Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (28 page)

“I would’ve asked to see your record books first,” Bastille
began, “but I know how sharp a memory you have.”

Mauger made no effort to acknowledge the compliment.

“I’m wondering if you might recall whether anyone was brought
to you to be buried in the weeks before that most unfortunate attack,” Bastille
said.

“Not that I recall, Sister.”

“For a period of, say, two weeks prior… you’re saying no one
was buried in all that time?”

“Deaths in our Order are uncommon, except under uncommon
circumstances.”

“Such as the attack…”

“Yes, Sister.”

“And you are the recordkeeper for both the north graveyard
and the Hall of Ancients, isn’t that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Are the records kept separately, or all in one place?”

“In one place. You may see the record book, if you wish.”

“I would indeed.”

Mother Mauger led her back to the embalming room and handed
over the book in which she’d been writing earlier. Bastille flipped back a few
pages and scanned until she found the final listings before the attack. The
last person to have been buried was Mother Gotreaux, nearly seven months prior.
Bastille remembered excising the old woman’s NewKidneys and Nexus under Brother
Soleil’s supervision. It had been the last operation she’d led before winning
his approval to perform them on her own.

When she looked further down the page to the timeframe after
the attack, the listings became more interesting. She saw plenty of names she
knew: Father Rook, Brother Padrig, Sister Aubertin. But there was one name she
had never heard before: a Brother called Thiers. The cause of death was listed
as exsanguination. The date was the same as the attack. His remains were to
have been cremated.

“Who is this, Mother Mauger?” Bastille asked, tapping the
name with a finger.

“Brother Thiers, Sister.”

“Yes, I can read. Who was Brother Thiers? What was his
position and rank in the Order?”

“I do not know, Sister.”

“Take me to the tomb where his remains are kept.”

“Certainly, Sister.” Mauger referenced the alphanumeric value
shown in that row, then closed the record book and slid it onto a shelf beside
the podium.

The plot was located at the far end of the Hall of Ancients.
This
is out of the way, isn’t it?
Bastille thought with amusement. A wall of
stone squares marked the columbarium, where niches housed the cremated remains
of dozens of priests in simple clay urns. A niche at waist level with a gray
marble faceplate bore the name THIERS in pristine carved lettering. Bastille
knelt to examine it.
I’ve been here for years, living with these other
priests, learning their names and occupations. Never in all my time have I
encountered a Brother by the name of Thiers
. She was by no means prone to
making friends, but Sister Bastille knew who was who in the basilica. “Open it,
kind Mother, if you please,” she said, standing.

Mother Mauger delivered her blue-eyed stare. “The niche is
sealed, Sister.”

“Unseal it. I want to see what’s inside.” Bastille didn’t know
what she expected to find. It wasn’t as if a corpse with a severed head
would’ve fit inside the tiny cubbyhole.

“The plate is bolted into place, Sister.”

“Then fetch me a boltdriver and I’ll open it myself.”

The Cypriestess did as she was bid. Bastille loosened the
bolts and slid the faceplate away to reveal the cavity behind. Inside stood a
large clay urn, jarlike, plain and unmarked. When Bastille reached for it, she
saw Mother Mauger’s hand twitch at her side.

The urn was heavy. The clay was dry and smooth, cold to the
touch. She brought it out, then lifted the lid and looked inside. Gray ash
filled its confines, rising nearly to the brim. The niche was otherwise empty.
Ashes
prove nothing
, she thought, defeated. But when she adjusted her grip to put
it down again, she felt a groove along the urn’s back side.

Setting it into the niche, she spun the container around for
a look. There was an engraving of simple letters etched into the surface of the
clay. FRODERIC II, it read. A line beneath the name displayed the years of
Brother Froderic’s birth and death.

Bastille made a silent exclamation.
I’ve found you out,
Gallica. That’s one piece of the puzzle put into place. The question now, is…
why? Why carry on the farce, claiming in front of the whole priesthood that
Froderic still lives? And stranger still, why appoint him to the Most High?
She spun the urn around to hide the engraving. Then she bolted on the faceplate
and handed Mother Mauger the boltdriver. “Thank you, kind Mother. This visit
has been most… educational.”

The Cypriestess gave her a shallow bow. “Certainly, Sister.”

Bastille left the Hall of Ancients brooding over what to do
next. It was getting late, and she could feel a headache coming on, so perhaps
it was best to retire for the night and think things through. She would need to
tread carefully if she were going to investigate this matter further. Gallica
was already suspicious; she’d made that clear in no uncertain terms.

