The Bone Mask Trilogy: (An Epic Fantasy Boxed Set), page 34
She took a step forward. “What is this?”
He said nothing.
“Why have you brought him here, girl?” Derrani asked. His hand slipped beneath his clothing and came up with a knife, but he did not attack.
“Because I’m a fool,” she shouted. “Tantos, you’ll have to kill me.”
He ignored her. “Where is your wife, old man?”
“Dead, Gods rest her. Dead.” Tears formed in his eyes and his knife arm wavered. “You were wrong about Gyana, boy. She was lying to you, you never could see that.”
“Her name was Gianna.” His voice was a growl. “And our love was true, old man. Hers wasn’t your life to take.”
Sofia drew in a breath. “You killed your own daughter?”
The old man turned his head as if surprised, unable to take eyes from Tantos. “What in the name of the Gods are you talking about, girl?”
Another lie? “Tantos?”
His jaw was tight. He offered no answer. Sofia kept herself between them. Argeon bore down on her, implacable steps. Tantos’ chest heaved and his own hands were white around his knives. Floorboards creaked beneath his boots.
“Move, Sofia.”
She had to get to a mask. “No.”
Argeon’s eyes flashed darkness. She opened her mouth to shout –
Sofia was sitting on a tree trunk in the wood behind the manor. The sun warmed her back and she was happy, but the apple in her hand was hard to grip. She kept dropping it and her father, no mask, his face unlined, hair dark and eyes twinkling, would pick it up for her and laugh when she dropped it again. The green apple rolled along the moss again and she stretched for it, feet dangling.
“Careful, Petal,” he said. “You don’t want to fall.”
“I won’t fall, that’s silly.”
“Of course, you’re a big girl, aren’t you?”
Somewhere the small part of her mind that had not been trapped in her memory heard screaming. Long, drawn out screams that twisted at the ends. She shuddered but her body completed the action as if moved by another.
From the manor her mother’s voice drifted between the leaves, calling them for supper. Father helped her down and she took big steps, trying to keep up with his long stride. The green was dotted with yellow-faces and she bent to tear one free. The flower smelt like... nothing really, but the stains on her fingers were nice. A dark yellow. She put some on her face and smiled up at father, but he wasn’t looking.
She tugged on his soft robe.
A man begged. Something sharp punctured something pitifully unresisting.
“What is it, Sofia?” When he saw her face, he scooped her into his arms and tickled her until she could barely breathe from laughter.
Something clattered to the floor and a man, a different man, called out. A woman’s name. He wept –
Sofia snapped back to the tailor’s shop. She lay on the floor. The fingers of one hand had brushed against feathers in her ring. Tantos knelt on the floorboards, empty hands red. Two knives lay at his side. His robe had soaked up so much blood. Argeon was only spotted, though a large splotch covered one of his eyes.
Derrani lay slumped against one of the walls. Gutted, his throat was slashed and his eyes were little more than dark sockets, slick with blood. She gagged. Two had died here. Derrani, a poor old man, and one of her most treasured memories, shattered by the echo of his pleas.
Chapter 42
Ain stalked across the front of the altar. “Anything?”
Schan rose from his examination of the bell’s underside. With just enough room to slide his head beneath the rim, he’d been still for some time before rising with a nod. “There’s something in there that seems to have been repaired. Or built.”
“But what does it mean? Is it incomplete? Is that why the bell won’t ring?”
“It looks complete to my eye.”
“Then it should sound.”
Schan grunted. “I agree, but I’m no Engineer.”
Ain threw his hands up and leapt down the steps. He stood over the scrolls, edges weighed down with cogs and tools. Only one deletion in hundreds of years of the search. Why remove ‘Calling the Sea’ from the last few searches? It had to be the key. Either that, or it was what killed so many Pathfinders.
Did the Elders even know anything about the Shrine? Surely they wouldn’t have generations of Blacksmiths preparing costly steel items that no-one needed? The Elders wouldn’t know the bell had been repaired. They wouldn’t know what any of the rituals meant. No. One of the Engineers succeeded in repairing something within the bell, but now it would not sing. There was a missing step. And no-where in the chamber was anything remotely like a hammer.
