Of Dawn and Darkness

CHAPTER SIX

Calder had wondered how they would approach the Capital without inviting a greeting from the harbor-guns; after all, they were being led by a completely visible Lyathatan. If the Elder submerged itself, it would have to drop The Eternal, which would immediately sink. And thereby negate the entire reason for bringing it all this way in the first place. If it stayed above the waves, they’d cause a riot as soon as they passed within sight of shore.

Fortunately, Cheska had the answer. She wasn’t quite back to her usual self—understandable, since she’d lost half her crew and half her ship in the mysterious attack from the Optasia, but she’d tied her hair back and found an impossibly tall hat. With that on her head, she’d taken charge, flying flags and flashing patterns with a hooded quicklamp at all hours of the day and night.

Finally, after a cannon barrage in a coded rhythm, her signals reached the right ears. Only a day out from the Capital, a Navigator’s ship sailed into view, flags raised to indicate their assistance.

Though Calder had never seen the ship before, he found it easy to identify as belonging to the Guild. It had two masts and no sails, only two pairs of giant bat wings that spread wide enough to catch the wind. A pair of painted eyes graced the stern, so realistic that they seemed to follow Calder wherever he moved. It took a long conversation with Bliss to convince him that the eyes were actually painted, and not some bizarre Elder transplant.

With the combined effort of all the Readers on all three crews, they were able to rig up a contraption to let them haul The Eternal into harbor without the Lyathatan’s assistance. It required every fishing-net and spare foot of line that Calder could draw out of storage, but they eventually had a gigantic net strung between both functional ships. The hastily-invested net, supported from beneath by a hidden Lyathatan, would drag the ruined ship over the water and safely to the dock.

To prevent The Eternal from twisting over and dragging everyone to a watery grave, supporting lines bound virtually every part to every other part—the wreck to both ships, the net to the wreckage, and every piece of the demolished ship to itself.

Together they looked like a floating shantytown, but Calder’s Reading revealed the Intent to be surprisingly solid. Despite its appearance, everything should hold together.

Light and life, he hoped so. He would hate to sail into the Capital looking this ridiculous for no reason.

Cheska joined him at the wheel as he pretended to steer his ship toward Candle Bay. In reality, the Lyathatan and his Intent were doing most of the work, but he felt more in control with his hands on the wheel.

Captain Cheska Bennett looked almost exactly as she had the week before. Her pants were covered with patches of different colors, her jacket had been tailored to fit a man twice her size, and her hair billowed out behind her as she’d tied it without bothering to comb it. She could have hidden a pet dog under her hat, and she kept one hand resting on her cutlass as though she meant to draw at the slightest provocation.

Only in the smallest, most important ways was she different. She didn’t wear a smile when she thought no one was looking, she moved more carefully, and she waited before beginning the conversation. Usually, she treated every exchange like a competition.

“Guild Head,” Calder said, when the silence had become too much.

“Calder.” The pause stretched longer, and for the first time, Calder got the uncomfortable impression that she didn’t know what to say. “I’ll be able to fix her, given time. If it takes half a forest’s worth of time and I have to go in debt to an alchemist, I’ll get it done.”

“You won’t shake the Reader’s burn for months.” It was an observation that meant nothing, a non-statement, simply to give her time to say whatever she needed to say.

“She’s worth it. I called her eternal for a reason, and I won’t give up on her until we both go down to Kelarac.” Even when talking about the Emperor and the future of the Empire, Cheska had never looked so serious.

He gave her a grin she was supposed to share. “I wouldn’t recognize you if you gave up. You wouldn’t be the Head of the Navigator’s Guild, that’s for certain.”

“I was out during the crash, you know. Hit my head or took too much of a shock when The Eternal was ripped apart, I don’t know. But when I woke up, all I could think was, ‘I lost my ship. I lost my ship. What kind of a captain loses her ship?’

“Then I saw your monster, and he had it. You kept it safe for me. That’s…that was more than I expected. More than I had any right to expect.”

Cheska was uncharacteristically somber, so he matched her tone. “I can only imagine what it would be like. If it was The Testament, I couldn’t have left it there. How could I do less for you?”

She moved so that her hat shaded her face. Which, given that the hat was bigger than her head, didn’t take much. “Just wanted you to know that I appreciate what you did. It’ll take a while to get back up and running, but once we are…well, you just let me know what you need. I wouldn’t be on the water if it weren’t for you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said. She would feel more comfortable if she owed him.