There was one priest who knew Gallica’s affairs better than
any other: Brother Lambret, her second-in-command in the basilica’s general
oversight. If anyone was likely the she-mutant’s creature, it was Lambret.
He
might be of some use, if I can manage to glean anything from him without
raising his hackles
.

By the time Bastille emerged from the tombs, her head was
pounding. Fumes from the crematorium, she suspected. As she ascended the
stairs, she realized it was something else. Patterns of vivid color splashed
the wide main hallway and danced over the stonework.

She went out to the cloister and stood beneath the arcade
walkway, staring up into a midnight sky robed in violet and green. Her head
began to quake and spin, and soon she had to steady herself on the pillar
beside her.
The starwinds
, she thought.
The fates are moving
.

Out of the corner of her eye, Bastille saw the shadow of
someone coming down the hallway between the cloister and the scriptorium. She
slid behind the pillar. At this time of night, nothing good could come of being
seen outside her bedchamber. When the figure rounded the corner, she leaned out
for a better look.

It was Brother Belgard, leaving the east tower with his
leatherbound register tucked under one arm. He looked tired, but he turned down
the hall heading away from the dormitories, not toward them.
He’s going to
the storerooms
, she ascertained. Perhaps she could manage a look at the
Order’s reserves without him noticing.

She crept back inside and strode after him, keeping her
distance and minding her every footfall. She thought he might turn around when
he reached the storeroom door, so she slid against the wall and waited. She
heard his keys jingle, heard the lock click, and peeked out to see him step
inside.
If I don’t learn to stop following people around
, she thought,
sooner
or later it’s going to get me in trouble
.

A short span of hallway was all that remained between
Bastille and a look into the Order’s most critical supply depot. The storerooms
held everything from jars of preserves and pickled foodstuffs to candles to
sacks of grain, rice, beans, and flour. The kitchen pantries held their own
stocks of common everyday items, but this was where things were kept for the
long term. It was, in a sense, a measure of the basilica’s surplus; everything
it produced above what was needed.

Bastille lifted her hood as she slid against the near wall
and inched toward the door, ready to run at the first sight of Brother Belgard.
The first few shelves came into view. Empty, but for a layer of dust and the
odd jar or plastic container. The more she saw, the worse it got. The larger
picture of the storeroom was one she’d never forget.

Brother Belgard stood balancing an open book across one hand
while holding a candle in the other. He was surrounded by shelves as bare and
dusty as old bones. It was such a horrifying sight it made Bastille forget
about trying not to be noticed.

“We have nothing left,” she breathed.

Belgard whirled, dropping the book and nearly losing his
candle as well. “Who—what are you doing?”

“Have the Most High seen this?” Bastille asked, without
removing her hood to reveal herself.

“Sister Bastille? What are you still doing awake?”

“I was in the cloister, admiring the starwinds, when I saw
you walk by,” she said. “Are you the only one who knows about this?”

“Everyone knows we’re running low. Or else, they will soon.
You said so yourself.”

“This is less than low, Brother Belgard. This is nothing.”

“We’ll replenish.”

“Will we? Are you certain of that? How many people know how
low our stores truly are, kind Brother? Who has seen this room with their own
eyes?”

Belgard took a gulp and glanced at the leatherbound register
on the floor.

“May I see that?” Bastille asked.

Belgard stooped and snatched it up, gripping it across his
chest protectively.

Our Order seems to find its record books the perfect place
to record fallacies
. “You use this register when you report to the Most
High,” she said, only half-asking.

He nodded.

“If I were to wager a guess that the numbers in your book are
different than the numbers I see before me, would I be far off?”

Belgard shook his head.

“So the only people who have seen what’s really in this room
are the people standing in it.”

After a moment of hesitation, Belgard nodded.

Bastille was smiling inside. Not only did she have an ally;
she had a means for making him stay that way. “It’s a bold thing you’ve done to
protect Brother Froderic while he’s away,” she said.

Belgard gave her a reluctant look. A look that said he was
only about to open his mouth because he had to. “The figures were off long
before Brother Froderic disappeared, Sister Bastille. He’s been funneling goods
through various channels for some time now.”

“Oh, yes. I know all about Froderic’s… proclivities. How long
have you known?”

