Canticle

Chapter 26

Neb

Neb let the winds of the Churning Wastes move over him where he lay and turned himself again so that his other ear pressed to the cold iron cap.

Renard snored gently at the edge of the clearing, weary from the jostling ride he’d made. But Neb had not been tired. The canticle would not let him sleep. He’d lain awake here in this place for a night and a day, listening to the song and working through the ciphers in his mind.

It was nonmetrical, and the hands that plucked at the harp strings moved with a precision that he could hear clearly. It played and it played, with no beginning and no ending that he could discern, though he knew it had to have both.

And when the moon had risen that first night and the song’s strength increased, he’d found that the nuances of note and measure concealed numbers and those numbers coincided with the notches and dials and levers of the Rufello locks upon that great iron cap.

Still, he had not known how it was that he could hear them. During the daylight hours Renard had joined him but heard nothing, not even the faintest note of the song, when he stretched himself out upon the ground alongside Neb.

So Neb kept at his work and left the Waste Guide to his rest. Soon enough, the Gypsy Scouts would reach this stopping point along their way to Sanctorum Lux, and Neb did not want to be here when they did. He wanted, by that time, to have the source of the dream within his hands. They would go north to Renard’s people so that the Waste Guide could heal. And while he healed, Neb would find this dream the metal man spoke of.

He sighed and pressed his ear even closer to the iron. The numbers were hard to find, but they were there. Already, he’d puzzled out four of six lock ciphers. And now, his fingers found the fifth and worked it, too. Deep inside the iron lid, he heard the clacking and ticking of gears that moved a bolt aside.

He paused there and remembered the metal man’s words. The last cipher is the first day of the Homeseeker’s Advent.

He knew that one without listening to the song, but he’d still saved it for last. Sometimes Rufello’s locks had to be worked in sequence.

Biting his lower lip, he calculated the numerical date of his birth based on the Whymer calendar and twisted it into that last dial. When he finished, he heard nothing below him-no gears, no raspy sliding of the bolt. Furrowing his brow, he rolled onto his back.

He’d lost track of all time here. It had been daylight the last time he’d paid any attention to his surroundings. It was nightfall now and the sky was clear. Stars throbbed above him, their cold light casting an eerie glow upon the mountains that surrounded him.

It hadn’t worked. But why?

He tried again, but with the same result.

And then the moon rose and the song reached its crescendo with the rising. He stared at it, heavy on the horizon, and wondered at the size of it. He could see the lines where land ended and sea began and, squinting, he could even see the man-made line of the Moon Wizard’s tower, desolate and abandoned upon that poisoned and empty world that rose above them to remind them of that long-ago war that had killed the last of the Younger Gods who huddled afraid upon that blue-green rock.

Neb started. Of course.

He knew now, and he recalculated the number, not by the Whymer calendar but by an older one that had gone out of use. A calendar measured by different landmarks in time than those of P’Andro Whym and the disciples who gathered and shepherded the light along with the orphans of a broken world.

When he converted the date of his birth into the ancient numerology of the moon calendar of the Wizard Kings, he heard the movement of grinding gears as the last bolt slid free.

Neb rolled aside and squatted, regarding the unlocked hatch in the ground. He gripped the edge of it with his fingers and put his strength into lifting the iron cap. It groaned slightly but swung open upon oiled hinges. Glancing to Renard, he decided against waking the man.

This place was made for me to find it. He knew this was true. Even as he knew that his father had had a hand in it. Soon enough, Neb knew that he would understand to just what depth his father had known and prepared against this day.

An iron ladder, bolted into the side of the stone well, descended before him. Bathed in the blue-green light of the moon, he climbed down into the earth. He climbed until the darkness swallowed him, but he did not fear. The song was there with him, around him, cradling him, and he knew that it waited below him.

He was not sure how long he climbed before his feet found the solid floor of the well. He looked up to see the moon framed in the round opening above.

It was too dark to see the small box with his eyes, but his ear knew where it was, and he went to it. Fumbling it open, his fingers found the cool, smooth metal object within, and he lifted it out carefully. Tinny and far away, the song played out from it and he lifted it, holding it against the backdrop of the dim light from above. The song grew louder, and beneath it, Neb heard the croaking of frogs and the distant burbling of a brook.

Beneath his fingers, he felt the line of continents and mountains upon the crescent-shaped object. He held it to his ear and felt the solid comfort of how it fit there.

It requires a response.

Slipping the crescent into his pocket, Neb climbed out of the darkness and into the moonlight. When he reached the top, he closed the cap and locked it. Then, he stretched out upon the cold iron and pulled the object from his pocket.

