Canticle

Chapter 20

Vlad Li Tam

Vlad Li Tam hung limp in the cutting rack and stared down at the empty tables. The days and nights were a blur to him now, and more and more, he found there were vast patches of blank white in his sense of things.

But for now, they were finished with his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren. They’d hauled the last of the bodies away at some point, and from that moment, Ria had simply continued her work without them. Even now, as he hung there, her hands moved lovingly over his naked flesh, her fingers tracing messages into his back that he could not cipher as her other hand worked the salted knife.

He’d screamed himself hoarse at first, but now he simply breathed and lay still, watching the drool puddle on the floor beneath him. He felt the hot bite of the blade moving over his left buttock, slow and in a widening spiral that then moved up and into the small of his back. Exhaling, he forced the pain into the cave he had dug for it deep inside of himself. He forced it there and then stood guard over it.

I will grow my pain into an army. He would feed it; he would water it; he would keep it in the dark and secret places where pain can grow fastest and strongest. He would-

Chimes sounded-these louder than the one that summoned him from his makeshift nest of blankets in the corner of his suite. He felt the blade lift and focused on the warm blood that trickled down his side to be caught in the gutters and fed into whatever twisted repository they used for their dark purposes.

In saner, clearer moments he’d pondered their use of it. He’d not studied the resurgences that had gone before, but he’d known one truth-none of them had brought back the Old Ways with such elaborate care and attention to detail. These were not men and women hidden in the forests offering their glossolalia to dead Wizard Kings and cutting themselves to mingle blood over a campfire.

These Y’Zirites were different. Something darker, more sinister, more compelling than any resurgence he’d ever heard tell of. From their elaborate rituals right down to the genuine love and affection Ria held in her voice when she spoke tenderly to him about the kin-healing she now performed.

“We are saving you with agony,” she had said once, “and your agony, in turn, will save us all.”

As if summoned by memory, he felt her breath close upon his ear and smelled the cool apple scent of her mouth. “They’re here, Vlad,” she said. Her voice was heavy with something akin to ecstasy. “Your grandson has brought them home to you.”

He could not prevent the sob; it shook him, and as it did, fire spread across his back as pain raced along the intricate network of carefully carved words and symbols she’d written into him with her knives.

I will grow my pain into an army.

But some part of him knew it wasn’t true. There would be no army. He would watch his family die one by one beneath these brutal blades, and then, when all were gone and all of the youngest had taken their marks and boarded their ship for gods knew where, he would take his own mark and offer his throat for one final cut.

And some other part of him begged for that day to come sooner rather than not.

He heard soft footfalls behind him, and Ria kissed his cheek before turning away. “Are they landing, then?”

“Yes, Lady.”

“Tell Mal that I would dine with him in my chambers once he has refreshed himself.”

“Shall I summon the Physician and prepare a batch for the tables?”

Vlad Li Tam felt the spasm and knew he’d sobbed again. He held his breath, fighting back the tears as he waited for her to speak.

“No,” she said. “I think we can give our honored guest time to meditate and prepare his heart for this last of our work together.” He heard the footfalls again, and once more she leaned over him. Now, she leaned before him and he forced his eyes away from the breasts that hung ripe and firm from within her open robe. He went to her eyes, but the love within those wide, brown windows confounded him and stirred something he could not let himself lay hold of.

I am growing to love her in some dark and poisonous way.

Of course, he’d heard of such things. He’d even used similar tactics with others, though it had grieved him. Pain was a powerful hallucinogen in the hands of a skilled manipulator.

He gritted his teeth and forced down his body’s unbidden response to the hand she laid upon his cheek. She brought her eyes close to his. “We are nearly finished here, Vlad. I wish that I could continue our work together, but I fear I will be called away soon to attend other matters.” She put her lips upon his and pressed her tongue against teeth he closed firmly against her. When she pulled back, she smiled. “But I have cherished our time together; healing your kinship with House Y’Zir has been the greatest honor I could know. at least until I see the Child of Promise with my own eyes.”

