CHAPTER THIRTY
Who’s to say
one day
we will not recall
the future
as well as the past.
—THE HARMONY OF BEING
You pace your room restlessly, heedless for once of the intense cold flooding your bones. Where is the servant to stoke the fire? But the thought flits away as soon as it comes and in a moment you’ve already forgotten.
What you need hovers just out of reach, locked in the fortress of your ancient mind. The spell used to summon the spirits is familiar, but not. You are on the verge of a great discovery but it keeps eluding you.
It makes you want to smash something.
The door to the chamber bursts open, stopping you midpace. You are about to rail at the servant for such an indecorous entrance—but it is not one of the silent guards, it is Cayro, sour expression marring his pallid face.
“How can I help you?” you ask with a slightly mocking bow.
He narrows his eyes and settles unbidden into a seat by the fire. “I want to know what you are planning.”
You perch on the threadbare seat across from him, affecting an innocent expression. “Planning?”
“I’ve been to Lagrimar, you know. I was a Seeker in my youth.”
“Is that so? How did you find my land?”
“Hot. Disgusting. Full of starving people embittered by hatred for you, their so-called leader.”
You lean back and steeple your fingers, waiting for him to continue speaking. He is not flustered by the silence; it seems that once again he is taking your measure.
“I think it is a mistake for you to be here,” he finally says.
“Then I take it you were overruled?” You smile as he clenches his jaw. “Does Nikora not respect your advice and counsel? Pity.”
His eyes bore holes into you. But he is hundreds of years younger and isn’t adept. Your skin might as well be made of diamonds for all the effect his glare has.
“Was there a reason for this visit or did you just want to rehash old times?”
He blows out a breath and looks off into the fire. “I know a way out of here. A path to freedom for you, and I would see you use it.”
You sit rigidly, not betraying any emotion.
“There is a tunnel through the mountain that leads down to its base,” he says. “A city lies not twenty kilometers from there. I will show you how to get out if you agree to leave.” His gaze spears you again, intense and calculating.
He seems serious, though this could still be a test. “And who will control the Wailers? Who will provide the Earthsong you need?”
Cayro shakes his head. “This plan of Nikora’s is absurd. We should not waste what’s left of Dahlia’s flesh on this mission. What’s more, we should not sacrifice our people’s lives for this. Better to regroup and rebuild our strength. Find another way to restore our magic. Locate our scattered brethren and reform ourselves. This quest is folly.”
“Then why do you follow her?”
His chin juts up. “I am a believer.”
You try to keep the smirk from your lips. “What, pray tell, do you believe in?”
“In Saint Dahlia, her goodness, her power.” His shoulders straighten with earnest emotion. “To use her to summon spirits is heresy. It is not what she would have wanted.”
You cross your legs, affecting a pose of ease. “Perhaps you’re right. And I agree, Nikora’s plan is madness. But will you really help me go free? Why not just kill me?”
Cayro tenses his jaw and looks away. “Your debt to the Physicks could be useful. I would expect a favor in return at some point.”
Ah, the real reason for his visit. “So you let me go, off to my own devices, and then what, I offer you a boon in the future?”
“I’m certain you will discover another way to regain your power and take over the Elsiran land. It may be a good place for my people once we regroup.”
“A safe haven for the Physicks?”
“Indeed.”
You stroke your chin and think it over. This ally may be useful to have, when you need him. And easy to crush when you do not. “Very well. When would this escape take place?”
“I have loyal men among the guards. When it is time to move, I will arrange to have my people on guard duty. Wait for my signal, and we will make it happen.”
Cayro rises and takes his leave quickly, believing that he has forged a useful alliance. Dissension among the ranks of the Physicks can only help your cause. Eyes turned toward fighting one another will not be looking in your direction. And if something untoward were to happen to Nikora, then her blood spell would be null and void.
It is one path forward, a window opening while the door remains barred. You ponder in front of the fire for a long while.
The answer you’ve been seeking comes to you in a dream. It hits like a bolt of lightning, like the strikes of Nethersong used to obliterate the spirits and banish them from the bodies of their hosts.
A memory from centuries earlier, long repressed, returns. It is from when you were a power-starved lad with a taste for Earthsong and your sister staunchly refused to give you more. You knew of blood magic, knew that Cantors like Yllis studied and innovated it. That the Cavefolk in the eastern mountains practiced it and used it to accomplish things that Earthsingers could only imagine.
