Of Dark Things Waking (The Redemption Chronicle Book 3) Page 4

  Now those hopes were dashed.

  "Two were people we'd seen before," Shaviid hurried on, trying to soften the blow. "But . . . three were new."

  When she left, Lyseira had ostensibly appointed Angbar to speak for her. But he hadn't been doing it long enough to learn how to keep the despair from his face.

  Elthur's expression softened. He touched a hand to Angbar's shoulder. "I'll see to them. I've been praying on this matter."

  "Thank you," Angbar said, ashamed at his relief. He didn't want to see these newest victims. He ached for them and longed to help, but what he could do? None of Lyseira's new Kesprey had been able to heal the affliction, and he didn't even have their abilities. All he'd be able to do is tell the visitors to go home and wait—for the affliction to pass, or for death to claim them. If Elthur was willing to shoulder that burden, Angbar would let him.

  Not for the first time, Angbar wondered why in Hel he was here. Yes, he and Lyseira had worked closely together in Tal'aden. He understood her, and certainly believed in her god; it was impossible not to, after seeing Him work through her in so many ways. But he was no Kesprey. He was no leader. He didn't have nearly her reputation: all the stories from Tal'aden had been about the Grey Girl, not the Nog Novelist.

  Hel, even the idea of being "in charge" was absurd: in charge of what? There was no order, no method to the madness. Elthur argues his case for selling manna as if all our lives depend on it, Angbar thought, but even if he convinces me, so what? We're not a single group—I wouldn't have a way to send out an order to everyone even if I had one, and even if I did, no one would heed it.

  As Shaviid led Elthur away, Takra slipped the door closed behind them and turned back. She had that look in her eye. Ah, a'jhul, Angbar thought. Here it comes. He braced himself for the onslaught of arguments; now that she had him alone, she'd do her damnedest to convince him she was right.

  But she surprised him. "There are going to be more cases of blood fever," she said.

  That tripped him up—he'd been bracing for the manna argument—but he caught his feet fast. "You think it's spreading?"

  "No, it's not that," she said. "Or rather—it might be spreading, I don't know, but that's not what I mean. I think there have been a lot of victims, but they're only now seeking help."

  "What? Why would they do that?"

  "We saw the first one in mid-Northwind, just after the fourth Storm." This was in keeping with everything else Angbar knew so far about the disease: nearly all the victims had contracted it after Syntal opened the fourth Seal in Kesselholm last summer. That meant it was almost certainly some sort of disease the world had never seen before—or at least, one that had been nonexistent since Lar'atul's time.

  "I heard the old Keeper talking about it," Takra continued, her face betraying her disgust at the mention of the man. "The victim paid her donation, but when the temple cleric learned the affliction couldn't be cured by any known miracle, he had her taken in. A handful of afflicted people sought aid from the Church—they were all taken in. Eventually, I'm guessing, word got out and people stopped coming." She shrugged, glaring. "Shephatiah would've considered that a problem solved."

  "So you think all these victims are still out there—they're just coming in now because they think it's safe, that we won't hurt them."

  A sharp nod. "And . . . I may as well say this now. I have it too."

  Angbar's heart caught. "The blood fever?"

  Another nod. "Got it that first morning, the morning of the Storm. Woke with my face smeared with blood, feverish, after hours of nightmares. I would've told Mother Angel, but—after I heard what happened to the first victim―"

  "Are you well?"

  Takra shrugged. "Well enough. It's progressing. Some nights are worse than others. Sometimes it comes on during the day, when I'm reading or eating. I haven't died yet, if that's what you're asking."

  Some had. Their loved ones found them in the morning, mouths frozen in a scream, the blood already dried against their cheeks. The most macabre corpses had been found without eyes—they had simply melted out of their sockets in a river of blood.

  "Sehk," Angbar said. It wasn't the most eloquent consolation, but it was all he had. "I'm sorry, Takra. Maybe Elthur will figure something out."

  Again, she shrugged. "What'll be will be. I know he'll do all he can.

  "He's wrong about the donations."

  "I know." Angbar accepted the tacit invitation to leave the blood fever discussion behind. "You're right—Lyseira would never charge them, and we won't either."

  "That's good. Because if you tried to make us charge for miracles, it would be another riot. We won't go back."

