Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel (19 page)

No, nor how many of the risen there are above the waves. We cannot see more than a few body lengths beyond the edges of our realm, though we
can
tell you that the undersanctuary
where your young lie hidden remains yet inviolate. We see and hear much through the wellhead there.

I’m not sure what brought you to our aid at this time, Mudlight,
I sent,
but it is very good to find that we have allies still in this world, however unexpected.

I wish we knew more about what might be happening with the temple,
Triss sent to me.

Mudlight answered him with the shrug image.
The risen entered our domain, and so we found them. Some few very strong ones came on toward the dirtplace, burrowing through the muck on the bottom, but most moved into the temple tunnels once they entered the water. If they are truly death elementals as you say, they probably sensed the life there, and hoped to pry it out like a clam from its shell. I imagine that once we move your young they will turn their attention this way again.

Are there very many of them, do you think?
I asked.

We have already devoured more than your numbers, and at least that many remain in sight of our shores. We will feed well tonight. They are very easy prey once you break their connection with the floor of the lake, but you must eat them quickly or lose the best meat—the currents scrub the flesh from their bones if they’re exposed to it for long.

You eat them?
I was appalled.
Doesn’t that make you ill?

Our kind began as bottom-feeders. We have grown much since those days, and we have learned to hunt for fresher prey, but the old ways are good, too. Horrible your risen are and steeped in evil, but delicious as well. The magic in them makes a fine sauce to go with well-aged flesh for such as we. But, come, we have stopped here too long already. I was supposed to see to it that you arrive at the gullet first. I must make haste if I am not to fail in my charge.

I thought that we had been traveling fast before, but now . . . The enormous eel-like fish tucked me in tight against its side and flew through water like a stooping gryphon. In a matter of minutes he had brought me around to the far side of the island and down almost to the bottom of the lake.
There, he aimed directly for a jagged rock ledge without slowing.

For a brief moment I thought we would collide with it to our ruin. But then, what had looked like a band of dark rock turned out to be a deeply shaded and overhung rift in the stone. Before I had time for more than the briefest flash of panic, we were through and into a column of incredibly clear water with bright stars shining down from somewhere above.

Where are we?
I asked.

My initial thought was that it reminded me of the sacred pool, but we were about halfway around the island from where it ought to be, if I’d kept anything of my bearings. More importantly, there was something decidedly wrong with the sky, though at first I couldn’t think of what. It was only as we climbed higher in the water column that I realized the moon had vanished and taken all the familiar constellations with it. I repeated my question about our whereabouts, as Mudlight hadn’t yet answered.

This is Namara’s hallow, her abode in the mortal world.

What’s wrong with the sky?
asked Triss, his mental voice querulous.
Those aren’t the stars as I know them. They are too dim, and some of them move. . . .

They what?
As we got closer, I could see that he was right. Some of what I had taken to be stars were moving slowly and seemingly randomly across the dome of the . . . heavens? Sky? The color of the “stars” was wrong, too, a green-tinged blue that exhibited none of the variation I was used to seeing above me.
I don’t understand.

They are no stars,
sent Mudlight.
Nor is that the sky. The goddess did not wish to be observed here. Neither by mortal eyes or divine, or so our ancient legends tell us. She made this cave under the heart of her island and she hallowed it and sealed it against all scrying and prying. But she missed the stars, for she was a goddess who loved the night.

So,
he continued,
she made her own stars from what she had to hand—tiny worms that hunt in the dark. She gave them light to comfort her, but she was a wise goddess and
made sure that it would serve
them
as well, by drawing the gnats and flies that are their prey.

I felt a stirring then in the waters beneath us. But when I looked down, I could see nothing but blackness. Even my night-trained vision couldn’t penetrate the darkness below without more light than worms could provide.

