Heartland-The Second Book of the Codex of Souls (49 page)

Dimly, I realized he was still holding on to the Spear, and I wondered why he hadn't let go. The Chorus, forcing their way through the haze of pain that overwhelmed my senses, forced me to focus on the sleeves of his suit coat. His arms were the same length, even though there was less of his right arm.
He took your hand at the wrist,
they shouted—a crackling, shrieking noise in my head.
At Mont-Saint-Michel, he lost most of the arm. How is he controlling the hand?

My control of the metal hand wasn't very precise. I couldn't pick up pins, or pull the wings off flies. I could open and close the fingers. I could hold an object. I could crush an aluminum can. Or a sleeve filled with magick.

Antoine forced me back against the pew, pushing his blade closer to my face. His eyebrows pulled together as I closed my fingers about the right sleeve of his suit jacket, but he didn't realize what I was doing until I started to squeeze.

There was nothing in his sleeve but his realized Will, holding my severed hand in place. Much like the cuffs of the gauntlet around my shortened wrist, the fabric of his coat helped to anchor my hand. But because his arm ended just below the elbow, he had to re-create his missing forearm so as to anchor his new hand. The sleeve of his suit coat provided a framework through which he could bind his Will, and it worked well. To a point. Now I was putting pressure on it, pressure backed by the Chorus and my Will.

He struggled, trying to pull away from me, but I had his wrist still. And his coat. He tried to twist the Spear, and it moved slightly in my gut. Enough to send starbursts of pain into my intestines and stomach, but not enough to make me lose my focus. Not enough to make my grip slacken.

The fabric of his coat creased in my grip as he wrenched his left hand free. He brought his sword down in a heavy stroke, and I had no choice but to retreat. I couldn't block the blade, and I had no way to stop him. I squeezed with my right hand and stumbled back, twisting my upper torso to protect my head as best I could. The blade sliced across my shoulder, cutting deep into the deltoid. I took two more stumbling steps, bouncing off the pews and then tripped, banging my hip against a pew before collapsing in the central aisle.

"Stop!" Marielle was on this side of the railing now, running toward us. "Enough."

Antoine side-stepped through the ether into the space between Marielle and me, and forced her to stop with the point of his sword. "No," he said. "This is what he wanted." His right arm was crooked and bent, the forearm twisted. He still held on to the Spear, but his control of the arm below the elbow wasn't very good. As I struggled to get to my knees, he put his sword down and transferred the Spear to his left hand.

The floor was slippery with blood, and I fell again, pain shrieking in my back as I pulled my shoulders together. My vision was blurring again, and I focused on the blade resting on the bench two rows up. That was a goal I could still manage.
Adducite gladium mihi.
The Chorus slithered along the floor, ripples of magick nearly invisible against the heavy haze of etheric possibility.

There was a ringing in my ears, and at first, I thought it was an internal sound, but when Antoine and Marielle looked up, I realized they heard it too. The bells of Sacré-Cœur were ringing. It was dawn. Yellow light was shining through the square windows of the cupola, and a slow wave of gold was flowing down the western side of the dome.

I gathered myself together and got my feet under me. I was a clumsy missile, but I was in motion. The Chorus wrapped around the hilt of Antoine's sword, making a connection between my Will and the steel.
Venite mihi.
The blade moved, and my metal fingers closed tight.

Antoine turned as I lumbered toward him, a gored bull making one last charge toward the victorious matador, and his Will compressed into a shimmering blue fire along the edge of the Spear. He realized his mistake at the last second; he realized I wasn't even going to try to stop his stroke.

The Spear slid between two ribs, missed my heart, and punctured a lung. The blade was a cold icicle in my chest, stealing my heat and light, and a sob escaped from my lips. There was no pain; there was just an emptiness that opened in my chest, a gaping void like one I had felt before. But whatever despair I had felt earlier at its earlier touch was nothing compared to the bleakness that washed over me now. This was the cold touch of betrayal, the final moment of your life when you realize there is nothing left.
Nihil est.
This was the black vacuum when hope has fled; this was the bleak nihilism of knowing how empty the Universe truly was.

