was crying from my wormy little eyes. Even so, the other leaders didn't listen, and decided to fight you. But is their stupidity my master's fault?"

  "Yes," the sentry answered. "Now fuck off."

  Without a word, Gladdic splayed his left hand. Nether streaked through the night. The two sentries' heads snapped back, then rolled forward, spewing blood from the holes punched through their foreheads. They collapsed together.

  Gladdic climbed out onto the dock. "Retrieve their uniforms. I will open the gates."

  Blays clenched his teeth hard enough to snap something. He rolled out of the canoe, glanced down the docks, then peeled the white and blue jabats from the Monsoon sentries, doing his best not to get them too bloody. He tossed the clothes to Bek, then lowered one of the bodies into the water next to the canoe.

  "What are you doing?" Bek whispered.

  "Not leaving a pair of corpses in the middle of the front gates." Sweating from the effort, Blays dunked the second body with a small splash.

  The gates parted, swinging outward with no sound except the creak of ropes. Blays grabbed the two bodies by their wrists, dragging them along as Bek brought the canoe forward. Gladdic waited on a stone ledge on the other side. They gave him a hand into the boat.

  They struck out from the gates and into the cover of the ring of crops cultivated between the fish nets and the outermost neighborhoods. The long leaves of banana trees fluttered in the weak breeze. Blays instructed Bek to take them to a cluster of trees, then stuffed the two corpses between the tightly-packed trunks.

  Blays rinsed his hands, then gave Gladdic a tap on the shoulder that wasn't quite a punch. "Was that strictly necessary?"

  Gladdic rubbed his shoulder. "To prevent them from raising the alarm so that the entire city might descend upon us? I thought so, yes."

  "I told you we should have come in from the side. Then again, whoever could have guessed that the paranoid Monsoon wasn't going to let two hari into the city after nightfall?"

  "We are now through the gates with two uniforms in hand. I know that you are so fond of criticism that you would denounce your own mother's methods as she gave birth to you, but in this case, you are mistaken."

  Blays' hair and features were too obviously foreign to pass as a soldier, so Bek and Gladdic changed into the uniforms instead, which turned out to be a tricky maneuver to execute while inside a canoe. Once they were dressed, Bek paddled onward, exiting the agricultural district and entering a neighborhood of raft-houses.

  Before the coming of the Monsoon, these had been raucous with laughter and debate. They were now almost entirely quiet, the inhabitants keeping themselves indoors, murmuring too softly for their neighbors to hear. Blays found himself angered by the silence. He'd always measured a society's virtue through how much cheer, arguing, and all-around rowdiness it could produce without also producing violence and riots. Apparently the Monsoon was incapable of any spirit whatsoever.

  On the plus side, this deadness of spirit meant there were fewer people out wandering around who would be inclined to yell at them about what they were doing. They cut past the slums and into the canals separating the wealthy islands from each other. Within a span of minutes, they approached the short earthen rampart surrounding the moat which in turn surrounded the heart of the city.

  Blays had seen a few moats in his day, but nothing in Mallon, Gask, or anywhere else he'd traveled could compare to the one surrounding the Bastion of Last Acts. It was a full bowshot across. Not some dinky little rabbit-hunting bow, either. A war bow. Also, the water was stuffed to the gills, so to speak, with ziki oko. Anyone who fell in, or attempted to swim it, would be treated to the rare opportunity of seeing what their own skeleton looked like, which would give them quite the interesting conversation starter once the ziki oko's ministrations sent them into the Mists.

  In the middle of the moat, the towers and halls of the Bastion were your typical display of grandeur, of the sort that announced, "I will now work my people to death building enough walls to ensure that none of their descendants can ever step foot in this palace again." The only thing of mild interest about them was that they were built from pale blue granite, with the quite literal-minded Blue Tower looking as blue as a sky or the ocean or one of those other very blue things.

  Bek brought them up against the edge of the rampart, which rose four-plus feet from the water and was held in check by a sheer retaining wall. They tied the canoe to a metal rod mortared into the bricks. Blays helped boost Gladdic to the top of the retaining wall, then followed him up, lying flat on the short grass.

  Prone beside him, Gladdic was already gesturing away, weaving his hand through a series of snaky gestures and muttering to himself. A dark spot materialized on the ground near him, as black as the Blue Tower was blue.

