Requiem (42 page)

Vlad raised his voice. “Hold, Aedric. We share desired outcomes that transcend our unfortunate history.”

Aedric’s voice was venomous. “I knew you were behind this.
You
summoned her here, didn’t you?”

Vlad shook his head. “I did not bring my daughter to Y’Zir. My father arranged it for purposes I’ve yet to learn.” His jaw firmed. “But whatever those purposes, I have my own calling to fulfill and limited time in which to fulfill it.”

Aedric’s eyes narrowed. “I care nothing for your calling, Tam. I want Lord Jakob free of these bloodletting savages and home to his father’s care.”

“And what care would that be?” Vlad asked. “Surely you are aware of the great Y’Zirite victory in the Named Lands? An entire people enslaved in the darkness of the Deicide’s deception now ushered into light, joined with their lost cousins through the Great Mother and her Child of Promise?” He paused to let his voice lower. “Surely you have heard that Lord Chancellor Rudolfo is calling together the last Council of Kin-Clave and calling for an oath of fealty to the Crimson Empress? It’s common gossip on the streets here. As long as the Y’Zirites are in power, Jakob has no home to go back to.”

“And you intend to take them out of power?”

Vlad nodded slowly. “I’ve already started.”

Aedric’s eyes widened. “You are the prophet of the Younger Gods they whisper about. You made the statue bleed and brought the fever.”

Vlad nodded again. “Yes. And I intend more. Today.” He went back to the window and glanced outside. The sun would be up soon, and it was nearly time to start. “I want you to join me,” he said.

Aedric stared at him. “And do what?”

“Strike off the head,” Vlad said, “and the serpent will die.” He knew those words would get the Gypsy’s attention. They were from the Third Hymn of the Wandering Army, something Vlad should not have known but did.

The first captain blinked. “The regent?”

Vlad shook his head. He looked at Chandra, and she met his eyes coolly now, her own anger banked against the people who had betrayed her. “Not just the regent,” he said. “Y’Zir himself.”

Aedric’s mouth fell open, and it took a moment for him to find his words. “Y’Zir still lives?”

“He does,” Vlad said. “For now. So what say you?”

Aedric’s eyes held conflict in them now. “My sole desire is to see my lord’s son homeward.”

“This is the only path to any kind of home that makes sense,” Vlad said. But he didn’t need to say it, because he saw the first captain calculating his odds of success alone, having no idea that there was only one answer that let him leave on his own two feet. His Knives had their orders, depending on what Aedric said next.

The silence stretched long. Finally, Aedric hung his head. “What would you have me do?”

“Help me take Jakob from the palace,” Vlad said. “Along with the Crimson Empress.”

Their eyes met. “I will help you,” Aedric said.

Vlad inclined his head to the man. “Thank you.” At a nod, Som Li Tam returned the scout’s knives to him. Vlad looked to the others as Aedric sheathed his blades. “It’s time,” he said.

Two by two they left, and Vlad waited until all but he, Aedric, and Som remained. He counted slowly to a hundred before nodding to his nephew and his latest ally.

They slipped out into the morning, moving quickly through the empty streets. Twice they passed patrolling Blood Guards who turned to them before Vlad squeezed the staff and felt the power leak out of him as they turned away.

When they reached the courtyard, Vlad saw that the Y’Zirite army had cordoned off the growing pools of blood around the temple. And there were more soldiers now than before, but he also saw the beginnings of terror in the few citizens who were out. They moved quickly, their mouths covered with scarves, moving away from anyone who crossed their paths. Their terror would move to panic, and panic would bring movement.

They will fight or they will flee.
And either would serve his purpose.

He led his group to the middle of the courtyard and climbed onto a meditation bench near the fountain. He pressed the staff with his thumb and felt the change in this throat and lungs as he drew in his breath. “Hear me,” he said, and his voice was the rumbling of many waters.

Vlad closed his eyes and waited. He breathed in slowly and out slowly, willing her ghost to rise and fill him. “It has been written that life is given by the shedding of blood. But I say to you that this is a lie. Death comes by the shedding of blood. It has also been written that wholeness is found beneath the cutting knife. And that also is a lie.”