Vlad said nothing. Instead, he forced that part of him that ached for her also into that deep cave full of pain. It was not love, no matter how it felt or what he thought. It was something more fierce and terrifying than that and it also would grow his army very well.

He felt the hands upon him now. He felt them working the buckles and straps, lifting him again as they had so many times before. And he felt his eyes rolling and his tongue lolling about in his mouth, felt the deep and salted fire roiling over his body, over the thousand cuts that made and unmade him.

Tomorrow, he knew they would start again. Tomorrow, a fresh batch of his tribe would be laid out upon the altar of his heart to have poetry cut from them amid their cries for him to help, to save them from this darkest nightmare they had fallen somehow into.

I will grow my pain into an army, he thought, and I will take this island in my wrath. I will end you. You will burn beneath the fury of your very knives.

But even as he thought it, he heard the mocking laughter of a thousand dead and once more found himself weeping where there were no tears left to weep.

Neb

The farther east they raced, the hotter the days and nights became. Neb tried to mark his surroundings but found this new means of transportation wasn’t conducive to charting his present path.

Of course, he wasn’t confident that he would necessarily need to know his way back-despite this supposed authorization he enjoyed this side of the D’Anjite’s Bridge.

When Neb regained consciousness that first night, he’d opened his eyes upon a star-strewn night sky, the blue-green moon swollen and heavy as it prepared to sink beneath a purple ribbon of horizon. When his demands to be put down were not heeded, he squirmed and twisted, surprised that his best efforts did nothing to put the mechanical off its footing. Those first struggles were met with firm metal hands that forced stillness into him as he rode the swaying metal shoulders.

Finally, he’d settled into the ride, shifting himself to minimize the bruising where the hard steel pushed into his flesh.

When he didn’t drowse, he spent the time letting his mind wander across the vast landscape of questions that stretched out before his inner eye. Much had transpired in such a short time, and he still reeled from it. And the only words the mechoservitor had offered him had been the brief exchange that first day when he’d asked about Isaak and Renard.

“They are operational,” the mechoservitor answered. “The damage is minor but sufficient to prevent unauthorized travel.”

A thought had struck him then. “Couldn’t I have authorized them?”

Neb felt the hot steam against his side as it hissed out of the exhaust grate below him. The mechoservitor’s voice sounded reedy as its bellows worked. “Authorization may only be granted by sign and seal of the Office of the Holy See or by Papal Designee under Holy Unction of his Excellency, Introspect III.”

Beyond that, Neb’s questions remained unanswered as they lurched swiftly across rocky terrain. Still, he played them out behind his eyes and used what Franci meditations and ciphers he could to make sense of them.

Somehow, he’d been authorized to be here where the others had not been. Renard had run these Wastes his entire life, and the metal man had named Isaak “cousin”-odd that they would not be permitted to pass. Obviously, the chasm marked some boundary, for the mechanical had led them a merry chase for days-or was it weeks now? — until suddenly stopping at that point to draw its brutal line in the dirt of that place.

And both the mechanical and Renard had made the same assertion that Winters had made over a year ago now when she’d acknowledged him as the Homeseeker. It boggled him that anything Androfrancine would acknowledge the prophetic trappings of Marsher mysticism, though now he felt the call of that title even more so. It was as if even dreamless here, the hope and promise of Home twisted and writhed like a sleeping snake. Something in this wasted land summoned him.

And where have my dreams gone? He felt that pang of loss again. No, he thought. The dreams were but a vehicle. The real question, not so very far beneath the surface, made his stomach ache.

Where had Winters gone?

His last dream of her had been the night she camped beneath the spire, preparing to make her final ascent and declare herself to be something that she did not feel ready to become. He’d seen those questions and fears within her dreams and was certain she’d seen his own because of the way their sleep touched. And the dreams felt so very real. He could carry the smell of her with him for days from just a few moments near her in the middle of the night. He missed the comfort it gave him, and once more it raised the question: Why could he not dream in this place?

