Requiem (47 page)

He heard a woman’s voice booming out about a temple and about Shadrus, but he found the words impossible to focus on. Instead, he savored the sensation that now moved through him. It was a pure joy the likes of which he’d never known—and he knew it was the staff. Something in it rejoiced at the sight of the tree, and Vlad could not help but join it. A sense of euphoria and hope flooded him, and for a brief moment, he lost sight of everything but what he presently experienced.

But when he saw the woman in black staring at him, he found his focus again. All of the others were caught up in what was happening, but she regarded him with some mix of fear and rage. “Are you responsible for this, Vlad Li Tam?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. She looked important—her robes were more ornate than the other Daughters, and she was older than most of them. “This is not my work.”

She opened her mouth to say more but closed it when the booming voice rolled out once more across the meadow.

Where did that voice come from?
He looked around the field and found its source. The staff brought the young woman clearly into focus, and it took him a moment to recognize Winteria bat Mardic, the deposed Queen of the Marshfolk. Beside her, a tall silver mechoservitor stood, and nearby, a man he recognized from his youth knelt on the ground.

Petronus?
Only not the old man he had most recently seen. The young man who’d been the youngest pope to take office. His boyhood friend.

His eyes moved to the mechoservitor. There were others nearby, but this one stood apart. It was taller, newer, and yet he knew somehow it was actually older. Far older. And made from the same mirror-polished metal as the staff in his hand. He felt the kinship between the two even as the metal man’s eyes shifted to meet his own.

Lord Tam.
He heard the voice in his mind and winced at its force.
The tools of the parents are not toys for the children.

Vlad blinked.
And who are you?

But before the mechoservitor could answer, he felt the staff answering for him. The metal peeled away, and his breath caught as a rush of information filled his head. Images and ciphers and music.

He knew who it was, though he did not comprehend it.

Isaak.

And there was more; he felt the weight of it in the pit of his stomach.
He has the spell.

Vlad Li Tam looked away, suddenly aware of a change in the atmosphere around them. The seeds were falling around them now like snowflakes, and he felt a jolt of energy moving up his arm from the staff, spreading through his body. It moved out around him, and as it spread it seemed as if the seeds fell faster, drawn by whatever energy the staff had infused the ground with.

But he did not wait to see what that meant. Others were gathering around the woman now, and they, too, could see him. He tapped the field gently with the staff and willed himself away from the aether.

The last thing he saw was Isaak’s red eyes burning into him.

He climbed to his feet, disoriented from the sudden shift to and from the aether. Then, he tapped the courtyard with the silver rod and woke his Knives from their forced slumber. “We go now while we have the advantage,” he said.

Vlad forced strength into his legs, wincing at the sharp pain behind his eyes from commanding the staff. But it complied, and he gave himself to a slow run.

The palace gates were closed, and a full squad of guards lay sprawled about, still caught up in the dream. He and his Knives did not pause—he thrust the staff ahead and watched the massive gate collapse in on itself just as their feet whispered over it. Beyond the gate, the garden stretched out with its citrus orchards and flowers.

“Fires,” Vlad whispered.

He did not see his runners spread out, though he could’ve tasked the staff with aiding his eyes even to the point of seeing beyond their magicks. Tonight would tax him enough, and he knew he could trust them to do their work with or without his eyes upon them. And even as he ran, he smelled the smoke from the fires they set. When he reached the inner gate, he smelled oranges and lemons burning on the wind.

The guards were stirring here, and his Knives moved in over them, returning them to a longer, dreamless sleep, even as Vlad tapped the inner gate with the staff to send it toppling over.

Now they were met by rushing wind, and he held his breath as he squeezed more from the staff. He felt it heating up as it leeched the blood magicks out of the women who approached them. Confounded, they fell back even as his own magicked Knives slipped past him to strike them down. But these, they didn’t kill. They left them moaning, hamstrung, in their blood.

The dead use fewer resources,
he thought as he ran. And the whimpers of the wounded were one more tool to erode the morale and resolve of his enemy.

