Canticle

Chapter 24

Rudolfo

Rudolfo felt his legs turn to water and staggered back against the Gypsy Scout behind him. The man caught his king and steadied him upon his feet.

What he’d seen staggered him.

They’d landed where Windwir’s docks had once been, and the Kinshark had no difficulty finding a deep-enough berth close in to shore. The iron vessels-those that had not left with Charles for the Churning Wastes and Sanctorum Lux-had turned back leagues ago when their deeper keels threatened to run aground on a river that the Androfrancines no longer dredged.

From the beach, he’d run to the tent, an invisible wall parting before him as he did. He would have walked, his feet unsteady from weeks at sea, but seeing the Ninefold Forest flag turned for distress hastened him.

And now, he stood slack-jawed. He’d reached the entrance to the tent as Petronus fell and kicked his last. And he’d stood to the side, transfixed, as the woman-the one called Ria-first brought back that dead Pope and then restored Rudolfo’s son.

“I don’t know the cure,” Rae Li Tam had told him during one of her more lucid moments as the blood magicks consumed her. She’d spent her last days going over her small library and writing notes. She’d created lists for Charles of which books to find when he reached Santorum Lux. But even then, Rudolfo had known the chances for a cure must indeed be slight. To travel so far with so little result only to have it handed to him felt unfair. And to have it given in such a way. He knew it was blood magick-it had to be. Only deep bargaining in the Beneath Places could bring about that kind of power. Somehow, and for some purpose he could not quite fathom, this woman had healed his son, had saved his life.

But at what cost? He remembered the blood pipes. He remembered the smell of death and the screams beneath the knife.

Now, watching his wife as she huddled on the floor and held their son, the magnitude of the afternoon’s events settled upon him and he wanted badly to sit down, but he resisted gravity. He opened his mouth to speak, but the woman spoke first.

“Lord Rudolfo,” she said, inclining her head, “bear witness to this, for a time shall come when you are asked to give an accounting of this day.”

He blinked at her and said nothing.

She pointed to Petronus, who sat to the side, rubbing his throat in wonder with a lost look upon his face. “The last son has been forgiven the sins of his father and shall be released into exile. Look to me, Petronus.” When he looked up, she smiled at him. “Leave the Named Lands. Go east into the Churning Wastes from whence you Ash-Men came to steal our Home. Stay there. Life is your gift. Return at your peril.”

Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you to command him?”

She smiled and swept the room with her hand. “I am one who has proven that her Blood Scouts can strike when and where she chooses.” She paused to look to Meirov, and Rudolfo followed her. The Queen of Pylos shook with rage. “I am one who has proven that age and station do not give me pause from the course I am called to.”

“You are a murderer and an abomination to our people,” another voice said, and Rudolfo first noticed Winters, who stood now and brandished her Firstfall axe of office.

Ria laughed. “And you are a child, Winters, playing at queen with your dreams and your books and your white-haired Androfrancine boy. Bring the axe and come with me, little sister. Climb the spire and stand with me while I proclaim myself. Join me and we will take back our Home and make it what Lord Y’Zir promised us it would be in his Gospel. Take the mark upon you and find joy in servanthood and in Home.”

Rudolfo watched the anger upon Winters’s face and recoiled from it. Hanric’s loss had twisted deep in her, and the dark look she now gave Ria spoke of buried violence within her such as Rudolfo would not wish to face in a foe. “This is not the dream of our people,” Winters said. “This is not my dream.”

“Dreams change.” Ria’s eyes narrowed as she continued. “And so do the hearts of men and women. How long do you think your friends, your family, met in secret and worshiped in secret, preparing for this day? Quiet evangelists teaching and preaching what was to come to pass. The silent prayer of decades, awaiting the column of fire in the sky that would mark the advent of the Age of the Crimson Empress and an end to the home-thieves’ hold upon our land.”