Tailnipper has joined us,
sent Mudlight.
He brings Mythkiller, and Deepdiver comes behind bearing Ghostwind. I will take you to the surface and then get out of the way. This well can only hold a few of our kind, and there will be much coming and going as we deliver your young. Call for me if you need me anywhere within the bounds of our realm. I will come as quick as I can.

Mudlight’s head broke the surface as he finished sending that last, and he deftly swung me over to the shore. I have made the transition from water-breathing to air-breathing a dozen or more times, and it is never a graceful one. I spent the next several seconds coughing water out of my lungs. By the time I was in any shape to speak again Mudlight had vanished.

“Not much on good-byes, are they?” Siri said a moment later, though not in a way that invited a response.

Honestly, that was all to the good, because I had found the lost swords. . . .

The goddess had forged her weapons out of black steel taken from the hearts of fallen stars, and then she imbued them with the stuff of the everdark. Namara’s swords are assassin’s blades and all but invisible in the night. But where the swords themselves could not be seen, the glowworms that hung from them made each one into a sort of constellation of its own.

If the glowworms made a shimmering heaven of the cavern’s ceiling, the swords were a swarm of slashing comets cutting their way through the false night. They were scattered in pairs throughout the cave, seemingly at random both in terms of height and placement.

“What’s holding them up?” Faran asked after some minutes of silence had passed. “I’d expect more of those glowing
worms to be attached to whatever it is, but I’m not seeing anything like that.”

“I have no idea.” I’d been wondering that myself. “Let’s go look.”

The six of us—Kumi, Roric, and Kelos had arrived shortly after Faran—crossed the short distance to the nearest low-hanging set. There were two pairs we could have gotten to quicker, but both were well out of easy reach. These weren’t much above eye level. But on closer examination we were none the wiser.

“They look like they’re just hanging in space without so much as a wire for support.” Triss formed himself into a ring and passed completely around the swords as a test. “I can’t find anything, physical, magical, or other dimensional. For all that I can tell, Namara simply put them there and told them to stay.”

I looked over at Siri. “You’re the order’s magus, our highest officer for things of spell craft. Any thoughts on what we should do next?”

“God-magic makes me nervous,” she replied, “even Namara’s god-magic. It doesn’t project spell-light, or follow any of the rules the rest of us have to play by.” The worms cast enough light that I could easily see the pensive look on her face. “I really don’t know.”

Faran snorted. “Too much thinking, not enough doing.” She reached up and grabbed the paired hilts.

I found myself drawing in a sharp anticipatory breath, but nothing blew up or started on fire. In fact, nothing happened at all.

I let myself breathe again. “Faran, don’t ever do that again, all right?”

She turned and grinned at me without letting go of the swords. “Done. I will never ever be the first person to touch one of these beauties again.”

“Thank you for drawing the narrowest possible lesson,” I grumbled.

“Any time. It’s one of my best skills, you know.”

Siri glared at both of us. “If you two are done with the
witty banter, I’d like to hear more about why Faran hasn’t done anything more than touch the swords yet.”

“Can’t,” replied Faran. “Watch.” She lifted herself off the ground, using the hilts like parallel chinning bars. “They’re as firmly fixed as if they’d been sunk in stone.”

“That could pose a problem for initiating more Blades,” I said.

“May I try?” asked Kelos.

Faran shrugged and dropped free of the swords. “Be my guest, though I don’t think adding an extra helping of manly to the table is the answer.”

“It almost never is,” agreed Siri. “But they just keep trying.”

“It’s sad, really,” replied Faran.

Kelos ignored them as he reached up and yanked on first one hilt and then the other. Nothing. Next, he shifted his grip, so that both hands were on one sword, and swung up to brace his feet against the other. His shoulders creaked and popped as he pushed on it with everything he had.

More nothing.

After a few minutes of various brute force efforts, Kelos dropped free. “They’re not moving for anything.”

