Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (63 page)

Bastille was skeptical, but at the same time the obligation
energized her. It was invigorating to think she’d had such influence all this
time without knowing it. “I haven’t yet discerned whether Brother Travers
possesses a vindictive nature,” she said, “but I do worry for the safety of
myself and others if he were allowed to remain in the Order—even in another
vocation.”

“That settles it, then. Be it known that Brother Travers has
failed to exhibit the qualities befitting a member of the Order, and thus he is
to be expelled at once. We’ll have a retinue of Fathers sent for him.”

“What does that mean?” Bastille asked. “What will happen to
him?”

Liero narrowed his eyes at her. “Why, kind Sister… if you
don’t know what that means by now, perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to
your duties.”

Of course I know what it means
, she almost said.
“Recent events have led me to believe the Order has gone lax with its rules.”

“You speak in riddles, Sister.”

“I do not wish to implicate anyone where it is not my place.”

“That is somewhat of a departure for you,” said an amused
Sister Gallica. “Your adherence to the Order’s laws—and your dedication to
seeing that others adhere to them—is one of your most commendable qualities.”

“I know of what she speaks,” Dominique said sourly.

Bastille felt the witch-woman’s gaze, cold as a tomb.
She
knows I was watching
.

“The recent visitation of heathens within our walls resulted
in a failure on my part. I let three of them go, alive and unharmed, at
catastrophic risk to the Order. I admit my mistake and accept full
responsibility for it. I never thought my before-life would interfere with my
duties here, but in the moment, I was weak… and I acted in kind. None of you
may ever understand the hatred one man bears toward me because of my role in
his family’s dissolution. I am not proud of what I did to appease him. I let my
shame influence my decision. There are many things I’ve done of which I am not
proud, truth be told. My before-life is longer than most, with no fewer opportunities
for lapses in judgment. Just as the end of the False World is known by many
names, so have I been known by many names through the ages.”

The ages?
Bastille thought with wonderment.
How
long has the witch-woman lived?
“I did not intend to question your motives,
kind Sister. My only concern was to ensure Brother Travers will be treated
with… finality.”

“Brother Travers has done nothing wrong as yet, so his
ultimate fate will be determined following our inquiry. We will see that there
is justice in his treatment. One thing you can be sure of is that he has no
future with the Order, so long as your accusations about him are true.”

That was not what Bastille wanted to hear. If Travers were
left alive, he might go to desperate lengths for survival or vengeance. She had
no means for overruling the decision of the Most High, so she simply bowed her
consent.

“It is our hope that you will practice both diligence and
restraint as you leave here to fulfill the task we’ve set out for you,” said
Gallica. “And I pray you’ll take your lessons more seriously from now on. Your
elevation is no less a secret than it was when you walked in here today.
Neither is Brother Froderic’s death. Remember that.”

“I will,” Bastille promised. “Please let me know when Travers
has been detained.”

“As you wish,” said Liero. “One more thing before you go.
We’ve received some rather worrying reports from the Cypriests. They seem to
have detected a curious heathen in our vicinity. A man, they say, has been
approaching close to the walls. He moves slowly, yet they can’t seem to bring
him down. They’ve expended a great deal of ammunition on him with little to
show for it. They did, however, turn up something else during their rounds last
night. Since you’re the one in charge of harvesting heathen corpses, I was
wondering whether you’d seen anything like this before.”

Liero rose and beckoned her to follow him to the window,
where he opened the blinds and pointed to a small mound in the west yard. An
animal of some sort, with streaks of gray and brown fur running down its back.

“What is it?”

“A jackal, they say. A rather large one, too. Whenever the
Fathers have spotted this particular heathen, he’s always surrounded by several
of the beasts. Naturally the Cypriests ignore them. This one was hit by
mistake. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“Never,” Bastille said, her curiosity piqued.

Liero gave a thoughtful frown. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing it
in your preparation rooms soon enough. Do let us know if anything strikes you
odd.”

“I certainly will. Was there anything else, kind Brother?”

“That was all. You may go.”

Bastille fled the meeting hall in haste, overcome with equal
parts dread and elation. She marched straight to her bedchamber and locked the
door. It wasn’t even lunchtime, yet she had no intention of leaving her room
for the rest of the day, starving or not, until Brother Travers had been taken
by the Fathers.

A knock on her door a few hours later woke her from the nap
she’d fallen into without realizing it. “Yes?” she said softly, picturing
Travers on the other side with a scalpel in one hand and a dinner fork in the
other.

“It’s Brother Lambret. I have some news. I was wondering if
you might open up.”

