His Ancient Heart (35 page)

"It is here." The juggernaut was at her side, holding her in its arm. "It must take it."

"The cure?"

"It must take it."

Frieda joined them on the other side.

"It must take it," Oz said to her.

Frieda grabbed the satchel and opened it, pulling out the lacquered box. Eryn tried to still herself, but the shaking was growing worse, and she was getting colder.

"It will be well," Frieda said. Eryn was grateful she had shown the girl how to use the injector.
 

She loaded it and put it to Eryn's neck.

"Did I do it? Did I open it?"

"It is open. It is pleased."

"Eryn, you need to rest now. You've lost so much blood. You did it. You tore open a mountain."

Eryn smiled weakly. She had done it. Somehow, she had done it.
 

She felt a sharp pinch and nothing else.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Talon

It hadn't ended after Ares'Nor.

That was the thought that bothered Talon during their entire journey from Gilspie, northwest towards the Refinery. The Three Six was the last model that had fought in the war against the Shifters. It wasn't the last he had constructed.

The memories came back after shutting down the Carriers, after feeling the slick ircidium switch inside their mouths. They were openings that only existed to make them look more human, and to allow those who maintained them access. They were different from all of the other juggernauts in that way. Made to stand the test of time, made to be modified and altered. Made for a purpose that had nothing to do with Shifters.
 

Was it a year after Ares'Nor? Two? It was some time after he had killed the child, something he was now sure he had done. He and his juggernauts and five of the Nine had traveled the Empire, 'scourging' the villages and towns. Cleansing them. Destroying every remnant of their past to create a new future, while Feng and Naille murdered wizards anywhere they could find them.
 

It was part of the promise.

Murderer.

The thought turned his stomach and the accusing voice that tormented his soul assaulted him with an intensity he had never known before. It echoed across every thought, overlaid with images of the girl he had murdered, the girl he had failed to save in Doovan, and of course, Eryn.

They had made the Carriers to travel between the city of Edgewater, not much larger than a small town at the time, to the Refinery. Of course, it wasn't the Refinery then. It was a place that had existed long before the war, though it had a different name and a different purpose.
 

Healing the sick.

The irony wasn't lost on him. At one time, people throughout the Empire had travelled to the place near the edge of the Empty Sea. They had gone there to be cured of disease by some of the most powerful wizards in the world, and none were ever turned away or denied. All were cared for, and all were brought back to health, or at least helped to a peaceful end.
 

There were some things that were beyond the power of magic to fix.

Now it was a secret, hidden place, the former glory of it shrouded in that same darkness that covered the rest of the Empire. The healing was for the select few, the cure carried by creatures of metal and magic, transported in silence for over a thousand years. The truth erased, as so much of it had been.

And he had helped make all of it, to keep a promise that he no longer understood. The Shifters were gone, defeated. If there were pockets remaining, he and his brothers could resolve their differences, hunt them down, and put an end to them once and for all. The Cursed could be cured. The Empire didn't need to go on this way. The magic, the life, the beauty could all be restored.

He would unmake it. He would restore it. With or without his brothers. Once
he
was dead.

"How much further?" Wilem asked.
 

When Talon had entered the farmhouse, he discovered that the Carriers had destroyed their supply of the cure when the attack had come. They had opened their precious boxes and shattered the contents, leaving a trail of glass and blood that seeped into the ground. It had left him in howling in anger, and it had left Wilem sick and weak.

The boy had been pale and sweaty since Gilspie, his use of the Curse weakening him to the point that he too had started to change. There was rough skin on his forearms, and a small patch at his neck. He slept more often and had fallen off his horse once before Delia had taken to riding behind him and helping hold him steady while he groaned and shifted in restless, uneasy slumber.

Talon looked ahead. The terrain had become more rolling here, more open. They had left most of the trees behind, replacing them with large boulders and mounds of stone that snaked through green and brown grass, leading them closer and closer to the shore.

The Refinery rested on a cliff that abutted the ocean, now named the Empty Sea, a suggestion that there was nothing of value out beyond its shores. From what Delia had said, Curio had sailed into the sea and discovered Dal and Abeleth on an island somewhere out there. Even so, according to Delia he had never seen the Refinery or anything along the shore that was out of the ordinary to him, and yet Talon was certain that shouldn't be so. There were no cities, towns, or villages within a hundred miles of here, though the terrain was suitable, and there was fresh water from a small river nearby. Had he razed them during the Scourge? The brush strokes of his memories were still too broad to know.

"I can hear the surf," Delia said. "It can't be far."

She was still mounted behind Wilem, her arm around his chest to help him stay upright. Little enough had been said between them due to Wilem's state, but Talon could tell by the way she fussed over him that her care was genuine, and her heart resolved in that at least.
 

"Five miles or so," Talon said. "There used to be a tower in the center, a tall tower that reached towards the sun. It was a landmark to help people find it, tipped in quartz and fed with magic so that it would sparkle and shine at all hours." He sighed and shook his head. "We should have seen it by now. I can only assume
he
destroyed it."

They discovered soon after that it was more than the tower that had been destroyed. Where Talon expected to find the Hospice, he found only a mountain of earth instead. It took the form of layers and layers of sand and silt and stone covered in sparse brush and sea grasses that made it look as though it had always been that way. He knew for sure it hadn't.
 

Magic, powerful magic, had brought the ocean floor up and over the Hospice, and the cliff down and around it, burying it underground and hiding it from the world.

"There's nothing here," Wilem said, his voice dry.

"It is here," Talon said. "Right under our feet."

