The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (36 page)

"Our first kiss," Therren said softly.

"We can't go back."

"I know, Wyn. Believe me, I know. We don't even know if there's anything left of Kest to go back to," Therren said, taking a step back. He gazed into Goodwyn's eyes for a moment.

"You've changed, Wyn."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, but your eyes are different. They don't look so...Kestian."

"What does Kestian look like?" Goodwyn asked. He didn't need to ask. He knew what was missing; he could feel that a part of him would never be the same.

I don't want to fight any more
, he thought.
How can I be a Kestian and not want to fight?

"You don't have 'the look'," Therren said. "What battlemaster Kurd called 'the warrior's soul'; the killer instinct you can see in a man's eye."

"If that's what Kestian looks like, then maybe looking Kestian isn't such a good thing." Goodwyn sniffed back the tears he could feel begging to be let out. "You haven't seen what I've seen, Therren. The bodies, the dead people, and not just the warriors—little children, women who aren't trained to fight, people who just happened to be standing in the wrong place when the side of a building exploded. There is nothing to love about war, no pride in having a killer instinct. Yesterday we were killing the briene and today we're all on the same side. It's all so senseless."

"Maybe Urus is the luckiest of us, then. He never had the bloodlust."

"Maybe—" Goodwyn started, but the floor jerked one way and then the other, knocking both of them to their knees. A horrific metal-grinding sound came from the hall as the floor and walls vibrated and shook loose bits of dust.

"What's going on?"
 

"I think we're moving," Therren replied, helping Goodwyn up.

Goodwyn frowned. "How can we be moving? Steel bunkers don't move. I followed Aegaz and the foreman into this building from the caves."

Therren grinned wide. "Wyn, this isn't a building. It's a ship!"

"A ship made of steel? That's ridiculous. It would never float!"

"Come on, I'll show you!"
 

Before Goodwyn could argue, Therren grabbed his hand and yanked him out into the hallway. A moment later they were sprinting through corridors lit by eerie blue orbs jutting out of the ceiling, Therren giggling like a little kid on his way to the next adventure.

I don't know if I'll ever laugh like that again
, Goodwyn thought, trying to soak up as much of his friend's joy as he could before the bloody memories came crashing back.
 

After descending several staircases and charging through corridor after corridor filled with briene and the occasional First Fist warrior, they skidded to a halt in front of a thick, black steel door.

"Down here?" asked Goodwyn, still catching his breath. "Shouldn't the deck be up?"

Therren beamed, barely able to contain himself.
 

"Oh, the deck is above us, but that's not where the captain pilots the ship!" Therren spun a wheel on the door and pushed. It swung inward, revealing the most incredible sight Goodwyn had ever seen, and that was no small feat considering the things he had seen lately.

The door led to a steel catwalk, with staircases leading up to other raised walkways that encircled the room and down to more walkways below, each dotted with stations manned by briene pulling levers, spinning wheels, and peering into tubes of all shapes and sizes. A wall of glass stretched across the front of the room, and on the other side gleamed the bright blue hue of ocean water. A school of fish darted back and forth, curiously inspecting their side of the glass.

"What…how is this…where are we?" Goodwyn was so stunned he didn't even know what questions to ask.

Aegaz, Corliss, the foreman, and the man the foreman called "the blade" all stood before a large table, peering into the ocean waters.
 

"We're underwater, Wyn! This ship doesn't sail on the water, it sails
under it
!" Therren was practically bouncing. "Can you believe it? All that water, and we're inside it and still dry!"

The men at the head of the chamber turned, Aegaz flashing him a reassuring smile. "The foreman says we may be able to catch up with the blood mage navy by dawn," he said.

"The blood witches underestimated the briene," said the foreman. "The briene learned things they did not intend to teach."

"How are we moving? Why don't we sink? How can we stay dry in here?" Goodwyn blurted, unable to contain his curiosity and shock.

The foreman beamed, "The briene can teach the fein duras about waterbird ships if the fein duras teaches the blade how to use that weapon." He pointed to the suzur coiled at Goodwyn's waist. Goodwyn hadn't even noticed it and didn't remember putting it on.
 

Maybe I haven't changed after all
, he thought, frowning at the weapon. There were still marks on the chain and blade where the blood had been so thick, the stains refused to yield.

"Why don't you have names?" Goodwyn asked. The question had been nagging at him ever since their first encounter.

"The briene have names. The foreman's name is the foreman, the blade's name is the blade, and the fein duras is the fein duras."

"That's what you do, not who you are," Goodwyn said.

"They are the same, are they not?" replied the foreman.
 

That's a great question. Can there really a difference?
he thought.

"What does fein duras mean?"
 

"Honor fighter," replied the blade, speaking for the first time.

Is there such a thing? Can a killer really have honor?

Goodwyn climbed down the steps to stand next to the others, feeling dwarfed by the massive glass wall. "Don't you need the sun and stars to know where you're going?"

"The navigator knows where the ship goes, where it has been, and where it is now," replied the foreman, pointing at a briene busily staring into a pair of tubes and turning knobs.

Corliss stepped around to the other side of the table, its surface covered with little wooden carvings of ships, boxes, and a few other things Goodwyn didn't recognize.

"The Order, as you call them," he said, nodding to Goodwyn, "as far as we know, has eighteen ships. Our scouts managed to get a good view of them before they pushed out of the harbor."

"And?" Aegaz asked.

"There are at least three white-robed men on each of the ships, and they are filled to the gunwales with soldiers."

