Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (32 page)

Derrow and Raith laid Jiren in a narrow ditch along the
interior wall of a mostly intact cinderblock structure with a rough sandblasted
veneer. “This isn’t the best place,” said Derrow, “but it’ll have to do. The
sand is usually thickest at ground level. It’d be better if we could get up
higher, but there’s no time.”

They doused their hood-scarfs and covered their faces. Then
they crouched inside their tiny niche and waited. Raith covered Jiren’s wound
with his palm and applied pressure. He could no longer see the storm, but he
could hear it, and its shadow grew over the ruins like a fast-moving cloud.

The wall of sand swept over them. The last thing Raith saw
before he shut his eyes was the thick brown fog cascading around the wall of
their shelter. Darkness took them. Darkness, and a wind like Raith had never
felt before. Crueler than the harshest bluster on the wastes, and laden with
stinging sand which swarmed across his skin and seemed to find a home in every
open orifice. The sound of that wind was like the hum of a million angry
insects, as loud as it was disorienting. Raith felt Jiren’s blood spill through
his fingers and congeal as it gathered sand. He never let up, and he never
opened his eyes.

Soon the exposed areas of skin on his face and arms began to
burn. The wind was so dry it sapped the moisture from his hood-scarf and
parched his sinuses. He felt sand caking in the folds of his clothing. The
thickness of the air was like a vice gripping his lungs. Each breath came
shallower than the last, until there was only dust to take in and he could
breathe no more.

Then it was over. The storm’s back end rushed past them. Sand
settled, and it was daytime again. A mantle of fresh powder lay over
everything. When Raith tried to loosen his hood-scarf, sand avalanched from his
shoulders and flooded his tunic. He inhaled deeply, coughing at the particulate
dust still hanging in the air.

His other hand was still buried in the sand-covered folds of
Jiren Oliver’s clothing. He pressed down, but he no longer felt the blood
pumping from beneath. Jiren’s chest was still, his eyes lidded in tear-damp
sand. His head lazed against the cinder block wall.

Derrow was the first to speak his friend’s name. He shrugged
himself free of the sand and gave Jiren a shake. He removed the hood-scarf from
Jiren’s face. Gave his cheek a gentle slap. He shook harder and spoke louder,
as if to coax Jiren from sleep. Jiren didn’t wake.

Raith heard the break in Derrow’s voice, the beckoning turned
to pleading, and something twisted in his chest. When Derrow broke down, Raith
couldn’t hold back any longer. He closed his eyes, and for a moment he let
himself forget. The responsibility of leadership. The will to be strong. The
hope he’d never lost. For a moment, he let himself mourn.
Curse this place
for all the lives it’s stolen from us
.

Jiren Oliver would have accepted the will of the fates no
matter how it came to him, Raith knew. So would Hastle Beige and the rest.
Hastle had lived a good long life before the fates had taken him; Jiren had had
most of his yet to live. Young or old, it didn’t matter. This was no way to
die, down in the dirt by a murderer’s bullet, horizons from home and family.

Derrow’s tears cut streaks through the grime on his face.
They fell from his lips and chin, darkening the sand on Jiren’s tunic. Raith
tasted his own salt tears and felt the bitterness of loss, the defeat that
eclipsed mortal understanding.
I’ll see the souls of those who did this sent
to join the fates
, he promised. “We should go,” he told Derrow, laying a
hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Brence needs the healer’s touch. We’ll
carry Jiren together.”

Several weary hours later, Raith and the dust-ridden Sons
returned to camp, encumbered by the casualties of their unexpected calamity. No
one came outside to meet them, so they entered through the battered front
doorway of the Sweet Things Bakery and headed for the back room. They found
Merrick lounging on a pile of dusty old rugs, half-clothed and accompanied by a
skeletal woman in a similar state of undress. Both he and the woman covered
themselves when Raith and the Sons walked in.

“Glad you could make it,” Merrick said, fumbling for his
trousers. “We were just getting ready to move on.”

“We have an injured man here who needs your attention,” Raith
said, ignoring the girl.

“Give me a minute,” Merrick told her, and swept her toward
the back door.

She stumbled into her clothing and pushed open the door to
join the crowd of followers huddled in the back alley. They applauded and made
lewd remarks as the door swung shut behind her.

“What are you doing?” Raith asked.

“Enjoying myself. What are
you
doing?”

“Being attacked by your Scarred Comrades.”

Merrick’s easy look turned dour. “What? They attacked you?”

“We stayed away from Bucket Row, as you suggested. Not far
enough. The sentinels fired on us from several blocks away.”

