Chapter 21
XXI
OFTEN, RECENTLY, I HAVE FOUND MYSELF THINKING OF the month Emissa and I trained together on Suus.
She would beat me at so many things. Again, and again.
Despite all I’d achieved until that point, I would struggle to keep pace, and through even the joy of her company, knowing just how much I needed to improve would so often weigh heavy.
One day on the golden beach below my ancestral home, she came upon me lost in a moment of bleak introspection. Saw the expression on my face before I could hide it. “Are you alright?” Our friendship strong enough to ask. Our romance too new for anything but a tentative enquiry.
I gave a grin that was mostly unforced, thanks to the sight of her. “Just respecting the work ahead.”
“‘Respecting.’ Of course.” Her eyes reflected both her smile and her empathy. She sat next to me in the soft, warm sand. Hip and shoulder to mine. “None slower than the impatient, you know.”
“What?”
“Sorry.” She gave a deprecating half laugh at herself.
“Just something my tutor used to say. Usually after my father passed through for his weekly critique. He used to tell me that I was so worried about being good enough, it was distracting me. That I was so focused on where I needed to be, I couldn’t see the space in between.
‘Improvement is not a destination,’ and all that.
” She shrugged. Light and casual and dismissive of her own wisdom.
“I don’t think that’s you. But it doesn’t hurt to be reminded, now and then, either. ”
We sat for a while after, and I stared out across the glittering Aeternum in contemplation and memory. Then we went back to training, and though she had not said anything I did not already know, she was right. Step-by-step is the only way to progress. I felt calmer for the reminder.
Gods. Long hours in that perfect sun with her. They passed so quickly. They felt like they were never going to end.
The Qabran twilight strains its last grey rays across the hollow tombs.
Caeror and I sit side by side on a stair, the toxic waterfall hissing its way into the darkness a hundred feet away.
Tash has already departed for the day. Stoic as always in his abjuration of both comfort and dignity.
I admire him more with each passing session.
“Thinking of home?” I glance across at Caeror’s question, and he smiles remorsefully at obviously having guessed right. “I’ve worn that look too often not to recognise it.”
I chuckle. Breath, as always, slightly too sharp in my chest. “Truth.”
He stares out over the gloom again. “You know, it was always the thing that struck me most, that first year. How often I found myself wishing I’d appreciated what I had.”
My humour fades.
“Truth,” I repeat softly.
Silence as we think about things that might have been, and then I stir. “How long until you think I should go?”
He doesn’t react. Plays absently with the Instruction Blade, takes a couple of casual swings at the air in front of him.
“A Cataclysm every three hundred years, and it’s been three hundred and three now.
I won’t send you off just to die, Vis. Everyone in there thinks Ka is a god, so you will only be able to depend on yourself.
But I don’t think we can wait until you’re guaranteed success, either. ” He exhales. “Not long.”
I inwardly agree, even as the expected admission punches me in the stomach. His candour, his directness, makes all the difference in these discussions. “I went back to the mutalis door, last night.”
“Really?” Caeror brightens. Understands how big a step that is, for me. “Did you touch it?”
“I got interrupted. The girl—Nofret? She told me not to. Said it was cursed. Something about it unleashing the end of the world.” I make it a question. “I would have asked more, but a very angry young man dragged her away before I could.”
“Her brother, I imagine.” Caeror laughs, amused rather than concerned.
“Gods. She talked to you? Apparently I need to work on my charm. You’ve been here a month, and I didn’t get a word from anyone for at least six.
” He subsides. Waves his hand. “Look, if that’s what stopped you, I wouldn’t worry.
Nofret is a child, and the warnings Yusef used to give her would have scared anyone.
Gods, they scared me. I can’t imagine she knows anything we don’t.
” He sees my hesitation. “But, no harm in being sure, either, I suppose. Ask her. It’ll be a good excuse to have the others see you two talk.
They dote on her, so if she’s warming up to you, they may just follow.
” A hint of familial affection to the last.
I nod. Vaguely relieved. I’d assumed much of what Caeror just said, but when it comes to the mutalis, there’s no benefit to leaving anything to chance. “You really think that will be enough to stop them being so afraid of me?”
“Probably not. But I’m going to hope anyway.” He shrugs. “I’ve been here for seven years, Vis. They’re family. Backward and frustrating sometimes, but … family. I’d like them to be able to at least make eye contact with the man who’s trying to save them.”
