Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (19 page)

“Ach’magut,” she said.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Ach’magut, the Overseer, was said to feast on the collected knowledge of humanity. Calder hadn’t been a Watchman long, but he’d learned that much. He hadn’t, unfortunately, learned where the Great Elder was buried.

Though circumstances now suggested that he was right under their feet.

Valette came walking out of a nearby home, carrying his travel-case in one hand like an itinerant alchemist. “Not what I expected,” he said. “Whatever happened here, I thought it was sudden, but the evidence suggested these people packed up and left. There are no meals on the tables, no clothes strewn on the floor. Everything is tucked away so neatly I would almost expect that the town itself is a fake.”

Andel followed the Watchman, keeping a pistol leveled on the surrounding streets. Shadows lengthened as the sun fell, and Andel was doing his best to keep a weapon on every patch of darkness at once.

“It’s not a fake,” Calder said. “They’ve left their Intent on everything.”

Valette snorted. “Then they left of their own volition. No one
made
them sort their candlesticks in the middle of a kidnapping.”

Calder still couldn’t sweep the feeling of deadly curiosity from his head. The memory ate through his thoughts like acid. “I suspect their volition itself may have been compromised. What Elder do you know that feeds on knowledge and understanding?”

The Watchman gave him a sharp look. “You found something, I see.”

“Enough to know we should be out of here before dark.”

“I have what I need to bring back to my Guild Head,” Valette said after a moment’s hesitation. “Not what I’d hoped, but she’ll be able to make something of this. I will need to take a full report from each of you.”

Andel shoved his pistol into his belt and took off running.

Jerri’s head jerked around, but she didn’t move. Without stopping to think, Calder ran after him. He didn’t know what had happened to the townsfolk of Silverreach...but he knew what it
felt
like, and that was almost as bad. If the same insane hunger had seized Andel, the man could easily be running to his death.

But in a second, even before Calder could catch him, Andel stopped. He was dragging someone out of a nearby doorway, someone that Calder had never seen. A boy, maybe a little older than ten, with hair like seaweed and several missing teeth. He was dressed like a Capital chimney-sweep, in ragged clothes covered in dust and dark stains, and he fought Andel as though he thought the former Pilgrim planned on feeding him to Urg’naut.

He did not scream.

“Let me go,” the boy whispered. “I’m not going to make it!”

Andel’s grip on his collar didn’t falter. “Make it where?” In answer, the boy struggled harder.

With a sigh, Andel pulled the boy around and pushed his wrists together. “Well, if you don’t have any information, then I guess I’ll have to bind you and leave you in the street. We’ll see if a night out in the open makes you more eager to answer any questions.”

The boy frantically jerked away, trying to escape, but Andel made no move to actually tie his hands together. “Keep your voice down!” the boy hissed, and Calder could hear unshed tears. “The spiders are going to come back.”

“What spiders?” Jerri asked, her voice low...and still excited.

He sagged in Andel’s arms, face bleak. “The spiders took everyone away. I have to get food and things during the day, and hide myself at night. That’s when the spiders come out.”

“What do the spiders do?” Andel asked.

Valette didn’t even wait for Andel to finish his question before trampling over him. “What do they look like?”

The boy was twisting his neck to try and keep an eye on every direction at once, but he did answer. “They’re big, bigger than me, and they have eyes everywhere.” He shuddered. “They take everything apart and put it back together. Everything.”

Calder shuddered too.

The Watchman scribbled frantically in his journal. “Just as we feared. Inquisitors of Ach’magut.”

“We’re leaving,” Calder said. “Bring him.” To the boy, he added. “We have a ship, and we’re getting as far away from here as we can.”

The boy looked to the harbor, and his eyes widened as he noticed
The Testament
outlined against the setting sun.

Jerri grabbed Calder’s arm as he’d begun to walk away. In a whisper softer than the boy’s, she said, “Listen.” At the sound, Andel and Valette froze. Even the boy stopped struggling, his eyes going wide.
 

