Chapter Twenty #4
shrapnel. When he looked again, the bank of devices was gone, leaving only a
deep, ruptured hole in the stone, like the caldera of a volcano. A spew of
souls erupted from the depths of the pyramid. Thousands of beings gushed from
the earth, wreathed with spectral limbs and stretching faces, churning like the
stampede of a crowd. Sunlight enveloped their forms, roiling the souls into a
radiant mixture of whiffs and tufts and streams. As they rose higher, and
spread further apart, the souls became thin and translucent, the limbs and
faces drifting apart into wisps and vapor, until all that remained was a faint
sheen of dust, sparkling brightly in the light.
They
were dissipating, like Berith said. Without a corporeal form. . . .
Through
the sound of rumbling stone and groaning metal, Isaac realized he could hear
their voices again. It sounded like a gentle, whispering sigh.
The
screaming had finally stopped.
This
time, for good.
It felt
as if the geyser of souls erupted for hours. It was certainly less than a
minute. Eventually, the flow began to lessen, the radiant plume relaxing into a
minor spout, soon dividing into leaks and dribbles. Eventually, only a few
tendrils remained, like the last morning mists fading before the dawn. For a
moment, Isaac thought he saw one of the souls turn its face in his direction.
It was no more than a suggestion, the vaguest shape of a gaze, a smile, a
whispered word of thanks, and before Isaac had truly seen the soul at all, it
was gone, spreading into the peace of the breeze. All that remained in the air
was loose sand and reddened light.
The air
grew quiet. Thin motes of dust fell from the air.
Zaria
had him nestled against her chest. After a breath of relief, she ran her hands
over his body, checking for injury. “Good?”
He
tried to answer. All he could give was a grunt.
“Yes or
no, love.”
He felt
his lungs seize in his chest.
Zaria
released one of her hands. It was dripping with blood. “Oh, fuck me.”
He was
dizzy. The world seemed to swim.
“Isaac!”
The
knives. The two still in his arm. He only now noticed that the splints had
broken. All his falling and exertion had worsened the wounds. Blood flowed so
freely he could see it spurt with the beating of his heart.
He
couldn’t. . . .
Everything
shifted. He was staring at the sun. There was warmth on his face. There was a
feeling of ice crawling through his chest.
“Hey,
hey.” Zaria’s face, one eye wide. “Stay awake.”
His
throat was dry.
“Look
at me!”
The sky
was blue. There were veins of rock along the escarpment walls, entire geologies
of sediment. There was tugging somewhere below. He shifted again, and there was
sand and broken metal. He saw a pile of black. There was blood. Limbs. A face.
Uncle.
“Isaac!”
Berith.
Wait.
No.
Uncle.
Had he?
“Isaac!”
Wait.
No.
Wait.
Wait.
Uncle.
. . .
He woke
to the gentle flapping of cloth, straining against the wind.
For a moment,
he thought he was back in the desert. The air was hot, and there was sand on
his skin, and sunlight was beating down on the roof of his tent. His muscles
ached. His lips were cracked and split.
On this
particular day, his eyes had opened to the slanting fabric of his tent, and he
had known that he was soon to die of thirst. His thoughts had been muddy and
scattered, his muscles uncompliant. He had crawled out into the belly of a dry
river gulch, fingers scrabbling through the cracked dirt, realizing his only
hope was to head into the dunes and search for the oasis detailed on his map.
Instead, he had clashed with a skimmer full of pirates, and he had met Zaria,
and she had given him water.
Zaria.
The tomb.
His
father. . . .
He
blinked. He was in his tent again, lying on top of a bedroll. There was stone
beneath him, and sand blowing through the holes of the fabric. Beneath the
wind, he began to hear voices.
“. . .
can’t go together. Too big a target.” He recognized Zaria’s voice, low and
rough. “They’ll be rousing the constabulary of every town worth mention.”
“My
sister’s still home,” a male voice said, one that Isaac did not recognize. “My
aunt. My grandfather. I have to warn them.”
“Wouldn’t
try it, personally,” Zaria replied. “Might be you get there before the news
spreads. Might just get stopped in the road. Next thing you know, you’re
hauling irons for murder and treason. Your kin’ll
catch the same charge, if they’re seen with you.”
Somewhere,
a woman was sobbing. She sounded as if she had been doing so for quite a while.
There
was a tingling sensation running down his arm. Isaac recognized it immediately.
Soldier’s Rest. It was the same poultice he had given to Zaria in the
necropolis, and the same poultice he had always used for himself, whenever the
lashes of the cane had left him too debilitated to study.
Who had
made this?