Windwir. Could they have somehow had a hand in it? Brought about the fulfillment of their own prophecy? House Li Tam was certainly involved-Mal Li Tam obviously in league and in bed with this woman. Rudolfo found himself caught up in Ria’s voice and forced his eyes away from her and back to the girl. Winters stepped forward, and he saw her white knuckles upon the handle of the axe.

“I am the Marsh Queen, Winteria bat Mardic,” she said in a low and even voice. “I do not know who you are, but I am my father’s only daughter.”

Ria laughed. “Ask Seamus if that is so, Little Sister.”

Rudolfo watched Winters take another step and saw the rage growing upon her face along with her resolve. When she lunged forward to swing the Firstfall axe, Rudolfo knew it could not connect. Her feet were not well planted, and the weapon was too heavy and awkward for her to lift it with any speed.

Invisible hands seized the girl, knocking the axe from her hands. Lifting her up, the Blood Scouts held her as she shrieked and kicked at them.

Ria stepped closer, stooped and lifted the axe easily with one hand. Within its reflection, Rudolfo saw the Marshers that held the girl and measured the distance himself.

He stopped when Ria leaned in and kissed Winters upon the forehead. “Come with me, Sister. Take your place beside my wicker throne.”

The girl found her composure. “I will not come with you,” Winters said in a low and even voice.

Ria’s shrugged. “You are my sister. I will not force you.” She smiled. “The truth will call you unto itself in its own time. Come to me when you are ready, Winters, and I will show you a new dream.” Then she turned and took in the entire room. “Hear this and know it well: These lands were given to the Machtvolk for their service on the night of Xhum Y’Zir’s death. The lands from Windwir’s Rest and northward are mine, and I will watch my borders very well.” She looked to Rudolfo. “The kin-healing of House Li Tam binds us to your wife and child. And though the Machtvolk stand above these matters of kin-clave, kinship is another matter altogether. Our peoples were the first in this New World and the only that were granted deed and title by the Wizard Kings who kept it set apart. Will you live in peace with us and let us mind our own?”

Rudolfo looked around the room, saw that the wonder had passed now and only fear and hatred and surprise remained upon the faces of those gathered. As if they weren’t sure what to do with the information they now held. As he watched them, he avoided his wife’s eyes. He knew that he could not look into them and face Ria’s question. He looked back to the Machtvolk Queen where she waited for a response.

Rudolfo took a deep breath.

What do I say? Which way now to turn in this Whymer Maze he’d fallen into? Suddenly, his right path was not so very clear. And I cannot choose a war that I cannot yet win, he realized. An uneasiness grew within him, and he felt expectation on the chill air as she repeated her question.

“Will you live in peace with us and let us mind our own?”

For now, he thought. But my words must be careful.

“It is my desire,” Rudolfo finally said, “to live in peace with all people.” Especially now, he realized, standing upon the grave of Windwir. But he knew even as he said it that his desire for peace would ever be in conflict with his need to create a safe world for his son, a world that held to the light and eschewed the dark.

Ria nodded. “It is enough for now. The truth will come to you in time, as well, Rudolfo, and you will bare your heart to the mark of the Crimson Empress with joy.” She looked to her sister, then to Jin Li Tam and Jakob.

And then Winteria bat Mardic, Machtvolk Queen, turned and left with her escort of Blood Scouts.

Only then did Rudolfo look to his wife. She held Jakob close to herself, and the baby laughed and squealed, his face pink and animated with expression. He followed the line of her forearm, around the curve of her wrist, to the slender fingers that stroked the thin dark hair of Jakob’s tiny head. His eyes traveled the line of her neck and jaw, then settled upon her face. And when their eyes met, he saw despair and relief commingled there with surprise and with tears, and he knew in that moment that he loved the forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam and would spend his life on her behalf. That she truly was formidable and fierce and fair and that the child they had made would be the same, despite the price they had paid or the consequences that might follow after.

Weeping, Rudolfo raced to his family and gathered them into his trembling arms.

