Canticle

Chapter 22

Rae Li Tam

Rae Li Tam sat in the corner of the crowded cell and listened to the voices through the pipe. It had taken them half of the day to figure out the water was drugged-and she should have known better. She could easily name a half dozen herbs or roots that could induce a similar state: nausea, dizziness, lethargy and disorientation. Still, they’d been debilitated for most of their time here. Now, she was clear-headed, and her mind spun strategy after strategy to find some solution to this cipher. She did not have long. At some point, they would have to go back to drinking the water if she did not solve it. And that meant House Li Tam would join the Androfrancines in desolation.

So she bent her will to the riddle. She set some to tracking guard shifts and others to listening at the pipes in their cells. She established sleep shifts and message routes.

Blood pipes. It turned her stomach and caught her breath in her throat. They were warm to her ear, but she had to listen.

Some of the more seasoned sons and daughters of House Li Tam had coded bits of information into the poems they composed to their father beneath the knife.

So Rae Li Tam sat and untangled the codes, inventoried what she learned, and worried over the children. The guards took them while they were all still too drugged to act, and she was afraid for them.

She heard a distant tapping underneath the screams, and she lifted her ear for a moment, cocking her head. No, it wasn’t in the pipes.

There. Letters. She followed the sound slowly as the message repeated, moving gradually to the bars.

Rae Li Tam, it said.

She reached the front of the cell and tapped her fingernail against the iron bar. Yes.

She felt the slightest breeze and started when a firm hand grabbed her wrist and soft fingers pressed a message into the skin of her forearm.

I am Rudolfo, Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses, husband of Jin Li Tam,

forty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam by strategic marriage

under the Overtures of kin-clave.

She crouched slowly, and Rudolfo’s grip loosened to let her. Why are you here?

There was a pause. We can discuss that at a later time. We have ships at the ready; we’re taking back your fleet, and my Gypsy Scouts are learning the maze before we run it. What can you tell me?

She blinked. Was this a trap? Some kind of trick? How do I know you’re truly Rudolfo?

You do not. Just be ready. Have your people organized. We do not intend to leave you to the knife.

Rae Li Tam looked around to her people. Mistrust at this juncture could not be allowed to interfere with her objective.

The children had to be saved, and she would not discard any opportunity. They are cutting faster now, she tapped. They fill the holding cell every two hours and move them through quickly. They’re making Father watch.

His fingers were still for a moment. They are readying the iron flagship for a voyage. I must see to my men. He gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and then his fingers moved again. Be ready; we will not leave you.

Her own reply surprised her given her mistrust. Listen to the pipes, she said, and I will pass what little I know to you. She could softly tap the information to him, trusting the magicks to augment his senses.

Likewise, he replied, but softly, so listen well. Then he dropped her hand and slipped away. She barely heard the whispering of his boots as he retreated.

Before they faded entirely, Rae Li Tam started the chain of messages that would keep her family ready. She set more ears to the pipes-they could not afford to miss whatever word the Gypsy King might send. If indeed it were Rudolfo. She could not know for sure, and even if it were, there was no guarantee that he could free them.

Still, she had to be ready.

Messages sent, she went back to the pipe to gather what knowledge she could. But more than that, she listened to build up hatred. Her grandfather had often told her, “Grow your pain into an army.”

She did this now, pulling down each cry of pain, each moan of anguish through the warm, flowing pipes. She felt herself building strength as she cataloged the coded bits of knowledge and tapped it into the pipe.

Closing her eyes, she watched her pain grow into a red light behind her eyelids and bent it into a conquering force that no enemy could stand against.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo followed his Gypsy Scouts into the room and closed the door softly behind them. The lock had been simple enough to pick, and Rae Li Tam’s messages, tapped through the pipes, had been correct-the guard passed the door every two to three minutes. His scouts had already inventoried the room, but he insisted they bring him back so he could see for himself. Once inside, he took stock.

It was a small armory with assorted blades and bows, shield racks and various scraps of soldiering. They weren’t a uniform army, that was for certain. These weapons were an odd collection from various nations in the Named Lands, though clean and ready for use. Certainly enough to guard drugged prisoners if Rae Li Tam’s assertions were true. But the weapons were not what caught his eye as he glanced around the room.

