The Light of All That Falls, page 18
“My friend, as it happens.”
“Your importance has shielded you from the wrath of the law until tonight, but do not mistake that for believing that you have been treated unjustly,” one of the young men finished.
“So your punishment for my killing someone is to force me to kill more people,” Davian said cynically. “Our definitions of justice are very different.”
“You say ‘force,’” said the gray-haired man on the left. “I am interested to hear you describing it thus.”
Davian frowned. “What choice did I have? There were men trying to kill me, and besides—you knew that I was going to survive. So their deaths were guaranteed.”
“What choice indeed?” murmured Gassandrid, the young girl speaking again.
“I used my foreknowledge and my position to manipulate events, coercing you into a particular action.”
“I took away chance, and in doing so, I arguably took away your autonomy.”
All twelve Gassandrids gazed at him. “Yet some would argue that the choice was very much still yours to make.”
“So tell me, Davian. Is those fighters’ blood on my hands, or yours?”
Davian looked away, gritting his teeth in frustration. “You’re changing the subject,” he growled, feeling absently at his side. It was healing, and his artificial Reserve was slowly, slowly filling up again. “You talk so much about right and wrong, about responsibility, and yet you have people out there dying for the entertainment of others. Criminals or not, how can you possibly defend that?”
Gassandrid leaned forward, his dozen faces darkening as one.
“If you think we are to blame, then perhaps you would like me to explain how when your friend sealed us behind the ilshara, it began sapping the very life from the earth.”
“Perhaps you would like me to tell you of the moment we discovered that it affected even Gates, draining the source from all who traveled through them except for those with vast Reserves—and worse, corrupting even objects brought through. Making the food from outside rotten, inedible.”
“Perhaps you would like me to recount the famine that followed. The starving families whom we had no way to help. The dying children. Everyone begging us for assistance, though they still thought of us as their enemy.”
The tall woman in the center gestured angrily. “Or how when crime became rampant, and the prisons overflowed with desperate men and women whom we could barely feed, the people started organizing duels to the death for extra rations.”
“One parent against another, more often than not. People who had done nothing wrong, dying for the chance to feed their families.”
“How long would you have lasted, Davian?”
“How long could you have watched such suffering before it became too much for you to bear?”
“Would you have simply murdered those in your prisons, or citizens in the city, to reduce the need?”
“Would you have waited until enough people had starved, so that the few farms still providing crops could supply those who survived?”
“Or would you have tried, as we did, to arrive at a solution acceptable to all? A system of justice that still provided a chance at redemption, but reduced the population in the process?”
“Yes, the fights are seen as entertainment—because there is little else in this place for which to cheer, Davian.”
“Because it distracts from hardship.”
“Because it provides a shared experience for the people.”
“Because it reminds those who watch not only of the consequences of breaking the law, but of the importance of their own work, their own sacrifices.”
“You presume to make moral judgments on a society not your own, on people whose situation is vastly different from yours.”
“You think the barbarity of it all pleases us, somehow.”
“That we force these fights for our amusement.”
“Yet this is what the people want.”
“It is what the people—your people—demanded.”
“So perhaps you think less of us than you should,” Gassandrid concluded softly.
Davian listened mutely, the words making him uncomfortable despite his desire to just ignore them. Unless his ability didn’t work with Gassandrid’s proxies, the Venerate hadn’t lied.
That didn’t mean that the wild glee in the faces of the crowd, the bloodlust, the terror and sickening fear of the Arena were suddenly forgotten, though.
“I know these things are hard to accept.” It was a young man with a muscular physique who spoke, his voice gentle. “Which is why we chose to give you adequate time to consider them.”
“We have allowed you months to properly contemplate the things we revealed to you about Tal’kamar—his goals, his deeds, his person.”
“You know of his atrocities.”
“You know of his betrayals.”
“And most importantly, you know that he now works to ensure none of it is ever undone.”
“Even still, we do not ask you to betray him. To fight against him.”
“You need answer only a single question.”
“Answer it, and show your willingness to consider both sides of the argument. To be reasonable.”
“Or do not, and accept that you will be sent to a place where you will be protected from Tal’kamar’s desire to kill you. Protected, but not… comfortable.”
Davian shook his head. “As I have said repeatedly—I don’t know where Asha is, and would never tell you even if I did. Nor do I know anything about how she came to have so much power. If what you claim is even true,” he added, trying to sound irritable.
“I am aware.”
“Which is why that is not the question.”
“All we wish to know, Davian, is anything you can tell us of the one known as the Shadraehin.”
There was silence, Davian’s mind racing as he did his best to look surprised by the question. He’d already known from his vision that the Venerate were searching for the Shadraehin—and he suspected, given what he’d learned from Asha the last time they had spoken, exactly why.
The Shadraehin was in fact Nethgalla, and also the one who had for a long time been gaining the benefits of the Siphon. Davian had no idea how much the Venerate knew, but they must at least have recognized that she’d had a role in orchestrating Asha’s current situation in the Tributary—and, therefore, was likely aware of its physical location.
