Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (11 page)

A silent shriek sounded in Calder’s mind, desperate and pitiful at once, like a child with a papercut. He managed to shout a wordless warning before the unseen force retaliated.

The floating shapes of flame struck Nine like half a dozen bolts of orange-white lightning.

The Champion ignited. He roared, pain and anger and shock all mixed into one cry. The heat from his body flared again, sending another wave of heat passing over Calder.

Andel ran for the barrel of seawater they kept at hand for scrubbing the deck, but Calder had a faster plan. He dropped to one knee, pressing his hand against the deck.

A rope shot out from a coil nearby, wrapping itself around the burning Champion. He grabbed on, no doubt intending to tear the thick strand apart, but Calder was faster. With a mental effort, he used the rope to hurl Nine over the railing and into the sea.

The flames blazed brighter on Nine’s body as he soared through the air, but he landed with a heavy splash. Calder had no way of telling if the man was alive or dead, or if he would have the presence of mind to stay afloat, but it was better than watching him burn to death.

Eight shouted at the sight, and for the first time, he took his gaze entirely off of his prisoner. He stared at the geometric flames in the sky, slowly removing the shield from his back.

The fiery lights returned to their dance, spiraling around one another in a slow orbit. Either they didn’t see Eight as much of a threat compared to his partner, or he hadn’t attracted their attention, but they seemed to ignore him.

Wind spiraled around the shield, carrying with it the icy bite of winter.

In seconds, frost coated the shield, and snow swirled around Eight’s entire body. The few remaining flames froze in their tracks; once again, the hostile Intent in the atmosphere congealed. The invisible eye had returned, watching the Champion.

When the fires struck again, just as they had with Nine, Eight was ready for them.

The lights crashed down like orange lightning, but the bald, pale man was even faster. His shield blurred, and six sprays of campfire sparks shot out from him like geysers.

He’d swatted all of the flames from midair at the
same time.
Faster than Calder’s eyes could process, he’d struck at least six times.

So this is a Champion,
he thought. He wondered how much it would take to hire one for his crew, but quickly dismissed the thought. If he couldn’t even afford to dig himself out of debt, how could he support a warrior like this?

The sparks fell to the deck, taking with them the heat and the unnaturally bright light. In fact, the air on deck was still being cooled by the blizzard Eight carried on his shield.

Before Calder, Jerri, or Andel could say a word, Eight had already stripped his Vessel off his arm and tossed it down. Without a second’s hesitation, he ran to the railing, obviously prepared to vault over.

Calder couldn’t help a certain sense of smug self-satisfaction, seeing that. He’d actually thought faster than the Champion.

Under Calder’s control, the rope ladder drifted up the side of the ship, carrying Nine’s body. The burned, one-eyed man smiled weakly. “Why’d you do that, Captain? I had ‘em.”

His head lolled as he passed out, and Eight grabbed him before he could fall back into the sea. He threw his partner over his shoulder like a sack of grain, turning to Calder.

“He needs rest,” Eight said. Calder expected him to finish the statement, but he never did.

Jerri ushered him forward, toward the cabin where Andel usually slept. “Lay him down here. Andel won’t mind sleeping below for a while, will you, Andel? We have two passenger cabins down there, though they’re a little cramped at the moment.”

“My ship is always open to you,” Andel said, adjusting his collar. As frustrating as it was to hear Andel refer to
The Testament
as his ship, it was still gratifying to imagine him below, tucked in among the cargo.

Eight hadn’t even waited for Jerri to finish speaking. He kicked the door open, laying Nine down on a bunk. Jerri rushed down the ladder for some wine, and Andel headed into the cabin to see to his belongings.

They left Calder on deck, which he didn’t mind. He needed a moment.

His hands trembled with excitement, and he opened and closed his fists, trying to work out the excess energy. A strange expression had been carved onto his face, and he couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a rictus of fear. His stomach roiled, almost as though he were seasick, and his thoughts moved too fast for him to catch up.

From the appearance of the dancing lights to Eight carrying Nine inside, not three minutes had passed. Calder had endured too many emotions in too short a time to even understand them all.

