فصل 24

24

Marasi settled in beside Wayne and Steris, watching the approach to the temple. Distant lanternlight showed Suit’s group. But they were getting closer.

What would they do if the man got here? Fight? For how long? Eventually their medallions would run out of heat, and they had almost nothing in the way of supplies.

They’d simply have to count on Waxillium finding the Bands quickly; then they could escape on the skimmer and be away before Suit could do anything. The idea of that infuriating man stuck up here in the snows—having slogged miles and miles to find an empty temple—appealed to her.

At the very least, imagining his reaction distracted her from her own annoyance.

Sit here, Marasi. Stay out of trouble. Babysit Wayne. She knew that wasn’t what he meant, but it was still galling.

Rather than sit and simmer in her own petulance, Marasi dug in her purse, pulling out the little spike that belonged to ReLuur. Such a small thing, and so clean—a shining sliver of … pewter, was it? Staring at it in the light of Steris’s lantern, she wished she didn’t know its history. A person had been killed to make this, their soul ripped apart so a piece could be used to make a kandra.

Even though it had been done long ago, to someone who would have been centuries dead by now anyway, she felt as if there should be blood beneath her fingers, making the spike slippery. It should not be so clean.

Yet, she thought, where would mankind be without the kandra, acting as Harmony’s hands—guiding and protecting us? Such good to come of something so awful. Indeed, according to the Historica, without the work the kandra had done through the ages collecting atium, mankind would likely have been destroyed.

The Lord Ruler is the same, Marasi thought. He was a monster. He created this spike by killing someone. And yet he somehow managed to get to Allik’s people and save their entire civilization.

Waxillium sought justice. He had an open heart—he’d spared Wayne’s life all those years ago, after all—but in the end, he sought to uphold the law. That was shortsighted. Marasi wanted to create a world where law enforcement wouldn’t be needed. Was that why she was so annoyed with him lately?

“You bein’ careful with that?” Wayne asked, nodding toward the spike. “You don’t want to prick yourself and turn into a kandra.” “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Marasi said, tucking it back into her purse.

“Never can tell,” Wayne said. “I think I should carry it. Just in case.” “You’d swap it for the first trinket we passed, Wayne.”

“No I wouldn’t.” He paused. “Why? You see somethin’ good back there?” Marasi rose and walked to Steris, who had settled primly on a stone shelf along the wall of the temple’s vestibule. She sat in a ladylike posture, knees forward, back straight, writing carefully on a notebook by lanternlight.

“Steris?” Marasi asked.

The woman looked up and blinked. “Ah. Marasi. Perhaps you can help me with a topic. How useless am I?” “Excuse me?”

“Useless,” Steris said, holding her notebook. Not her little pocket one; her larger one, full-sized, which she’d brought in her pack. She used it for brainstorming lists.

Today, she’d been writing on the back of it. “I’ve been trying to quantify it, for reference purposes,” Steris said. “I am under no illusions as to my position in this group. I am the baggage, the accident. The person who needs to be left with the horses, or sent to stay away from traps. If Lord Waxillium could have sequestered me somewhere safe along the way and left me, he certainly would have.” Marasi sighed, slumping down on the shelf beside her sister. Was this actually something the two of them could relate on? “I know how you feel,” she said. “I spent the first year around him feeling unwelcome, as if Waxillium considered me some little puppy nipping at his heels. And now, when he finally does seem to have accepted me, he treats me as merely a tool to be used or put back on the shelf as required.” Steris cocked her head at Marasi. “I think you mistake me.” Of course I do, Marasi thought with resignation. “How?”

“I did not mean to say I minded being treated this way,” Steris said. “I was merely stating facts. I am quite useless on this expedition, and I think that is only fair, considering my personal life experience. However, if I wish to improve, I need to know how far I have to go. Here.” She turned her notebook to show Marasi the back, where she’d been writing. Why use the back? Either way, she’d drawn a small graph with points plotted on it. Usefulness was listed on one axis, and it had names up the other. Rusts—she’d assigned a number to everyone’s level of worth on the mission. Waxillium was a hundred, as was MeLaan. Wayne was a seventy-five.