He opened his eyes now and saw the soldiers approaching. Beside him, Som and Aedric both tensed, hands moving to the hidden hilts of sharp and ready blades. “There is life without blood and wholeness without scars,” he said. He paused. “But Y’Zir, that coward, thief, and liar, knows nothing of such things. Ask for the gospel about the extermination of the Younger Gods. Will he show you the gardens where his forefather bled them out and fed upon them in his appetite for their power?” Vlad gathered himself up. “A reckoning is at hand for the crimes of your house, Ahm Y’Zir, and I call you forth to answer for them.”

The soldiers were close now, but they moved slowly and their weapons were not drawn. Curiosity brought them to him, but the staff kept them at a sufficient distance. He raised his voice again, turning to the temple. “Ahm Y’Zir, do you hear me? I call you forth. I require the spellbook of you, and I require your life.”

The gathering crowd collectively released their breath. Vlad looked at them and lowered his voice. “Where is your god now?”

Then, he lifted the staff and brought it down upon the cobblestones once, twice, three times. And upon the third strike, a rumbling went out in the ground away from him, cracking the stones and moving quickly for the temple. It climbed the temple’s wall, crumbling and cracking the rock as it did, and when it reached the bloody statue, the massive figure of gold began to rock and sway. Something cracked, and Vlad looked away as the statue tottered. The soldiers no longer saw him—their eyes were fixed upon the statue—and he took that moment to glance at Aedric and Som.

They both nodded and then followed Vlad as they slipped away quickly. They were halfway across the courtyard when the ground shook and a loud crash woke the drowsy city. And they were tucked safely back in the shadows, Vlad sagging in the arms of the two men, when the sirens of alarm broke out across Ahm’s Glory.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo stood and stretched, grateful for the afternoon sun that streamed through his office window. His muscles ached from three mornings of running with Yazmeera, and his eyes ached from the reports and correspondence of the day. The facilities for the Council were complete, and the quartermaster was fully stocked and staffed for those attending. Rudolfo had spared no expense, and Yazmeera had concurred with his decision.

He went to the window and inhaled the fresh, warm air. With his more urgent tasks now out of the way, he had a few hours now to pursue the research he’d begun. Yazmeera had gladly provided him the books—a sizeable pile—and Ire had translated the references that the general personally marked for him in the books.

He’d learned that the mark was the first cutting—normally given upon reaching the age of reason. Of course, those who received it were still children, and their choice followed upon a lifetime of exposure to those beliefs. So he doubted that reason actually had much to do with it.

But reason has everything to do with my consideration of it.
He knew that well even as he fought the rage it evoked. Because he did not need to share their beliefs to receive this mark, and he believed Yazmeera when she said that this was not required of him. He had no doubt of her sincerity. But there was an excitement in the subtext of her tone and in her eagerness to provide him with the information he requested about the mark’s meaning and the ceremony in which it was taken.

Ire was the opposite. She translated the texts without any of the enthusiasm of her general. And when he asked questions, she answered them in a matter-of-fact tone that betrayed her lack of faith. It lent itself well to his objective examination of it and helped him keep his anger in check in ways that the general’s smug conviction couldn’t.

Somewhere within this Whymer Maze, Rudolfo hoped, was the right path.

He sighed. Behind him, he heard a single knock upon his half-open door. He turned. “Yes?”

Yazmeera leaned in. “You’ve a raven waiting below,” she said.

He felt his eyebrows rise. “It came here and not to the birder?”

She smiled. “It’s from Y’Zir.”

Y’Zir.
He felt his heart in his temples even as his feet carried him forward. “Thank you,” he told her as he moved quickly past.

He made his way quickly down the wide hall, barely aware of the general falling in behind him as he went. He knew it was from her—and he warred with feelings on the matter. On the one hand, he longed for some word from her, some word that she and his son were safe and well. Some assurance that they were indeed somehow safer there, away from this war, than they would be here.

But at the same time, he felt that anger stirring. She’d made him a father, giving his line a continuance he’d stopped hoping for in his younger years, finally contented with the notion of taking on a ward in his later years whom he could raise up as his heir. She’d taken him down a path that had surprised him with its joy and its love.

