Antiphon

Chapter 13

Neb

Neb’s first awareness was a throbbing pain that licked at him, gradually building to a fierce, hot light that burned him as he forced his eyes open. A blue sky stared back at him, and he struggled to get out from under its brightness.

“He’s awake,” a woman’s voice said just outside his vision. But when she leaned in, her face eclipsed that piercing sky and the shadow of it prevented him from seeing her. “Hello, Abomination.” The booted foot surprised him when it struck his side; he felt the wind go out of him. “That is for our sister.” The boot landed again, and this time he saw sparks of light behind his eyes and cried out from the pain. “And there are more to come.”

He winced and licked his lips. “I don’t-”

Another face eclipsed the sky, and now his eyes were adjusted enough to see the thirty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam. Only now, her face was puffy and bruised, one eye nearly swollen shut. “And I haven’t even begun with you, Abomination,” she said, her voice low and full of rage. “I will repay you sevenfold for every injustice you dealt me.” She leaned closer. “Every injustice,” she said again.

“You’ll have your time, sister,” another voice said. “For now, be grateful that you were correct about the thorns. If you’d been wrong, you’d be bound for the Imperial Cutting Gardens.”

When the thirty-second daughter spoke, her voice was assured. “I was never in doubt, sister. The scriptures are clear on this matter:

And the thorn shall not sting him, nor the beasts of the beneath rend him, nor the ghosts in the water flee him, for the Abomination shall beguile them all.

Neb opened his mouth to speak, turning and twisting. Only now was awareness leaking into him. His arms were stretched out and his wrists burned from the ropes that bound him to what he assumed must be stakes driven into the hard-packed ground. Similar ropes bound his ankles, and he was suddenly aware of his nudity. He closed his mouth.

Their voices shifted suddenly to a language he did not understand, and their faces withdrew from his sight. He lay there, slowly taking inventory of his senses and his questions.

What could he remember? He’d been holding the tiny kin-raven token, and then he’d been startled. It had made contact with his skin and he’d suddenly found himself pulled away again, similar to the time before.

What had he seen? He’d heard his father’s voice at some point, but the words seemed far away now. He’d seen Winters briefly, undressing, and then there had been a white tower and-

It requires a response.

Isaak was there with him and they were surrounded by the song, so loud it lifted the hair on his arms and neck and moved through the air around them.

He felt the hot stab of shame. I’ve lost it; I’ve lost the dream. The silver crescent was now in the hands of these women, and though he did not know who they were or what they intended with him, he did know they were his enemies. And they were enemies of the dream as well.

Neb tested the rope gently with his left arm, then his right. He did the same with his feet. It was tight enough that he doubted he could slip free, but even if he could, what next? There were at least three-perhaps four-of these women, and each, he assumed, was armed in much the same way as the thirty-second daughter had been when he’d found her.

The thought of her twisted that hot knife in him. He’d trusted her and she had betrayed him, delivering him over to her so-called sisters. He had saved her life, and from everything he could glean from her so far, she’d seemed sincere in her need to reach the Ninefold Forest with her message. She’d readily accepted his help, and then, the moment he touched the kin-raven, she’d turned on him and put him down with his own rifle, summoning her sisters to their location.

Or so it seemed.

Their leader was back now, crouching beside his head and leaning in so he could now see her. She wore dark silk trousers and a matching shirt, unbuttoned near the top to reveal the gentle curve of her breasts as she bent over him. Her face was seasoned by midlife, her hair gray and cut so short that it bristled. And like the other girl, her face and arms were latticed with symbols cut into her skin. Her blue eyes were piercing and cold even in this desert.

“Who are you?” he managed to croak.

She chuckled. “I am one who saves us all from the Abomination and his dream.” She held up a long silver knife. “And I’m nearly ready to begin that saving.”

He looked at the blade; it wasn’t a scout knife. It was more delicate, its edge crusted with salt, and he felt his stomach twist. “What do you want?”

She grinned. “First, I want you to know how serious I am. Then, I want you to tell me where you’ve hidden the artifact and show me where the mechoservitors are.”

Hidden the artifact?

The thirty-second daughter appeared above and behind her, and he squinted through the sunlight to make out the expression on her face. For just the slightest moment, he thought he saw fear there. Then, the mask was firmly in place again and she spoke. “I request the first cut, sister.”

