Oathkeeper (41 page)

It was not the eyes of his friends or even those of the two humans that told Kazan exactly how bad his injuries actually were; it was the shadow of a warsuit leaning over him.

“Kholster?” he asked.

“Hello, Overwatch,” the death god said.

PART FOUR

THE OLD SKULL LAUGHS

“In my studies of my father's creations and the interconnectivity of their souls, in particular those of the Aern, I have studied many of the gnomish philosophical works relating to the soul. Specifically, those texts regarding reincarnation have led me to wonder to what extent the individual is submerged when an Aern's soul is spread among his or her fellow soldiers. Having spoken with three of the Incarna among the One Hundred, I have heard them describe the experience of receiving their father's spirit as a flood of knowledge and memory, but always filtered through their own beliefs and opinions, enhancing, informing, but not supplanting themselves.

“Would such a thing be possible, I wonder? To, through reincarnation or the Aernese sharing of spirit, allow one soul to influence another directly, to maintain some sort of consciousness apart from the new being it inhabits? If so, what would that be like? Would it remain behind the filter of awareness? Would the two fight for control? Or would it manifest as a sort of madness? Whispers of the departed, a maddening voice in one's head that no drink, alchemy, or meditation could alleviate? Now you know the secret dread that haunts my thoughts: If anyone could accomplish such a return, it would be my father.”

From the introduction to
Ramblings on the Nature of the Created Soul
by Sargus

CHAPTER 29

NOT SO HIGH AND MIGHTY

Guest rooms within Hashan and Warrune lacked the elaborate decor found back in Port Ammond, but it was wonderful to again be surrounded by a room full of living wood. The spirals and flourishes here had been shaped by the twin trees, every mural the work of years of careful growing. The balance of each room between form and function was delicate, peaceful, and pure.

Yavi watched Gloomy pacing the room Queen Kari had granted him, his heavy feet crushing the mossy green carpet provided by the twin trees. Dolvek, as oblivious to the subtle scent cues the trees were giving him as he seemed to be to so much of the world around him, showed no sign of removing his boots. Ears twitching, Yavi stepped in front of him, the overhead illumination brightening.

“Yes,” Yavi spoke at the ceiling. “I'm going to tell him, Dads.”

“Wha—?” Prince Dolvek started.

“So . . .” Yavi kicked the side of his boot with her bare foot. “The boots. Take them off. My dads provide seriously skoosherized moss carpet in the sleep chambers and guest rooms. It's not proper grass, or it wouldn't feel so luxurious, but it also can't hold up long to rude obnoxious stompy people.”

“Dads?!”

“I ask you to stop killing the carpet.” Yavi twisted her lips into a wry smile. “The part you get stuck on is pollination?” Her next kick was aimed at his shin level.

“Ow!” the prince yelped.

“Boots!” Yavi put the knuckles of both fists against his chest and gave him a soft shove. “Off! Now! You are killing the carpet.”

“I am not going unarmored while that . . . that thing is left to roll about in the garden as if it is some honored guest!” Dolvek muttered the words under his breath, his spirit opening a gateway to the realm of elemental air so tiny Yavi could barely catch a glimpse of it with her spirit sight. “I will, however, protect your mossy floor covering . . . even if I refuse to accept it as carpet.”

Bobbing up a hand's breadth above the floor, Prince Dolvek floated, boots clear of the carpet. Yavi knelt down, eyeing the space between the sole of his boots and the moss that began to spring slowly back into shape.

No lasting harm done
, Yavi thought,
and I only had to kick him twice and shout at him once.

“She is an honored guest, you know,” Yavi said.

“She's wha—?”

“A Zaur.” Yavi pushed down with her palms in the soft, cool grass, moving to a sitting position. “Well—a Sri'Zaur in her case—with an offer of peace? The only thing as surprising as that would be a bone thief who said, ‘Here ya go,' when a Bone Finder did his whole ‘I've come for the bones' thing.”

“I can't even picture that.” A seed of a smile lit on Dolvek's lips. Drifting over to the desk and chair the twin trees had provided, Dolvek settled on top of the desk, feet in the seat of the chair as he pulled off his boots. “And . . . I apologize, both to you and to your Root Trees. It seems I will be forever apologizing.”

