The Key to Creation (54 page)

But Alisi stumbled into the rubble with nothing but the dagger at her side. She was deaf to the premature Tierran victory cries and the defiant shouts as the Urecari fighters rallied. Though she hated the Aidenists, her only concern was for her brother. She knew where he had been standing, and Alisi pulled at broken rocks with her gloved hands. She had begun bleeding again; her bandage was soaked, but she didn’t care. Many Uraban soldiers had been buried under the blocks; she could hear them moaning, dying.

Finally, she spied a swatch of cream cloth, the shirt her brother had been wearing. She called his name and saw his finger twitch, then bent closer to hear a weak groan in response. She pulled some stones away, but could not move the immense blocks that covered him. His legs were crushed; large boulders pressed down on his chest. Unwar was still alive, though blood seeped from his mouth, nose, and ears. She could not free him from the rubble.

The Teacher had long ago given up hopeful dreams, and she could not fool herself that Unwar would be all right, that there was any chance he might survive these terrible injuries. She could not lie to her brother, either; he had never lied to her.

Unwar’s eyes flickered open, and he looked up, saw the silver mask. A faint smile curled his lips. “Alisi…if I’m going to say goodbye…let me see you. Take off the mask.”

Alisi froze, leaning over him. “I don’t dare.” There were too many others around, all fighting or scrambling to help the wounded.

“
Dare
,” Unwar said. And she had no choice. She removed the silver mask, and his expression changed. “Ah…I had almost forgotten what you look like.” He sighed. “It’s done, now. God’s Barricade has fallen.”

“No! We will still win.” But the cheers of the Aidenists and the sounds of the dying all around them belied her confidence.

“Our fight is over…for now.” Each word was an obvious struggle for him. “But I need
you
to survive.”

“I will fight and die to defend us.”

“No!” Something stirred in the rocks, and he freed his right arm. His fingers twitched. She took them in her hand, then yanked off her gloves so she could touch his skin once more.

“They will find the Teacher, punish the Teacher,” Unwar said. “So you can no longer
be
the Teacher.”

“It’s who I am!”

“It’s who you
were
. Do this for me. Find your own life…happiness, or at least peace. I am so proud of you, but the Teacher is dead. Become Alisi again, please.” His bloody lips smiled. “It’s the best way for you to win against them.”

Her thoughts spun, and she tried to grasp what he meant, not sure it was even possible. How could she stop being the Teacher? She had burned the identity of Alisi on a funeral pyre long ago. That tormented girl was dead.

“Promise me.” He gripped her hand with surprising strength.

“I promise.” Her voice was steadier than she thought it would be, and Unwar believed her. She didn’t say the words merely to comfort him, though, and now she was bound by her word. Already her mind was working out how she might hide her identity. No one could know who the Teacher really was. No one could ask the questions.

In giving him her promise, it was as if Alisi had dismissed him. Unwar let out a long bubbling sigh, and his fingers went slack, releasing hers. He died in the rubble of his great ruined wall.

Alisi knelt like a statue, but she allowed herself only a precious minute to grieve. With the barbaric Aidenists swarming into the holy city, she closed her brother’s eyes. She had made her promise, and now she wrestled with how to keep it.

Though it was difficult to move, and her wound continued to bleed, Alisi shrugged back the hood and struggled out of her signature dark robe. She stood with her chest bandaged, wearing only a simple chalwar. Holding the Teacher’s mask, gloves, and robe, she knew the best way to remove any lingering questions.

Alisi thought back to how she had recreated herself after slitting the throat of Captain Quanas aboard the
Sacred Scroll
, killing several Aidenist crewmembers, and jumping overboard. After swimming ashore, she had pretended to be a Tierran woman and lived among them for years, learning their ways. Now she would have to learn how to be—or pretend to be—a normal Uraban woman once again. She hoped she had sufficient skill.

Alisi discovered the dead body of a middle-aged soldier in the rubble of the wall. That would do.

While people were fleeing and the Aidenist army flooded into the streets, Alisi moved with painstaking thoroughness. She pulled the loose robes of the Teacher onto the dead soldier’s body, adjusted the hood around his head, pulled the gloves onto his limp hands. As a last gesture, she firmly placed the mask over his face.