The woman with the knife cocked her head, considering Neb. “It is a reasonable request given the price you’ve paid to bring us to him.” She held the knife up, and after the girl took it, she stepped back. “First blood is yours.”

The girl moved in to crouch beside him, then leaned over him so that her face was near his. “You’ve brought this on yourself, Abomination.” And as she said it, her hand pressed at his shoulder even as she turned her body so that it was between them and the other woman. It took him a moment to pick out the message in her fingers. Stupid, silly boy-you left me no choice.

It was the subverbal of the Gypsy Scouts, a language of touch and hand-signs he’d only barely begun to learn before leaving his training as an officer in Rudolfo’s Ninefold Forest.

He tried to mask the recognition in his face, and even as he did, he felt the cold edge of the blade moving over his body, a slender fang looking for the right place to bite. Be strong, Nebios, the one hand told him.

Then, the other began its darker work, opening a cut that ran from his collarbone to his navel, and Neb tried with every bit of his resolve to not scream at the sudden, searing pain of it as he bucked against the ropes that held him.

He failed utterly.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo scanned the message again, his eyes finding each smudge, each slant to a letter or space between. After reading it for the second time, he cursed again, this time more loudly.

“When did this happen?” he asked, letting the anger show in his voice.

“Five nights past,” the courier said.

Rudolfo could imagine it. Some kind of distraction to get his men to open the gate. And then a quick skirmish. Certainly his Gypsy Scouts had done their best, but they were no match for their blood-magicked opponents and the element of surprise.

I am infiltrated on my most protected border. The Keeper’s Gate was the only access point to the Churning Wastes unless one was inclined to sail around the horn-something a few men like Rafe Merrique had been known to do. Rudolfo’s men had guarded it since Petronus deeded the Androfrancine holdings to the Ninefold Forest before dissolving the Order. And truly, he’d not expected to be guarding it from that direction. They held the gate to keep the Churning Wastes closed to the rest of their neighbors.

But now, a small band of blood-magicked scouts ran his forests.

Why? And who are they? They couldn’t be Machtvolk unless they’d somehow sailed the horn, which he found unlikely.

He’d read Petronus’s notes and had talked with Vlad Li Tam about his father’s slender volume that outlined a strategy for the fall of an order and the changing of an age. He’d read the new gospel of the Y’Zirite resurgency, written by Ahm Y’Zir, the seventh son of Xhum Y’Zir, and seen his own family somehow written into this story.

He thought back to his time on the island of the Blood Temple during the rescue of House Li Tam. The remnants of that family had seen unfamiliar vessels in the water there, and that took doing, given that Vlad Li Tam’s family had been the premier ship-builders in the Named Lands before turning to banking. If they did not recognize them, then these vessels had not sailed the Emerald Sea of the Named Lands. They were foreign, and this pointed in a direction that piqued Rudolfo’s curiosity and whispered third alarm along his spine.

For over two thousand years, they had lived in these lands and believed they were alone in the world but for a few scattered people in the Wastes.

But what if we were not alone?

He forced himself back to the courier scout who stood waiting for a reply. He looked to Philemus. “What do you think?”

“Double the guard upon the Wall and upon the manors, General,” the second captain said.

Rudolfo nodded, feeling the weariness settling into him. The command tent was suddenly cold. “I concur,” he said. “I will return to the Seventh Forest Manor and continue the investigation.”

Philemus blinked. “There isn’t much you can do in the investigation, General.”

Something stirred in Rudolfo at the second captain’s words, and it felt like anger. He’s right, of course.

And more importantly, Rudolfo realized, Philemus was surprised.

Philemus was a savvy soldier turned scout. He’d held the same captaincy under Gregoric for a dozen years and had personally requested that Aedric be promoted to the position his father vacated. An older man, he’d still distinguished himself in the War for Windwir and wore his scarf of rank knotted to show his accomplishments in battle. But more importantly, he’d known the Gypsy King for most of Rudolfo’s life.

“I’ll have a squad ready to escort you,” Philemus finally said. “And I will keep courier lines open between our new interests in the north and your office in the Seventh Forest Manor.”

Rudolfo inclined his head. “Excellent, Captain. I think I will also-”

He heard running feet and an excited whistle outside the tent. They both turned toward the flap as it opened for the officer of the watch. “We’ve found something. unusual, Captain Philemus.”

