THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 25: The Heart
“The pure heart cannot be tainted by any art.”
– Titania Cavainna, Arcadian monarch (233 PA)
The gray and white of the high mountains gave way to deep brown and green forest, then back to gritty, colorless gray as the trucks made their way down into Pylos. Logan drove the smaller of the two vehicles, leading the larger into the city. Against Tiberius’ bellowed arguments, Duaal rode with Logan. Xia sat behind them, as silent as snowfall.
Clearly, Duaal felt no such urge. He stared alternately between the dilapidated city of Pylos and the almost equally worn bounty hunter.
“God, look at this place,” Duaal said, shaking his head. “And you spent the last week here?”
“Yes,” Logan answered.
“Pylos isn’t the biggest city on Prianus, or even very important,” Duaal said. “It must have taken some real work to find a lead. I’m impressed that you found your way here at all.”
Then the boy was easily impressed.
“Someone told me to come here,” Logan said.
“Who? Another cop?”
Logan shrugged. Why did Duaal care? Logan just wanted to find the Nihilists, find Maeve and finish his work on Prianus. But Duaal was watching him again, waiting for the hunter to answer.
“Do you really think the Cult of Nihil is here? It certainly seems like… like Gavriel’s style,” Duaal said when it became clear Logan wouldn’t offer up any information. Duaal gave the other man a sly, sidelong look. “I was here with him before, you see. I know more about him than anyone else in the galaxy.”
“Including Xartasia?” Logan asked.
Duaal paused. “Maybe not her.”
Logan checked the gauges and readouts glowing on the dashboard. Kemmer’s truck was in rough shape and probably wouldn’t survive many more drives down the mountain. Logan had seen only a little of the archeologist’s camp, but the trucks seemed to match everything else there. Kemmer was working as hard and as fast as he could, running through equipment and people if he had to in order to finish the job.
Why was Kemmer in such a hurry? In spite of what he had said, Logan found himself curious about what Kemmer had found in the Kayton Mountains.
“I spent my entire life with Gavriel. Even if Xartasia knows more about him, you’d have to torture her to get it out,” Duaal was saying. Did the kid ever shut up? He smiled winsomely. “Of course, you can interrogate me, if you like…”
“What’s down in the ravine that Maeve was guarding?” Logan interrupted.
Xia leapt in before Duaal could answer.
“We really can’t talk about that,” she said. “Kemmer had us all sign non-disclosure forms when we first came on the job. Unless you think it’s going to help find Maeve, of course. Do you think it’s relevant?”
“Come on, Xia,” Duaal said. “You don’t really take that seriously, do you? What’s Kemmer going to do?”
“What is it?” Logan asked again.
Xia began to protest, but Duaal held up one hand and paused dramatically.
“A Waygate,” he said at last.
“An Arcadian Waygate?” Logan asked.
“In a manner of speaking. The Waygates aren’t actually an Arcadian invention, apparently,” Duaal told him. “They predate even the White Kingdom. What the fairies know about the Waygates, they learned from the Nnyth. Until now, we thought that the Waygates existed only on the galactic rim. The implications are staggering.”
“What implications are those?” Logan asked.
“Well…” Duaal faltered. “That there might have been trade or contact between the core and rim long before anyone thought?”
“The problem with trade is convenience, not technology,” Logan said. “Alliance ships can fly out to the rim worlds. It’s just not worth the fuel and time.”
“But that Waygate Kemmer found is at least three million years old!” Duaal sounded a little desperate.
“Seven to nine million,” Xia corrected.
Logan considered that. “There weren’t humans on Prianus that long ago.”
“No, there weren’t,” Xia said.
“Then someone else built it.”
“That’s the idea,” Duaal agreed. “What do you think? Aliens on Prianus, before humans evolved here?”
“I think that it won’t help me find Maeve,” Logan said.
“The Cult of Nihil,” Xia said. She was correcting him now. “You came a long way to find them. Why? Is the money that good?”