Neb

Neb looked across the canyon to the small cluster of tents and slowed to a walk. They were scout tents in the rainbow colors of the Ninefold Forest Houses, and there were horses tethered in a copse of stunted scrub-trees. But there were also other tents-a second, smaller camp erected in the midst of the forest tents. Spitting the last of the root onto the ground, he tugged his waterskin loose and took a long drink.

Every part of him felt alive, and it had since that first night he’d listened to the canticle within that ring of glass mountains. After locking and leaving Sanctorum Lux, he’d spent his first night alone in the Churning Wastes with his ear pressed to the iron cap that sealed away the source of the metal man’s dream. He’d awakened the next morning refreshed, found a small and hidden spring to refill his waterskin and bathe. Then, he’d set out at a run for D’Anjite’s Bridge and found the strength to run straight through.

Wind whipped up at the foot of the bridge when he approached it, and he felt the movement of magicked scouts around him. A small brown bird emerged from an invisible belt cage and shot across the chasm to the watch captain’s net before anyone spoke.

“Captain Aedric will want to see you,” a Gypsy Scout said.

Neb nodded. “I need to speak with him.” He watched the camp stir to life once the message was read, and he thought at one point he saw Aedric. “Are Renard and Isaak well?”

“They are. Our medico splinted the Waste Guide and he’s up on a crutch now. The Androfrancine is tending to Isaak’s leg.”

The Androfrancine? He wondered at this but did not ask.

A white bird shot out from the camp, swallowed into a sack that Neb could not see. But he remembered this part of his training very well. How to catch the bird and read the knots tied into its thread.

“Let’s go then,” the voice said, moving onto the bridge. “You scouts mind your post. I’ll bring him in.”

Neb followed. They crossed the bridge at a jog, and the guards at the other end, unmagicked, moved aside for them. Within the camp, Neb saw Gypsy Scouts intermingled with a handful of men and women dressed in the silk clothing of the Emerald Coast.

The Gypsy Scout must have read his face. “House Li Tam,” he said. “They brought Charles to us by sea at General Rudolfo’s request.”

Neb blinked. “Father Charles is here?” It made sense that he would be the Androfrancine fixing Isaak’s leg. He’d seen the old Arch-Engineer in the Great Library tinkering among his mechanical recreations, and he’d even heard the old man speak once on the nature of the light in regards to mechanical science.

“He came after the metal man and Sanctorum Lux,” another voice said. Neb looked up and saw Aedric approaching. “We happened upon them on our way to find you and Isaak.”

He put his arms around Neb and squeezed him. “Are you well, lad? Where’s your metal friend?”

Better than well. He heard the song again behind him and over his shoulder. “He’s. ” He searched for the word. Could a mechanical be dead? “He destroyed himself. I left him at Sanctorum Lux.”

Aedric’s eyes widened, and now Neb became aware of others gathering around them. He saw Charles approaching and behind him, Renard limping along upon a crutch. “You’ve found it then?”

He nodded and swallowed. He watched the light of hope spark in Aedric’s eyes and then gutter at the despair he no doubt saw upon Neb’s face. “It’s gone. They burned it all.”

Aedric flinched. “Who burned it all?”

Neb looked to Father Charles. “The mechoservitors did.”

The Androfrancine’s brow furrowed. “That’s not possible. It is completely outside of their scripting.”

Neb thought about the song and the dream it birthed. Should I tell them? If he told them, it would not stop there. He said nothing, though a part of him grieved at the lie of omission. He glanced up and saw Aedric’s eyes upon him. The First Captain nodded slightly as their eyes met and he frowned. “We’ll find out soon enough,” Aedric said. “We ride for Sanctorum Lux at dawn.”

He knows I’m not telling everything. Neb looked away, his cheeks hot.

It requires a response. A response given in secret to confound the enemies of the light-those who wished to snuff it out. Those who brought down Windwir. Those whose eyes and ears were upon the Named Lands now, though Neb was not certain how he knew it. He simply felt it and trusted that feeling.