Finding her would probably be just as useful to them as getting to Asha herself. Maybe even more important, given that she was the one who had caused them so many of their recent problems.
“The ‘Shadraehin,’” he said, pasting a puzzled look on his face and enunciating the word as if it were unfamiliar. “The leader of the Shadows in Ilin Illan? Why?”
“Our reasons are our own.”
Davian shook his head. “I would tell you if I knew anything,” he said, doing his best to sound bemused. “But I never had any interactions with him.” He brightened. “Though—I did hear that he’s an Augur. A prewar Augur. Does that help?”
Another silence, this one heavy.
“You should know that we have Read almost everyone in Ilin Illan over the past year, Davian,” said the weak-looking man after a while.
“Many of your friends have admirable mental shields, but some do not.”
“I find it hard to believe that they are more knowledgeable than you in this area.”
Davian shook his head. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said, though his heart sank. It made sense that the Venerate would have been making every effort to discover more information about Asha’s location, but their having managed to worm their way inside so many people’s heads in Ilin Illan was hardly encouraging.
The young girl sighed. “To begin with, we know the Shadraehin is a woman.”
Davian once again did his best to look surprised, though he was painfully aware that acting had never been a strength of his. “That’s not what I heard.”
The redheaded man frowned but before he could speak, several plates over to the left of the dais suddenly moved, steel sliding away smoothly with a crackle of blue energy.
The woman who walked through the new opening was short, her lean frame hugged by a deep-green dress. She paused as she took in Davian standing below, her dark-brown eyes hard.
Davian shivered inwardly, barely preventing himself from taking a half step back.
Diara.
He had met her only once, when she had accompanied Gassandrid to Tel’Tarthen. Like Gassandrid, she had never laid a finger on Davian… and yet every time she looked in his direction, he could feel her anger like a physical heat against his face. He was confident that both of the Venerate blamed him for turning Caeden against them, but Diara made no effort to hide her hatred.
He had always wondered whether she had somehow been responsible for Rethgar’s access to him, too—or at least responsible for not stopping him. One of the Venerate had to have known it was happening.
“Already?” The Gassandrid proxy closest to Diara had turned; the gaze of the other eleven remained focused on Davian, though their expressions were blank and their eyes dead.
Diara moved closer to the man who had spoken, lowering her voice to an inaudible murmur. Gassandrid listened and then scowled, an eerily similar expression abruptly reflected on all dozen of his faces.
The redheaded proxy turned to Davian. “Don’t move.” He gestured and suddenly steel plates were moving again, snapping together, rapidly walling off both of the Venerate from Davian. Within moments, only one of Gassandrid’s bodies—a young man with plain brown hair and a weedy physique—remained.
“Important conversation?” Davian asked casually.
The proxy didn’t react, simply staring at him emptily, motionless. Gassandrid must be concentrating on the conversation with Diara, but presumably he could still see if Davian tried to escape.
Davian steeled himself and then pushed through kan, careful to keep the residual pain of the act from his face.
The proxy didn’t move.
Davian kept his eyes on the man, but silently extended his senses toward the wall of steel. Gassandrid thought he was still incapacitated. The mechanism was complex, but it wasn’t designed to block kan from getting through…
“… answer is no. She asked for more time, but her intent is clear,” Diara was saying, irritation thick in her tone.
Davian breathed out. It was a trick he had learned a while ago; extending his senses this way didn’t use a visible amount of kan. He should be able to listen to the Venerate without their realizing.
“Disappointing.” He heard one of Gassandrid’s proxies sigh. “You gave her a deadline?”
“One week, and she knows what will happen when I return. I was tempted to do it straight away and be done, but better to prove true to our word—just in case future negotiation with her is necessary. She is no threat as she is,” Diara added absently.
“And if she contacts Tal’kamar?”
“I showed her who he is. What he did. Even if she had a way, I do not believe that she would, now.”
“A risk nonetheless.”
“Worth taking.” Diara’s voice lowered, her tone worried. “Alaris’s Trace is still bright, so he’s not dead, but… I cannot get a location from it. He won’t have shape-shifted, and I doubt that it’s because he’s gone through the Chamber. He hasn’t returned through the Gate you opened earlier, either, which makes two delays—he only has one opening left. It is not like him.” A pause. “Perhaps it’s time. This could be Tal’kamar making his move. With Alaris absent…”
Gassandrid said nothing, then exhaled.
“Agreed,” he growled. “Rethgar is already preparing. Let him know.”
After another second the crackling of energy indicated plates were moving again; Davian quickly released kan, keeping his expression smooth and forcing down the tiny spark of hope in his chest.
Perhaps Caeden was preparing to make good on his year-old promise?
The body that had been watching Davian finally shifted, relaxing as the other eleven came into view once again and regaining a semblance of normal posture. Davian mentally took note of the change. It appeared that, split though Gassandrid was, his proxies weren’t completely independent when his full focus was elsewhere.
