The Key to Creation (56 page)

Ystya sat with her thin arms wrapped around her knees. “I don’t understand any of this. Why would either of them think bloodshed is what my brothers, or Ondun, wanted?”

Dolicar shook his head with a sad smile. “Not to point out the obvious, Ystya, but you told us that Iyomelka drowned your father. And that Ondun exiled Mailes forever because he had an affair with your mother. It seems there isn’t peace among the gods either.”

Instead of reacting with anger, Ystya closed her eyes in shame.

When the two boats reached the frosty grotto, which was lit by flickering torchlight, they came upon Javian. He stood on the smooth rock floor not far from the two toppled thrones; he held a heavy Fishhook staff that was splashed with crimson, as was his shirt. Specks of red dotted his face.

Prester Hannes lay sprawled on the floor, obviously dead, his skull smashed open. Javian simply stared at what he had done.

“Javian!”
Mia sprang from the boat as soon as the mer-Saedrans pulled it close, and she ran over to the young man, shaking him, but he could not tear his eyes from the corpse.

“He tried to destroy them,” Javian whispered. “Both of them…everything.”

Criston and Saan disembarked, gazing in horror at the smashed instruments and artifacts, the damaged chest, the two dethroned demigods. “Prester Hannes hated both of them,” Criston said.

“I think he hated what they represented,” Saan replied.

Ystya looked upon the scene and wept. “I never met Aiden or Urec, but they were my brothers. They spent most of their lives searching for me. Terravitae should have been our home. I hoped for a new beginning, and all we brought here was more hate.”

Javian’s shoulders slumped, and he enfolded Mia in an embrace. “You saved me…you truly saved me.”

Mia stared into his eyes. “What do you mean? I wasn’t even here.”

“It doesn’t matter. You still saved me.”

Criston stepped up to him. “Tell me what happened.”

With hitching words, Javian explained how Hannes had come here. The young man was trembling. “I thought he meant to pray, to study Aiden and Urec in private…but he came only to destroy. And he wanted me to help him. When I refused, he went wild and—” The young man stared at the prester’s body on the ground, the face that had been scarred by the Ishalem fire, and the staring blue eyes that even in death seemed filled with conviction. “I killed him.”

Criston wavered, appalled by the murder, but he did not deny what Hannes meant to do. He crouched beside the prester’s body, pushed to his knees by a great weight of conscience. He remembered saving this man in a high meadow of the Corag mountains. The two men had a great deal in common, but Criston had never shared the prester’s fervor or hatred. Hannes happily
bragged
about how he had poisoned entire households in Uraba, how he set ablaze Urecari churches full of innocent worshipers.

“I should have marooned him on an island after all,” Criston said. “What more did he want? We reached the shores of Terravitae. We found answers. I had hoped that would put an end to his hate. But it wasn’t enough for him.”

The mer-king regarded the body and turned to Kjelnar. “Is this the way your world is, shipwright? If so, I would not want to go back to it.”

“This is the way some people are,” said Kjelnar. “And good people don’t do enough to control men like this.”

“I killed him,” Javian said again. “I stopped him.”

Saan was pale as he spoke to his father. “Back in Olabar, the sikaras were responsible for murders, too…and your prester murdered Fyiri. Do you think sikaras and presters will ever stop arguing, even when they have proof in front of them?”

Looking outraged, Ystya blurted, “They don’t
want
proof!” She turned her back to the scene of destruction and bloodshed and threw a last troubled glance at the desecrated mummies of her brothers. “We must leave here. Now.”

The mer-Saedrans guided all three boats out of the ice caves. Saan tried to comfort Ystya, but she would not be comforted. The daughter of Ondun, the Key to Creation, insisted that they touch nothing else in what should have been a sacred grotto. They even left the body of Prester Hannes behind.

Criston gazed with bittersweet wistfulness at the looming cliffs as they left pulled away. “Our ships have reached Terravitae. This should be a wondrous moment.”