It neared sunset on the fourth day when they finally stopped running and the mechoservitor placed him upon his feet. They stood in a hollow bowl of stone. Set directly in the center of it was a round slab of dark metal bolted into the granite by a series of Rufello cipher locks. It was weather-pitted, but the stone around it had worn more than that ancient metal had. Around them, bathed in the scarlet light of the lowering sun, jagged glass mountains bent like bladed waves.

The familiarity of it struck him as he stretched and looked around. I’ve been here before. Of course, it wasn’t possible. But even the dry, powdered-bone smell of the place resonated with some deep-seated memory. “Where are we?” he finally asked.

But the metal man paid him no mind. Instead, it stretched out upon its stomach and placed its ear to the ground. Then, it surprised Neb by what it did next.

The metal man sighed, and it sounded like a sigh of contentment. “Here it is,” he whispered, and his voice made gooseflesh rise on Neb’s neck and arms. “Listen for it, Nebios.”

Neb looked around them again, then cocked his head toward the ground. Faintly, he heard the song. He moved a step closer-it was faint and tinny, and he realized that he didn’t so much hear it with his ears as he felt it. The slightest vibration of notes. It pulled him another step and he knelt.

It was a mournful sound, and it came from beneath the steel cap. “What is it? Why do I know this place?”

The metal man’s eye shutters flapped open. “This is the source of the dream.”

Dream. He remembered. When his father had visited his dreams he had seen the metal men all in robes at a dig. It was this place. They had discovered this place. “The source of the dream is a song?”

“The dream is ciphered into the song. The song is a conduit. Listen.”

Neb stretched out and pressed his ear to the cool metal. He could hear it, still far away, but he could make out each note. He recognized it and associated his recognition with a harp-only then the song had been played too fast and there had been fire and smoke and-

“Winters’s dream,” he said. “I know it from her dream.” And more than that: He knew this place from a dream as well. More vague images of metal men in robes digging.

Steam hissed from the mechoservitor’s exhaust grate. “It is ‘A Canticle for the Fallen Moon in B Minor’ by the Last Czar Frederico, from before the Age of the Wizard Kings.”

“Am I authorized to know this?” Neb thought he must be or the metal man would not freely offer the information.

“You are early,” the metal man said, “but you are authorized, Nebios Homeseeker. We found the source during the construction of Sanctorum Lux. We decrypted the locks and made a thorough study of the artifact. Under the Holy Unction of Papal Designee Hebda, it has been replaced and resealed for your arrival. Mark this place and know it well; the dream awaits you here. In the appointed time you will bear it to my cousin and you will both join us in the work.” He paused, his mouth flap moving and his eyes flashing. “The song compels a response.”

Neb’s mind spun, and he willed it not to. Papal Designee? His father had been an archaeological technician; he’d heard nothing about a designation from the Office of the Holy See. Of course, he’d seen his father infrequently. The man had spent most of his life in the Churning Wastes, making a point to visit Neb in the orphanage whenever he was back in Windwir between assignments. Was it possible that his father had served in some capacity Neb had been unaware of? It certainly seemed to be the case.

The metal man’s other words struck him. The song compels a response. He strained his ears to capture the melodic lines of the song. Yes, he thought. It does, but how could he know that?

He heard the clicking and clacking, the sounds of metal groaning, as the mechoservitor stood. “The moon rises,” the metal man said. “It is nearly time for your sleep cycle to commence, but our destination is nearby. Are you functional for running?”

Neb nodded, climbing to his feet. The song held him, compelled him to stay and to listen, to work its Whymer Maze of notes and find and offer whatever it called for. It summoned him, held him, would not release him. But he forced his attention away, shuddering at the force of that haunting music. He looked around again, noting his surroundings as best he could. Beside him, the metal man took those first long strides and broke into an easy run. Neb pulled a bit of the black root from his pouch and put it into his mouth.

