Requiem (16 page)

Lysias waited until the others had left, then lowered his voice. “I want your men well fed and well watered, in dry gear and ready to march at nightfall.”

Royce’s eyes betrayed a question, and Lysias gestured to him. “You made no mention of horses, General,” he said.

“Yes,” Lysias agreed. “That is correct. I will brief you fully when your men are ready. We do this all at once. I want any eyes that may be prying to see one army marching south.” Then, he turned to Tybard. “I want that miner, Barstrum, and his mechoservitor in my cabin within the hour. Magick a scout and send him after them.”

A realization dawned on the man’s face, and Lysias hoped the firmness of his gaze conveyed his full meaning. “Wonder what you wish, but breathe not a word of it to anyone, Captains.”

Both men nodded and left.

Lysias was alone again with his thoughts. He had much to do. He needed to pack. He needed to lay out one of his spare uniforms and designate someone to wear it—probably the captain who had challenged him—and arrange for those things that he could not carry to be taken back to the Seventh Forest Manor. Then, he would carefully script and code his note to Rudolfo and entrust it to the care of a runner.

After, he would meet with the miner and mechoservitor he intended to guide them when he took the best of Rudolfo’s army into the Beneath Places and eventually into the war.

Neb

Seagulls lifted and scattered, crying at the sky, and Neb felt the slightest tickle of their alarm in his skin. He stood now, though on trembling legs, and took in the lagoon and its solitary vessel. Though the shore was largely overgrown, he could see the remains of the dead city even here: Bits of white pavement peeking out from the green, a twisted mass of vines and brush that enwrapped a fallen statue or tumbled spire. And the jagged, mossy teeth of those glass buildings shining in the sun.

He wondered who had lived here and how long ago.

As an Androfrancine orphan, Neb had enjoyed the finest education in the heart of Windwir’s Great Library. But little was known of the moon beyond folklore, and most of that had been lost. Digging through the ruins of the Old World, archaeologists had found fragments and scraps of mythology. The best known, of course, were the tales of Felip Carnelyin and his journey to the moon, where he fell in love with the Moon Wizard’s daughter and stole her away from her father. Centuries later, that wrathful wizard arrived upon the earth to establish his rule in the Year of the Falling Moon, the beginning of a war that destroyed much of the world. Many of the stories were thought to be fabricated to keep humanity compliant and fearful during that Age of the Wizard Kings.

But now I stand in the shadow of a city on the moon.
His heart raced at the reality of it.

He heard laughter and looked up to watch Rafe and his remaining crewman as they walked the length of the ship, examining its hull from the old stone dock. The pirate’s smile darkened when he met Neb’s eyes. “She’s a fine vessel,” he said, “though I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Neither had Neb, other than in his dream. It was smaller than most of the ships he’d seen—narrow and long, low in the water with a pilothouse that stood elevated over the deck. It was the color of milk, with a texture that felt more like crystal or stone than wood.

The gangplank was down—made from the same type of material—and the sails, now lowered, were a kind of silk he’d not seen before, bright white and brand-new. He looked from the ship to Petronus. Somewhere behind them, the hounds closed in.

Petronus’s face was sober, and it wasn’t hard for Neb to sense the man’s trepidation. “Where do you propose we sail?”

You sail for D’Anjite’s daughter.
The voice was clear, and he jumped at it. And he thought only he could hear it, but the widening of Petronus’s eyes and the sudden silence that fell over the others told him otherwise. The men looked to him, and the mechoservitors studied them all.

A wave of emotion rushed Neb.
Calm. No fear.
The wave washed him, settled him.

Neb bit his lip and concentrated.
Who are you?

You may speak audibly, Lord Whym. I know you are new beneath your father’s mantle.
There was a stir of movement on the ship, and Neb looked up.
I am Aver-Tal-Ka, last of the Keeper’s Hatch and last of the People’s Builder Warriors.

The sense of calm was pervasive and seemed to saturate the dock. Though the scouts had weapons drawn, they stood relaxed, their faces transfixed with awe. The mechoservitors were silent but for the hum of their gears and the whistle of released steam. But despite the calm, there was a collective gasp when Aver-Tal-Ka stepped out from the shadows of the forecastle and into the light.

