The Sound of Seas (23 page)

Mikel resumed his slow walk toward the shape. He heard his boots crunch, then he did not. He looked down and noticed that the ice was now liquefying ahead of the object. Maybe that was just residual heat from the fire he'd set . . . or, he wondered, could those tiny facets of light be producing their own heat?

The front of the “smoke” was now ten feet away. Despite what Mikel had said to Dr. Cummins, he too had the sense that there was something conscious inside, something doing more than just blindly, instinctively seeking something.

“Dr. Jasso!”

The woman had cracked the door and was leaning out. Mikel turned at the glaciologist's cry. It was far more alarmed than before. He turned, squinted, thrust his goggles back in front of his eyes.

And then, finally, he was afraid.

Each trail of smoke suddenly exploded with light, as though skin had been shed and a radiance released. The glittering facets remained, diamonds amid the golden glow, causing even more melting across the surface of the ice.

His legs weak, his boots failing to find traction, Mikel half walked, half slid across the ice back to the truck. However, he did not hurry. There was no reason and there was no need. Fear was replaced by fascination, which was replaced by certainty.

Mikel Jasso knew he was meant to see this.

CHAPTER 20

Z
ell was a difficult, quarrelsome man.

He knew it. His lovers had always said so, even when he was young and just starting out on his chosen path. His first had been a woman who made adornments from bird feathers and sold them in the market. Though he was fascinated with the dyes Palu created, he didn't understand why anyone would wear such things.

“They are lively,” she said.

“They are dead,” Zell had pointed out. “And who wants an ascended bird, if such there is, to come pecking at them?”

His last had been Atak, a man who made charts of the designs in the olivine tiles, claiming that the serpentine patterns had prophetic meaning. He expounded on those in scroll after scroll. Zell didn't understand how Atak could only study the surface when the bulk of the design was within.

“For the same reason vessels remain on the surface of the sea,” he had replied. “It is what we were meant to see.”

“Meant? By whom?” Zell had asked.

“By the Candescents,” Atak had affirmed.

“Why would they want to keep us stupid?” Zell had queried with attitude.

Lovers and friends and birth partners made no sense, so Zell had given up having them. Minerals and leaves, oils and waters, blood and lava—these behaved rationally, predictably, even when combined. Their uses could be understood, repeated, and the results were enlightening. The natural world made sense to him, and Zell had no reservations about saying so.

His patients frequently resented his brusqueness, his incessant probing, and his argumentative nature, which is why he moved to a situation where there was no choice in the selection of a
galdani
. Even
Standor
Qala occasionally had to walk away from him when he grew “insistent,” which was her diplomatic way of saying “stubborn as a
flendro
.” Zell had always considered that a ridiculous analogy, since he was physically quite different from the burly mountain bulls that were harnessed to liberate fresh lands from beneath ancient ice.

But whatever else could be said about him, Zell was undeniably a master of empathetic energy. He believed that this talent was really what put people off: he tore easily through what they themselves knew—or had to suspect—was weak, merely comfortable reasoning. That was why they got so angry at him.

From his early childhood, he was able to care for sick lake birds in Bulcaz, not far from the eastern perimeter of the habitable lands. Zell dwelt with a small community of ice monitors, who studied the expansion and retreat of the great sheets that covered the continent; there wasn't much for a young boy to do other than slide down ice sheets or otherwise amuse himself. Zell selected birds, since he envied their ability to leave the region, which they did with some regularity. The youth wasn't able to join
with
the birds mentally; his skill was not the equivalent of some proto-
cazh
that made two souls one, a Priestly idea he heard about from the airship crews that supplied the region.

Through the birds, however, Zell got a strong sense of what was wrong with them, where their bodies were hurting. He later understood that it was what the Priests called
ilkhmelz
: the capacity to feel
another's pain so acutely that it could be isolated. There was no dancing and waving of hands as in the ancient days. It was a quiet process, almost prayerful. Leaving Bulcaz on an airship, he was introduced to others who followed the profession of
galdani
.

