Etherwalker (21 page)

Enoch nodded.

Nyraud shook his head, then clapped him on the back with a shout of laughter. “Ha! My boy, I think I just realized something. You are applying your Pensanden skills to swordplay! Brilliant! Now I don’t feel so bad for losing half my bouts to a youth! Your quick adaptation to every single one of my feints. Your counter-parries that began before my parries even ended. I was starting to think my tricks were all old, obvious and primary stratagems taught to any novice. But no, you literally calculated the possibilities of my every foray and then reasoned the best response.”

Isn’t this how everyone does it? Master Gershom never made such noise about my dueling.

It felt good. They discussed Enoch’s ability to recognize patterns as they walked towards the
elevator
,
which would take them from the sparring room to Enoch’s floor. Enoch still marveled at the sensation of stomach-dropping unease he felt when the machine first lifted them. He had studied the workings of the elevator and laughed to find such a simple mechanism sheathed in the complexity of the Ark.

Enoch had talked about this with the king and was proud to have surprised Nyraud with what he had learned from Rictus about this ancient space-vehicle. Enoch still refrained from mentioning Rictus and Cal; although as time went by, it was less out of loyalty to his companions and more out of a desire to retain the king’s respect for having slain twelve trolls single-handedly.

Technically, they couldn’t have done it without me.

It was almost as though the king had been reading his mind.

“We need to discuss your ‘special’ abilities at some point, Enoch.”

“Why is that, Milord?”

“I know enough of your people’s history to know that adolescence is when your powers start to blossom. It was a time when the young etherwalkers would begin an intense training regimen with an array of teachers. There aren’t any teachers left, Enoch, but I have some recordings saved on the specialized Unit here in the tower.”

Enoch’s face must have shown some of the fear he felt upon remembering the last time he’d used a Unit.

The face. The command. The marking.

Nyraud’s studies must have hinted at something like what Enoch had gone through. He put a consoling hand on Enoch’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Enoch. This machine isn’t on a public network like the consoles down in Babel. And it’s shielded—so no prying eyes or ears will notice you. Again.”

The king tapped Enoch’s wrist, winking.

How does he know about the marking? What else does he know? I need to learn from him.

The elevator door opened, and Enoch stepped out. He bowed to the king, and Nyraud nodded his head with a smile.

“We’ll go to the Core Unit tomorrow, Enoch. It’s down in the tunnels, you know. Not far from where we found you.”

The door closed. Enoch shivered, although the hallway was perfectly warm.

*  *  *  *

Even wrapped in warm furs and surrounded by a patrol of armed guards, Enoch felt vulnerable. The blue lights flickering over his head were too horribly familiar.

The king had been insisting on this trip down into the tunnels for the past several weeks. He said it was too important for Enoch to perfect his skills, to reach his true potential. Enoch had delayed and delayed until finally he was unable to refuse. He didn’t want to appear frightened before King Nyraud.

Mesha had taken one step into the tunnel behind Enoch and then hissed, her fur flashing a sickly blue. She remembered what was down here and would not follow no matter how Enoch cajoled her. Just as he was about to step out of sight, she gave another angry hiss, bolted down the hallway, and leapt on his shoulders. Enoch had smiled, given her some comforting pats, and tried to ignore the claws poking into the skin around his neck. Mesha hadn’t moved an inch since then, and Lieutenant Stykes, the Huntsman who had originally rescued Enoch from the tunnels, had a good laugh at the “little fish-stealing monster.”

They had taken two different elevators to get this low, and now had been walking for the past hour. The air was getting frigid. King Nyraud broke the silence by telling Enoch about his adventures in these tunnels.

When the king was a boy, these tunnels provided an escape from the “mundane stretches of royal life” and were a unique source of both amusement and education for the prince. He had learned much of his hunting skills down here, tracking the elusive trolls in a darkness that required you to rely on smell and sound if you wanted to survive. Granted, the trolls were less aggressive and direct back before the cold killed the fish and vermin they generally subsisted on. But according to King Nyraud, they still put up quite a fight if you cornered them.

Now he was talking about the recent cold.

“When the cooling tank was ruptured, I had my alchemist come and analyze the remaining girders to see if the cold could threaten the stability of the tower. He said that the spill was mostly contained in the cave—that the overall temperature drop in the tunnels couldn’t affect materials built for ‘the vacuum of space.’ I assumed it would clear out the trolls, too, but instead it’s driven them up to the alleyways of Babel. Apparently starvation doesn’t kill the things, just makes them more daring. I assume you found one of their new ‘grab holes’ and found your way in.”

Enoch just nodded his head.

“My men are scouring the city for the holes, Enoch. Sealing them up again. We can’t have every beggar, treasure-seeker, and boy-Nahuati in Babel wandering around the roots of our royal tower, can we?”

Laughter from the guards.

Not guards—these men with the red-fletched arrows are his elite Huntsmen. The most able of his soldiers.

Enoch was still restricted in his movements throughout the tower, but he had picked up on a few things. From the commands he’d overheard King Nyraud giving to his messengers, Enoch surmised that the king had a surprisingly large army for a land with such innocuous and even-tempered neighbors. Not that Enoch was any sort of an expert in these things, but he couldn’t help but consider the numbers that Nyraud whispered to his underlings. If they referred to soldiers, it would be a force to rival any of the historic battles he read of in the recitings Master Gershom had assigned him. Enoch couldn’t ignore the patterns; this army was big. And apparently it was growing.

Does he know about the coldmen in Midian, and is he preparing for them? Should I tell him what I’ve seen?

But Enoch kept quiet about where he came from, and the king didn’t ask. Enoch was afraid that the truth of his humble shepherd upbringing would disgust this regal man who treated him like a peer.