She had no idea who this soldier was. He had died in the service of Urec, and now he could serve in one final way.

She took a cloak from the body of another soldier and wrapped herself in it. Ducking down, calling no attention to herself amid the fury of fighting, Alisi—
just Alisi
—staggered off again. The makeshift bandage on her chest was soaked with blood, but her loose clothing covered it. She slipped away, hiding within the battle itself.

Ishalem Canal

Drenched and exhausted, Iaros slogged along the canal bank. The wet armor was heavy, but adrenaline kept him moving.

From behind, he heard loud booms as the last casks of firepowder exploded. Each one felt like a personal blow to him. The masts and spars of the remaining ironclads were crooked like the clutching fingers of a man thrown alive onto a funeral pyre. The
Wilka
was nearly sunk, heeled over, engulfed in flames.

Iaros took one last glance back at the canal that was now clogged with burning wrecks. Oily tumbles of black smoke curled into the sky. He saw no sign of Destrar Broeck. The hollowness in the pit of his stomach wasn’t what Iaros expected victory would feel like, but
he
was the Iborian destrar now, and he would not tarnish his uncle’s memory. He pushed aside his sadness.

Most of the Tierran fighters had escaped from the ironclads and made their way to shore. They were drenched, singed, and stunned, many of them deafened by the firepowder explosions. Now they held their swords aloft, shook water from sodden leather armor, and looked at one another.

Iaros yelled out in a ragged and raw voice, “This is
Ishalem
, men! The holy city will be ours, but only if you fight—fight for Aiden!” He jabbed the air with his sword, but the responding cheer had little enthusiasm. “What was that? Aiden is frowning at you! Can’t you summon more energy to defeat the Curlies who did this to us?”

The second cheer was louder. Iaros stroked his dripping mustaches and nodded. That would do.

Shouts drew him back to the reality at hand. Now that the ironclads were destroyed, Urecari soldiers abandoned their catapults and climbed down from the watchtowers to defend the canal bank. Their scimitars gleamed like razor-edged silver smiles as they ran toward Iaros and his waterlogged men. “Stand ready to defend yourselves, men. Look at them—they’re the ones who destroyed our ships! By the Fishhook, they are the ones who
killed Destrar Broeck
!”

With a wild yell, the Tierrans rushed forward to meet the Curly soldiers, stunning them with their ferocity. As Iaros threw himself into the fray, he felt detached and a bit surprised. Fighting had always been a theoretical thing to him. He had practiced and tried to fashion himself as an Iborian warrior, but now he had to put his learning to good use, and found, to his relief, that he was quite proficient at it.

Iaros cut down the first two enemy soldiers before he realized exactly what he was doing. The pure exhilaration of swordfighting—the slashes, the parries, the thrusts, and the sensation of steel sinking into flesh swept through him like a fever. The cries of the dying inspired rather than revolted him. When another Curly fell to his sword, Iaros noticed that he himself was bleeding from a gash high on his left arm. He hadn’t even felt the wound, and he decided he had no time to do so now.

From the streets where he and his men fought, Iaros could see a high point in the center of the city, the largest strategic summit in Ishalem—Arkship Hill, where the wreck of Aiden’s vessel had rested for so many centuries.
That
, he decided, was where they must go.

Like floodwaters bursting a dam, the Tierran fighters cut through the Urecari soldiers and pressed forward. Swinging their bloodstained swords, they rushed into the heart of the holy city.

The Ice Grotto of Terravitae

The prester’s fury seemed heated enough to melt the frigid air of the grotto. Hannes swung his Fishhook staff to smash the sacred relics around the two preserved ancients. He hammered on the locked wooden chest, chipping pale gouges from the lid, denting the complicated padlock, though he did not succeed in smashing through.

The mummified corpses did not stir, but fragments of ice tinkled away like broken glass.

With a shocked cry, Javian lurched forward. “Stop!”

Hannes flashed a frenzied glance toward him. “Don’t be tricked! This can’t be real, and we dare not let anyone else see it, for the good of the church!”

But Javian grabbed his sleeve and held his arm to prevent him from swinging the preaching staff. Hannes glared at the young man in confusion. “You know the truth! You
know
that faithful Aidenists can’t be allowed to see this. It’s wrong—it’s blasphemy!”

