Of Dawn and Darkness

CHAPTER FIVE

Two Imperial Guards dragged Calder Marten out of the Emperor’s palace. He had been kept in a room, not a prison cell, but he was still a prisoner. His eyes burned from a night spent weeping over his father instead of sleeping.

His father, who had been killed on the Emperor’s orders. Right in front of his eyes.

One of the Guards was a slender woman with vertically slitted eyes, whose head jerked at the slightest sign of movement. A pair of feline tails twitched behind her, and the hand that wasn’t holding onto Calder’s shoulder sprouted short claws. Her partner loomed over her, a muscular giant with bony spikes growing out of his skin like ominous armor. He supported most of Calder’s weight, propping Calder up with a forearm when the young man looked likely to fall. His spines jabbed into Calder’s chest every time.

They both wore the red-and-black uniforms of the Imperial Guard, marked with the Aurelian Shield crest: a shield emblazoned with the moon-in-sun emblem of the Aurelian Empire. Like everyone else in their Guild, they had been alchemically imbued with the power of Kameira, forever changing their appearance and giving them a host of strange powers. None of them more frightening than their Guild Head, who could kill with little more than a touch.

Calder tried to drum up some anger at the Head of the Imperial Guard, but the image of the woman killing his father brought him nothing but grief. Jarelys Teach wasn’t responsible for Rojric Marten’s death.

The Emperor was.

And so was Calder.

May his soul fly free, Calder thought, and almost wept.

The pair of Guards dumped him out on the street as soon as they passed through the gate of the Imperial Palace, and he didn’t bother to stand up.

The woman pointed with one claw. “An Imperial officer has been assigned to supervise you for the foreseeable future. He awaits aboard your ship, in the harbor. Do not attempt to leave the city by land, or you will be hunted down. At dawn tomorrow, if you have not departed on your ship, you will be hunted down. If for any reason your officer fails to make his regular report, you will be hunted down.” She spoke as though she read from an especially boring shopping list.

Calder just nodded, still collapsed on the paving stones. He hadn’t expected to be assigned an officer, but it made sense. He owed the crown for a ten-thousand-goldmark ship. They weren’t simply going to turn him over to the Navigators without any supervision.

“Report to your ship by sundown at the latest,” she continued. “If you do not, you will be hunted down. Do you know your way to Candle Bay?”

“I wish I didn’t,” he said.

Calder waited until the Guards were gone before pushing himself to his feet. There was no point in going anywhere except straight to the ship. His mother lived in the city, but she couldn’t help him, and he dreaded telling her what he had done. His best chance at freedom lay in The Testament, his new ship, and in his job for the Navigator’s Guild.

Maybe, once he cleared his debt, he could make the Emperor regret ever letting him live.

Jerri appeared at his shoulder, placing a feather-light hand on his arm. “Calder?” Her eyes were dark, warm, concerned. “Can you walk on your own?”

He demonstrated by marching a few steps down the road, scarcely paying attention to where he was going. “We have to get to the harbor.”

“I heard,” she said, hovering like she expected him to collapse.

He remembered the Emperor’s face, cold and focused, with the crown gleaming gold on his dark, hairless head. It focused his willpower and his anger, propelling him through the crowd and down the crowded streets. “No one ever stops him,” Calder said. “No one can.” Jerri nodded as thought she understood perfectly.

“Someone should,” she responded.

He had expected more of an argument. She drifted along beside him, apparently unconcerned, her eyes forward and her braid hanging down her back. Her eyes were red and half-lidded, as though she too had gone without sleep.

The sight sent a note of guilt thrumming through his gut. He had been focused on his own pain, his own tragedy. He’d forgotten about Jerri. She had been taken along on his plan, caught up in the summoning of an Elder and the destruction of Imperial property. While he was being tried by the Emperor, she must have been sick with worry, left with no idea what would happen to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “This is my problem, not yours. You should go back to your family.”

Jerri looked at him, eyes wide in evident surprise. “And miss the Aion Sea?”

That reminded him: she had been eager to attempt a jailbreak, delighted at the appearance of the Lyathatan, and just as angry at the Emperor as he was.

She, at least, didn’t blame him for the disaster that had ruined their lives.

He couldn’t have faked the smile that split his face in that moment. “I should have known better.”

Waiting for them on the deck of The Testament was a dark-skinned Heartlander man in a pristine white suit. His white pants were freshly pressed, his white shoes polished, and his white hat round and wide-brimmed. A silver pendant gleamed around his neck: the White Sun, symbol of the Luminian Order.