No, it was the small silver vials in their rack beside the door. He slipped over to it and withdrew one, unscrewing the lid to sniff the contents within. It was a strong, sour smell that made his eyes water and burned his nostrils. These were the blood magicks. They had to be. He stretched a hand behind him and tapped his thumb and fore-finger together three times.

A Gypsy Scout’s hand found his extended forearm. Yes, General?

You’ve each earned an estate in Glimmerglam for this work, his own fingers pressed. Now, live through the day to claim it.

Yes, General.

He thought for a moment, then pressed his orders into the waiting arm. Take these to Rae Li Tam. Tell her what they are and what they cost. She was an alchemist; she would understand, he realized, and select as few men as possible. Those who took the blood-magicks would pay with their lives for the strength and stealth it lent them. He continued his orders: Kill a guard, take his keys, and free them. Arm them if you can and wait for further orders, but hold your floor quietly. The children are your first priority; Lord Tam is your second. Hold for my orders or for when the ships go-whichever comes first.

Aye, General, the scout pressed into his arm.

Rudolfo thought for a moment, choosing his next words with care. Rae Li Tam is to be protected at all costs.

After the first scout acknowledged the order, Rudolfo tapped for the second scout and took his offered arm. Find the children. Tap their location into the pipes. When I’ve found Tam, I’ll do the same.

Rudolfo gave them time to get under way, then listened for the guard to pass outside. Once he’d strolled by, he let himself out of the room and relocked it. It was time to begin this night’s work, and he hoped last night’s hastily thought strategy would hold together. With the flagship preparing to leave, they could not afford to wait any longer. He would make his way from here to the kitchen and pack the bundle of soaked rags into the main oven. If Charles’s handiwork proved true, it would lend eerie light to the smoke that leaked from its chimney and tell Rafe Merrique that it was time to disable the ships and prepare to hold the docks.

Rudolfo crept into the hall and moved quickly to the next point where he could check the pipe. In the absence of new information, Rae Li Tam was tapping out the previous ones. Rudolfo interrupted her with the lightest tapping of his own fingernails, hoping the sound would carry to her amid the screams and the flowing blood. My man brings you a way out. Follow his instructions.

After her acknowledgment, he slipped down another shadowed hallway and approached the door to the kitchen. He’d memorized what maps they had, amending them internally with each new bit of information he gleaned from his men or from the pipe. He listened at the kitchen door and paused a moment to collect himself.

The scout magicks were already starting to chew on him. He felt the headache building behind his eyes and felt the restlessness in his stomach. It would only get worse, and that meant he needed to do as much as he could while his mind was still sharp and the discomfort was at its lowest level. His Gypsy Scouts could stay under the powders for days at a time-weeks even, if absolutely necessary. But the few times he’d used them over the years, his body had paid steeply each time for days following.

Rudolfo heard nothing behind the door and opened it. The kitchen was dimly lit by an open stove with its banked fire. He went swiftly to it and pulled the wad of rags from his pocket. Taking up an iron fire poker, he stirred the coals to life and tossed the rag bundle onto it. Then, he closed the stove and moved back into the hallway.

Rudolfo picked his way slowly across the second floor, positioning himself near the guard station that stood between him and the third floor. His scouts had logged at least two men at this post during their forays into the various points within the building, and neither had slipped past this station yet-Rudolfo would be the first. But after watching for a full ten minutes he did not see how he could do it without resorting to violence, and magicked or not, two-to-one odds were not favorable. Neither was losing the element of surprise sooner than necessary.

Rudolfo moved through the corridors and found a door leading to a suite of guest rooms. He could not imagine guests attending the dark rites that took place here, but he picked the lock and found himself in a lavishly decorated room.

He scanned his memory for his recollection of this side of the structure. There were balconies here, and if the distance was close enough, he should be able to climb to the third floor. Rudolfo moved across the thick-carpeted room and opened the door that led to the bedchambers. On the far wall, a narrow glass door offered him a view of the harbor. Somewhere out there, beneath a veil of clouds, Rafe Merrique and his men set about securing the vessels and disabling the schooners.

Rudolfo opened the door and felt the warm night wind move over him. Stepping onto the balcony, he pulled the door closed behind him and looked up. The balconies were offset with one another, floor by floor, and he’d not consider a climb like that without the enhanced senses and strength he received from the powders. If only he could keep the damnable headache from consuming him.

