Antiphon (16 page)

He sighed and worked the oars, his shoulders creaking with his increased activity of late.

They’d found nothing here, but there were sure to be clues elsewhere.

After all, there had been those ships. And unfamiliar, dark-robed men. And now, though his heart drew him to sea for other purposes, his brain saw clearly that whoever was out there was not coming back to this
place. And despite the strange feelings that now pulled him, relentless as a tide, Vlad knew that discovering the nationality of those ships and those men meant discovering the true hands behind the fall of Windwir.

And behind the surgery that cut my family from the world.

It wasn’t that these new sensations trumped that loss—or even mitigated it. No, the loss was there, and if his soul went to it he could feel the hollow ache, like a tongue to the socket of a lost tooth.

He slowed his rowing and watched the sun lift up from the ocean.

Then, he looked back over his shoulder to the docks, adjusting his pull on the oars to line up with where Baryk stood waiting.

As he slid alongside, the old warpriest grabbed the rope Vlad tossed and tied the small boat off. “We’ll be ready to sail in two hours,” he said. His brow furrowed. “Is it still called ‘sailing’ when there are no sails involved?”

Vlad shrugged and stood carefully, grasping the edge of the dock as he climbed out of the boat. “How are spirits?”

“Fine. Nervous. Excited.” Baryk’s chuckle was more of a bark. “Should I ask
you
that question?”

He’d told the warpriest about the ghost, uncomfortable with the telling but even less comfortable with leading his family off to follow such a flight of fancy without speaking to someone first. Someone he trusted; someone who would not think him utterly mad. And Baryk was a metaphysick, though moderate in his beliefs. The city-state he hailed from—Paltos—was one of few in the Named Lands that not only allowed but encouraged a religious system, the people worshiping a loose pantheon of the more benevolent Younger Gods. When the Androfrancines had been in power, they’d avoided that corner of the Outer Emerald Coast and had encouraged others to do the same.

“We know their ghosts are in the waters,” Baryk had said. “I’ve not seen them myself, but I’ve heard the sailors tell of it. Your own daughter is named for them.” Then he’d offered a reassuring smile. “Who am I—and who is anyone else—to question what you’ve seen or experienced?”

Vlad had been comforted by the man’s response.

Now, he returned the chuckle. “It was a good night. But she was restless. I think she’s eager to leave.”

She.
How did he know this? He blinked at his own words and bit his lower lip. He did know it. And not for the first time, he realized there were many ways of knowing a thing. He stood and stretched on the dock.

Baryk studied him. “You know that some of the older children are
whispering about this. They know something is afoot. They’ve watched you watching the sea, and now these midnight rowings.”

Vlad nodded. He did know this and he’d expected it. “Let them whisper. They will still follow.”

“Aye,” Baryk said, “they will, though they may quietly think you mad.”

I think myself mad.
But he didn’t say it. He held that in and turned it over and over like a Rufello puzzle. It was possible—even likely—that he saw nothing at all there in the sea. Perhaps something had broken in him during his time of captivity and kin-healing. Perhaps he’d concocted a beautiful singing spirit to pull him away from his pain and into the deep waters where he could find some kind of peace. Perhaps he was in love now with the notion of forgetting beneath the waves. Regardless, he knew the power of perception, and if somehow he was wrong in what he saw and experienced, that would work its way out as he pursued it. He vaguely recalled a Francine arch-behaviorist who’d written a slender volume on the subject of hallucination as a means of the psyche healing itself.

“What they think,” Vlad Li Tam said, summoning firmness to his voice, “is what they think. We leave as soon as the ships are loaded.”

Baryk nodded. “I’ve seen to your things. They’re in your cabin on the flagship.”

Vlad forced a smile. “Thank you, Baryk. I’ll be in the temple until we leave.”

Baryk clapped Vlad on the shoulder. “I’ll see to the ships.”