This place has changed me.

And Neb suddenly knew that he would not be going with Aedric-that his time among the Gypsies was over as quickly as it had begun. Instead, he would return to the iron cap and learn the cipher and take the source of the dream to himself. He would learn the ways of the Waste from Renard and follow the dream until it took him Home. Nothing else mattered. Not Winters, not his adopted home among the Gypsies or his future as an officer of the Forest Library. He felt it in his feet where they stood upon this desolate landscape.

He lost himself within the calling and only brought himself up from it when the others began moving away, leaving him with Aedric and Renard. It was Aedric’s hand on his shoulder that finally jarred him into the present.

“Rest up,” the First Captain said. “There’s hot food in the Tam camp, and you can find a fresh uniform among the men. Tomorrow will be a long ride.”

Neb shook his head. “I can’t go with you.”

Aedric’s eyes narrowed. “You are an officer of the Gypsy Scouts, Lieutenant Nebios, and you will be riding with us tomorrow as such.”

I am Nebios ben Hebda, the Homeseeker, he thought. He shook his head again. “Tell Rudolfo that I’m sorry,” he said, “and that I’m grateful for all he’s done.” He let his eyes meet Aedric’s then, and this time he did not look away at the anger he saw there. “I’m grateful to you as well.”

With careful fingers, Neb reached beneath his arm and untied the tattered scarf of rank that hung there and extended it to Aedric.

The First Captain took it. “You are making a mistake, lad.”

“It would be a mistake for me to stay,” Neb said, and even he could hear the strength in his voice as he said it.

Aedric regarded him thoughtfully and finally nodded. “I will bear your message to the general personally.” His hard eyes softened. “And have you thought about the girl, your young queen?”

Neb swallowed. His own sacrifice to the dream. “Tell her I am called to find our Home.”

Aedric gave him one final look, nodded again, and walked away without another word.

Renard smiled at him. They were alone now. “You’ve heard it, then,” he told him.

Neb blinked. “You’ve heard it as well?”

“No,” Renard said. “But your father did.”

“I have to go back to it,” Neb said.

Renard nodded. “We will. I can’t run, but I can ride.”

Neb looked around the camp. He would need to say good-bye to Isaak at some point and secretly pass to him the memory scroll his metal cousin had intended for him. And he would want to eat with the men. But after that, he thought, it would be good to take the root and stretch his legs.

To let the history of this land seep into him through his feet as he ran toward that buried song.

His calling stirred within him, Nebios Homeseeker felt the joy of it pulling him and he smiled at it.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam brushed her long hair out and watched Winters holding her son. Her initial fears of the newborn had faded, and the same instincts that guided Jin as a new mother guided the young girl as she explored one of the wonders that her body could someday produce. She watched and forced a smile.

My son is saved; I should not need to force my joy. But she did. She saw her hands upon the Machtvolk queen’s feet and heard the catch in her voice as she pleaded for her son’s life. It shamed her, and yet she felt relief flooding her when his skin turned pink and when he found his laughter and his lungs; and even now, when she heard him giggle with Winters, she brushed up against a miracle.

And Petronus, too. She’d watched him die and then return from the dead.

She heard a clearing of the voice and looked up, startled.

Her father stood at the tent flap. He avoided eye contact with her, averting his eyes. “I know that I’ve earned every bit of your disfavor,” he told her, “but I beg audience with you, Daughter.”

As he stepped into the light, she could see the scars upon his face-wounds nearly healed and yet angrily red. She’d heard what had happened in her brief hours with Rudolfo before he’d left to try to salvage some kind of kin-clave among the others. She furrowed her brows now and tried to find anger for her father; she could not.

He’s had his reckoning. And she knew that someday, because of who she had begged to save her son, she would have hers. “Come in,” she said, “and meet your grandson.”