He pulled himself up onto the rail, his hand steadying himself against the outer wall of the building. Trying not to look down, he balanced himself and once more measured the distance between him and the balcony above. Fixing his eye on the handhold ahead, Rudolfo forced himself to the climb, giving himself to the magicks that enhanced his strength and agility and trying not to look beneath him while he imagined the wall to be an old-growth pine from his childhood in the forest. Sweat beaded upon his forehead as he slowly made his way up, his feet and hands finding purchase as he went.

When he finally pulled himself over the edge of the balcony, he was winded but careful to let his breath out through his nose. He huddled in the corner and waited for the spike in his head to stop twisting.

As he waited, he heard voices and cocked his head. The door to the balcony above was slightly ajar, and he heard the sounds of muted conversation drifting out into the night air along with curtains that caught on the breeze like flags.

He’d thought to scout the third floor and see if he could find another way past the guards-but he strained his ear upward, catching the low voices, and curiosity got the better of him. Whatever happened here, he had no doubt it was connected somehow to the Desolation of Windwir and to the attack upon his Firstborn Feast. Blood magicks had returned to the New World when Windwir fell, and it could be no coincidence that one of the Named Lands’ most powerful families was now under the knife. This structure was made for bloodletting, from its viewing balcony to the cutting floor, through the system of pipes down into the distillery he knew must be buried in the deeper basements.

Rudolfo had certainly read the stories as a child. He was familiar with the bargaining pools and their access to the dark spirits of the Beneath Places, where blood and anguish could purchase favors and power. His own Tormentor’s Row, now closed these eight months, followed a similar design to those Blood Temples of old but only retained the notion of redemptive cutting, having no use for the blood that was spilled in the pursuit of that atonement.

This resurgence was a threat to the Named Lands that had to be stopped. That meant availing himself of anything he could learn while freeing House Li Tam. It even meant saving Vlad Li Tam if he was still alive, forced to watch as his family went beneath the salted blades. Quietly, he rose to his feet and moved to the far railing of the balcony. As he drew closer, the words became slightly clearer, though still not clear enough for him to hear. It was a man and a woman talking in low tones.

He climbed onto the railing and found his handholds, holding his breath and willing silence into his every movement. He was too old for this, he realized, and had not climbed since the days of his youth. Heights were not the friend they’d once been to him as a younger man.

Still, he forced his way upward and found himself crouching in the corner of the balcony.

They had the sound of lovers about them. Their tone spoke of it, and Rudolfo suspected they lay in bed together in postcoital embrace, tangled in the sheets and one another. The mumbled words were clear now.

“Things moved faster than we planned for on the Delta,” the man said. “Erlund was in a hurry to have done with the matter. Our man there tells us the Last Son will be at Windwir ahead of schedule. We need to conclude our work here and move on.”

“Then I will dispatch Vlad before I sail,” the girl said. There was a bit of sadness in her voice that bordered on the edge of love. “I think our guest is as ready as he’ll ever be. And we were never promised more than forty years.”

“It is sufficient.” Rudolfo heard the bed creak, heard soft footfalls. “I should see to the children,” he said. “We need to start loading them.”

Rudolfo crept closer to the door, peeking into the room. A candle guttered, and in its dim light, he saw a nude woman on the bed. She was twenty perhaps, long-limbed with brown hair that cascaded down over her breasts. She stretched again, and Rudolfo admired the line of her briefly. Flitting in and out of his view, a lithe man with long red hair moved about picking up articles of clothing. “I should see to Vlad, then,” she said, sitting up. “Do you want to speak with him before I finish?”

The young man chuckled. “I don’t see what I could gain from that. And he’ll have had plenty of anguish by then.”

“He’s your grandfather, regardless of what else he’s done.”

“He was a Whymer lap-whore.” Rudolfo heard bitterness creep into the man’s voice and shifted his position to get a better look. The young man looked vaguely familiar, but he could not place him. Still, the red hair and finely chiseled features bore the look of a Tam.

But the girl looked familiar, too. She looked at the man now, and Rudolfo saw love upon her face. “Mal,” she said, “even the Whymers served House Y’Zir in the end. All things do, whether or not they know it. Are you certain you don’t want to speak with him before I finish?”