Saan’s mind and heart were a tangle of questions and disappointments. Terravitae, the entombed brothers, the wrecked Arkship…the Leviathan, the Key to Creation, the island of Ondun’s exile—so much about this voyage had changed him, changed the very foundations of the world.

He had been indoctrinated in the teachings of the sikaras. He was familiar with Urec’s Log, and Omra (his adopted father, not his real one) had taught him to despise all Tierrans, for political reasons rather than religious differences.

But Saan was also aware of the ruthlessness of the priestesses, for they had made repeated attempts on his life since his childhood. He wondered whether Sikara Fyiri had truly believed in the
blessings
of Ondun and in her own salvation, or if she merely acted as a mouthpiece for the church.

For her own part, Saan’s mother had been raised with the Book of Aiden and a prester’s sermons at her local kirk. In Uraba, forced to keep her true beliefs hidden, Istar had dutifully attended Urecari services, but she held her spiritual thoughts close to her heart.

Now that he’d met Criston Vora, his real father, the knowledge affected him deeply. Before then, devoted to Omra, Saan had never cared to know much about the man, but he understood that his mother had loved her original husband very much. Saan found it disorienting to realize that if the raid on Windcatch hadn’t occurred, or if Criston Vora had returned home a little earlier from his shipwreck, then Saan himself would have been raised in the Tierran village, given a different name. He would have been brought up to believe in the Fishhook, and his whole life would have followed another course.

Yet he was the same person. It bothered him to think that the beliefs that shaped a person’s soul were more a result of geographical circumstance than proof or truth. Shouldn’t devotion to the Book of Aiden, or Urec’s Log, be based on the value of the teachings themselves, and not whether a baby happened to be born in Tierra or Uraba?

As the three boats returned to the open, gray sea, Saan spoke in a troubled voice. “Captain Vora, when we return to the
Dyscovera
and the
Al-Orizin
, there will be an uproar. Prester Hannes killed Sikara Fyiri—no one disputes that—and now your ship’s boy has killed the prester. But the crews will still find reasons to be at each other’s throats.”

“Only if we let them,” Criston said.

“We can already see what will happen.” Ystya stared back at the rugged shore. Her head seemed too heavy to hold up. “Someone from the
Al-Orizin
’s crew, or the
Dyscovera
’s crew, will want to go back and steal a holy relic as proof for his own church. And if not that, then other ships will eventually come to Terravitae, crowded with devout followers of Aiden or Urec, and they will fight over this holy site—in my brothers’ names.”

“But this is one of the greatest discoveries in recorded history,” Saan said. “We can’t keep it a secret.”

“You all know the truth because you saw it.” Ystya’s voice was bleak now. “You proved your determination by sailing around the world to come here. No one can fault you for that. But both the prester and the sikara demonstrated how eager your religions are to exploit and distort beliefs. Maybe the new Captains’ Log we found here will make it possible for your churches to reconcile. But I’ll believe that when I see it for myself.”

Saan did not argue with her. How could he?

Tears were streaming down her face. “These are my brothers, the sons of Ondun, and I am still their sister. I am obligated to protect them.” She squared her shoulders, and her ivory hair began to glow in a wind that she created. “I’m sorry, Saan, but I have to do this. If faith is enough, then that is all you should need for now.”

Her eyelids dropped closed, and she spread her fingers, then curled them slowly into a fist. Her skin shimmered, as if a sunrise had occurred inside her flesh. The water around the cave opening roiled and foamed; the sheer cliff walls that were studded with moss, weeds, and vines began to writhe with a surge of new growth.

The mer-Saedrans released the rowboats and swam into the open sea. “What is happening?” Sonhir called.

“She is the Key to Creation,” Saan said. He couldn’t even say that he disagreed with Ystya’s decision. “Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin.”

