The Vastness Read online

  I looked at Avin and Rahan. They ignored me, and Avin said to the priests, “We need your services. If you can get us through the south wall to the river, we have a galley waiting to take us back to the Iron Arsenal. Are any of Sikhek’s secret ways still open?”

  “You came here to hire us while towers burn and the palace is under attack? An Exaltier and Sten walking the streets in search of us?”

  “The opportunity presented itself. We are in need. So are you. Do we have an agreement?”

  “How did they know we were here?” one asked another.

  I had the same question.

  The first shushed his fellow and searched the street for those who might be listening. He said to Avin, “It is agreed. We should hurry and we should stop talking.”

  On that we all agreed, and we followed the priests to a side street close to the massive corner tower. One of them used a key to unlock a heavy door along the wall and lit a lantern once it was closed behind us. I did not like what I saw. The place was stacked high with wine barrels covered with black mold. Piles of it covered the floor and the spaces were too narrow to avoid bumping into a barrel. The priests led us through the warehouse maze and down into a narrow cellar passage. The place was wet and smelled of the dead fish.

  “Dug this one myself,” he whispered back. “The Hessier used it when your father was in charge—Bayen rest his soul.”

  “Never mind all of that,” Rahan said. “Keep moving.”

  One of the Hemari put himself between me and the priests. He had his hand upon his sword.

  “Yes,” the priest said, though he seemed to be thinking about something very far away.

  The tunnel was long and opened into a dark room. They had to move more moldy barrels and a pile of rotting nets to uncover another door. It opened onto a deserted river pier. The boats that had once worked there were long gone.

  “You said something about a galley?” the priest asked. “The guards upon the wall won’t miss this many people moving below the wall.”

  Rahan looked at me. I closed my eyes, found what he was hoping for, and pointed across the darkness toward a group of men out upon the river.

  Rahan took the priest’s lantern and waved it slowly over his head.

  A longboat came in and we hurried aboard. While we rowed out, the priest sitting next to me kept looking at my hands.

  “Please do not touch me,” I said. “You’d catch fire.”

  “Would I?” he asked with the same off tone, but edged away from me.

  “I’m getting tired,” I said to Avin and he gave me the robe he’d worn. The warmth was wonderful.

  We met the dock with a thud some time later, and I almost fell over. The noise of wounded men startled me. It came from all around us. Healers prowled the boatyard.

  “There she is,” one said and they converged toward me. Sewin and Blathebed appeared with a flock of officers.

  They parted for Rahan and Avin. The souls of the trio we rescued bunched up tight against so many strangers.

  Rahan stopped to speak to his general but the huge man hurried past him and up the gangway.

  “The wounded need you, darling girl,” he said to me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Can you walk up the hill for them?”

  I may have managed to say no.

  I woke once in a hammock of canvas. Rahan had hold of the end by my feet and was running hard uphill.

  “Where is Evand?” he asked of the person on the other end.

  The voice that responded was Blathebed’s. “He did not like the order to withdraw. I sent him to his quarters.”

  “It was his decision to change the plan?”

  “He thought we could take the palace.”

  “Was he right?”

  “No. We lost more than we should. Sewin exhausted his ammunition of heavy bolts bloodying the Hurdu, but that wasn’t the point of today. The men fought on expecting that Emi would be here when we returned.”

  “Must I banish him?”

  Blathebed did not answer.

  “Evand is different,” I said, and they slowed.

  “What did you say, Emi? Different how? Corrupt?”

  “No. Complex—like you but more so. His soul flashes about like spinning mirrors. He is different. I worry for him.”

  “Does he have magic?”

  “None that I can tell. He is a man like the rest, but his is unique. I watch him the most of all.”

  They said nothing more and their steady pacing up the stairs calmed me into a slumber. When I woke next it was to the sound of singing priests. I’d been laid out upon the long lawn of the Iron Arsenal and was surrounded by bloody men and a half circle of Avin’s healers. Their hot magic made the low clouds above glow blue against the black of night.

  “Natan, Natan, Natan,” they chanted and then cheered.

  The image of the Kuetish boy who died to save me upon Tin Bridge flashed by. I tried to rise to see if it was him, but collapsed back.

  As it all faded back to black, the Exaltier and his general carried me to my bed.

  24

  Dia Vesteal

  Burhn

  Most at the Priests’ Home had heard that Burhn and two others was making the climb up through the storm that buffeted the keep, so those gathered around me were not surprised when the outer door groaned open. The rest rushed for weapons.

  “The bay has been solid ice for twenty days,” I said as we laughed at them. “No one is coming to save me.”

  They calmed, the outer door closed, and a time later Burhn shambled in. He made his way down to us while his companions were escorted to a yurt near mine.

  One man met Burhn as he approached. “Verd’s preparations are on schedule?”

  He nodded and then paused for a considerable time as he took in the scene.

  I sat upon a stack of hides before the open flaps of his yurt with a book on my lap and a half empty satchel of fresh candles beside me. Four of them cast light over my shoulder onto the pages and thirty acolytes sat in a half circle before me. All the many things they’d made in exchange for my candles were laid before my pedestal of hides.