When he looked to her, his eyes were hard. “I’m certain, Ria. You need not ask again. Nor will I speak with any of them. They are no longer my kin.” He thought for a moment. “Still, they need not suffer beyond what is necessary.”

He’d dressed now and slipped his sandals on near the door. The girl, Ria, stood, and Rudolfo was struck by the wild, coltish beauty of her.

“We’ll dispatch them quickly once we’re certain we have what we need.” She walked to Mal and folded her arms around him before kissing him. “Safe travels, love,” she said, “that bring you home to me soon.”

He returned the kiss. “I will be home when I can. We’ve not sailed these waters before. Be careful,” he told her. “We’re close now.”

“Care or not,” she said, her voice muffled in his neck, “the Crimson Empress will establish her throne and make all things right by her grace.”

They disentangled and then the man left. Rudolfo watched as she moved across the room, light on her toes and humming an unfamiliar song. She went to a vanity in the corner and studied herself in the mirror for a moment before sitting down to dip her fingers into the various jars that lay open there.

Rudolfo continued to watch, realizing with each passing minute that he needed to exit this room and continue his work. But the girl held him hostage. As her fingers moved over her skin, he found himself transfixed as she first painted lines of color into her face and neck and forearms-shades of gray and deep green and brown.

A Marsher then, he realized. Though the lines were more carefully drawn and the colors more intentionally blended. And when she moved just so before the mirror, he could see the pink lines of the scar upon her heart like a seal. It was just off center and marring the side of her left breast.

“Dear Vlad,” she said, looking into the mirror and applying a paint to her lips that was the color of pooled blood. “Tonight your kin is finally healed, and soon that healing will save us all.”

Rudolfo waited as she pulled a thin robe over her naked form and watched her move to the door. After she’d slipped through it, he counted to five before following her out of the room.

Then, he moved quickly down the corridor to catch up with her, hoping for shadows to hide him as he ghosted along behind. Stretching out a hand, he lay his fingers along a blood pipe as he went and felt the warm pulse of language in it. The others were ready, Rae Li Tam tapped, and their enemy had not been alerted as yet. The children were located, and House Li Tam lay in wait, armed with what could be found easily. A few choice taps of his fingernail and Rudolfo gave the word for them to execute their orders.

Now the sound of the screams grew in his ears as they approached a wide stairwell that ended at a dark pair of ornately carved doors. They swung open at a whistle from the girl, and Rudolfo picked up his pace to slip into the observation deck behind her.

What he saw there nearly took his wind despite hours spent sipping wine while his own Physicians of Penitent Torture did their redemptive work.

Rudolfo stifled a roar and loosened the scout knives within their sheaths.

Vlad Li Tam

He could not remember the last time he’d slept or how long he’d been strapped into the viewing rack. He dimly remembered Ria leaving him in the care of a dark-robed blood-letter who continued her cuttings with more confidence than compassion, and he remembered longing for her hands and blade upon him, moving slowly and with love over-

No. This is not love, he told himself. It is a peculiar fixation that develops between captive and captor-a product of desperation and twisted hope. But it was a tempting fantasy to fall into.

I will grow my pain into an army.

But now, Vlad Li Tam knew there was no army coming from his pain. They’d run his children and grandchildren past him now in a seemingly endless stream, no longer taking their time with the knives but moving with machinelike precision.

He felt a soft hand on his shoulder, and his breath caught in his throat. “I’m back, Vlad,” Ria whispered.

He said nothing but twisted in the rack enough to see her feet and the beginnings of her calves peeking out from beneath the thin robes she wore.

He heard her fingers moving over the collection of knives as she selected one. “This will be our last night together,” she told him in a low, husky voice. “Tonight, all of this pain and suffering ends for you, and your kinship with House Y’Zir will be healed. Are you ready to take the mark of your last master upon you?”

He tried to speak and found his words garbled. But he knew what he meant to say, gods help him, and he knew it was the answer she hoped it would be. Yes. Anything. Just stop. Spare what little remains of my family and have your way with me.

But nothing so intelligible came out of him.

Then muffled explosions reached his ear, followed by the shrill whistle of Third Alarm. He twisted himself to watch her drop the knife and look up quickly, her eyes narrow. She jerked suddenly and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. A low and magicked voice whispered hoarsely, and Vlad Li Tam knew it but could not place it.