Antoine flinched. He could read all of this in my eyes, and the desire for victory, which he had been so flush with a moment prior, fled, leaving him aware of what he had done. Aware of the price paid for his chance at Coronation.

I tried to smile. "You have no idea," I Whispered.

He realized what I was holding in my metal hand, and he tried to pull the Spear out, but it was stuck in my chest. Caught on a rib. He let go, raising his hand to deflect the sword, and my first blow opened his hand to the bone. I caught him on the cheek with the pommel, and he finally stepped back. Enough for me to get a decent swing. He twisted away and the blade took him in the side of the neck instead of the front. Blood spurted in an arc, and for a second, my vision went black.

What is done is done.

I staggered forward, bringing the blade back for one last swing, one last cut across his spine. To stop him from crawling away from me.

But Marielle was in the way.

Everything froze, and I blinked again, trying to figure out how I had lost track of a few seconds. She stared at me, unflinching, her arms lifted in a pose that seemed too familiar. I tried to let go of the sword, but my metal hand was slow to respond. The intent was already in the blade. My Will had already engaged. She didn't blink or flinch as the sword struck her; she only mouthed two words before she closed her eyes and crumpled around the blade.

I closed my eyes too.

And then the light of dawn hit the Grail and the world was lit with pain.

Someone slapped my face. "Wake up," Husserl said, hitting me once more. "This is not the time to get lost in a dream. There is no aid for you there. Not anymore. Your Architects have fled."

I groaned as the Chorus tried to silence the screaming sounds in my head—the echoes of the bells and the harmonic reverberations of my nerve endings. The room was too bright, filled with the radiant glow of sunlight. Husserl's glasses were like circles of fire on his face.

"I still need you to do something for me," the Scryer said, hauling me up to a sitting position. "I still need a Witness."

I tried to laugh, and found my mouth full of blood. I coughed, and it didn't seem to help. I couldn't feel anything but hot streaks on my cheeks from the tears; everything else was cold.

"Get one of them to do it," I Whispered, nodding toward the crumpled bodies of Antoine and Marielle.

He shook his head. "You are the one who Anoints me," he said. "I have Seen it."

"What if I refuse?" I asked.

"You don't," he said. "And we both know it."

I stared at his glasses, trying to see past the light caught in his lenses. He Knew the future. He Knew what was to come. Was all this blood and betrayal simply for his entertainment? Could he have made our paths easier by telling us what he Knew? Could he have spared us?

I had told the Watchers outside that I had come to fight Antoine for the right to be here, and that had been a large part of my intent. But there was still the unresolved matter with Husserl and my place in the bigger picture. I was supposed to have been the courier for the Architects, but they were gone. I had nothing to give the new Hierarch. I had already played that card. Husserl would get the organization, but a lot of its knowledge was hidden from him. The daughters—now free—would not be beholden to him. He would have to negotiate access to the Archives. He was going to get the Crown and become the new Hierarch, but what else?

The body has become diseased. It can no longer support life. It must be slain.

Are you happy, Old Man? Have I done enough for you?

He was gone, but I felt a tremor in the Chorus, a vestigial echo of his personality.
No,
they whispered. You were not my angel of vengeance. You did it for yourself.

That is all you will ever be.

I nodded to Husserl. "I will be your Witness," I croaked, finding my voice.

"Good." He pulled me upright, and the pain of being moved brought me back. Standing was torture, and he pulled me roughly, not caring how each step wracked my spine and spirit. I only had to Witness; the state of the rest of my body was immaterial to him.

The atmosphere in the church was sweltering and turgid, the air filled with etheric force as the dawn boiled the ground, releasing the collected power of the Land. It was power without responsibility, force without direction, and it was going to smother us soon. All of us. Unless someone completed the Coronation ritual.