She thumped him on the back with a fist, a little harder than necessary. “Keep it up, and I might decide you’re not such a bad fit for the job.” When he realized what she meant, he smiled all the way into Candle Bay.

Then they went ashore, and his pleasant mood stayed behind.

They were ambushed almost as soon as their feet hit dry land. Not because of anything he’d done, but because of his companions: three Guild Heads would certainly make a stir in the Capital. Cheska and Teach were swallowed up by a crowd of citizens pleading, demanding, or explaining one thing or another. Calder couldn’t understand what they were so excited about, but he took the opportunity to gather his crew. “A forgotten man is invisible,” as Loreli once put it. With the people focused on the Guild Heads, he brought Andel, Foster, and even Petal together and started uphill toward the Imperial Palace. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to lose track of the crew.

He’d only taken a few steps when he noticed the one Guild Head who wasn’t surrounded by a flock of petitioners. Bliss stood in the middle of the pack, frowning at a brown leaf she pinched between two fingers. People avoided her as though someone had traced an invisible ten-foot barrier around her.

Calder broke that barrier as if he hadn’t noticed, though his crew stayed back with the crowd. Cowards or sages, he wasn’t sure which.

“I’m needed urgently at the palace,” Bliss said, in a voice that was anything but urgent. “But I need the Imperial Guard to admit me, which requires Jarelys Teach. And Teach is being distracted. Should I remove the distractions, so that she can focus on the greater good?” Her black coat wriggled, and she slid a hand closer to the buttons.

He spoke as quickly as he could, hoping to stop her from reaching inside. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary, Guild Head. I’m sure she’ll be along in a moment. Ah, people seem excited, don’t they? What do you think has them so agitated?” With each word, he kept his eyes on her hand.

When her attention returned to the autumn leaf, he let out a breath of relief.

“We’ve lost control of the Imperial Palace,” she said. “These people don’t know it, because the Imperial Guards will have locked it all down, but they know the gates to the palace are locked. The last time that happened was the first night of the Long Mourning, when Elderspawn rose all over the world. I was very busy.”

“We all were,” Calder said dryly. So that was what drove them to ambush the first Guild Heads they saw? Worries born of bad memories? They were right to worry, if tonight was going to be anything like that night five years ago. He wasn’t in the Capital on the day of the Emperor’s death, but he’d lived through the aftermath. And he’d seen the results of a global Elder uprising.

And with the typical logic of frightened people, these good Capital citizens were stopping the few who could actually protect them. General Teach was wading grimly through the sea of men and women, constantly asking people to stand aside, and Cheska drifted along in her wake. Her grip on her cutlass was tight, as though she wished she could draw and cut her way through.

“Join the General, Bliss,” Calder said. “Andel, Foster, and I will walk ahead of you and try to keep the streets clear. Don’t hurt anyone, please.”

Bliss treated him to the same suspicious scrutiny she had given the leaf, but just when he was planning on retracting his suggestion and throwing himself on her mercy, she nodded. “Very well. We should walk quickly.”

With that, she moved over to Jarelys Teach. For two or three seconds, the crowd didn’t recognize that Bliss wasn’t one of them, but each person who finally noticed the girl in the long black coat staggered backward. In less than a minute, a space had cleared around Teach. The General placed a hand on Bliss’ shoulder in thanks, and then ordered the crew of The Eternal to fall in behind her. The noise hadn’t lessened—the people were shouting louder now, hungry for a reasonable explanation—but at least they had some space.

Calder muttered orders to Foster and Andel. Foster immediately agreed, drawing his pistol and ordering people away from Teach. He managed to clear his way up the street a little faster, and the speed of their tiny procession increased.

Andel didn’t obey immediately. He adjusted his sleeves as he walked beside Calder, buying time to talk. At last, he said, “You’re focusing on the wrong details.”

Not a joke. Not a complaint. Not even a criticism, really, though it could be taken as one. Andel was serious.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen how desperate they are?”

The faces around them proved Andel right. The people around him weren’t just pushy or demanding, they were terrified. They begged as though they were starving and only the Guild Heads had bread. But the street hadn’t been this chaotic when he’d seen it from the ship; only the sight of Cheska and Teach, people who might have answers, had incited this kind of panic.