“Unbind him,” the voice said. “This dark work is ended tonight.”

Kill her, he willed the invisible intruder. Do not speak, do not request, simply slide the blade into her kidney and twist it hard. But at the same time he willed it, he willed that she escape, that she might lay her hand upon him again and gently teach him love and kinship beneath the blade.

Vlad Li Tam watched her struggle against her captor and saw a dot of blood well up on her dark-painted neck. “Unbind him now or I add your blood to rest you’ve spilled in this place.”

Below them, they heard the noise of fighting. The assailant let his hand off of her mouth. “Release him,” she told the guards.

Vlad Li Tam felt the table spinning upright and felt hands at the straps and buckles. When he fell from the rack, he landed heavily upon the marble floor with a gasp.

The voice spoke again. “Can you stand, Tam?”

And suddenly he knew that voice but could not believe his ears. He found the name and croaked it. “Rudolfo?”

The girl gasped her surprise. “Rudolfo, Shepherd of the Light? Father of Jakob, the Child of Promise?”

“I am Rudolfo, yes,” Rudolfo said in a low and bitter voice.

She raised her voice to the others. “Do not harm him. We know the cost of that.”

Vlad Li Tam gathered his strength on the floor and pushed against it with shaking arms. He raised himself somewhat, then slipped and fell facefirst into his own blood. He pushed with his feet and hands, groaning, until he crawled from the sticky mess at the foot of the rack.

“What cost?” he heard Rudolfo ask.

But the girl did not answer. “What does he look like?” she asked instead. “The Child of Promise? Is he pink? Does he glow with life and health? With his mother’s blue eyes and his father’s dark hair? Does he laugh? Or is he gray and mottled, gasping like a fish on the bank for his very life?”

Vlad Li Tam heard the growl in Rudolfo’s voice. “What do you know of my son, Marsh girl?”

She laughed, and it was music. “You came looking for his salvation, but there is none to be found upon the path you have chosen.”

Now Rudolfo ignored her. “Can you stand?” he again asked.

Vlad Li Tam gathered his strength again and pushed himself up, turning so he could sit. The girl stood awkwardly bent backwards, her robe now open as Rudolfo held her from behind. The guards stood near with hands upon their knives, eyes moving from the girl to Vlad Li Tam to the closed doors and the sounds of fighting outside.

Struggling to push himself up, he lost his footing again and slid down, his body shaking from the effort.

Then, the doors burst open and a tornado of violence swept into the observation deck.

He felt hands upon him and heard a voice whispering in his ear. “I will carry you, Father.”

He was lifted up then, cradled like a child in strong, sure arms, and he found himself suddenly weeping. The spasms of grief and relief washed over him and racked his body with great sobs as he clung to the neck of a son he could no longer recognize. Once, before this place, he’d known his children by their voice, their smell, the sound of their approach. But now all he smelled was blood and all he heard were the last poems of his fallen family ringing in his ears.

He became vaguely aware of the fighting around them, aware that Rudolfo stayed near him, holding the girl as a shield and clacking his tongue against the top of his mouth. And then they were fighting their way down the stairs and into the corridor he’d measured so carefully during his early days within this place. He heard the whisper and rasp of blades spinning around him.

Twice his son fell, spilling Vlad onto the ground but covering him with his own body as he did. Each time, the man hefted Vlad up into his arms, finally slinging him over his shoulder like a bag of oranges so that he could better keep his feet with a blade in his left hand.

They fought their way to the ground floor and burst outside into the warm night. The iron vessels were building steam, and one of the schooners was sinking in the harbor. The second wooden ship smoked but still floated, and a band of unmagicked men fought at its gangway on the dock. Vlad could not see the flagship but thought he heard the barking of its cannon.

A wave of invisible force met them on the path down to the dock. These soldiers had been waiting and had had the time to prepare themselves. Vlad felt the power of it, heard the muffled sounds of attack but saw nothing. Still, he rocked backward when that wall hit the son who carried him and toppled them to the ground. He felt a white searing pain as the sea-salted sand ground its way into his open cuts, and he cried out even though he did not want to.

Invisible boots kicked at him and his son, and he heard the crunch of bones breaking nearby.

Then he heard a cry as more of his children fell upon the assailant and drove him down beneath their blades.

