The Key to Creation (13 page)

Firun and Shetia reacted with alarm. The old servant said, “Don’t even talk like that, boy! Destrar Broeck has guards, and Siescu just brought more soldiers and workers from Corag along with his supplies. It’s a very dangerous time.”

Ulan continued to look defiant and pulled the thin blanket tighter around himself. He muttered in a surly voice, “Nobody wanted the Aidenists here anyway. My father would have driven them away, but the Aidenists brought monsters! Who can fight against monsters?”

While fleeing the villa, Shetia and her son had witnessed a little of the mayhem as the invaders swept through the camp. The two had run madly into the wooded hills and heard only the distance-faded din, but Shetia imagined what must have happened there.

“Do you have any word of my father?” Ulan pressed. “He was in the camp—they must have found him! He would have fought. I’ll bet the Aidenist commander captured him.”

Firun looked away, evading the direct answer. “There was great turmoil, young man.”

“But he was in charge of the Gremurr mines! A very important man.”

The old slave hesitated. “Yes, your father was a very important man. He was the brother of the soldan-shah. Even in the heat of war, there are certain expectations of civilized behavior among rival leaders. He…has been sent back to Olabar.” He clamped his lips shut.

Ulan seemed to accept the answer and sat back, content, but Shetia heard something in the old man’s voice. She clenched her fists, pressed her lips together, and sobbed quietly so that her son would not hear her.

Calay

After the recent hurricane in Calay, skilled carpenters and stonemasons were in great demand. Fortunately, Vicka and her father Ammur Sonnen had plenty of apprentices to help rebuild the battered forge and smithy. Outbuildings, sheds, and a charcoal storehouse had been blown over by the storm winds; part of the main house’s roof had been torn off, and the chimney had fallen down.

Ammur was exasperated to be prevented from working at his anvil or forge. He was not interested in household repairs, only in making swords and armor for the war. His entire life pivoted on his work as a blacksmith, and he just wanted the days to return to normal.

In the meantime, Vicka let her father stoke the fires and operate the bellows of their secondary forge, which kept him happy doing what he loved, while she took it upon herself to put the apprentices to work. First, she kept them busy clearing debris and putting up split-rail fences. Next, because of the late autumn chill, she had them rebuild the main-house chimney so that she and her father could have a fire to keep them warm at night. (She would rather Mateo were home to keep her warm, but she knew he was on his way.)

Perched on the slanted roof while Vicka stood in the yard below, the apprentices slathered mortar and cobblestones in a crude approximation of the previous chimney. The young men made up for their lack of skill with enthusiasm; the result wasn’t particularly masterful craftsmanship, but it appeared to work, though with a bit more smoke and sparks than Vicka liked. Once they completed the chimney, the apprentices worked at reconstructing the main forge, so that her father could get the Sonnen smithy running again at its previous capacity.

Noting how badly the adjacent homes and businesses needed repairs, Vicka made the obvious decision. “We’re going to loan some of our young men to the neighbors, Father. Too many other people need help getting their lives back together.”

Her comment disoriented Ammur. He had carefully rearranged the tools on his repaired workbench next to the small anvil at the secondary forge. “But our apprentices have work to do here. The queen is depending on us to make all those swords, and I promised her a suit of armor made just for her. She’ll need it when she rides off to war.”

As soon as Queen Anjine had announced that she would personally lead the final charge to recapture Ishalem, Ammur Sonnen promised to craft her custom-fitted armor himself, even though his smithy was barely functional. He was adamant that the queen’s armor must be more than a costume, but a functional suit of finely worked plate to protect her against enemy assassins.

Vicka tossed her dark hair and put her hands on her hips. “Calay also needs you to fashion nails and hinges and bands to rebuild the city. You’re not just a swordmaker, you’re a blacksmith.”

Ammur let out a sigh. “All right, the queen isn’t marching to war just yet. We can help the neighbors.”

Vicka yelled at two of the apprentices who had paused to drink a dipper of water from the rainbarrel. “You there, back to work!” She lowered her voice to her father. “I want everything back together by the time Mateo comes home in a few days. I don’t want him to think I can’t take care of myself when he’s not around.”