Merrick rolled up his sleeves and knelt beside Brence Maisel.
“When I was in the Sentries, they never let us waste ammo unless someone was
threatening to cross the road. If a sentry shot at you like that, they were
disobeying orders.” He lifted the hunter’s tunic, laying one hand on his hip
and the other on his arm. Brence was barely breathing.

“Then they were stubborn in their disobedience,” said Raith.
“Stubborn enough to fire several times, and to keep firing until they hit two
of us.”

“Maybe their orders have changed,” Merrick said. He ignited.
The muscles in Brence’s chest went taut.

Raith saw a lump emerge from the wound, saw the slug tumble
down the side of his tunic and land on the floor.

“He’s going to be fine,” Merrick said.

Brence sat up and swabbed his face with a hand. He picked up
the mangled bullet that should’ve killed him and stood to accept the warm
embraces of his brethren before turning to thank Merrick.

“Who’s the other?” Merrick asked.

Before anyone could answer, his eyes fell on Jiren Oliver’s
lifeless body. The color left his face.

Raith cleared his throat to loosen the words that were caught
there. “Jiren was killed,” he managed to choke out.

Merrick was silent for a moment. Then the look of concern on
his face changed to one of resolve. “Did my mother—did Myriad ever wake the
dead?”

The Sons of Decylum exchanged looks.

“She never—” Raith broke off. “I don’t know if I was
dead
.
Near enough…”

A murmur arose.

Merrick gestured. “Bring him to me.”

They laid Jiren’s body where Brence had lain only a moment
before. His limbs were already stiff, his skin bleak with the pallor of death.
Merrick lifted the tunic to examine the wound. He laid hands on Jiren like he’d
done with Brence. His brow wrinkled, as if feeling for something inside the
corpse. “He
is
dead,” Merrick confirmed. “All the way. When I touch
people now, I can feel the life inside them.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Derrow.

Merrick looked up at him. “I’m going to try.”

Derrow folded his arms and stood back.

Merrick took a long, deep breath. He ignited.

The heat was so strong Raith could feel it where he was
standing. He could almost
see
it making the transfer from living flesh
to dead. But if there really was energy passing from healer to patient, the
effort appeared to be for naught; Jiren Oliver—or the body in which Jiren had
once resided—lay cold and motionless.

Merrick persisted a few moments longer, until his skin began
to peel. He lifted his hands and extinguished himself. In a flat tone of voice,
he said, “I guess I can’t raise the dead.”

Then Jiren is truly gone
, Raith thought, still in
disbelief.

Jiren had been one of Raith’s finest pupils. He would’ve made
a great Head Councilor someday, assuming Cord Faleir’s power-mongering didn’t
get out of hand. The loss to Decylum and to his family was a grievous one.

Derrow’s tears turned to sobs. Across the room, the Sons
joined him in his sadness; even those who hadn’t known Jiren as well. But when
Raith looked down at Merrick, the healer’s eyes were dry.

Merrick’s stare was intent on Jiren’s face, still watching.
Still waiting. “It went somewhere,” he said. “I felt it. I felt it leave me. I
never feel it leave unless it goes somewhere.”

There was a hissing sound, soft but distinct.

A breath.

Jiren’s eyes were closed, but Raith swore he’d seen a fold in
his tunic move ever so slightly. “Jiren,” he said, kneeling beside him. “Jiren…
wake up.”

The eyes slid open, slow and tired. They blinked away sand
and stared, first at Merrick, then at Raith. They were Jiren’s green eyes, but
there was no recognition in them. They remained fixed on Raith, even as the
others gathered around. Jiren took another, deeper breath. Merrick lifted his
tunic, and they saw the bullet wound healed over like something suffered years
ago.

To Raith it seemed that Jiren’s eyes were staring out at him
from some prison of the mind, some faraway plane where he was trapped, and from
whence he was unable to return. There was awareness in them; cognizance, even.
But no expression, no emotion or depth to indicate a greater level of
understanding.

“Jiren, if you can hear me and you understand, please say
something,” Raith said.

Jiren only stared.

“Theodar, what do you make of this?”

The apothecary came over. He pried Jiren’s eyelids open one
at a time and peered into them. He felt for a pulse, once at the wrist and
again at the side of the throat. He pinched Jiren on the forearm. No reaction.
“Appears to be some sort of catatonia. He’s alive, but it’s like he isn’t
here.”

“Maybe it takes a while before his body catches up to his brain,”
Hayden offered. “He
has
been through a lot.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Raith said. “For now, let us thank
the fates—and the healer—that Jiren lives.”