He knew what he would see, but he did not know how he knew it. Still, holding it up against the moon, he saw the sliver for what it was and compared the rough map of its surface to the blue-green orb that hung in the night sky behind it.

They matched. It was the moon.

Starlight and moonlight swirled in its silver surface, and it was a metal that he’d seen before. The same strange and ancient steel that formed the Firstfall axe of Winters’s office. Bringing it down, he rested the silver crescent between his shoulder and the side of his head, cradling it against himself so that his ear was pressed up to it.

This is the source of the dream. Hidden within that “Canticle to the Fallen Moon” lay Neb’s destiny, and he welcomed it.

He must have drowsed because he dreamed. Only it was a dream he’d had before and not the dream of the metal men that he longed for. And this second time he dreamed it, it was more clear, more detailed than previously.

He remembered it well-it was one he did not mind repeating. He and Winters were naked and tangled in one another. They were older, but not by much. The sheets were soaked with their sweat, and his limbs and his eyelids were heavy with exhaustion and spent passion. They lay beneath a silk canopy in a tropical forest overlooking a sea. Above that sea a brown and blue world arose and filled the starry sky. It made the moon he was accustomed to ridiculously small by comparison.

“This is our home,” she whispered in his ear as she rubbed a stomach swollen with life to come.

It was a good dream; a dream that felt true.

He stirred himself awake briefly and wondered if some dreams were promises-deposits made upon a future that destiny could carve for them if they listened to its canticle even in the darkest nights and danced to its calling by moonlight.

I am called to find that home; this song will bear me to it.

And as the canticle played on, Neb wrapped himself in destiny like the warmest of blankets and hoped against hope that dreams could be made true.

Jin Li Tam

Jin Li Tam stood at the base of the gangway and waited. She’d received her father’s note and had spent the day pondering what to do. Finally, she’d decided to come and see him one last time before he sailed on an unmagicked Kinshark to rendezvous with his armada and sail south in search of answers and vengeance.

Rafe Merrique’s first mate had gone to fetch him even as the crew readied the ship to sail. While she waited, she watched the campfires in the Gypsy camp. The other camps were gone now-the Entrolusians had left last, though they’d left a man behind, unbeknownst to their Overseer. Sethbert’s most celebrated general, Lysias, had petitioned Rudolfo for asylum earlier in the day, and her husband had assented when she’d told him that he was their nursemaid’s father.

“I will find work worthy of his rank,” Rudolfo had told her after.

Pylos and Turam had left before the others. Rudolfo had given his best effort to restoring peace with them but to no avail. She had known that it would be that way. She’d seen the look of wrath on Meirov’s face, the venomous daggers of her eyes, when Jin Li Tam’s son had been healed and given back to her.

She heard her father’s footsteps on the gangway and looked to him. He walked slower and his shoulders were weighed down. He held a packet of papers in his hands. “I didn’t think you would come, but I’m glad that you did.”

She nodded. “I received your note.”

He stepped closer and passed the papers over to her. “These are all your sister could think of to help Jakob.” She took the packet and looked down at pages crowded with ink. “I know it’s irrelevant now, but she spent her last days looking for a cure, and I thought you should have them.”

Jin Li Tam blinked. Looking for a cure? “But I received her note, Father. She told me there was no cure.”

“By the bird?”

She nodded, and Vlad Li Tam shook his head. “The birds have become unreliable, Daughter,” he said. “They cannot be trusted.” Behind him, she heard the whistle of “all hands,” and he looked over his shoulder. “I’ve shared what I know with Rudolfo. Our messages are compromised, and birds are being diverted; forgeries are misdirecting us. Your husband is going to task the mechoservitors with establishing new codes.”

She nodded. “That would be prudent.”

The first mate reappeared now. “We’re ready to sail, Lord Tam.”

Her father nodded. “I’m glad you came,” he said.

Then they embraced and he climbed the gangway. She watched while they raised it and left before the anchors rose.

As she returned to the camp, she pondered.

The note was a snare. The realization struck her like a fist. She’d received the note that morning. It was in her pocket when the Y’Zirite, Ria, interrupted their council. She had put her foot into it and it had done its work.

There is no cure. No, but when she saw a cure before her very eyes-saw Petronus rise up from the dead-and heard the Machtvolk queen’s words, she’d had to act. The forged note from her sister was the snare that had caught her, luring her to a decision that had been so easy to make.

Ask me to save him and I will.

And kneeling, she had taken the devil’s feet into her hands and wet them with her tears, begging for the life of her son.