Logan didn’t want to talk about that. The bounty money was not that good. Was it exciting, as he had hoped back on Sipho?
No. But Maeve was here.
But the Nihilists had taken her.
Duaal was staring at Logan… again. He seemed to be thinking of something else to say when his com chirped.
“Yes?” Duaal answered.
“We’re a few blocks from the police station,” Tiberius said. “Tell Coldhand to turn right at the next intersection.”
“I know where we’re going,” Logan said.
Duaal repeated that into the com.
“Then he also knows he can’t go into the station,” Tiberius said.
Duaal looked at Logan. “Yeah. Look, captain, maybe Logan and I should start… um, asking around…”
“Canvassing,” Logan supplied. “No. We need information first.”
Traffic was getting thicker as they made their way along Pylos’ cracked and bumpy roads. Logan yanked the wheel hard to one side as a small red car swerved in front of them. The driver waved a rude gesture out the window.
“What the hells was that…?” Tiberius asked. Logan saw him in the second truck, glaring furiously through the windshield. “Does that buzzard even know how to drive?”
Duaal’s face darkened a shade as he hurried to answer. “Uh, it’s nothing, captain. Everything’s fine. We’ll see you soon.”
Xia’s eyes whirled an angry, worried red, but then she seemed to think better of admonishing Logan. Duaal was simply grinning at him. Did the boy think that a moment’s inattention made Logan as reckless a pilot as he was?
Did it?
Coldhand was losing his edge. He could feel — feel — it slipping away. The bounty hunter was distracted by thoughts of Vorus and Maeve. Would finding his lost Arcadian make Tiberius Myles think any better of Logan?
I don’t care.
I don’t.
How long since Xartasia left? It felt like days, but Maeve couldn’t trust her own sense of time. She was finally getting hungry.
But the hunger was a dull ache compared to the fire of agony in her hands and wings. Maeve shifted her weight, trying to ease the pain. Who would have thought that simply sitting still could hurt so much?
Maeve cursed herself for a fool — she had thought it so unpleasant up on her sentry crag, exposed and cold. Now, she would have given anything to be back up on those rocks, with her silver blanket and the bright spotlight melting the ice until water dripped down onto her wings.
There was no water here, no light and no blanket, but plenty of cold and moldering dust. Every time Maeve sneezed, it banged the back of her head against the metal post. Not hard enough to cause any sort of injury, but it hurt.
Everything hurt, Maeve reminded herself firmly. Complaining about it would change nothing.
The door opened again, making Maeve squint into the light outside. She didn’t recognize the silhouette standing in the doorway as either Xartasia or her master. The relief was short-lived, however, when the tall shape stepped inside. Through watering eyes, Maeve could make out a red robe.
The Emberguard surveyed the room. It was the same one who had taken her from the mountain — Xartasia had called him Hallax — a long-limbed Mirran with dark stripes across his olive skin.
The Mirrans had evolved their unique and beautiful markings as prey animals on their homeworld, to help them evade and hide from a thousands species of sharp-eyed predators. But there was nothing at all prey-like about Hallax. His dark eyes were narrowed and fixed on Maeve. She was reminded for a moment of Logan Coldhand.
The Emberguard’s look was appraising. Hallax was measuring Maeve up, but not for a fight, as Logan would have. For slaughter. This man would run his nanosword through Maeve’s heart at his master’s word. But not yet, it seemed.
Hallax stepped aside and two more Nihilists — dressed in ordinary black robes — heaved a huge chair through the door and set it in front of Maeve.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Maeve wasn’t pleased by the sharp, frightened note in her rough voice. “Leave me alone!”
“I will,” said a voice. “After you give me what I need.”
It was Gavriel, just as Xartasia had warned. The Nihilist leader looked taller than he had on Stray… No, Maeve realized. He simply stood straighter, no longer bowed by what was, for a human, vast age. But his clothes were much as Maeve remembered, long and dusty black robes like those of a wandering desert priest.