I was still wondering what to try next, when Kumi stepped past me and bowed deeply to the hanging swords. “I honor the goddess who placed you here. Please honor my desire to follow in her path.” Then she reached up, took one sword in each hand and, as easily and gently as you could imagine, she pulled them free of whatever held them.

Kelos turned sharply to look down at the young woman. “How did you do that, girl?”

She smiled and bowed to Kelos. “I realized that the problem might not be one of how, Master Kelos, but rather, one of who. You have no need of more swords, and they have no need of you.”

I
despise the ease with which the horrific can transform itself into the routine. Extraordinary ordeal becomes expected ritual. Ritual becomes practice. Practice becomes convention. And, all too soon, something that should never have happened in the first place becomes
the way it has always been done
.

Kumi claimed that having the swords come loose at her touch put her next in line to attempt the rite of attunement. A fair argument. Like Faran—and despite having witnessed exactly what she was getting into—Kumi chose the way of ordeal. She asked Faran to be her Sponsor and Kelos her Challenger. Roric came next and chose ordeal as well—I suspect because he didn’t want to be seen to have less courage than the pair that had gone before. Jax was his Sponsor with Faran as Challenger, and Siri and Kumi playing the roles of the Wardens of the East and West. Maryam chose Jax as well, with Roric applying the challenge.

And so it went, ordeal after ordeal after ordeal, with Jax playing the role of Sponsor most often. Challenger shifted quite a bit, as did the Wardens, but Kelos played no role after Kumi, while Faran, Siri, and I were only rarely called on. Not
one of the students failed, though several passed out while hanging from the swords. Many screamed and swore or cried, and only a few had the same degree of miraculous healing that Faran had. But even in those cases, the Shades could taste the difference in the steel and verify that the rite had taken.

Would the gentler petition by entreaty have worked as well? I don’t know, and I doubt that I ever shall.

Every Blade that comes after this class will choose ordeal. Of that I have little doubt. Assuming that we are able to continue forward, those who take up their swords after the death of the goddess will see those wrist scars as much as a mark of passage as bonding with a Shade or being made a journeyman. An extreme event, designed in haste, and chosen out of expedience to suit the exceptional, will have become the customary because it will ever and always be
the way these things are done
.

If I survive as First Blade, I will certainly endeavor to find a means to gentle the thing, but my experience with my fellows does not leave me much room for hope on that front. We are, as a group, dedicated to the darkness of our calling as much as the light. The horrible romance of making a personal blood sacrifice to demonstrate devotion to the ideal of justice will have a powerful allure.

It took two nights of blood and magic and pain, but at the end of that time, the number of full Blades stood at twenty-one—excluding Kelos and the others who had betrayed the goddess. Nearly a tenfold increase from a week ago, but still only a tithe of our strength before the fall. I hoped that what we had begun here was a new era for justice, but feared it might amount to little more than putting a boot to the headsman on the way to the block.

Not that I intended to stop kicking one instant before the axe fell.

*   *   *

“I
hate this!” snapped Jax.

“I know,” I answered her. “That doesn’t change my decision.”

The rituals were all done. We’d slept the sun from east to west. And we’d eaten as much of a celebratory banquet as we could manage. Now that I had done all that I could to ensure there would be an order to come back to, and despite the gravest sorts of misgivings, it was time for me to head for my long delayed appointment with the Son of Heaven.

But I had dealt Jax out of that play, and she didn’t like it one bit. Exhibiting wisdom earned the hard way in the years when Jax and I had been a couple, Triss and Sshayar had decided to let us work it out on our own, and simply vanished into the surrounding shadows.

I put my hands on Jax’s shoulders and spoke quietly. “You know as well as I do that there’s only one logical choice to leave in charge of this crew.” I inclined my head toward the place where most of the others were picking over the remains of our meager feast. “Siri is compromised by her divine infection. Kelos is Kelos. Faran simultaneously scares those who know her well and irritates most of the rest by being younger and obviously better than they are. I
have
to go. That leaves you.”

