Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (8 page)

Everyone knew about Soulbound. They were impressive and even somewhat mystical beings, but as a Reader, Calder understood them. The birth of a Soulbound was simply one phenomenon of Reading and Intent, something that the Magisters were still studying to this day. They already understood
how
it worked, and someday they would understand
why.

But Champions were not just Soulbound. They were the superhuman products of a secret process, trained from birth and raised to be unstoppable in battle. They were invincible warriors, the stuff of legends, the kinds of people who could tear giant Kameira apart with their bare hands and laugh while doing it.

And now, two of them were standing on his ship.

Calder couldn’t seem to fit his bulging eyes back into his skull. He tried to speak, but his mind had frozen.

Nine either didn’t notice his distress or didn’t care. He looked aside from Calder, where Andel was climbing out of the hold. The Heartlander man’s white suit was still pristine, somehow.

“The Captain has arrived, Pilgrim,” Nine called. “Make ready to sail.”

Andel didn’t bother to look at the Champion. “I’m not a Luminian Pilgrim any longer. And we’re still awaiting one more. A young lady.”

Nine gave a low whistle and nudged Calder with his elbow.

Calder felt the Champion was misunderstanding something, but he couldn’t find the words to explain.

Eight didn’t react to anything, keeping his pale arms folded and his eyes locked on the cage. For the first time, Calder noticed the man behind the bars.

He was obviously a prisoner, manacled to a set of chains that were themselves bolted to the cage floor. He was naked but for a cloth tied around his waist, and built along the same lines as the two Champions; he looked as if he could uproot stone pillars with nothing more than the strength of his arms. Blond hair fell, loose and ragged, to frame his face, and his ribs were mottled with fresh bruises.

Calder gestured to the cage. “This is the package you wish delivered to Izyria?”

Nine cackled, slapping the bars with the flat of his hand. “Hear that? You’re a package now. Special delivery to the Izyrian arenas. You’re going home!”

The prisoner didn’t respond. He simply smiled through the veil of his hair. His teeth were white and flawless.

Eight stayed quiet, watching as though he intended to stay in that position until the ship sank or the world ended, but Nine frowned for the first time. He slapped at the side of the cage. “Hey! Answer me. Do you hear me, Urzaia?”

The prisoner looked up, smile unbroken. “It will be good to see my home again.”

He turned to Calder, his gaze making the young man shift uneasily.
What does he want? He has to know I can’t set him free.

Urzaia met Calder’s eyes and winked.

CHAPTER SIX

Without the Guilds, the Aurelian Empire as we know it could not exist.