Gavriel seated himself and waved off the two Nihilists who had brought the chair. One of them set a lantern at Gavriel’s feet, then they bowed and retreated. Hallax remained at the door, watching Maeve in silence. Gavriel’s hands rested against the arms of his chair like huge, age-spotted spiders.
“Good afternoon, Princess Maeve,” Gavriel said. “There is something I need from you. When you have given it to me, I will release you.”
“Release me from life, you mean,” Maeve answered as bravely as she could. Her handcuffs rattled against the beam as she trembled.
“Of course,” Gavriel said, utterly unruffled. “But by the end, you will long for death as much as I do. Perhaps you already do.”
“You will get nothing from me! Xartasia has warned me of your purpose!” Maeve hissed.
“Did she?” Gavriel asked. He frowned. “Xartasia didn’t mention that you had spoken. Interesting.”
Maeve had little love for her traitorous cousin, but didn’t like to think that she had gotten Xartasia into trouble with the old Nihilist. He was a dangerous enemy and Maeve closed her mouth resolutely. Gavriel watched her for a moment.
“The Waygates can open a portal to any place that the operator remembers,” he said at last, a reasonable tone belying his madness. “I will make the long journey to Tamlin and with your memories, I will open the Waygate there and summon the Devourers again.”
The Tamlin Waygate? Then that meant Gavriel knew nothing of the one just above Pylos. Silently, Maeve thanked Kemmer for his ridiculous paranoia.
Gavriel must have sensed she was thinking of something else and sat forward in his chair. The lamplight etched every deep line in his face, every wrinkle as black and sharp as an obsidian blade. He caught her chin in his withered fingers.
“Listen to me,” Gavriel said. “You and the rest of your kind have known such pain, such loss. And why should the Arcadians suffer alone? Your false gods offer no solace and no justice for the fate of the White Kingdom. But we can ensure that all the worlds of the Alliance suffer as much as you have.”
“It does not matter if I agree,” Maeve told him. “My memories are shameful, but they are my own. They cannot be shared.”
Gavriel stood up so suddenly that Maeve recoiled, striking her head once again on the support behind her. She forgot all about her hunger and thirst. The old human held out a clenched fist toward Maeve.
“I will have what I want from you,” Gavriel told her. “I am strong now, princess. There are no secrets beyond my grasp. No spells, no songs. You will give up the memories I need!”
There could be no such spell. Rumors, yes, but… Gavriel smiled at Maeve and for a moment, she wondered if he was going to laugh at her.
“Your imagination is so limited, princess,” Gavriel said. His thin white hair seemed to glow in the lamplight. “You have no idea the secrets that Xartasia has taught me.”
“You… cannot take memories,” Maeve repeated stubbornly. “It is simply not possible.”
Gavriel opened his clenched hand and then extended it toward his prisoner, palm facing up as though waiting to accept a gift. He closed his eyes and began to sing.
“S’aivarii kivva skie zha’anae estu hae’sva…”
The sound seeped in through Maeve’s ears and into her skull. The words were slow, dripping cold like icicles. Freezing, trying to freeze Maeve’s scurrying thoughts in place, to hold them still and examine them.
“Vai’a min daekhin ja’hirae vae m’saa…”
Creeping cold so intense that the frozen Prian air was summer-hot by comparison. Maeve ground her teeth and refused to remember. Not them, not the Devourers. But cold, yes. Cold and deadly.
Logan Coldhand.
Maeve closed her eyes and remembered the bounty hunter. The glacial blue of his eyes, the rigid set of his jaw. There was youth there, but hardened too soon. And nobility deeply scarred by loss. Maeve felt Gavriel’s presence in her mind, forced to see only what she did. He stopped singing and his long, withered fingers clenched into fists.
“I remember that man myself,” Gavriel said. “He destroyed the graveyard. He stole you and the Dailon baby away. I remember him very well. Now show me the Tamlin Waygate, princess. Show me the Devourers pouring through and killing all before them.”
“I will show you nothing,” Maeve told him.
“Show me! I know that you long for destruction and death. Give me the means.”
“No!”
