Requiem (44 page)

And there was the spider.

Of all of them, Aver-Tal-Ka should be able to tell him what to do. The ancient creature had awakened to serve him, to point him to the temple and set him upon his way. Of course, the spider had also led him to the girl.…

He looked back to her and sighed. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

But his body seemed to, and it confounded him. It woke to her presence, the sight and smell of her, unbidden, and it shamed him. But even she felt it. He could see it in the wideness of her eyes and the way she held her mouth. Even after ambushing her in her sleep and binding her with the harp-wire, she would have him. The calling lay between them, their bodies vibrating with a resonance that defied their circumstances.

Their eyes met.
It is strong between us.
He heard the words as they dropped into his mind; her lips did not move to make them.

Neb swallowed. “It is. But that is not why I’ve come.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know this?”

Because I know.
But even as he thought it, he had no certainty in his conviction. He forced his mind to Winters as a last resort, though he knew she was lost to him now. The look on her face when she’d last seen him told him that. Still, he conjured up her image from memories he held tightly. Nights spent in hot and giggling dreams together. The memory of the first taste of her mouth on the Plains of Windwir. The bitterness of its taste when he’d said good-bye and left her after Hanric’s funeral.

But those memories did nothing to still what he felt for Amylé D’Anjite, and he knew that there was a biological component to it that transcended what he felt for Winters. It was as if he were one of Brother Charles’s metal men, running a script he had no control over. Not that any of it mattered if they could not get free of the temple.

He looked again at the girl, then at the weapon he held in one hand and the crescent he held in the other. Drawing back his arm, he threw the crystal shard as far away from him as he could. Then, he took hold of the loose bit of wire that hung behind the girl’s back.

“Let’s walk,” he said.

They moved slowly and climbed until they could climb no more. The last of their path was a wide and winding staircase that ended at a large round door. The light had grown as they climbed, and here at the top, it was clear enough that he could see the door’s seam clearly. He ran his fingers over it, poking and prodding as he did. Nothing budged.

“Is this the top?”

Amylé nodded. “The roof gardens should lie beyond,” she said.

His thirst was a dull ache. His hunger was a sharp pain that ground in his stomach. He was caught off guard but not completely surprised when the shift overcame the girl and her foot lashed out at him.

She spat and hissed, her eyes narrow and feral in her hate, and he knocked her over with ease, then pinned her legs beneath his weight.

“Enough,” he said.

She bucked and pitched against him, and he watched the blood from her wrists smear along the gray floor of the temple as she struggled against her bonds. Finally, she stopped for a moment, her face pressed into the floor and close to his.

“It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” she whispered. “We die here and end this.”

She continued to strain at the wires, and finally, he flipped her onto her stomach and used his own arm to leverage hers in such a way that she couldn’t cut herself further. He felt the hot slickness of her blood upon his bare skin and heard her breathing grow quiet though he knew she did not sleep and would not sleep.

He cast a furtive glance at the crescent, discarded in the struggle, and wished that someone or something would tell him what to do. A dream. Or a voice.
Anything.

But there was nothing. And the longer he lay still and held the broken girl, the more convinced he became that she was likely right: It didn’t matter anymore what he did. He had been sent to unseal the temple and open a path homeward for Winters and her people, to save the very light. He’d been beset at every step along the way.

And now Neb knew that here, at the top of this tower, if the girl beneath him did not find some way to bring about his ending, time itself—reliable and relentless—would do it for her.

Charles

Time in the Beneath Places moved forward slowly, and Charles found himself leaving Isaak’s and Winters’s sleeping bodies less and less as they settled deeper into dreaming. Occasionally, Hebda or one of the other behaviorists brought him food and drink, and those times that they did, Charles found himself eating and drinking little, sending back platters and cups still half-full.

There was an agitation growing in the camp as the dreams grew more and more intense, and he wondered how much longer it could be. More than that, he wondered what would happen once the dreams were channeled through Tertius’s dreamstone.