—Estyr Six

~~~

Calder had wondered how they would approach the Capital without inviting a greeting from the harbor-guns; after all, they were being led by a completely visible Lyathatan. If the Elder submerged itself, it would have to drop
The Eternal,
which would immediately sink. And thereby negate the entire reason for bringing it all this way in the first place. If it stayed above the waves, they’d cause a riot as soon as they passed within sight of shore.

Fortunately, Cheska had the answer. She wasn’t quite back to her usual self—understandable, since she’d lost half her crew and half her ship in the mysterious attack from the Optasia, but she’d tied her hair back and found an impossibly tall hat. With that on her head, she’d taken charge, flying flags and flashing patterns with a hooded quicklamp at all hours of the day and night.

Finally, after a cannon barrage in a coded rhythm, her signals reached the right ears. Only a day out from the Capital, a Navigator’s ship sailed into view, flags raised to indicate their assistance.

Though Calder had never seen the ship before, he found it easy to identify as belonging to the Guild. It had two masts and no sails, only two pairs of giant bat wings that spread wide enough to catch the wind. A pair of painted eyes graced the stern, so realistic that they seemed to follow Calder wherever he moved. It took a long conversation with Bliss to convince him that the eyes were actually painted, and not some bizarre Elder transplant.

With the combined effort of all the Readers on all three crews, they were able to rig up a contraption to let them haul
The Eternal
into harbor without the Lyathatan’s assistance. It required every fishing-net and spare foot of line that Calder could draw out of storage, but they eventually had a gigantic net strung between both functional ships. The hastily-invested net, supported from beneath by a hidden Lyathatan, would drag the ruined ship over the water and safely to the dock.

To prevent
The Eternal
from twisting over and dragging everyone to a watery grave, supporting lines bound virtually every part to every other part—the wreck to both ships, the net to the wreckage, and every piece of the demolished ship to itself.

Together they looked like a floating shantytown, but Calder’s Reading revealed the Intent to be surprisingly solid. Despite its appearance, everything should hold together.

Light and life, he hoped so. He would hate to sail into the Capital looking this ridiculous for no reason.

Cheska joined him at the wheel as he pretended to steer his ship toward Candle Bay. In reality, the Lyathatan and his Intent were doing most of the work, but he felt more in control with his hands on the wheel.

Captain Cheska Bennett looked almost exactly as she had the week before. Her pants were covered with patches of different colors, her jacket had been tailored to fit a man twice her size, and her hair billowed out behind her as she’d tied it without bothering to comb it. She could have hidden a pet dog under her hat, and she kept one hand resting on her cutlass as though she meant to draw at the slightest provocation.

Only in the smallest, most important ways was she different. She didn’t wear a smile when she thought no one was looking, she moved more carefully, and she waited before beginning the conversation. Usually, she treated every exchange like a competition.

“Guild Head,” Calder said, when the silence had become too much.

“Calder.” The pause stretched longer, and for the first time, Calder got the uncomfortable impression that she didn’t know what to say. “I’ll be able to fix her, given time. If it takes half a forest’s worth of time and I have to go in debt to an alchemist, I’ll get it done.”

“You won’t shake the Reader’s burn for months.” It was an observation that meant nothing, a non-statement, simply to give her time to say whatever she needed to say.

“She’s worth it. I called her eternal for a reason, and I won’t give up on her until we both go down to Kelarac.” Even when talking about the Emperor and the future of the Empire, Cheska had never looked so serious.

He gave her a grin she was supposed to share. “I wouldn’t recognize you if you gave up. You wouldn’t be the Head of the Navigator’s Guild, that’s for certain.”

“I was out during the crash, you know. Hit my head or took too much of a shock when
The Eternal
was ripped apart, I don’t know. But when I woke up, all I could think was, ‘I lost my ship. I lost my ship. What kind of a captain loses her ship?’

“Then I saw your monster, and he had it. You kept it safe for me. That’s...that was more than I expected. More than I had any right to expect.”

Cheska was uncharacteristically somber, so he matched her tone. “I can only imagine what it would be like. If it was
The Testament,
I couldn’t have left it there. How could I do less for you?”

She moved so that her hat shaded her face. Which, given that the hat was bigger than her head, didn’t take much. “Just wanted you to know that I appreciate what you did. It’ll take a while to get back up and running, but once we are...well, you just let me know what you need. I wouldn’t be on the water if it weren’t for you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said. She would feel more comfortable if she owed him.

She thumped him on the back with a fist, a little harder than necessary. “Keep it up, and I might decide you’re not such a bad fit for the job.” When he realized what she meant, he smiled all the way into Candle Bay.

Then they went ashore, and his pleasant mood stayed behind.