Strong hands scooped him up as another son spoke. “I will carry you, Father.”

Pressing forward, they reached the bottom of the stairs. The docks stretched out ahead, dust and sand whirling at the magicked soldiers that fought there.

Another solid push back, and Vlad Li Tam once more fell to the ground. This time, even Rudolfo and the girl he held hostage were knocked down. Vlad couldn’t see what happened next, but he heard Rudolfo’s heavy gasp as the wind left him. Around them, boots and bare feet vied for solid footing as House Li Tam’s front guard fought its way through the resurgence’s soldiers.

“Get up, old man,” Rudolfo whispered in his ear, breathing heavy from exertion. “I can’t carry you and hold this feral cat at the same time.”

Vlad Li Tam rolled to his hands and knees and tried to push himself up. More strong hands lifted him, and he saw these were unmagicked hands. The rear guard-armed with what weapons they could find-now raced along behind them, followed by the young children in white robes still bloodstained from the mark they’d been forced to take.

A low whistle reached his ears. Then, he heard Rudolfo return it. He felt another wind approach on his left and heard the familiar clacking of a scout on the run.

Vlad Li Tam closed his eyes for a moment, suddenly aware of the fear that saturated him. But not fear for himself; fear for his family. Already, so many had died, and the notion that more died now broke what few unbroken pieces of him remained.

He did not see the flash from the flagship, though he heard the blast. Then, a whistling that built until the world erupted into heat and light that forced him to the ground. From where he fell, he saw that the cannon blast had landed in the midst of the rear guard, desolating more than a third of it. The children cowered.

“Stop,” a voice boomed out, enhanced by magicks, and he knew that voice. It was his grandson, Mal Li Tam. “I don’t mind killing the children, though I prefer not to. Release the woman.”

Rudolfo hesitated. “Do it,” Vlad Li Tam said, his voice more pleading than he intended it to be. “I’ll not risk my family further.”

The girl fell forward, then picked herself up, closing her robe. She turned to Vlad and smiled.

Mal Li Tam’s voice called out to them again. “Have your pirate stand down, Rudolfo, and clear the mouth. Ria, bring Vlad Li Tam to his flagship. It seems our plans have changed.”

Vlad looked to her, still surprised at the reasoned tone of his own voice. “If I come with you, will you leave the others in peace?”

She nodded. “Yes, Vlad,” she said. “You have purchased propitiation for your family’s sins.” Her smile widened, and he saw love shining in her eyes. “I will give you the mark of Home and send you to your rest, your blood let and your kin healed.”

She reached out her hand to him, and he knew then that taking it was the most important thing he could do. “I will even carry you if you need it,” she told him.

“I will walk to it,” he said. I will grow my pain into an army.

He forced himself to unsteady feet and trembled at the effort of it. Then, he forced first one foot and then another as his family watched him walk. Ria walked beside him, and when they reached the gangway to the flagship, she waited until he climbed it. Then, she followed.

Mal Li Tam waited for him at the top, standing within view of his cannoneers. Vlad walked to him. “You will keep your word, Mal? You will spare the others in exchange for me?”

Mal inclined his head. “I will, Grandfather.”

“Walk me to the railing then, that I might share my last words with them.”

Mal Li Tam’s eyebrows furrowed. “You will have to be quick. We’re leaving.”

I will grow my pain into an army.

Vlad took the young man’s offered arm and walked slowly to the bow of the flagship. He looked out over his sons and daughters and grandchildren, and his eyes found Rae Li Tam’s. “You will be the Lady Tam,” he told her.

And then, using every bit of strength, he threw his arms around his First Grandson and toppled them over the railing. He felt the solid thud as some part of his adversary struck the dock on the way down, and then they were plunged into the warm harbor. The pain of the salt in his wounds built a scream in lungs he dared not empty of air as he clung to his grandson. His hands wandered over the thrashing form he held in search of Mal’s windpipe. He entwined the younger man with his legs, now riding his back and strangling him as they sank.

He let the sea burn his flayed skin, and the burning built his pain. He grew that pain into an army and bent that army toward the destruction of one man.

And suddenly, Vlad Li Tam was not alone beneath the water. A radiant blue-green light engulfed him, shimmering around him in the water, and his ears were suddenly filled with song. The stark power and beauty of it overwhelmed him, and even clutching at his grandson’s throat he felt the urge to weep and cry out. Then suddenly, the light was gone and hands were reaching for him, pulling him back toward the surface. Hands that he could not see.