The second captain scowled. “What is it?”

The man was breathless, and behind him, the light warbled in just a way for Rudolfo to see the vague form of a magicked scout. “Y’Zirite activity, Captain.”

He’d not expected this, especially in this isolated region. There were a few scattered villages, but the nearest major town was his Eighth Forest Manor, at least a hundred leagues south. Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “Evangelists? This far north and east?”

The officer of the watch shook his head. “Not evangelists, General.”

Rudolfo met Philemus’s eyes and knew his second captain also saw the grim expression upon the officer’s face. Words were not going to suffice.

“Show us,” Rudolfo said.

Ten minutes later, they ran magicked through the deep northern forest, tongues clicking against the roofs of their mouths to keep formation. Rudolfo kept Philemus on his right, just behind the young scout who’d brought word of this discovery. Around them, mist lay over the top of the ground, writhing with the breeze they made as they sprinted lightly over the surface of the frozen snow. Over them, the canopy of trees filtered the gray light.

Rudolfo stretched his legs into the magicks, finding it hard to keep his balance with just one hand free. He kept his lips pressed tight against the nausea and the headache that always beset him when he used the scout powders and ran with his head down and his eyes moving to the left and right.

Certainly, it was unseemly for someone of his position to magick himself, though his men had seen him do it before on a handful occasions-most occurring since Windwir’s fall. Unlike his scouts, he’d not been raised on the powders. He’d used them only enough to learn how to function under their heady influence. His father and his first captain had understood that sometimes the interpretation of kin-clave must be a fluid thing.

They ran ten leagues, and despite the stamina and speed the magicks lent him, Rudolfo knew his body would feel the run later, after the powders had burned their way out of his body. These powders, drawn and mixed from the various ingredients found in the earth’s roots and minerals, berries and herbs could render the user stronger, faster, quieter and nearly invisible. But the scouts who had breached his eastern border there at the Keeper’s Gate used magicks enhanced by blood and superior to anything the earth could give. Of course, until Ria showed up under those magicks, Rudolfo had assumed that the Machtvolk advantage was tempered by the fact that these magicks ultimately killed those who used them. They’d found the bodies of the Marsher scouts who’d carried out the attack on his Firstborn Feast. And he’d watched several of the Tam family lay down their lives by taking up the blood magicks to rescue their father, most notably the alchemist daughter, Rae Li Tam. But Ria had not been harmed by them, and now these other scouts-either Machtvolk sent despite his firm words to Ria about breaching his borders, or some new threat-used them as well.

A part of him wished he’d brought back a supply that his River Woman could’ve studied. He’d been in a room full of these magicks, there in the Blood Temple’s armory, and had not thought about it.

It is a formidable advantage in this strange war of ours. A war, he reminded himself, where he could no longer be certain who was friend and who was foe.

Ahead, the clicking shifted to the softest of whistles, and Rudolfo slowed. They were leaving one patch of evergreen and crossing a white clearing. Already, enough snow had fallen to cover the tracks of the patrol who had found this place earlier in the day. If they were fortunate, enough would fall over the next few hours to cover this latest trail.

They walked now, picking their way to the edge of a copse of trees. These were a darker evergreen, growing closely together and choked with more underbrush than was common in these parts. The nearer they drew, the more unusual it seemed until he realized it was because of the type of underbrush. These were the thick, twisted and thorny bushes used to cultivate Whymer Mazes-not a native plant this far north. And it had been seeded in the midst of these darker trees, creating a natural boundary to discourage entrance to this particular wood.

“There is an access point just north,” the scout said in a muffled voice that the breeze carried to Rudolfo’s ears.

They skirted the line of trees and brush, finally stopping at a small and narrow gap. With more whistles and clicks, the squad of Gypsy Scouts fanned out to establish a perimeter, their breath on the air and the clouds of snow where their feet fell giving them away.

Rudolfo waited until he felt the others slip ahead of him. Then, he followed and saw that the narrow tunnel twisted and turned much like a Whymer Maze before depositing them into a clearing that would have never been expected based on how the copse looked from outside.

There in the center of the clearing stood a windowless building made of white stone and hedged with yet more thornbushes. A large dark door stood closed against the weather. He felt a chill deeper than the winter air and forced his feet to carry him forward.