And will it do the work it was intended to do?

Charles looked up as the door opened a crack and found himself staring at Orius’s solitary eye. The general glanced to Hebda and then back to the two sleeping figures. “You,” the general said to Charles, crooking his finger.

Charles stood from his chair and walked to the door, mindful that his legs and lower back were numb from too long sitting. The general held the door for him and closed it behind as Charles stepped into the passage.

He looked to the shadows where the girl, Marta, had been hiding of late. There was no sign of her now, and he found it odd. Orius guided him by the arm into the hall and then set a brisk pace toward camp. The general’s tone was impatient, as was his posture. “How much longer do you think this will be?”

Charles struggled to keep up. “I don’t know, General. Hebda says it shouldn’t be long now.”

“And we’ve no idea whether or not it will be effective?”

Charles shook his head.

Orius snorted. “If Introspect hadn’t been so damned convinced by this, I’d have closed it up by now. As it is, my men are on edge with these infernal nightmares.”

Charles glanced to the man but saw from his jaw that he’d not finished what he’d intended to say. Time had taught him to wait, especially for the military types, because they brooked interruption far less gracefully than the politicos of the Order.

The general stopped. “Do you still have authority over the mechoservitors?” he asked. “Both the ones from Sanctorum Lux and from the Forest Library?”

Charles nodded. “I believe I do.”

“And Isaak as well?”

This is the moment I’ve dreaded.
He knew it and didn’t answer, because the look in Orius’s eye told him that the old Gray Guard general knew it, too, and was not going to let it stand in the way of his work. Charles said nothing.

They stood in silence for a moment. “You serve the light, Charles.” It was a statement, but he heard a question in it and responded.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“When this matter of the dream is concluded, I want all of the mechoservitors retasked. Including those at Rudolfo’s library. They can return to their bookmaking when we’ve ended the war.”

Charles did not want to speak now, did not want to ask the question but knew he needed to in order to formulate his response. “What would you have them retasked to do, General?”

Orius snorted. “You know very well what. I want them ready in a week.”

Charles held his breath, then released it. “By whose authority?”

Orius held up his left hand and ran his thumb across the silver band on his third finger. Only those closest to the Pope were considered his bondsmen, the general of the Gray Guard one of four. “By the authority of the Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.”

“The Androfrancine Order,” Charles said slowly, “was dissolved nearly two years ago by Pope Petronus in Holy Conference. All of her assets and resources were transferred to Lord Rudolfo of the Ninefold Forest.”

Orius laughed, and it was a loud bark in the quiet. “Then whose army am I taking to the fight?” The general started walking again, and his voice softened. “I’ve no love for what must be done, Charles. But it must be done. The tide turns soon, my friend, but only if we finish turning it. I need that spell to make it happen. Introspect will have his man on the moon; I’ll have the Named Lands from the jaws of Y’Zir.”

The camp was astir with activity as men struck tents and checked kits. Engineers were busy running wires, and lines of men were already forming up at various exit points. Charles vaguely recalled the orders from earlier in the day—all but a bare minimum were loading up and heading out.

Charles stopped. “And then what?” he finally asked.

Orius stopped as well. “And then what? I’ll give them back to Rudolfo for his damned library. Hells, you can personally expunge it from their memory scrolls if you wish it.”

It should have never been brought back in the first place.

Orius’s face was stern. “A week, Arch-engineer. That’s all we have.”

Charles said nothing. Behind him, he heard footfalls in the corridor and turned. Hebda was out of breath and motioning for Charles to return.

“It’s started,” the arch-behaviorist said.

Charles met Orius’s single eye. “A week,” the general said again.

Then, the general turned and strode into camp.

Charles moved quickly back in the direction he’d just come from, Orius’s hidden question echoing across the singular focus of his mind: Do you serve the light?

More than ever,
Charles realized, even as he also knew that General Orius had stopped serving the light and started serving something else too many years ago.