Marasi was an eighty-three. She hadn’t expected that.

“I would say that ten is the threshold below which one’s uselessness outweighs the little one does add to the project. I’m thinking I might be a seven, as there are instances where it is better to have me along, though they are few. What do you think?” “Steris,” Marasi said, pushing the notebook aside. “Why do you care about being useful here in the first place?” “Well, why do you?”

“Because this is who I am,” Marasi said. “Who I want to be. But not you—you’re perfectly happy sitting in a parlor digging through ledgers. Yet here you are, on the top of a mountain in a blizzard, waiting for a gunfight.” Steris pursed her lips. “I assumed,” she eventually said, “that I would be of help to Lord Waxillium at the party, and I was. It was my original understanding that this would be primarily a political enterprise.” Of course. So analytical in everything. Marasi settled back, glancing out the doorway at those approaching lights. Wayne, fortunately, was watching carefully. He acted the fool sometimes, but he took his duties seriously.

“And then,” Steris said softly, “perhaps I came along because of the way it feels.…” Marasi looked sharply back at her sister.

“Like the whole world has been upended,” Steris said, looking toward the ceiling. “Like the laws of nature and man no longer hold sway. They’re suddenly flexible, like a string given slack. We’re the spheres.… I love the idea that I can break out of it all—the expectations, the way I’m regarded, the way I regard myself—and soar.

“I saw it in his eyes, first. That hunger, that fire. And then I found it in myself. He’s a flame, Waxillium is, and fire can be shared. When I’m out here, when I’m with him, I burn, Marasi. It’s wonderful.” Marasi’s jaw dropped, and she gawked at her sister. Had those words left Steris’s mouth? Careful, monotonous, boring Steris? She glanced toward Marasi and blushed.

“You actually love him, don’t you?” Marasi asked.

“Well, love is a strong emotion, one that requires careful deliberation to—” “Steris.”

“Yes.” She looked down at her notebook. “It’s foolish, isn’t it?” “Of course it is,” Marasi said. “Love is always a foolish emotion. That’s what makes it work.” She found herself reaching over and pulling Steris into a hug with one arm. “I’m happy for you, Steris.” “And you?” Steris asked. “When will you find someone to make you happy?” “It’s not about finding someone, Steris. Not for me.”

But what was it about? She gave Steris another hug and, distracted by her own jumble of thoughts, went to check on Wayne.

“What’cha thinkin’ about?” Wayne asked as she joined him beside the outer doorway.

“I just had my long-held assumptions about someone shattered in a brief moment. I’m wondering if every person I pass has similar depths, and if there’s any way to avoid the mistake of judging them so shallowly that I’m rocked when they show their true complexity. You?” “I was lookin’ at you two,” Wayne said, contemplative as he regarded the snowy landscape outside rather than her, “and wondering. Do sisters ever really get sexy with one another for a fellow to watch, or does that only happen in pub songs?” Marasi let out a long breath. “Thank you for restoring my ability to trust my judgment, Wayne.” “Anytime.”

“Those lights are still distant,” Marasi said. “You think they got trapped in the snows?” Wayne shook his head.

Marasi frowned, noting his posture—seeming relaxed, but he’d gotten out one of his dueling canes and rested it across his knees.

“What?” she asked.

“I figure,” Wayne said, “that if I knew I’d been spotted, the best way to sneak up would be to leave my lights behind and make it seem like I’m goin’ slowly.” Marasi looked again. She ignored the lights this time, scanning a nearer darkness full of shifting snow. And there, almost to the windswept patch of rock before the temple, she caught movement. Shadows in the shadows.

“Time to call for Waxillium?” Marasi asked.

“I think…” He trailed off, and Marasi pulled her rifle up, nervous.

“What?” she asked.

Wayne pointed to an approaching shadow. It bore a little flag, crossed with an X. The symbol for parley.

Wax pulled on the rope, helping MeLaan climb from the pit. She crawled over the edge, then flopped down. She’d been right about her clothing—it was ragged, pierced in several dozen places, her left trouser leg ripped completely at the thigh.

She’d compacted her body, somehow. Most of her fatty curves had become taut muscles instead, and she’d taken off her hair, storing it in the pack Allik carried, leaving her bald.

