Reclamation(159)

Heart hung his head. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

“Do you?” You did this, his thoughts howled. This is your fault. If you had not driven me over the World’s Wall the Vitae would not be here now! He tried to shove the thoughts aside, but they would not move.

He knew Heart was aware of his anger, like someone might be aware of a knife near his throat. He didn’t care. At the moment, that awareness, like the sufferance of the Notouch, was exactly what was needed. If nothing else, it would make him think twice before telling lies.

“Look, Born,” said Jay, leaning forward. “Surely you can see we’ve got to save the family quarrels for later …”

“We, Skyman?” Arla folded her arms. “What family do you have here?”

“All right, all right,” Jay held up his hands. “I am not going to pretend this has been anything but a total debacle and the body count can be laid across our table. But my throwing myself at your feet isn’t going to do anything.” His hands lowered slowly and Eric could see sparks from the fire gleaming in his pale eyes. “We do, however, have something that might.”

He started describing the underground chamber with its control banks of stones. Eric watched Arla more than he did Jay as the Skyman talked. She raised herself slowly on her haunches, straining toward what he said, little by little, until Jay came to the part of the story where Broken Trail entered.

Arla froze. “What have you done with Broken Trail?”

Jay picked up a piece of charcoal and tossed it into the fire. “I wish I could tell you. We let her touch one of the spheres … the stones, and she went into a delirium. She was still in it when I left …”

“You left her there?” Arla’s hand curled into a fist. Eric reached out and covered her clenched hand with his own. Heart started and drew away. So did Arla.

“I had to,” said Jay. “We didn’t leave her alone. Our base coordinator, Lu, is with her. Cor was supposed to come find her family … I don’t know what happened to her. She should have been here days ago.”

“She was,” said Arla. “Or at least, she was in a village near here. Now she’s dead.”

The expression bled slowly out of Jay’s face. “What …”

“We don’t know,” said Arla. “We found her in the swamp. She had my sister’s namestone with her.”

“She was carrying that so she could find your family. She …” Jay left the sentence unfinished. He held his face perfectly still. For a moment, Eric thought he was simply holding back his grief, which was natural, but there was something more to it than that, something Eric couldn’t decipher. A spasm of distrust ran through him.

“You see what things have come to?” said Jay. “We need to put an end to this now.”

“We need”—Arla raised her eyes and Eric saw a dangerous glint behind them that even a few days ago he would not have recognized—“to get my sister out of that place of yours.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Jay soberly. “But we also need to get you down there. You’ve been trained to use your stones. You wouldn’t be overwhelmed by … whatever they activated.”

“We hope,” said Heart to Jay with surprising gravity. “The apocrypha point to it. But in case she fails we also need to get to First City. We need to rouse the Temple and the First King against these …”

“Vitae,” supplied Arla. Heart continued to look at Eric.

“Vitae,” said Jay. “Come now, Heart, there’s no time for old prejudices here either.”

Heart bowed his head like a student before his master. “Of course, you’re right, Messenger.”

Eric felt his stomach lurch and the distrust redoubled. Who is this Skyman who’s gotten my Heretic brother-in-law so cowed?

To Eric’s surprise, Arla just suppressed a smile. “My Lord Heart of the Seablade will be pleased to know that this despised one agrees with him. The intervention of First City would buy valuable time.” Heart snorted and opened his mouth, but Arla ignored him. She turned to the Skyman and switched back to level-eye language. “Jay, you and I could go to my sister and your complex while Eric and my Lord Teacher Heart go to First City and …”

“No,” said Eric flatly.

Arla blinked. “Well, surely you don’t think the First Teacher would listen to this despised one?”

“And he will listen to me?” Eric held up his hand, palm out and wiggled his fingers at her. “I must be the biggest Heretic the Realm has ever known. At least you kept your hand marks. What kind of welcome do you think I’m going to get in the Temple?”