Calder paused halfway up the ramp to his ship, staring. A Luminian? The Empire had sent a Luminian Pilgrim as his babysitter? He had already assumed that the Imperial officer would make all his decisions for him, but he had never imagined that they would come with a sermon on the side.

“Andel Petronus, pleased to meet you,” the man said, unfolding a sheet of paper. “And you would be Calder Marten.”

“What gave it away?” Calder asked, running his hand over his head. “Was it the hair?”

Andel ignored him, reading off the top of the page. “Calder Marten, in the name of the Aurelian Empire and with all the authority of the Emperor himself, you are hereby placed under my custody until your obligation to the crown is paid. Until such time, you are required to…”

The man in white stopped reading, folding the paper back up and slipping it into his pocket. “Essentially, I get to do whatever I like.”

Jerri gave Andel a flattering smile. “And how much is that debt, exactly?”

“Five thousand goldmarks,” Andel said, with no expression one way or another.

Jerri made a choking sound. “Five thousand? That’s absurd!”

“You’re right,” Calder said, then he turned back to address Andel. “Why isn’t it ten? The Emperor said this was a ten-thousand-goldmark ship.”

“Apparently the Blackwatch declined to formally register charges against you,” Andel said. “Leaving you burdened only with the cost of an Imperial prison.”

That was more than he’d expected, and he likely had his mother’s influence to thank. “Fair enough,” Calder said, nodding.

Andel nodded back. “Anything the Emperor chooses to do is the definition of fair treatment.” There may have been a taste of irony in those words, but it was hard to tell. Judging by his face, he seemed completely serious.

Jerri looked from one of them to the other. “That’s more than all of us will make in a lifetime.”

“Then I expect we’ll get to know one another quite well,” Andel said, adjusting his sleeves. “Think of me as part of the ship.”

“I choose to think of you as the anchor,” Jerri said lightly.

“I can see that,” Calder agreed. “Over the side with you.”

Unfazed, Andel pulled another paper from his other pocket. “Think of me as the part of the ship that tells you where to go and what to do at all times. Today, we are awaiting,” he looked down at the paper, “a package of considerable size, to be delivered to a gladiatorial arena in Izyria.”

Calder perked up at that. At least he would be performing actual duties as a Navigator, not simply being held prisoner on his own ship. Surely there was something on the Aion that could ensure his eventual freedom.

“How long does this trip take?” Jerri asked.

“Two months total, there and back again,” Andel said. “For an experienced Navigator with a crew. For you, I would say four months. Maybe five.”

For one trip? Calder had never done anything in his life for five straight months. He was afraid he’d go insane in a week. Besides which…

He glanced around him. He could feel the ship like an extension of his skin, feel the seamless dark green deck beneath him, the towering presence of the mast supporting a green-veined sail, the splash of water cradling the hull. He felt it, but he had very little idea how it was supposed to work. He’d be lucky to make it out of the harbor.

Then again, he was a Soulbound now. All Soulbound were supposedly capable of great feats. He would figure it out.

“What about the pay?” Calder asked, striking at the subject most near to his heart.

“Fifty goldmarks, on receipt of the package,” Andel recited. “They were generous. At this rate, it will only take you thirty years to pay off your debt.”

A crippling weight settled onto Calder’s shoulders.

“Lighten up,” Andel said, with a tone that suggested he was telling them to scrape barnacles. “There are worse fates than thirty years of arduous labor.”

Calder looked around the deck in a daze. He had participated in the construction of The Testament, binding its pieces together into one cohesive whole, but the ship had never seemed so cramped as it did now. For the rest of his life, this would be his world.

From beneath them, a surge of timeless resentment boiled up into his mind. The Lyathatan, bound by invested chains and sworn into service, seemed incapable of contentment. So not only would he be trapped onboard a ship, he would be accompanied by a bound Elder whose loyalty would last only as long as its vaguely defined term of service.

Besides which, he had little idea how to actually work as a Navigator. What supplies would they need for a four-month journey? Would they be able to pick up food in Izyria? He could steer, but how would he find his way to the correct destination?

Calder wished he could keep up his conversation with the Imperial officer, to show this Andel Petronus that it was Calder’s ship and he would give the orders.

Instead, he stood on the edge of the deck, lost.

It wasn’t like him. He had always thought of himself as the one to take action, who was never at a loss for something to say or do. And now the sheer enormity of the future overwhelmed him.

Andel turned toward him, hat gleaming in the sun. He studied Calder’s face with no apparent change in expression.