Chapter

23

Rudolfo

Rudolfo crouched in a copse of trees overlooking Merrique’s manor, forcing his eyes open against the vertigo and nausea the scout magicks caused.

Three full nights had passed since his last run with Yazmeera—two since his message from Jin Li Tam—and he’d slept little. His mind continued playing over the events again and again, knowing there was a path but not finding it. Now in the middle of his third night, he knew what he must do. And so he had come out, the iron key that would let him into Merrique’s home clutched in a hand made cold and clammy by the powders. He used the scout magicks infrequently despite having been trained on them since he was a pup. Kin-clave was clear on the matter—officers, gentlemen, and lords did not use the powders unless severe circumstances dictated otherwise.

The pouch of powders had been left for him in the hidden room adjacent to his library, along with a sharp, curved knife; a plain gray robe; a canteen; and a week’s supply of combat rations in packages sealed with the Androfrancine Gray Guard insignia. He’d waited to magick himself until after he’d snuck through the hidden passages of his own house to reach one of its secret doors into the back garden.

It had been simple enough to slip past the guards and over his own low wall. And equally simple to scale Drea Merrique’s wall and slip past her even smaller security detachment. Now, he waited and watched her house, trying to conjure up memories of it from his last visit over twenty years ago.

He remembered Drea Merrique, though she’d been much younger when he’d seen her last. Her father was still the Count of Merrique in those days, and her brother had already earned enough of a reputation at sea for the young Gypsy King to have followed his exploits from an early age, eventually joining his crew for a season. Had his father lived, Rudolfo might’ve found himself in a different situation. It wasn’t uncommon for young lords or ladies to spend time away from their houses, usually incognito, as a part of their education and preparation for their later responsibilities, but sailing with renowned pirates was not the typical expression of this value.

Still, Rudolfo and Gregoric had sailed with the pirate, and early in their time with him, they’d helped him break into his father’s house.

A patrol moved past, and Rudolfo counted their steps before they rounded the corner of the house. Then, holding his breath, he ran for the house and let his fingers move over the wood surface at about the height of his breastbone until he found the hidden keyhole.

He slid the key into it, twisted it, and then used the key to pull the section of wall outward enough for him to slip inside, withdrawing the key as he went. He pulled it closed behind him and waited in the small, enclosed space for his eyes to adjust. The magicks helped, but so did the intermittent holes the Gypsy craftsman had left to let air and light into these hidden places within the houses he’d designed.

Once his eyes had adjusted, Rudolfo moved slowly through the passage. The absence of dust told him that the spaces were used regularly. He followed a long, narrow corridor tucked between rooms and along the way, saw robes and knives and supplies placed strategically even as they’d been within his own house.

He had made his way through the first level of the house and was paused, mid-climb, on a ladder to the second level when he heard weight shifting above him.

“You’re here to see the countess, I’ll warrant,” a gruff voice whispered.

Rudolfo looked up. A white face materialized above him, squinting down. “I am—”

“Lord Chancellor Rudolfo,” the man said. “I know who you are. Anyone else but our own would’ve been dead by now.” The man moved back from the ladder, and Rudolfo finished climbing. Now, in the gloomy light, he saw the man better—he was thirtyish and dressed in simple clothing that didn’t match the man’s poise and hard, gray eyes. “Let’s wake the countess.”

The man shuffled off quietly along the passage, twisting and turning here and there, before they came to a somewhat larger room. This one, Rudolfo saw, had a table covered in papers and a series of maps on its wall. He saw markings on the map that were familiar and realized they were the troop movements he’d provided the day before, whispered to the tiny moon swallow in the dead of night.

“This way,” the man said. He worked a lever in the wall, and Rudolfo watched it slide out, creating a narrow opening. The man waited until Rudolfo passed through the hidden door and into the foyer beyond. Then, he closed the door and went to another, tapping on it three times. He pointed to a chair. “Sit,” he said.