“Fires,” Vlad whispered again. Then, he stretched out his left hand toward Aedric. He felt the magicked Gypsy’s lead line slip over his wrist and tighten, and he tugged it, letting the first captain take point.

They took the central stairway two steps at a time as the sounds of alarm and the smell of smoke rose around them. Above, another squad of Blood Guard spilled down the stairs toward them, and once more, Vlad gritted his teeth and called upon the staff and felt the heat of their magicks as it drew them out of them. These staggered on the stairs, tumbling aside as Vlad and his escort moved past. He heard the sound of blades as they rushed upward and heard the bodies falling, sliding down the stairs as his Knives did their cutting.

Once they reached the top, Aedric guided them down a wide corridor, following the directions Som Li Tam had drilled into them all for most of the last two days. The heat from the fires below followed them, and Vlad felt sweat beading on his forehead.

But it is more than the heat.
He was fevered now, shored up by the staff even as that ancient artifact tore down his body. He understood the mechoservitor’s words very well now about the tools of the parents. Each new ache within his bones or stabbing pain within his chest reminded him starkly that time was short for him. Shorter still each time he squeezed more power from the Moon Wizard’s staff.

They pressed their way down the corridor now, twice more encountering Y’Zirite soldiers as they worked their way deeper into the palace’s residential quarters. Vlad had no way of knowing exactly how many of his Knives were lost along the way, but from what his ears could tell him, they held their own well enough.

And we are close.

Despite knowing that, he was surprised when they suddenly burst through a door and into the empress’s bedchambers. Once more he pulled the magicks from the Blood Guard, but this time, the staff pulsed in his hand and he staggered from the force of it. His Knives fell upon the Y’Zirites, but these were fiercer. They gathered around a large round bed and stood the longest of all the others as his Knives rushed over them.

A man in dark robes entered the room from a set of double doors that led to the main hallway. He moved toward Vlad, his face set with resolve and his hand held up as if to stop Vlad’s advance.

Vlad recognized the silver insignias from his reconnaissance around the city. This was one of the magisters.

You will stop now.
The words were sharp behind his temples, and Vlad felt them grabbing at him, slowing him even as he plowed into Aedric’s back. The other Knives stopped as well.

No,
Vlad replied.
I will not ever stop.

The staff beat like a heart now, and with each pulse Vlad found his eyes drawn to the silver ring upon the magister’s hand. He felt it, his mind moving through it and around it. He tasted the coolness of the metal on his tongue and heard the whispers buried deeply in its small black stone. When he comprehended it, he smiled.

And when he tapped the staff upon the floor he heard a pop and saw a flash of light as the black stone shattered and the metal melted from the magister’s finger. The man screamed, and Vlad advanced, swinging the staff like a club. He felt the solid, satisfying jolt along his arms as it connected and heard a loud crack as the magister went down.

Vlad turned to the bed. A little girl stirred there and whimpered. He approached her slowly. “Amara,” he said. “I’m here to take you to your mother.” She couldn’t possibly understand what he meant, but it wasn’t the words that were important. It was the tone of his voice as he willed all threat or menace from it. He paused. “Aedric?”

“I’m here, Tam.”

“Are you ready?” He felt a tug at the lead line as the first captain shifted.

“I am.”

Vlad nodded. He slipped the lead line from his wrist and took the heavy sack that Aedric pushed into his hands, wincing at the memory of what was inside. Then, he looked down at the Crimson Empress in her bed. She had her mother’s eyes, and they were fixed on his now as her lower lip quivered.

“Sleep,” he said. The girl’s eyes closed, and her body went still.

And after Aedric gently slipped her into a magicked sack, they left by the way they came and turned their eyes toward his grandson’s quarters so he could once more break his daughter’s heart.

Rudolfo

The late-morning sun was hot upon his neck as Rudolfo ran, eyes forward and scanning the nearby pastures and the line of trees on his horizon. He’d run the same route initially, but as his legs and lungs adapted, he’d increased the distance. And as his plans took shape, he’d taken to randomly changing his route. On some days Yazmeera joined him; but on most he ran alone.