It didn’t mean that they weren’t afraid before, but that they’d pushed the fear down. There was nothing they could do about it, so they’d tried to live their lives as normal. Only, at the slightest hint of something they could do to save themselves, they snatched at it like wild dogs fighting over a scrap of meat.

“They didn’t get this way because the Imperial Palace shut its doors,” Calder said aloud.

“These people have seen something. If we don’t know what it is, we risk running straight into it.”

Andel joined Foster after that, moving people aside physically when necessary, but Calder fell back. This crowd didn’t care about him; they only even noticed him when he blocked the way to Teach or Cheska.

He let himself drown in the mob.

It would have been a simple matter to open himself to their Intent, but Reading a situation rather than an object was risky. For one thing, the impression was more fleeting, and he often came up with nothing of use. For another, if the Intent of a crowd was focused enough, they could sweep him along with them. Instead of understanding the mob, he might join it.

Besides, his head was already lightly pounding from the previous days’ exertions. He’d hardly had a chance to recover from the fight on the Gray Island before The Eternal was ripped to shreds, and since then he’d been Reading constantly: to communicate with the Lyathatan, to hold The Testament together, to rig up the net that dragged half a ship back home. He’d kept himself within his limits, but he was approaching them nonetheless. If he wanted to be of any use to anyone in the next few days, he needed to keep himself from Reader’s burn now.

So he had to try more mundane methods of investigation.

Calder spoke to a shouting man beside him. “The Guild Heads came in on my ship,” he yelled into the man’s ear. “I’m with the Guild Heads.”

Several people turned to him eagerly, babbling their questions one at a time. He held up a hand. “We’ve been at sea. What’s happened here?”

Explanations came one on top of the other.

“The Luminians, they won’t heal my son—”

“…doors of the palace shut! The last time they did that was when the Emperor died, may his soul fly free.”

“…Greenwardens closed up their chapter house. I had an appointment, and now they’re telling me you Imperialists drove them out of town!”

“…Magisters gathering together. They’ve sensed something coming, they know the end is here.”

“…men in black, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.”

“…these Independents want to tear the Empire down! You’ll put them in their place for us, I know you will.”

To each person, Calder responded as neutrally as he could, but the crowd wouldn’t have let him leave if Cheska hadn’t reached in and hauled him out by the elbow.

“Learn anything useful?” she asked him.

“Something is definitely happening in the Capital,” he said. “It’s not just the palace closing. Everyone has personally seen something that worries them.”

“Uh-huh. And what do they say is happening?”

“Best I can tell, they’ve noticed the Guilds at each others throats.”

Cheska clapped her hat to her head at a sudden gust of wind. “Yeah, I’d put that together too. Everybody wants me to take care of the other Guilds, like I can tell the Consultants how to do their jobs.”

However long it actually took them to reach the Imperial Palace, it felt like all day, and the sun was beginning to sink as they arrived at the gate. The Guards crossed spears out of habit and training when they saw the party approach, but when they saw Jarelys Teach’s scowling face and the hilt of her sword sticking out over the crowd, they hurried out to clear the way for their Guild Head.

It took a kind of slow-motion brawl to sort out everyone who was supposed to be inside the palace from the people who had to stay outside. Petal was trembling and clutching her bag to her chest, looking around wide-eyed like a mouse who had just survived a lightning strike. Calder made a mental note not to ask too much of her in the coming days.

Not that anyone else was in much better condition. Even Jarelys Teach, pillar of Imperial strength, had dark circles under her eyes, and she walked as though her armor had been weighted down with anvils. But as the gates crashed shut behind her, she issued an order.

“Report,” she demanded. A woman in the uniform of an Imperial Guard, a blonde with orange cat eyes, saluted. She looked familiar enough that she sparked a memory in Calder.

Where’s Meia?

He hadn’t seen the Consultant for virtually the entire voyage to the Capital, nor on the longboat to shore, nor on the long hike up to the palace. If he believed in kind Fates, he would have thought she’d been lost at sea, swallowed up by one of the million hazards of the Aion.

But his luck wasn’t that good, and he knew it. She would show up when she wanted, and likely at the worst possible time.

“We’ve engaged the enemy around the Emperor’s quarters, ma’am,” the orange-eyed Guard said. “Conventional arms seem ineffective, so we mobilized all Soulbound and combat-capable modifications. Each time we inflict enough damage, it grows back instantly.”