  “I’ve added a trading day to the routine,” I said to him. He failed to find words. I held up his copy of Tales from the Berm. “I hope you do not mind that I’ve been reading to them from your collection. It is a better use of the candles for one person to read while the rest listen.”

  He grasped it in stages, but could not look past the items I’d traded for.

  “What is all of this?”

  “The gear? I’m running out of wood. Seems only fitting that I should make the trip down to the bay for more if I’m going to continue smoking up the cavern.” The rest nodded and raised their bowls toward me. “Sit with us, Burhn. I managed to coax a bit of foxberry and pepper out of your fellow’s precious stores for the stew. It’s quite nice.”

  Burhn worked off his hood. His round face was gray, and he staggered from the weight of the pack he bore.

  I rose and took it from him. It was many times heavier than Clea but only half her size.

  “Not for you,” he said.

  “Of course not, but I can carry it for you. Sit. I’ll get you a bowl.”

  He seized my arm before I could turn. “After. I must deliver this now.”

  I stopped moving, and he shed his outer layer. The coat clattered to the floor, sending bits of ice in every direction.

  I started toward Aden’s door before anyone could object. Burhn struggled to catch up.

  “Someone set a bowl aside for him. Everyone else grab seconds while it’s still hot,” I said. “I’ll finish the story another time.”

  The acolytes lined up as they had become accustomed, and would sleep like babes after the warmth settled in. My secret ingredient was slices of caribou liver with plenty of salt—nothing to brag on, but my stews were the best food the cavern has seen in many years.

  Burhn watch them as we walked. He did not
have the faculty for comment. I adjusted the terrible weight of the pack and took his arm.

  He searched my face. “You gained good weight. Be careful. A bit more of the same and they won’t be able to keep their hands off you.”

  I touched my cheeks and chin and would have been furious at their heft if not for Burhn’s honest smile. He was serious. It was not an advantage I had sought, but would take what I could find.

  “It is all the fat I’m chewing to make the candles.”

  He chuckled at that and walked with me to the dark doorway. It groaned on its old hinges and the space beyond was almost too dark for Burhn’s lantern. My eyes adjusted and confusion held me still. The space felt too familiar.

  “This is a church rectory,” I said and pointed down the corridors of silent offices to our left and right. “What use does this place have for tithe offices?”

  It’s older than it looks,” he whispered and motioned for me to lower my voice. “The ledgers are centuries old.”

  Finger to his lips, he let me further in. I could have walked the course with my eyes closed. The wide hallway entered a circular church hall with an altar at its center. Lit lanterns hung on the insides of the thick posts that ringed the center sanctum and Aden lay upon the long altar. The rows of benches that had once circled the hall were gone and a heavy iron tub filled with ice occupied the space where partitioned would have come forward to leave offerings. The stone floor beside the tub was gouged with deep furrows that ran back toward a waist-deep pit filled with ash.

  The strangeness of the scene did not keep me from searching for something heavy enough to bash open Aden’s skull. I found nothing.

  Nine Ashmari stepped out of the shadows, and I lurched to a halt. I’d only ever seen the pair. How many did Aden have?

  “Do you have what you were sent for?” the tallest asked.

  Burhn nodded and took the pack from me.

  Aden tried to rise and fell back. His Ashmari rushed to his side.

  The senior Ashmari snapped its fingers at Burhn, hurried to bathtub, and began to sing. The ice began to crack and steam, and while the magic worked, I knelt down to help Burhn.

  He’d pulled three iron vessels from the icy bundle, and the symbols upon them shocked me back. I rushed to examine the seals for signs of damage. “Where did you get so much solvent?”

  “In Verd,” he whispered. “I had to spend most of the gold we had on account there to get the gem dealer to part with it. What do you know of the substance? It is foreign to me.”

  “It’s prussic acid. Our silversmith had a small vial of the same. He kept it better hidden than his gold. It is terrific poison, if your intention is gruesome murder.”

  “Is that why I am ill?” he asked.

  “No, foolish man. You are half-starved and frostbit.”

  “Merciful Shadow,” he said, and touched his forehead and chin as if praying to the Earth. He looked across at the Ashmari and the stemming bathtub before whispering to me, “Whatever do they mean to do with it?”

  Its applications were many, but there was one use that filled me with dread. “They mean to dissolve the silver from Aden’s wounds.”

  I considered telling Burhn about the poisonous gas that would fill the chamber as the acid did its work, but focused on what would come for me and my daughter if they were successful. Aden would be healed.

  The senior Ashmari finished warming the bathtub and took the first iron vessel from Burhn while the rest lifted Aden into the hot water. His body was a ragdoll. They broke the seal, poured a small amount into the water, and stirred it gently. They moved with more care than I thought Ashmari capable.

  Burhn took my arm and edged back, but the Ashmari’s only care was for their master. They leaned him forward and dunk his broken head into the water. Their lips began to move and magic vibrated my ears. Their master’s tortured flesh began to ripple and change color.

  Burhn came to a halt, smiled at me as though it was a blessed event, and aimed an ear at them in hopes of catching a word.