Vicka could not entirely keep the girlish anticipation from her voice. She missed her husband terribly…a brave soldier loyal to the queen and to Tierra. Not long after their wedding, he had gone off on a dark and terrible mission; no one would tell her exactly what it was, so she supposed it must be a military secret. But Vicka did know now that he’d been part of the recent victory at the coveted Gremurr mines. Mateo was a hero, no doubt about it. Even now, he was bringing back a group of freed Tierran captives. Naturally, Queen Anjine would praise him for his service, but Vicka had her own ideas about how to reward Mateo in the best possible way he could imagine.…

When she’d married him, Vicka had never expected Mateo Bornan to be a homebody. A subcomdar of the Tierran military had many duties besides simply being a husband. Vicka understood that; in fact, she didn’t mind, since she was an independent woman with plenty of her own work managing the Sonnen forges. She let out a wistful sigh.

Seeing that Vicka wasn’t paying attention, some of the journeymen stood around, and she brusquely pointed out things that needed to be done. “How can you not see it for yourselves? Clean up all this debris before we go to the memorial celebration tonight, or you’ll stay here and keep working while the rest of us are lighting candles and singing at the kirk.”

The young men jumped to obey.

At sunset, the residents of Calay gathered in the square outside the main kirk to mark the twenty-first anniversary of the Ishalem fire. Vicka and her father went every year, accompanied by their apprentices and journeymen.

The grim story put Calay’s storm damage in perspective. Though the recent hurricane was the worst storm anyone could remember, the damage was trivial compared to what the world had lost that terrible night in Ishalem, when so many people, and so many dreams, had died.

No prester-marshall had yet been selected to replace Rudio, but five prominent presters stood outside the kirk by the cast-iron Fishhook. With cracking voices, two of the men told of seeing Ishalem in their youth and described the city’s magnificent towers, whitewashed buildings, and ornate structures. And the sacred Arkship, the ruins of Aiden’s vessel that had carried Aiden from Terravitae, left abandoned high on a hill—preserved for centuries, burned to ash in a single night…

When Queen Anjine emerged from the kirk, the crowd grew silent. “I was just a girl when I traveled to Ishalem with my father.” Vicka listened with a smile because she knew that Mateo, Anjine’s childhood friend, had accompanied her on that voyage. “I was there that last night…I saw the fire.” Her voice hitched. “King Korastine had just signed the Edict with the soldan-shah, dividing the world to give us peace. But we should have known not to trust the followers of Urec.”

The queen’s anger was plain, and a hiss rippled through the crowd. “When the fire started, Aidenists rushed to extinguish the flames—and the Urecari rode our people down, hacked them with their scimitars, and threw torches to spread the fire. I saw it with my own eyes.
They
burned Ishalem.”

As Vicka listened, tears sparkled in her eyes. She had never seen the holy city herself, but she had constructed vivid pictures in her mind. She wished Mateo could be here to tell her his own stories of that night.…

While courting her, Mateo had spent most of his time talking about the war, describing how he had sailed aboard Tierran patrol ships and fought Urecari raiders. Sometimes, he was reticent to provide details, and Vicka did not press him. If he didn’t want to remember those events, then she didn’t want to know. She loved him and knew he would come back to her. Soon.

Though Vicka wasn’t an overly sentimental person, she did keep the ornate fishhook chains that were locked together to symbolize how their lives were joined. During their wedding in the main kirk, Mateo and Vicka had linked those hooks together to commemorate their bond of marriage, and she kept them locked in a drawer of her small wardrobe. She would have been embarrassed if her father, or any of the apprentices, knew how often she took out those hooks and chains, held them in her hands, and thought of Mateo, imagining him on some distant battlefield, and now traveling the long road back to Calay.

To finish the ceremony, the presters led the crowd in a somber but heartfelt hymn to Ishalem, after which they all took up the candles they had brought for the ceremony. After they touched wick to wick, each person held their small flame high. The candles were tiny sparks of hope for the future, glimmers of faith. No one in Tierra would ever forget the loss of Ishalem.

Afterward, Vicka returned home with her father. It had been a somber celebration, but necessary. “When Mateo comes back, we can be happy again.”

