Requiem (32 page)

Of course, the dreams rarely went all night even at their peak. But whatever Charles experienced was different. Her dreams had been a part of her heritage, in the bones and blood of her family. The old man’s dreams came from the mechoservitor, and if Micah and Hebda were correct, they were the stirrings of the Final Dream.

“I think I dreamed about the moon,” Marta said as she nibbled a slice of bacon. “It’s all … fuzzy. I can’t remember.”

Winters and Charles looked to her at the same time, then to one another. Winters opened her mouth to say something, but another voice interrupted.

“Ah, you’re here.” Hebda approached their table. “I was just coming to fetch you. General Orius has arrived.”

Marta craned her neck, trying to see the man over Winters’s shoulder. “Does that mean I can see my friend now?”

Hebda smiled, but his sunken eyes and gaunt features made it a grim, humorless expression. “Yes. I’m sorry it’s taken so long.”

The girl was already scrambling to her feet, cramming a fistful of bacon into her mouth as she stood. Winters watched the change in her demeanor and found herself smiling at it.

Hebda whistled, and a young man in a gray uniform stepped forward. “Danver will take you to him.”

She mumbled her good-byes around her mouthful of food, and Hebda waited until she’d left the tent before continuing. Then, he looked at Winters. “How is she doing?”

“She’s fine,” Winters said. “But it doesn’t seem any of us slept well.”

Hebda’s smile widened, and she saw giddiness in it. “Yes,” he said. “The dreams.” He nodded. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Not,” a gruff voice said behind Hebda, “if it brings the Y’Zirites down upon us.”

The arch-behaviorist stepped aside, and Winters recognized Orius instantly from the descriptions her scouts had brought her over the years. A broad-shouldered, muscular older man, his hair white and short-cropped. Her own people had taken his eye in some skirmish during her father’s reign, and the scar from that taking was visible despite the patch he wore.

“Arch-engineer Charles,” Orius said.

Charles stood and inclined his head. “General.”

Winters climbed to her feet and extended her hand to the officer. “General Orius,” she said.

He took the hand and squeezed. “Winteria bat Mardic,” he said. Then, he glanced to Hebda. “Did I say it right?” At his quick nod, the general continued. “Let’s walk together. Hebda’s convinced me that it’s time to show you what has him so excited.” He winked at Charles. “And I have much to discuss with you, Arch-engineer.”

They set out from the tent, and a half-squad of Gray Guard scouts fell in around them as they went. They went quietly until they were out of earshot of the camp.

Once they were, Orius slowed their pace, and Winters fell in behind Charles. Hebda walked beside her. “It’s really quite extraordinary,” he said. “There have been dozens of reports of heightened dream activity in the last two nights. It started once the mechoservitor was within a league of it.”

Winters glanced to him. “Within a league of what?”

Hebda smiled. “You’ll see. I think combined with the mechoservitor as a conduit, the dream should reach them.”

The dream should reach them.
Neb was alive. And not only was he alive, he was on the moon. Every time her mind turned that corner, it flooded her with relief. Certainly, something had changed in him, and the memory of their last encounter still frightened her. But he was also the boy she had kissed in the forest near the grave of Windwir so long ago. And he was the Homeseeker.

Winters settled into her silence, pondering what lay ahead and listening to Charles and the general.

“I want you to talk to it,” Orius said. “Whatever it is, it isn’t the same mechanical you built. If it
is
the Watcher, it is an invaluable intelligence asset at a time of great need. I want to know everything it knows.”

Hebda cleared his voice, and Winters saw a look on his face that gave her pause. “Of course, the general understands that the mechoservitor’s highest priority is the Final Dream.”

Orius growled. “Aye. I do. But when it’s not dreaming, I want it talking.”

Winters saw Charles’s back stiffen.
He’s angry,
she realized. Of course, his anger made sense. Orius was treating Isaak like property or a prisoner. It even angered her when she thought about it.

Finally, Charles spoke. “I will certainly talk with him.”

Orius nodded and they continued on, descending through passageways that twisted and turned before spilling them into another massive cavern. Overhead, a pale light radiated from patches of phosphorescent lichen to illuminate a sea of silver.