Wax knelt beside her, glancing down the hallway with its spikes, pits, poison darts, and other strange mechanisms. The entire temple seemed to be one long passage, intended to be as hard to move through as possible.

Something about this is wrong, Wax thought. But what?

MeLaan stirred on the ground.

“Rest a moment,” Wax said, hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know if we have a moment, Ladrian,” she said, sitting up and accepting a canteen of water from the nervous Allik. Telsin stood nearby with arms folded, obviously annoyed at how long this was taking. She kept glancing over her shoulder, as if at any moment she expected to find Suit there to take her again.

“How are your bones?” Wax asked MeLaan.

She held up her left arm—or tried to. It had snapped at the middle of the humerus, and the rest of her arm dangled.

Wax breathed out. “You’re sure that doesn’t hurt?”

“Turned off the nerves that cause pain,” she said. “A trick we’ve learned over the last centuries. And since my bones are crystal, they can’t feel.” She grimaced as the arm straightened, the break seeming to heal. But it hadn’t, Wax knew—she couldn’t make bone, or heal it. “Another patch?” She nodded. She had stretched ligament along the sides of the break to hold it tight. She’d done that with many of her bones already.

MeLaan moved to rise.

“We can find another way,” Wax said, standing. “Break in through one of the walls up ahead, or the roof maybe.” “And how long will that take?”

“Depends on how much we care about what’s inside.”

“And wouldn’t it be silly to come all this way, then ruin the Bands of Mourning because of our impatience?” Wax looked down the hallway. They were most of the way through it, so he put off pushing her further. He could see a door ahead.

“You might not have to do much more anyway,” Wax said. “I think I have the pattern figured out.” “What pattern?” MeLaan asked.

“Pressure plate under the second stone to your right,” Wax said. “Shoots darts.” She glanced at him, then stepped forward and tapped it with her toe. Darts spat from the wall, passed before her, and bounced against the opposite wall.

“Next one is two stones ahead,” Wax said. “There’s a hint of a metal line leading underneath it. So far, those have been wall traps.” Another toe press. A portion of the wall opened, dropping a very large spiked log.

“Nice,” MeLaan said.

“Last one should be a pit trap,” Wax said, joining her in walking around the fallen log. “Check your rope. The stones those are under are raised slightly.” She tugged on it, using her right hand because the fingers of her left had been crushed. The crystal had broken beyond repair, and she now walked with the hand permanently shut, splinters of bones fused together by tendons.

“I hate the pit ones,” she said. “They just keep going down. Makes me afraid of what might be at the bottom.” She stepped on the section of floor he indicated, and Wax held tightly to his side of the rope, which was tied about his waist. But instead of a pit trap, the ceiling opened, dropping a block of something. MeLaan jumped back, and the block of strangely colored ice banged to the stones beneath. It was wet, its surface oddly oily-looking.

“What in Harmony’s Rings—” MeLaan said, squatting to inspect the ice.

“Acid, maybe?” Wax said. “It looks like whatever they stored up there was a liquid, but it separated over time, and half froze.” MeLaan stared at it a long time.

“What?” Wax asked.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “So that’s it?”

“Best as I can tell.” Together, they stepped up before the end of the hallway, at a door made of stone. But there was no handle. The rest of the wall was thick stone as well.

There were some markings carved into the door, if indeed that was what it was. Circles, with symbols in them, inlaid in silver. Wax looked to Allik.

“I don’t recognize any of those,” the pilot said after swapping his metalminds. “If they’re writing, it’s not a language I understand.” “What do you want to do?” MeLaan asked.

“Let’s get the others,” Wax said, thoughtful. “More brains to solve this will be helpful, and Marasi might recognize those from ReLuur’s notes.” They started back, letting MeLaan go first again—though Wax kept his eyes open for any indicators of traps. It was still slow going, as she wanted to be careful they’d caught everything.

Telsin fell in beside Wax, glancing once over her shoulder at the door, arms wrapped around herself, though with the medallion she couldn’t be cold. Allik trailed behind them, wearing his warming medallion.