“What is it?” Teach asked, marching down the hall as though she meant to plow straight through a brick wall. Calder and the others had no choice but to let themselves be dragged behind.

“A mass of what seems to be Elder flesh surrounding the complex. It seems to be growing out of the Emperor’s room, ma’am. It rarely strikes back, and when it does, it’s more disruptive than dangerous. We’ve sustained no real casualties.”

“How long?” Teach asked. On her back, the black sword Tyrfang radiated such a hostile Intent that Calder actually fell a step back.

“This is the fifth day, ma’am.”

The attack on The Eternal had come roughly three days before. Five days ago meant it had grown during the fight with the Dead Mother’s Children, or soon after. A strange coincidence, that this should grow almost immediately after he threw Nakothi’s Heart into the sea.

Calder edged closer to Bliss. “Is the Optasia inside the Emperor’s rooms?”

“That’s very classified information.”

He was dealing with Bliss, so he was prepared for the conversation to take longer than necessary. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be using it, so…” Hopefully, she’d get the hint.

She looked at him with wide eyes and an open mouth. “Oh, you’re right!”

“You forgot?”

“I suppose since you are the one who needs to use the Optasia, you should have the clearance to know its location. Very well. I hereby grant you clearance.”

Calder suddenly wished for the sweet embrace of Reader’s burn. Even a pounding, unstoppable headache would be a relief from this. “Thank you, Bliss.”

“Yes, the Optasia is in the Emperor’s personal quarters.”

So the Elderspawn in the courtyard outside was protecting whichever Reader had attacked them through the Emperor’s throne. Or…the Elderspawn itself had done it. That was a disturbing thought; the Great Elders had broad enough power already without granting them access to a global net of devices that amplified Intent.

Calder knew they’d arrived when they crossed between two Guards, one with horns and one with the arms of a gorilla. Both of them were clutching halberds caked with rotten greenish blood. They struggled to their feet and saluted when Teach came into view.

She didn’t wait for them to say anything, but pushed a pair of doors open.

The battle beyond was not what Calder had expected. In fact, if he hadn’t already heard otherwise, he wouldn’t have recognized it as a battle.

An open courtyard surrounded one building, which was big enough to swallow The Testament and The Eternal side-by-side, masts and all. The stone tiles of the courtyard were broken and spattered with inhuman blood, hosting a dozen Imperial Guards who all held long-hafted weapons.

But they weren’t fighting. They were hacking away at the building.

The Emperor’s quarters were covered in mounds of gray-green flesh that vaguely reminded Calder of Nakothi’s Heart. Lumps of gristle oozed from the walls, covering any doors or windows completely. Only pieces of wall or roof showed through, and even those were crossed by tendons or patches of skin.

As the Imperial Guards struck with axe or spear, they gouged deeper wounds, revealing layers of pink, healthier-looking meat. Still not ‘healthy,’ exactly—nothing he would dare accept from a butcher—but deeper in it could actually pass for rotten meat rather than Elder flesh.

But as fast as the Guards chopped, the skin and muscle stitched itself together even faster. They had barely hacked away a few scars in what must have been five days of work.

“Stop!” Teach commanded, and they threw their weapons down gratefully, sucking in air. The stench was like Nakothi’s dead island—sour wound and rotting flesh, but muted to tolerable levels.

“You’ve accomplished nothing,” Teach said. “Why continue?”

The orange-eyed Guardswoman hesitated. “We tried stopping, ma’am, on the second day. The…substance…covered the whole courtyard in hours. In three days, we’ve just managed to cut it back to where it started.”

Indeed, only seconds after the Guards had dropped their weapons, the greenish flab on the walls began to advance. Wounds sealed, slowly but visibly, and some of the patches of skin started to bulge outward.

The Guard with the orange eyes drew a sword and walked up to the wall. “We can’t destroy it as fast as it grows. But as long as we do cut it—” She gave it a shallow slice, just to demonstrate. “—it stops.”

The flesh froze in the wake of her cut, and even the healing stopped. After a few seconds of silence, the rapid growth resumed.

General Teach ran a hand over her head before allowing herself to reach back and grab Tyrfang’s hilt. “Captain, get everyone back.”