He resisted, twisting away and retaining his hold on Mal Li Tam with one arm while the other hand groped his loose clothing. Mal Li Tam struggled and kicked in a sudden resurgence of energy.

It must be here.

The hands were back again just as his fingers slipped over the cover of the book, tucked in a hidden pocket. He shook them off one more time, finally expelling the air in his lungs to force him down. Fumbling, he found the slender volume and drew it out just as the invisible hands, one last time, grabbed at him and pulled him toward the surface.

Mal Li Tam thrashed away into the deeper waters, gradually fading from view as Vlad neared the surface.

“Stop fighting me, Father,” Rae Li Tam whispered. He heard sadness in her voice but did not comprehend it. And when had she magicked herself?

“I will,” he said. Behind them, his flagship steamed for the mouth of the harbor under Ria’s control. Five of his iron vessels and the two schooners were awash and rolling listlessly as they burned and sank. On the docks, his family waited as the remaining vessels approached.

Clutching that slender volume of his father’s to his chest, Vlad Li Tam gave himself over to his daughter’s strong hands.

Neb

As the sun rose with terrifying glory, painting the landscape the color of blood, Neb stood upon the last rise with the metal man and gazed down into the bent and scattered bones of a city.

“We have arrived,” the mechoservitor said.

Neb studied the silent, unmoving landscape. “What city was this?”

“Port Charis-it is the birthplace of P’Andro Whym.”

Neb nodded. The exhilaration of the song still pulsed in his temples as he stretched from their long run.

“My brothers will be glad to meet you, Nebios Homeseeker. We have all seen your advent in the dream.” The metal man started out at an easy gait, strolling down the rise and into the ruins. Neb followed.

They walked deep into the city until they reached the base of an enormous tower with a dome that had collapsed into itself. Set into the base of the tower was a massive set of double doors set with a dozen Rufello ciphers. Neb watched the metal man’s fingers move over the locks with fast precision, and he tried to capture the string of numbers and symbols that clicked the locks open and caused the door to swing inward.

The metal man took a step into the wide, inviting room and then stopped. Its shoulders chugged and its metal body shook violently. Its eyes opened and closed. The mechoservitor looked to Neb. “I fear I am not functioning properly.”

Then, the mouth flap opened and closed and the shudders became more violent. Suddenly, the voice blasted out, high and reedy, in the dark and empty space. “My name is Charles,” the metal man said. “I am the Arch-Engineer of Mechanical Science for the Androfrancine Order in Windwir. I bear an urgent message for the Hidden Pope, Petronus. The Library is fallen by treachery. Sanctorum Lux must be protected.”

It stopped, then looked up to Neb. “My operating scrolls have been significantly altered between Father Charles and his apprentice.”

“That is the message you gave at the Keeper’s Gate.”

“It is the message Father Charles etched into me during my time of captivity on the Delta.”

Father Charles? Neb knew that name very well. He was the man who’d brought the mechoservitors back from the obscurity of the past, working with what little remained of Rufello’s Book of Specifications to rebuild the mechanical wonders. “Charles survived Windwir?”

“He altered my operating and memory scrolls under the belief that Pope Petronus still lived. Before him, his apprentice decommissioned my obedience to the dream. The integration of new orders has created a logic conflict in my scripting. Sanctorum Lux must not be protected. It must surely be destroyed in its proper time to save the light, to keep it from those who would bend it toward darkness. The dream is clear on this matter.”

Neb felt an uneasiness growing within him and looked into the dark opening. He heard nothing, smelled nothing, and forced himself to take a step inside. “I don’t see anything.”

The mechoservitor walked into the room’s far wall, and in the dim glow of its amber eyes, Neb watched it opening a panel. “The lights are not functioning.”

Neb slipped outside to fashion a makeshift torch. When he returned, the mechoservitor had vanished. A small door in the far wall stood open, and he entered it, suddenly swept with vertigo when he realized it opened upon a vast open space that descended down beneath him on a narrow metal staircase. Somewhere below, he heard the sound of metal on metal as the mechoservitor descended.

The smell in this place was unmistakable. The smell of smoke and ash and burnt paper. Neb felt a knot growing in his stomach.

