The Evolutionary Void (13 page)

Edeard gave him a warm smile. “You were never a black sheep.”

“No. Not like you, at any rate. But I like to think I had my moments.”

“Indeed you did. But I hope you’ll give the idea some thought.”

“It’s never as far away as we believe, is it, Makkathran?”

“No.” Edeard let out a sigh. “Is he behaving himself?”

“So far.” Larose gestured to a flap at the back of the tent, and they
went through. An encircling wall of tents and fences had produced a small
secure area at the rear. Right at the center, a tall narrow tent was standing
all alone. Two guards stood at attention outside, older seasoned militiamen
whom Larose trusted implicitly, their ge-wolves pulling on the leash. Both
animals gave Edeard a suspicious sniff as he approached.

“You know something odd?” Larose said. “For years the bandits have
terrorized communities with impunity. Every survivor told stories of fearsome
weapons. Yet throughout this whole campaign, we haven’t found one of the
bastards armed with anything other than a standard pistol.”

“That’s good,” Edeard said, staring straight ahead. “Would you want a new
weapon to exist? One powerful enough to kill entire platoons in less than a
minute?”

“No. No, I don’t suppose I would.”

“Me, neither.”

“I don’t suppose anybody could build anything like that, not really. Not
even the Weapons Guild.”

“No,” Edeard agreed. “They can’t. Those weapons are just a fable that
people used to tell each other about in times gone by.”

“Like the exiles. You know, nowadays I find it hard to picture what Owain
looked like. He and his fellows must have traveled a long way from Makkathran.
Nobody ever found them.”

“Losing an election can demoralize you like that. Nobody wants to dwell
on what has been, not now that we all have a future.”

“We do?”

“It’s unknown, as always, but it’s there, all right.”

Colonel Larose pursed his lips and walked on.

The Gilmorn was standing in the middle of the tent with Dinlay and Marcol
in attendance. Of all the aspects that resulted from Edeard’s ability to reset
time, he always found this the strangest—seeing someone alive whom he’d
previously watched die. And this Gilmorn was one he’d killed himself in a
fashion that didn’t withstand too much sober examination.

Inevitably, the man was unchanged. Not that Edeard had ever seen him at
his best before. Last time, his round face with the idiosyncratic nose had been
suffused with pain and anguish as his legs were ruined by the boulder. Now he
simply looked tired and sullenly resentful. Not defeated, though. There was
still defiance burning behind his mental shield, mostly fueled by good old
Grand Family arrogance, Edeard suspected.

The blacksmith was just leaving. He’d taken an hour to shackle the
Gilmorn securely, with big iron rings around his wrists and ankles, linked
together with tough chains. This way there were no fancy locks for his
telekinesis to pick away at. The metal had to be broken apart by another
blacksmith or simple brute strength; Edeard could do it, and probably Marcol,
but few others on Querencia would be capable.

“Finitan’s pet,” the Gilmorn said contemptuously. “I might have guessed.”

“Sorry I missed our earlier appointment at the valley beyond Mount
Alvice,” Edeard replied casually.

The Gilmorn gave him a startled glance.

“So who are you?” Edeard asked. “Not that it really matters, but you
never did tell me your name back at Ashwell.”

“Got your forms to fill out, have you?”

“You do understand this is over now, don’t you? You are the last of them.
Even if One Nation has any supporters left back in Makkathran, they’ll deny
everything, especially you. The family Gilmorn has lost considerable status
among the city’s Grand Families since Tannarl’s exile; they’re desperate to
regain it. You won’t be accepted back, not by them. Of course you could try to
throw in with Buate’s surviving lieutenants, the ones I banished. Though they,
too, seem incapable of adapting; over a dozen have been sentenced to the
Trampello mines in the last two years. At least they’ll have company; my old
friend Arminel is still incarcerated there. Mayor Finitan changed the mine
governor from Owain’s crony to someone who’s a little stricter.”