Bastille dropped to the flagstones and peered through the
opening beneath the door. She could see two pairs of feet, not one.
Just as
I suspected—Travers is standing behind Brother Lambret with a knife to his
spine, making him talk
. She grabbed the heavy pewter candlestick off her
nightstand and hefted it like a club. She checked the door again to make sure
it was still locked. “I can hear you well enough like this,” she said. After a
moment, she added, “I’m not dressed.”

“Very well,” Lambret said. “It’s about Brother Travers. When
I brought Father Xan to his bedchamber, he wasn’t there. In fact, we’ve been
searching for him for the last few hours, including inside your preparation
rooms. We can’t seem to find him. I don’t suppose you’d happen to know where he
might’ve gone off to.”

Bastille crouched on all fours to look under the door again. The
second pair of feet were wearing heavy leather boots.
A Cypriest
. She
rose and opened the door, hiding the candlestick behind her back, and was
relieved to find Father Xan—not Brother Travers—standing beside Lambret. “Are
you telling me he’s
missing
?”

“I’m afraid so. Any idea where we might find him?”

Bastille was perturbed that Brother Lambret had summoned only
one Cypriest rather than the ‘retinue’ Liero had promised. This was a
cannibalistic deviant with a carnal attraction to the dead. The Cypriests were
known for their aim and their reflexes—not necessarily their strength or
physicality. “I know he likes godechente and dead bodies. That’s about it. Have
you asked the other Cypriests whether he’s been seen in the yard today?”

Lambret pursed his lips. “No, come to think of it. That’s a
good idea. I’ll do that.”

That’s a good dway. See that you do… and let’s not be
amateurs about this
. “Thank you, kind Brother.”

“Be well, Sister Bastille.”

“Do let me know when he turns up.”

Lambret nodded.

She locked the door and put her back against it. Her eyes
came to rest on the small, high window near the ceiling of her bedchamber,
which looked out onto the north yard. She imagined trying to climb through it,
head, neck, and shoulders. If she really needed to, she could probably wiggle
her way out. That meant if someone really wanted to, they could get
in
.

Suddenly her bedchamber did not feel so safe. Her preparation
rooms, on the other hand, had no exterior windows and a heavy ironwood door to
complement the thick stone walls. Perhaps she would be safer there.

Bastille left her room in a panic, heading toward the
basement.

CHAPTER 50

The Deepness Stirs

All it took to get Savannah Glaive’s commscreen working
again was a touch and a brief ignition. The lodwit, as she called it, must’ve
been one of the first of its kind. Raith had imagined calling home once he’d
gotten the thing up and running, but without the transmission codes he had no
way of contacting Decylum. What he
could
do was enter the coordinates
he’d found scribbled in the margins of one of Decylum’s construction documents.
The commscreen would show him, in grainy detail, which direction he needed to
travel to get there.

Although Savannah gave Raith her permission to take the
commscreen home with him, the Sons of Decylum didn’t leave Bradsleigh right
away. Savannah had invited them all to stay at the Glaive Estate after their
underground discovery, despite what Raith suspected was her every inclination
to the contrary. Once they were there, Savannah’s attitude seemed to change.

Hosting a dozen houseguests would’ve been an inconvenience to
anyone, but Savannah appeared to relish the idea of having people around again.
She’d been alone since her father died—and long before that, to hear her tell
it. Raith believed she was enjoying the change of pace. As heir to the largest
dwelling in town and victim to a lengthy string of suitors who wanted nothing
more than to take it for themselves by way of her bed, she found Raith and his
companions a welcome change. The Sons were nothing if not courteous; thus she
now had a dozen men protecting her instead of trying to take what was hers.

That wasn’t entirely true. Raith and the Sons did want
something of Savannah’s. They wanted pieces of the underground facility beneath
her family’s old shipping yard for Decylum’s expansion. When Raith told the
Sons about the facility, he pointed out that they were better off concealing
their interest in it for now. Without vehicles on which to transport said
pieces or heavy draft animals to pull them, they couldn’t harvest the materials
anyway.

One day while Raith and Savannah were in the stables feeding
the horses, Raith began to tell her about the master-king’s ploy; how he was
convinced he could gain the powers of a blackhand by visiting Decylum himself.
With Savannah’s commscreen, they could exchange Decylum’s location for Rostand
Beige’s freedom. Yet the problem remained that they didn’t want the nomads to
know where Decylum was.

Savannah gave him a thoughtful smirk and said, “This might be
a stupid question, but… why don’t Decylum’s people just… come out?”

“And live in the above-world?” Raith asked. “Why would we
want to do that?”

“Because now you know it’s a somewhat hospitable place.”

Raith laughed. “Hospitable? Yours is the first true hospitality
we’ve received so far. And even that was a long time in coming.”

