Requiem (55 page)

Isaak looked away. “Yes, Father.”

“Go and find the staff. See Winters to the moon.”

Isaak crouched down and pushed his cold metal mouth to Charles’s forehead. The tears that struck the bald patch of Charles’s head were the first warmth he’d felt in what seemed years of winter, and he reached up a hand to the side of Isaak’s face. “You are my son, and I am pleased with you,” he said. He looked up to the others. “All of you are.”

Isaak inclined his head, and the others did the same. Then, they moved up the corridor to join the others.

Charles listened to them as they left and thought he heard the distant clang of the hatch closing behind them. And after they were gone, he settled into the vast silence of that remarkable underground world and let the hours move past him.

As he sat, he thought about his life—the things he’d longed for and found, the things he’d loved and lost. The people and places and promises he’d seen made and broken.

He’d lived his life in service to the light, and he had no regrets, but at the end of that life, he knew that what he’d learned most and best had come from a metal man he’d made who later made him. And what he’d learned in that making was that the light was far vaster than he’d ever realized before. Far beyond what the Androfrancines thought it might be.

He heard a noise now in the dark. Rhythmic, the sound of feet upon the ground muffled by magicks but noticeable because of the root. He held his breath and waited. He heard more feet and then quiet whispers as those footfalls stopped.

Charles smiled and shared the lesson of his life.

“We’re all light,” he said in a quiet voice.

And then he pulled the trigger and made it so.

Chapter

28

Winters

The ground rumbled and shook, and though she’d been expecting it for hours, Winters still staggered and then came to a full stop. The others around her did as well.

She’d hoped it would help, knowing he likely wouldn’t have survived the rest of the journey. But it hadn’t. Some part of her bargained in a different direction, despite the fact that the old arch-engineer had been perfectly clear about his wishes and perfectly logical in his presentation of the facts.

Life is more than facts.
But she also knew that love made sacrifices, and he’d done what he’d done not just to hasten them on their way and cover their escape; he’d done it to prevent his children from having to kill—by doing the killing himself if it had gone the way he’d planned. And if not, at the very least he’d closed the way behind them to anyone who might’ve been tracking them in the Beneath Places.

And left at the time of his own choosing.

She looked to Isaak first where he’d stopped. His back was piled high with their packs and equipment—the three mechoservitors had divided everything between them, leaving the others bearing less. Still, even unencumbered, Winters felt their rapid pace away from the hatch deep in her legs and lower back. She wasn’t sure how many leagues they’d covered, but they’d moved quickly over the last six hours.

No one spoke, and Winters scanned the group. Despite Hebda’s and Tertius’s years and experience, she’d fallen naturally into the role of leading them, and she knew this was a moment to show that leadership. “Charles has bought us some time, but the explosion is bound to attract attention. We need to keep moving.”

As they set out again, she watched Marta from the corner of her eye. The girl had walked near Isaak this entire time, but now she slipped closer beside him and took his hand in hers. She heard the girl whisper something to the metal man and saw him incline his head.

Then, Winters moved on ahead to take up her place at the front beside Enoch.

Tertius fell in beside her. Hebda took up a place behind them. The old man’s voice was low. “What will you do now?”

She wasn’t certain, and the lack of knowing was a rock in her boot that constantly agitated. “I know it’s time to gather everyone. But beyond that, I do not know.” She paused, Orius’s words coming back to her. She turned her head and gave Tertius a hard stare. “What is he doing with the water? What will it do to my people?”

The old man’s face went pale. “I’m not certain this is the time to discuss the matter, Lady Winteria.”

She felt a spark of anger. “Tertius, the time for secrets is past. It’s been past for some time now. Tell me what you know. Tell me what Orius is doing to the water. Tell me what it will do to my people.”

The old man sighed and shot a glance over his shoulder to Hebda before continuing. “Not just your people. Anyone in the Named Lands with blood magick exposure.”

