Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (49 page)

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Dominique said.

“Just a quick one. Promise. Stick a needle in my eye and
everything.”

Sister Dominique glanced at Father Kassic before she spoke.
“No. For reasons previously mentioned, I cannot allow that. Might I ask how you
came into possession of this key?”

“Got it off some shepherd,” said Will. “He was bleedin’ out
pretty good at the time. Said he got it here, and he was on his way to look for
more of them catty-cooms. Only one he knew about was here, under this church.”

“Was anyone else listening when he said this?”

Will narrowed his eyes. “Weren’t nobody there but me and Jal.
Why’d you ask?”

Dominique turned to Toler. “You know I can’t let you leave.
It’s against the Order’s rules.”

“Y’all gonna have to make an exception,” Lokes said, fingers
twitching at his sides.

Jal took a step forward. “Let’s work something out, here.
Ain’t no reason we can’t—” Her voice broke off, seizing up as if she’d been
punched in the stomach. She swayed on her heels, then withered and fell.

Will lunged out to catch her and lower her to the ground. Jal
began to twitch and gasp, sucking air through a thick-tongued windpipe.
Sometimes dead bodies twitched like that while they were deep in the pangs of
rigor mortis, or thanks to any number of the strange postmortem phenomena with
which Bastille had become so familiar.

Her thoughts shifted to Brother Travers and his sick
fascination—no, his sexualized obsession—with the dead. She shuddered, then
refocused on the woman. There was no quarrel in Jal’s back. The Cypriests stood
on the parapet above, their crossbows aimed and loaded. Jal was still
convulsing, but somehow Bastille did not think she was dying.

“What’s happening?” Toler asked.

Will didn’t reply.

“Vicky, you’ve got to do something,” Toler said. “Jallika is
a Calsaire.”

A strange look came over Dominique’s face. “A sandcipher?”

“Yeah, whatever. Same thing.”

“Not so.”

Dominique looked at Will. “Are you are a Calsaire too?”

Will’s attention was transfixed on his companion. He didn’t
answer.

“Excuse me. Let me by.” Dominique waited for Will to move.
She bent over Jal and lay her hands on the woman. The night air came alive with
the warm glow of her fingertips.

Jal heaved a breath of surprise and relief. Dominique moved
her hands to cradle the woman’s neck; her fingers lit again.

This time, Jal shot upright as if waking from a nightmare.
“Was that the end?”

“No,” said Dominique, as though she knew exactly what the
question meant.

“I felt the end. I felt it like it was—about to happen.”

“You are close to it.”

“How close?”

“As close as you’ve ever been before, except on one occasion.
And that did not go well for you.”

Jal’s eyes came to rest on Will’s. Her vacant expression took
on a sobered cast. “Will. I…”

“What, Jal? What is it?”

“I saw the end. I felt it. Again. Like in the mall.”

He frowned. “What are you rambling about? The end of what?”

“The world.”

Will looked around. “Dunno if you noticed, buttercup. World’s
done over already.”

“You want to meet your end,” said Dominique. It was not a
question.

Jal gave a shallow nod.

“You will not find it here.”

Toler stood above Will and the two women, looking as though
he wanted to go to Jal but wasn’t letting himself. The sky was dark now, the
starwinds blooming overhead.

“I want my end,” Jal said, wiping away tears.

“You mustn’t go near it. You cannot stay here.”

“What’s this all about?” Toler asked. “What does she mean by
her end?”

“I will say no more,” said Dominique.

“Answer me,” Toler said. “You’ve had these powers your whole
life, and in fifteen years of marriage to my brother you never used them once,
to mend a scraped knee or fix a broken bone? You never told Dax who you really
were?”

“There were times,” Dominique began, “when Savannah was too
young to know the difference, and no one else was around to see.”

“How could you be so selfish? If I could do that, I’d tell
everyone.”

“It’s not that simple,” she said. “Do you remember how sick I
was back then?”

“That’s why you left Dax, isn’t it? You didn’t want to
burden
him with your sickness. He would’ve bent over backwards to take care of you
until your dying day. In fact, a lot of times he did.”

“That isn’t why I left. I loved him. You know I loved him.”

“Bullshit,” Toler said.

“Believe what you like. I never meant to stay with him so
long. I should’ve moved on from Bradsleigh many years before I did.”

Toler snorted. “Wow. You should’ve left him sooner, huh? Dax
would’ve been ecstatic to hear that. He gave you everything, and it still
wasn’t enough to make you happy.”

