Antiphon (49 page)

“I’ll not—”

But Ria’s voice was cut off by the regent’s. “Stand down,” he said, and they did. When he spoke again, his tone was gentle. “Let us reason together,” he said with a smile.

Jin Li Tam looked to the faith she saw upon Winters’s face, bathed blue-green in the light of the moon, and then to the painted puzzle of Ria’s face and the carved symbols that spiderwebbed Eliz Xhum’s strong features.

Last, she looked to the face of her child, still laughing where he lay against her.

Whatever came next, Jin Li Tam doubted reason would have much to do with it.

For the longest time, they followed warm and winding corridors that gradually descended farther into the Beneath Places. Neb’s metal guides ran ahead, the breath of their bellows and the hiss of released steam playing counterpoint to the whir of their gears and the mechanical pulse of their pumping legs.

He ran behind them, surprised at how easily he kept up with them. The deeper down they went, the warmer the air became, and from time to time, the phosphorescent glow faded to leave them moving forward only by the light of their amber eyes in that dark place. Neb used the time to collect his thoughts, giving up on the notion of any answers from them when they ignored his initial questions.

Still hollowed by all he’d learned, he found a numb detachment ran with him. In the span of days, he’d found his dead father very much alive and had discovered through the man’s tearful confession that not only had Windwir’s fall been permitted, but that the man he’d believed his sire was not. True or not, it unsettled him most when he remembered the voice that vibrated through his body as he lay suspended in the bargaining pool.

In those moments, his detachment threatened mutiny.

What kind of father could anyone possibly find here?

Even as he thought it, the whispering started ahead as they once
more passed through a broad cavern containing yet another silver pool—this one gurgling in a slow-moving current that fled away out of view. He strained his ears but could not distinguish anything intelligible. Still, the whispering grew in volume the farther they ran.

At last, it stopped when they reached a tall archway with a crystalline door set into it. The first mechoservitor placed a metal hand upon its crimson surface, and the door whispered open. A gust of hot wind escaped the space behind it, and a soft blue-green light poured out with it. The metal men inclined their heads.

Neb heard the quietest hiss, and the whispering started up again. As they stepped back, he stepped into the archway and took in the room behind it. It was another pool, one he recognized as similar to the one he’d awakened in, only this one was in a carved basin. At its center, hanging from a web of silver threads, hung a blue-green orb the size of a bull’s head.

No,
Neb realized,
not just an orb.
Legs unfolded from it—legs also silver and easily mistaken for part of the web it hung from. The light undulated, bent through the thick, glasslike construction of the crystal that contained it. The legs twitched and moved along the strings, and the whisper now was more obviously a song.

Neb’s detachment failed now, and he felt fear grip him. He felt it like a cold fist squeezing his bladder, and as the spiderlike creature moved toward him, he stepped back. “What is it?”

A metal hand fell to his shoulder. “Wade in the waters,” the metal man said. “You can only hear his voice if you are submerged in the pool.”

Neb took a tentative step forward, then hesitated.

“This,” the metal man said, his hand still firm on his shoulder, “is what the light requires of you, Nebios Homeseeker. A tremendous price has been paid to bring you to this moment. Do not be afraid.”

He removed his boots slowly and pulled off his robe. Closing his eyes, he stepped into the pool, remembering the fear on the face of the Gray Guards when he’d nearly backed into the other pool. He felt the fluid moving over his feet, and the cool relief of it ran up his legs, soothing the ache from his run.

Yes.

He did not hear the voice as much as he felt it, and there was a calm in it that compelled him forward. He waded out to his waist and waited.

The silver legs unfolded, bearing the orb along the web as it moved
closer to him. Smaller appendages—more slender than the legs—waved the air before it. Neb watched it approach. “Who are you?”

Come closer.

Neb took one step forward and then another. Now, the warm, thick liquid lapped at his chest. Beneath him, the floor of the pool felt spongy but solid. The smell of it was salty in his nose. He waited, watching as a tendril of webbing dripped from an orifice that appeared in the underside of the orb’s silver chassis. The strand of web brushed the top of the pool, sending ripples out from the place it touched, and then the legs bore the orb along the line of the thread to hang inches above the pool and within reach of Neb.

He forced himself to stay put, feeling the vibration of the voice as it moved over his skin.
They named you Nebios.

He closed his eyes and pushed his answer into a thought.
Yes. Who are you?

He watched the light gutter and then pulse again through the thick crystal of the globe.
I am a ghost of the first people, those this world was made for.
A series of images came with the words now, and Neb found them disorienting. He saw a vast planet-sized garden, scattered crystalline towers reflecting back sunlight in the midst of orchards of fruit and fields of grain.

Neb’s breath caught in his throat. “You are a Younger God.”

I am the ghost of one. An echo left behind in hope with a pocket full of seeds. And in you, Frederico’s Bargain is finally complete. The path is cleared to the tower, and you will take back what Y’Zir the Thief had no right to. You are Homeseeker and Home-Sower.

More images, stronger now that the silver legs stirred the pool, took shape behind his eyes. Neb felt the power of them on his skin. A white tower—familiar to him—rose up from the jungle and he stood upon it, surrounded by metal men and their song, a silver staff held high in his hand as the sea boiled beneath him.

He could hear the song in the air now even as he felt it moving through the fluid that pulled at him, and the gravity of it tugged him. At first, he resisted, but finally he gave himself to it, took in a great lungful of air, and immersed himself. He felt the pool shift and move about him.

Yes.
Neb didn’t know if it was his voice or the voice of the Younger God. Maybe it was both in unison. Regardless, he felt a splash as the globe dropped into the pool beside him.