“If the place is too small for you, what else can you do? It
doesn’t sound like you’re going to convince the master-king not to go. Either
you bring him to Decylum, or you let him keep your friend captive. If there
is
no Decylum… if everyone leaves… what does it matter if he finds the place?”

“You make a convincing point,” Raith said with a smile. “But
very few of Decylum’s residents will be inclined to leave without good reason.
Between growing our own food and maintaining our reproductive potency, we’re
better off in our subterranean home than anyone I’ve met up here. Besides you,
maybe. And Pilot Wax.”

“You met Pilot Wax?”

“Yes.” Raith decided to leave out the part about nearly killing
him.

“I’ve always wondered what a dway like that must have to do
to keep an entire city under his thumb,” Savannah said.

“Two things, I imagine,” said Raith. “Make promises, and
follow through on them.”

“It’s a marvel he’s been able to do that for so long. He’s
been in power as long as I’ve been alive. Longer, I think.”

“Pilot Wax may not be in power much longer,” Raith said.
“Your half-brother wants to depose him and take the seat for himself.”

Savannah looked intrigued. “Does he, now? Sounds like an
ambitious dway. Tell me, does my half-brother know about me?”

“
I
didn’t even know about you until we got here,”
Raith said. “I doubt Merrick has any idea. He’s holding onto a lot of anger,
most of it directed toward your mother. She left him when he was very young
with a father who abused him. Merrick hardly remembers her.”

“Isn’t it strange that two people could share a mother and
never know each other? Especially these days, when one woman having multiple
children is so rare.”

“You and Merrick are very different. You’ve known the love of
your parents. I don’t think he’s ever felt loved in all his life, and it weighs
on him. It’s jaded him. And I think that longing for acceptance is something
that drives him in everything he does.”

“My Uncle Toler is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a
brother. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a real one,
though.”

“I hope you meet Merrick someday,” Raith said. “Maybe not
just yet. Maybe after he’s grown up a little.”

“Didn’t you say he’s older than me?”

Raith smiled. “He doesn’t always act like it.”

“Tell me more about my mother. I never get tired of hearing
about her.”

“Did I tell you about the time she led an entire classroom
full of her peers in a protest against the instructor? Myri was opposed to the pro-Ministry
sentiment in the curriculum. She also didn’t much like this particular
instructor, Mr. Cavril, and she knew a full-on revolt would push his buttons.
She was always very intuitive about people in that way. She knew just how to
incite them, whether for good or otherwise.”

Savannah smiled. “That sounds like her. She was rebellious,
wasn’t she?”

“Only when it was necessary. She realized the importance of
the rules, but she was never afraid to forge her own path where the rules
didn’t suit. You and your father must have seen that in her.”

“She and my dad were very in love, although she did challenge
him. Sometimes I think that’s what he liked most about her. That she didn’t go
easy on him. My dad always liked a good challenge.”

A pang of jealousy hit Raith at the mention of this other man
whom Myriad had loved.
All these years, and you still haven’t lost your
power over me
, he thought with amusement. He had never expressed his
feelings for Myri in any palpable way when they were young. Nor had he learned
whether she felt the same about him. As for his regret over letting her leave,
the time for that was long past.

“My mother was just the sort of woman to challenge him that
way, I guess,” Savannah was saying.

Raith detected a hint of sadness in the girl’s voice. More
than a hint; the loss of her father was still too raw and real and close, and
she was searching for a bright side to it all. Perhaps she’d thought her
mother’s memory was the ticket to such insight. Now, standing here with this
picturesque reflection of the woman he’d grown up with, Raith was sure he had
loved Myriad. What did it matter now? Myriad was lost; maybe dead. The memory
of her would have to be enough. “She was a challenge to us all. Most of the
time she made us rethink our priorities in the best way.”

Savannah shook her head slowly. “It’s like you… you know her
so well.” Tears came to her eyes, and she dropped the hay she was carrying.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Raith said. “For both of them.”

She made a small movement toward him. Something held her
back—propriety, perhaps. He knew she was lonely, and that she hadn’t realized
how
lonely until now. The scant few days they’d spent together was a short span for
two people to feel so comfortable around one another. Though he might’ve stayed
here with her, or offered her a place in Decylum, Raith knew neither would
happen. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to come home with us.”

She looked at him strangely. “No,” she said. “No. I can’t.”

It never hurts to ask
. Whether Savannah turned out to
be a healer or not, Decylum could’ve used another soul with Myriad Ficari’s
blood in her veins. There were too few people of their caliber around anymore.
“You have a nice home here. It would be difficult to leave it all behind.”

“The livestock needs managing,” she said. And then, as if
searching for other excuses she couldn’t find, she let her mouth hang open for
a moment before snapping it shut.

