Age of Empyre, page 24
part #6 of Legends of the First Empire Series
That maybe didn’t sound hopeful.
“We’re going to climb out,” Roan told him. “Aren’t we?” she asked the rest.
“Absolutely,” Gifford said. “Tesh? You don’t want to be eaten, do you?”
Tesh shook his head. “Wasn’t on my list this morning.”
“So you’ll try?”
“Why not? Later on, I’ll bake a cake in the shape of a castle, and we can eat it while riding on giant swans.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“You can come, too,” Roan told Iver.
The melted man only shook his head, then held up a wooden figurine. “I wanted to give you this.”
Roan took the carving. She stared down at it, and her free hand rose to her lips. “It’s my mother. It’s beautiful.”
“I never meant to kill her, and I—I always wanted to give her back to you. This is the best I can do. Not even certain how I did it. Never been able to do anything like it before, but after you left, after you kissed me—I could.”
Iver turned around and with dragging feet headed back into the dark.
Chapter Nineteen
Horizontal Star
The secret to Phyre is realizing that the things we think are real in life are fictions in death, and that which we label as intangible fabrications while we are beneath the sun, are everything when we are in the dark. — The Book of Brin
As if she sat upon a massive throne, Moya lounged in the crenel between two stone merlons, dangling her legs off the front of Mideon’s great curtain wall. Crenel, merlon, curtain wall—in her time spent in the Belgriclungreian fortress, Moya had added these architectural terms to her vocabulary, along with a dizzying array of dwarven rebukes and profanity. Jobbie and bawbag were easy enough to grasp after the first few times she heard them—and she heard them a lot. “You’re a wee scunner” was a bit harder, but she figured it meant to call a person a nuisance. For a long time, Moya had no idea what “awa’ an bile yer heid” meant. She liked the sound and hoped it was something truly terrible that she might add to her regular repertoire. After finally asking, she was disappointed to learn it only meant “get lost.” Moya found frequent use for it nonetheless, and it came with the added benefit of at least sounding terrible.
“Why are we here?” she asked Beatrice.
The Little Princess had insisted Moya accompany her to the battlements. But when they got there, they had done nothing but stare out at the Plain of Kilcorth.
“In a hurry to get back to my father’s hall, are you?” Beatrice stood before an adjacent crenel, peering out. At her height, she could rest her chin on the stone without bending.
Moya didn’t bother answering the jeer that masqueraded as a question. Instead, she rotated, bending her knees and placing them against one merlon while putting her back against the other. She sat at a dizzying elevation, but she held nothing but contempt for heights. Still guilt-ridden, Moya contemplated jumping into the Abyss. Compared with that drop, dangling her toes off Mideon’s wall was as frightening as swimming in a knee-deep pond. She’d have done it, if not for Tekchin, who continued to tether her. Although his injuries were extensive, Moya felt the Galantian had been slow in recovering from his wounds, and she suspected Beatrice. The Little Princess—Moya’s mocking title for her—appeared interested in Moya staying put. Why, she had no idea. After the battle, Moya refused to forgive Beatrice for her betrayal. No matter how much The Little Princess tried to explain, that’s how Moya saw it. She had known the tragedy that would occur and had done nothing to intervene. She hadn’t even warned them.
“You don’t like it here, do you, Moya?” Beatrice asked. The dwarf’s voice was soft and gentle, soothing in a way that Moya didn’t care for. It felt like a lie.
“Plenty of hard stone and hatred—what’s not to like?”
“Imagine it without the guilt. Would it be so bad here if you succeeded in your quest? If you returned to life, lived decades, and then died?”
“No chance of that.”
Beatrice hummed to herself. She did that frequently, and Moya realized she despised it just as much as everyone else. It was The Little Princess’s way of saying, Ha, ha! I know something you don’t, and I’m not going to tell you.
“But if it were true,” Beatrice pressed. “Would it be so bad? You and Tekchin here together?”