Far out in the center, Winters saw a black island of the same stone as the tiny carved kin-raven the metal man had touched her with in the Cave of the Book of Dreaming Kings. And midway between the island and the shore, a rowboat moved slowly toward them, its sole occupant slouched at the oars.

They all gathered at the shore to watch the boat. “This is it,” Hebda said. “It’s how we’ve communicated with you, with Neb, and even Petronus for a time.”

Winters couldn’t take her eyes off the rowing figure. It was frail, small and familiar. “And you think it could reach the moon?”

Hebda nodded. “We do.”

The boat was in the shallows now, and soldiers reached out carefully with gaffs to bring it in. The old man cast back the hood of his robe and fixed his eyes upon her, and Winters knew him but didn’t all in the same moment. There was no context for seeing the dead unexpectedly alive, and she took a step back, uncertain.

“Oh my child, Winteria,” the Arch-scholar Tertius said as tears coursed his cheeks into his beard. “Shadrus’s dream has nearly run its course.”

She wasn’t certain if it was the tone in his voice or the joy in his eyes or if it was just the welcome reminder of home, but whatever it was laid hold of her. Laughing and crying, Winteria bat Mardic fell into her Androfrancine tutor’s waiting arms.

Petronus

The scarred world cast twilight over the sea, and Petronus stood in the bow, watching it fill the sky as the warm wind pulled at his hair and beard.

He’d watched it for hours each night since he’d first seen it, and he’d even sketched maps into his journal. Because what he’d seen there had flabbergasted him. Not just one pocket of verdant life nestled between mountain ranges and oceans, the familiar landscape of the Named Lands. No, there was another pocket far to the south. And two more—one in the east, and another in the far north beyond the Dragon’s Spine.

“They are called crèches.” Petronus jumped at the spider’s soft voice beside him.
Apologies for startling you.

He looked at the spider. Aver-Tal-Ka had been scarce the last three days, disappearing just after they set sail for the tower. The one time Petronus had sought him out, he’d found that the cargo hold the spider frequented had become a jungle of thick silk webbing with Aver-Tal-Ka sleeping in the midst of it. So he’d busied himself as best he could and settled in to wait for their promised conversation. “You’re awake.”

“Yes. I needed … significant restoration and reflection.”

Petronus looked back to the sky. “Why are they called crèches?”

“It is a word from an ancient Firsthome tongue. It means ‘cradle.’ My kind built them as a safeguard for the People.”

Petronus turned to face the spider, the first of many questions framing itself. “And what about the dream that Shadrus drank?”

“It was his last work in the temple before sealing it for his master and accompanying Raj Y’Zir Downunder.”

The spider’s forthrightness caught him off guard. Until now, Aver-Tal-Ka had shared very little—even with Neb—beyond what needed to be shared. “I take it,” Petronus said, “that you are ready to talk to me?”

I am.
He paused. “But not here. Not … this way.”

When the large white arachnid moved away toward the hatch leading belowdeck, Petronus followed. He waited for Aver-Tal-Ka to descend, glancing once more at the world that already started its slow drop over the edge of their horizon.

Pausing there, he felt the heaviness in his limbs and the fog between his ears—too long running on fumes, his mind tangled in the Whymer Maze of their present circumstances and his body robbed of sleep from nights spent tossing.

He forced his hands to the rails and lowered himself down. Then, he followed Aver-Tal-Ka into the cargo hold at the end of the narrow passage.

When they entered, the spider pointed to the forest of silk strands with three of his hands.
Climb into my web.

Petronus hesitated. “I do not—”

Aver-Tal-Ka scuttled past him and climbed into the web. “It is easier explained by showing you.”

Petronus took hold of the thick, white ropes, amazed at their softness and strength. He grunted as he climbed up into the web and felt the slightest panic when other hands took hold of him to place him securely within its center. Then, he felt the warm release of more silk against the bare skin of his hands and feet as Aver-Tal-Ka fastened him into place. But before he could open his mouth to protest, words formed in his mind.
Peace. What I do is for your safety.