They were standing on the false hilltop, which sloped gently away from where the cliff had once been until it vanished into the surf a short distance away. The Empty Sea stretched out ahead of them in a deep blue blanket of waves that dropped off into the horizon.

"How do we get in?" Delia asked. "There must be a way."

"A hidden door, somewhere," Talon said. He closed his eyes, trying to capture the details of the Hospice as he had last seen it.
 

So long ago. And who can say it is nearly the same?

The doorway had been massive, with no gates to speak of. It was always open to all who wanted to enter. It had faced to the east, the way they had come, and led the weary into a large courtyard where there was always food and water, and a servant waiting with a wheeled chair to carry the afflicted away to a healing chamber.
 

Talon looked over at Wilem. He was too weak to be able to move the earth beneath their feet, not in the volume that would be needed.

"Big enough for the Carriers, small enough to be hard to find," he said. "The Hospice would have run out that way, about halfway towards where the slope flattens. It isn't steep enough to hide a door."

"Neither side is," Dalia said.

"And yet we know there must be an entrance."
 

When had he been there last? Before Genesia. It had to be. When he had lived at the Hospice with Alyssa. They had been so young then, so in love. He had worked there, making instruments for the wizards. Things like they had seen in the book Aren discovered.

He couldn't help the smile that came to his face.
 

I remember you, my love. As you were then. You were the most beautiful in the Empire. You always will be.

He surveyed the landscape again. The Hospice was located on the sea for a reason. The wizards needed vast quantities of water to be brought onto the grounds. It wasn't only to keep the patients satiated. Their work wasn't all based on magic. They had plants, so many plants, that had healing properties of their own. Too many to rely on rainfall. He remembered the giant bellows that pulled in the seawater. The wizards captured much of it, using their magic to remove the salt, and then pushed the remainder back out. He had worked for the man who created it. An old grouch who used to scream at him when he would spend too much time tinkering. He couldn't remember his name.

There wouldn't be much need to pull in seawater anymore.
 

The pipe that delivered it on the other hand...

He removed his tunic, and then pulled the Overguard's armor over his head, stripping down to the shirt beneath.

"What are you doing?" Delia asked.

The pipe was large, large enough for something to walk through, assuming that something had no need to breathe. Something like a juggernaut, carrying an airtight box.

"Going for a swim," Talon said. "Watch Wilem for me. If I don't return soon, take him someplace nearby and stay hidden. We have to assume
he
knows the Mediators never returned from Gilspie, and will be sending soldiers this way."

"What do you mean if you don't return?"

"There is a pipe under the water. I believe that is where the Carriers exit from."

"I'll come with you," Delia said.

"No. Someone needs to watch over Wilem. Besides, you wouldn't survive. The tunnel is long, and you need to breathe."

"So do you."

"I'm hoping not."

Talon took off his boots and dropped his sword belt on the ground. "Might I borrow one of those knives of yours?"

Delia smiled and reached behind her back, pulling the thin dagger from behind. She flipped it towards him, and he caught it by the hilt.
 

"An interesting weapon," he said, examining the intricacy of the leatherwork on the hilt, and the sharpness of the blade. It was well-balanced for both holding and throwing.

"Please don't lose it. Dal brought it with him from his land."

"I'll do my best. Take care of Wilem for me, my dear."

"I will. Good luck, General."

Talon nodded, and then turned and sprinted towards the water. He drove himself in despite the cold, wading out a few feet and then swimming away from the shore, until he found the place where the water darkened and the depths increased. He took a few quick breaths, and then sucked in as big a gulp of air as he could manage.
 

He knew it wouldn't be enough.
 

His only hope was that his ancient heart would see him through.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Talon

He found the tunnel thirty feet below the surface, a large cylinder jutting out from an underwater cliff, covered on both sides by barnacles and sea grass, inhabited by a number of fish and crabs. It took nearly all of his breath to reach it, and he could feel his lungs burning as he reached out to grasp the end of it and pull himself into the inky blackness that would leave him swimming blind and quickly drowning.

He didn't have a choice. There was no other way inside. He kicked his legs and pumped his arms as hard as he could, trying to find the center of the pipe and keep himself there.
 

The last of his air ran out. He wasn't sure how far he had gone, but he could feel his body fighting to convulse, to writhe in painful failure.
 

Not now. Not yet
.

He focused on his limbs, forcing himself to go harder, faster. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, threatening to tear right out of it with the force.
 

He kept swimming. His eyes burned from the salt water, and they were beginning to blur. His limbs started to feel heavier, and it took every ounce of his will to keep his mouth shut, to keep himself from sucking in nothing but water.
 

Murderer.

The voice that tormented him instead brought him strength. This was his chance to end the cycle, to stop the deaths once and for all. If they had the Refinery, they would gain the Cursed, and
he
would lose
his
Mediators. All of the magic in the Empire could be used by the rebellion to topple Jeremiah, and it would be too late for
him
to stop it.

Keep swimming.

He continued to move his arms and legs, though they felt like they had lead weights tied to them. He refused to give in to the urge to breathe, or his body's command to die. He didn't need his lungs. He didn't need air. He was as much a juggernaut as the Carriers were, even if his skin was organic instead of metal.
 

He felt a warmth from the other side, from his other heart. He heard the thrumming of it in his ears and felt it in his head. The strength began to return to him, a new form of energy pouring out into his limbs.
 

Yes!

He launched forward through the water. He kept swimming, for how long he didn't know. Soon, there was a prick of light, and it grew brighter as he moved, until it became obvious that there was something shining down into the water from above. The pipe had been diverted at some time in the past, away from the giant bellows and into a tub where the Carriers could rise or sink to enter or leave it.