“No,” Moya replied. “If it was just me and Tekchin, if everyone else got out, and Persephone was able to win the war—wouldn’t be bad at all.”
“You need to remember that.”
“Why?”
Beatrice placed her little hands on the merlon, as if she were doing vertical push-ups. She lowered her head and sighed. “You have some rough times ahead. You’re going to feel . . .” She gave up leaning against the stone. Instead, she folded her arms and rested them on the crenel as if it were a windowsill, and she were laying her head down to sleep.
“What am I going to feel?”
“I don’t want to say you’re prone to self-loathing, but well, you are. It doesn’t take much for Moya to hate Moya. When that happens, you get ugly. You have a tendency to unintentionally hurt those around you. Then you hate yourself more, and matters spiral downward from there. Tekchin won’t care. He’s strong and understands more than you’ll ever give him credit for, but there will be others. People for whom your words and actions will have a lasting impact. She won’t be able to understand until it’s too late, and what a terrible tragedy that will be for both of you.”
“Who are we talking about?”
Beatrice smiled. “You haven’t met her yet, and won’t for several years—but she’ll be a lot like you, much to the dismay of you both.” She lifted her head and, resting her chin on folded arms, looked out at Nifrel. “You see, the world is about to change. It will be a very different place from what it was when you were born, which wasn’t all that different than when I was born. For so many generations, everything has stayed the same. But upheavals are coming. You and the others have started a landslide that won’t be stopped, and the landscape will change as a result. So much is on its way. Writing, industry and engineering, trade, exploration, inventions beyond your imagination, kingdoms and empyres.”
“What’s an empyre?”
“A huge realm made up of numerous kingdoms.” Beatrice frowned. “The upheaval that is necessary to give birth to it is difficult to explain. I’ve seen what’s to come and still have problems grasping it all. The world will become so very different. Yet at its core, everything will be the same. There is a continuous thread that has existed from the beginning—the invisible hand that moves the world forward and another one that opposes that order. We are part of that epic struggle. In the future, many people will refer to the conflict as Good versus Evil, and yet from my viewpoint, seeing it all laid out, I find it hard to decide which is which. That’s another problem with seeing the future, by the way. Everyone thinks it’s easy. You see something bad is going to happen, so the obvious solution is to stop it. But there are repercussions. Stopping one minor evil might create a greater one later on. You can see how that right there makes things tricky, but that’s not all. It’s not even the hardest part.”
“What is?”
“When you see the whole picture, the colors blend: good and bad, light and dark, up and down. They can flip depending on time and place. For example, right now you don’t like me very much. You hate being here, and you hold clear ideas of right and wrong, what you want and don’t want. But the next time I see you, you’ll be a different person with a better understanding of the world. The present Moya and the future Moya would heartily disagree over many things. And if that can happen to one person, imagine what it’s like to see that same shift through the eyes of millions and over thousands of years. Who’s right and who is wrong? It doesn’t merely depend on who you are, but when and where as well. Everything changes all the time—including yourself. Nothing can be trusted. It’s as much a guessing game as a skill, and the goal itself hides or changes faces, or flips altogether.”
Beatrice laughed bitterly. “And I’m only an observer in all this. Well, mostly—the ball was kicked to me so I kicked it back. But I’m not actually playing. I couldn’t handle it.” She shook her head in amazement. “That’s what it’s all about, though. That’s what each day is for—one more step that will bring the story closer to the end. We are merely observers. Still, each of us must play our part. We are only grains of sand, but without us, there is no beach, no place for the final stand. So in a very real sense, we are the footholds that future generations will rise up on to face one another and decide what is right and what is wrong, who wins and who loses, and what those prizes are.”
“You seem to be telling me a lot,” Moya said. “You’re not normally this chatty.”
Beatrice tilted her head to one side and smiled. “I envy you, Moya. What you’re a part of, what you’re about to see. You have a center seat at the great banquet.”