“I’m his assistant. He had no choice but to bring me in
eventually. The Most High first put me under his supervision because of my
background in mathematics. Of course, Brother Froderic didn’t let me see the
books at all in those days. He kept this whole thing from me for months. Always
had me leave the supplies outside the storeroom door and said he’d get to them
later. Even when I was able to get a rare glimpse inside, it seemed pretty full
to me back then. I didn’t know it was any different from what he’d written
down. It was…” He trailed off, lost in sobering despair for a moment as he took
in the sight of the empty shelves.

When we begin trading with the heathens, we may very well
be trading to get our own food back
, Bastille thought with disgust.
Food
that was taken from this very storeroom to pay for Froderic’s slaves
. “How
did this happen?” she asked.

“Little by little,” Belgard said. “It always does.”

CHAPTER 22

Angels in the Wasteland

The three travelers watched the light-star rise from an
endless sea of sand, igniting the bellies of the clouds like ripe orange fruit.
They were heading due east at a slow walk, their horses lathered and eager for
rest after a frantic overnight ride. It would take some doing to convince Lokes
a rest was needed, however.

Extracting the shepherd from the Black City had been easier
than Jallika Weaver had predicted. Now the onset of sleep was threatening to
part Toler from his saddle, though Lokes had bound his hands in the front so he
could ride. “We ought to settle in and grab a bite,” Weaver suggested, sidling
up beside Lokes.

“No time for that. Gonna have to ride through the day, we
wanna make it in time.”

“That boy’s gonna fall and break his neck, ‘less we give him
a minute to rest,” she said.

Lokes’s horse Gish gave a wicker, as if to agree with her.
Lokes himself was not so easily swayed. “I’ll strap him down if I have to.”

“Ain’t you hungry?” Weaver asked. “We ain’t had a bite since
yesterday afternoon.”

“Once we get there and get paid, I’ll eat enough for the both
of us. ‘Til then, we ride. ‘Fernal knows what kind of ornery folk they’ll send
after this dway when he shows up missing.”

“If we stop, I can give him that letter from the southerner.
I suspect he can read; maybe he’ll tell us more once he gets a look at it. Tell
us what we’re up against.”

Lokes scowled. His cheeks inflated as he hacked up a gob of
something, then spat it over his shoulder. “Have it your way, mammy. Y’ always
do.”

Weaver decided she wouldn’t dignify that remark with an
answer. The last thing they needed while there was a character of dubious
nature in their custody was to start fighting. She angled Meldi toward the
shepherd’s mount, a rugged old gelding he called Seurag. The word meant
something in the nomads’ language, but she didn’t know what. Taking the animal
by the reins, she led them over the next rise and into a deep sandy trough,
shaded from the early morning light by the tall dunes ahead.

There she dismounted while Lokes helped the shepherd do the
same. When they had set the horses loose on a stand of witchgrass, they sat
together in the shade and shared a few rashers of jerky and a waterskin. Weaver
eyed the shepherd before searching through her bag for the note. Lokes still
didn’t know she’d read it, or that she’d managed to melt the wax seal back into
place afterwards.

“The dway who hired us wanted you to have this,” Weaver said,
handing Toler the folded square of paper.

He gave her a skeptical look, then snatched it from her and
cracked the seal. As he read, his expression shifted from puzzlement to
recognition, and then to anger. When he was done, he crumpled the paper into a
ball and tossed it away.

Lokes swallowed the chunk of meat he’d been working on. He
cast the shepherd a furtive glance before leaning forward in his cross-legged
seat to dig the crumpled ball of paper from the sand and smooth it out on his
lap. His brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to decipher the script. He
spun the page several times before giving up.

“He’s my brother,” said Toler. “His name’s Daxin.”

Lokes was intrigued. “Your brother? Now, why in the great
wide world would your brother send us to fetch you? And against your will, too?
I reckon that’s awful fishy. Don’t y’all get on?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Ooh,” Lokes chided him. “Hit a nerve there. Look at him…
he’s heatin’.”

“I should’ve guessed it was him,” said Toler, unamused. “My
brother’s exactly the type of dway to run around with bottom-feeders like you.”

“You hear that?” Lokes said, pointing. “This fella’s just
questioned our honor.”

“I question your honor every day, honey,” said Weaver.

“That’s ‘cause you know me.”

“I didn’t have to know you to doubt you were an honorable
man,” she said with a wink.

Lokes didn’t take that as a joke. “Just like I could tell you
was a cold bitch from the get.”

Weaver rolled her eyes.
Here we go again
. “I wish
you’d quit bein’ so sensitive all the time.”