It was tall—at least a span higher than the mechoservitors—and it towered above them from its position on the deck of the ship. Its bone-white body was round but elongated, supported on eight long, slender legs. Both the legs and body were covered in a fine sheen of silver hair. In some ways, Neb realized, it was similar to the mechanical spider that housed his father’s ghost, but this was no creature of metal. It was roughly the same shape and size, it moved with measured grace upon those eight legs, and it spoke into his mind. But the similarities ended there. This spider was flesh and blood. And even its similarity to the spiders he’d studied in the natural sciences wing of the library was limited. This particular breed of arachnid had mandibles situated near a single fang, and tiny antennae wriggled above two eyes that shone dark as wet ink. And it was vastly larger.

Calm,
it projected.
No fear.

The body pulsated and rippled as it took another step forward. Then, Aver-Tal-Ka lifted one of its legs. The leg unfolded upward until its spiked tip stretched out over them; then the tip itself unfolded even farther, and a long, slender hand slipped out. It moved its four fingers against its opposable thumb and then spread all out in a gesture Neb instantly recognized as both a greeting and a hand that was empty of weapons. A mouth worked its way open just off-center of the mandible—its lips pink against the white of the spider’s flesh. “Greetings, son of Whym,” it said. “The terms of Frederico’s Bargain are nearly complete. The Continuity Engine of the Elder Gods slowly grinds to life, and the time of sowing is at hand.”

He’d asked the question once before, and the spider had answered, but Neb couldn’t get his mind around the answer. He had to ask again. “Who are you?”

“I am Aver-Tal-Ka,” the spider said again. It lowered its hand. “Last of the Keeper’s Hatch and last of the People’s Builder Warriors. I am hatched to serve you and Lady D’Anjite in the sowing.”

This time, the words were accompanied by an image. Neb saw a cave dimly lit by lichen and moss, its floor scattered with eggs that pulsed beneath thick strands of webbing that hung from the high ceilings. He saw a single spider, easily twice the size of the one before him now, moving among the eggs, pausing here and there for its mandibles to gently move over the surface of this or that pulsing, white orb, with a mother’s care and attention.

The Keeper’s Hatch.
All his life, he’d heard of the Keeper’s Wall and the Keeper’s Gate, the partition that kept the Named Lands segregated from the Old World that had been left desolate by Xhum Y’Zir’s Seven Cacophonic Deaths. Those place names had survived millennia, though their meaning had been lost long before the days of P’Andro Whym. Even as he pondered the connection, the spider spoke again.

“Everything made,” it said, “was made for the People.” It moved closer to the rail now, two more of its arms lifting and unfolding to reveal hidden hands. As it spoke, those hands pointed. The one already upraised now pointed to the world that rose above them, the others to the jungle and to the city. “All of the People’s needs, known and unknown to them, built into their home for their use.” Overhead, Neb saw a dark and barren continent moving slowly past. And as the world turned, he saw the mountain ranges that segregated that continent, and between those seemingly natural walls, a swath of green that at first he assumed must be his former home only seen from a point of view that he’d never imagined possible.

But there is no horn to sail around.
He blinked at it and saw other differences. More rivers, some even that cut through the mountains and into the barren wastes. He glanced at Petronus, whose eyes were also wide now. “There are other places that support life,” he said. “Like the Named Lands.”

Aver-Tal-Ka inclined its head. “Each continent was made with its Keeper’s Crèche set apart, fed by the blood of the earth against the day of sowing in the last days of Lasthome.”

New images pushed at his awareness now. A planet-sized garden scattered with bright cities of glass beneath a blazing sun. Birds—silver and gold and copper—flitting across a blue sky. And fire, twisted and carried by wind, moving slowly over that garden as black smoke choked out the sun.

Something in Neb stirred and moved toward comprehension, but the vastness of the realization staggered him.
Lasthome.

“These are the last days of Lasthome,” he heard himself saying.

Yes.
“Yes.” The word was both in his mind and in his ears. “And I’ve prepared this vessel to bear you to D’Anjite’s daughter.” The spider lowered its arms and turned its face toward Neb and then Petronus. “You’ve seen her in the aether. She waits for you to wake her from her slumber that the People may not perish.”