Petronus felt a stab of something—he wanted to say it was a memory. But the most tangible thought he could attach to it was the vague sense of being told something similar by this spider. He couldn’t place when or why, but he felt the truth of it; and with it, the rise of doubts about the creature’s true intentions.

Calm.
Petronus felt the spider moving behind him, felt its arms encircling him and pulling him closer. Held tightly in place, he felt a wetness on his neck that lasted all of a second before it passed. Then, he felt something pushing against the skin on the side of his neck.

He wasn’t certain which he experienced first—the explosion of spinning color or the burning fire in the veins beneath his skin and the heart and brain they fed.

He opened his mouth, but the pain was gone before the scream was formed. Instead, it collapsed into a gasp, and Petronus felt his body go limp even as the colors all slipped away into darkness.

When everything spun back into focus, Petronus sat at a long table in a room that was instantly familiar. It was the ancient history and mythology wing of the Great Library—a corner where he’d frequently hidden during his years in the Order. It was quiet and out-of-the-way enough that few would notice even a Pope sitting quietly with a book open on the table before him.

The library was empty, and despite the lamps, it felt gloomy. From where he sat, he couldn’t see a window, but it had the feel of a midwinter evening.

Petronus inhaled the deep scent of paper and held that breath. He’d not visited the library in over thirty years—unless he counted wandering its burned-out craters as a visit—and returning felt like home. He touched the book in front of him, his fingers nearly afraid of the old paper. It was a book on the Lunarism movement from the time of the Czars written by the Arch-scholar Tertius.

The slightest clearing of voice brought Petronus’s head up from the book slowly. The man before him was tall, dressed in a silver robe that looked out of place here. But the man himself looked out of place as well, his skin too white and his eyes too black and penetrating. His hair hung in slender strands that more approximately matched the fine fur of his arachnid form.

“I thought,” the man said, “that you might find this less … distracting.”

Petronus nodded and looked from the man to the room around them. “The venue is comfortable, too.”

Aver-Tal-Ka shrugged. “You provided that for me. This must be a place you care about.”

“Yes. I used to come here often. To think.”

“Then it is fitting.” The man took in the endless rows of books that surrounded them and smiled. “So these paper walls contain your understanding of the light?”

Petronus chuckled. “Only a part of it. We’ve lost more of it than we’ve found, I fear.” The scarred visage of his home planet wandered across his imagination. How many civilizations had risen and fallen there now? At least three, he suspected.

Even as he thought it, he was flooded with emotion from Aver-Tal-Ka. A sense of deeper, greater loss. A spark of hope. And now, the real fear that it might indeed be snuffed out. Petronus blinked into the storm, and it subsided.

Apologies.
“The light is much older than you realize—and much more.” The man shifted uncomfortably. “But your understanding of it should be sufficient.” He pulled out a chair and sat across from Petronus. Then, he reached across the table and took Petronus’s warm, dry hands into his own. The coolness of his skin and the deliberate touch left Petronus suddenly uncomfortable. There was something intense and ancient in the man’s dark eyes as he gripped Petronus’s hands and leaned in to speak in a whisper. “What would you do to save the light, Petronus?”

He thought of Grymlis in that moment, remembering the old captain’s question of the young orphans. Dying for the light, he’d told them, was easy. Would they kill for it?

And Petronus knew his answer from experience. He had killed for the light. And he had died for the light. It was the same answer that had brought him here, following Neb. “I would do anything,” he said.

Yes.
The man leaned forward. “You
have
both killed and died for the light.” And now, his voice dropped to nearly a whisper, though it was loud in the empty wing. “Would you again?”

Petronus met the dark eyes. “Which?”

The stare was penetrating.
Either.
“The People believe free will is the first gift given, and love is the second. If you love the light, would you choose to save it if it meant taking life again? Even giving up your own?”

He felt no hesitation. “I would.”

Aver-Tal-Ka sat back and regarded him. “I have promised you information. I will offer you more. During my restoration, I felt a stirring in the aether while I searched for Lord Whym and Lady D’Anjite.”

Petronus sensed the images more than saw them. They were shadowy, far away, but the feelings that the spider associated with those distant flickers were a mix of hope and sorrow. He waited for Aver-Tal-Ka to continue.