Yavi gawked at him, mouth and eyes wide open in amazement. She squinted at his spirit, but he was no imposter. This was the same Eldrennai who had been with her at Oot, who had denied all that the Eldrennai had done to her people and to the Aern, now flecked with shades of gold she had never before seen in him.

“What?” Dolvek lowered one boot gently to the floor then began to pull at the other. “Am I too heavy for the desk or—?”

“What happened?” Yavi asked. “Since I saw you last, there is a change. You were, I don't know—closed—but now you're open, slow to open, but you're listening . . . conscious of others . . . you apologized about the carpet!”

“It
is
a living carpet.” Dolvek set his other boot down next to the first. Hesitating, he began to peel off his socks, too, tapping into the planes of fire, water, and air to wash and dry both his feet and the woolen socks.

“That,” Yavi said, “is the most useful thing I have ever seen you do with magic. How do you use all three so easily?”

“All of the royals can . . . except my brother,” Dolvek answered. “And he could, too, could use it better than me before he came back all scarred from wherever he went after his Grand Conjunction.”

“Wylant's destruction of the Life Forge did not affect us, or her. I can only think of a very small number of other elemancers who did not have to accept elemental foci. All either ancient relics like Hasimak or from the few surviving bloodlines that predate the Test of Four and the unification of the elemantic schools.”

Struggling out of his brigandine, revealing the gambeson beneath, he laughed bitterly. “I didn't bring any other clothes.”

“We can loan you something. . . .” Yavi offered.

“That would be most kind.” Dolvek moved from the desk to the chair. “Thank you. What did I think I was doing, flying off like that to rage at my brother? Then, barging in here, demanding things . . .”

“What happened?” Yavi rose to her feet and moved closer, pressing the knuckles of her left hand against his shoulder.

“When I outlined my plan to attack the Zaur,” Dolvek said, closing his eyes as if he saw it all again, “Bloodmane mocked me. He demoted me and put Jolsit in my place. I remember thinking how unfair he was being and that he was just angry and being petty because Kholster hated me so much, but—when the Ghaiattri came through the Port Gates and the warsuit needed someone to step in and lead the crews in destroying the Port Gates, he had me do it. Just gave me the order and I did it. When that happened I realized Bloodmane wasn't being cruel or spiteful, he was trying to get through to me, to let me know that you use your soldiers in the best way you can. He knew what I could do and he had me do it, which meant . . . my plan of attack had actually been stupid.”

Dolvek opened his eyes and looked at Yavi. “He . . . you said I was open. I'm not, but I am trying. It's like . . . Jolsit. He fought in the last Demon War with Kholster, impressed him enough for Kholster to make him Demon Armor out of Ghaiattri hide. He's this magnificent person, but if I asked, I know you would tell me he has a Litany because I saw its effect on him. He told me about a Vael named Merri who realized she could stop the fighting after the Sundering. He mentioned how the guards used to abuse her, and I assume he did, too, and . . . it . . . it was a happy memory for him until he looked at it in the context of the present.

“Viewed through eyes centuries old—” Dolvek's voice quivered, “—he was ashamed at how he had behaved. I was embarrassed for him. I . . . I didn't know what to say, but I am trying to use that lens of awareness to look at my own actions and . . . it's hard to like what I see. I wanted to kill Zaur because they are dirty monsters who deserve to die, but what if they aren't? Is Queen Kari right to entertain peace with this . . . Tsan person? And if she is, then . . .”

Dolvek grew silent, gazing down at where his toes touched the moss and grass carpet. Yavi kissed him on the cheek, slipping three steps away before he could react, just in case her scent and the physical contact were enough to summon the (Was “old Dolvek” the right name for someone who had changed so much in such a short span?) old Dolvek's instincts.

“I'll get you some spare clothes,” she said from the door. “And, Prince?”

He looked up at her, hope in his eyes. She hoped it wasn't hope for some sort of relationship with her but for his own personal growth to continue, allowing him to become as tolerable an Oathbreaker as he could be.

“Keep thinking the way you are thinking,” Yavi said. “It suits you.” Then she vanished into the corridors of the Root Tree.