“I don’t much appreciate you ridin’ my ass about everything
you think is wrong with me,” he said, shoving himself to his feet. “I know how
much you wish I was like that Kane Harrod fella you was with back at the
Crossing. I can see it in the way you stare sometimes. Just wishin’ away. Am I
right? Well. This is me, baby. Here I am. Take it or leave it. I is who I is,
and ain’t nothin’ gon’ change that. Maybe you ought to head back up north and
find Kane again, if he’s the kind of dway you want. Back to the Crossing, where
you belong. Hah. You go on back, and leave me out of it.” Lokes stalked away,
circling the dune in a heavy, awkward gait as his boots sank into dry sand with
each step.

Back to the Crossing, where I belong
, Weaver thought.
That
is
where I belong. I left it to be with you
, she wanted to say.
I
left
him
to be with you
.

Jallika’s father had certainly believed the Calsaire’s Guild
was where she belonged. From the time she was old enough to understand, she
remembered little else of Nolin Weaver but that he had spoken words of pain
into her life. He had been a severe, joyless man, his eyes never lit with
laughter, his voice never warm or soothing.

At the age of five, when Jallika had begun to exhibit the
first strange signs of her powers, he had marched her south from their tiny
seaside cottage in the bleak northern territories and sold her to the Guild
without a second thought. The Guild was always willing to pay good hardware for
a genuine sandcipher—especially a child who could be molded to follow its code
and adopt its ideals.

As rare as abilities like Weaver’s were in the Aionach,
knowledge of the Guild and its customs was widespread. Weaver didn’t know what
price she had earned her father the day he’d sold her to the Guild. Only that
when she had returned to the homestead years later, she had found the cottage
long-abandoned. Most of the children and adolescents she’d grown up with on the
Guildhall’s hallowed grounds had similar stories—abandoned by destitute parents
who had sold them to the Guild in hopes of giving them a better life.

The Guildhall had not been without its scandals and
atrocities, of course. Its rooms housed children and adults of all ages, an
arrangement which had resulted in several questionable incidents during
Jallika’s time there. She herself had been involved in a few, and some by no
fault of her own—forced liaisons, isolated trysts, groping hands in the dark.
She had grown up faster in those dark passages than any young girl should have
to, and though she had tried to put her former life behind her, the memory of
things both rumored and endured still haunted her all the same.

“Is he like that all the time?” Toler asked, nodding toward
Lokes’s footsteps in the sand.

“Most of it,” she said.

“Why do you put up with him?”

Weaver scooped up a handful of sand and watched it sift
through her fingers. “I don’t always. Sometimes I stick up for myself.”

“I mean why do you hang around with him? Why not take off on
your own?”

She shrugged. “He’s the only family I got.”

“You’re lucky you don’t have family. My family likes to coff
up my life because they think they know what’s good for me.”

“It’s not like that with Will. I love him.”

“Don’t sound so sure of yourself,” Toler said with a smirk.
“Say, you wouldn’t mind loosening these for me, would you?” He lifted his
hands. “I gotta piss.”

Weaver hesitated. Showing the shepherd leniency would only
incite Lokes’s wrath anew. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, come on… it’s not like I’m going to run away.”

She sighed, then took him by the wrists and loosened his
bonds as best she could without giving him the freedom to slip out—or so she
hoped. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ll have to go with you. I promise
I won’t look.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you’d hold it for me.”

Weaver gave him a gross look.

“Mind giving me a hand?” Toler asked, brandishing his bound
wrists. “Kind of hard to stand up on my own like this.”

She helped him to his feet. They circled the dune and found
Lokes standing alone on the windward side, twirling his guns. Weaver had seen
him do it so often she’d grown tired of watching him, but Toler was looking on
intently, his eyes glued to Lokes’s hands.

“I’m impressed,” said the shepherd, unbuttoning his leathers
and pulling himself out before Weaver could look away.

Lokes grimaced when he saw the stream run out from between
Toler’s legs. He turned his back but kept slinging his revolvers, whipping them
out, spinning them, and slipping them back into their holsters with motions as
smooth as silk. Jallika averted her eyes and waited until the last few drips
hit the sand, a sensation she could feel so deep in her bones it made her
cringe.

“Hey, you got a smoke?” Toler asked Lokes when he was done.

Lokes was abashed. “I look like an idiot to you?”

“Kind of. You look like the sort of dway who might smoke.”