  "I know."

  "So why don't you tell him that?"

  Angbar reeled. By God, she is direct. I can see why Lyseira likes her. "Well, I—I'm not―"

  "Lyseira left you to speak for her." Was there a hint of jealousy in Takra's voice? Sehk, if she wanted the job, Angbar would be glad to give it to her. "You should do that."

  "Well, it's a little more complicated than that."

  "No, it's not."

  "Yeah, it is!" His voice held a whisper of that whiny anger—oh, he hated that. "I said you're right, and I meant it, but so is he."

  "We can't both be right."

  "Yeah, you can. You're right that we shouldn't charge. He's right that we don't have enough."

  "But we can't―!"

  Angbar held up a hand. "Takra . . . I'll think about it, m'sai? I'll . . . try to figure something out."

  She chewed her bottom lip, eyes flashing, but finally calmed down. "All right. I'm sorry. I know you're doing all you can. I just . . . I'm sorry." She left.

  Angbar sank into one of the office's smaller chairs. I can't do this, he thought. I'm not the person these people need. I don't even know how in Hel I got here.

  He arched his head back, breathing deeply and trying to calm down, and caught a glimpse of a gentle snowfall tumbling just beyond the stained glass.

  By God, Lyseira, he thought, where in Hel are you?

  v. Iggy

  "There's something up ahead," Seth said as he returned from his forward scouting. "A body. You need to see it."

  Lyseira looked from him to Syntal. "Are you well? Can you stand?"

  "I could stand the whole time; I just needed a rest." Syntal took Melakai's offered hand and gained her feet.

  Chant less, Iggy thought. Stop breaking out the spells for every little problem. It was just the latest in a constant litany of chastisements, none of which he'd spoken aloud. She was a chanter, for God's sake; chanting was what she did. Every spell she worked barraged the Pulse like a highsun in the Waste, and he hated it, but at least now he knew it was necessary. The paradox was that only a chanter could fully restore the Pulse, despite being the Pulse's worst enemy. And so he kept his tongue.

  In truth, the beauty of Thakhan Dar's peak made it easier than usual. Cold, clear, and brilliant, the mountain air worked with every breath to scour the ill will from his lungs. Legends said that one could see for thousands of miles from Thakhan Dar's peak—even clear across Darnoth to Moshun Dar, its sister mountain in the distant northwest. That wasn't true today, at least, but only for the most glorious of reasons: clouds obscured the view, drifting beneath them—beneath them!—with the gentle certitude of ocean waves.

  It was hard to remain disgusted in the face of such beauty. Syntal's chants disrupted that serenity, yes, but they couldn't destroy it—it surged back in the wake of every spell's conclusion. Iggy wasn't one for contemplation, but there was a message there, he thought: about the Pulse's durability and power, its capacity for renewal. A message writ large in their overall quest to find Lar'atul's wardbooks, to restore the Pulse not just to its state from this morning but to its form at the dawn of time. The seed finds a way, Ciir-goath, the great stag, had told him last summer in Ordlan Green—and now, finally, he thought he was beginning to understand.

  They followed Seth over the uneven rock
, littered with jagged debris from the fight with the golems. Around a small bend—looming rock to their left, open sky to their right, with twenty feet to maneuver in between—they saw it.

  A natural rock formation jutted upward from the ledge on their right, punctuating the breathtaking drop beyond. Against this outcropping hung a snow-frosted corpse impaled by a spear, the withered flesh of its face shrouded by a black cloak.

  "What . . . ?" Lyseira breathed. "How long―?"

  "A long time." Seth approached the corpse, touched its face. "The skin is as cold as the rock. I don't know how old it is, but it could have been up here for centuries. Summer doesn't touch this place; it never had a chance to rot."

  "That spear," Kai said as he drew up the rear. "It's just wood. How could it stab into the rock?"

  Seth ran an appraising finger along the weapon's haft, then gave the spear an experimental tug. "I don't know, but it's stuck fast." He leaned in, inspecting it more closely.

  Cut from butterwood, looks like, Iggy thought. It was a good choice for a spear: sturdy as oak, but resilient enough to bend without breaking. A pair of feathers at the weapon's butt—a tassel of sorts—was its only adornment.