Jax took a deep breath. “I know all that, and I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I just hate it.” Now she fixed me with her hardest stare. “Oh, and if you don’t come back from this, I swear that I will track your ghost down and pickle it in a bottle of vinegar.”

“Harsh.” I grinned. “But probably fair, though I do have to protest the vinegar. You could at least make it good Aveni whiskey. Kyle’s eighteen, maybe?”

“Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time marinating in a whiskey bottle?” she asked.

She said it gently enough, but it burned, and I actually welcomed the pain. That I had even mentioned the Kyle’s said things about what was going on in the back of my head that I didn’t like. I had conquered my drinking for the moment, but I was under no illusions that I couldn’t lose myself in the bottle again if I let my guard relax.

There were too many times when I really, really wanted to just let everything go for a while, as I used to be able to
when I had a bottle to hand. Like, say, every single time I remembered what it felt like to put a sword through Faran’s wrist, a memory that wasn’t going to fade any time soon. Or when I thought about actually killing the Son of Heaven and what that would mean for the world as opposed to the more straightforward task of reaching him.

“Aral?” Jax spoke with a note of real concern. “Are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

I put a finger to her lips. “I know you didn’t, and you’ve no reason to apologize for anything. But that was point and bout together, and . . . well, let’s leave it at that.”

“All right.” She nodded. “So, next thing on my list.”

“Wait, there’s a list?”

“Of course there’s a list.” She glanced skyward as if asking for patience. “It’s like you don’t know me at all . . . which might explain why our engagement foundered on the rocks, actually.”

This time I smiled at her tease. It was delivered in a manner more barbed and arch, but simultaneously much less painful than the whiskey comment. The book on that relationship had closed long ago, and I couldn’t imagine it ever opening again.

“It might explain it at that,” I said. “So, your list . . .”

“First, I don’t want you to go alone.”

“We won’t,” said Triss, obviously deciding that we had moved away from the dangerous personal topics. “Siri will be with us, and Faran.”

“Yes, and Kelos.” Jax lifted an eyebrow. “The very three people you said couldn’t be trusted to run things here in your absence.”

“Not fair,” said Sshayar. “The reasoning and structure of a mission to kill the Son of Heaven is completely different from that of maintaining the beginnings of a new order of Blades.”

Jax snorted and put the back of a hand to her forehead. “Betrayed by mine own shadow. Oh, the indignity. La.”

“Not that she’s wrong about any of that,” I said.

“Not that she’s wrong,” agreed Jax. She held up a finger.
“I suspect that Faran would eat her own heart raw if she thought it would protect you at this point—foolish girl.” Another finger. “I trust Siri completely where neither you nor she does. Even if you have killed another king since the last time I saw you, she’s still better than you are. And that’s without whatever new secret talents she’s added along with the smoke in her hair.” She added a thumb. “Kelos is Kelos. I don’t trust him, but if your interests and his coincide, as I think they do here, there is quite literally no one in the world better to guard your back.”

I suppose that I should have been surprised that she’d figured out Siri had a new set of hole cards, but I wasn’t—Jax is very smart. “So, what’s your point?” I asked. “Or list? Or whatever it is you were about to get at?”

“I want you to take Maryam with you, and Roric.”

“Absolutely not. This mission is already too big for my comfort. Trying to sneak four assassins in close to the Son of Heaven is probably three too many. An army isn’t what I need here.”

“And I’m not suggesting you bring one.” Before I could respond, Jax held up a hand. “I’m not finished. I don’t want them to go all the way in with you. I want them to ride along as observers and to be there to provide an outside distraction if you need one unexpectedly—not to help directly. I damned well want to know
exactly
what happened if you don’t come back, and they’re my way of keeping an eye on you. Besides, they’ll keep Kumi company.”

“Who said Kumi was coming?” asked Triss.

