Chapter 68
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Any spirit—semblance, soul, or wraith—that finds itself upon the Asphodel Meadows inherits the quality and reward of a soul, be it to them a blessing or a curse.
—From Verities of the Dispossessed
My friends and I turned the corner onto the road of the small medieval Iron Horse church.
Shiguan crews crowded the muddy street. Thanatists had used bond threads to make vestiges look like topsiders.
Some stood in groups, rehearsing snatches of dialogue.
Others were studying music charts. Still others were readying weapons and nets and consulting topside maps and photographs.
On both sides of the road, violists were playing haunting songs using Brach’s seventeen-note scale.
I pushed through to the church doors and turned to face the crowd. “Brach’s been boxed,” I called. “His urn-bearer, Emaline, is in charge now. It’s over. Go home.”
A few vestiges looked my way, sneered, and went back to their preparations. I pulled my knife, expecting some resistance making a path for my friends, but no one tried to stop us, and we slipped by into the nave.
Thanatist crews packed the place from wall to wall. The pews had been busted into kindling and paintings ripped down. “This is a desecration,” Kincaid muttered.
The floor was covered in white scorch marks. “They fought back,” Lakshmi observed.
A few surviving congregants—members of the choir—stood pinned against the apse by Shiguan crews. Church caught my arm and pointed toward the door to the Abyssal Steps. It was open. It hit me then—we hadn’t yet passed through the ward’s protection.
“Jack,” said Lady, “if the barrier has receded this far, you can be sure the Shiguan have started down to try and take the Ward’s song. They don’t know the revolution’s over.”
I yelled out over the crowd, “Brach lost his trial. He wants you to stand down. It’s over.”
Then I handed one of the choristers Cassius’s sword, told him to use it well and that I’d be back for it, then quickly led my friends across the nave and down into the crypt. Fresh footsteps on the soft loam formed a beaten path to the Abyssal Steps on the other side.
Halfway across, Darnell lay on the ground, his face bashed in, blood streaming from his ear.
His eyes were dimming, and his blue semblance had torn free of his body.
Without thinking, I began to sing, stoking his remembrance of his pa’s military funeral, weaving notes into a song to let him know he’d done his father proud.
He nodded weakly, and his semblance faded.
My friends and I raced across the crypt and down the dark steps to the Saxon Stratum. The pressure erupted in my head, but I pushed through it. At least I knew which memories might return. We climbed through an open stratum door into the luthier’s stone workshop.
No ward protection here, either. Shiguan preparing for battle and readying iron nets filled the room and stretched out past the fallen wall and down the road.
There were scorch marks on the floor here, too. I didn’t see the luthier or his son.
“Brach’s been convicted,” I called. “Boxed by the chancery. It’s over.
Go home.”
I was feeling dizzy, but pushed back to the Steps and started down again.
Ella’s body lay on the stairs between strata. Lady hunkered down. “It’s too late.”
So again, I sang. Just a few lines, doing my best to give her the chance to move on. Then she was gone, too.
We continued down toward the Roman Stratum. On the stairs this time we found Sherzer and Delain, barely hanging on. I sang for them, as well. Just a few notes, hoping they’d be able to find the mountain of fire—more people to mourn if we made it through this crazy thing.
The ward still held a few yards of ground near the amphitheater’s orchestra entrance. Loch and a dozen topsiders hunkered inside the shrinking protection, clutching weapons low at their sides.
I pulled Loch around. “Where are the others?”
Loch shook his head. “We retreated down the Steps to stay inside the ward. The Shiguan chased us . . . spared no one . . .”
Just a few feet away, outside the barrier, milled a hundred Shiguan or more, including a good many legionnaires, holding their blades and glowing lanterns against the darkness. At the front stood Henry Purcell.
My vision blurred, and my legs nearly buckled. Kincaid put an arm around my waist until I got my footing.
Purcell spotted me and sauntered close. “You don’t look well,” he said, but it was Brach’s voice.
I drew a revelatory stroke on my lantern and looked into Purcell’s shadow. Brach’s gleaming Carmina Burana leapt in my vision around a scar of supplicating hands and tobacco leaf.
“That’s right, Jack,” said Brach, raising his hands like a man showing off a new coat. “A new gudgeon for my old soul.”
“My friends are dead,” I said. “That your doing?” “Such is war,” said Brach.
I imagined Westy and the others, just metal fans, Iron Horse mates, dying confused and afraid. The senselessness burned inside me.
I stepped toward the Shiguan mob. “It’s over. Emaline’s in charge now. You’re all to stand down. No revolution. No invasion.”
