85. Now Fear
NOW: FEAR
“Idon’t understand,” said Keir, baffled by his brother who had his hands on his knees, head hanging while Evangeline still had a hand on his shoulder.
I could hold back no longer and, having had little to eat that day, leaned over and spat up watery, yellowish spew on the white stone floor. When I stood, Ilsit was next to me, a hand on my arm, her eyes wide.
“Robbie, what is happening?”
“It’s a tongue,” Reed repeated, trying to straighten himself, bringing a fist over his mouth. He removed it and continued, saying, “That’s not a riverbed and that’s not a river in it. And this isn’t a cellar. This is a mouth. And that is a tongue beneath a runnel of spit.”
Keir squinted at him, brow wrinkling. “You’re saying under the water there’s a—a tonguelike thing? Made of flesh?”
“It’s not water,” Reed amended hoarsely, his mouth turned down. “It’s spittle. That’s why it’s so thick, why it has bubbles. That’s why it doesn’t flow. This isn’t a river, brother. It’s a jaw in which a tongue sits beneath spit.”
Ilsit’s chin dipped forward, as if she too were about to throw up her dinner. “Are you telling me,” she began, her tone laced with repulsion, “we’ve been drinking spit for a week? Washing in it, washing our clothes and dishes in it? Shit, there are children here drinking it.”
“This explains everything,” Reed said to himself, lacing his fingers behind his head, his eye closed, a look of despair about him.
I realized I had never seen him this unnerved. His usual even keel was gone. The slinking, wildcat way in which he carried himself was replaced with a tautness.
“It explains nothing,” disagreed Keir.
“You’ve got to give us something else,” Evangeline pleaded.
Reed turned to her. “It’s in all the origin stories of the Farthest Four.
The fates broke them, cut them off from their children.
Then the king of the fates left eight of them here to maintain the world the gods of Tintar made.
Three to offer measure to the world, Moderation, Consequence, and Balance.
And five to wreak their hell, Death, War, Greed, Hate and—my gods. ”
“What?” Keir demanded. “Reed, please.”
Reed was shaking his head beneath his hands. He looked at me. “You understand it?”
I leaned into Ilsit, feeling like I could collapse.
I could not form my own thoughts, so I quoted the lines from my favorite book instead.
“‘I will set myself up as a colossal edifice, a sign of good sense, a pillar of reason, but I will be nothing but myself.
And those who help feed me will be given the courage of zealots. '”
Evangeline gasped. “Fear.”
Reed brought a hand down to his chest and rubbed it.
“The first layer of this tower is the skull of a fate. The depression this city is built in is not from bygone dried-out oceans. The Gates of Sound are not placed where a sound once flowed. Skow was built on top of where Fear lay down in his grave, which was really a timeless trap, waiting to be fed.”
His sister was nodding now. “I remember. I remember from bedtime stories. Fear went to the cold west, to make the ‘empire of terror.’ It’s in all the accounts of the fates interfering with the gods. He made an empire of his bones. And he buried himself in the ground.”
“A pillar of reason,” I added, continuing the snippet from The Life of Una. “‘He, like Death, lay in the earth, making a long grave for his bones, awaiting those who would feed his appetite.’”
“It’s the tongue of soundness,” Ilsit declared, eyes fiercely lit. “He is in The Book of Rodwin too. But he’s not a villain as you seem to have been told. He’s not even a he. It’s the tongue of soundness. He is what saves a sinner.”
When the other three looked at her for more, she could not continue, a hand at her throat like she could quench the rise of vomit.
So I said, “It is in the scriptures. It reads, ‘The sinner must be washed by the wisdom of reason, of good sense. They must be cleansed by the tongue of soundness. Those that feed the tongue their sins will be made free. And—’” I cut myself off, still fighting a second upheaving of my stomach.
My gut roiling, my chest tight with panic, I made myself finish, “‘Those that bring the tongue the sins of others will be made kings.’”