  "It's fine craftsmanship," Seth conceded. "Be a shame to leave it here."

  "I don't like it," Iggy said, realizing his feelings only as the words left his mouth. There was nothing unusual about the Pulse here, no hint of treachery—but the corpse's cloak, a smear of deathly black against the clean white of the snow, was its own quiescent warning. "I don't . . . feel anything, but―" He glanced to Syn. "Do you get anything?"

  He tensed for Syntal's brief chant, felt it slither between the Pulse's beats like maggots on a corpse, and choked down his nausea. The girl stepped forward, peering.

  "No. There's no spell on it . . . nothing."

  "Leave it be," Lyseira said. "I don't like the look of it."

  Seth gave the weapon a final, calculating glance, and nodded. "There's also that," he said, gesturing around the next bend—where a short, sharp stair had been cut into the mountain rock, descending out of view.

  "That's it," Syntal said, instantly enrapt. She hurried over, tugging her own cloak tighter against the wind. "There's a glow from the . . ." She stopped at the top of the narrow staircase. "Yeah, this is it. Has to be." She scurried down the stairs.

  "I'll keep watch up here," Kai said. "Go on."

  Iggy followed with the others. The staircase descended for twenty steps or so, always open to the sky but too narrow for more than one person abreast. The narrow landing at the bottom opened into an underground chamber: a perfect cube within the stone, fifteen feet on a side. Syntal stood inside, examining the far wall.

  "What is it?" Kai called from above.

  "A door," Syn shouted back, distracted. She rattled off a quick Chanterlight, spraying the wall with cold illumination. "Er—well, a drawing of a door. No, a carving. I think it's . . ." She trailed off, poking and prodding.

  "Give us a minute," Lyseira called up to Kai.

  The carving was the room's only anomaly, cut in perfect, shallow lines into the rock. Syntal felt along each of these, shaking her head—then abruptly knelt, pulled the fourth wardbook from her pack, and started flipping through it.

  In the open air above, Iggy heard the wind swirling: expressing its anxiety in long, low moans. The rock shivered in anticipation beneath Iggy's feet. We're close, he realized. It had been six months since they'd opened the fourth Seal, in Kesselholm. Finally, they were nearing another.

  He caught himself holding his breath, his heart hammering, and forced himself to exhale.

  "I'll be right back," Syn finally said. She spoke a single syllable that rent the Pulse as if it were paper, leaving Iggy reeling. When he regained his balance she was gone, the fourth wardbook still open to the last page she'd been studying.

  Ten minutes later the sky outside ignited with colors, and the mountain sang.

  vi. Melakai

  He had seen two Rendings before: the one above Tal'aden and the one above the Waste, both from a distance. This one was so close he could nearly touch it. Alone at the mountain's peak, he felt as if he had private, front-row seats to the greatest show ever produced.

  Skipping argent and rippling vermilion, clouds that burst with emerald as if birthing the hue anew into reality. Everywhere—above and beneath, transforming all the world to iridescent chaos.

  He moved closer to the ledge so he could see it all, take in the whole sky.

  Sound vanished. The wind's wail ended, Kai's breaths fell quiet—he couldn't even hear his own thoughts. Awed silence was the only response to such devastating beauty, and all the world obeyed its edict.

  The fifth Storm's lightning raced away in every direction, delivering its inscrutable revelations to each corner of the world. As it drew away, finally ending, it left Kai in such awe that he couldn't react when the corpse impaled to the outcropping reached for the spear in its chest.

  It pulled the weapon loose, tossing it away. Landed on its feet with a whispered grunt, a black sword suddenly, impossibly in its hands.

  "What?" Kai finally grunted, and the corpse's head swiveled to look at him, a pair of white gleams smoldering like embers in the depths of its skull. "How―?"

  The corpse snarled and stepped forward, its blade tracing an intricate pattern of fire in the air. Some instinct or intuition screamed in Kai's thoughts, but his muscles ignored it. He stared like a spellbound fool at the flashing black blade. Then the ground beneath his feet exploded.

  The blast hurled him backward, slamming him into the mountainside. As his vision dimmed, he saw the figure drop over the ledge, into the clouds.