The Gilmorn held his hands up, the chain clanking as he did so. “Is this
what you’re reduced to, Waterwalker, gloating over your victims?”

“And you? Goading someone whose village you destroyed?”

“Touché.”

“You set me on the path that led to this day. I enjoy that.”

“As Ranalee and others enjoy Salrana. I’ve heard she’s very popular.
Fetches quite a high price in the
right
circles, so
I understand.”

Dinlay’s hand fell on Edeard’s shoulder. “Let me deal with him.”

“You?” The Gilmorn sneered. “A eunuch does the Waterwalker’s dirty work?
How amusing.”

Dinlay’s face reddened behind his glasses. “I am not—”

“Enough of this,” Larose said. “Waterwalker, do you have any serious
questions for this bastard? Some of my men can get answers out of him. It might
take a while, but they’ll persist.”

“No,” Edeard said. “He has nothing vital for me. I just wondered why he
kept on fighting, but now I know.”

“Really?” the Gilmorn said. “And that is?”

“Because I have taken everything else away from you. There is nothing
else for you to do. Without your masters you are nothing. You are so pitiful,
you cannot even think of anything else to devote yourself to. When the time
comes for your life to end, you will have achieved nothing, you will leave no
legacy, your soul will never find the Heart. Soon this universe will forget you
ever even existed.”

“So that is what you have come here for, to kill me. The Waterwalker’s
revenge. You’re no better than me. Owain never went into exile. I know you
murdered him and the others. Don’t set yourself up as some aloof judge of
morals. You’re wrong to say I leave nothing behind. I leave you. I created you.
Without me, you would be a countryside peasant with a fat wife and a dozen
screaming children, scrabbling in the mud for food. But not now. Not anymore. I
forged a true ruler, one who is every bit as ruthless as Owain. You say I can
do nothing else? Take a look at yourself. Do you tolerate anyone who doesn’t
comply? Is that not me, the very ethos you claim to despise?”

“I enforce the law equally and impartially for all. I abide by the
results of elections.”

“Words words words. A true Makkathran politician. May the Lady help your
enemies when you become Mayor.”

“That’s a long time in the future, if I ever do stand.”

“You will. Because I would.”

Edeard’s cloak flowed aside with the smoothness of jamolar oil. He
reached into a pocket and took out the warrant. “This is the proclamation
signed by the Mayor of Makkathran and notarized by the provincial governors of
the militia alliance. Given the scale of the atrocities you have perpetrated
for years, you will not be returned to civilization for trial.”

“Ha, a death warrant. You are nothing more than the tribal savages we
enlisted.”

“You will be taken to the port of Solbeach, where a ship will sail
eastward. When the captain has voyaged as far as the seas will allow him, he
will search for an island with fresh water and vegetation. There you will be
abandoned with seed stock and tools sufficient for your survival. You will live
out your life there alone to contemplate the enormity of your crimes. You will
not attempt to return to civilization. If you are found within the boundary of
civilization, you will immediately be put to death. May the Lady bless your
soul.” Edeard rolled up the scroll. “Constables Felax and Marcol will accompany
you on the journey to ensure the sentence is carried out. I’d advise you not to
annoy them.”

“Fuck you. I won, and you know it. This alliance is the start of One
Nation.”

Edeard turned and started to leave the tent.

“Owain won,” the Gilmorn shouted after him. “You’re nothing more than his
puppet. That’s all. Do you hear me, Waterwalker? Puppet to the dead, puppet to
the man you murdered. You are my soul twin. I salute you. I salute my final
victory. Family blood will govern this world. They say you can see souls. Can
you see the soul of Mistress Florrel laughing? Can you?”

Edeard hardened the shield his third hand created, blotting out the
vicious shouting as he walked away.