Dominique raised her voice. “It wasn’t about happiness,
Toler. I had a responsibility.”

“A responsibility where… here? This city is a cesspit. Sure,
Bradsleigh’s no picnic either, but why trade that for
this
?”

She sighed. “The Aionach is fading, Toler. I’m doing what I
can to slow it.”

“Oh, so now you’re some kind of self-appointed savior? You’re
more delusional than I thought.”

“The world is working against all of us.”

“You want to stop the world from becoming an uninhabitable
scab? Try doing something that actually helps people get by.”

“There was a time, long ago, when I thought I could stop it.
Now I fear it’s too late.”

“At least you’re in perfect health again. Shame you didn’t
make your miraculous recovery back then so Dax didn’t have to spend the last
few years of his life constantly worrying about you.”

Sister Dominique’s posture shifted. “I can’t change what’s
happened. Nor would I, if given the chance. My time for such things has
passed.”

“Great. Dax always thought you left because you didn’t love
him anymore. Now my idiot brother’s dead, and he’ll never know you left him to
join some coffing cult. Probably just as well. Do you understand how long he
spent looking for you, Vicky? How much it hurt him not to know? I hated him…
but I also felt sorry for him.”

Sister Dominique was silent for a long time. Bastille heard
her sniff, saw the starlit reflection of moisture in her eyes. The high
priestess folded an arm across her chest and buried her mouth in her knuckles.
Her body began to shudder.

“I hope you feel like shit about that,” Toler said. “You
deserve to.”

“I know,” she said, her voice thick with grief. “I know. I
do, Toler. I didn’t want to go. I wrestled with it for
so
long.”

“I’m sure.”

“I had to do what was right.”

“You have a daughter who grew up half an orphan, thanks to
your doing what was right. Now she
is
an orphan, or she might as well
be. And that Merrick dway I told you about… if he’s your son, I can see how he
got to be such a loser.”

Merrick
. Bastille had heard that name before. The
Scarred soldiers who’d helped her three pupils escape the basilica had
mentioned Merrick, the healer in the city north. Bastille could only assume
Toler was referencing a snippet of conversation she’d missed while running
through the basilica.
He claims Merrick is Sister Dominique’s son
.

Dominique took a moment to compose herself. “What’s he like?”

“I just told you. He’s a loser. He works some shitty night
watchman job for the Scarred, or something like that. He has this power like
yours, but he hates it. You’re both a couple of crackpots. I hope Savvy doesn’t
turn out—wait, she doesn’t have it too, does she?”

“There’s no way to tell until it begins to manifest… or
doesn’t,” Dominique said.

“I hope it doesn’t. I don’t want her turning out like
Merrick. Or you.”

“Whether it happens or not,” said Dominique, “the worst thing
you could do would be to interfere. You’d do far more damage than if you let
her discover the gift for herself. There may come a day when I must call my
children to me, but in the meantime they’re better left alone.”

“You have other kids? Besides Merrick and Savvy?”

“I’ve lived a long life, Toler. I’ve seen places. Done
things. My children are everywhere, though I share less than a drop of blood
with many of them.”

Toler shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, you know
that? I never understood what Dax saw in you.”

Sister Dominique pressed her lips together as if to withstand
the verbal blow. “Normally I would have no authority to spare your lives. It’s
against the Order’s laws to let anyone out once they’ve stepped through our
gates and learned our secrets.”

“Coff on the Order’s laws,” Toler said. “We haven’t learned
any coffing secrets. We don’t know a thing about this place. All Will and
Jallika heard from that dway were the same old rumors everyone already knows.”

“Such as?”

“The men with crossbows on your walls. The purple robes. The
fact that you’re all a bunch of psychopaths. Come to think of it, this is the
perfect place for you, Vicky.”

Again, Dominique shifted as if to brace herself from Toler’s
scorn. “I’m going to let you leave. I’ll accept the consequences of my
disobedience. Your body is whole now. I hope you find your way home without
further trouble.”

“Yeah… have a nice life,” Toler said. “Whatever it is you all
do in here.”

“I understand if you can’t forgive me for everything that’s
happened, Toler. Your brother loved you very much, though he didn’t always know
how to show it. I hope you can at least forgive him.”

Toler grunted his indifference. “Let’s get out of here before
she changes her mind.”

Toler and Will helped Jal to her feet.