  Fire became blinding pain. Pain gave way to an instant of lifelong reflection: his son's face, his granddaughter's. His wife in the beauty of her youth, before death had robbed her of the beauty of aging. Darkness closed over him as if he were sinking into the sea, drowning his regrets and leaving only silence. Everything ended. He waited in blackness for even his self to dissolve.

  Until someone read him a story of shouts and grasping hands, a grip that hauled him upward. The story made no sense. It went on long past the point it should have ended.

  Then a new fire engulfed him, and he opened his eyes, sucking at the air.

  "You're all right," Lyseira told him, the sun framing her face like an angel's halo. "Can you sit up?"

  "What happened?" Seth demanded. "We saw fire."

  "The . . . the body," Kai said. His mind didn't want to answer the question. It was too busy reeling, relinquishing certain death once again. How do you people live like this? he wondered. He had lived his whole life thinking he would only have to die once.

  Seth sprinted to the outcropping, where the discarded spear made a mahogany stain against the snow. He picked it up, eyes darting, then looked back to Kai. "You pulled the weapon?" he accused.

  This brought Kai back to himself, somewhat. "No! I'm no idiot! He pulled it—during the Storm."

  "Who?" Iggy asked. "The corpse?"

  "Then where is it?" Seth pressed.

  "It jumped."

  "What? Where?"

  Kai nodded toward the ledge, leveraging himself slowly to his feet. "Off the mountain."

  Iggy pointed out some tracks in the snow, leading to the drop. He peered over. "He's right." He searched the swirling snow, eyes roaming, before shaking his head.

  "But whatever it was, it's gone now."

  2

  i. Caleph

  The Fatherlord strode the hallways of his crystal tower, appearing outside his bed chamber for the first time in nearly a week. Initiates, Scarlet Guard—even bishops stepped aside as he approached, their eyes down in deference.

  He wondered how long their respect would last if they knew he was losing his mind.

  For most of Caleph's life since he'd become Fatherlord, Akir had been a presence in the back of his thoughts: watching over him, guiding his choices with the barest wisps of approval or judgment, and
supplementing his own memory with deeper recollections of times long past. It had been unsettling at first, but he'd quickly grown accustomed to it as a part of his destiny, the very thing that made him Akir in the flesh and qualified him to lead the Church.

  With the first Rending, that had changed. The presence had strengthened, like a dreamer on the cusp of waking. Caleph had assumed it was a sign of God's closeness, of the impending end of the world. Then the second Rending had come, and the third and the fourth. With each the presence became stronger still, growing from a whisper at the back of his thoughts to a thundering voice that, if he didn't fight to keep control, could take command of his voice; even steer his very hands. Now he fought the demands in his head, struggling with each step to keep control and finish his walk through the crystal tower's halls.

  Perhaps he should have surrendered. Let the presence in his mind take control and do what it willed; it was supposed to be Akir, after all. Yet in the moments when his control lapsed and the presence overwhelmed him, it had not felt like Akir at all. It had mortal appetites: a longing to chant as the witches did, a hunger for rich foods. It even lusted after women—a failing of all men which Caleph had believed Akir to be above.

  These cravings appalled him. As Akir's control over his body grew, Caleph's faith in his god—horrifically, damningly—crumbled. There is a lie here, he had eventually realized. Either Akir is not the god I have always believed Him to be—

  An impossibility. Utterly unthinkable.

  —or the voice in my mind has never been Akir to begin with.

  He had spent hours in the old libraries, in Basica Sanctaria and abroad, even the ancient halls of Basica Tenuor, trying to find some answer to this riddle, some clue from a past Fatherlord's reign that might yield insight into what was happening to him. But the Rendings were unique in the Church's history, and the voice, he was certain, was tied somehow to those events. No dusty book held answers for him. It was his tribulation to face alone.

  In the end he had returned to Tal'aden and weathered the growing storm in his thoughts as best he could. Since the fourth Rending, though—late last summer, just before the whelp in Keswick had rebelled and the long winter had begun—even his daily routines had become difficult. He had to fight for every instant of his day; even taking his meals or relieving himself had become a titanic struggle. He'd done all he could to keep his difficulties a secret from the rest of the Church, but finally, last week, he had spent several days in bed—hoping to achieve through meditation and prayer what sheer force of will had failed to provide him.