The Canticle of Whispers (30 page)

At first, Lily had resisted her treatment, not able to open up to a man she barely knew. Until, one day, Honorius had brought a visitor to see her. Wulfric—the Gisethi hunter who had guided her to the Cathedral the first time, the man who had been driven by the Nightmare to attack her. Lily had expected to be scared of him, but strangely, the reverse seemed to be true. The boiling anger that had driven his every movement was gone, and he seemed more uncomfortable when they met than she did. Honorius said that he had meditated long on his anger, and that Lily was a reminder of what the Nightmare had nearly made him do. Of how he had nearly killed her once in a paranoid rage. But now he faced his past with courage, and remembering that he could control his anger if he tried made him strong against the Nightmare's whispers. Of all of Honorius's other patients, he was the most recovered. Still bitter, of course, but humble, and quieter than ever.

After seeing that, she had begun to open up, and the healing had begun.

That was, she had to admit, the other reason she watched the sunset. It was part of her healing, part of facing up to her own troubles. As the sky darkened, it reminded her of Naru. Of that eternal half-light, and those buried, maddening secrets. As she recovered, she didn't need to think of that every day. But by then, watching the sunset had become a habit. And in any case, Laud usually joined her, and she didn't want to miss that.

“You really shouldn't spend so much time thinking, you know,” a voice said behind her. She smiled.

“You'd rather I was talking to myself?” she quipped, as Laud leaned on the rail beside her. “I enjoy thinking, Laud. It's all I do at the moment.”

“Just that?” Laud asked, with a smile. Lily looked back out to sea.

“Pretty much. It's relaxing.” She kept looking. “No responsibilities, no prophecies, no one looking to me to lead them to a better tomorrow. Just me and the water.”

“As I recall,” Laud said, “you were the one who chose to start all of that.”

Lily laughed. She liked it when he teased her. A month ago, he wouldn't have dared—too afraid that the horror would come back. But she had relived that a hundred times with Honorius, talking through it until it was almost like something that had happened to another person. She remembered how it had felt, the howling, overwhelming despair, but the feelings were sealed away. Honorius compared it to how he had made his own way through the Nightmare all those years ago, searing his own flesh with a burning torch to focus his mind. Facing these memories was painful, yes, but now it was a pain she could control, and banish.

“Is Honorius going to join us?” Lily asked. “I know he's busy with his duties, but after everything he's done for us, the least we can do is spend our last evening here with him.”

“Are you sure you still want to go tomorrow?” Laud asked, more seriously. “We could wait a few more days.”

Lily wasn't completely sure if she was ready. Her sleep was better, and she hadn't felt so calm for months. But that was here, out by the sea. Returning to Agora would not be an easy journey. Laud said that many of the Naruvian tunnels had collapsed behind him, and in any case, with the Rail Nexus damaged, they would never be able to find the Hub again. The underground route was closed, for now. So the only possibility was the long overland journey, back through Giseth. But at least they wouldn't have to walk. Honorius had offered them another boat, a narrow paddle steamer that could take them all the way up the River Ora, to the gates of Agora itself.

She shook her head.

“No, it's time to go. Mark and Ben must be worried sick. It's only a few weeks until Agora Day; we've been gone for months…”

“They'll understand,” Laud insisted. “You needed to fully recover. Remember, the whole world doesn't revolve around you.”

Lily smiled.

“I know. And believe me, I'm so glad.” She looked up at Laud, his hair glowing in the red of the sunset. “But you still chased me across half of Naru, didn't you?”

Laud didn't reply.

They stood there for a moment longer not speaking. Lily had been traveling for so long, it was good to have a moment of stillness. Just one more evening before the journey began again.

“I'm frightened,” she said at last. She felt Laud squeeze her hand, but he didn't speak. He seemed to know when she had more to say. “Not of the journey, exactly,” she continued. “Not even of going back to Agora, if we manage to get past the walls…”

“I'm sure that Honorius's trick will work,” Laud said, reassuringly.
“
They would hardly have banished him for discovering it if it wasn't a way back in, even if he could never use it himself.” Tentatively, he put an arm around her shoulders. “So what are you afraid of?”