Gavriel nodded. “Xartasia warned me that you would be stubborn, princess.”
He gestured back to Hallax. The striped Emberguard stepped into the pale circle of lamplight, knelt down and slapped Maeve hard across the mouth. Her head rocked back, smacked into the beam and then rebounded. Maeve fell forward, jerked to a sudden stop by her bound wrists and wings. She tasted blood in her mouth and spat red at Gavriel’s feet.
“You think that will frighten me into giving you the memories?” Maeve asked. “I do not fear you.”
“No, I think that it’s going to take much more,” Gavriel said with a thin smile.
He took a knife from beneath his robe. The blade was Arcadian glass and glittered in the lamplight like diamond. Gavriel held it out, balanced across his palm.
“Do you remember this, princess?” he asked.
“No,” Maeve answered. Her voice shook. “It is just a knife. I have seen many.”
“But how many have you felt? This one has tasted your blood before, twisting inside of you under the Gharib graveyard. I almost killed you with this knife, princess, and would have if Xartasia had not begged for your life.”
Maeve remembered very well. She felt the scar every day when she got dressed, a jagged line of shiny white just above her navel. Even the surgical nanites couldn’t entirely erase that mark.
“You remember, princess,” Gavriel said. “But you will remember this more.”
He handed the glass knife to Hallax, who accepted it with a bow. He was going to torture her…
Maeve struggled uselessly against the ropes and handcuffs. Her stomach crept up into her throat and she couldn’t breathe, but that wouldn’t matter very much before long. The Emberguard knelt beside her. He grabbed a handful of her short black hair and jerked her head back.
“Alu’ma eru!” she cried. Do not do this!
“Ja’merruna,” Gavriel answered. I must.
He sang again as Maeve began to scream.
North Pylos Police Station Three was a large concrete building with its name stamped in huge, plain letters on the side. The walls were patchy gray-on-gray with painted-over graffiti.
Kemmer’s trucks were parked side by side in a gravel-strewn lot nearby. Duaal reluctantly followed Tiberius, Xia and Panna inside, casting one final glance back at the parking lot where Logan Coldhand and Gripper waited.
They passed through the sliding metal door into… chaos. Duaal didn’t know what he expected of a Prian police station, but this was not it. He was just inside the door, in a narrow concrete hallway, but it was full of people. Men and women jostled each other, pushed this way and that by hard-eyed cops. Many of them shouted threats, insults or even struggled to escape their arresting officers.
Tiberius threw a thick arm across Duaal’s chest and jerked him to a stop as a man dressed in leather and chains crashed through a closed door. The man jumped to his feet, waving a squared length of wood that used to be the leg of a chair. People ducked and scattered, all shouting and swearing.
A young Prian woman wearing a blue uniform and a patch over one eye charged through the broken door and slammed her truncheon into the man’s midsection. When he doubled over, wheezing, she twisted the chair leg out of his hand and shoved him up against the wall.
“Need a hand?” Tiberius asked.
“No, I’ve got this,” the cop said cheerfully.
She took a pair of worn handcuffs off her thick leather belt and snapped them around the man’s wrists. An only slightly older man came running down the hall and she pushed her prisoner into his waiting arms.
“Put this guy in holding five,” she instructed, shouting to make herself heard over the noise.
“It’s full,” the other cop told her.
“Six?”
“Full. There’s some cells left in suicide watch.”
“Good enough. But move him out as soon as possible. We might need the paddeds for a real suicide.” She adjusted her eyepatch and turned to face Tiberius. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Tiberius Myles. I need to talk to Captain Cerro.”
“Can you tell me what about?” she asked. “Does he know you’re here?”
“I’ve got a missing dove and I need some help tracking down a chem dealer,” Tiberius told her. “I called Cerro a few hours ago. He should be expecting me.”
“Sure. He’s on the second story. Take the stairs at the end of the hall. His office is labeled. You carrying any weapons?” the policewoman asked.
Tiberius nodded.