I have bargained for you as I promised. You are the last of my seed and the last of our people. Last of the line of Whym and last hope of Lasthome.

The words tumbled through his brain, rocks tossed into a well.
The line of Whym?
How could that be? He tried to collect and focus his thoughts to ask, but that level of control eluded him.

Scenes shifted around Neb now, and they were impossible to discern, storms of light and sound that moved through his mind with an ache that made him groan. He opened his mouth and felt the thick fluid pushing its way into him. It moved inside him now even as it moved over him, and he lost his footing.

Silver legs reached out to steady him, careful in their grip. For a moment, he resisted and floundered. Then, he relaxed.
I do not understand.

I am the ghost of Whym. Three sons have I sent out from the basement of the world; only one has returned for my blessing. And so I give it freely: dominion over what was made for you. Your awakening will be gradual and heuristic. You will learn the path by following it. You will follow the path and save our people.

The spider’s legs were tightening upon his wrists and drawing him in. His eyes were closed against the warm pool, but he forced them open to see that the silver waters were now a brilliant blue and green. He wanted to resist but found that he hung limp as the quicksilver carried him. He felt the legs encircle him and felt the heat of the globe against his chest.

Then, those smaller appendages moved over his face, sliding into his nostrils and his ears and open mouth. When the pain came, it was instant and hot and blinding. He felt his body seize from it, and in the midst of the seizure, everything shifted to gray bordered by black.

As the world spun away, Neb heard and felt the voice once more.
I give myself for you.

Then what had been light became darkness and what had been song became silence. Neb floated in it wrapped in a solitude deeper than he had ever known. And eventually, in the heart of that silence, a whispering arose. And in the core of that darkness, light bloomed and held.

When he emerged from the waters, the waters lifted him until he stood upon their mirrored surface. He ignored the empty crystalline husk with its limp silver legs. Instead, he fixed his eyes upon the metal men who waited on the shore. He knew them and he knew their song, knew the strands of it that connected them in the aether. He read the code in that canticle now and smiled at how simple it was.

“Time is of the essence,” Nebios Whym said, and his words echoed
through a room now lit only by the amber of their jeweled eyes. “The antiphon awaits.”

Yes,
a voice within him whispered.

The rocking of the ship and the rhythm of the words soothed Vlad Li Tam despite the nearby crowd of sailors. All hands were on deck now as his first grandson led some form of Y’Zirite service in the guttural tones of their language. There were songs, as well, and a long monologue with portions read from a black-bound book that Vlad suspected must be one of their gospels.

He found himself willing the service to continue, knowing that each minute that the lower decks were empty was time bought for his family to comb it for anything useful. The longer they were aboard, the higher the risk of discovery and capture. At some point, those stolen rations or tools or magicks would be noticed. They either had to take the ship—an unlikely feat—or escape it to something safer.

His grandson’s voice dropped, and Vlad turned his attention back to him. The young man had raised his arms in supplication, a silver knife held high. The moon rose, and as it did, the waters took on an ethereal glow. Out on the waters, Vlad could make out other ships moving in slow, wide circles around them, and he noticed that they were now adrift in the center of the massive pillars. As the moon rose, he saw the light of it reflected in the silver orb that hung far above.

The setting, combined with the poetry of Mal Li Tam’s voice, pulled at him. And from the looks of rapture on the faces of the crew, it compelled them as well. Two of them rolled barrels to the prow and another brought a plank. They laid the plank across the barrels.

What are they doing?
But part of him already knew as his eyes followed the silver blade in his first grandson’s hand.

He’d forced Myr to bring him back when the call had gone out for all hands. Even now, she sat beside him, huddled up against the rail, not far from the hatch that would take them back to the part of the ship they called home. He felt her fingers pressing into his skin.

Do you understand any of this?

No,
he tapped. But it fascinated him. Certainly, he’d heard stories about resurgences. And his family was very involved in this particular
resurgence, though obviously with a great deal of help from outside. Help from people who bore the marks of Y’Zir not just upon their hearts but upon their entire bodies. He had no doubt it was faith that drove those blades into their skin.

Mal Li Tam was pacing now and speaking with an impassioned voice. He paused and pointed the knife first at one man and then at another. He even pointed it briefly toward one of the women in the party. But eventually, it was the man Vlad recognized as captain that stepped forward and offered a one-word answer.

Then, he stripped down and stretched himself upon the plank as his men tied his arms and ankles so that he was firmly fixed to the table it formed. Deck buckets were passed forward, and Vlad suddenly felt a stab of tension in his shoulder blades as he watched Mal salt the blade and roll up the sleeves of his robe.

The moonlight danced over the captain’s scarred body. He did not struggle or even cry out as the knife made its first pass. But by the seventh stroke, he wept and screamed and his men wept and screamed with him as his blood dribbled into the buckets through holes drilled in the plank. When Mal finished, he cleaned the captain’s wounds himself and then kissed him on the mouth, uttering a loud proclamation with hands outstretched toward the crew.

Then, lifting the bucket, he pitched its contents over the rail. Afterward, he called out loudly, his voice booming out over the sea and Vlad recognized the word once more. “Behemoth!”

The young man waited, and the deck became silent.

Vlad held his breath. Mal Li Tam tossed back his head and laughed loud. The crew joined him and even the captain, tears streaming down his face. Raising his gospel in one hand and his knife in the other, the Y’Zirite priest launched into another long monologue and at the end of it, laid aside his gospel to take the knife to his own hand. He drew the gash deep and held it out for them to see. Then, he cast his eyes upward, and Vlad followed his gaze. The silver orb eclipsed the moon, and for a moment, it was a globe of blue-green water speckled with stars.