"The entire Order must be out there on those ships," Aegaz said.

"If the last vertex is out there, that makes sense," Goodwyn said. "It's the only thing that matters to them now."

"Urus is out there somewhere too, and we can't let the blood mages reach that vertex before he does," said Aegaz.

"Foreman," said the navigator, finally looking up from his tubes.

Everyone turned to watch as the foreman stepped over and peered into the tubes, wincing as he saw something he didn't like. The fact that there was anything at all to see at the bottom of a tube should have surprised him, but Goodwyn had stopped being surprised by these people ever since he saw the first flying metal bird.

"The blood witches make wind with sorcery," said the navigator.

"How do you know?" Corliss asked.

"The sails are pushed near to tearing, yet the sea birds have no currents on which to fly."

"Can I see?" Goodwyn asked. The foreman nodded, and Goodwyn ran over, peering into the mysterious tubes.

It looked like a reflection in the shaving mirror, only instead of seeing his black stubble he saw a fleet of ships at full sail far off in the distance.

"How far out are they?" he asked without looking up.

"If the briene burn all of the fuel as fast as possible, and the blood witches keep up their pace, this fleet can catch them by daybreak, but—"

"But what?"

"But that is all there is," the foreman said.
 
"When there is no more fuel, these ships will stop. No amount of wind can push these ships through water. If the briene have not overtaken them by then, it will mean failure."

Aegaz clasped a hand on Goodwyn's shoulder and squeezed. Goodwyn stood up and noticed that all eyes were on him.

"We will make them pay for what they did to Kest, and we will find Urus, alive," Aegaz said.

"And for what they did to Waldron," added Corliss.

"For the blood witch treachery and scheming that brought the briene and the Waldrene to war, there will be payment due," said the blade, who nodded to the foreman.

Goodwyn crossed his arms over his chest. "So how can we make these ships go faster?"

27

"How did they know we were here?" Urus asked. "We're at the bottom of the ocean."

"The Order has access to artifacts and relics older than most history texts. It wouldn't have taken them long to compare the Woan Map with old maps, leading them to Vultara," Murin answered.

"If we don't get to that vertex before they do, it won't matter."

"And if you do?" Murin asked. "If you do find the vertex, how will you keep the Order from destroying it as they did the others?"

"I'll think of something," Urus replied. "You need to stop being such a pessimist."

"He has always been like that," Timoc said, his thoughts intruding on Urus's mind. Timoc's translucent image stood at the top of the entrance stairs to the museum. "Ignore him, he is a cranky old man."

Murin's expression did indeed seem cranky. "Now is not the time for levity, Timoc. We must delay the order so Urus can find the vertex and think of something."

"Well, you know that you and I are useless in the presence of sigilord magic, so the boy has a point," Timoc replied. "Three of our Sanguine Crystal friends have arrived. They are weaving their way to this spot now."

They must think the vertex is here in the city center as well
, Urus thought, knowing he didn't have to speak aloud.
What other building is a building of reverence, a place to put honored things?
 
He scanned the central square.
 

"I assume you already checked the museum?" Timoc asked.

Urus nodded.
Not a museum, but
the mausoleum!
he thought, pointing to a smaller building between the museum and a wide building with a columned facade. "Not honored things, but honored dead, maybe?"

"Check it out," said Murin. "We will try and delay the Order."

"One man and a ghost? What will you do? You should take my simula…simulo…suits of armor," Urus said.

Timoc laughed. "Murin isn't just some weak—"
 

Murin cut him off. "You'll need them with you, and we don't know if you can control them at a distance. Just get into the crypts and look for the vertex. We are running out of time."

Urus nodded, willed his little company of knights to follow him, and ran for the crypts. Murin ran in the opposite direction while Timoc's apparition flowed behind him.

The crypt doors proved to be no match for the combined strength of the metal soldiers, who broke the left side completely off its hinges. Once inside, Urus was able to use the same sigil as before to illuminate the interior with a bluish glow. The warm pain from using the sigil magic was starting to feel good, and that worried him.

A thought occurred to him suddenly.

"Show me the vertex," he said to the knights.

They didn't move.

"Go to the fifth vertex," he said.

Again, they did nothing.

That would have been too easy
, he thought, and started moving along the outer wall of the foyer, looking for any of the symbols he had seen on either of the other vertices.

"Guard the door, then," Urus said.
 

At once, the group took up positions to secure the entrance. Two of them even picked up the heavy stone door and slid it back into place as best they could. Two more climbed nearby stairs to take overwatch positions.

How can they possibly know how to do all this stuff without brains?
Urus thought.
Maybe they're borrowing mine, because that's what I would've done if I were them
. It was getting too damn crowded in his brain, with Murin and Timoc talking to him and now these knights borrowing his tactical knowledge.

Satisfied that the knights would keep the place secure while he searched, Urus crept further into the tomb. It was a morbid place, with death everywhere he looked. Some walls had bunks cut into the stone where skeletons lay exposed, while others hosted row upon row of iron doors that must have held more important dead people.

He wondered who got to decide who rotted on a stone bunk and who got to rot in a nice iron tube. The more he came to know of other civilizations, the more bizarre he thought they all were. Kestians burned their dead and returned the ash to the desert, to hopefully one day smother future enemies.

I wonder if the Waldrenes or Vultarans would think we're the bizarre ones
.

He continued further into the tomb, discovering that the small building was nothing more than a cap atop a vast network of catacombs below Vultara's center. After clearing the first level, he found a stairwell down into the second level.