“I understand,” Raith said. “We must be going soon. Within
the next day or two, I should think. Will you take my brothers and me down
beneath the shipping yard again before we do? They’d all like to see it.”

She gave him another strange look. “They must be pretty
homesick.”

“It would do them all some good to know there are other
places like Decylum in the Aionach.”

“Other places…”

Raith noticed her thoughtful look and asked, “What? What is
it?”

“Those other underground facilities we found record of. What
if you led the master-king to one of those instead of Decylum?”

“An intriguing thought,” Raith said. “But what would we do
when we got there?”

“I guess that would depend on whether it was inhabited.”

“We’ve long theorized about the existence of other facilities
like our own. Maybe there are other societies out there, isolated from all
else. Other
blackhands
…”

“You’d have to hope it was abandoned, wherever you took
them.”

“Leading the nomads to a fake Decylum might delay our
problem, or solve it in the best case, but it would be a breach of the promise
I made to the master-king. Ros is ransomed, and I’ll pay any price to have him
returned. I would do the same for any of my brothers.”

Savannah gave him a sad smile. “I wish you didn’t have to go.
I’d like to hear more stories about my mom when she was younger.”

“I’m sure she would’ve done a better job telling them than I
have.”

The girl’s expression changed. She brushed off her hands and
gestured toward the stable doors. “Let’s take them down to see the place.”

An hour later they were stomping down the scaffolded
staircase toward the lower level of the complex. When they saw the processing
tanks, the vast gardens, and the surrounding laboratories, they spread out with
torches and oil lamps in hand, each man gravitating toward the area where he
would’ve worked back home. Sombit Quentin and Tobas Baern stayed near the vats
and holding tanks near the stairs while Peperil Cribbs knelt in the gardens and
Edrie Thronson remarked on the architectural similarities between this place
and Decylum. With Savannah’s permission, Theodar Urial entered the laboratory
and began sifting through cabinets, where he found everything from expired
medicine bottles to more usable supplies like gauze, bandages, tape, syringes,
and surgical implements.

The hunters wandered with no real destination, just to pass
the time. Jiren followed Derrow everywhere he went. Ernost Bilschkin and Hayden
Cazalet were glued to the storage boxes, poring over the same paperwork Raith
and Savannah had already looked through and gleaning what sounded like far more
information from it, given their combined breadth of knowledge on the histories
and the sciences.

Gregar Holdsaard tinkered with the doors inside the
laboratory, using tools he’d brought from the Glaive Estate. Many of the doors
were equipped with keycard access boxes like the one between the gardens and
the laboratory. Others were fastened with normal locks. There was one door
Gregar found particularly interesting.

In a rear corner of the lab, behind some shelving units and
hidden from view to the majority of the room, stood a smooth steel faceplate
with only the hint of a frame visible where it melded with the wall. The door
was clean and unmarked, as though it had never been used.

Gregar went back and fiddled with the thing for a long time.
When Raith came around to look, Gregar had removed a large wall panel and was
counting the wires behind it. “I don’t know how this big bastard was supposed
to open from this side,” Gregar said, “but I think I got it figured.”

He ignited, scraped a few wires together, and next Raith knew
the big steel door was opening. It didn’t swing in or out like a normal door.
It didn’t even slide sideways into the wall like some of the doors in Decylum.
Instead it lifted into the ceiling and locked there, inches thick and probably
heavy enough to crush a man with its weight alone.

Beyond the opening lay only darkness. Raith approached,
holding his oil lamp in front of him. Inside he found a tiny room, three grungy
concrete walls and a sewer plate in the center of the floor. The smell wafting
from the sewer plate was enough to make both men back away covering their
faces. The others around the laboratory began to notice the smell too. They
shielded their faces and came over for a look.

“Just a drain,” said Edrie Thronson, sidling up beside Raith.

“What’s a drain doing behind a big heavy door like that?”
said Gregar.

“Needed a tight seal to keep the smell out, I guess.”

Raith heard water running below the sewer plate. He found it
curious that such a massive door could’ve been put here solely for the smell.
The Glaives had been known for their lavishness during the height of their
wealth, but this seemed excessive. Edrie was the expert on such things, so
Raith had to assume he knew what he was talking about.

“I’m going to have a quick look,” said Gregar, holding his
breath as he stepped into the room to lift the round sewer plate off its frame.
It ground against the concrete when he slid it aside. “Can’t see shit down
there. Someone bring me a light.”

Raith was about to oblige when Edrie nudged him on the arm.
“This place is perfect, Raith. It’s exactly what we need. It would take some
doing to dismantle it and haul it up to the surface, but if we bring back a
crew and some equipment, we could have it excavated in a few days’ time.”