“Do you ever wonder, Waxillium,” Telsin said softly, “how you got where you are?” “Sometimes, I suppose,” he said. “Though I figure I can trace it. I don’t always like it, but it makes sense, if I stop and think it through.” “I can’t do the same,” she said. “I remember being a child, and assuming the world belonged to me. That I’d be able to seize it when I grew older, accomplish my dreams, become something great. Yet as I’ve aged, I feel like less and less is under my control. I can’t help thinking it shouldn’t be that way. How could I have been so in control as a youth, yet often feel so helpless as an adult?” “That’s our uncle’s fault,” Wax said. “For keeping you captive.” “Yes, and no. Wax, I’m an adult—with greying hair and over half my life behind me. Shouldn’t I have a clue as to what this is all about?” She shook her head. “That’s not Edwarn’s fault. What have we done, Waxillium? We’re alone. Our parents are dead. We’re the adults now, yet where are our children? What’s our legacy? What have we accomplished? Don’t you ever feel like you never actually grew up? That everyone else did, but you’re secretly faking?” No, he didn’t feel that way. But he grunted in agreement anyway—it was good to hear her show a side of herself other than feverish hatred of Suit and his people.

“Is that why you’re so keen to come here?” Wax asked. “You think that what we find in there will accomplish something?” “At least it will help society,” Telsin said.

“Unless it destroys society.”

“Pushing society forward is no destruction. Even if, in doing so, it leaves us behind.” She withdrew into herself again. He couldn’t blame her, after her ordeal. He wished there had been time to go back to Elendel, see her situated in someplace warm and safe, before flying back here.

They retraced their steps, passing the traps they’d already set off. Fallen blocks of stone from the ceiling, darts and spears from the walls, even a stone wall that had dropped to block them, though MeLaan had kept it from falling all the way by slamming a large rock underneath. Wax had been able to wiggle into the space and Push a few coins upward to lift it farther, then they propped it up with rocks in the tracks at the sides. They still had to stoop to go underneath.

They did find two more traps, which they set off as well. Wax found himself increasingly dissatisfied. So much work, he thought, noting again the wall section that had fallen in to release scythes that cut the air. That trap had gotten entangled on itself, and so hadn’t endangered them at all—but the ingenuity required to put it together was marvelous.

“Allik,” he said, prompting the short man to swap back to his Connection medallion. “Why would your people build such an obvious resting place for the Bands? Why make this temple, which proclaims that something precious is inside, then go to the effort of making all these traps? Why not just hide the Bands someplace unassuming, like a cave?” “They are a challenge, like I said, Thoughtful One,” Allik said. “And it was not my people who did this, not specifically. The original priests who crafted this place were of no people currently living among us.” “Yes,” Wax said, “and you told me the Sovereign left his weapon here with orders to protect it because he was going to return for it. Right?” “That is the legend.”

“These traps don’t make sense, then,” Wax said, waving back down the hallway. “Wouldn’t they have been worried for your king’s safety?” “Simple traps could not affect him, Unobservant Master,” Allik said with a laugh. A nervous laugh. He’d glanced at MeLaan again. “The traps are a declaration, and a challenge.” They walked on, but still Wax felt unsatisfied. Allik’s explanations made a sort of sense—as much sense as building the temple up in the mountains. It was everything Wax would have expected from such a place, down to the smallest details.

Perhaps that was the problem.

“Wax!” Wayne’s head poked into the corridor before them. They were almost back to the front entryway. “Wax, there you are. Your uncle, mate. He’s here.” “How close?” Wax asked, speeding up.

“Close, close,” Wayne said. “Like, on our doorstep and demandin’ rent money close.” He’d hoped to have the Bands before that happened. “We’ll need to try to collapse the entryway,” Wax said as he reached Wayne. “Or maybe this hallway. Seal them out while we finish in here.” “We could do that,” Wayne said. “Or…”

“Or what?” Wax asked, stopping in place.

“We’ve got him captured,” Wayne said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Marasi has a gun to his rusting head.” Captured? “Impossible.”

“Yeah,” Wayne said, sounding troubled. “He walked right up to us, carrying a flag. Says he wants to talk. To you.”