A voice rumbed up from the cage in the center of the deck. “That was well done.”

Calder looked to the sixth passenger, whom he’d all but forgotten in the excitement. Urzaia still lay on his back, hands folded under his head like a pillow, eyes closed. He looked like a man enjoying a relaxing nap.

“Did we wake you?” Calder asked, voice dry.

Without opening his eyes, the prisoner grinned, flashing his perfect teeth. “The sparks are not Kameira or Elder, but something born of the Aion. They have order. Patterns. They like to...straighten things that are crooked. It is said they are drawn to lost ships, and they will guide you toward right paths.”

Uneasy, Calder glanced at the seamless deck of his ship, where orange embers were still dying. “They were here to help us?”

The big man shrugged, shoulders brushing against the bottom of his cage. “Have seen ships they helped before. Burned, black skeletons of ships that drift on the water. If they could not protect themselves from the fire, they died. But hey! They are not lost anymore!”

He laughed, and Calder chuckled along with him. He couldn’t help it; the bound man seemed to invite cheer.

As Sister Ulinda had once said,
“A smiling man is a friend to all.”

“But enough about the fires,” Urzaia said, suddenly sitting up. He looked Calder in the eye, smile never fading. “I said you did well. You saved that man, the one who pretends his name is Nine. He may have survived the burns, but he would have spent a long time healing. It will not take so long, now. He owes you.”

Even though it was coming from a man in a cage, at least
someone
noticed what Calder had done. “It’s my ship, isn’t it? I’m responsible for what happens here.”

Urzaia tapped his knuckles against the inside of his cage bars. “You react quickly. That is good, on the Aion Sea. Make decisions quickly, act quickly, and you will be a good Captain. If you listen to your crew, and not to the Emperor.” Urzaia made a disgusted face, as though he’d bitten into something sour. “He makes so many decisions for the Guilds, but he does not care about us.”

Hurriedly, Calder glanced behind him, making sure that the other Champions weren’t close enough to overhear. He wouldn’t be surprised if they punished him for simply listening to treason like this.

And some part of him sensed an opportunity here. He never would have thought he’d find someone else who saw through the Emperor’s façade. Certainly not so soon.

Calder leaned closer to the bars, lowering his voice. “How did you end up in a cage, Urzaia?”

The big man’s eyes moved behind Calder to the open cabin door, then back. His smile widened a notch. “Come back tonight, second watch. There are no longer two of them, so they cannot keep eyes on me all night. You promise to watch me, and we will speak then.”

He lay back again, resting his head on his hands. “For now, I will catch a little sleep. If we are attacked again, I don’t want to miss it, yes?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Each of the Great Elders has their own goals, and they are often in conflict. But why have they not destroyed each other? Why have they not destroyed
us?
On some level, toward some mutual objective, they must be working together.