“Okay, now you’ve got me worried. Is something terrible about to happen to me?”
“No—something wonderful.” Beatrice pointed out through the crenel.
Moya caught movement beyond the wall. Out on the plain, she saw a light. It streaked like a falling star, only it wasn’t falling. The light sped from left to right. Only visible for a few seconds, the sight was phenomenal, moving Moya to tears. “Brin.”
Moya wiped her eyes long after the light had disappeared. “Thank you,” Moya told Beatrice. All of it finally made sense. The Little Princess had brought Moya up there to lessen her load. The trip wasn’t an utter failure. Brin would make it out. Maybe she’d learned something that could save Persephone and the army. The guilt wasn’t gone, but the load was lighter. “It helps knowing she’ll get out. Did she save Suri?”
Beatrice grinned at her.
“What? You told me everything else. You can’t tell me that?”
The dwarf remained silent.
“You’re a wee scunner, aren’t you? Why don’t you awa’ an bile yer heid, ya wee jobbie.”
Moya was certain she’d unloaded a vile blast of homegrown insults at The Little Princess, but Beatrice remained undeterred. She continued to grin, only she did more than that—she beamed. That smile was powerful and tight, the way a person acted when they were bursting to tell a secret.
Finally, she gave in. “You’re not done.”
Moya narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t get to stay here. You’re going back, Moya.”
“Going back? How’s that going to work?”
“Brin has the key,” Beatrice said.
Moya looked out at the dim landscape, which appeared all the darker after Brin’s passing. “I figured as much, but she’s also gone.”
“Have a little trust, Moya. I’ll give Rain his sword. You get Tekchin up. Tell him I said it’s time.”
“The two of you have been conspiring against me! I thought his recovery seemed too slow.”
“We couldn’t afford to take the chance that you’d do something stupid like jumping into the Abyss. They’re going to need you—so is the world.” Beatrice smiled. “No, Moya, you are not done yet. You have a long road of troubles ahead before you can return to me—before you can take your final rest. And you don’t have a lot of time. You’re in a race now. The queen saw Brin, just like we did. It will take her a little while to figure out exactly what that means. She’ll waste time making the same assumption you just did—that once again the key slipped through her grasp. She will fret, scream, and terrify everyone around. Then eventually two things will dawn on her.”
“What two things?”
“That a streak of light as bright as that one could never abandon loved ones so long as hope remains.”
“And the second?”
“That in this place, light is hope.”
Chapter Twenty
Unlocking the Key
In the years to come, my trip through Phyre may become so hazy that it feels like a dream. But I am sure it will never leave me completely. When I lie on my deathbed, I might feel doubt, but not dread, because such worries are born from the unknown, and I have seen what lies beyond. — The Book of Brin
Darkness, absolute and insoluble.
Floating, drifting, rising, Brin held on to the feather and felt like a bubble rising toward the surface where, like all bubbles, she would pop. Yet for a long indefinable moment, she lingered in that peaceful ascension, not at all certain she wanted to reach the surface. Weight, light, and sound waited impatiently. Pain wanted in.
I have to go back. But for the first time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. In that moment of indecision, her bubble bounced against the surface.
It’s just so nice to be without pain, fear, and the weight of the world on my shoulders.
“Brin?”
Did she really want to go back to that world of work and hunger? Return to the cold and the heat, the sadness and so much suffering?
“Brin!”
It was so nice seeing her parents again, playing with Darby.
“BRIN!”
The bubble burst.
A bright light hit her, then the sound of splashing water—and pain. She felt it in her chest, a burning married to a terrible weight that pressed down on every inch of her, a heaviness as if she were being crushed. Then convulsions racked her body, and she vomited from both her mouth and nose. All her muscles contracted as over and over she wretched and water gushed—a foul, dirty flood ejecting from her lips as her stomach drove its contents up her throat.
Air! I need air!
“That’s it—that’s it, cough it all up,” a woman said.
