Ferran's Map (16 page)

Sora resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Have you done this before?” she asked.

Ferran shrugged. “For myself, for other
reasons, yes,” he said. “Helping others…not so much.” His smile
slowly melted into a more thoughtful look. “Your Cat’s Eye used to
belong to Dane. Your father, you know,” he said.

“Right,” Sora replied, and glanced away.
Ferran and Dane had been old friends, or so her mother had
explained, but Sora didn’t know Ferran well enough to start hashing
out family history. She met the man only three weeks ago. She had
plenty of questions about her real father, but she couldn’t quite
bring herself to ask them.

Ferran seemed to sense her withdrawing. He
raised an eyebrow slowly. “What I meant to say,” he explained, “is
that you’re the only other person I’ve met with a Cat’s Eye, since
Dane died. These artifacts are very rare, and much has been
forgotten.” He took the cinnamon stick from his mouth and turned it
thoughtfully in his hands. “I’ve worn this stone for twenty years.
Most of what I’ve learned has been through trial and error, and at
times, bitter experience. Hopefully I can teach you to avoid some
of my mistakes.”

She gave him a searching look, but he didn’t
explain. She shifted her feet on the hard wood floor. Her legs had
fallen asleep. A strained silence fell between them, and she let
out a long breath. “How long have we been down here?” she finally
asked, realizing how cold it was.

“Two hours, I’d say,” Ferran replied.
“Perhaps a little more.”

Sora blinked at that. Their lantern
flickered, almost out of oil. She glanced at it.

“Have you eaten?” Ferran asked.

“No,” she said, and smiled slightly. She
didn’t know if she could stomach food at the moment.

“Let’s see if we can’t find a late dinner.”
Ferran stood up from his position and picked up the lantern. He
started back across the ship’s hold, maneuvering easily through the
crates, occasionally leaping over them, one arm used for leverage.
Sora followed with a bit more difficulty. Ferran stood almost a
foot taller than she and had much longer legs. He waited for her by
the stairs and they traveled back to the galley together. Sora
couldn’t think of much else to say; her thoughts lingered on the
meditation exercise, the gated corral and the monster within. She
felt as though somewhere deep inside, the
garrolithe
still
paced, glaring at her angrily with fiery blue eyes.

CHAPTER 7

Cerastes stood on the cliff face. The desert
wind brushed his black cloak and raked its hard, dry fingers
through his hair. Miles of red sand stretched before him into a
wavering, mirror-like distance: the deserts of Ester. A single
trailing cloud scarred the burning blue sky.

His eyes slid from the distance to the base
of the rocky plateau where he stood. A large encampment spread out
at his feet. Tents and fires dotted the ground. At this distance,
the noise of the camp did not reach him, though he could see rows
upon rows of nameless
savants
standing on the cracked, dry
earth. They practiced chains of combat moves, all in coordination,
like skilled dancers crossing a ballroom.

A trickle of satisfaction entered his
thoughts. They came here to serve the Dark God. They came here to
learn the secrets of their race, to obey, and to restore an ancient
order.

Cerastes turned to the cliff face behind
him. The massive plateau towered over the barren landscape. The
book in his hand had led him to this place. Still, the plateau
presented a puzzle. He found no markings, no signs, no indication
of the Dark God’s resting place…and yet he could feel it in his
bones.

He knelt with his ear to the rock. Through
the cavernous walls of his body, through the echoing space between
heart and lung, between pounding blood and seeping breath—he
listened.

The red stone murmured.

His ears did not know the language. And yet
his heart—which some would call a shrouded, crippled
deformity—leapt at the sound. Because Cerastes’ heart was not dead,
nor blackened, nor damaged, as some might believe. It was as
clearly crimson as the blood of a martyr, as the fires that burned
in the Dark God’s realm.

For nothing,
he thought.
For
nothing, I have sought You out. And for nothing, I shall fulfill
this task.

Because to live for nothing…to worship it,
as one might the core of oneself, and dismantle all trappings of
worldly identity…to live only in the moment, with few wants or
desires, free from attachment and reward….That was the final
calling of an assassin. To know the true emptiness of all creation:
life, a momentary flash of light, conceived from nothing and
destined to return to its original state….