Even before he reached out to the open the door, he knew what this place was, and it took him no time at all to count the years it would take to hide it so thoroughly here within his Ninefold Forest, or to judge by the stonework, how long this building had stood here.

It was at least as old as he was, if not older.

He pushed the door open and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloomy single room it opened on. It was round, like the Blood Temple, and in the center lay a stained altar with its carved symbols and its catch-troughs for the blood spilled upon it. Rough wooden benches surrounded it, and Rudolfo slipped into the large room.

He noticed the absence of dust, the faintest smell of smoke and something sweet and cloying on the air.

“It’s been used recently,” he said in a voice that shook with an emotion he could not identify.

“Yes,” the scout said. “Within the last two weeks, though they were very careful to cover their tracks. There is a Rufello chest behind the altar.”

Rudolfo picked his way around the room and saw the box there. He’d studied the earlier resurgences enough to know what would be within it. Copies of their so-called gospels-perhaps even this newest by Ahm Y’Zir, the one that spoke of his family as a part of the Crimson Empress’s coming salvation. And there would be a set of silver knives wrapped in black velvet. Meditation candles made from wax and fat and blood, certainly, and vestal robes for whichever of his people served as the priest for this secluded shrine.

Shaking, he sat down on a bench and regarded the altar. He felt Philemus’s hand on his shoulder and forced himself to decipher the pressing fingers.

This, Philemus said with his hands, is much worse than we expected.

“Yes,” Rudolfo said in a quiet voice.

Friends now become enemies who sought to bring down his household. An enemy posing as his friend to the northwest, breaching his borders at will and sending their river of tripe into his lands by way of their evangelists. Beyond all of that, a potential enemy abroad-possibly dressed up as this Crimson Empress-and now this.

Evidence of Y’Zirite activity indeed, he thought, but stretching back decades in his Ninefold Forest. He reached up a tentative hand, finding Philemus’s shoulder. I want this site watched night and day. I want a list of every man, woman and child who visits this shrine, and I want to know where they are from. But even as he issued the orders, he knew that it was just one shrine. How many others could be hidden away from the more populated corners of the forest?

Philemus’s response was not quick. There was hesitation in the fingers when they finally moved again. Aye, General.

He dropped his hand back into his lap. Then slowly, he stood and turned his back upon the altar. He made his way out of the simple stone building and waited for the others to remove all traces of their passing in this place. Already, his mind spun strategy after strategy, trying to find some way-any way-to deal effectively with this latest discovery.

I am beset without and within, Rudolfo realized. And there may truly be no victory at the end of this. It bore all the markings of a carefully laid path, set into place possibly before he’d even been born. “Philemus?”

He felt the wind on his cheek. “Yes, Lord?”

“I will not be riding for the Seventh Forest Manor after all,” Rudolfo said. “I will stay north with the army. But I want you ride south and personally command a careful but quiet search of the Ninefold Forest for more of these shrines. We need to know where they are and who is involved.”

He felt the hand upon his shoulder again. You are asking me to use the scouts for intelligence gathering among our own people? With resources already stretched?

And they were stretched. He could only hope that Lysias’s recruiting strategies would help. But that was not the larger concern in his second captain’s mind. Using magicked scouts to follow his own people was a path no Gypsy King before him had taken. “I am not asking you,” Rudolfo said in a measured voice. “I am ordering you to.”

“Aye, General,” Philemus said, and Rudolfo heard the discomfort in his voice.

As they set out for camp, Rudolfo slowed his pace and hung back. With each booted foot upon the snow, he tried to find some kind of hope he could cling to that his position was not as untenable as it appeared.

But deep in his heart, Rudolfo knew the truth. And whatever part of his father that still existed within him felt despair and shame at what he knew must certainly be coming.

Petronus

A hot wind rose from the east and pressed down upon them as they made their way across a sea of razor-edged glass intersected by a road just wide enough for two to ride abreast. Petronus rode with his head low, a straw hat held tightly in place with one hand. To his right, Grymlis leaned forward in his saddle. Behind them, their ragged company of scouts and Gray Guard stretched out across the desert.

There was salt on the air and the dead dust of cities. When he was younger, Petronus had had a certain romance about this place. He’d dug in the woods behind his parents’ house as a boy, pretending he was an Androfrancine pulling fragments of the light out of the desolation. That romanticism led eventually to belief in their dream and his decision to join the Order.