Why had no-one brought a hammer before?
He paced the opposite wall, stepping over bones. He’d already searched the room twice. Only dead Searchers to be found. He paused, something in the wall was odd. A pattern, just like that from outside. A top heavy star. “Schan, do you have the key?”
“I do.” He threw it across the room. Ain caught it and placed it in the holes, giving a twist. A long panel of wall slid across, light crashing into the shrine. He blinked against it, stepping back. When his eyes adjusted he gasped.
A wall of pink quartz. It was thick, though it was possible to see down onto the city and the ocean beyond. The view wasn’t crystal clear, but he could make out the shapes well enough.
“Is it a way out?” Schan asked from the steps.
Ain examined it. No crease was visible and when he rapped on the quartz with the hilt of his knife, it rang solid. Without serious tools and a great amount of time, the window was not going to be their escape.
“No.”
False hope. He kicked at a cog. The Elders had sent him to a death trap, just like dozens of his people before him. And those that reached the Shrine, who’d felt the same rush of triumph Ain had upon arriving, had all been betrayed at the last moment. “We don’t even know if making the bell ring will do anything.”
“The knowledge is supposed to come from the Mages.”
“Wonderful,” Ain said. “There have been no Ocean Mages for generations so we get to die here with that knowledge, like damn fools.” He snatched up a cog and hurled it at the bell.
The steel bounced off without a sound. He’d not be surprised to learn it hadn’t scratched the surface either. Schan skipped away as Ain threw another cog. He found another, and then another, hands scrambling for more objects as his vision blurred with tears. “Sands damn you.” His scream echoed.
And the bell chimed.
Deep, it resonated in his chest. He staggered from the force, though it did not hurt his ears. Schan had fallen, but was climbing back to his feet, a hand on the altar. His face was comically surprised and Ain burst into laughter.
“How did you do that?” Schan asked.
Ain spread his hands. “I don’t know, I just started throwing...” A skeleton he’d been unwilling to disturb rested near a row of scrolls. It was missing a hand.
“Ain.”
Schan held a shattered hand of bone, the fingers broken and the palm cracked.
Throwing something, anything, at the bell, as if each object were one of the Elders themselves, wasn’t supposed to include the bones of a poor Pathfinder or Engineer. He fell to his knees and arranged the bones into a position of repose.
“Forgive me.”
Schan put a hand on his shoulder. “He wouldn’t mind, Ain. Not if it helps.”
“It’s not right.” Surely no other Pathfinder had done the same? Or had they, and failed at some other, unseen hurdle?
“Maybe not, but let’s be sure it wasn’t a coincidence.”
Ain gestured to the skeleton. “What would we use?”
Schan bent to lift a thigh. “Here.”
Ain took a deep breath, accepting the bone. The steps to the bell stretched. Had he trod them a dozen times or a thousand? Pausing by the bell he reached out to trace one of the swirls. It chilled his fingertips. “Time to Call the Sea. I hope.”
He drew the bone back and swung.
A wave of sound flipped his heart but he did not fall. He’d been expecting it. The sound was much stronger standing beside the bell. He swung a little harder, bracing himself. The bell sang, its voice deep. A voice from darkness. He trembled but not with fear. Each note rattled him less.
“What’s it doing?” Ain shouted over another dark chiming.
“Nothing here,” Schan said. He ran to the window. “I can’t tell. Keep going.”
Ain struck again. Light through the window began to darken. The distant sound of thunder mixed with the chiming. He struck again. Something was happening. A chill fell upon the room. The hammering of rain started against the quartz, clouding it further.
“It’s working,” Schan called over his shoulder. His voice was barely audible over the sound, but the awe was clear. “Something’s happening to the city, as if the sea is truly rising.”
Ain gave a shout. The Sands blessed him. He would see his love again. “Then I will keep ringing, until it swallows the entire place.”
***
Notch dropped to a crouch the moment darkness fell.