Yet even they had limitations, relying solely on a mind-spirit connection. Zell used his own mixtures of cold-weather leaves and minerals, some heated, some chilled, some lotions, some ingested. He refined these by endless experimentation and a great many bird deaths, until he was finally able to heal more creatures than he killed. And soon he was healing all of them, even the aged.

There was a contradiction in that, of course, for as soon as the birds were well one of the humans in Bulcaz would kill and roast them or put them in a soup. But sometimes, Zell was able to sneak one away, to give it at least a chance for life.

A chance for life
, he thought as he returned to the cabin after the unsatisfactory chat with
Standor
Qala. That was all most
galdani
, most physicians, could offer. When he settled down to study healing arts in Aankhaan, he found he had the same skill with humans that he possessed with birds. The big difference was that humans were less cooperative, since those in pain could not have their wings pinned. Where birds surrendered, humans fought. After earning a reputation for belligerence in Aankhaan—and healing one of
Standor
Qala's essential crew members of persistent airsickness—Zell took to the skies.

Except to collect ingredients for his cures, the physician never left the ship. Qala once suggested that perhaps Zell had meshed too well with the birds; perhaps there was some truth in that. Zell was always happiest when he was aloft.

Yet of all the patients he had treated in his career, the
galdani
had never met anyone as perplexing as this boy in his care. There was no explanation Zell could think of to account for how, clearly, two beings inhabited one body. The explanation had to be found, not just for Vilu but also for Zell: where there were two, there would likely be more. Qala's concerns and reservations could not be permitted to interfere.

Bayarma had fallen asleep quickly and deeply in his hammock. Vilu was just lying by her side, clutching her toga. Zell drew shut a curtain made of tightly woven vines to give that little corner of his cabin privacy and darkness. The curtain was only drawn during emergency work: in case anyone entered, they would know to leave quietly.

Zell bent in a corner where he kept raw minerals in crates. Beneath these were blankets made of heavy
flendro
hide. The covers were used for patients with chills and also helped to buffer the more fragile stones during turbulent flight.

Within the covers, its hum muted by the thick skins, was an olivine tile that had been given to him by Palu. It had been gifted before private ownership of the stones had been banned by a rare, joint act of the Priests and Technologists. Any outstanding tiles were supposed to have been turned in.

Zell had retained this one because, unlike Atak, he was not content to misunderstand its qualities. He studied it when he was alone, tried to bond with it, understood that there was great power within . . . power that he did not understand. Once, however, he had used it to examine the mind of a patient who had been struck by a whipping sail. With it, he was able to see the man's thoughts. This arcane process, known to the Priests as
nuat
, had been deemed illegal because of the danger it presented to the patient—minds had liquefied, it was said—and the temptation toward corruption it offered the user. The
Drudaya
, a group of rogue Priests and Technologists who made a habit of this practice, had been banned.

Zell had no use for fear, he had no tolerance for rules, and he was a healer with two sick patients who defied standard treatment.
Nuat
offered them “a chance for life.”

The tile seemed to be vibrating with more than its usual quiet hum.

“Responding to my patients?” Zell asked the stone, turning quickly to see if there was any reaction from the boy.

There was, and it was not the kind of mildly curious response he
had been expecting. Vilu was crawling toward him across the hammock. Crawling purposefully, not like a boy child but like a predatory animal. The boy was moving awkwardly but only because he was only using one arm. The other arm, the left, was pointed directly at Zell, the first two fingers rigid in his direction.

Bayarma was still asleep, under the influence of the sedative.

“What is it, Vilu?” Zell asked, moving forward.

The boy didn't answer. Zell realized that the youngster was not looking at him or pointing at him: the tile was the object of Vilu's attention. Zell stopped. He noticed that the tile was vibrating strangely now, not only causing a mild tremor in his hand but also getting heavier. Zell bent with it.

The boy swung from the hammock, dropped to his knees, and crept forward, the two fingers never wavering. Zell realized, then, that the tile wasn't getting heavier. It was
moving
toward the ground, the way some of his heavy stones pulled at each other when placed nearby.

“Vilu, talk to me,” Zell instructed. He was now kneeling as well, facing the boy. The two were just an arm's length away. “What are you feeling?”