And with its fear.
He’d faced fear in more skirmishes and battles than he could count, he and his men pitted against blade and bow with the odds against them, but it had not prepared him in the least for this new fear. He’d first felt it when the library had been bombed, that eternity of terror while he waited for his wife and his son to be found within its wreckage. And then he’d felt it again when he learned that Jin Li Tam had taken his son, without his consultation or consent, into the heart of their enemy’s territory—the imperial capital of Ahm’s Glory.

These fears were like nothing he’d ever known. They rode his shoulders and kicked at his gut, filled his night with dreams of terror and violence that he could not remember in the morning. And for some reason, the very thought of word from them flooded him with a hope he dared not feel.

Rudolfo took the stairs two at a time and moved out into the sunshine of the open courtyard in the center of the villa. The bird stood upon its perch, fixing a glassy black eye upon Rudolfo as he approached.

“I am here,” Rudolfo said.

The kin-raven’s beak dropped open as it cocked its head. Even though he was prepared for it, Jin Li Tam’s voice made him blink. “Rudolfo my
king
and my love,” she said. “I must be brief. First
know
that Jakob and I are well. We have arrived safely in Ahm’s Glory and have been greeted with great hospitality.” She cleared her voice slightly, and Rudolfo noted it. “Second, I have been asked to
consult
with you regarding a betrothal ceremony for our son.”

Betrothal.
Rudolfo blinked. “Pause,” he said.

The bird’s beak snapped closed, and he turned to Yazmeera. Her face was calm. “Perhaps,” she said, “you’d prefer to take the message privately?”

Betrothal.
He wasn’t sure which surprised him more—the idea itself that his son, not even two years old, might be betrothed—or the larger, vaster meaning. The scriptures he’d read about his son and about the Crimson Empress took on a sharper focus now, and there was a simplicity in it that confounded him.

Their union will heal the world.
He swallowed. “No,” he said. “That will not be necessary.” He looked to the bird. “Continue.”

Jin Li Tam’s voice drifted out as the beak opened. “I am assured that another ceremony will be conducted in the Named Lands upon our return, but by your grace I will permit them to move forward here for the general populace of Y’Zir. There is great excitement here at our arrival.” She continued for a time, and as she did, he forced himself to note the inflections in her voice, the measured pacing of syllables, looking for the code. But there was nothing coded as of yet, and he wasn’t confident that they had any codes left unbroken by the Y’Zirites.

After a few minutes of news about her journey and reception, Rudolfo heard a toddler’s voice in the background and felt his heart rising at the sound of his son. His eyes stung from the tears that ambushed him when she called Jakob over to the bird to babble at him. He blinked as she concluded. “As always, you bear my grace above all others and have all of my love. I will hope to return to you when the peace is more established.”

He drew in a breath and held it. He willed the emotion to drain from his face along with the sudden stiffness in his neck and shoulders, aware of Yazmeera’s eyes upon him. He glanced to the aide who stood nearby. “I’d like the message transcribed,” he said.

The young woman inclined her head. “Yes, Lord Chancellor.”

Then, he turned for the stairs. He felt a hand upon his arm. “Rudolfo?”

He turned to the general. “Yes?”

“Do you want to send a reply? I can arrange to have the bird brought to your office.”

He furrowed his brow, wondering what exactly he would say to his wife. His eyes met Yazmeera’s, and he quickly looked away. “Perhaps later,” he said. Then, he paused.
This is an opportunity,
he realized. “But you could provide me with any reference material you have on Y’Zirite betrothal ceremonies.”

Yazmeera smiled. “I will have them to you by morning, Rudolfo.”

He inclined his head. “Thank you, Yazmeera.”

Then he turned away and took the stairs with deliberate strides, forcing his fists to open. As he walked, he savored the anger, because it was better than the fear. Still, this latest event whispered at a fear that he’d felt growing within him as he read Yazmeera’s scriptures regarding the mark of Y’Zir. By tomorrow, he’d be reading her references to the union of his son and the Crimson Empress, and that event spoke of years, potentially decades that stretched ahead of them.
Me with the mark and my boy raised up in this madness.