  A bit more mumbling and weaving, and a second spot appeared, then a third. Traces. Blays was pretty damn curious how Gladdic was able to find and expose them without shadowalking into the netherworld, but he had a feeling that would be one secret the priest kept to himself.

  Two feet from the ground, a child-sized silhouette unfurled. The miniature Andrac spread its claws wide and tipped back its head, white light burning from within its throat. Gladdic made a cutting motion and the demon closed its mouth, extinguishing the light before it could be seen from the fortress.

  "You will find the Aba Quen," Gladdic breathed. He described the statue, as well as the most likely places he expected it to be kept. "Now go. Do not be seen."

  The pint-sized Star-Eater nodded its head and dropped into the water without a splash. The summer night air was alive with crickets and smelled like fresh water. A minute later, a shadow slipped from the moat onto the dock that fronted the Bastion's doors and slipped inside.

  "Not a bad spy," Blays whispered. "Although I think Dante's moths are subtler."

  "We each have our own style." Lying on his stomach in the grass, Gladdic motioned to the moat. "Have you considered how we might cross this?"

  "We're going inside? I thought your little pet would just fetch it for us."

  "How may a shadow pick up that which is real?"

  "Let me get this straight. You brought us here fully aware we needed to break into the Bastion. And you didn't give a moment's thought to how we were going to get to it?"

  "You and Dante had no troubles crossing it when you came for Captain Naran. Why not use the same trick now?"

  "Because Dante did it all and he can do a lot of stuff you can't."

  "Ah," Gladdic said. "That is a fairly good reason."

  Blays spent the next several minutes thinking about how they might lift the canoe up to the top of the earthworks without a) making gobs of noise and b) breaking themselves. Other than smashing their boat into pieces, bringing the pieces up top, then reassembling them into a solid boat—a plan they didn't have the tools or ability to pull off—he didn't see a way.

  Bek didn't offer a single bit of insight. In fact, Blays got the impression the knight thought it was somehow improper to sneak into a lord's castle and rob the place of its most valuable possession.

  Fifteen minutes after it had departed, the Andrac climbed onto the rampart in front of them, nearly causing Blays to evacuate into his jabat. The demon crouched in front of Gladdic, communing noiselessly.

  The old man smiled. "The Aba Quen is here, held within the Lower Vault. Just where I suspected it would be."

  "That's a welcome bit of news. Now don't disappoint me by telling me we still don't have a way across the moat."

  "I have thought ab
out it. And I have concluded that I do not know how."

  Blays sucked his upper teeth. "How far is the Lower Vault from here?"

  "I imagine it is the same distance as the fortress we are currently staring at."

  "But how long would it take someone to run to it from here? Assuming they were a talented and handsome individual who wouldn't have to slow down for any doors?"

  Gladdic tapped his chin. "Three minutes? Perhaps four."

  "I'll go by myself. Your little friend can show me the way. I'm going to be tight on time, though, especially if I run into any trouble. But if we had a way across—"

  "Then it would all become much easier. I am painfully aware."

  "You know, this would be extremely simple if you could harvest us a second canoe. But nooo, you were too busy pitting the Plagued Islanders into war with each other to learn anything from them."

  Gladdic was rubbing his temples, stretching his wrinkled skin. As Blays finished speaking, his left eyebrow bent upward. "I cannot make us a vessel made of wood. But which god declared that a boat must be made from trees?"

  He crawled to the inner edge of the earthworks. As the first light of ether glowed from his fingers, he smothered it in a shadowsphere. A pale line appeared in the water below, bobbing to the surface: an arm of solid ice. With deft, precise movements, Gladdic expanded it on both sides, curving the edges upward and curving the nose into a point. In a matter of seconds, an icy canoe rested on the water, mist curling from its frozen flanks.

  Blays laughed softly. "Neat trick. But I think I'll stick with a wooden paddle."

  He lowered himself down the outer edge of the wall and snagged a paddle from their original canoe. When he climbed back up, he found that Gladdic, Bek, and the little Star-Eater had climbed into the ice-boat.

  "We will wait for you outside the walls," Gladdic said. "In case, as you say, there is trouble."

  Blays kneeled in the bow, the ice stinging his bare legs, and paddled hard for the Bastion shores, shifting his weight from knee to knee to try to prevent them from freezing solid. As soon as the canoe slid onto solid ground, he jumped out and rubbed the warmth back into his legs.