Brach laughed. “No, sir, I can assure you that Emaline is most definitely not ‘in charge now.’ ” His voice coming out of Purcell’s face made me double-take again.
“The chancery recognized her—” Brach shook his head.
I stowed my bow and gripped my knife. “What have you done to her?” “I’ve found an appropriate place for her failed potential,” said Brach. “I
have to say, though, that your little demonstration at tonight’s trial was most impressive.
It’s no wonder Henry kept your potential such a secret.
” Lakshmi stepped up beside me. “You’re still Mr. Wilkinson’s murderer, regardless of which vessel you occupy.
So, I’m placing you under arrest.” Brach just smiled.
“No, dear. We’re going to take the song any moment now.
And once we have it . . . well, somehow I think things will be different. ”
“Even if you get the song,” I said, “we’ll stop you from taking the Steps. It’s easy to defend a pinch point like a set of stairs.”
“The Abyssal Steps are the most direct,” said Brach, “but my Shiguan are staged at nearly every stair to the topside world. Once we have the song, the revolution will be swift and efficient.”
It was worse than I’d thought. I’d only used a couple of the stairways, but I knew there were Strata steps all across London. Even with my field map, there was no way we could cover them all.
“You can still be a part of it, Jack,” Brach continued. “You and your friends. I can be a forgiving man when I want to be.”
I shook my head. “The Ward’s almost dead. All we have to do is fight you off long enough for her to go, then her song will go with her.”
“Stubborn to the last.” Brach chuckled. “Jack, even if your ward expires, we’ll search out her song in the ancient dark where it first began.
It would, of course, be an unfortunate delay, but hardly insurmountable.
In the meantime, you’re going to die, and most of your friends here will die with you, becoming ciphers.
Or . . . join us, save yourself and your friends.
The choice is yours.” Brach sauntered away as though giving me time to decide.
We were heavily outnumbered, and weary besides.
I gathered my friends back near the Steps.
“It might be a bluff,” I said. “We don’t know that Brach could actually find the song once the Ward dies.
On the other hand, if we fight, and one of you gets your bindings cut, I might not be able to help you.
My point is, if they are going to get the song anyway, I’m not sure the Ward would want you to sacrifice yourselves in vain. ”
“An honorable fight is never a vanity,” said Church. “While I have a choice,” Lady added, “I choose to fight.”
Kincaid clacked his metal rods together. “I’d like a chance at them just for what they did to the church above.”
“You’re my kind of priest.” Chuey brandished his macuahuitl, then turned to me. “We do it now, my man. Westmont strong.”
Lakshmi simply nodded. Ready.
These wonderful fools. They were likely cashing in their lives to buy a few minutes for a dying ward, giving whatever resistance might remain a few more days to prepare for invasion. Maybe I should just lead my friends back topside. Spare them. “You guys absolutely sure?”
Lady touched my cheek. “No matter the outcome, Henry would be proud.” “Quite right,” Church added.
Lakshmi pulled both her swords.
If I lived through this, I’d work twice as hard to be worthy of their friendship.
We formed a small semicircle with Loch and the others at the base of the Steps, facing Brach and his Shiguan in silence.
A few moments later I felt the thin, magnet-like force of the ward barrier retreat over us.
Brach waved his Shiguan forward. I pulled a quick bracing stroke on my lantern to strengthen my friends. Brach and several of the Shiguan thanatists did the same, filling the Roman Stratum amphitheater with beaming light and brassy tones.
Then we clashed, steel ringing, lamplight flaring.
Lakshmi and Church battled on our flanks.
Chuey and Lady led the others against the direct onslaught from the front, but our line began to collapse almost immediately under the massive assault.
We had nowhere to go except down the Steps, but we had to give the Ward more time.
Loch took a sword to the chest. I dragged him inside the Ward’s protection to sing him onward, but my friends were being pushed back toward the amphitheater wall and the Shiguan were almost on top of us—
Finally . . . I can let go. It was the Ward’s voice. I could feel my bond with her loosening.
“You held on for so long,” I told her. “You kept us safe. I’m grateful.
We all are.”
Thank you, Jack.
“The chancery wouldn’t intercede,” I said.
“I guess we’re at the end.” No, she said.
Not the end. In the Meadows there is one who sings my song.
As the battle closed in around me, I called to mind the Meadows—the dark, endless skies above; the long fields of stone stretching away to the horizon; the wind rushing over me—and I was there again.
Something caught my eye. Several somethings.
A figure stood at the base of the mountain of fire, bracing against the wind, and gathering souls before they disappeared into the flames.