  My end was coming. The silver that had amalgamated with the mercury in Aden’s blood would be dissolved and his magic would be restored.

  I searched the chamber again and spotted an empty stone pedestal beside one of the thick posts. If I could get a hold of it, I might get one good swing at the back of Aden’s head while they were distracted.

  I was a half step toward it when a better thought turned me toward the remaining vessels. I picked up one, broke the seal before the moment was lost, and edged in toward the foot of the bathtub.

  “What are you doing?” Burhn asked.

  “I am being helpful. It is the only thing keeping me alive. Please, my friend, help me.”

  I’d like to believe that he would have seen my actions for what they were if he’d eaten and found a bit of sleep. He took hold of the third vessel instead, opened it, and followed me to the foot of the bath as they lifted Aden’s head up out of the caustic water. Their magics flared, and the stone ceiling and walls lit with broken rainbows of Ashmari magic as a brown cloud began to rise from the water. All their attention was upon Aden as we tipped the vessels over the lip and poured them both in.

  I expected the stab of magic or metal, but none come. The Ashmari continued singing and Burhn rocked from one foot to another, his eyes closed as he struggled to snatch a noun or verb from the crackling tumble of syllables. Aden’s eyes had been burned by the acid. His face hissed and bubbled, melting and reforming as chemistry and magic warred over his mutilated flesh. Bits of silver beaded on his face and chin and the Ashmari pinched them away. I could see the acid from our vessels swirling down toward his legs. It had not reached him yet.

  I was two steps toward the exit when I turned back. Burhn had not moved and the brown gas rolling over the lip of the bath was cascading onto his boots.

  “Come” I said and tugged him back. “One whiff of that will kill you.”

  He leapt away and followed me as the Ashmari dunked Aden into the undiluted acid on the surface of the bath. He began to thrash as we reached the hallway, and I pulled Burhn out of sight before Aden’s bath to a turn for the worse. We reached the rusty door and had closed it behind us when we heard the first monstrous scream. A second followed.

  “Dia, what happened?” Burhn said as his exhaustion and confusion prevented him from realizing my sabotage.

  Aden’s screams rose until a rending of metal and wood shook the earth. Burhn fell and grit cascaded down from the ceiling. I helped him up and we backed away from the door while the acolytes all looked to it, fearful of what might come through. I began to hope that I had killed him when the dreadful black touch pulled for a moment upon our bodies. It was crisp and strong, but still nothing like it had been. Burhn was at once relieved.

  “What happened?” the butcher asked as the acolytes gathered around us.

  I answered before Burhn could. “They attempted to heal Master Aden. It was working but something went wrong, I think. The colors of their magic were all over the place. One of the Asmari might have sung the wrong verse. Aden condition may have improved but it did not go as well as they hoped.”

  None of them had the courage to open the door, and when I pulled Burhn away the rest withdrew as well.

  Back at the yurt, I got back to things as though it was any other day. The rest of the acolytes had already returned to their work. Burhn followed me like a lost little boy.

  “Stop, you’re dead on your feet. There was nothing more we could have done.”

  He began to ask me a question when I pressed the bowl of stew it into his hands. He downed where he stood, and I led his to his bed before he could put his thoughts back together. Sleep stole him away.

  The cavern stayed silent while it waited for their master to emerge.

  If Edonian ships were coming, they’d better be quick.

  25

  Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  The Cursed Sea

  The last of Barok’s blood clutched aga
inst my breast, I struggled to stay upright as the sea tortured my ship and crew.

  “You should put Sikhek over the side,” Rindsfar shouted through the gale as he hurried the canvas off my box of frozen black soil.

  I’d liked Sikhek more when he was a Hessier. He’d not moved since I’d tried to get him to sing to the storm. What was left was a creature with no place or purpose. Each day I expected word that he had died of hunger and thirst, yet he lingered like a bad smell. Rindsfar’s suggestion had occurred to me many times, yet I worried what Geart would do. Was my control over him bound to the wretch clinging to life in the hold of my ship?

  Geart, for all his power, was as useless. He had not moved since that day either—a thousand weights of dead flesh and mercury frozen to the foredeck in a block of ice. I could feel the darkness bound up inside him, and while I watched the helmsmen struggled against the tillers to keep us on our bitter course, I could not set aside the thought that he was responsible for the storm in our path.

  “Hurry, before it freezes,” I said to Rindsfar and Tayler as they worked with picks upon the black soil. Opening the frozen earth took longer than it had the previous day. I’d not thought it could get any colder.

  “You’ve gone through too many of the envelopes,” Rindsfar said. “Won’t you need some for the fight with Aden?”

  Our situation was worse that he thought. The blood box in my cabin was empty. The pinch of dried Vesteal blood stirred into the cup I cradled was the last I had aboard.

  “We must reach the shelter of the bay now,” I said to him and moved to pour the cup into the hole they’d dug.

  A Chaukai struggled up onto the aft deck stairs begging a word. He had hold of a heavy vial, and I knew at once that it contained his blood and perhaps the blood of others.

  I shook my head at him, “your blood by itself will not help us.”

  The Chaukai seemed to know this and drew a dagger.