Edeard wanted to travel on alone, but Dinlay wouldn’t hear of it. He
wouldn’t argue; he just said nothing while Edeard shouted hotly at him,
maintaining his quiet stubborn self. In the end Edeard gave in, as they both
knew he would, and ordered the regiment’s cavalry master to saddle two horses.
The pair of them rode off together toward Ashwell.

The landscape hadn’t altered, only the use it had once been put to. Half
a day’s ride from his destination, Edeard began to recognize the features that
had dominated his childhood. Shapes on the horizon started to register. They
were cloaked in different colors now as the vegetation had changed, crops
giving way to a surge of wilder plants. The road was completely overgrown, hard
to distinguish, though the buried stony surface was still perceptible to
farsight. The fields around the village, once rich and fertile, had long
reverted to grassland and bushes, with their old neatly layed hedges sprouting
up into small trees. Drainage ditches were clotted with leaves and silt,
swelling out into curiously long pools.

It was a warm day, with few clouds in the bright azure sky. Sitting in
his saddle, Edeard could see for miles in every direction. The cliff was the
first thing he identified. That hadn’t changed at all. It set off a peculiar
feeling of trepidation in his heart. He had truly never expected to come back
here. On the day after the attack, he’d left with the posse from
Thorpe-by-Water and had glanced back only once, seeing blackened ruins chuffing
a thin smoke into the open sky, and even that image was blurred by tears and
anguish. It had been too painful to attempt another look; he and Salrana had
ridden away together, holding hands and bravely staring ahead.

Now nature had completed what Owain and the Gilmorn had started. Years of
rain and wind and insects and tenacious creepers had accelerated the decay
begun by the fires. All the village council’s halfhearted repairs along the
rampart walls had finally started to give way, leaving the broad defenses
sagging and uneven. The outer gates had gone, their charcoal remnants rotting
to a thin mulch where tough weeds infiltrated their roots. Their absence
exposed the short tunnel under the ramparts, a dank uninviting passage of
gloomy fungus-coated brick. Above them, the stone watchtowers sagged; their
thick walls held fast, though the slate and timber roofs under which so many
sentries had sheltered across the decades were gone.

Edeard dismounted and tethered his skittish horse to the iron rings just
outside the arching portal. The sturdy metal at least remained untouched.

“You okay?” Dinlay queried cautiously.

“Yes,” Edeard assured him, and walked through the dripping tunnel,
sweeping aside the curtain of trailing vines. As soon as he emerged into the
village, birds took flight, great swirls of them shrieking as they flapped their
way into the sky. Small creatures scampered away over the rough mounds of
debris.

Edeard was prepared for ruins, but the size of the village caught him by
surprise. Ashwell was so small. He’d never considered it in such terms before.
But really, the whole area between the cliff and the rampart walls could fit
easily into Myco or Neph, the smallest city districts.

The basic layout of the village remained. Most of the stone walls
survived in some form or another, though collapsing roofs had demolished a lot
of them. Streets were easy to make out, and his memory filled in the lines
wherever slides of rubble obscured the obvious routes. The big guild halls had
withstood the fires well enough to retain their shapes, though they were
nothing more than empty shells without roofs or internal walls. Edeard sent his
farsight sweeping out to examine them, then immediately halted. Lying just
below the thin coating of dirt and ash and weeds that had engulfed the village
were the bones of the inhabitants. They were everywhere. “Lady!”

“What?” Dinlay asked.

“There was no burial,” Edeard explained. “We just left. It was too …
enormous to deal with.”

“The Lady will understand. And the souls of your friends certainly will.”

“Maybe.” He looked around the desolation and shuddered again.

“Edeard? Do any linger?”

Edeard let out a long reluctant sigh. “I don’t know.” Once again he
reached out, pushing his farsight to the limit of resolution, striving to catch
any sign of spectral figures. “No,” he said eventually. “There’s nobody here.”

“That’s good, then.”

“Yes.” Edeard led the way toward the carcass of the Eggshaper Guild’s
hall.