Dominique spoke directly to her. “As a member of the Guild of
Calsaires, I hope I can trust you not to divulge anything you may have learned
about our activities here. The Order of the Most High Infernal Mouth best
exists in relative isolation. I think as a Guildswoman, you can appreciate the
importance of that, even if you don’t understand the intricacies of our fragile
existence.”

Jal gave her a blank stare. When she spoke, her voice was on
the edge of breaking. “I don’t give a shit about you or your Order. This place
could fall into a sinkhole tomorrow and I’d let it happen with a smile on my
face. Open them coffing gates and let us out of here, you whore.”

Dominique turned her sour gaze toward the parapet. “Father
Kassic?”

The Cypriests opened the gates.

“Before you go,” Dominique said, “bring me the gray horse.”

Toler brought the wounded animal hobbling over. When
Dominique’s hands lit up, the hole in its chest closed.

For all the risky decisions Sister Dominique had made that
evening, Bastille couldn’t help but admire her calm under duress. The high
priestess watched as the three strangers departed into the night. She stood
there looking out into the city until the gates closed in front of her and the
Fathers resumed their watch from the walls.

As for Bastille herself, she retreated to the south courtyard
as soon as the strangers were gone, and did not speak a word of what she had
seen that night for a long time.

CHAPTER 41

Undercurrents

Lethari Prokin rested in the shade of the high canyon
walls, surrounded by loose-running livestock and what was left of his
feiach
.
Death lay all around him. The trade caravan had been a greater challenge than
he’d planned for, and casualties were heavy on both sides. The pale-skins had
learned their lesson and bolstered their defenses in the wake of Lethari’s
previous attacks. There were twice as many shepherds for each flatbed, and many
of the teamsters carried loaded firearms, which they had used with impunity
instead of as a last resort.

Leaving Sigrede’s detachment at the factory camp in Belmond
had hampered Lethari’s efforts, but the meager size of his remaining
feiach
was not the only reason the attack had gone poorly. Cean Eldreni’s men had
mistimed their advance, leaving one of the caravan’s flanks open and unopposed.
The shepherds had been able to mount a defense, allowing several traders,
merchants, and hangers-on to flee the canyon on horseback.

“Pile the bodies,” Lethari told his men. “Make a fire. Burn
everything.”

“Should we not bring our dead to Sai Calgoar for burial in
the sky?” asked a shaken Luchlais Haredin.

Lethari shook his head. “We have not the strength of numbers
to carry such a weight. These
lathcu
vehicles will never fit through the
high mountain pass, nor climb the south road. We must lay our dead to rest
here, consecrated in the fire.”

Luchlais did not like that answer. “That is no burial for a
warrior of the king.”

“It is the only burial we can give them. Unless you would
rather dig graves and suffer the beasts of the wasteland to exhume them.”

“That would be better,” said Luchlais. “Their bodies would
return to the sand as they were meant to.”

Lethari was vexed. He had intended to use this great fire as
a last ditch effort to slip the goatskin record beneath the pile and hope it
burned hot enough and long enough to eradicate every last trace of the thing.
Luchlais had the right of it, though; a man’s body was better honored when the
scavengers of the land and the air were allowed to take it back for themselves.
“You would refuse my order,” Lethari said.

“No, my lord. I would do your will.”

Lethari gave a sigh. “Find Ceallach Golandi and tell him to
prepare the bodies for deep burial. We will return them to the sands.”

“You are gracious, my master,” said Luchlais. “Those who pass
before us will not forget how we honor them this day.”

That night by the fire, there was no celebration. There was
little cause for it after so hard-fought a struggle. Lethari stood alone with
mug in hand, letting the fire’s warmth wash over him. He wished he could return
to the days of his campaign southward, wherein he had met with success after
success and risen to the heights of his ability. He felt anything but powerful
now. Chasing pale-skins across the desert was weary work, and his warriors were
tired of it, ragged from their long travels.

He wondered what would become of Amhaziel’s vision, in which
he encountered the creature, both beast and man, and fulfilled his greater
destiny. In times like these, he doubted it would ever happen. Maybe Amhaziel
had seen it wrong. Maybe he himself had seen what he wanted to see, rather than
what was.

He wondered also how Neacal Griogan and his
feiach
in
the north underlands were faring in their conquest of the
muirrhadi
. He
was glad he wasn’t there; hunting rat-folk in the tunnels of their below-world
home struck him as a tiresome pursuit. At least it was cool down there, and
they could slay the beasts without compunction. Not that Lethari had ever
hesitated to slay a deserving pale-skin. But the
lathcui
possessed a
humanness the
muirrhadi
did not—a humanness one couldn’t help but feel
while watching their lifeblood drain away.