Then he ran, too, away from that buried song that beckoned him. As he ran, the bitter juices from the root flooded his mouth, and his legs stretched as the air around him took on a buzzing quality. Behind him, the canticle called. He forced his eyes onto the metal man he followed.

At first, the song faded and he found his focus again, but it was short-lived.

When the moon rose, swollen and low as it filled the horizon, it cast a blue-green shine across the Churning Wastes. When its first light peeked over the jagged teeth of the eastern mountains, Neb thought the song, fading behind him, grew suddenly louder. It filled the night sky as if the moon itself sang them onward. The Old World had become, for him, an amphitheater filled with music as he and the metal man raced across its vast stage.

The sadness of the melody pulled tears from Neb’s eyes. The delight of it made him laugh out loud.

As the black root took hold and his legs caught him up to his metal companion, he realized that he was not alone in his response to the song.

The metal man ran laughing and weeping in complete abandon to the canticle beneath a pregnant moon that echoed and enhanced its strains.

Matching his stride to that of the Androfrancine machine, Nebios ben Hebda gave himself to the song and first felt its whispered call toward Home.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo paced his narrow cabin and waited for the longboat they’d sent to return with news.

The Kinshark finally lay at anchor after nearly a week of pursuit, magicked and nestled in a cove on the southern side of the island that the iron armada had eventually led them to. It lay south of the horn and well beyond the normal shipping routes, a day’s sailing into the haunted waters that were anathema to most New World sailors.

He’d seen the island from the deck earlier that day. It was large enough to boast craggy hills that stretched up from the jungle that blanketed it. And its white beaches were wide, inviting and deserted.

That is, until they reached the southern facing. There, they saw upper and lower docks with both iron and wooden vessels either tied off or anchored in the deep, natural harbor. Squatting above it, a massive building of white stone-built along a rocky ridge-reached up into the sky.

He’d watched silently at the rail as the ships they followed disembarked their cargo. He didn’t need to see his knuckles to know they were white from their grip as first the children and then the adults from House Li Tam shuffled down the gangways, tied to one another in a long string and herded by dark-robed men with short swords.

After, they had circled to the other side of the island and sent out their scouting party. Rudolfo sent his two Gypsy Scouts along with Rafe’s men and then gave himself to the arduous work of waiting. The scouts would assess what they were up against and bring back their report. After that came the decision as to what they actually could do. Rudolfo was skeptical-they were one wooden vessel against an iron fleet. Gods knew exactly what kind of military personnel augmented the small navy.

Perhaps, Rudolfo thought, they should have pushed on for Sanctorum Lux after all. At least that seemed a scenario with odds more in their favor. Certainly, Charles had advocated for that robustly for the first two days. But in the end, Rudolfo had told him-sharper than he wished to-that the hidden library would simply have to remain hidden a bit longer, until this present matter was addressed. The old Arch-Engineer had been sullen at first, but had gradually seen the wisdom in confirming just who now controlled Tam’s fleet of Androfrancine-designed vessels and what their plans might be for those iron ships and the people they carried away prisoner.

He heard a soft knock at his door and turned. “Yes?”

The door opened and Charles peeked in. “They’re back. We’re gathering in the galley.”

“Thank you, Charles. I will join you momentarily.”

With a nod, the old man pulled the door closed, and Rudolfo scooped up his green turban of office. He wound it about his head and fastened it in place with the clasp his mother had given him when he was a boy. Then, he tied his crimson sash around his hips and took up his scout knives.

When Rudolfo entered the galley he saw Rafe Merrique and Charles but no one else. Of course, fresh from the jungles, the scouts were still magicked. He could see the places where the chairs were pulled out and from time to time, a flagon lifted of its own accord.

He took a seat at the foot of the table, opposite Rafe. “What have we learned?”

Rafe’s first mate spoke first, and Rudolfo turned his head in the direction of the disembodied voice. The voice sounded heavy with something Rudolfo could not quite place. “The island is unoccupied save for the structure and the docks. They have a small garrison of soldiers-maybe a hundred strong judging from the size of the barracks. They’re well armed, bows and swords, but not particularly vigilant about keeping their watch. They appear to be mixed-some Marshers, some of Delta or Emerald Coast dialect. They spoke a unified subverbal that was unfamiliar to me.”