Those of the Folk who left the safety and cloistering of their caves had emerged and shared secrets—your mother having been one of them—but the true masters of blood magic were the shamans who never left the mountain. With them lay its most powerful secrets.
And so you went to them.
You traveled to the east of what was then the whole of your land. There you met those who were leaving, the pale-eyed Folk unused to light and fresh air who were tired of life underground. They had been leaving in droves since your grandparents first arrived in this land from some dying world. Your father, aunts, and uncles had found spouses among these former Cavefolk.
After leaving the protection of the Mountain Mother, the Folk became known as the Silent. They had no inborn Songs, though their children who had been conceived with Earthsingers might.
Your mother had taught you some simple blood spells remembered from her childhood, and you longed for more. Blood magic was power in its own right. And there were whispers that it rivaled Earthsong.
So you sought it out. Made the journey with nothing but faith to guide you, that and the lessons of your mother. Never take that which the mountain does not want to give. Always treat the Mother with respect.
At the mouth of a cave, high in the mountain you met a man. He was old then, his skin translucent in the flickering light of your lantern. “Why have you come here?” he asked, blocking your way.
“I came to visit my mother’s people.”
“You are not one of us.”
“Can I not be?”
He’d grunted and turned and you’d followed him deep into the cave city. In a little-used, out of the way chamber, he fed you and bid you to leave.
“Teach me,” you begged. Back when you would stoop to such a thing. But he did not budge. “Teach me, for one day soon there will be no one left to teach.”
The truth of your statement shone in his eyes. Though the city still lived, it was already beginning to die as more and more chose to leave. In two, maybe three generations, if the current exodus continued, it would be a town of ghosts.
“What is it you wish to learn?” the old man said after a while.
“Everything.”
From the shaman, you learned how to remove a Song from a Singer, how to fashion calderas from blood and words and intent. You absorbed blood magic’s possibilities, its drawbacks and limitations.
Clarity greets you now when you awaken from this memory-dream. You have not thought of that old man in centuries. You have forgotten the source of your education, the reason you were able to take power. So odd. But even now as the knowledge afforded by the memory swells in your mind, trepidation fills at skirting so close to the past.
Never take a retrograde step.
Only the future is real. What does it matter when and where you learned this? Why it was taught to you? It was better to have forgotten.
When you left that place, all those years ago, you asked why he deigned to teach so much.
“Many years ago, I had a vision,” he said, “a prophecy of a war that cannot be avoided. And shortly before you arrived, I had another one.” Pale eyes pierced him with blades of scrutiny. “‘The one who walks in the Dark will embrace the Light.’”
You’d grown indignant. “Is that supposed to be me? Walking through these dark caves? I don’t believe in prophecies.”
“Darkness surrounds you, but a turning point lies ahead. The tools I have provided, they can save us all … or doom us,” he murmured. “It is the only gamble I have to play.”
You shake off the words from long ago and recall instead the spell to open the portal. You can now picture its shape and architecture, the way it was put together.
You can see the flaws.
Blood magic is different than inborn Songs. It requires intention and material. Not just blood, but something to hold it. Something around which to create the caldera—the container for the magic.
If a spell went awry, it was usually either the material or the intent behind the incantation that was wrong. Different words, synonyms with different emphasis behind them, could lead to many different results.
Inspiration strikes. You rush out to find the guards at your doors. “Take me to Nikora’s study. I need writing materials.”
They look at one another and at first you are not sure they will comply, but then they lead you with maddeningly plodding steps through the castle.
You burst into the study, surprising Cayro and Nikora. “Paper, pen! I think I know what’s wrong with the spell.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the spell,” Nikora cries and you shoot her an icy glare. She goes silent, pushing her nose into the air before waving at the sideboard, where a box of paper is stored next to the dwindling pile of amalgamations.
You began to write furiously, pouring out the memories that have returned. Synonyms of terms, other ways of constructing the spells, the knowledge of a people lost to time. Lost to their own traditions. Swallowed up by a new people who replaced them.
You may be the last connection to them. This may be their last work.
You ignore all else as you write, certain that you have found your way back to power.
You would thank the old man if you could, if he was somehow still alive, but though your memory of him has returned, you cannot remember his name.