When she reached her tent, she did not recognize the girl with her calico dress and long brown hair who waited for her there. But when the girl stood, her awkward and coltish posture betrayed her. “Winters?”

The girl smiled, and Jin Li Tam marveled at the transformation. She thought at first she might ask but then decided against it. She had more pressing matters. She needed to see her son. Winters curtsied. “Lady Tam.”

Jin Li Tam looked around the room, an uneasiness growing quickly to alarm. “Where are Lynnae and Jakob?”

Winters blinked. “Both with their fathers. Lynnae is talking to General Lysias. And Rudolfo took Jakob to walk the perimeter.”

Jin Li Tam released her held breath and forced calm. Why had she felt panic? What was it that made her need her son so badly in this moment? She pushed the question aside for later and looked back to Winters. “Tell Rudolfo I’m looking for him if he returns before me.”

Winters nodded, and Jin Li Tam slipped back into the night.

Singing started up around the campfires, and she made her way north to the line. Rudolfo would walk from the south to the west, then to the north and east-she would hope to catch him on his return.

As she walked, she thought about this sudden need she had for her son and the panic that had arisen within her. Certainly it made sense after him so recently taken by the Blood Scouts and after seeing him sick for so long. Of course she would fear losing him after these threats.

But what of the need she had tonight of all nights to hold him?

She worked the maze as she walked and found her answer quickly. It was because she knew that the look of him, the smell of him, the softness of his skin beneath her hand would remind her that what she’d chosen had been the only good and reasonable path she could take. That the little life she had made with Rudolfo was worth any debt she could incur, even if it was to those who’d murdered her family, left Windwir desolate and seeded violence and chaos into the Named Lands.

But it was more than needing a reminder that she’d made a good choice, that she’d known and taken the right path. It was a reminder that there was still good in this broken place and that even in times of great darkness there could be moments of excruciating light and unbreakable hope.

Like light in the eyes of a husband home from the sea. And hope in the smile of an infant sleeping in his mother’s arms.

Jin Li Tam moved across snowfields bathed blue and green, and when she reached the line, she found the soldiers there and whispered encouragement to them.

Walking the perimeter, she stopped here and there to greet the men and ask them if they were ready to ride on the morrow, ready for waiting beds and lonely wives, ready for home and hearth. The men bowed to her and called her queen as she went, and after she passed, she heard them whispering in low and respectful tones.

But she pushed aside the voices behind her and moved forward through the snow, her eyes searching for the moon-washed, striding figure of her Gypsy King and her ears listening for the sound of Jakob’s laughter.

Rudolfo

There was singing now from the campfires, and Rudolfo stepped in from the line to hear it. He stared down into the face of his son and returned the smile he saw there. It was an odd moment, this, a father walking the line with his son. It brought back memories of similar walks with his own father, though he’d been old enough to not need carrying. He cocked his head and listened to the song on the wind. It was an old Gypsy tune about the year of the fallen moon sung in a minor key-slower than the version his mother had sung him.

How long since she sang this to me? He could not remember, and he felt a tug of loss when he sought her face in his memory and could not find it. But he remembered these lyrics. They spoke of love requited, though with sacrifices made, of bargaining pools in the basement of the world and ghosts that swam a haunted sea. It was a song about tears and separation, desperate hope and misguided faith. It was a song about the love between a Weeping Czar and a Moon Wizard’s daughter.

Jakob laughed, and Rudolfo laughed, too. “You like music, then. So did your grandmother.”

He resumed walking, but now he left the line and made a new path in the snow. He looked down into his son’s face again. “I’ve awaited your coming for some time,” he told the infant. “I’m glad you’ve come.”

And so unexpectedly. At the end of a river of blood, in the shadow of desolation, an heir to the Gypsy throne. And to the light, as well, Rudolfo knew, for the Great Library he built would be the legacy he left his son.

A dark cloud passed behind his eyes as he thought of his own father and another legacy. Last year, he’d closed down Tormentor’s Row and disbanded his Physicians of Penitent Torture. At the time, he’d intended more, but it had been enough. Now, after seeing the graves of House Li Tam and the stained cutting tables, after touching the warm pipes of the Blood Temple, he’d known that he could not let that last vestige of his forefathers’ darker ways continue.

Especially for the children who would now make their home with him.

Earlier that day, he’d met with Vlad Li Tam; he’d heard the man’s concerns and listened to his request. It had been surprisingly easy, and in the end he’d agreed to fund his work. That request had not surprised him, but the one regarding the children had.