“You’ll have to leave them up front,” she said, pointing down the crowded hall to a barely visible desk. “You’ll need to be searched before you can head up.”
“That’s fine,” Tiberius answered. “I was a cop once, too. I know the routine.”
The woman with the eyepatch whistled, clearly impressed that Tiberius had survived to such an age. It probably didn’t happen often. She waved a farewell to Tiberius, but her gaze lingered on Duaal. She may have winked at him, but with only the single eye, it was impossible to tell. Duaal winked back, just in case.
“Is it always like this?” Panna asked. She had to lean close and repeat her question.
“Pylos is a little worse than most,” Tiberius said. “But more or less, yes.”
“That’s why Gavriel thought Prianus would be a good place to start up his stupid church,” Duaal told Panna. “The people here are desperate.”
They shouldered their way through the crowd and up to the chest-high concrete desk. Xia stepped around a grim-faced Prian officer dragging a frothy-mouthed Lyran down the hall toward a set of wide doors labeled HOLDING.
“Those cells are full!” Tiberius called after them.
The cop glanced up over his shoulder, briefly conferred with a nearby officer, and then waved his thanks to Tiberius. The slavering Lyran suggested that this was a sign from on high to let him go, but the policeman said nothing and cuffed him to one of the steel rings embedded in the concrete wall.
“Why didn’t Gavriel stay here?” Panna asked. She took in the scene with wide eyes.
“Because there are plenty like that guy,” Duaal said, pointing at the Lyran. “But there are people like Tiberius and Officer Eyepatch, too. The first outnumber the second, but the Prian police are just as fanatical as the Nihilists. Gavriel hates them.”
“But if Coldhand’s right, then he’s returned to Prianus,” Xia said. “Why would he do that, if it was so much trouble before?”
“I’m not sure,” Duaal confessed.
Tiberius had made his way to the front desk, signed them all in and had the desk officer call up to Captain Cerro’s office. When prompted, Duaal handed over the glass dagger he had bought on Stray. A cop missing all of her hair and one ear took the knife, patted them down thoroughly, then ran a sensor wand of some kind over each of the little party. When she was done, she jerked her thumb over her shoulder and told them to go upstairs.
It was quieter up on the second story. As far as Duaal could tell, this part of the station seemed to be dedicated to storing desks and cops. There were men and women in blue working on paper and datadexes or conferring at chalkboards covered in timelines, lists and printouts. Some looked up at the civilians as they emerged from the stairwell, but not recognizing them as anyone pertinent to their cases, returned to work.
Tiberius seemed to know exactly where he was going. He led Duaal, Xia and Panna through a maze of desks with sagging tops. They matched the patched uniforms of cops sitting behind them — old and shabby, but quite capable of performing their jobs.
They stopped at an open door with Cerro’s name painted on it. The Prian police captain stood inside, rubbing his closed eyes as he listened to someone on his com. The frown tugging at his lips didn’t seem to be a result of the burn scar on his cheek.
“I… Yes. Arrange it,” he said. “Then put together a task force to go back in. We need to know what’s happening up there.”
Cerro listened for a moment longer, then turned off his com. He looked up at Tiberius and offered his hand.
“Captain Myles,” he greeted the older cop. “You said that there were things you needed to tell me. I don’t suppose one of them is that you’ve found Cavainna?”
“No,” Tiberius said. “But we know who has her.”
Cerro’s frown deepened. “You don’t sound like that’s good news. What’s wrong?”
“Have you heard of the Cult of Nihil?”
The police captain thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry, no. I don’t think so. I take it they’re a problem?”
“You have no idea just how bad a problem,” Duaal said with a shudder.
“The Nihilists are exactly what they sound like,” Tiberius said. “Cultists who worship death. Maeve made some trouble for them back on Stray, about seven or eight months ago. And now they’ve grabbed her.”
“Are you sure about that?” Cerro asked. “We’re a long way from Stray, Captain Myles.”
“They’re here!” Duaal insisted. “They’ve been on Prianus before, in Highwind.”