They were ambushed almost as soon as their feet hit dry land. Not because of anything he’d done, but because of his companions: three Guild Heads would certainly make a stir in the Capital. Cheska and Teach were swallowed up by a crowd of citizens pleading, demanding, or explaining one thing or another. Calder couldn’t understand what they were so excited about, but he took the opportunity to gather his crew.
“A forgotten man is invisible,”
as Loreli once put it. With the people focused on the Guild Heads, he brought Andel, Foster, and even Petal together and started uphill toward the Imperial Palace. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to lose track of the crew.

He’d only taken a few steps when he noticed the one Guild Head who wasn’t surrounded by a flock of petitioners. Bliss stood in the middle of the pack, frowning at a brown leaf she pinched between two fingers. People avoided her as though someone had traced an invisible ten-foot barrier around her.

Calder broke that barrier as if he hadn’t noticed, though his crew stayed back with the crowd. Cowards or sages, he wasn’t sure which.

“I’m needed urgently at the palace,” Bliss said, in a voice that was anything but urgent. “But I need the Imperial Guard to admit me, which requires Jarelys Teach. And Teach is being distracted. Should I remove the distractions, so that she can focus on the greater good?” Her black coat wriggled, and she slid a hand closer to the buttons.

He spoke as quickly as he could, hoping to stop her from reaching inside. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary, Guild Head. I’m sure she’ll be along in a moment. Ah, people seem excited, don’t they? What do you think has them so agitated?” With each word, he kept his eyes on her hand.

When her attention returned to the autumn leaf, he let out a breath of relief.

“We’ve lost control of the Imperial Palace,” she said. “These people don’t know it, because the Imperial Guards will have locked it all down, but they know the gates to the palace are locked. The last time that happened was the first night of the Long Mourning, when Elderspawn rose all over the world. I was very busy.”

“We all were,” Calder said dryly. So that was what drove them to ambush the first Guild Heads they saw? Worries born of bad memories? They were right to worry, if tonight was going to be anything like that night five years ago. He wasn’t in the Capital on the day of the Emperor’s death, but he’d lived through the aftermath. And he’d seen the results of a global Elder uprising.

And with the typical logic of frightened people, these good Capital citizens were stopping the few who could actually protect them. General Teach was wading grimly through the sea of men and women, constantly asking people to stand aside, and Cheska drifted along in her wake. Her grip on her cutlass was tight, as though she wished she could draw and cut her way through.

“Join the General, Bliss,” Calder said. “Andel, Foster, and I will walk ahead of you and try to keep the streets clear. Don’t hurt anyone, please.”

Bliss treated him to the same suspicious scrutiny she had given the leaf, but just when he was planning on retracting his suggestion and throwing himself on her mercy, she nodded. “Very well. We should walk quickly.”

With that, she moved over to Jarelys Teach. For two or three seconds, the crowd didn’t recognize that Bliss wasn’t one of them, but each person who finally noticed the girl in the long black coat staggered backward. In less than a minute, a space had cleared around Teach. The General placed a hand on Bliss’ shoulder in thanks, and then ordered the crew of
The Eternal
to fall in behind her. The noise hadn’t lessened—the people were shouting louder now, hungry for a reasonable explanation—but at least they had some space.

Calder muttered orders to Foster and Andel. Foster immediately agreed, drawing his pistol and ordering people away from Teach. He managed to clear his way up the street a little faster, and the speed of their tiny procession increased.

Andel didn’t obey immediately. He adjusted his sleeves as he walked beside Calder, buying time to talk. At last, he said, “You’re focusing on the wrong details.”

Not a joke. Not a complaint. Not even a criticism, really, though it could be taken as one. Andel was serious.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen how desperate they are?”

The faces around them proved Andel right. The people around him weren’t just pushy or demanding, they were
terrified
. They begged as though they were starving and only the Guild Heads had bread. But the street hadn’t been this chaotic when he’d seen it from the ship; only the sight of Cheska and Teach, people who might have answers, had incited this kind of panic.

It didn’t mean that they weren’t afraid before, but that they’d pushed the fear down. There was nothing they could do about it, so they’d tried to live their lives as normal. Only, at the slightest hint of something they could do to save themselves, they snatched at it like wild dogs fighting over a scrap of meat.

“They didn’t get this way because the Imperial Palace shut its doors,” Calder said aloud.

“These people have seen something. If we don’t know what it is, we risk running straight into it.”

Andel joined Foster after that, moving people aside physically when necessary, but Calder fell back. This crowd didn’t care about him; they only even noticed him when he blocked the way to Teach or Cheska.

He let himself drown in the mob.

It would have been a simple matter to open himself to their Intent, but Reading a situation rather than an object was risky. For one thing, the impression was more fleeting, and he often came up with nothing of use. For another, if the Intent of a crowd was focused enough, they could sweep him along with them. Instead of understanding the mob, he might join it.