In this way, Cerastes knew the truth of the
world. Life was not sacred, nor was death. All was a cycle. And
beyond life and death, in those realms of emptiness—where the
Elements vanished after creating the world—only there could one
find peace.

The Dark God yearned to return the world to
emptiness.

One could not live so long as an assassin
and ignore that call.

The Sixth Race were not meant to rule. His
kind did not have emperors or kings. They served their practice,
their Grandmasters and the Hive. He knew this instinctively. He had
lived it. For decades he had strictly obeyed his people’s
traditions, asking more from his body and mind than even his fellow
Grandmasters could tolerate. But it was not enough. Eventually,
after decades of study, he had reached the pinnacle of his
practice. He could gain no more from the Hive.

And then, with nowhere else to turn, he had
delved into the ancient secrets of his race. He had traveled to
distant lands where the ruins of their once-civilization could be
found in burial grounds and wasted tombs. He read books and
half-burned scrolls, and traced out the ancient runes left on
tombstones and buried crypts.

Only then did he see the Hive’s traditions
for what they truly were—diluted. Miswritten.
Weak.

From those ancient relics of his race, he
gained knowledge of the Shade. He learned a doctrine far more valid
and higher-minded than taught in the Hive.

And he faced the truth: the races were
slowly dying. One day, their knowledge and traditions, their sacred
practices, their magic and their gods would be lost forever,
becoming footnotes in history books, then mythology, then dust on
the wind.

Why should humans live while the races
died?

What greater right did they have to
exist?

If his kind were to fade from the world,
then the world should fade with them.

He listened to the earth murmur. He pressed
his hands against the hot, crimson rock. In that enclosed silence,
he heard the Dark God speak—not words he could repeat aloud, nor
even truly a language, but a sensation, an instinct greater than
his own that swelled through his body.

And then the silence was broken.

A quick series of footsteps approached on
the wooden steps behind him.

“Master,” a soft voice said. “The two have
returned. They await your presence.”

He rose quietly from the rocky ledge and
brushed the dust from his robes. Then he turned to the long series
of wooden steps that led back down to the desert. He dismissed the
nameless savant with a wave of his hand. Then, with another wave
and a bit of magic, he summoned a pitch-black portal and stepped
through it. The darkness clasped him in a familiar shroud.

Within seconds, the desert landscape
dissolved around him, replaced by a gust of chill wintry air. The
sound of passing carriages and human voices reached his ears. Above
him, he no longer saw the expanse of the red plateau or the burning
sky, but 200 feet of scaffold—a tower worthy of a King.

He descended the wooden staircase into the
misty afternoon light. Storm clouds swirled tumultuously above him,
threatening snow. King Royce’s workers swarmed over the tower like
busy little birds constructing a nest.
Such shallow
creatures,
he thought, watching them dispassionately. The
humans he had met, even the King, were a step above livestock,
imbued with material intelligence yet ultimately devoid of depth.
They barely questioned their own existence. They lived mindlessly,
mumbling prayers to their Goddess, until they dropped dead on the
ground.

He left the rickety staircase and entered
the half-constructed stone base of the tower. The sounds of
construction echoed through the hollow center of the building.
Above him, hundreds of feet of brass gears and steel ropes filled
its height. A new accomplishment for the human King—and the perfect
guise for his purpose.

Darkness pooled unnaturally at his feet. He
waited until the human workers dispersed. Then, with a simple
assertion of will, he melted through the stone floor to where his
underlings awaited.

* * *

The underground chamber’s thick stone walls
dampened Krait’s words. After making her report, she allowed her
voice to die on the musty air. The crunch of heavy gears carried on
above her, an ongoing grind through the earth. Cobra knelt nearby
on one knee, his eyes feverishly trained on the ground.

Her Grandmaster remained silent, but the
wraith at his back seemed to mirror his thoughts. The phantom
flickered back and forth agitatedly, flying in restless circles,
occasionally ramming up against the barrier of its invisible
prison. It let out a piercing wail without warning. Heavy stone
swallowed up the sound.