Winters nodded before Jin Li Tam said a word and brought Jakob back to her. “I will think about what we discussed,” the girl said.

Jin Li Tam smiled. “Do. I know you would be welcome. You would have a home there.”

Winters returned the smile and inclined her head. After she left, Jin Li Tam motioned her father to a chair. “Sit. You can hold Jakob.”

She watched her father wince when she said the name. Good, she thought. She did not think it out of bitterness but because he should understand the price that was paid. Jakob had been Rudolfo’s father’s name-a man her own father had killed using one of the Tam sons as a weapon.

Vlad Li Tam took the baby into his arms. He held the child for a few minutes in silence before he looked up at her. “Your husband told me once that if ever he were a father he would not use his children as pieces in a game.” He took a deep breath. “This was the same day that he vowed to kill me the next time he saw me because of what I had done to his family.”

“You deserve to die for that.” She said it without thinking and in a matter-of-fact tone.

He surprised her by nodding. “I do. But the next time he saw me, he did not kill me. He saved me and what remained of my family. our family.” He looked at her, and his eyes were suddenly hard. “I know you’ve thought yourself a strategic piece in some game of mine, and it is true. I raised you for this, shaped you for this day. And now I know that my father did the same to me. That I was a tower in his game, scripted like your metal men to perform a function. To make you and Rudolfo.” He leaned forward and kissed Jakob’s forehead. “And to make you, too, Jakob.”

She remembered well the note he’d left for her beneath the pillow of her guest bed in the Summer Papal Palace, warning her of war to come and ordering her to bear Rudolfo an heir. But why was he telling her?

Now when their eyes met, she could see that his were full of tears. “I regret every harm I caused another’s child or father or mother,” he said. “The grief of it consumes me now, and when I sleep at night, I hear only poetry and screams-only it’s not my children but someone else’s, and I have been the cutter, weaving a spell in blood and believing it would save the world.”

She felt tears pulling at her own eyes, and it made her angry. Sadness often did. Finally, she gave voice to her question. “Why are you telling me?”

He sighed. “Because I think sometimes you are afraid you will be like me.”

She remembered her exhilaration on the ride with the Wandering Army, remembered what it felt like to dance with the knives and bring down a Blood Scout in her wrath. “I don’t want to be like you,” she said.

And then he smiled and handed Jakob back to her. “You are not like me, Jin Li Tam. And I am proud of that.” He stood, and she saw a strange look pass over his face. “Do you remember where you got your name?”

She nodded. It had been a long time since she’d thought of that. “From the D’Jin of the Younger Gods, swimming in the deepest darks of the haunted oceans.”

He nodded. “I saw one before your sister pulled me from the sea,” he said. “It sang to me.”

Jin Li Tam did not know what to say. So she said nothing and simply stood.

Her father bowed to her. “He is a beautiful boy. He will be formidable and strong.”

She returned the bow but again could find no words. Her father had changed, and her brain spun now to decipher what he’d become.

Because he’s been broken.

And though these past months had worn her, they had not broken her. Seeing what her father had become, she did not want to ever experience it.

After he left, she slipped into her sleep shift and laid Jakob into the crib beside her bed. Rudolfo would be up late into the night and would probably not sleep until sometime after dawn. He would be working to save what kin-clave he could with Pylos and Turam, though she was certain his effort there would be fruitless. Still, he would try because he always saw the right path and chose it. She would not see him tonight, though some part of her needed to. Some part of her that she was unfamiliar with wanted to smell him, to feel him warm and near her. He’d been away for too long. Still, he was an influential man. He could belong to the Named Lands tonight and she could hope for tomorrow.

She did not realize that she slept until she felt a warm hand encircling her, stroking her bare stomach beneath her shift. She felt the messages pressed into her soft skin as gooseflesh rose upon her. My sunrise.

She stirred awake and inhaled the scent of Rudolfo’s hair. “I can’t stay long,” he whispered into her ear. His hand moved again. My truest path.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she told him and rolled over to pull him into her arms.