I am a collector of orphans. The children, now scarred with the mark of House Y’Zir, would make their home in the Ninefold Forest, and it would not do to have any structure there that might remind them of their captivity. So after that meeting, Rudolfo had called his birder and sent orders home. Not one stone to stand upon the other, and no cutter’s knife unmelted and reforged into something that could cause no harm.

Tormentor’s Row would be torn down and its stones built into the library. Perhaps into a wing named for his father.

Of course, there were his other orphans.

He’d not recognized Winters when he’d taken Jakob from her. All that dirt and grime had hidden a pretty girl on the edge of womanhood. She would join them now and wait for his other orphan, Neb, to come back to her from the Churning Wastes.

And there was Isaak. If this place wouldn’t break his metal heart, Rudolfo would wish him here now to hear him talk about the library they built and the light they saved.

Rudolfo heard a low whistle behind him and knew it at once. He turned and saw Jin Li Tam approaching. The wind whipped up, catching the light powdering of snow that had not frozen yet. It swirled around her feet.

“How is he?” she asked, stepping close to them.

“He’s sleeping, I think,” Rudolfo said. He passed his son into her waiting arms and noticed the depth of her sigh once she held him to herself.

They turned, and Rudolfo suddenly realized where they stood. The snow-covered mounds, the view of the hills to the east and the south. He took a few steps forward and stood at the edge of an impact crater, listening to the ghosts that whispered to him there.

Jin Li Tam walked to the edge and stood beside him, looking out. “This is where the Great Library stood,” she said.

He nodded. “It is where we found Isaak.” He paused, turning the more painful memory over in his mind. “It’s also where I brought Gregoric the night he died.”

He remembered what the Francis said about one loss connecting to another, and he knew it was true. He could lay his finger upon the thread of Hanric’s loss and follow it back to Gregoric’s. From Gregoric’s, he wove his way back-through the Desolation of Windwir, an unfathomable chasm of loss-to his father’s and his mother’s, and to the older twin who would have inherited the Ninefold Forest if someone had not moved that river.

I could have killed the man responsible and instead I saved him.

And yet it did not unsettle him. It was the right path, and he could not question it. And truly, though he despised the pain of it, he knew that his father-in-law’s actions had also brought as much life as they had death.

In the shadow of desolation, he had found a formidable wife; and in the middle of his road, he now had a son that he could raise up to be a strong and fair king.

He looked to them and noticed the knives she wore. He chuckled and brushed the hilt of one with his thumb. “I see you’ve found these.”

She looked down and blushed. “I did. They were in your desk. I. I liked the way they felt in my hands.”

He smiled. “They were my mother’s,” he said. “My father had them made for her as a wedding gift. I intended to have them polished and sharpened for you.”

“Knives as a wedding gift?” she asked.

Rudolfo shrugged. “They are fine blades.”

She laughed and leaned close to him. He slipped an arm around her. “I can think of better gifts,” she said. “But they are indeed fine blades.”

They stood silent, then, watching the night around them. In the morning, they would strike camp and make their way home ahead of the winter’s last snow before spring. When he returned, Rudolfo knew that a desk buried in paper awaited him. There were refugees to help acclimate. And the library construction would be gearing up with the promise of spring. Soon, the sun would be out and the bookmakers’ tents would be filled with mechoservitors as they wrote their books and filled the basements with volume upon volume in a river that threatened flood. Added to that, there was the threat that grew to their north and west with the advent of the Machtvolk and the dark gospel they preached-and the trouble he now smelled to the south in Pylos and Turam.

And what of this Crimson Empress?

There was enough work ahead to keep him up nights in his den wandering a Whymer Maze of paper. He would gradually grow accustomed again to the feel of a desk and a chair beneath him instead of a horse or a ship. And of a warm, shared bed instead of a solitary cot.

And mixed in with the work, there would also be a Gypsy wedding to plan and a child to show his Ninefold Forest Houses so that his people could meet the next Gypsy King.

He would keep living despite the dead he buried. He would love his wife and his son, and he would spend himself for the light he’d gained from his time in darkness.

Even in Desolation, Rudolfo thought, life asserts itself.

Unbidden, the song from earlier found his lips and he began to sing it. Jin Li Tam looked to him, her eyes wide to see him sing, and he could not blame her. The last time he’d sung had been the Firstborn Feast when she’d been abed with their child. And the time before that? It was so far back that Rudolfo could not remember.

But he sang now, and the strains of it echoed out into the night.

In the distance, a wolf howled.

And above them, the full moon watched and lent them its watery light.