“It seems that we must make this brief.” It was the young girl starting the conversation again; Davian wasn’t sure whether she was somehow easier for Gassandrid to use, or whether he realized that using her to speak unsettled Davian the most.
“You will soon be fetched.”
“Perhaps where you are going will provide you with the perspective I cannot.”
“Know that I had no desire to do this, Davian—but as is often the case, it seems we are left with no choice.” He gave a humorless smile at that last part.
Davian’s heart skipped a beat. “And where exactly am I going?”
The dozen Gassandrids held Davian’s gaze steadily.
“The deepest pit I know,” said the little girl heavily.
Black chains erupted from the floor, snaking around Davian and tightening before he could react; steel suddenly began sliding and shifting, blue energy crackling as a new wall snapped together in front of Davian’s eyes, hiding the dais from his sight and sealing Gassandrid away.
Within moments, he was alone.
Davian waited silently in the pulsing steel room, deep in thought.
As always, Gassandrid had somehow managed to take the horrors he and his people were committing and make them sound… legitimate. He hated that. Gassandrid’s arguments were so clinical, so reasoned out, that Davian could never quite see where the faults were—even though he knew that they had to be there.
He pondered for a bit longer and then shook his head irritably. There would be a time for thinking about these things further, but right now, he had to consider whether there was a way out. Wherever Gassandrid was intending to send him, it did not sound pleasant.
There was a sudden flash of blue followed by a grinding sound off to his left; he twisted to see one of the steel plates sliding away to reveal a lone, slim figure making her way hurriedly into the room.
“You,” said Davian, staring in blank confusion as he recognized Isaire.
The woman whom Rethgar had claimed to be dead glanced around, raising a finger to her lips. She knelt, placing her hand against the floor; several thin lines of blue crackled outward from her touch, racing across surrounding plates and vanishing into the walls. After a couple of seconds she nodded, breathing out and standing again.
“We have a minute. Maybe two,” she said quickly, her voice a whisper. “How did you kill Metaniel?”
Davian stared at her. “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you.”
Isaire shook her head. “If you have a way to overcome Telesthaesia—if you’re really that strong or that smart—then you’re worth the risk. But not otherwise.” There was an edge of desperation to her voice, and she looked him in the eye. “If you’re against the Venerate, you’ll tell me the truth. I’ve risked a lot to come here.”
Davian glared at her, heart pounding. The truth wasn’t going to help him this time. “Then we’re at an impasse.”
Isaire glowered. “And this was a waste of my time.” She spun and began heading back toward the opening in the wall.
“Wait.” Davian gritted his teeth. “They said you were dead.”
Isaire stuttered to a stop.
“Already?” she cursed. She turned back to him. “Who told you? What did they say? Exactly?”
Davian hesitated. “Two men, called Gellen and Rethgar. They said that they found your body an hour or so ago.”
“Fates. And this was such a suitable one,” Isaire muttered. “Is Gellen still here?”
Davian shook his head, bemused. “Gassandrid sent him to deal with the fallout from the fight.”
Isaire stared at him and then at the gap back out to the hallway, considering. Finally she sighed, evidently coming to some sort of decision.
She gestured, and suddenly Davian’s mouth felt as though it were filled with sand.
He coughed furiously but no sound came out, though thankfully he could still breathe. He stared at Isaire, wide-eyed.
That hadn’t been Essence she had just used.
“Sorry. This will take a few seconds, and I need you to be quiet,” she said in exasperation. She eyed him severely. “Killing you would probably cause more trouble than it’s worth. Probably. But if you breathe one word—one word—of what you’re about to see… it will only hurt us both. I’m on your side. Don’t forget that.” She studied him, expression serious. “I don’t know how you did what you did to Metaniel, but I hope for your sake that you’re able to survive where I suspect you’re going.”
Before Davian could react, the woman’s face began to writhe.
He restrained a gasp; he’d seen this before—had done this before—but when it was unexpected, it looked a hundred times worse. Skin warped and tore; bones cracked and grew. The woman’s hair lengthened, turned blonde.
It was over within seconds. As Davian gaped, she gave him a small smile, then spun and walked swiftly away.
Davian tried to call out, but the gag of kan still stifled his words; he tried to take a step forward but the black chains clanked, yanking him back against the wall. In moments, the woman had vanished.
Nethgalla.
It had to have been Nethgalla. He was even fairly certain that the woman she had transformed into was the same one he had seen in his vision.
That meant that his fight against Gassandrid, his opportunity to escape, might not be too far away.
What was she doing here, though? She was exactly whom the Venerate were searching for; surely her presence was far too great a risk. Was she working with Caeden? She hadn’t known who Davian was, which suggested not. Davian’s mind spun.
The sensation of grit filling his mouth abruptly vanished, and he breathed deeply, quietly testing his voice to himself. Whatever Nethgalla had done to gag him had worn off.
He chewed his lip, considering the implications; at least five more minutes passed before a different section of wall slid aside and Rethgar’s red-pocked, sallow form strode through—accompanied by another. One that moved with an unsettling, sinuous motion.