Jax rolled her eyes. “Have you not noticed that Faran has a second shadow now? Or a third, if you count Ssithra. Faran will go because Aral is going, and no one is going to be able to change that. The same I think is true of Kumi and Faran.”

Now that she had pointed it out, I realized she might have a point. Kumi had stayed very close to Faran ever since the fight on the trail. “Huh, I wonder why that is.”

Jax shrugged. “If I understood how the young think, I might have done a better job at that age myself. All I know
is what I have observed while trying to play den mother to this pack of wild young killers. One such pithy observation is that they form all sorts of deep attachments for no apparent rhyme or reason and without any recourse for talking sense into them. She might look up to Faran as an idol despite being the older of the pair. She might see her as the sister of her heart. Or she could be head over heels in love. Sometimes it’s very hard to sort out the one from the other even for them, I think.”

I thought back to my own mad crushes and inseparable friendships from those days and laughed. “Those were interesting years. I wonder if what has happened between Devin and me since then would have turned out differently if we’d been lovers instead of just friends?”

Now it was Jax’s turn to laugh. “It might have done his obsession with you a world of good. Sharing your bed for a couple of years certainly disabused me of any notion that you were perfect. Too bad he’s never gone for guys.”

I nodded. “I did offer once, but he’s much firmer in his preferences than most of the rest of us. Or, most mages in general, for that matter.”

“The familiar gift does seem to walk hand in hand with a more omnivorous sort of desire,” said Jax. “I wonder why that is?”

“Does this mean we’ve finished with your list?” I asked.

“Not even close. Besides, you haven’t yet said whether you’ll take Roric and Maryam.”

“I will. I think you’re right about Kumi, whatever her reasons, and having her added officially with the other pair will make that all less awkward. So, what’s up next?”

“Mostly sorting out the shadow council and the succession in case you and Siri are both killed. There were ten members in the old days. I think we’ll want to halve that unless and until there are a lot more of us than the current total.”

I sighed. Jax was right that all of this really needed dealing with before we left, but it wasn’t going to be much fun. “All right, you’re obviously stuck with First Blade if I end
up as a stuffed trophy in the Son of Heaven’s hunting lodge. That probably makes Javan magus, and . . .”

*   *   *

“Kill
them?” asked Kelos.

I looked down on the campsite below us and pondered the question. The risen that had attempted the goddess’s island had come from here. That was clear enough, given the evidence of the wicker cage chariots and the fact that we were barely more than a couple of bowshots from the shores of the sacred lake. The Caeni troops would certainly kill us if they got the chance. So would the dozen or so heavily armored types wearing the insignia of the Sword of Heaven. The lone member of the Hand that they were escorting might or might not depending on who was watching and whether she was aligned with Toragana’s faction or more of a mind with Chomarr.

Finally, I shook my head and gestured for us to move back over the crest before speaking. “It’s tempting,” I said once we were far enough away to talk quietly without worrying about being overheard, “but no. I don’t think killing them would serve justice. They’re not directly in our way and, once the Son of Heaven is removed, none of them may even be enemies of ours anymore.”

I paused for a moment then as I found myself suddenly in want of more air. While we had been sorting out the matter of the students and the swords, I was able to put aside most of my worries about the Son of Heaven and what killing him might mean for the broader world. I had even been able to convince myself that I was comfortable with the decision to go after him.

But that was all a lie. Actually talking about it brought every one of the doubts and fears that had been lurking in the back of my mind roaring in again as if they’d only been waiting for the right moment to pounce.

There had been significant costs to this mission already, both on the personal front and the broader scale of nations. The battle at Wall. Dalridia engulfed in war. Jax’s brother
falling to the invaders. The Avarsi we had slaughtered on our way out of Dalridia. Altia’s death in the mountains . . . Enormous amounts of blood had been spilled, and we hadn’t yet come within a thousand miles of Heaven’s Reach. I had no doubts that there would be more blood spilled before we reached our destination. By us if we were smart and lucky. Our own if we weren’t.