“It’s a recipe for dominance,” Evangeline mused, her eyes out of focus. “Feed the fate someone else and you’ll be their king. His poison will make them your servant.”
“They have secured the towns on the border of Tintar as theirs,” Reed went on when she drifted to a stop. “And they’ve supplied their monster with fresh feed, giving him those who used to live in those towns.”
“That’s why the guards don’t live here,” Evangeline went on, as if he had not spoken. “That’s why they all look green. They can’t wait for their shift to end. They know too much.”
Ilsit bent over and threw up.
Keir looked like he believed us but did not want to. “You’ll forgive a Vyggian who only believes in the salt and the sea, who has good-luck talismans but no real faith. Are you sure?”
“Look in the spit. Look through it,” Reed challenged.
“That’s a red, living tongue down there.
It’s alive.” He pointed at the opening for the channel in the wall where the stairs were built.
“It flows from his body underground. It must be connected by little channels in the walls that pour into the spigots and founds upstairs. They’re all connected, the flow upstairs and the flow of this. ”
“This isn’t one, endless sphere of empty rock,” Evangeline said, her voice pitched higher than usual. “It is bone. We’re inside his head.”
“And in the stories I have read,” I mused aloud, “the fates are made up of skeletal bodies with thin skin and long tongues that taste mortal emotions. But they’ve no blood or fat or muscle.
Their tongues and their thin skin are all that’s really flesh on them.
So this is his empty head containing only his tongue. ”
“They built their watchtower on top of it,” Reed added. “It’s a mason’s dream. A deep foundation and first level already formed.”
“The guards stationed along the top of the city wall can climb it from the outside,” Evangeline added.
“I saw it. They can ascend it from their posts on the wall, stay on the outside, use it as a watchtower, but they never really enter it. There is nothing inside the upper floors. I think it is just built for watching.”
“We have to escape by this time tomorrow night,” Keir pronounced. “This is untenable and unwise. And I won’t let Jade suffer another hour here. She’s coming with me now. When we leave.”
“We can’t take them out yet,” Evangeline protested. “We have to get their niece and secure an escape plan. We don’t know the schedule of that guard outside the city wall. We’ll get killed at worst, caught at best.”
“I won’t have you here either,” Reed said to me.
Ilsit waved a hand at them, her face pale and sweaty. “They won’t let the penitents anywhere near the front entrances. Shit and godsdamn. Are those his eye holes?”
“I think so,” said Evangeline, and I had never seen the lady warrior so cowed. She was biting her lip, eyes darting around the chamber.
“I need you to take out our horses,” I blurted out. “If this is the way of it, if we are using this as our escape, then I’m not condemning those poor beasts to dying in this hell. At least Zara. You have to get Zara out.”
Keir shook his head. “I’m sorry, Robbie. It’s too obvious. Especially if they see what horses we take out.”
“Then take their kerchiefs off. I’m not leaving my horse behind,” I said.
“I’ll take care of it,” Reed said, holding up his hand to indicate Keir should not speak.
“I’ll say they all have the strangles. It’s highly contagious to other horses in a stable.
I’ll say we’re taking them outside the city gates.
It makes sense they’d all have it as they carried the same wagon here.
Also, we’ve yet to secure horses that aren’t Thane’s for our wagon.
I’m sure he’d loan them if it was to help his daughter, but I’d rather not rely on it.
And there are ten of us planning to escape.
That’s a lot of folk to cram into one vehicle and a lot of strain on the beasts. ”
“Alright, that may work,” Keir conceded.
“Dermid can do it,” Evangeline offered. “He is friendly with the drivers, and he can get one to aid him. He hasn’t really come inside yet.
It’ll draw less attention. He can lead the animals right outside the Gates of Sound.
Maybe even tomorrow morning. He’s allowed to come in and claim them too if he says they’re Thane’s property. I think that will help.”
“It’s time to make a plan,” said Reed. “And then execute it.”