“While you were still sleeping in the palace, I had the ship loaded. We are now carrying twelve barrels of fresh water, two cauldrons, a set of pots, four canvas flags with the Navigator crest, two rifles with matching ammunition, three quicklamps, and almost a thousand pounds of food. Mostly beans, rice, cheese, and salted meat. There are three Navigator supply stations in the Aion, and we can stop and resupply at each of them, if necessary. I have their locations logged.”

When he finished his speech, Andel tipped his hat. “It’s in my own best interests to see to the success of this ship, after all.”

Calder took what felt like his first full breath of air all day. The relief made him feel ten pounds lighter; he even smiled at the man in white. “Well done, Andel. I may have spoken too hastily with you earlier. Welcome aboard my ship.”

Andel ran his hand along the railing and held it up, as though inspecting his fingers for dust. “Until your debt is cleared, Mister Marten, this is my ship.”

Calder and Jerri spent the rest of the day preparing for their new life, under the direction of Andel Petronus. For one thing, they needed to retrieve clothing and personal effects from their family homes.

Alsa Grayweather, Calder’s mother, was not in residence. The servants let Calder into the house, but they only had a vague idea what had happened to her, and the rumors were sending them into a panic. Calder had to convince one valet that he hadn’t escaped from the Imperial Palace, as the man worried that Calder was on the run from the law.

He left his mother’s home with a trunk of clothes in one hand and a shrouded birdcage in the other. The staff was only too eager to be rid of that.

The fate of his mother chewed at him, burdening him even more than his own future. He was sure she wouldn’t be held legally complicit in his actions, as she was a Guild member in good standing, but he still didn’t know what the Emperor would actually do to her.

But she wasn’t at home. He needed to ask Andel; maybe he would know something.

Calder pushed through the crowd leading up to the harbor, Candle Bay stretching out behind The Testament like a deep green field. On the left shore, a pile of rubble spilled onto the rocks, as though an avalanche had swallowed up a hospital. Crews of workers scurried like beetles over the debris.

He tore his eyes away from the remnants of the Candle Bay Imperial Prison and back to his ship. Then he had to check the name on the hull, to be sure it actually was his ship.

There was a huge cage sitting on the deck, and two men standing around it.

Calder walked up the extra-wide, reinforced ramp that they must have built for the sole purpose of carrying the cage onboard. He supposed they had wheeled it up, considering the cage was big enough to hold a pair of grown lions. Its bars were rough steel, and its base and roof were both made of close-fitting planks of thick wood. No one would be strong enough to carry it.

Then again, if anyone could do so, it would be these two.

One of the men was sun-tanned and weathered as though he had spent his life aboard a ship, his dark hair worked into a hundred tiny braids. His right eye was covered by a rough leather eyepatch, and he carried a hammer at his belt.

At first glance, it looked like a craftsman’s claw hammer, but it caught Calder’s eye. He peered at it for a moment before he noticed the details that didn’t quite fit: the metal was smooth, not nocked as a used hammer would have been, and the handle almost seemed to crawl with twisting shadows. When he recognized the flow of Intent, his eyes widened.

The boy’s only friend is the hammer. When he sleeps, the hammer is clutched in his fist. When he is attacked—and he is always attacked—the hammer defends him. He smashes legs, arms, skulls with the hammer until it feels natural, until the crunch of shattered bones is the music of his life. A Kameira looms large among its victims, a slithering creature of liquid and shadow, but somehow it’s not just a victim…it’s one with the hammer, part of it, merged together…

Calder blinked his eyes free of the vision. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d just witnessed the intentional creation of an Awakened weapon. And, very possibly, a Soulbound.

The one-eyed man saw Calder looking at the hammer and grinned. He ran a thumb down the head of the hammer, preening.

His partner was utterly pale, as though he’d never spent a day outside, and had his hair cut short. This man didn’t carry a weapon, but he had a broad shield strapped to his back. Calder didn’t bother to focus on it; he could feel the Intent bound in the object clearly enough that he didn’t need a closer look. Another Awakened weapon.

Both men bulged with muscle. Once, Calder had gone to see what the news-sheets ** called a “spectacle,” a live performance with trained animals and talented performers with rare skills. A strongman had twisted an iron bar into a knot with nothing more than his bare hands, though Calder had suspected that someone had invested the bar beforehand.

Even that strongman would have fled from these two. They looked like they would have an easier time tearing another man’s arm off than shaking his hand.