—Head of the Blackwatch, four hundred years ago

~~~

Calder stood in the courtyard outside the Emperor’s quarters, watching the Guards hack away at gray-green flesh. Bliss ran her hands along the skin like a child trying to find her way out of a cave.

The stars were still out, and Calder didn’t remember getting out of bed.

“The bearer of Tyrfang has already given you her tour. I thought I’d give you mine.” Kelarac turned to him, the steel over his eyes glinting silver in the moonlight, and smiled.

The Great Elder looked exactly the same as Calder had last seen him: metal blindfold, decked in jewelry, thin goatee, two gold-capped teeth. Maybe the Soul Collector appeared this way to everyone, as a sort of signature.

“If we keep meeting like this, people are going to talk,” Calder said. He had already written this off as a dream when Kelarac appeared and Bliss didn’t immediately notice and attack.

Although...the Guild Head had stopped running her hands along the bulbous skin surrounding the Emperor’s quarters. She’d tilted her head as though listening for something.

Kelarac chuckled. “I have spoken with you more than anyone else this century. Some would say I favor you too heavily.”

“You and Ach’magut both. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect I was being manipulated.”

Kelarac wove his fingers together until his rings shone.
 

“You’re a piece on a board, Reader of Memory. A card in the hand. You know it, too. But it’s fortunate for you that you are a well-positioned piece, so that you may be lured into place rather than prodded. Your kind prefers sugar cubes to switches, don’t they?”

Calder crushed any irritation before it could pollute his voice. Before one of the Great Elders, he had to keep his Intent on a tight leash. “I believe you’re thinking of horses.”

“No...no, I don’t think so.”

Kelarac waved a jeweled hand at the flesh-covered building. “I like to show my workers the result of their labor, it helps to support a grander vision. And this...without Nakothi’s Heart, I could never have built this.”

A chill ran down Calder’s skin, as though he was wearing his real body and not just inhabiting a dream. “What have you built?”

“However imperfectly, however temporarily, I have created an organism that can control the Emperor’s Optasia.” He put his hands on his hips, smiling like a proud mother. “Without the attack on the other Navigator’s ship, you wouldn’t have ended up here. Not for a long time, at least, and by then certain windows would have passed.”

It was growing harder and harder to control his Intent. “You have the power to destroy the world, and you used it to change my travel plans?”

“I told you before, Captain, I don’t want to
destroy
the world. Only Urg’naut wants that, though Tharlos might accomplish it as an incidental byproduct. I like the world the way it is now, only perhaps a tad more so. You’ll understand. Bringing you here was one domino in a very long line, one note in a symphony that lasts millennia.”

Whatever else the Great Elder was, he sounded very proud of himself.

“And you’re telling me now out of a newfound spirit of fair play?” The Collector of Souls didn’t give anything away for free.

Gold glinted in Kelarac’s smile. “You can’t steer the ship unless you turn the wheel. I need you where you are, doing exactly what you’re going to—”

The Great Elder was interrupted by a girl’s pale face, popping up and staring at him from an inch away. Bliss frowned into what, to her, should look like empty space.

“Dreams are like cobwebs,” she said. “I don’t like them in my hair.”

When the Guild Head waved her hand, the courtyard vanished, and Calder woke upright in bed. Sunlight leaked in from the edges of his window, and Kelarac’s dream was nothing but a memory.

Calder shivered as he dressed himself in the early morning light. These palace rooms were comfortable but drafty, and the autumn chill was starting to make itself known. But he shivered for more than just the cold.

Kelarac had come to him last night, either invading his dreams or dragging his mind away while he slept. He wasn’t sure which possibility unnerved him more. He was sure their conversation had been real, and equally sure that Bliss had noticed them. Or at least noticed something wrong.

How much did she know? If she had seen him standing next to a figure she recognized as a Great Elder, he would be in the dangerous position of trying to explain to the Head of the Blackwatch why he was on first-name basis with Kelarac. If that didn’t end with his body in the Aion Sea, it ended with seven spikes through him.

On top of the looming threat of death, an even greater fear loomed. Kelarac had spoken clearly last night. Too clearly. Before, the Soul Collector had doled out hints like a hunter baiting traps, careful not to give Calder too much information. Why had he changed?

Above all, why let Calder
know
he was being manipulated? It was one thing to know he was dancing to an Elder tune, and quite another to have Kelarac tell him to his face that he was nothing more than a piece on a gameboard.

Did Kelarac tell him because it wouldn’t matter? Because Calder would play his role regardless, and he couldn’t stop it? Or maybe Kelarac knew that Calder would resist, that he would do the exact opposite of whatever he thought the Elders wanted, which would itself play right into Kelarac’s hands...

“If you find yourself thinking in circles, stop thinking.”
Not one of the great philosophers of history, obviously. Calder’s father, Rojric. Calder had always found the words surprisingly wise: when thinking wasn’t productive, he had to start acting.

Which was why he’d take the initiative. He’d go confront Bliss, find out what she knew, and try to enlist her help. If she killed him...well, there wasn’t much he could do to stop her, and maybe his death would thwart Kelarac’s plans.

Why do I even want to stop Kelarac?
Calder had only interacted with two Great Elders in his life, and both of them had worked for Calder’s benefit. Sure, maybe Calder was being used as part of an eons-long plot to devour the world, but it was working out for
him
. It wasn’t his responsibility to protect the world from Elders.