Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (15 page)

Calder had no idea.

CHAPTER TEN

When the sky cracks, death can pass either way.

—The ramblings of an Elder-touched madwoman

(From the Blackwatch archives)

~~~

The man in the steel blindfold could come and go as he wished, but Jerri was still a prisoner. That grated on her even worse than his attitude. More than once, she was prepared to leave, but he always said
something
to trick her into staying.

“Even the basest Elderspawn can wait in the darkness for a week. A servant of the Great Ones must be able to tolerate the dark.”

“I can come and go because I am only a humble messenger. If I were fit to be the guardian of this room, I too would stay.”

Each time he returned, she considered killing him. And each time, he managed to say exactly what would get her to stay. Even though she knew it was impossible, she started to wonder if he was Reading her mind.

That, and the Emperor’s quarters had a full bathroom complete with a toilet and functional plumbing. Otherwise she would have burned her way to freedom days ago.

Now, on what she determined was her sixth day in the Emperor’s Elder-sealed room, her self-proclaimed guide appeared again. He stepped out of the shadows as though he’d been there all along, gold teeth gleaming in the middle of his smile. “Good news, Mrs. Marten.”

The name hit her hard, harder than she would have expected. She’d spent most of her married life on
The Testament
—and years prior to that, too—where everyone called her by her first name. On shore, no one knew them. Hearing it now, from a fellow member of the Sleepless in the belly of an Elder construct, felt...entirely wrong.

But he had likely said it just to see her squirm, and she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. She threw her braid behind one shoulder and straightened her spine. “What is it?”

“They’re
finally
coming in.”

He had spent the last six days deftly dodging any question about what they were waiting for. Now...was this it? They’d waited for the Imperial Guard to stop poking at the Elder seal and finally wheel in the big guns?

But what did she care if the Imperial Guard made it in here?

“Are we going to wait here for them?” Jerri asked, finally. She hated to ask him, but she felt entirely out of her depth here. Whatever the cabal had this man doing, she didn’t understand it.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but her guide was a little harder to see than he had been a moment before. Even his brightly colored robes had dimmed to little more than shadow, and she could only pinpoint him clearly because of the reflections of gold in his jewelry. It was more than a little unnerving, which made her feel more at home. Dealing with Elders was
supposed
to be unsettling.

“Here’s what I would like you to do, Jyrine,” the man said, gently taking her by the shoulders. She didn’t resist, allowing him to move her a few feet to the right. The soft organic light hanging from the ceiling hadn’t gotten any dimmer, but he was still bathed in shadows, even inches from her face. As he moved, she sensed the movement of a vast bulk behind him, though she saw nothing more than a normal human silhouette. As though he were something massive cramming itself into the shape of a man.

He finally released her when she was standing with her back to the Optasia, facing the door. “Stand in this spot as long as you can, using the full extent of your power to defend yourself. That’s all. When at last you feel like you cannot continue or you are about to lose your life, you can simply...stand aside.”

Gold flickered in the darkness as he smiled.

The Elder seal around them trembled, and a beat of thunder shook the floor. The Guards had begun their attack. Her heart pounded and her breath quickened from a mix of fear, anticipation, and the sheer thrill of adventure. Her earring began to sparkle, gathering green light.

“Who are you?” she asked, not for the first time. He’d dodged her questions before, but now...now, she hoped, he would give her a real response.

“I am...a business partner of your husband’s. I’m the one who arranged for your jailbreak and ensuing expedition through the void. I assigned you here, Jyrine Tessella Marten, and I sowed the seed of this moment long before you were born.”

Jerri fell to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floorboards. “Kelarac, Great One,” she whispered. Only in her most daring daydreams had she imagined that she would someday come face-to-face with one of the Great Ones. This was even better than she’d hoped; Kelarac was actively helping her. He had guided her wisdom closer to his own, so that she could continue serving the world.

“Do you wish to learn from me?” Kelarac asked, and his voice came from all around her.

“More than anything.”

“I know the secrets of time, of the worlds, of the future and of human Intent. With a fraction of my knowledge, you could guide the Empire into a new golden age. Each man an Emperor, each woman an Empress.”

She could picture it as he spoke, as though he were feeding her specific images. A man flexing his Intent to open a solid wall into a door; a woman climbing into a machine shaped like a winged Kameira, and soaring through the clouds; a little boy waving his hand and causing a thousand flowers to bloom in a field.

“The mysteries of this world are keys that can unlock any door,” the Great Elder’s voice went on. “And they will be yours...if you pay the price. And today, I take my price in
obedience
.”

She stood, green power swirling around her fingertips and lighting the room. She’d never been so ready to fight.

With Kelarac’s knowledge, she could shock the world. Prove to everyone, even Calder, that she’d been right. That she and her father were justified all along.

The Soul Collector laughed fondly, and the door tore open.

Jerri hurled fire.