Looking
down, he saw sutures and bandages in the place where two knives had previously
jutted from his arm. There was a deep bruise where the tourniquet had been. The
burn on his leg had been swabbed, cleaned, and packed with poultice. He could
still feel the edges of the wound. It was fairly deep. He would have to clean
it again, and frequently thereafter.
“We
need to go,” a second male said. “We can’t stay here. It won’t be long before
they send a search.”
“Ain’t
holding you hostage,” Zaria said. “Run along, then.”
The
woman continued to sob.
“You
should come,” the first male said. “Help us finish the climb. I don’t know how
well we can manage on our own, and . . . well, even if the coma subsides—”
“I’m
not hearing this again. He’ll pull through.”
“The
blood loss—”
“He’s a
tough little cunt. I’m sure he could fuck a sunblood
and just be wiping his cock afterward.”
There
was a pause.
“Right,”
said the first voice. “Well, if you’re sure. . . .”
“There’s
no doubt for me.” There were footsteps, coming closer. “Do as you wish. I’m not
leaving ‘til he’s up.”
The
tent shifted. Isaac managed to lift his head. Through the glare of the sun, he
could see Zaria’s face poking inside. The cloth she had wrapped around her eye
had been replaced with proper bandaging, though her fur was still matted with
blood and dust. She looked like a soldier who had narrowly survived a battle.
“Well,
now,” she said, breaking into a grin. “Look who’s returned.”
Isaac
attempted to rise, but he only managed to climb a few inches before his
strength completely waned. He felt as if his body had been filled with lead.
Zaria
crawled inside the tent, her considerable frame nearly uprooting the poles.
“How’re we feeling, then?”
“Alive.”
“Right
you are.” She almost said something else, but seemed to lose the words as she
looked down at him. “Wasn’t looking that way, for a good while.”
His
throat was painfully dry. “Water.”
She
reached over to the side and handed him the same stone bowl he used to prepare
his potions. Inside, there was a limpid broth, filled with crushed walnuts and
shreds of salted meat. It looked about as appetizing as old bath water, but
Isaac drank it greedily, draining the cup, barely chewing the leathery meat.
The
tent rustled again. He saw movement at the glare of the entrance.
Three
of the Khador students were staring inside. The sigils on their foreheads were
jagged and scarred, the flesh blackened along the deep grooves and winding
circles. There were two boys and one girl, and they must have been close to
Isaac’s age, but, at the moment, their faces were gaunt and worn, and their
robes hung like curtains on their bodies. Berith had clearly drained a portion
of their energy.
Berith.
The blood.
Isaac
tried to sit up again, managing to get to his elbows before Zaria pushed a firm
hand to his chest.
“You’re
takin’ a rest,” she said.
“I need
to—”
“Squire,
I swear to gods, I’ll tie you up again.”
“How
are you feeling?” one of the male apprentices asked.
Isaac
swallowed. “Weak. Cold.” He gestured at his sutures. “Did you make the
poultice?”
“Yes,”
said the other boy. “Professor Berith showed us how.”
The
girl peered from behind the two boys, her cheeks red and streaked with tears.
She was watching Isaac with a strange familiarity.
Above
him, Zaria was already preparing another stew, mixing in cuts of dried apple
and chamomile. The way she used her hand suggested it wasn’t paining her,
thanks to Soldier’s Rest. “I told them how it happened. Wasn’t a fun telling,
but things stayed civil.”
“Thank
you,” said the first boy. “Thank you for saving us.”
Isaac
took a moment to reply. “There were many others. I’m sorry I couldn’t save
them. Were they . . . the rest of your class?”
The
girl began to sob again. The second boy wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“Do
you—” The first apprentice hesitated. “Do you need further aid? We were hoping
to save what supplies we have.”
“Aye,”
Zaria said. “Funny how there’s kindness, now, when you were itching to leave
him for dead.”
“T-that
wasn’t—we need to preserve—”
“Oh,
sure. Ain’t no blame.”
Isaac
flexed the fingers on his arm. Blood loss had made them stiff, and it was obvious
that his wounds had only been numbed, rather than healed. Still, at the moment,
he was feeling remarkably better. “I’m fine.”
“Good.
Good.”
The
apprentice looked to Zaria.
“Remember
the route I marked?” She kept stirring the lukewarm broth. “Which contacts are
like to give shelter?”
“Yes.
Uh, yes. It’s here.”
“Practice
a bit more with the ropes. Make sure you got the knots.”
“Y-yes,
I will. We will.”
“Hey,”
Zaria said. “Trust me. Send a courier. Tell your kin to meet you somewhere and
don’t have them go all together. Got it?”
The boy
gave a weak nod, his face pale and drawn. The girl was cradling her head in her
hands. The second boy was staring off into the distance, gazing over the cavern
walls.
“Right.”
She clapped the first boy on the shoulder. “Farewell. Best of luck all around.”
The