Vlad left his son-in-law and climbed the stairs slowly, inclining his head to those members of his family who passed him. He reached the top of the low bluff and climbed the marble steps up into the white building.

Once inside, he made his way to the top of the building, entering the large domed observation room on the fourth floor.

He walked to the railing and looked down, expecting vertigo and a memory of screams to overtake him and drive him to his knees.

Neither happened.

Vlad Li Tam stood still and listened. Outside, he heard the first whistles of those ships that were loaded and ready to depart.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly to the ghosts of his family.

Then he stood silent and listened for absolution in the stillness of the room. He waited, not even able to find his tears, until Baryk’s runner found him and told him that the last longboat awaited him.

Then Vlad Li Tam turned his back upon those ghosts and gave himself to the chasing of another.

In the first days following the explosion at the library, the city of Rachyle’s Rest was awash with panic, and Winters did her best to stay out of the way and help where she could.

Most of that help was filling in for Isaak to keep the work of the library moving forward while at the same time launching repairs.

Charles had hidden himself away with the broken mechoservitors, rarely leaving his workshop. The metal men that remained were already doing what they could to replace the volumes lost in that brief blaze, and fresh crews of refugee laborers had already cleared the rubble and begun repairs to the damaged wing.

Of course, it did not surprise Winters at all that even as they worked, the skies above the Ninefold Forest broke open and the first of the rains began to fall.

And it also did not surprise her that her first summons to the Seventh Forest Manor after the blast came in the midst of that first deluge. Careful of the gathering puddles of water and the mud sucking at her boots, Winters ran through the downpour in the gray of midmorning.

As she ran, she watched the city around her. Soldiers from the local brigade of the Wandering Army stood at key locations or patrolled the streets. And as she approached the manor, she saw a half-squad of scouts administering their powders, fading into the wash of water as they raced for the woods. They were running the forest day and night now, she knew, enforcing Rudolfo’s new edict and looking for any clues as to who caused the explosion.

The rainfall lightened as Winters approached the gates to the manor, and she nodded to the guards as she passed. The massive house loomed ahead, rising above the rooftops of the city. Five minutes later, she was barefoot, dripping wet and standing outside the door of Rudolfo’s study, catching what water she could with a rough cotton towel.

The Gypsy Scout at the door ushered her in.

Rudolfo and Jin Li Tam waited in the sitting area with Aedric. Between them, a pitcher of wine and a platter of cheeses sat untouched. They stood as she entered, and Rudolfo gestured to an empty armchair near the fire.

She shook her head. “I’m soaked,” she said. “I’d better stand.”

“Nonsense,” Rudolfo said. “It’s only water. Join us, Winters.”

She paused, suddenly mindful of their faces. All of them were bruised or cut, and each had dark circles beneath their eyes. Rudolfo’s arm was in a sling, and he held the Y’Zirite gospel in his free hand.

Winters sat and looked to Jin Li Tam. “How is Jakob?”

She watched a mother’s sorrow flush the woman’s pale face. “He may lose some hearing from the ruptured ear, but otherwise, he’s fine.”

Winters nodded slowly and wondered why she’d been summoned. She suspected the book in Rudolfo’s hand had something to do with it.

Rudolfo cleared his voice and she looked to him. “We are at a difficult intersection,” he said, “and desire your input.” He held the book up. “You’ve read this?”

Again, she nodded. “I have, Lord.” She glanced quickly around the room and noticed with a start the look of subdued anger on Aedric’s face.

Rudolfo continued. “It appears that my wife and my son feature heavily in this elaborate mythology.”

“They appear to, Lord,” she concurred.

Rudolfo started to move his broken arm, winced, then put down the book. He stroked his beard. “I’ve new word from your sister,” he said. “A renewed pledge of aid and a . . .
difficult
. . . request.”

“Not difficult,” Aedric said, interrupting with uncharacteristic anger. “Unheard-of.”

Winters watched as the two men made eye contact, exchanging silent words between them. Aedric looked away first.