I chuckle. “It’s alright. I’m not offended.”
“I know. But I am. You’re family too, you know.” He grins ruefully, then dips his head at the gathering dim. “Come on. We should get back before the light goes.”
We stand. Start walking. The hiss of tainted water rushing by withers into the darkness behind, leaving only our muted footsteps as I think about our conversation. About the work still to be done.
And about the fact I’m asking my friend to weigh my preparedness for a task that will leave millions dead if we wait too long, and me if we go too soon.
“Caeror?” He looks at me. “You will tell me when I’m ready, won’t you.”
He nods slowly, hearing the real concern in my voice. Chews his lip as he studies me. “There’s an old saying, Vis. The young know they will die—”
“But only the old believe it,” I finish. “I know. And I’m old enough. I am. I don’t want to go unprepared; gods, I don’t want to do it at all. But we both know that this needs to happen.”
Silence, and then he nods again. “I’ll tell you, Vis. Truly.” We walk on, and after a few seconds, he chuckles. “After you got out of the Labyrinth back on Res, I really hope you and Ulciscor made amends.”
I glance across at him. “Why?”
“Because I know him and no matter what he forced you to do, I’d gods-damned bet he likes you.”
He slaps me on the back, and we head on into the last of the light.
MY TOMB, AND QAbr BEYOND ITS ENTRANCE, IS STILL UTterly black when I wake to one hand clamping my shoulder and the other my mouth. I lurch from sleep to panic, writhing and twisting futilely against the cold stone until the soft, urgent voice penetrates. “Vis. It’s me. Quiet. Quiet.”
I constrain myself to Caeror’s warning; a moment of stillness and then the pressure is cautiously lifting from my mouth. I sense it hovering, ready to stifle a yell, before finally being withdrawn.
“What’s going on?” I manage to keep it to a weary whisper. It feels like only an hour or two since I fell asleep.
“Gleaners.”
The single breathed word banishes any lassitude. I sit up, panic pounding through my chest before I force a steadying breath. “Where?”
“They’re going tomb by tomb. A couple of dozen of them.” A pause. “Half from the entrance. The others flew past toward the Channel. I’m guessing they’re sweeping from the opposite direction.”
Vek. “They know we’re here.”
“Yes.”
I’m on my feet. “Can we get to the garden?” Our first point of refuge, in the event of a Gleaner incursion. The symbols to open the door shouldn’t be known to the Concurrence.
“Maybe. But we need to go now. They’ve lit their blades, so they’ll be easy to spot.” Scuffling in the darkness, and then someone positioning me, guiding my hand to a shoulder. Then a hand gripping my own shoulder. “Let Tash lead. He grew up here, doesn’t need to see to get around.”
“Tash is here?” The iunctii quarters are a distance away, in the opposite direction of the garden.
“He’s the only other one who knows what you can do.”
I swallow. Of course.
Tash moves beneath my touch, and I follow.
We walk out into the utter darkness, only Tash’s sharp turn and the vaguest sense of open space to my left suggesting that we’ve left my tomb.
We’re on the third level up, and I find my heart hammering not just from the threat Caeror has woken me to run from.
A fall from this height will kill as surely as a Gleaner.
We make our way with excruciating caution down steps and along the rocky, uneven floor. I count my steps but even after months living here, it’s impossible to tell how far we’ve come. I hold my breath, half the time. Ears and eyes straining. None of us talk.
And then faintly, ahead, the symbol-covered walls bleed into view. A crimson, flickering light, its source still hidden by the natural twists and turns of the chasm. Tash stops. Silhouetted now.
“They can’t have cleared all the tombs to here,” I mutter back to Caeror.
“Advance scout,” he agrees in my ear, grip steady on my shoulder.
We take refuge in the nearest of the tombs as the reflected light grows rapidly brighter, pressing backs against the cold stone by the door. There’s no sound as the shadows sharpen and direct light spills briefly through the doorway before sliding on.
I’m in a better position; Caeror nods to me and I move with breathless caution, peering out.
The Gleaner is already thirty feet away, its back to me.
It floats silently along the middle of the chasm, bladed arms at its side.
Both swords seem to smoulder, deep red casting a bloody illumination that retreats as the iunctii glides around the next bend.
Caeror’s told me it’s how they navigate at night—some sort of coating on the blade that burns for hours.
This is the first time I’ve seen it in person, though.
“It’s gone.” My whisper shakes. “What was it doing?”