Footsteps, coming closer. Not the rapid tapping he would have expected from giant spiders, but the ordinary slap of shoes against pavement. Calder looked back, waiting for the survivors to show themselves. There was plenty of room on
The Testament
for cargo, and they had enough supplies to carry a dozen refugees up the coast for another few weeks. Even if there were more, he could at least get them away from this haunted town.

But the boy struggled even more frantically against Andel’s grip. “Run!”

The crew glanced at each other, but then didn’t wait for any more instructions. They ran.

Calder had crossed the vast expanse of empty cobbles leading to the harbor, with only the dock in front of him. His ship was a black silhouette against an orange sky, and he was close enough that he could sense the perpetual fury of the Lyathatan beneath the waves. Even as he ran, he started to relax. Once they were onboard, nothing short of a Great Elder could catch them.

They didn’t make it onboard.

From the water on either side of the dock, spiders the size of wolves splashed up and clambered over onto the dock. Two of them stood on the surface of the dock, giving Calder a clear look at them. For the first time, he wished the sun had set completely. Then he wouldn’t have to see them.

It was difficult to tell the color of their chitin, but he thought it was dark blue, maybe a sort of slick purple. They had ten sharp, segmented legs, though two of them stayed bent up at all times, like arms. And they were covered in eyes. The segment he would dubiously term the ‘head’ was crammed full of eyes of every description: compound eyes, slitted reptilian eyes, even eyes that looked disturbingly human. Some of the eyes waved on stalks, which drifted toward the humans.

Looking at the two Elderspawn standing next to each other, he could see that neither of them had the same pattern of eyes or even distribution of limbs. One had eleven legs, four of which were pulled up and waving in the air. The other had ten legs, and three stalk-eyes to the two of its companion. It was as though they had been assembled from a child’s kit instead of born.

Andel and Calder reacted in almost exactly the same fashion. Before Calder realized he had a gun in his hand, he felt the kick of a gunshot and the familiar peal of thunder. Smoke drifted up from him as well as from Andel, and both spiders staggered back a pace. One of them waved a shredded stalk that had once had an eye on it.

Like two bodies possessed of one mind, both Elderspawn cocked their heads. Neither seemed particularly inconvenienced by the shot.

Mr. Valette had dropped his case and now clutched an iron spike in each hand. “In the Emperor’s name,” he said, and it had the sound of ritual to it. “Mr. Petronus, Captain Marten, I’ll thank you to take care of the one on the left. Drive it into the water, if you can. I will seal the limbs of the one on our right, that we may take it home for study.”

Calder was still struggling with the idea of carrying another Elderspawn home on his ship when the decision was taken out of his hands. The footsteps from behind them caught up. He edged to the side, turning carefully to keep both the humans and the spiders in view.

Fifteen men and women spread out side to side, and so many of them wore robes that Calder almost thought they were Magisters. An older man stood in front, smiling, wearing over his robe a ragged coat that looked like it had spent countless nights on the streets. The old man stepped forward and raised his hands to the sky.

“Praise Ach’magut, in his endless bounty, for sending us new brothers and sisters! Friends, be welcome in Silverreach. You have come at the right time.”

As if the stranger’s calm around Elderspawn hadn’t told him enough, Calder noticed the silver medallion that each member of the crowd wore hanging over their chests. The Open Eye. Not a Guild crest, that symbol, but it served much the same purpose. The Blackwatch watched for it in ancient documents.

More often than not, it stood for the Sleepless.

The old man laughed, and his people advanced. In Andel’s arms, the boy had gone limp with defeat.

“It’s not as bad as you think, friends,” the old man said. “Don’t despair!”

From past the end of the dock, a deep, male voice echoed over the water. “DESPAIR!” Shuffles shouted.

The sound reminded him of the presence of his ship. He stretched his mind out, a Soulbound calling for his Vessel. He could sense
The Testament
at this distance, but it was futile; while most Soulbound could draw power from their Vessels, his ship had no power to give. He could only control it, which was no help from so far away.

So he moved his Intent down, through the chains, to the place where the Lyathatan rested on the harbor floor. As clearly as he could, Calder called for aid.