No, not alone.
It was easy to forget his shadow, Ire Li Tam, running silently to the left and rear of him. He glanced back at her now and caught her watching him.

She met his eyes. “You’re not as soft as you were. But are you ready for what’s coming?”

He nodded. “I am.”

When he’d confided in her, her initial reaction had been incredulous, but once he’d lain out the basics of his plan and she’d seen his resolve, the Blood Guard had added her own insights to the planning. And now, with the Council—and his banquet—just days away, there was little left to do but watch and wait.

The briefest flash of silver caught his eye, and he saw the tiny bird moving low over the ground, disappearing into the tree line ahead. He forced his feet to carry him faster.

When he slipped into the shadows of the trees that lined the river, he slowed to a walk.

He heard the quiet whistle and turned toward it.

A man dressed in the nondescript clothing of an orchard worker crouched against a tree overlooking the slow-moving water; Rudolfo and Ire joined him.

Rudolfo had met Renard years earlier as a younger man, but time had largely erased his recollections of the Waste Guide. His memory of the man’s father, Remus, was clearer. And to be certain, Renard was certainly his son. He had the height, the salt-and-pepper hair, and intensely blue eyes. Rudolfo crouched beside him while Ire Li Tam took up a position nearby, her eyes prowling for any movement that might indicate they’d been followed.

Renard’s eyes measured him, and Rudolfo met them with his jaw set. “We’ve expedited the wine shipment,” the Waste Guide said. “It should arrive later today.”

Rudolfo nodded. “Good.” There had been a steady stream of messages by the bird since his midnight infiltration of Drea Merrique’s estate. To their credit, they’d not tried to talk him out of his decision, only into waiting. And now five barrels of his wine of choice—made from the peaches of Glimmerglam—made their way to him. “It will need time to properly chill,” he said.

Renard nodded. “Yes, of course.” The Waste Guide smiled. “But otherwise, it is ready for your intended purpose.”

Rudolfo raised his eyebrow. “And you’re assured of the outcome? It will only affect the Y’Zirites who drink it?”

The Waste Guide opened his mouth to answer, but Rudolfo didn’t hear the words. Light burst behind his eyes, and a vertigo gripped him suddenly, pitching him over into the grass. He was vaguely aware of Renard falling as well, and in the distance, he thought he heard Ire Li Tam gasp.

When the blinding light spiderwebbed itself to something more manageable, he sat up and blinked. When Renard extended a hand to him, he took it and let the man pull him to his feet.

The field stretched out before Rudolfo, and even as he watched, he saw ghosts materializing upon it—at first, men and women dressed in the garb of county folk, and later, soldiers and scouts in the familiar black of the Y’Zirite army. Beyond them, people dressed in other clothing, other uniforms, also gathered in a sea of spectators. They gathered around a gigantic white tree that rose up from the center of the plains, and from somewhere distant, he heard a woman’s voice rolling out over them, louder than any blood magick he’d ever heard. “Hold!”

I know this voice.
He squinted but couldn’t find the speaker.

“We’re in the aether,” Renard whispered. “In the dream.”

Rudolfo turned. “The dream?”

Renard’s voice was awestruck. “The Final Dream.”

Rudolfo’s brow furrowed. “My understanding is that the Final Dream was lost with the Watcher.”

Renard regarded him thoughtfully before speaking. “Your understanding is … incomplete.” Then he looked up, and Rudolfo followed his gaze. Black-robed women moved among the crowd, their eyes moving to and fro, setting them apart from the wide-eyed stares of the others who’d found themselves here.

Incomplete?
Rudolfo scanned the field again and now saw the flashes of metal where mechoservitors moved among them, and he wondered what Renard meant. But his wondering faltered when the wind rose and carried a different voice—a child’s voice—to his ears.

“Papa!”

Rudolfo turned and took in the small boy who toddled toward him. There were black-robes with the child, their faces concerned and their hands stretching out, but their hands passed through him as if he weren’t there. The boy fell, laughed, and climbed back to his feet even as the wind gusted and surged toward the tree.