Rudolfo nodded, reaching for the carafe and sniffing the contents. Cherry wine was not one of his favorites, but it would suffice. He poured a glass. “How many ships?”

“Two schooners of a trim and line I do not recognize plus the ten Tam ships-all unmagicked at this point. The steel vessels are anchored and powered down. They patrol with the schooners-one pass per hour, more of a token watch, which suggests they do not expect visitors.”

Rafe nodded. “They’re far enough into the Ghosting Crests to keep most away.”

Rudolfo raised the glass to his lips and sipped the sweet, cool wine. “Gypsies, what saw you inside?”

Even his Gypsy Scout seemed restrained, subdued somehow. “It is accessible, General Rudolfo, from at least three unguarded points. Two windows and a door. We mapped a basement holding area and two floors above that. Third floor and anything beyond, we assume, is guarded more diligently.”

There was a pause, and Rudolfo did not need to see the man to know he felt uncomfortable with what he was about to share. “What else?” he said.

“There are pipes moving fluid from the upper floor-the domed structure-into some lower basement we were unable to reach. We think they’re cutting.”

Cutting. Rudolfo sucked in his breath at the word. “Why do you think they are cutting?”

The first mate spoke up now. “On account of the bodies, Lord.”

The Gypsy Scout continued. “They’ve been burying their dead in mass graves. Like Windwir. We estimate nearly a thousand, and the holding cells below are full to overflowing.”

Rudolfo stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “But where would they. ” He let the words trail off as the answer became apparent. House Li Tam was under the knife-their fleet forfeit. But he doubted very much it was the penitent torture of his own Physicians-those twisted Francines who looked to T’Erys Whym and his darker beliefs about human behavior. Blood magicks had returned to the Named Lands, and these were the old cuttings, the Old Ways. The path of Xhum Y’Zir and his seven sons. and the Wizard Kings that went before them.

His mind flitted back to the Firstborn Feast. It is all connected. Those men had been Marshers, and there were Marshers here. Blood-magicked men had swept the Tam ships to surrender just as they had killed Hanric and the others. Rudolfo would not be surprised at all to find that their blades were all iron, the wizard-bargainer’s steel.

He suddenly recalled something the first mate had said and moved his hands. Attend me, Scout.

There was a warm rustle of wind, and fingers pressed into Rudolfo’s forearm on the table. I am here, General.

He reached out, found a shoulder and put forward his question. The subverbal they used; you recognized it, yes?

Yes. A pause. Y’Zir.

Rudolfo nodded. Yes. A language used still by the Wandering Army of the Ninefold Forest and by the Marshfolk, both peoples once allied with Xhum Y’Zir. recipients of the New World for their servitude and friendship with that dark house. He dismissed the scout with a gesture.

Rafe Merrique looked to Rudolfo. “A resurgence is under way. It makes sense that it would with Windwir gone. The Androfrancines kept watch on those things.”

Rudolfo thought about the packet of papers now in Brother Charles’s care and looked over to the old man. Their eyes met, and the Arch-Engineer inclined his head ever so slightly. What if the resurgence had not simply sprung up in this fertile post-Androfrancine soil? The structure on the island was at least fifty years old, and while an Y’Zirite resurgence could have grown and blossomed here in the Ghosting Crests, outside the purview of the Order, such a thing seemed unlikely.

No, Rudolfo thought, the answer is darker yet.

An Y’Zirite resurgence somehow established enough of a foothold within the Named Lands to bring down Windwir. It bent Sethbert into the plot, using him and his paranoia to bring back a dead master’s last spell. How far could it run?

The details were not difficult for Rudolfo to cipher. They’d infiltrated the Order at some level. And certainly House Li Tam had been compromised along with the United City-States.