*

Coal blinked, crusted rocklike nuggets of sleep crumbling and dropping free of his eyelids. Stretching the kinks out of his artificially rejuvenated muscles, he spat fire into the air to greet the dawn, only to realize it wasn't dawn. Gone were the sounds of elemancers flitting about and drilling. Around him for a quarter jun or more the ground was frozen over where he'd leeched heat in the night. A thin layer of ice over charred earth was enough to wake a chortle in his throat. How long had it been since he'd seen such a sight? How long since he'd had the heat to squander when he was not hip deep in a lava pool?

“Mighty Coal,” said a warsuit he did not recognize, its helm two seahawks conjoined with three eyes, one on the outward side of each beak and a third in the center of the helm, the beaks pointing out at roughly a thirty-degree angle from each other.

“I do not like your helmet.” Coal cleared his throat, coughing a few random splats of molten rock upon the ravaged soil. “Who made you?”

“We could not awaken you from your slumber,” the warsuit said, “so I was tasked to await your awakening and send you to Fort Sunder.”

“I missed whatever it was you wanted me to do here, then.” Coal sniffed. “How did it go?”

“Please, Mighty Coal—” The warsuit's voice shook.

Was it afraid?

What scared warsuits?

Coal presumed he was the cause, but he also could not abide such rudeness.

“I asked you a question!” Coal roared. Ignorant little warsuit, to make demands of a dragon without so much as a please, a thank you, or an introduction.

“He is Twin Beak,” an Eldrennai voice answered, “Mighty Coal.”

Coal blinked, craning his neck around to spot the speaker. It was the same demon-armored knight who'd impressed him earlier. Joe something? Or was it Joe-el? Jessup?

“My apologies for speaking out of turn, Great Wyrm,” the elf continued, gliding in to stand next to the warsuit, only to drop to one knee, fist on the ground, head bowed. “We spoke before, but I of course would not expect such a grand and glorious being as yourself to have spared any effort in remembering me. I am Jolsit and, if it pleases you, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.”

“Ah, yes, Jolsit,” Coal purred. “Of course I remember—”

“There is no time for any of this!” the warsuit roared. “You have to go t—”

“Carst, rein Twin Beak in, now!” Jolsit rounded on the warsuit, going from a kneeling position to striking a closed fist backhand with a level of prowess Coal was used to seeing in Aern. “He is out of line and offending the dragon.”

“But they are in danger, Jolsit and—” The warsuit stopped in mid-sentence as if he were a puppet whose puppeteer had jerked it upright, back straight, hand at its sides.

“Taking the time to grant the elder wyrm his due respect is not something one casts aside out of fear or urgency,” Jolsit snarled. “I know you are frightened, but a dragon cannot be ordered about like a common soldier. His aid must be requested and, hopefully, granted. It cannot be assumed.

“My apologies,” Jolsit turned back to Coal. “I—”

“What does the warsuit fear?” Coal narrowed his eyes, the concentration fanning the flames within even brighter.

“The Zaur,” Jolsit answered, “have found a way to kill warsuits. All of the Armored in the Aernese army have been withdrawn from the field. One group is heading to . . . or has now arrived at . . . Fort Sunder, and another is present at Port Ammond to defend the Overwatches and kholster Rae'en, while a third group is escorting Eyes of Vengeance to meet Vander at the Halls of Healing.”

“Kill warsuits? Escorting?” Coal pulled himself up to his full height, glossy black wings spread out behind him, lines of fire tracing their edges. “Why would Vander be at the Halls of Healing? Who was injured?”

“He was.” Jolsit stood in the shadow of the dragon, unflinching. “Whatever the Zaur used has killed several warsuits by slaying their makers. Vander has survived for the moment, but . . . as I understand it, his connection to the Aern has been broken. Glayne has stepped in as Prime Overwatch until . . . well, until.”

“But . . . how would . . . ?” Coal jolted as the realization struck him. “Pieces of the Life Forge! Yes . . . they've found some of the shrapnel from its sundering and made weapons of them. Clever little cold-blooded schemers, aren't they? Where is Kholster's little girl?” He eyed Jolsit, leaning close enough to see the elf wince at the heat.

“At Port Ammond, but they respectfully request that you fly to Fort—”