She wrinkled her brow as she thought about this. Surely many of her people had used blood magicks for various ceremonies and in some instances, for medicinal purposes. But she knew the circle was wider than that. She thought about the crowd of refugees she’d watched Rudolfo banish from his lands. “Including the Y’Zirites?”

He nodded. “They are Orius’s intended target. But it is indiscriminate—it will affect anyone exposed to blood magick.”

Now her face paled as another realization struck her. The memory of that day in the pavilion came back quickly as she saw Jin Li Tam on her knees, begging Ria for the life of her son after watching Petronus come back from the dead. “And Lord Jakob?”

“Yes,” the man said.

Then, the truth of his words sunk even deeper, and it chilled the core of her. “And me as well.”

Tertius said nothing, and she glanced at him again. He’d looked away, biting his lip, and the conflict written upon his face said more than his words could have.

She stopped walking and reached a hand to his shoulder, turning him toward her. “And me,” she said again. “Right? I’ve used blood magicks.”

There were secrets in his eyes again, and he looked away. When he spoke, his voice was low. “We have reason to believe that you may be immune to this particular pathogen.” As he said it, she glanced at Hebda to see his face a gray mask of control.

“Why?”

But neither Androfrancine answered, and she suspected that short of Rudolfo’s Physicians of Penitent Torture, they were not going to.

Winters drew in a long, slow breath. Then, she exhaled it. “I am disappointed in you, Tertius.” She looked back at Hebda. “And you, Hebda. I suspect your own secrets have earned you Neb’s hatred.”

And cost hundreds of thousands of lives,
she thought.

She gave Tertius a final, hard stare. She understood suddenly Rudolfo’s rage at the hidden Y’Zirites in his forest and the betrayal that their secrecy constituted. Now she understood the man upon the hill far better, and her own anger was cold in her voice. “I will have the truth from you before this is done, Tertius, or you will be left behind.” She looked at Hebda next. “Neb will make his own decisions regarding you. And I will support them.”

Then she turned her back on them and started walking at a pace she knew they could not keep up with. Enoch kept pace with her, and for the longest time, she walked in silence. Finally, when the others were out of earshot, she lowered her voice.

“I do not know what to do next, Enoch,” she said.

Enoch’s bellows wheezed. “It is time to gather your people, Lady Winteria, and take them home.”

Winters thought for a minute. “Not all of my people are within my reach.”

“Maybe,” Enoch said, “your people have always only been those within your reach. And maybe those beyond it were never really yours after all.”

When the metal man said it, she felt a quickening within her that both calmed and excited her.
Yes.

She regarded the damaged metal man, realizing suddenly how like Isaak he sounded. Their dream was changing them, just as her dream changed her. They were no longer merely mechanicals built by the man who’d so recently given his life for them. They were a people of their own, with thought and feeling and wisdom beyond their scripting.

Maybe those beyond my reach were never mine after all. Maybe my people really are only those within my reach.
She looked at the small group she walked with now. And she remembered the dream and the multitudes that gathered around her as she declared her people’s home once again open. So many influenced by her dream.

So many, she realized, longing for a home.

Then light fell upon Winteria bat Mardic in that place, and she knew with sudden certainty how she might increase that reach.

Home awaited; she would not keep it waiting for much longer.

Neb

The stars hung low overhead, throbbing in the night, and Nebios Whym lay beneath them at the top of the tower.

He’d spent the morning running with Petronus, finding a sense of abandon in his time with the former Pope. He suspected it was because the man made him feel less alone.

He’d always known he was different. He’d assumed it was because he was an Androfrancine orphan, but he’d no idea how different he really was until he’d met Winters and shared her dreams, then had met the Blood Guard in the Wastes whose hatred of him was clear in the poison of their tone.
Abomination.

And when he’d seen the terror on Winters’s face he knew of a certainty that he had nothing in common even with those he’d felt closest to. Meeting Amylé had changed that, but even that had somehow been twisted into something that left him feeling more lonely than he’d felt before knowing she existed.

Petronus helped. But something in what the man didn’t say whispered to Neb that even this couldn’t be counted on.