A mechoservitor’s eye shutters clicked open and closed as it released a gout of steam. It nudged Neb’s attention. “I know nothing of this. The dream that called us is for the tower.”

He saw it now, proud and white, where it towered above the moon’s jungles. “Yes,” Aver-Tal-Ka said. “The Firsthome Temple awaits, but its time is not at hand for you; and the tower was never meant for you alone. Two by two go the People. I hear the song that calls you in the aether but have not yet heard Shadrus’s Dream of Unsealing.”

Because I lost the dream.
He felt his face go red with the thought and hoped that the spider could not read it. Still, if it could, it said nothing. Instead, it turned and scuttled back away from the gangplank.

The hounds draw near,
it said.
And the kin-dragons will soon take wing again.
“It is time for us sail, Lord Whym.”

A thousand questions pressed him, but Neb knew there would be time enough for them once they were aboard and en route. And he did not know if it was the pervasive sense of calm emanating from Aver-Tal-Ka or if it was the quiet and reassuring voice deep inside of him, but Neb trusted the spider and felt a kinship with that being that he’d not felt before—a bond that assured him that his inexplicable trust was well placed.

When he looked to Petronus and the others, he saw they all watched him now. And he heard the tone of command in his voice as he gave the order to board the ship.

None of them blinked and none of them spoke. Instead, they scrambled up the gangplank and Neb followed. Aver-Tal-Ka moved around them quickly, raising the sails and taking the helm, and Rafe Merrique and his men cast them off.

As the crystalline vessel slipped out of the lagoon, the howling suddenly stopped. Behind them, dark forms broke from cover and paced the beach in brooding silence.

Ahead, a clear green sea beckoned and a warm wind rose to carry them over it.

Petronus

Petronus stretched out upon the sponge-like bed, feeling it conform to his weight as he settled in. He sighed and pulled at his blanket, the rough wool fabric out of place in these surroundings.

The lunar vessel was a wonder the likes of which no Androfrancine had seen. He’d read references from the earliest times about seagoing lords in those Elder Days who ruled from ships like these only larger. And he could see how possible that might be.

The exterior was nearly opaque, though he understood now from their spider guide that it simply bent light around it. And the interior boasted cabins and a galley made of a substance much like a shell, pink in color and carpeted with a lime-colored sea moss. And Petronus wasn’t certain what lay in the aft hold, but Aver-Tal-Ka had descended into it and ascended with buckets of fresh water, large shellfish and some kind of medley of sea vegetables still dripping.

After a feast supplemented with pulls from Merrique’s flask of firespice, followed by a hot shower, Petronus felt relaxed enough to notice every ache in his bones. But he didn’t notice it for long. He fell into sleep quick and hard.

She met him there.

He felt her hands upon him before his eyes were open, and she was strong enough to lift him easily. “I’ve been waiting for you, Downunder,” she said.

Petronus struggled against her. “What do you want with me?”

She smiled, drew his face close to hers. He could smell rotten teeth on the wind of her breath. “I want to know how many of you there are. I want to know about the one you called Nebios … Whym’s son. I want to know who else is with you.” This close, Petronus saw a point of clarity in the madness of the old woman’s eyes. “I sense another, but I cannot find their echoes in the aether.”

She doesn’t know about the spider.

“That,” she said. “Right there. What was that?”

He pushed the thought as far from himself as he could. “I have nothing to say to you,” he said. The words were barely out of his mouth before she hurled him away from her.

He landed in a patch of dried brambles and rolled to his back as she neared him again. A foot found his ribs, and he heard one crack. “You have plenty,” she said. “And I’ll have it if we must go the entire night.” She leaned over him, reached down, and pulled him up by his beard. “You sail for me, Downunder, and I’ll know what is coming my way. My father gave his life—misguided fool—to hide me. I’ll not wake up without knowing who comes to wake me.”

She dropped him again and brought her feet to bear. Petronus crawled to his hands and knees, grasping at her lashing foot but missing as she danced nimbly aside. “Tell me the story of Nebios Whym,” she said.