“When he delivers those lost prisoners to their families, a lot of people are going to be happy,” Ammur replied. “You married a good man, Vicka.”

After nightfall, the air was chill even inside the large home. Ammur built up a blazing fire in the hearth, wrestling with the flue in the newly repaired chimney. Vicka kissed her father goodnight, then went to bed. Neither of them liked to stay up late; they rose each morning before dawn so Ammur could prepare the forge and Vicka could roust the apprentices for the day’s work.

Before blowing out the candle, she took out the joined fishhooks one more time from her secret drawer, running her finger along the links. She put them back in her wardrobe and hurried across the cold floor to her bed.

With a woolen blanket keeping her warm, Vicka closed her eyes and thought of Mateo. She wondered where he was at that very moment—lying under the stars, perhaps, huddled in his own blanket in a camp along a road? On his way home to Calay, to her—

She awoke abruptly and opened her eyes to smoke; her vision was fuzzy, her lungs scratching and on fire. It hurt to breathe. In the other room, she heard her father coughing, retching, staggering about. She pulled herself off the bed, but was tangled in the blankets. Unable to clear her head, she tripped and fell to the hard floor, bruising her knee. She got to her feet, fumbling her way out of the bedroom.

Sparks spat out from the main fireplace. Rafts of black smoke filled the room with poisonous fog, and flames were licking up the walls next to the hearth. The smoke was so thick, she couldn’t remember where the door was, but she found a wall, bumped a stool, kept blindly staggering forward.

The door’s latch was flimsy, but it stalled her attempts to open it. She was coughing; each lungful made her feel worse, not better. Finally, she undid the latch and dragged the door open so she could plunge out into the fresh night air, choking and gagging.

Smoke flooded out after her. Flames cavorted from the main house, poking through the closed window shutters, running along the roof. Some of the apprentices had emerged from the work barracks, yelling, “Fire! Fire!” Throughout the neighborhood, people came running. The apprentices grabbed buckets, filling them from the barrels of quench water near the forge.

Someone threw a blanket on top of Vicka, pounding her back and head, and she realized that her clothes and hair were smoldering. She didn’t even feel the burning, and with a frantic, impatient gesture she yanked the blanket away.

In her mind she saw a clear picture of the joined fishhooks in her drawer—the symbol of her marriage, her bond with Mateo. The fire would turn the gold and silver into an unrecognizable lump, but she knew she couldn’t go back in there to rescue an object, no matter how precious it might be.…

She reeled, hearing the crackle of flames, the shouts of people tossing buckets of water onto the burning roof. Inside, the ceiling beams groaned and cracked. One of the journeymen pressed a cup of water against her lips, which she tried to drink, but could not force it down her throat. Stunned, she needed to hold her father so they could comfort each other…but she didn’t see him among the milling helpers.

Vicka wheezed out Ammur’s name, but the smoke hurt her vocal cords so much she couldn’t speak. Finally she grabbed the journeyman who had given her the water and managed to scratch out the words, “My father! Where is he?”

The young man’s eyes went wide. “He didn’t come out. He’s still—”

Still fuzzy from the smoke, Vicka ran back through the open door, charging stubbornly into the main room. She couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t raise her voice to call for him. The smoke was thicker in here, and the air even hotter than when she worked over the coals of the smelter during the day’s labors. Sparks flew about like angry stars, dotting the black smoke. Vicka swatted at her hair, felt her skin singe. Each footstep was heavier and more difficult.

A burning rafter beam collapsed behind her in a crash of sparks, barely missing her. Urgent voices called from outside, but she also heard her father coughing, crawling on the floor where the smoke was less dense.

She blundered into him by pure chance, nearly tripped, and grabbed his shoulder. The solid feel of him brought her back to reality, allowing her to focus once more. She pushed Ammur forward, and they lurched together across the room toward the open door through which smoke gushed like water down a waterfall.

Vicka fell to her knees and crawled after him. She felt a little better down here, knew where she had to go. Overhead, other ceiling beams groaned and began to crack. She no longer saw the fire, or the sparks, or the smoke, but at least she knew her father was safe.…