Another burst of water was driven from her, and then she could breathe. She managed to pull in an exquisite bouquet of air before it was cut off, this time by a series of violent coughs.
“It’s okay. You’re fine now.”
She didn’t feel fine. Opening her eyes hurt, but she didn’t have the strength to wipe them. Daylight and hazy figures were all she could see. A hand was on her back, a light reassuring pressure. Brin was on her knees, doubled over on something cold and bright—snow? Yes, snow. She could feel it crush under her. Grand Mother of All, was she cold!
Cold as death.
She’d had no idea how literal that phrase was.
Brin blinked enough times to vaguely see out of her left eye. Her right was still blurred. She was on the bank next to the pool.
Ice. The pool is frozen over.
She saw a hole in the middle, jagged pieces floating in black water.
“I need to get you back home, and get these wet clothes off. Are any others coming?”
“I . . .” That was all she could manage before her voice gave out. Her throat felt ragged and torn.
“Don’t try to talk yet.”
She shook her head.
Brin felt herself lifted by someone’s arms.
She let her head fall, let it rock. That felt good, her first nice feeling since returning to life. She fell asleep or passed out. Either way, as she slept, her body must have done the work of living again—heart beating; blood flowing; lungs drawing in air—for when she woke, she heard the crackle of a fire and felt its warmth. She was naked before a hearth, a blanket wrapped around her. She felt hands rubbing, scrubbing hard, shaking her whole body.
She whimpered because being moved hurt. Her head throbbed, and her limbs ached.
“You’re doing great,” the woman said as she dried Brin’s hair.
With eyes cleared of muck, Brin saw Muriel’s face. She was in the woman’s hut, which looked the same as before except the windows were wreathed in snow. Brilliant sunlight flooded the interior, shooting in at a sharp angle. Brin’s nostrils remained lined with slime, and just like after a cold, she guessed it would be days before she was entirely free of the rank smell. Still, through that stench, she smelled something savory, and hunger woke with a fierce, desperate pang, a craven yearning that started her mouth salivating.
How long has it been since I ate?
“Ready for some stew?” Muriel gently lowered Brin’s head and moved toward the little chopping table, carefully threading her way through the dangling strings of stones that hung from the ceiling. Muriel found a wooden bowl and returned to the hearth where Brin noticed a blackened pot simmering over neatly stacked coals licked by little flames.
Such a perfect blaze. My mother would be so impressed. Even Padera would have to admit that is one fine cooking fire.
Brin caught herself staring. Not at anything, just looking. She didn’t want to move, and that included her eyes. She wanted to let her mind roam untethered. She didn’t have the strength for anything else. Weak and heavy, her arms hung limp, her hands pooled in her lap, her bowed head making curtains of her hair.
My mother always brushed that aside. Drove her crazy. Did the same to Persephone and . . .
“How long was I gone?” Brin asked, her voice rough but working again.
“A few days,” Muriel replied.
“Only days? Are you certain?” Turning her head and lifting her chin, Brin looked once more at the brilliant snow-bounced light and the decorative frost wreathing the windows. “It felt like years.”
Muriel knelt down before the hearth, grabbed up a stick, and used it to hook the arm that held the pot. It swung out and away from the fire. “It’s the snow.” Muriel gestured at the windows with the stick. “Makes the whole world look different. It got cold right after you left. I kept the ice open for you, just in case.”
“Thank you.”
Muriel pulled a thick rag from a hook and used it to lift the pot lid. She stirred the contents a few times, then spooned two full ladles into the bowl. “Here,” she said, holding it out. “Careful. It’s hot.”
“Thank you, again.” Brin struggled to lift her arms, and she was surprised they still worked. She was able to take the bowl, which was warm to the touch. She brought it to her lips. Thick, with a clear broth and plenty of root vegetables, some sort of stew, she guessed, but she didn’t put much thought into it. Brin was starved and would have poured the whole bowl down her throat if it hadn’t been so hot.