“Easy there, kid. I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. Just that Prianus is a long way from Stray,” Cerro said. “And Pylos is a long way from Highwind. Do you think this cult came here expressly to kidnap Maeve Cavainna?”
“I doubt it,” Tiberius answered. “Cold– we were tipped off about the Nihilists. They’ve been here for some time, I think, working on something else.”
Cerro thumbed through a leaning stack of folders on his desk and then pulled out one that was overflowing with printouts and photographs.
“We’ve had a rash of missing Arcadians, Captain Myles, from all over Pylos,” Cerro said. “Do you think your dove’s disappearance might be related?”
“Logan asked about that, too,” Duaal answered.
“Yes and no,” Tiberius said. “There’s bad blood between Maeve and the Nihilist leaders. I think there was a personal motive, but maybe they took her for the same reason as the other Arcadians. What happened to them?”
“We don’t know yet. But we haven’t found bodies,” Cerro added quickly.
“Do you know where they’re being taken?” Xia asked.
“No,” Cerro said. “There are over three million people living in Pylos, with only four police precincts to cover them. I’d like to say we’ve combed the entire city… but unfortunately, we’re not even close. How certain are you that the Nihilists took your dove?”
“It’s a long God-damned way up into the mountains to get her, and Maeve’s a fighter,” Tiberius said. “She’s got her enemies, but only the Cult of Nihil is here and hates Maeve enough to go to the trouble.”
Cerro nodded. “Alright. We’re going to need a lot more than that before we present anything to the court, but it’s a place to start and better than nothing.”
“There’s more,” Duaal said, excited to think that they might be able to help the Prian police close in on Gavriel. “We’ve got some evidence from the scene.”
Tiberius nodded and then pulled the syringe from a pocket of his coat, wrapped in an archeological specimen bag.
“We found it in the same place Maeve was taken,” Tiberius said.
“We think they used it to drug her,” Xia added. “The blood on the needle is a match for Maeve’s.”
“You checked it?” Cerro asked, obviously a little surprised.
“I’m a doctor. I have Maeve’s full redprint on file.”
“We think the White’s a local blend,” Duaal said. “Do you know where it’s from?”
“No, afraid not. You’ll want to talk to narcotics about that,” Cerro told them. “Let me give them a call and see if anyone is free to come down here.”
Duaal was pleased that Cerro was willing to listen to them and to help the Blue Phoenix crew find their lost first mate. The young mage actually hoped that Maeve was safe. She wasn’t the kind of woman he ever would have chosen to fly with, but she truly seemed to be trying to clean up her life. Duaal still didn’t think he really liked Maeve, but it was growing harder to hate her.
Cerro had just closed his com and told Tiberius that one of the station’s chem experts would be able to take a look at the needle in about two or three or seven hours. Panna’s face turned a dark red and the girl looked like she was about to start screaming at Cerro. Xia saw the storm brewing and put a slender silver hand on Panna’s shoulder.
“They’re doing the best they can,” Xia said gently.
“But… shouldn’t Princess Maeve be a major priority?” Panna asked.
“Princess?” Cerro asked, his lined brow furrowing deeply.
Duaal was taking a breath to explain when a blazing pain shot from one of his temples to the other. He screamed and grabbed his head. The sharp, red-hot sensation was like a needle being pushed through his skull, shoving invasively inward. Duaal closed his eyes and pressed his hands against the lids as hard as he could.
Everything was dark. Deep black, but not the clean darkness of the void, of the space between stars. No, this was… different. Dirty. Dusty. Wrong. Something as fragile as ancient cobwebs that crackled dryly with every movement.
There were shapes in the darkness. People? Yes, they were people. A man with a red cowl and striped skin, a Mirran who looked distantly familiar. There was a woman, an Arcadian. Her skin was striped, too, but in blood. The Mirran jerked her head up by a handful of lank black hair.
“Maeve…?” Duaal asked.
His ears buzzed and then rang as though deafened. The darkness rose up around him, over Maeve and the Mirran in red, swallowing them. Swallowing Duaal.