“Well, I ain’t. If I wanted to kill myself, I’d try leaving
this one.” He thumbed over his shoulder at Weaver, laughing.

“That’s none of my business,” Toler said, though he was
laughing along. “How about a drink?”

Lokes cocked his head. “You fixin’ to nag me like an old
woman the whole way to Belmond? I get enough of that already.” Again he
gestured toward Weaver, who pretended not to notice. “Now drink this, and keep
your mouth shut while you ain’t.” He tossed Toler a waterskin, full to
bursting.

Toler tried to catch it, but he couldn’t hang on. The skin
hit the ground and the cap popped off, spilling half its contents onto the
patch of sand already wet with his urine. He fumbled for it, but by the time he
managed to pick it up there was almost nothing left inside.

“That’s a might unfortunate,” Lokes said with a chuckle.

“I meant a real drink,” said Toler, clutching the skin
tightly. “Something stronger than water.”

“Listen, Shep. I know what you meant. This ain’t no booze
cruise. If I gotta pour liquor down your throat to keep you from twiggin’ out
on me, this is gonna be a long trip for you. You best get your shit together.”

“You’ve got some though, don’t you?”

“Not for you,” Lokes said.

Toler nodded at his guns. “Can you shoot those things as well
as you spin them?”

Lokes scoffed. “‘Course I can.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Toler. “I challenge you to a
contest.”

“I ain’t lettin’ you touch my sweeties, if that’s what you
had in mind,” Lokes said, fondling their ivory grips.

“Oh, I’d never touch your sweeties. What I’d like to do is
propose that I can throw better than you can shoot.”

“Hah! Target practice? Ain’t nobody ever walked away from a
shootout with ol’ Lokes.”

Weaver rolled her eyes.
For Infernal’s sake… men and their
cockfights. Coff on these two boneheads. Only thing they’ll ever prove is
they’re both dimwits. You’d think they might figure out they’re better off
working together every once in a while
.

“Here’s the wager,” said Toler. “I win, and you share your booze.”

“How ‘bout when you lose?”

“If I lose, I’ll convince my brother to pay you an extra few
ounces of gold when we get to Belmond. Say, for a job well done.”

“Three ounces of gold for half a bottle of swill? I’ll take
that deal any day of the week.” Lokes extended his hand.

Toler shook it as best he could. “You’ve gotta cut these
things off my wrists first though, or it won’t be a fair contest.”

“Fine. Keep an eye on him, Jal.”

Weaver watched with amusement as Lokes flicked out his knife
and cut Toler’s bonds. The shepherd let them fall to the sand, then rubbed his
wrists and stretched.

“Alright, you’re free,” Lokes said. “Now what?”

“Let me find a couple of good rocks. Be back in a minute.”
Toler wandered off into the scrub, bending occasionally to pick up whatever
promising ones he found.

Weaver watched him closely.
What’s he up to?
she
wondered.
He’s gotta have some kind of scheme in mind. He might be hankering
for a drink, but the hankering can’t be that bad. Sure hope he ain’t thinkin’
‘bout making a getaway. Trust don’t come easy with Willis Lokes, but it sure do
leave quick enough
.

Lokes glanced over his shoulder from time to time, but his
surveillance of the shepherd was not so careful as hers. He seemed more
concerned with spinning his revolvers, checking the chambers over and over
again, and sighting downrange to pick out targets he thought the other man
might choose.

After a few minutes, Toler returned carrying a handful of
small stones. Lokes regarded him coolly, that look of smug self-assurance Weaver
had grown all too familiar with.

“You mind being the impartial judge?” Toler asked, turning to
her.

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“Here’s how this is going to work,” said Toler. “That cactus
down there—see it?”

“Mmhmm.”

“It’s my throwing arm against your snap shooting. Right hand
to right hand. As soon as the rock leaves my hand, you draw and fire. If your
shot hits that cactus before my rock does, the point is yours. You get one
shot, and one shot only. Six attempts, then we switch to the left side. Got it?”

“I got it, Shep. Let’s do this. And no funny business from
you, over there,” Lokes said, giving her a wink.

He wants me to cheat
, Weaver knew.
Shift the
ground, or put sand in the shepherd’s eye
. Lokes had no reason to doubt his
victory in this contest. He had the clear advantage, unless Toler could throw a
rock faster than Lokes could fire a bullet. He hardly ever missed with his
sweeties, though Toler’s chosen target stood at considerable range.