Unnatural, it pressed around him, trailing over his skin like warm breath. His body was slow to respond, but he brought his blade up when a woman screamed.
But it wasn’t a scream.
It was a cry, a single note. The beginning of a song. Over the sounds of small movements, including a scuffling off to his left, where Flir had stood, came another cry and his chest swelled. His sword arm wavered. The singer’s voice swam through the dark and he smiled. Wondrous.
The room slowed to silence. Even his breathing faded to a bare whisper. His sword point had long since touched the carpet when the darkness vanished.
Lavinia, stood before her chair, beautiful face alight and the final note echoing in the shattered room. Broken glass glittered on the floor by the window, through which Wayrn and Seto hauled a struggling imposter. Flir, her face set, held her stained sword and Luik stepped up to help Seto and Wayrn. Bodies continued to bleed. Most were imposters, but several council members were down too. A familiar face, Captain Holindo, the man with the scar, knelt over a body. Regret was plain on his face. Beside him, one of the imposters lay in a tangle, neck twisted.
The Prince – Notch recognised him by his dress as much as the resemblance to his father – was slumped against a wall. A young woman with dark curls clung to him, jaw slack. Oson’s own face was still awed. Notch shook off the lingering effects of the song. Sofia was gone. Across the room stood an opening in the wall. Another passage. City of damnable secrets. He shot to his feet. “They’ve taken her.”
Seto shook his head, standing over the imposter, who groaned. “We finish here first.”
He slashed at a chair. “It can’t wait.”
“It can. Didn’t you hear? That was her brother. He isn’t going to harm her.”
Her brother was behind the imposters? Notch waved his blade. It didn’t matter now. “You don’t know he won’t hurt her, and that’s not the issue.” They were disappearing into the maze of passages. Time was the enemy, not Tantos’ blade. “We’ll lose them.”
“Enough,” Oson said. The prince had regained his senses, standing by the body of a false Mascare. “I demand to know what’s happening. Who are you, and who are these imposters?” He kicked at a pale hand. “Braonn?”
“Renovar,” Flir said, and shoved the Prince into a seat. Too powerful, her push toppled the chair with the Prince in it. The young woman with curls gasped and Oson spluttered from his position on the floor. Seto nodded, a look of distaste directed at his nephew. Notch strode over to haul the young man to his feet, Flir at the Prince’s opposite shoulder. He gave the girl a look and she fell back.
“Be still,” Flir said. Oson swallowed.
“Is it him?” Notch asked. In devising their hasty plan, Seto and Wayrn had slipped outside to cut off any escape. The man struggling between them might have been Vinezi, but it was difficult to say. “Remove his mask,” Seto said. Wayrn tore the mask from the man slumped at their feet. Seto swore.
A big man, but not Vinezi. His breath rasped and sweat beaded on his forehead. He bled freely from a wound in his leg and by the look of his robe, his torso or side.
“Find him,” Seto roared, kicking the man aside and pacing the room. Wayrn jumped into action, leaping through the wreckage of the windows. The captain with the scar stood, looking from face to face.
“Holindo. What of Solicci?” Oson demanded. Flir nudged him in the ribs and he collapsed, struggling for breath.
Captain Holindo sneered. “He is unconscious. Though death is perhaps more deserving.” To Seto, he swept a bow. “King Oseto.”
Seto stopped his pacing, surprise on his face. “Do I know you, soldier?”
He straightened. “I served in your guard before you... disappeared.”
“Wonderful. Very well, Holindo, I wish for you and Luik here to gather the Shields and sweep the grounds. Not a single foot is to be left unexamined, understood?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
The two men left and Notch glanced down at the wheezing Prince, whose face was pale with shock. The young man stared at his uncle, as if just recognising him. Notch gestured to the Prince. “What do you want us to do with him? And the girl?”
“Bind them and post a guard.”
“Flir can do that, Seto. I’m going after Sofia.”
“Very well. First, please escort Lady Lavinia to her rooms.” To her he smiled. “I do not wish for you to be endangered any further.”