“It’s the evidence of your own eyes!”

The prester said, “My faith gives me eyes.”

He pulled himself free and threw his weight against Aiden’s chair, pushing. The icy throne creaked, overbalanced, and crashed into Urec’s chair. Both frozen bodies tumbled onto the ground. Standing before the figure of Urec, who looked helpless lying there, Hannes raised his preaching staff high.

Javian sprang between him and the frozen figure. “I said
stop
!” His voice had changed to a growl. “I know more about faith than you ever will.”

Hannes was startled and confused by this persistent defiance, but Javian continued. “I’ve watched you and listened to you, Prester, just as I watched Sikara Fyiri. You accused each other of lying, but you were both saying the same thing.”

“I would never speak the same lies as a follower of Urec.”

Javian gave a derisive laugh. “Considering what I was taught, it’s a good thing you weren’t the only Aidenist I met. Captain Vora and the
Dyscovera
crew welcomed me as one of them. And Mia…” The young man shook his head. “It’s not the followers of Urec, or Aiden, who should be hated—it’s
bad people
like you and Fyiri, who inflame the passions of those who would otherwise live together in peace.”

“How dare you say such things?” Hannes cried. “I showed you the truth. Where would you learn that hateful nonsense?”

“In the
ra’vir
camp.” By now, Javian realized that what he had been taught—what had been
burned
into him—was all false. The Teacher had lied to him.

His comment rendered Hannes atypically speechless. Javian had held this confession back for half of his life, muzzled by his years of training and dammed up by his own fear and conviction. After keeping a secret for so long, though, the disguise had become as real as the truth, making Javian wonder which part was the lie.

He forced the words out of his mouth. “When I was a child, raiders kidnapped me from the village of Reefspur and took me to Uraba, where I was raised and trained to fight against wicked Aidenists.” It was like a memorized speech. He had heard the vitriolic words so many times as they flowed from behind the Teacher’s polished silver mask.

Javian had lived his mission without wavering. Convinced of his own righteousness, he had held to the course set for all
ra’virs
. He’d been warned (and often beaten to enforce the lesson) that Aidenists lied, that they were evil, that their beliefs were offensive to God…that they must all be exterminated.

After returning to Tierra, Javian established an identity in Calay, glad to have found such an easy way to get close to Captain Vora during the construction of the
Dyscovera
. He felt smug and strong that he had not let himself be deluded by the evidence he saw, the kind people he met, the strong families, the love, the charity, the teamwork they demonstrated. Those were things that the Teacher counted among the blessings of
Urec
’s followers.

Tierrans and Urabans had much in common. They were all people, with generous hearts or scheming souls. Javian saw no reason why Ondun would choose to love one race over the other just because of the symbols on their flags or which son of Ondun they revered.

Hannes looked at him with horror and revulsion, and Javian pressed his advantage. “Yes, I am a
ra’vir
, sent here to sabotage the voyage and make sure the
Dyscovera
did not reach Terravitae.”

Now, though, the idea of who and what he was nauseated him. But in front of this obsessive prester, and in the presence of the final truth of Aiden and Urec, he continued his confession. “
I
sabotaged the Captain’s Compass so we couldn’t find our way back home.
I
killed the Saedran’s pigeons, so that Tierra wouldn’t receive any more messages from us. I also listened to your words of mutiny, Prester. I watched how you spurned the aid of the mer-Saedrans, because your hatred of them was greater than your desire to find Terravitae and Holy Joron.”

“That’s a lie!” Hannes spat. But it was true, and they both knew it.

“Beyond that, you murdered as many Urabans as you could. You killed Ondun’s children and took pride in it. When Mailes told us, you did not deny it.”

“Why should I deny doing a good thing? Improving the world, by the grace of Ondun.”

“The Teacher used the same rationale.” Javian’s grip was white on the preaching staff. “Yet even though I did all those things, I was wrong. Have
you
ever said that, Prester Hannes? ‘I was wrong’? It wasn’t the ship that needed to be destroyed, it wasn’t the
Dyscovera
’s mission that needed to be stopped. It’s fanatics like you and Sikara Fyiri.
You
are the blight and the danger.
You
are the ones from whom Ondun turns His face and His light.”