King Nyraud had been delighted when Enoch brought the overhead lights to life, even though it wrung further hissing from Mesha. The king said that the wiring was too complex for any of his alchemists to decipher, and he had to rely on torches to visit the “Core Unit.” He said that similar lighting—even heating and cooling elements like the fan in Enoch’s room—had once existed throughout the entire tower, but most had been ripped out to be replaced by more pragmatic braziers and sconces. The king had then looked at Enoch with his eyebrows raised.

I think he wants me to fix his tower. That would be hard; this place is so old. So broken.

But it would be fun to try.

King Nyraud called the Huntsmen to a halt and crouched down, running his fingers over claw marks in the flooring. They were wide and crusted brown with blood.

“I’ve tried to hunt the trolls out of these tunnels for years, you know. The creatures are, as I’m sure you witnessed, amazingly resilient. And
prolific.
The females stay in their deepest caves with the brood. Count yourself lucky to have avoided one of those big girls, Enoch. They eat the males when food runs low.”

Enoch shivered inside the warmth of his cloak.

This place has that effect on me.

He tried to change the subject.

“Milord mentioned that he had an ‘alchemist’ come look at the girders. I don’t know the word, but it sounds like somebody who sees things like I do. Are there more Pensanden in Babel?”

The king shook his head, then signaled for the party to start moving again. Enoch could see the breath of the men walking in front of him. It was getting colder, which meant they were nearing the cave.

“How I
wish
my alchemists could see things like you do, Enoch. You would be surprised how hard it is just to find those willing to study the remnants of the old sciences, even these many centuries after the Schism. We lost so much in the Sixth Hunt—all of the scientists, the learned men, yes. But worse, we lost our desire to discover. We let our fear of the Worldbreakers rule us. And the cruelest irony is that the Sixth Hunt wasn’t led by the Serpent, wasn’t manned by blackspawn.
We
began it.
We
finished it. The last few kingdoms of men on earth anchored their place in a perpetual Dark Age all by themselves.

“My line is as guilty as any other. My father’s father—the one who wrote the law banning your Nahuati blades—he built the walls around Babel. He sealed off the tunnels. He began the deliberate ‘cleansing’ of this tower, an act I have spent my life trying to correct.

“So to answer your question, Enoch, my alchemists are the few men and women bright and daring enough to open the ancient books I have been able to save. They are the few willing to risk the fires of an Eighth Hunt, the fearful sparks of which are simmering in the streets above us even now. They are the ones who have helped me rebuild the network of Units you may have seen connected throughout Babel. And they are the ones who are helping me bring my tower back to life.”

King Nyraud turned to Enoch and waved his Huntsmen to move on down the tunnel. When they were out of earshot, the king leaned close to Enoch. His dark eyes were suddenly ferocious. Enoch took a step back, and Mesha tightened her grip at his shoulder.

Is this the infamous Hunter’s Gaze that Old Noach talked about? The look that could freeze a manticore to the ground?

“Will you help me restore Babel to glory, Enoch? Will you help me light the first torch to turn back this Dark Age?”

Enoch didn’t know what to say. He
did
feel as though his feet were stuck to the floor. Is this what he was meant to do? Master Gershom’s dying words came to his mind.

“I . . . I have to go north, Milord. I have to go to Tenocht.”

Rather than souring at this news, Nyraud’s expression brightened. The king raised his hands in the air.

“Well, of course! Any Pensanden would
have
to go to Tenocht when he reached the apex of his power. It is the greatest of the Old Cities, the key to opening up all that has been closed.

“Enoch, all I am asking is for you to stay with me until you reach that apex. Allow me to help you, to train you, until you come into your abilities. And then I swear I will personally carry you to Tenocht on my shoulders!”

The king was so animated, his face so lively, that Enoch had to laugh.

He is excited about this—and the excitement is infectious. No wonder his Huntsmen are so loyal to their king. He lets them feel connected to his ambitions, shares the vision he desires so ferociously that they can’t help but want it, too.

This is leadership.

“There is one more thing I wanted to ask you, Enoch. Something I thought could wait until later . . . but now is a better time than anything I could have planned.”

“I am at your service, King Nyraud.”

“Yes, well, I was hoping you would be willing to be something more.”

Enoch didn’t understand. He furrowed his brow.

“Milord?”

“I want you to be my son, Enoch. You are an orphan, correct? You haven’t been overly talkative concerning your past, but I have been able to put some clues together. I
am
the Hunter King, you know?”

He knows I’m a shepherd.

Nyraud raised an eyebrow. He took Enoch’s silence as a cue to continue.

“You are obviously of royal descent.”

Oh. Oh no. Master Gershom hinted at this. I haven’t . . . I couldn’t dare to hope. How did the king track me beyond Midian?

“Your Pensanden blood, however, could be traced through hundreds of possible lines—lines which have thinned through the centuries but resisted extinction, resisted the finality of the Hunt. Time and time again the Serpent has sent the coldmen, has had the world cleared of your kind. And time and time again, your people resurface and try to retake their thrones, to resume control of things. It is in your very bones, the desire to rule. This is what scared people, almost more than your breaking of the world. This is what fueled the Sixth Hunt. And much of the Seventh.

“We thought those lines were finally severed in the Seventh Hunt. It came to a close around the time you were born, Enoch, as the last three families with legitimate claim to Pensanden lineage were burned from Tenocht.”

Mesha shifted on Enoch’s shoulders. She sensed his tension.

“No, none of those families left record of your birth. Obviously. We wouldn’t be speaking now, would we?”

Enoch nodded mutely. He had learned more about his past in the last few minutes than in an entire sixteen years of patient yearning.