Lethari had watched the life leave Sigrede Balbaressi, and he
had been trying to forget ever since. His guilt over Sig’s death had crept over
him slowly, like moss growing over a stone. Cean Eldreni’s accusations had fed
that growth. One accused of guilt often dredges up other sins to feel guilty
about, and Lethari had done plenty of dredging these last weeks.

He glanced at his tent, where the goatskin record lay tucked
inside his satchel. He was tired, but he dreaded sleep. His nightmares of
Sigrede discovering the record and telling everyone came nightly now. He woke
each morning needing to remind himself Sigrede was dead and his secret was
safe. He would be home soon to see Frayla and rest in her comforting arms
again. To receive absolution from Tycho Montari and put this all behind him.

Lethari felt heat on his back. He turned to find himself
half-surrounded by a group of warriors with torches held high and weapons
drawn. They were mostly Cean’s men, as he might’ve expected. But there was one
among them who surprised him.

“My Lord Lethari,” said Dyovan Angeides, stepping forward.
“The time has come to free Cean Eldreni.”

Lethari laughed, though his heart was racing. “You come in
force, as though you mean to take something from me. Yours is not a request. It
is a threat.”

“Take it as you will, my lord. We will free Cean Eldreni one
way or the other. We would prefer to do so with your leave, so we have come to
ask it of you.”

“You do not have my leave. Cean is a danger. He has made
threats against me and is unfit to walk free.”

Dyovan pinched his lips together. He nodded to the others,
who walked away and left Lethari standing in the darkness beside the
low-burning fire. They were moving in the direction of the slave cages.

Lethari considered following them. In his mind he walked
beside them, issuing cautions against disobeying his orders; warning them of
the consequences. But there would be no consequences this time. He knew that as
well as they did. With Dyovan on his side, Cean would make a stronger case
against Lethari when he went before the master-king.

There is a stroke of insanity spreading through my
feiach
to make them behave this way
, Lethari thought. They were like a group of
children, each trying to reach their parents’ ears first with a tale to best
the other.
It does not matter who gets to Sai Calgoar first
, he decided.
It only matters whose voice is the loudest
.

The
feiach
gathered around the slave cages. Feeling
powerless, Lethari came closer to watch. He saw then what Cean Eldreni’s men
had done. They had arrived late to the ambush that day on purpose, preserving
their number while forfeiting that of the
feiach
at large. They were
still too few to challenge the rest, if it came to that, but those loyal to
Lethari would be hard-pressed to overpower both Cean’s and Dyovan’s detachments
combined.

Cean’s liberation party pressured the men guarding the cages
until they handed over the keys. The cage door opened. Cean’s men unlocked his
manacles and helped him out. To Lethari’s astonishment, Cean noticed him from
afar and came over, rubbing his wrists. Dyovan and his warriors followed, as
did the rest of the crowd.

“Return to your cage at once,” Lethari told him.

Cean smirked. “Who will put me there? Will you do it,
Lethari?”

“Dyovan,” Lethari said. “When did you reject your master’s
call? Do you truly mean to allow this?”

Dyovan averted his eyes. “What I do, I do for Sigrede.”

“Sigrede was my friend,” Lethari said. “He was my
sand-brother.”

“True sand-brothers do not honor one another with the knife,”
Cean sneered.

“Return to your cage, Cean. I will not say it again.”

“Nor will I. I am free, and I will not go back. I make for
Sai Calgoar tonight, with the full strength of Dyovan Angeides and his forces
behind me. My own men have pledged themselves to my service once more, despite
your attempt to take them from me. If you know what is good for you, you will
lay your sword at the master-king’s feet and accept the disgrace you deserve.”

“For Sigrede,” said one of the warriors behind him.

“For Sigrede,” another echoed.

Soon the crowd was filled with voices raised in support of
Sigrede and the injustice they perceived had been done him.

How could something done of kindness come to be held in
contempt by so many?
Lethari wondered. He wanted to strike Cean down for
the insolent skite he was. Dyovan, too, had taken Lethari’s reward and turned
it against him. He had given Dyovan a larger force to command, and still it had
been insufficient to buy his loyalty.
Perhaps the kind of loyalty I need is
the kind which cannot be bought
.