Long strands of kelp drifted in from the ocean; tangled seaweed rose up from the sea floor, forming a mat. The strands reached higher, whipping and questing. At the same time, vines and plants from the cliff edge reached downward—thick trunks, thorny stems, and fleshy leaves all combined, like fingers clasping, growing together, twisting. The verdant explosion rapidly formed an impenetrable barrier across the cave opening.

When she was done, Ystya’s shoulders slumped. She let out a long sigh and opened her eyes again. “Now they are safe and protected, and so are we. They will wait for us until it’s time.”

“There’s so much for us to see and learn,” Sen Sherufa said. “We haven’t even set foot yet on Terravitae.”

Criston sat up straight in his boat. “Yes, let’s go discover a new land.”

Part V

Ishalem

In the convoluted streets of Ishalem, the new Uraban buildings all looked the same, with similar architecture, whitewashed walls, and tiled roofs. Colorful silk awnings were stretched out above placards written in incomprehensible foreign characters.

Iaros hadn’t the slightest idea how to get to Arkship Hill, but he led his men vaguely upward on the principle that so long as they kept moving, they were making progress. Sooner or later, if Queen Anjine had managed to break through the wall, he was sure his fighters would meet up with the main Aidenist army.

Uraban shopkeepers and families fled screaming as the disheveled Tierrans pushed through the streets, shouting and waving their swords. They snarled at carpenters and coopers; they smashed a glassblower’s shop and hurled the shards of colored bottles onto the cobblestoned streets.

When a portly man with a bushy beard tried to defend his wickerwork shop, Iaros commanded his fighters to leave the man alone. “No need to prove your manhood by slaying a craftsman. There’ll be enough Curly soldiers to kill.” Iaros barked for the disappointed soldiers to follow him as he ran ahead.

They paused long enough to ransack a food stall displaying bowls of dates, grapes, and pomegranates (though the latter proved much too messy and difficult to eat on the run). After drinking from a public water fountain, they charged onward.

They were closer now to the central hill that had once held the wreck of Aiden’s Arkship. Once the Tierrans conquered that landmark, they would truly hold the heart of Ishalem. Iaros extended his arm. “To Arkship Hill!”

He led his group in the right general direction, chasing chickens and cats out of their way, only to be brought up short when the street hit a dead end. So they reversed direction, clattering swords and shields against the brick walls, and rushed back out, down another street, through a marketplace, and past several small Urecari churches, until finally they could see a clear path up the hill.

Running toward the path, they collided with a mass of Uraban guards, who did not expect the encounter either. With undiminished momentum and enthusiasm, the Tierran soldiers engaged the guards. Iaros immediately saw that they had overestimated themselves. Enemy fighters outnumbered them two to one, and they were fresh, while his own men were already worn out from battling their way through the streets for many hours.

But there was no stopping them now. Iaros raised his sword and yelled like a bull mammoth during mating season. The sound startled the Urabans so much that he was able to dispatch one and wound another before they rallied.

When the enemy guards regrouped, Iaros and his men found themselves surrounded and battling for their lives. The Tierrans fought with a reckless fury that startled the enemy; they killed two more Urabans, but after several Aidenist soldiers fell, their morale began to turn.

Iaros stabbed, thrust, and slashed repeatedly, though his limbs felt leaden. “Keep fighting!” It was all they could do, but he felt a growing dread that none of them would survive to reach Arkship Hill.

As he was being driven back by a particularly burly Uraban fighter, Iaros realized he would soon collapse. His responses were sluggish, and he barely avoided a fatal mistake. Panting heavily, he flicked perspiration from his red hair and raised his sword to ward off another blow. Suddenly his attacker reeled backward with a grunt of surprise.

With a feral roar, a big soot-streaked man appeared among them. “Need some help, nephew?” Destrar Broeck grinned savagely and rammed a Urecari fighter with a body blow that knocked the man off balance. When the opponent fell, Broeck thrust his sword into his chest and yanked it back out. “Next time, pick your fights more wisely.”