~~~

At first, standing in the courtyard, Calder tried to take on a passive role in the defeat of the Elder wall. The mountain of flesh was not going down passively, lashing out at each of the Guards and Watchmen that dared approach. They were using their armor and weapons to clear the way for the Guild Heads—General Teach marched up with Tyrfang in one hand, keeping a healthy distance from the other humans so that the sheer aura of her weapon didn’t strike them dead.

Bliss skipped along next to her, apparently immune to Tyrfang’s power, the Spear of Tharlos leaning against one shoulder. When she and Teach struck together, it dwarfed anything Calder had seen before, exploding like an alchemist’s charge and sending stinking flesh blasting fifty feet into the air. Calder had to stagger back and hold a hand up over his eyes to block a faceful of Elder gore. They stood in a tunnel slashed in the flesh, black-edged with death and corruption.

But the wall was still growing. They weren’t getting closer to the heart.

Eventually, he knew, they would carve through. They
were
doing damage faster than the wall could heal, and they wouldn’t stop until they broke through to the center. But at this rate, it could take hours. And Bliss had emphasized speed above all else. No matter what they had to do, they had to reach the inside of the Elder wall as quickly as possible.

Calder lifted the sheathed saber he’d carried from his room. He had wanted to avoid drawing the weapon in front of Bliss, in case she could somehow sense that it came from Kelarac. Besides, he was wearing clothes fit for the Emperor himself. He didn’t want to ruin them with Elder blood on the first day.

But now, it seemed, he had no choice.

He pulled the sheath off with one hand, tossing it aside, and held the blade in the other. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll have ruined my clothes for no reason,” he said to no one in particular.

“I hear you have to pay for the second set,” Andel called from behind him. He hadn’t known the man was here.

Calder stepped up to the Elder wall for the first time since his dream last night. In the daylight it loomed even higher, more menacing, a sheer cliff of rotting meat. The stench rolling from the freshly carved cave was indescribable, and he couldn’t get too close to General Teach for fear that her sword would actually kill him where he stood.

But he did have one advantage.

Through the six-fingered mark on his right hand, he funneled his Intent and Read the simple Elderspawn wall. As he’d suspected, it was a simple creature, fashioned for the sole purpose of keeping them away from this room. It focused on him, preparing to lash out with its whips of muscle, and he moved his blade where the lashes would strike.

Raw Elder sinew met orange-and-black mottled steel. The orange of the Awakened blade flared, corrosive Intent surged in the weapon, and the tendril blackened.

A silent scream blasted out from the Elder wall, audible to Calder only through Kelarac’s mark. The wall recoiled—not visibly, but through its Intent—and tried to attack around the blade. Each time, Calder intercepted the strike an instant before the whip actually landed.

He found himself grinning. Fighting like this made him feel like a sword-master from legend, unbeatable and unstoppable, advancing against any number of opponents. His sword was always in the right place even before it was needed, and he fought on sheer instinct. Too bad it only worked on Elderspawn.

When he reached the cave that Bliss and Teach had opened, he dared not proceed any farther. If Teach happened to accidentally move the Intent of her Vessel backwards, he’d fall over dead.

Just as his father had, at the end of that same weapon.