Cean came closer, whispering while the others shouted. “The
fates have turned against you, Lethari. This
feiach
is yours no longer.”

“Even from behind the bars of a cage, you have undermined me
at every turn. Tell me why, Cean.”

“Sigrede told me of your grand visions; of the flaw Amhaziel
gave you. But he was holding something back. I know this campaign’s success has
been more than some fortunate twist of the fates. You killed Sigrede Balbaressi
because you are hiding something.”

“He was near death already. You saw him yourself.”

“I did not think it necessary to mention that to anyone
else.”

Lethari’s mouth fell open. “You have been telling them I
killed Sigrede in cold blood…”

“A warleader with such lofty designs as yours cannot be left
unopposed while his head grows as big as his purse,” Cean said with a pleasant
smile. “It is time the king appointed a new warleader. Someone who does not
murder his own captains. I am wasting my time with you, standing here when I
should be on the back of my corsil, riding for our fair City of Sand. When I
arrive, I will tell Tycho Montari what I have told everyone else. Unless of
course, you admit what it is you are hiding. Then I may reconsider…”

Lethari swore. “Go then, cur. Beg at the king’s feet for the
scraps you were only worthy to take by deceit. Bring your men, whose loyalties
change with the wind, and find the empty promise of your ill-gotten
achievement.”

Cean brushed Lethari’s shoulder as he passed, pausing to
whisper. “By your fortune favored… my master.”

Moments later, the canyon thundered with the departure of a
hundred riders on horse and corsil, more than half the
feiach
’s
remaining strength.
I should never have left Sigrede’s men behind
,
Lethari thought with dismay, though he could not have been certain of their
loyalties either.

Lethari returned to the fire and stood there alone for a
time. Though the remainder of his
feiach
faded into the night, he could
not help but feel watched. For a moment he regretted refusing Cean’s offer, but
then assured himself it would’ve been a mistake to reveal the goatskin. Better
not to clear his name of one crime by admitting to another. Doing so would’ve
given Cean all the evidence he needed to have Lethari cast into
disgrace—although it appeared he was doomed to suffer disgrace anyway.

When the light-star cleared the tops of the canyon walls the
next morning, Lethari was wide awake. He’d spent hours digging the deepest hole
he could manage inside his tent and burying the goatskin record there.
Afterward, he’d lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, numb with dread. He wasn’t
about to return home and walk into the master-king’s
luchair
with the
goatskin in his pack, and there would be no funeral pyre in which to burn it.
The ground was his only alternative.

There were too few porters and servants left to pack the camp
in a timely manner, so Lethari helped them dismantle his tent. He tried not to
keep glancing at the spot where he’d buried the goatskin. More than once he
found himself checking to see whether he had adequately hidden the signs of
disturbance in the sand. To him it seemed impossible for anyone not to detect
the place where the rolling drifts had been disturbed by more than footprints.
No one appeared to notice, though.

At its best, the
feiach
was a moving village. It
needed to be well-populated in order to function that way, though, and just now
Lethari’s
feiach
was missing several key components. The wounded from
yesterday’s ambush numbered in the dozens, and the skeleton crew of shamans,
warlocks, and soothsayers had their hands full. Fates forbid any of the slave
cages should come unsecured, for a revolt might prove uncontainable. And so,
crippled and poorly provisioned for anything but a plodding retreat toward Sai
Calgoar, the
feiach
limped off through the wasteland. If they ran afoul
of another trade caravan now, they were more likely to become its victim than
its conqueror.

Sai Calgoar was three days away. Lethari pitched in each time
they made camp, performing menial tasks alongside the
feiach
’s lowest
servants. Everyone had to help, or things simply would not get done. Though he
was always exhausted after a day’s ride and an evening’s work, he slept
fitfully.

Whenever he wasn’t dreaming about Sig, the desert came to him
in nightmares. It was a malevolent thing, alive, horizons deep and waiting to
swallow him behind every dune. The people of the steel city strung him to a
girder and crowded around to plunder everything he owned. They took his
clothes. When those were gone, they began to take
parts
of him. Hands
reached inside him. Then he would wake, cold with sweat.

It was late afternoon when at last his
feiach
made its
triumphal entry through the market streets of Sai Calgoar. Merchants were
closing their stands and returning home for the night. At first they paid
Lethari and his meager band so little mind, one might’ve thought they were
simple travelers, rather than a great warband returning from a successful
campaign.