And for a time, she let go of her worry about what came toward them from the gathering storm clouds and savored this moment as a gift of great value.

Lysias

Lysias stared at the scout magicks and the poisoned knife before him and willed focus into his hands and feet for what was to come.

He’d been suspicious before Vlad Li Tam called for him. He’d seen the look of ecstasy upon Ignatio’s face when Petronus fell beneath the woman’s blade, and it had set him to thinking.

A conspiracy large enough to bring down Windwir would involve infiltrations at key levels across nations, and the Marshlands had fallen too quickly for it to have been a fledgling movement.

He’d arrived to the Kinshark just after dusk and listened to Vlad Li Tam reading from a slender volume. The man had changed, latticed now in scars and meek of voice. Initially, he made no eye contact and kept to his book. He was nothing like the arrogant, confident man Lysias remembered from the night they’d met near the ruins of Rachyle’s Bridge. Vlad Li Tam had given him the means to end the war by bringing down Resolute and Sethbert, and later that night, Lysias and Grymlis had helped Resolute to his end.

The broken man had read him several pages, then met his eyes briefly. The rage and anguish there nearly matched what Lysias felt as he heard the words.

Now, he lifted the knife and opened the pouch. He’d not been under the scout magicks since his days in the Academy, but he remembered well how it felt. He threw the powders at his shoulders and his feet, then licked the bitterness from the palm of his hand, bracing himself for what was to come. His stomach lurched, and he vomited onto the floor of his tent.

Everything bent around him, and the world moved beneath his feet. The sounds of the camp outside grew to a roar, and his own beating heart kept time like a marching drum.

He sucked in his breath and felt the strength moving through him.

Setting off at a run, he took the course he’d walked out carefully earlier that afternoon when he’d decided what he must do. There was only one answer, though after he gave it there would be no turning back.

Still, he would take this right path.

Ignatio’s tent was guarded lightly, but not by soldiers. The spymaster used his own men for that, and Lysias did not mind dispatching them. Before their bodies stilled, his hand was upon Ignatio’s mouth and his blade was at his throat.

“I know who you are and what you’ve done,” he whispered into the struggling man’s ear.

He called up Vlad Li Tam’s voice now, reading from the book. About the cult in the north and Tam agents planted within the Order, about Y’Zirites in high places. About the daughter of an Entrolusian general who was to be widowed and bereft of her child in order to nursemaid another. About a blood bargain made to spare that Gypsy Prince’s life and prepare them all for the advent of a Crimson Empress. As he remembered, he felt the rage, and in that rage, he found resolve.

“I know what you’ve done, Ignatio,” he said again, “and you pay for it tonight.”

Ignatio bucked against his grip, and Lysias used his own body weight to keep the man pinned. He pricked the knife against the skin and waited for the kallacaine to take effect. He held the spymaster tightly as his struggles slowed, and then just as he went slack, Lysias reached for the pouch of scout magicks and tipped the remainder of the powders into Ignatio’s open mouth.

As he faded from sight, Lysias lifted the paralyzed man onto his shoulder and staggered out into the snow.

He moved carefully through the camp, staying close to the shadows and rehearsing his petition to Rudolfo. After tonight, he was finished on the Delta. He would hope for mercy from both the Gypsy King and his own daughter.

And he would hope that tonight’s work would redeem him in his own eyes, too.

He reached the river quickly and laid Ignatio down in its shallows. He placed him on his back and drew close enough to the spymaster that he could just barely see one wide and frightened eye close to his own. “You killed my daughter’s child, you blood-loving shite,” he said in a low and matter-of-fact voice.

After, he tipped the man over onto his face in the water and stood over him. He placed a boot upon the back of Ignatio’s head and pushed him firmly to the bottom of the shallows.

He stood silent for a time, holding him there, until he was certain of his work.

Then Lysias pushed the body into the current and turned back for the Gypsy Camp.