Sanctorum Lux must not be protected.

When he reached the bottom, the mechoservitor waited for him. “I was mistaken,” the metal man said. “You are not early after all, Nebios Homeseeker.”

At the bottom of the stairs, a vast underground room stretched out beyond the guttering light from his torch. The reek of old smoke filled the room, and Neb knew that this was merely the first of many rooms. Just as surely, he also knew that each of them would be the same: an urn that held the ashes of the light.

He sat heavily on the soot-covered stone floor and let the weight of it settle down upon him. Was it possible that somehow, the same hidden enemy that had brought down Windwir had brought down this place, too? No, he realized. The mechoservitor’s cryptic words still played out behind his eyes. “Then it was here? The library was here?”

“League upon league of it,” the metal man said. “Reproduced and guarded by my brothers and me.”

Neb sucked in his breath, then slowly exhaled. He felt something squeezing his heart. The weight of it hurt his head and brought back images of fire falling from the sky, a column of dark smoke blotting out the sun. “Destroyed at the bidding of a dream?”

The mechoservitor didn’t answer the question at first. Instead, it went to the center of the room and sat down heavily. When it spoke, its thin and reedy voice was racked with sorrow. “Sacrificed for the dream,” it said, “even as I have now become.”

Neb’s eyes narrowed. “How have you been sacrificed?”

The grief in the voice was unbearable to hear. “I will not participate in the Great Response. My absence and the alterations in my scripts exclude me.” It looked up at Neb, and its jeweled eyes leaked rusty tears. “I do not grieve for myself, Nebios Homeseeker, for it is my joy to give the dream back to itself. And I do not grieve that my brothers have left me behind; I would have done the same. The response must be made. I grieve that so much of the light was lost before we heard the dream. Before it taught us that Sanctorum Lux is far more than the books and scrolls of the past age, a far higher calling than what our creators intended us for.”

The cryptic words settled in, and Neb sorted them as best he could. “Where have the others gone, then?”

“They have followed the dream onward. You will follow it, too, in your path toward Home.” The mechoservitor opened up its chest cavity and reached long, metal fingers inside. “In my memory scrolls you will find a complete inventory of all my brothers destroyed here.”

Then, the metal man began pulling out metal scrolls and tangled wires from inside, tugging at them as if they were the stubborn weeds of a garden. As it pulled, its lights flashed and dimmed, and its mouth flap opened and closed.

Neb took a step toward it, thinking he had to do something, had to somehow prevent what was taking place in front of his eyes. “How do I follow the dream?”

The mechoservitor, sitting in the ashes of the burned-out library, looked up. “The last cipher is the first day of the Homeseeker’s Advent. You will know the rest within the song.”

Still, those hands plucked at the wires and scrolls until they spilled out around the metal man. Neb suddenly found himself weeping at the sight of it but did not understand why.

The metal man tipped onto its side, its hands slowing as they pulled at its innards. The bellows chugged slowly now, as well, and its eyes were specks of light buried deep in the glassy jewels. A slight sound escaped the mouth flap, and Neb leaned closer to hear it. The sound built as the metal man gave it the last wind of his artificial lungs.

The canticle was unmistakable, and when it was released into the vast tomb of burnt books, it whispered and echoed with a life of its own. Then, with one last wrenching tug, the metal man yanked out one final scroll and pushed it toward Neb.

As its fine copper wires detached, the music died.

Neb looked upon the suicided mechoservitor as the last of the song echoed through the room and felt something twist and snap into place within him-a Rufello lock on his soul that opened him to something he’d not seen within himself. The last cipher is the first day of the Homeseeker’s Advent.

He had come here seeking Sanctorum Lux and had found something different to search for. And he knew he could scour the burned-out remains of this Great Library, but Neb would save that work for others. They would find nothing here.

Instead, he would return to the locked well and place his ear to it. He would listen for the ciphers in the song and find the source of the dream.

It requires a response.

Somewhere, metal hands fashioned this so-called response, and Neb knew he was called to follow them. It was as if nothing else mattered. As if everything that could possibly matter depended upon finding the dream and obeying it.

Reaching down, he pried the last scroll from the mechoservitor’s fingers.

Then, giving himself to the song, he rose and left the metal man’s chosen grave.