I am alone.

No, he realized. She was out there somewhere. Amylé had fled him, and he suspected the seaway she’d shown him had something to do with it. Rafe had sailed out for it yesterday with a skeleton crew. But that would take time. And as much as he hated being alone, he knew a higher purpose called to him.

I need to go back. I need the staff.

Neb sighed.

A warm breeze blew up and over the tower, carrying the scents up from the jungle to blend with the aroma of flowers and plants that now bloomed in the garden he lay in. He stretched, and as he did, something dark moved high across the sky. He squinted at it, and when the epiphany struck him, it was sudden and evidenced by the hair rising on his arms.

Neb stood and watched it as it flew and opened his mouth. How had it gone? He tried to make the sound from memory, his voice lower than the girl’s. His first attempt sounded nothing like hers, but his second was close, and he watched the large object pause before resuming.

Neb increased the volume and poured himself into the call, feeling his throat strain against a noise that it wasn’t designed to make easily. The high-pitched shriek rose up, and he felt something snap into place inside of him. It was as if his voice were a line and whatever soared above him were the striking fish. He felt its pull and felt the fullness of its might even as he watched it turn and bear down upon him.

Continuing the cry, Neb ran for the tower’s edge.
Bear me,
he willed the beast that now plunged for him. He heard the roar of it upon the wind, louder even than the roar in his ears as he fell. His eardrums threatened to pop from the sound of it even as its metal arms encircled him and pulled him into the beast.

And suddenly, Neb was what bore him. He lost all sense of his body, his hands, his feet. He was massive now and yet lighter than air, his four wings buzzing like a hummingbird and his limbs retracting back into his long, sleek body. He turned his head and twisted his body, his wings shifting to hold him in place, and realized that he was still shrieking into the night, though now it went out for league upon league with a force stronger than any voice magick.

Neb tried to laugh but found he’d forgotten how. Instead, he shifted the shriek into a low howl and turned himself to the sea.

He pushed himself and felt the wind gathering around him as he surged out over the jungle. Two blinks and he was over the water now. Another, and the air cracked around him as he leaped forward.

Lasthome rose now, and by its gray light, he saw the massive white bones rising up from the sea. There were lights in the water around it, blue and green, and he knew without knowing that these were the d’jin he’d heard stories of all his life. Now, he saw them gathering around a series of large white pillars that rose up from the sea like the ribs of some long-dead beast. At the top where they met, a silver orb spun slowly, and he realized by the continents etched in the surface that it was an approximation of Lasthome itself.

Within those towering white bones, the water foamed and churned, and he saw the blue-green lights now as they moved in and out of it.

Neb lowered himself and slowed. By the time he reached it, he hung in place and squinted with much stronger eyes at the waters within the circle it made.

Holding his breath, he dove between the pillars and felt the change upon his silver skin and within his giant, flared nostrils. Even the light was different, and though he felt a growing fear, another emotion drove him forward.

The world changed around him.

The ocean was suddenly larger, the air cooler, and when he came out of the other side of the pillars he looked up to see a blue-green moon hung in the sky beyond his reach.

He turned to take in the pillars, and even they had changed. Instead of a silver replica of Lasthome at their crest, a similar replica—but of the moon—spun slowly there in its place.

I’m home.

This, he realized, was Amylé’s seaway. And he knew now what it was their mythology had called this.

The Moon Wizard’s Ladder.

These waters were calm and devoid of light, unlike the waters that surrounded it on the moon, and he wondered at that.

But Nebios Whym did not ponder it long. Instead, he set out north and built speed until the air cracked again around him. He flew until at first islands and then a longer horizon took shape before him, and when the Churning Wastes unfolded below him, bathed in the bloody light of sunrise, he flew low to that blasted surface and inhaled deeply the smell of ancient shattered rock. He pushed until the Keeper’s Wall rose up, and he raised himself up and over it without effort to take in the spreading forests that marked the edge of the Named Lands.