Calder was startled to hear Teach addressing him, and perhaps a little flattered. The Guild Head had never spoken to him with anything but hostility, and now she was trusting him enough to give him a responsibility. She would have to lose the habit of giving him orders if she wanted him to do anything useful as Emperor, but it was a start.

He had raised a hand to wave people back when the cat-eyed Guard spoke first. “Everyone ten steps back!” she bellowed, her voice filling the courtyard. “If you’re not a Guard or a Guild Head, clear out. The General needs her space.”

Ah, yes. Captain was a rank. That could get confusing, with Navigator captains and military captains all mixing together. If any captains of industry showed up, they’d have to start calling each other by name.

Calder lowered his hand, hoping no one noticed, and complied with the captain’s order by retreating. Technically he wasn’t a member of the Guard or the Head of a Guild, but he had every right to be here. He projected that confidence into his stance in the hopes that the Guards would overlook him. If he was dragged off like a willful child and he had to resist, that could be…awkward. If he knew one thing about governance, he knew that it was unwise to start a hostile relationship with one’s own guards.

When everyone had backed away, Teach drew her sword. Nothing dramatic, nothing ostentatious, simply a woman pulling a weapon from its sheath.

The dramatic part came immediately afterward.

Light itself suffered as the blade seemed to wash everything in shadow. Calder’s vision grew slightly fuzzy, as if everything shook, but the world felt deathly still. It was only to his eyes that even the stone of the courtyard buzzed in place. And to his Reader’s senses…

Death, decay, execution, blood, carnage, war…

He pulled his mind back. Even the shallowest Reading revealed Tyrfang’s deadly history, and if he looked any deeper, he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else. Instead, he focused on the appearance of the blade itself: rough black metal with veins of bright red crawling down the flat. As though the metal had absorbed some fraction of the blood it spilled.

Teach flicked the weapon at the Elder flesh surrounding the walls, drawing a thin black line the length of Calder’s hand.

When Calder had fought the Children of the Dead Mother, Kelarac had given him an Awakened blade to use against Elderspawn. It had worked even better than Calder had ever expected; with a single cut, it reduced lesser Elders to nothing more than black sludge.

Tyrfang had a similar effect on this Elder fortification…but on a much greater scale.

No sooner had the black scratch appeared on the skin than the entire outer layer of the building blackened and sloughed off, filling the courtyard with piles of dead and rotten flesh. Foul liquid splattered everywhere, bringing with it a stench like corpses dissolved in acid.

Calder’s shoes were splashed with black goo, and he kept his expression composed, as suited an Emperor. He would have all his clothes burned before dawn.

More of the structure was exposed now, surrounded by pieces of raw, pinkish flesh. Teach had drawn back her sword for another blow, stepping forward to drive the sword in, but an agonized shriek held her back.

It seemed to come from all around, from every bit of meat still living in the confines of the courtyard. A second later, the flesh attacked.

Ropes of muscle whipped out from the windows and the door, slapping at Teach. At the same time, smoking liquid sprayed from a bulb on the second floor, aimed to land on the General’s head.

She slapped away one tendril with the flat of her weapon, blackening and killing it instantly, and backhanded another with her gauntlet. Teach sidestepped the fluid without looking up, taking a few casual steps back until the Elder thing couldn’t reach her anymore.

When she was far enough away, the tentacles retracted, and the flesh ballooned out even faster than it had grown before.

“Bliss?” Teach asked, without turning around.

The Head of the Blackwatch leaned forward, squinting at the creature. “Hmmmm…I will examine it tonight. By morning, I’ll know what to do.”

“Very good.” Teach turned to the Guard captain. “Rotating shifts, just as you had before. Don’t let it grow any further before the Blackwatch are finished with their tests.”

The orange-eyed captain saluted. “Ma’am.”

As for the rest of them, that left the delightful proposition of finding rooms in a palace they knew was haunted by Elders. It was one thing to face Elder influence on the Aion, when you had your ship around you and your crew close at hand, but it was entirely worse to try and sleep in a bedroom where the building itself could be your enemy.

It will be clear in the morning, Calder told himself. Bliss would know what to do, and he could get on with being Emperor. It was strange; he was close to sitting on the throne, closer than he’d ever been since he’d first considered the possibility, but it had never seemed farther away. It was as though the Elders and the Fates were conspiring to throw every obstacle they could in his way.

He burned his clothes in a bonfire outside a palace window.