“Fire,” Vilu said.

“Inside you?” Zell asked.

“No,” he replied. He looked at Zell for the first time. “Inside the stone. Inside you.”

The
galdani
was startled by that, but almost at once he realized the boy was right. The olivine tile was vibrating so rapidly that it was beginning to generate heat, warmth that ran up his arm, into his shoulder, and up his neck. It moved so quickly that it felt like flowing water.

Zell released the tile but the respite was only momentary: it was glowing now and the heat became radiant. The dome of yellow light enveloped him, forcing him back on his palms.

On the other side of the light, Vilu had stopped moving but was still pointing his fingers. He did not seem to feel any heat: rather, he appeared to be undergoing some kind of rapture. His breathing was
quickened, his eyes were wide, his mouth was pulled back in an expression that was somewhere between pain and euphoria.

Nuat
should not be working so quickly, so decisively
, the physician thought.
Something has happened to the tile
.

As perspiration pushed through the pores of his face and neck, Zell recalled what Qala had said about the tower and the rising heat.

It's not the fiery rock that's causing it
, Zell realized.
It's the tiles within
.
Something has caused them to become very active.

The reason probably wasn't Vilu or Bayarma. The tower was warming up before they arrived. But they might be part of whatever phenomenon was causing this.

The physician grabbed the covers from behind him and threw it on the tile. The glow was dampened but only briefly. The hide began to crackle as the underside was dried, baked.

Zell rose and quickly jumped over it, scooping Vilu in his arms. He pushed through the curtain and out the door, setting the boy on the gondola.

“Remain here,” Zell said.

Vilu began to extend his fingers back toward the tile.

“No!” Zell shouted, slapping his arm down. “Do not point!”

The incident drew the attention of
Standor
Qala, who was standing forward of the cabin as the airship gained lift over the sea and turned to pass above the
simu-varkas
.

“Zell, what happened?” Qala asked, rushing forward.

Instead of answering, the physician ran back into the cabin and pushed through the vine curtain. The area around the hammock was filled with a nearly transparent white luminescence, not blinding but hot and causing Bayarma to gasp for breath as she slept. Zell reached her and bundled her to his chest, turning his back to the tile to protect her from its heat.

Qala met him at the door, where Zell pushed the woman into her arms.

“The tiles, something is affecting them!” Zell said before jumping back inside. “These two must have felt it first!”

While Qala processed that information—ignoring the obvious fact that the physician had disobeyed her orders—Zell tore at the curtain, ripping it from its woven hangers. He dropped it on the bundle of covers that was already atop the tile. Then he swept all of them, including the olivine tile, into his arms.

He shrieked like the wind from the mountains as invisible fire ripped through his eye sockets into his brain. Zell managed to turn and fling himself at the door, moving past Qala with such ferocious determination that the
Standor
wasn't able to stop him. Along with several crew members who had run over to care for Vilu and Bayarma, Qala watched with horror as the physician hit the rail with such force that it cracked and spilled him over the side. Qala bolted after him, too late to do more than watch as Zell, the hides, and the tile tumbled through the crisp morning sky toward the distant waters.

The stone tile was burning fiercely. It did not melt, it simply flamed. And as it fell something inexplicable occurred: while
Galdani
Zell plunged beneath the waves, the olivine tile changed direction and was pulled on a course parallel to the ground, toward the tower. It hit near the bottom with force that created a thunderclap that could be heard on the airship.

Qala knelt beside Vilu and Bayarma, who were unconscious. Then she turned to
Usa-Femora
Inai, who had dropped from the rigging directly above.

“Tell
Femora
Loi to disregard previous instructions,” the
Standor
said. “I want height, as much as he can give me without leaving this spot.”

“At once,
Standor
.”

Qala rose and called over two crew members to bring their guests to the sleeping cabin. Then she strode forward to look at the tower. The glow was more pronounced now, as was the heat.

Zell had not been prone to random ideas and indiscriminate theory. He had pinned the blame for this, his dying words, on the tiles.

The elusive storm Qala had been sensing was here. And the only ones who could possibly explain it were two souls inhabiting bodies that were not their own.