She waited. Cerastes thought. The gears
churned. The wraith spun.

“And the Viper seemed…distracted by this
girl?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” Krait intoned. She thought her master
looked disappointed by the news, though she couldn’t fathom
why.

“It seems our Viper has fallen for a trap of
the heart,” Cerastes murmured. “How
regressive
.” He paused,
his eyes trailing thoughtfully along the wall, as though rewriting
some passage in a book. “Still, I suppose this is promising news,”
he continued. “He can’t maintain control of his demon while
allowing his emotions to run rampant. This can be used to our
advantage.”

“He was in control when he faced the
blight,” Cobra offered boldly.

“It won’t last,” Cerastes dismissed him.
“He’s distracted by this girl. Yes, this changes things….” The
Grandmaster paused to gaze at the wraith. “How close are they to
the city?”

“About two weeks,” Krait said. “Well in time
for winter solstice.”

Cerastes nodded. “Bring her to me when they
arrive.”

Krait didn’t expect this. The ensuing
silence seemed to beckon an answer. She didn’t know what to
say.

“We can bring her sooner,” Cobra hissed
eagerly. “We can bring her now….”

He fell silent under Cerastes’ withering
stare. Krait suppressed a sneer.

“No need to rush,” their master intoned. “We
will trust in the Dark God’s timing and wait for their arrival.
Once we have the girl, then the Viper will come to heel, and the
weapons will be ours.” His gaze fastened on Cobra. “You know what
you must do.”

Cobra bowed his head. “Yes,
Grandmaster.”

Krait glanced at her fellow assassin. She
sensed a hidden agenda. What other mission did Cerastes refer to?
She wondered, then, if she should voice her misgivings about Cobra.
Even now, he spoke out of turn and did not follow the subservient
doctrine of the Shade.

She imagined how that conversation would go
with Cobra standing right next to her. She didn’t want to start a
petty argument in front of her Grandmaster. As an assassin and a
member of the Shade, her only duty was to obey.

“I am very busy,” Cerastes said in
dismissal. “The Shade grows stronger in the Dark God’s shadow, but
there is still much work to be done. Do not disturb me until you
have the girl.”

Krait and Cobra bowed in succession, then
turned as one to the shadow portal. With a few swift steps, Krait
dashed through the misty portal and found herself transported
instantly back to the slums of the city. She arrived on the bank of
an abandoned water canal, long since overrun by waste water.
Reeking, sticky mud sucked at her boots. Rain fell heavily from the
night sky. Dim lantern light illuminated a row of thatched houses
across the channel.

A moment later, the air wavered and Cobra
appeared by her side. He stood there twitching and shifting, and
took a moment to adjust his gauntlets. Krait watched out of the
corner of her eye in disgust. For an assassin, he could never stand
still.

She faced Cobra with a hard stare, meeting
his toxic green eyes. She still hadn’t seen the entirety of his
face, and she didn’t want to. The shiny texture of his scars
reminded her of old burn marks. Whatever his disfigurement, she
could tell it was gruesome.

Most of the Shade were like Cobra: maimed
and discarded assassins, rejected from the Hive and left for dead.
Cerastes became their saving grace. They joined the Shade’s ranks,
eager for any sort of community.

Despite their solitary nature, her kind
wasn’t meant to exist on their own. The Sixth Race thrived on
structure. Cut off from the Hive, assassins became manic and
deranged. With time, they slowly lost their minds to their
demons.

Cobra struck her as someone who once came
very close to that breaking point.

“I’ll handle the Viper,” he said directly in
his thin, oily voice.

She glared at him. “Cerastes ordered us to
handle
the girl
,” she said. “We must obey. We can’t stray
from his plan.”

Cobra’s eyes crinkled. “A plan for you to
follow, perhaps,” he said. “Cerastes gave me a different
mission.”

“I highly doubt that,” she hissed. “He
doesn’t trust your loyalty. You’re too unpredictable.”