The Grail was too bright to look at directly, and my vision bleached to pure emptiness as Husserl lifted it to my lips and gave me a tiny sip of the water held within. I gasped as the pain lessened, as my body found it had the strength to go on. The possibility of another sip from the Cup was promise enough. I took a deep breath and my left lung re-inflated; the Spear was forced out of my chest by the magick of the Grail and it clattered on the altar with a chime of despair. A few seconds later, I was strong enough to stand on my own, though I still leaned heavily against the altar.

My mouth watered as I focused on the gold light of the Grail.

Husserl ignored my fascination with the Cup and set it down. Picking up the Spear, he nicked his palm with the tip of the blade. It whined as it stroked his flesh, but his grip was strong and he only let it taste his blood. Returning it to the altar, he held his cut hand over the Grail. His blood sizzled and popped as it fell into the water of the Cup.

"By my blood and desire, I accept the Crown," he said. "By my Will and intent, I offer myself to the Land."

The waters foamed at his words, and the walls of the church groaned and trembled as the leys churned beneath us. The air grew thicker still, and it took nearly all my strength to draw that heavy air into my fragile lungs.

"There is but one Threshold," he said, "and there is but one Guardian Who Waits. There is but one Spirit, and there is but one Mind. I accept this purification by the water and the light. I accept this gift offered to me by the Land."

The waters subsided in the Cup, and the pressure of the Land around us lessened, as if we were in the calm eye of a hurricane. Husserl indicated that I should give him the Grail. His palm was red with blood, and a drop fell from his hand, spattering on the altar.

This was my role. I was to Witness his transformation. There was but one Guardian, but there was also one Watcher. God may have made the Universe, but it didn't exist until His Shadow observed it. All light is but a point in time and space until it has a direction, until it has a purpose. Nothing moves without a destination, and to have a destination, you must have a second point.

"Witness me," Husserl said. The fires of his glasses flickered and danced. "Attend to my Ascension."

He had Seen it, hadn't he? He had Seen this moment a long time ago, and everything had been a matter of waiting for it to arrive. The Silent Guardian Who Waits. He certainly qualified. He had been very patient.
You can't change what I've Seen.

But he had been trying so very hard to convince me, hadn't he? When I had the Architects in my head, I had been a Singularity. A point past which he hadn't been able to See. Was that still the case? When I gave the Architects to Vivienne, had the future suddenly become clear to the Scryer? But that would imply that what he had Seen had been correct. I hadn't obscured him at all, in that case. I had simply caused him to be
uncertain,
but that hadn't changed the future.

And he had waited, patiently, on the edge of everything. Waiting until there was no way his touch could disturb what he had Seen.

"Give me the Cup," Husserl said, a note of tension creeping into his voice. He raised his blood-slicked hand, and his glasses shivered slightly as his palm entered his field of vision.

Why was he nervous? He Saw the future in his glasses. He already knew whether or not I gave him the Cup. He already Knew what was to happen. If I didn't give him the Cup, then why was he trying to hide that fact from me? The future was inviolate; once Seen, it happened.

Omne imaginum meae cordis sunt,
the Chorus whispered. Everything is an echo.

It was all a matter of interpretation. Nicols had said as much. That was the case with all the secrets. What we Saw, what we Knew, what we Believed was in our own heads.

We were observers of the world, tiny little lights who looked upon the mystery of creation and deciphered it as best we could. Wasn't this the whole course of human exploration and thought? Trying to figure out what it all meant? We didn't know, and we knew we didn't know, and that was why we kept trying. That was why we kept rising every day and looking toward the dawn. Would we see it differently today? Would we understand its secrets this morning?

Husserl was a Watcher. He was a manipulator of threads. Like Hildegard, he had visions, and that gave him an anchor to which he could bind threads. He could Make the future from what he Saw, but he had to create the connections. That is why we had been led to this point in time, to this place. So that his vision could be realized. So that his future could be created.

He had Seen me holding the cup. That was his vision. This was as far as it went. He and I, standing here. Me, with the cup; he, with the bloodied hand. This was the future, and all that remained was to interpret it.

I was to be his Witness. He was God, and I was to play the part of his Shadow, making real his world by agreeing to his interpretation.