Now, though, he saw only stark reminders of humanity’s capacity for apocalypse.

Petronus.

He looked around, suddenly aware of a tingling in his scalp and a tickling in his ears.

“Petronus?”

He looked up from his desk and the thick parchment reports that awaited his attention. “Yes?” He blinked, recognizing the man who sat across from him. “You’re Hebda.”

The man nodded, his face looking frantic despite the relative calm of the afternoon. “Listen to me,” he said. “Neb has somehow overpowered the dream tamps.”

“Dream tamps?” He’d heard these words, but what did they mean?

“Not just one,” Hebda said, his voice rising. “All of them.”

Petronus shook his head. Another waking dream. He’d just been in the Wastes. He still had the smell of dust and salt in his nose. “What does that mean?”

He looked somber. “It means we can’t contain the dream. It means they can follow it to the mechoservitors.” He leaned forward. “Listen.”

Petronus listened, tilting his head. Far away, on the wind, he heard a harp. “I know that song.”

“Yes,” Hebda said. “ ‘A Canticle for the Fallen Moon,’ in E minor, by the Last Weeping Czar Frederico.” He pointed to a report on the desk, and Petronus looked down at it. “We strongly suspect that Frederico did not actually compose the piece. We believe he heard it and learned to play it.”

Petronus tried to recall the details of that particular bit of Old World lore. These stories were ancient when the Churning Wastes were a densely populated continent under the watchful eye of the seven Wizard Kings and their father. He certainly remembered the myth of Frederico and Amal Y’Zir, how their tragic love brought about the Year of the Falling Moon. He looked to the report and scanned the first page. Something about an artifact found hidden away and the song it played, over and over again. He turned the page and scanned the next. “It somehow affected the mechoservitors at Sanctorum Lux?”

“Yes,” Hebda said. “Neb, too. His exposure to the Cacophonic Deaths greatly enhanced his sensitivity to it. You are sensitive as well, because of your own exposure to blood magicks, though until now the tamps have kept you insulated.”

Petronus thought about this. “But these tamps do not work with Neb?”

“They did at first.” Hebda looked around the office, as if expecting to see someone. Then, he lowered his voice. “Neb is special; he had latent sensitivity by nature of who he is and the explosion at Windwir. But he’s found something out there. Something similar, I think, to what I’m using now to speak to you.”

Special. Latent sensitivity by nature of who he is. Petronus took the words, examined them, filed them away. Instead, he forced himself to think of that massive black rock surrounded by an underground sea of quicksilver. Seen from above, at least in his imagination, it looked like a dark and staring eye.

Petronus looked up and met eyes with Hebda. “How many of you survived Windwir?”

Hebda looked around again. “It would be imprudent to discuss that under these circumstances.”

Petronus leaned forward, placing both hands flat upon his desk. “What is the operating mission and authority of the Office for the Preservation of Light?”

“Our authority is Papal by Holy Unction. Our mission is secret.”

“I am the Pope,” Petronus said, his voice rising.

“No,” Hebda answered. “You were the Pope.” Then he stood. “This is fruitless, Petronus. We do not have any more time for this.” He pointed to a map that suddenly, conveniently lay open, covering half the desk. “His last transmission point was here.” He pointed to a point on the map, and Petronus quickly memorized the surrounding area. “If they capture him, they will use him to find the mechoservitors. He has great reach with whatever it is he’s found. And if they find the mechoservitors, the light will be utterly lost to us.”

Already, he could smell the salt and dust choking out the scent of lavender and paper. But he had to ask at least one more question. “Who are they?”

“They,” Hebda said, “are the Blood Guard of the Crimson Empress. And they’re now loosed in the Named Lands as well.”

Petronus felt the sharp edge of the rock as he connected with it and watched the world blaze white for a moment. Slowly, it refocused and he saw that he was staring into the sky. It was one of those days when the moon was visible, and he saw it thinly veiled behind high, thin clouds. The horses around him stopped, including his own, and Grymlis dismounted.

“Another one?” the grizzled captain asked.

But Petronus said nothing. Instead, he wondered how he’d not heard it before. Because it was everywhere, he now realized. The song was all around him.

And, Petronus knew, it required a response.