“The Nightmare,” Lily admitted. “I've never given in to it like that before. It'll be lying in wait.” She dropped her eyes. “I don't ever want to let it rule me again.”

Laud squeezed her shoulders.

“It won't,” he said. “I don't really understand everything Honorius says, but he's sure that the Nightmare only feeds on fears you suppress, or your obsessions. And you're at peace with all of that now.”

Lily smiled.

“Peace,” she echoed. “Yes.”

She remembered how desperate she had been to find her parents, how that had become the only thing that had mattered.

Well, she'd found them. One died in front of her; one didn't even remember her existence. Not what she had been hoping for. But now, when she thought of them, she tried to picture them as they had been, before all the prophecies and secrets had come to ruin their lives.

After Laud left, looking for Honorius, she spent a long time staring at the sea. She wondered if her father had ever stood here, watching the gentle swell of the waves. She imagined him bringing his new bride here to look out at the horizon, and wonder what the future held.

Perhaps, then, they had been happy. She hoped so.

*   *   *

The riverboat truly was a marvel of wood and brass. Long and narrow, with mechanical paddle wheels just beneath the surface and an always steaming funnel, Honorius had said that it would have been kept in the vault as a treasure if it had been small enough to fit. It came from the old world, one of the relics of the original Libran Society, designed for quick transportation up the river to Agora. Lily was rather pleased to think that it was finally fulfilling its function. At least the Libran relics hadn't all been as dangerous as Wulfric's flintlock pistols.

The morning had passed in a frenzy of activity. Honorius had spent it packing the steamer with food and fuel—anything to avoid listening to Lily's thanks. The scarred man had always refused to talk about himself, always turned the conversation back around to his patients. Even the reason he had been banished from Agora, the dangerous secret he had discovered, had been wrung from him only after many nights of questions. But after he'd told them what he knew—a secret way into Agora—Lily knew that it was time to return.

Just as Honorius finished stowing the last of the food, though, Lily had caught him. Managed to hug him, before he had a chance to pull away. Managed to ask him why he was really helping her. He rubbed the back of his hands before answering, and then set his jaw.

“Because no matter how much you hate it, you're a burning light of truth in all this darkness,” he'd said, softly. “Not hard facts, like the Oracle. Real truth, real understanding. You'll break up these old ways forever. Agora needs that. I need that.” He had turned away. “I'm sick of the shadows.”

That image stuck in her mind, all through the farewells, as Laud untied the ropes and stoked the boiler. It was only as the engine thrummed into life that the reality of their journey sank in, and she waved brightly to Honorius as the sanatorium faded into the distance. He had given her a new life, and she wasn't going to waste it. And then she turned around, and took the wheel.

The marshes stretched before them. They were on their way home.

Over the next days, Lily generally steered while Laud kept the furnace stoked with wood. The funnel steamed, the paddle wheels turned, and the boat took them through the deepwater parts of the marshes at a reasonable speed. Not very much faster than they could have walked, but considerably drier.

But the most surprising part didn't come until nightfall, as they took turns either to stand watch or to curl up belowdecks. Maybe the Nightmare didn't know what to make of the steamer; maybe the sturdy boat just made them feel safe. But the Nightmare barely touched them. Once or twice as they navigated the marshy delta, Lily even had a dream that was not full of dark struggles and sudden, fitful starts.

Occasionally, it tried to reach her in the daytime, sowing doubt about wanting to return to Agora, and fears about the dangers she would face. But its call was weak, and Lily could understand why. The last two occasions, she had been here alone, or with Wulfric at his most distant and tense. But this time, she was here with Laud, under the summer sun. From up on deck, the marshes were striking, almost beautiful. And she was going home, to her friends, her real family. Not to peace—true—but free at last of the confusion that had dogged her for years. The Nightmare had no weapon against contentment like that.