Instead, experimentally, he drove his Awakened sword into the side of the tunnel. The simple Elder being let out another scream of Intent, and a massive chunk of the wall just
melted
. Odious black goo rolled like a tide over his shoes, and he knew he’d have to burn this pair too.

It was as he’d expected, remembering the fate of the Elderspawn on the Gray Island. Any lesser Elder that encountered this sword dissolved.

He would have to join the two Guild Heads, if they wanted to make it through the wall in any reasonable amount of time. Which left only the little inconvenience of figuring out how to fight next to Tyrfang without dying.

“Guild Heads!” Calder called. They were only a pace or two ahead of him, as their tunnel was incredibly shallow at this point, but they were both thoroughly engaged in digging through the Elder flesh. In fact, shovelfuls of carrion and rotting blood splattered him every time they moved. “Excuse me! General Teach!”

“Speak!” Teach ordered, without turning around.

More than the stench, more than the sickening sounds of blades in flesh, more than the reality of what they were doing, the Intent rolling off of her Vessel made him feel sick. “I believe I can speed us up, but I have to get closer.”

Teach gave no acknowledgement that she’d heard, hacking away at the wall, but Tyrfang’s Intent began to lessen. Her speed decreased in proportion, until the entire hall didn’t
quite
blacken and die with every swing of her sword.

On the other side of the General, Bliss just held her Spear jammed into the end of the tunnel, humming an aimless tune. The wall’s flesh actually fled from her blade, as if in fear.

Calder held his breath as he moved up, standing shoulder to armored shoulder. He immediately knew he’d been wrong; no matter how far Teach held herself back, the aura of the sword pressed against him like the edge of a blade. His vision blurred, and he could feel consciousness slipping.

He concentrated on his own sword, on the orange-spotted blade Kelarac had given him. Its power seemed to
push
around it, creating a little bubble where Teach’s influence was weakened. It helped, but not enough. He needed something else.

In a last, desperate attempt to distract his Intent, he focused his attention through Kelarac’s mark on his arm. The handprint grew warm and his Intent firmed, as though he’d braced himself against a solid foundation. That, finally, was enough. General Teach’s corrosive power scraped at him, trying to find a foothold, but through the mark Calder could hold it at bay.

It was a little alarming that the mark of Kelarac could support his Intent, suggesting that the Great Elder was backing him directly in some way, but he chose not to focus on that. One job at a time.

Now that Tyrfang’s nauseous power had lessened, Calder put his back into the work, swinging his own Awakened blade.

He was pleasantly surprised at how much his addition to the team actually helped. They soon fell into a rhythm: Teach slashed the wall, blackening the flesh for yards around. Then Calder impaled it with his glowing-ember blade, melting it to black sludge. Bliss finished by cleaning up, sweeping the dead matter away with the Spear of Tharlos.

They were through the Elder wall in minutes.

When they stumbled through a sudden hole and onto carpeted floor, it was all Calder could do to focus on catching his breath. He’d assumed there would be...more to it, somehow. They had gone from making slow progress to piercing through so quickly that he could hardly believe it.

He held his gore-caked blade over his head. “Victory!” he shouted, like an idiot. A few of the Guards outside took up a cheer.

“Not quite,” Bliss said. She squinted up the hallway, to a room that looked just like half a dozen others. “There’s someone waiting for us.”

Calder couldn’t sense anything other than Elders through Kelarac’s mark, but he took Bliss’ word for it.

Besides the sunlight spilling in from behind them, the hall was lit by dim organic bulbs hanging down from the ceiling. They cast a dirty, grayish light on their surroundings, like an Elder’s attempt to devour all color.

“Here,” General Teach said, striding up to a door and drawing her sword back, preparing to drive it completely into the room.

She didn’t even try the doorknob,
Calder thought, before Teach blasted her way inside. The doors blew inward as though she’d charged in with a sledgehammer.

A ball of green fire met her on the other side.

Teach jerked down and to the right, spinning to put her back against the wall to the right of the doorframe. She held Tyrfang up in both hands. She must have started to lose her grip on its Intent, because dirty white paint began to peel away from her as she knelt there.