Lavinia had remained silent throughout the exchange, wide eyes on Seto. Her face was pale and she trembled. “I am well, but I would appreciate that, Your Majesty.”
“Notch will help you, Lady.”
Notch took a breath. “It’ll be too late.”
Flir tugged on a curtain, the whole thing crashing down. She tore strips and bound Oson and the girl, hands moving quickly. “It might be too late now,” she said as she finished up, patting Oson’s cheek. “I’ll help you, Notch, then we’ll find Sofia.”
Seto looked to have dismissed the issue. After all, Storm Singers had to be protected. The old man bent beside the wounded Renovar, a thin knife in his hand. “Now. Let’s see what you know.”
Notch hurried Lavinia from the room, Flir close behind. He didn’t have time for this. Sofia could be anywhere by now, the palace and its dammed maze of passages. He’d be lost within them but he had to try. She needed him. Her brother would no doubt be taking her out of the palace. Where to next? Underground? A watch needed to be put on the harbour.
First the Storm Singer. “Where are your rooms, my Lady?”
Lavinia pointed, struggling to keep pace. “Nearest the wall, to the east.”
Flir tugged him back, being gentle. “Slow down, Notch.”
“I can’t.” But he did, a little.
The halls were busy and several times noblemen or worried palace officials seemed about to question Notch, but Lavinia placated them. They reached her rooms in short order. Notch had collected a pair of Shields on his trip, not her usual guard by their insignia, and left them outside her door, escorting Lavinia inside.
The Storm Singer sat on a low couch, holding her head in her hands. A groan escaped.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She looked up. “Yes, it’s just... there is often pain. After I sing.”
“We haven’t thanked you,” Flir said. “For what you did back there.”
She smiled, though her eyes were clouded with pain. “I simply acted.”
“It was a good action,” Notch said. He glanced at the door. Each moment was another moment lost.
She stood. “And I should thank you both for saving us.” She stepped closer. “I hope you will forgive me for asking, but have we met?”
Notch kept his voice even. There wasn’t time for her to remember him as Medoro. They had never met but she might have seen him. In any event, Medoro was no more and Sofia was in danger. “No, my lady.”
“You are familiar to me.”
“He was a Shield, long, long ago,” Flir said. “When the mountains were fluffy little hills.”
Lavinia smiled again, opening her mouth to speak but instead, gasped. “Ti and Calinzo.”
“Who?”
“My guard.” Her face fell. “I haven’t seen them since the imposters woke me.”
“We’ll search for them,” Flir said.
“Thank you. And thank Ana my daughters are safely tucked away at –” Lavinia doubled over, hands covering her ears.
“What’s wrong?” He bent by her side. He hesitated, arm outstretched. Was it still inappropriate to lay hands on a Storm Singer?
“Can you not hear that sound?” she shouted.
Notch shared a glance with Flir. He heard nothing out of place, let alone a sound loud enough to shout over. “What is it?”
“A bell.” She raised her voice further, falling to her knees and looking around the room. “Ringing so loud that I can barely hear my own thoughts.”
He circled the room. Nothing. Out the window, only the windswept palace gardens were visible, grass rippling. No strange bells.
A Shield stepped inside. His broad face was concerned. “Is everything well, my lady?”
“I think you should find a healer,” Flir told him.
He hurried from the room and Notch helped Lavinia back to the couch. Her eyes were wide. “Are you sure you cannot hear it?”
His impatience faded and he listened. A distant peal of thunder and another sound he could not identify was just audible, but no bells. Flir shook her head. “We can hear nothing. Has this happened before?”
“No, I don’t...” she trailed off, swaying to her feet. She caught Notch’s arm. “Wait, I can hear him.”
“Who?”
“The Sea Beast,” she said. “I cannot believe... he is attacking the very city.”
Chapter 43
Lavinia took them beneath the palace, down what seemed like an endless flight of steps to Notch, whose head brushed the roof at times. Lit only by occasional lamps, some of which had gone out, cold air flew up the passage from the crashing sea below. It chilled the sweat on his face. Steps grew moist as they neared the ocean and the now perilous walkway.
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