After ten days, they left the marshes behind, and joined the River Ora. Now they traveled mostly at night, sleeping during the day. Lily knew that a few of the Gisethi villages were near the riverbank, and they didn't want to draw too much attention. In daylight hours, the plume of smoke that heralded their approach would be investigated, but at night the hiss and chug of the boat would be put down to another trick of the Nightmare, and determinedly ignored.

And this worked very well, until the sixteenth day.

Lily woke in the early evening to find Laud checking that the boat was firmly anchored, an ax and a pair of wicker baskets on the deck beside him.

“Anything wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing too bad,” Laud replied. “But we're getting short on food and fuel.”

Lily nodded.

“I think Honorius assumed we'd make faster progress,” she mused, looking out at the gnarled forest a short distance from the riverbank.

“I'll deal with the fuel,” Laud said, shouldering the ax. “Do you think you'll be able to find some more food?”

Lily grinned, picking up a basket.

“What, and miss watching you chop the wood?” she said, mischievously. Laud raised an eyebrow.

“I thought you objected to slave labor.”

“I've made an exception, just for you,” she said, teasingly, climbing down onto the bank. Then she looked up, more seriously. “Don't go too far in; the Nightmare gets pretty strong.”

Laud landed on the bank beside her.

“Trust me, I'll remain focused,” he said, holding up the ax. “What could be more thrilling than cutting down trees?”

Lily grinned, and was about to suggest a few alternatives, when they both began to laugh. By the time they parted, Lily's mood was so good that she barely even noticed the chill of the Nightmare as she stepped between the trees.

As she wandered through the dappled sunlight, searching for something edible, she couldn't help thinking back to the last time she had searched these forests for food. Back then, there had been frost on the ground, and she had come back with only a handful of mushrooms. But at this time of year, so close to the harvest, there were bound to be wild fruit trees she could plunder. She wished that she could approach the cultivated fields of one of the villages, but even if she found one, she didn't want to risk the questions that this would raise. Perhaps she would get away with being a simple traveler from a nearby village, but she knew that anyone who emerged from the forest was treated with suspicion.

As it happened, it was not as easy as she had expected, and it was well into the evening before she found an apple tree that still bore a good load of fruit. She picked all of the ones she could reach, but her confidence had been dented. The Nightmare around here was strange. She could feel it, snapping at her psyche, but it was different from before. In the forest, the Nightmare used to try to make her feel afraid. But now, every one of her feelings felt exaggerated. Each apple that fell into the mud made her want to curse aloud, each insect that she had to swat away caused her to fume with rage. Of course, she knew what to do—she concentrated, pushing it to the back of her mind. But still, it unsettled her. It was a little too like the unnatural anger she had felt down in Naru, as the Nightmare had targeted her frustration. As she walked back toward the river, she was glad that she didn't have to spend much more time in the forest. Whatever had gotten the local Nightmare so excited, she didn't want to meet it.

Something stopped her from calling out to Laud as she neared the edge of the woods. Perhaps she was still a little rattled. Or perhaps she didn't want to draw attention to her meager supplies. He would have had time to gather enough wood to sink the ship by now.

So it wasn't until she reached the boat that she realized something was wrong.

It drifted on the water, still and silent.

“Laud!” Lily called, softly.

No reply.

“Laud? Are you asleep?”

Still nothing. Lily clambered onboard, hastily dropping the basket, and began to look around.

The fire in the engine room was out. The cabins empty. Laud was nowhere to be seen.

Anxiously, Lily ran back to the side. Maybe he had found the woodcutting harder than he wanted to admit. Yes, she thought, as she raced back to the tree line, that would be just like him—to not want to admit defeat.

She stopped dead.

There was his basket, half filled with logs. There was one tree sapling on its side, and another, heavily scarred with deep notches.

But there was no Laud. No ax. Just a shape in the mud, where someone had fallen. And footprints, at least two sets, neither of them familiar.