The one-eyed man stuck a hand out. Calder didn’t hesitate before dropping his trunk of clothes and taking the hand; he was afraid that the man might take any reluctance as an insult.

“You must be the young Navigator,” the man said, and broadened his grin. “Word is, you broke out of an Imperial prison and walked away with a brand-new ship.”

Calder did his best to match the man’s smile. “I wasn’t breaking myself out.”

He laughed like Calder had told a joke. “Well met, Navigator. We’ll get along, I can tell. You can call me Nine.”

Calder turned his attention to the man with the shield. “And you, sir?”

The pale man didn’t seem to notice that Calder had spoken. He kept his eyes on the cage.

“You’ll have to forgive Eight,” Nine said. “He’s picky.”

Eight didn’t clarify.

“Eight and Nine,” Calder said. “There aren’t seven more of you, are there?”

Nine chucked easily and rapped his knuckles on the bars. “We’re not supposed to use our real names on this trip. Not sure what the point is. You may have noticed that we have a little trouble blending in.”

It had been a busy, even catastrophic few days. That was how Calder justified it. There was no other explanation for why he hadn’t noticed the gold crest that each man wore pinned on his shirt.

A small, golden pin marked with the image of a crown.

The Golden Crown: symbol of the Champion’s Guild.

Calder couldn’t stop his eyes from widening. How had he not noticed before? There were a pair of Champions on his deck. Real, living, Imperial Champions.

On his ship.

No Guild had made more of an impact on Imperial history than the Champions. All the ancient writers spoke of them. Loreli, the original strategist: “If you may hire a Champion or persuade one to your cause, then victory is certain. Otherwise, heed my teaching.”

Heliora, the Witness who chronicled the Kings’ War: “I stood motionless from sunrise to sunset, watching the armies clash, recording every maneuver and every feint of one general against another. Then the Champions arrived, and I left, for the battle was over.”

Sadesthenes, the great historian and philosopher: “If all men were Champions, there would be no war, for such a conflict would be too great and terrible to consider.”

Nazin, the hero of A Tragedy of Sand and Tears: “I am not a Champion, my love. I am but a man.”

Everyone knew about Soulbound. They were impressive and even somewhat mystical beings, but as a Reader, Calder understood them. The birth of a Soulbound was simply one phenomenon of Reading and Intent, something that the Magisters were still studying to this day. They already understood how it worked, and someday they would understand why.

But Champions were not just Soulbound. They were the superhuman products of a secret process, trained from birth and raised to be unstoppable in battle. They were invincible warriors, the stuff of legends, the kinds of people who could tear giant Kameira apart with their bare hands and laugh while doing it.

And now, two of them were standing on his ship.

Calder couldn’t seem to fit his bulging eyes back into his skull. He tried to speak, but his mind had frozen.

Nine either didn’t notice his distress or didn’t care. He looked aside from Calder, where Andel was climbing out of the hold. The Heartlander man’s white suit was still pristine, somehow.

“The Captain has arrived, Pilgrim,” Nine called. “Make ready to sail.”

Andel didn’t bother to look at the Champion. “I’m not a Luminian Pilgrim any longer. And we’re still awaiting one more. A young lady.”

Nine gave a low whistle and nudged Calder with his elbow.

Calder felt the Champion was misunderstanding something, but he couldn’t find the words to explain.

Eight didn’t react to anything, keeping his pale arms folded and his eyes locked on the cage. For the first time, Calder noticed the man behind the bars.

He was obviously a prisoner, manacled to a set of chains that were themselves bolted to the cage floor. He was naked but for a cloth tied around his waist, and built along the same lines as the two Champions; he looked as if he could uproot stone pillars with nothing more than the strength of his arms. Blond hair fell, loose and ragged, to frame his face, and his ribs were mottled with fresh bruises.

Calder gestured to the cage. “This is the package you wish delivered to Izyria?”

Nine cackled, slapping the bars with the flat of his hand. “Hear that? You’re a package now. Special delivery to the Izyrian arenas. You’re going home!”

The prisoner didn’t respond. He simply smiled through the veil of his hair. His teeth were white and flawless.

Eight stayed quiet, watching as though he intended to stay in that position until the ship sank or the world ended, but Nine frowned for the first time. He slapped at the side of the cage. “Hey! Answer me. Do you hear me, Urzaia?”

The prisoner looked up, smile unbroken. “It will be good to see my home again.”

He turned to Calder, his gaze making the young man shift uneasily. What does he want? He has to know I can’t set him free.

Urzaia met Calder’s eyes and winked.