The Elder gave no sign that it had heard Calder’s call. It sat still, hunger and ambition and wariness and calculation all swirling in its ancient mind. As Calder and his crew were dragged away, it simply watched.

And waited.

CHAPTER TWELVE

An ordinary man could never perform the function of the Emperor, for his is not simply a ‘job.’ His importance lies in his existence, invaluable and eternal.

—Jameson Allbright, Head of the Luminian Order, from his essay
Our Empire

~~~

Calder lounged in a copper bathtub filled to bursting with noxious green sludge. Pain slid away from his wounds and muscles loosened as the alchemical substance healed damage he didn’t even know he’d taken. Every breath burned the inside of his nose and made his eyes water, but the alchemists had insisted he breathe it in; even the fumes of this concoction played a vital role in his recovery.

He might have enjoyed it, if he wasn’t using all of his attention to pretend that Jarelys Teach wasn’t standing right next to him.

“We have been given some time. The Head of the Blackwatch reports that the damage to the sky shouldn’t be visible for another two or three days, which gives us at least two days to craft an official response. We would like to have you use the Optasia immediately, but it’s being inspected for damage by as many trustworthy experts as we could scrape up.”

Calder had wondered. After the fight that had activated the Emperor’s throne, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the device was warped into scrap metal. “I could check it myself, if you’re worried about confidentiality.”

“Not Readers,” Jarelys said sharply. She had been carrying a bundle of letters, which crumpled in her grip. “You activate the Optasia by Reading it, so we’re forced to rely on ordinary alchemists, engineers, and historians. It’s slow going.”

It had never occurred to Calder to imagine how difficult it would be to investigate the history of an object without Reading. How would you even do it? Look for minute clues, he supposed, like the archived accounts of those who assembled the Optasia’s network, maybe examine the structure of the throne for scuffs and scrapes. It sounded tedious.

“As for your
attacker
...” Her voice grew grim, and she shifted position on her stool as though she suspected an assassin to be sneaking past her at that moment. “We have confirmed that he was a Champion. As far as we can tell, he was in good standing with the Guild, though records have been spotty at best.”

“Arrange a meeting with the Head of the Champion’s Guild,” Calder ordered. “He can answer for the actions of his men.”

Teach’s cold eyes slid over to him, disapproval written on her face. He slipped deeper into the opaque green fluid. He knew he shouldn’t have used that tone with her, but if he was ever going to start being Emperor, shouldn’t it be now?

With anyone else, he could have faked the authority and confidence he needed. He wasn’t shy by nature, and taking command was largely a matter of self-assurance. But Teach was the woman who had killed his father.

No matter how he tried, he couldn’t even make
himself
believe she would follow his orders.

She didn’t release him from her icy gaze as she spoke. “As it happens, I have already arranged for a meeting with Baldesar Kern in a few days. It will be your first unofficial business as Imperial Steward.”

Just hearing his newfound title pleased him, even if it wasn’t quite as impressive as “Emperor.” He’d get there.

“Thank you, General Teach.” Should he still address her by title, or should he be calling her Jarelys, to emphasize his new social standing? He’d have to decide later.

She stood. “I must plan your security for the next week, but I have guards posted outside of every window and the door. They will respond if you need anything.”

“I’m certain I’ll survive my bath without assistance.” The alchemists had prescribed a full morning of soaking in the tub, which he had already suffered since dawn.

Before leaving the room, Teach paused as though she’d forgotten something. “The Emperor never had a moment of privacy. Get used to it now.”

Calder winced as she left. He had thought he’d covered up his discomfort nicely, but it seemed she’d noticed nonetheless.

“You kept sliding in deeper,” Meia said. “It gives you away. If you wanted her to think you were comfortable, you should have feigned sleep.”

Calder froze, very carefully not sliding any deeper into the sludge. His brief, panicked reaction was to scream for the Imperial Guards, but he stopped himself just in time. He’d decided to trust Meia, if only because she’d saved his life. Hopefully, if he showed her
enough
trust, she wouldn’t kill him.

But how many people were going to barge in on his medical bath?

“Did Teach know you were here?”