It staggered him, but he forced his mind back to the moment. The woman who could cure his son was in a holding cell beneath that white temple-if she hadn’t already gone beneath the knife. He could not bring himself to worry about anything but that. Rae Li Tam’s freedom and Jakob’s life had to be his primary concern.

And yet.

If this resurgence had manipulated the most powerful nation in the Named Lands into bringing down Windwir with such carefully orchestrated precision-using one of the Named Lands’ most powerful families to do so-and if they had also systematically and with ease led the assassinations that dark, winter’s night.? The possibility of it grew in his stomach, cold as a pit of ice. He looked to Rafe Merrique. “What do you propose?”

Rafe sighed. “I propose that we come back with a fleet and an army, bring them down, end this dark business they’ve begun.” He paused and ran a hand through his gray bristling hair. “But that doesn’t free your alchemist. We’re here now, and we have surprise on our side.”

Rudolfo thought for a moment. “They have numbers on us. And their iron vessels are lethal in close quarters.”

“If they can see us,” Rafe added.

Rudolfo nodded and looked to Charles. “Can you operate them? Can you teach others to do so?”

Charles nodded. “I could. But it would take time.”

He looked to Rafe Merrique again. “And could you get men aboard them?”

The first mate’s voice piped up. “They are lightly manned, more a watchman than any kind of opposing force.”

Rafe’s brow furrowed as he thought. “We could take half of them-any more would be unrealistic. But once the boilers are fired, there will be no element of surprise.”

“Then we wait until the last minute to fire them; but once we did, could you hold them?”

He thought for a moment. “It could be done but not easily. They have the schooners and blood magicks to contend with.”

Charles cleared his voice, and all eyes looked to him. “You have cannon powder?”

Rafe shrugged. “Some.”

The Arch-Engineer continued. “And there’s more upon the iron ships?”

Rudolfo nodded. “Yes, if they’ve not unloaded it for storage.”

The Gypsy Scout shimmered now at the table as the powders began to burn out. He leaned forward when he spoke. “They were taking on supplies earlier, not unloading them.”

Charles smiled, and it was grim in the dim-lit galley. “Then I can help you disable the schooners and any of the Tam vessels that will be left behind. I’ll need some time and a few other items.”

“I think we have our plan,” Rudolfo said in a low voice. It sounded more sinister than he intended it. “Rafe, you will see to the vessels. Disable any opposing force on the shore, make sure their ships cannot pursue.”

“That,” Merrique said, “is only half of a plan, Rudolfo.”

Rudolfo sighed. If Gregoric lived, that First Captain would have scowled now and tried to talk him out of the course so clearly laid out in his mind. Maybe it was because of his origins, a young orphan king faced with insurgency within his people, or maybe it was because of his father’s firm guidance and insistence upon what was right. He didn’t know for sure, but the end result was the same: He rarely doubted the right path to take in any given situation, and this was no different. He loathed Vlad Li Tam, had vowed to kill him, but he could not bring himself to leave the man’s family in the hands of these blood-bent cultists.

He looked up at Charles and Rafe. The sailors were shifting back into focus now, too, as the powders lifted. “I will take my Gypsy Scouts, and we will free those we can.”

Rafe choked on his beer. “Three men against a hundred? Are you mad, Rudolfo? Has grief and desperation for your son clouded your judgment?”

No, not him, the assassin had said back in the Great Hall on the night all of this had begun. And the Ninefold Forest Houses had not only survived Windwir’s fall but had benefited from it. There had to be a connection between this resurgence and his family’s dark heritage-but what?

“Perhaps,” Rudolfo said, “I am mad.” When he looked up and his eyes met Rafe’s he watched the man blink and look away at the ferocity of what he saw there. “Regardless, I am going to do what I can.”

And hope, he thought, that it will be enough to save my son.

As their voices lowered to tones reserved for careful strategy and well-timed movements, Rudolfo steeled himself for the work ahead and summoned up the gray face of his ailing son once more for assurance that this path before him was true.