“Difficult,” Rudolfo said again with more firmness in his voice. He paused. “I’ve read it through three times and have reached the conclusion that if your sister truly believes this book she can in no way intend harm to me or my family.”

Now Jin Li Tam interjected. “Still, they could have engineered this event merely to convince us of this. They provide Winters a copy of the gospel along with a warning. And then shortly after they supposedly leave our forests, this”—Winters watched her reaching for the right word—“
attack
takes place.”

Rudolfo’s eyebrows raised. “This attack would have killed you both if Isaak hadn’t intervened.”

Winters started, looking up. “Isaak?” She’d known he’d been damaged heavily—perhaps irreparably, she’d heard—in the attack, but she’d not heard this.

Jin Li Tam looked away, her voice quiet. “He put himself between
us and the blast, then shielded Jakob and me from the falling stonework.” When she looked back to her husband, her eyes were hard and narrow. “But it still could be a clever machination. Something intended to bring us to this very moment.”

“This is my concern, as well, Lady,” Aedric said.

“We are
all
concerned about this,” Rudolfo said, “and yet.” He paused, took a deep breath. “I think she is sincere. Gods know I might be wrong, but I suspect this new threat rises in the south, not the north. Esarov and Erlund have honored kin-clave with investigations of their own, cooperating fully with our own intelligence efforts. Pylos and Turam have not responded to our requests, but we did not expect them to. And Ria’s newest message claims her scouts have taken three prisoners, magicked and fleeing across our Prairie Sea.”

Machtvolk scouts in the Prairie Sea?
She studied Rudolfo’s face, knowing this could not possibly please him. Still, all she saw was a wash of weariness and something she thought might be resolve. Winters blushed when she realized their eyes had met and held for a moment. But when she looked away from his, red-rimmed and dark-shadowed, she realized in hindsight the other emotion she’d seen there.
Fear.

The room became silent and Winters shifted uncomfortably in the chair, still feeling the water from her hair as it traced its way down her shoulders and back underneath the dress she wore. She wondered if she should say something, but even as she pondered, Rudolfo spoke again.

“We’ve called you here to ask two questions of you, Lady Winteria.”

He speaks formally to me now,
she noted. “Yes Lord?”

He took a deep breath. “I know your people have changed; I know your sister is a largely unknown factor. But I need to know: Do you believe she or her Machtvolk would do harm to my family?”

Winters thought about it, remembering the look of adoration upon Ria’s face when she first laid eyes on Jakob those months ago, and the same look upon the evangelists’ faces when their Great Mother and Child of Promise entered the room during Rudolfo’s audience with them. Then, she pondered the words of the gospel. When she looked up to meet Rudolfo’s eyes again, she hoped her answer was true. “I do not believe they will harm you or your family, Lord Rudolfo. In this matter, I think their attempts to help are genuine. But I could be—”

He raised his good arm. “We all could be wrong,” he said. “I only look for your sense of it. Of all here, you understand the more . . .
metaphysical
. . . aspects of your people.”

She heard Aedric shifting and looked over to him. The man’s knuckles were white on the arms of his chair, and she could see the care with which he guarded his facial expression. She looked back to Jin Li Tam and then Rudolfo. “Why do you ask, Lord?”

More furtive glances between the husband and wife. “Because,” he finally said, “they’ve invited my wife and child to participate in a diplomatic mission behind their borders until such time as this new threat is identified and eradicated.”

She felt the color drain from her face as her stomach lurched. “You’re going to send them?” Now, Aedric’s anger made sense to her, and she saw clearly how much more grave this moment was.

Rudolfo sighed. “If Lady Tam concurs. I’ve read the gospel. And though your people have been twisted into something very different from what you’ve known, I trust your judgment of them.” He looked to Aedric, then Jin Li Tam again. “And we are uncovering evidence of a new, less careful network emerging from the war-ravaged south.”