CHAPTER 26

Farstrander’s Gambit

Sand. Everywhere was sand, and the Cypriests had no
choice but to take shelter from it, leaving the basilica undefended while the
storm raged. Priests and acolytes were gathered in the refectory for games,
while those who’d fallen casualty to the starwinds kept to their bedchambers
and Brother Reynard’s hospital staff roamed the halls tending to them. Sister
Bastille had been one of the casualties herself, only her headaches had let up
enough that she’d ventured out from her chamber for some fresh air.

The rest of the basilica’s inhabitants were clustered in the
sanctuary, hard at prayer. They prayed for the sick, and for the souls of those
undevoured heathens whom the storm would claim, and for the safety of the
Mothers and Fathers and everyone who served the Mouth with wholehearted
devotion. Bastille would’ve been praying too, but recent events had quelled her
fervency where prayer was concerned.

She had never been one for idle pastimes, yet she found
herself sitting in the refectory, enduring the gleeful banter of godechente
players and the befuddlement of men and women amusing themselves with puzzle
boxes as they sipped goat’s milk and ate fig pies.
They have no sense of
what’s about to befall them
, Bastille thought.
So many people, and
knowledge in such short supply
.

Part of her wanted to warn them that this abundance might be
the last they saw for some time.
What good would that do? Little, except
maybe to cause a panic
. Sister Gallica was always worrying about causing a
panic. The sandstorm had hampered the Order’s efforts to resume trade with the
heathens, so it seemed a panic was imminent one way or the other.

“Care for a game, Sister?” Brother Travers was sitting
further down the table, having just conquered a sullen Brother Eustis in a game
of godechente.

And provide you with yet another means of challenging my
authority?
“I’ve never been any good at that game,” she told him.

“Oh, don’t be so modest. I’ll go easy on you.”

Bastille didn’t know how many times she’d reprimanded Brother
Travers for addressing her without the proper formalities. So many she’d given
up trying in that particular area. She hadn’t given up trying to slow his and
Sister Severin’s growth in the classroom, however. Subduing his flippant
behaviors at the same time had proven a demanding task. “No, but thank you,
kind Brother.”

“I’ll start with two fewer pieces than you,” he tried.

“Brother Travers, unless you want an extra hundred pages of
assigned reading tomorrow night, I suggest you drop it.”

“Fine,” he said. “A hundred pages it is. And I’ll take on
another hundred if I lose.”

“There is something wrong with you, kind Brother,” she said.

“There are many,” he said, “though I’m pleased you’ve found
only one.”

Don’t be fooled. I’ve found plenty
, she wanted to say.

“Don’t encourage him, Sister Bastille,” said Brother Eustis.
“He’s playing you false.”

Is he, now? This, I must witness for myself
. “Alright,
Brother Travers. Since you insist on making things more difficult for yourself
at every turn, I accept your challenge. Two pieces down, two hundred pages if I
win.”

Travers sat forward on his bench, smiling a wicked smile. His
dreadlocks slipped off his shoulders and slapped the wooden table.
“Acceptable,” he said. “You can have the first move.”

Bastille gathered up her pieces and looked them over, trying
to remember how the game worked. It had been many years since she’d sat across
the table from her stepmother for a round of godechente. She didn’t remember
all the rules, though she did remember the way Carudith had gloated when she’d
won; the way the woman had cursed and swept her arm across the board to send
pieces bouncing across the kitchen floor when Bastille—then Lakalie
Hestenblach—had beaten her for the third time in a row.

Lakalie’s father had been late coming home that evening. When
a townie came to deliver the news of Kabel’s death, she’d been inconsolable.
Over the following weeks, she had taken over for her father at his shop, but
Kabel had been the only thing keeping the two women in his life from tearing
each other’s throats out.

After countless arguments, many of which escalated to the point
of near-violence, Carudith had insisted Lakalie was too old to be living with
her anymore. It wasn’t as if there was a large selection of habitable dwellings
in town, empty and waiting for someone to move in. So Lakalie had moved on,
leaving the house and the butcher’s shop and that terrible woman behind, and
she had never looked back. Carudith had taken everything, without offering the
slightest bit of help before sending Lakalie on her way.

Bastille placed a godechente piece, the Yunker, in a forward position.
Travers responded by placing his Staak behind it. Bastille added her Frewbel
next, at which Travers smirked and placed his Billettes defensively. The web of
game pieces increased in complexity with each placement: Cadaman, Derider,
Vorden, Kaptic, Golov—until Bastille had placed all twelve elements and Travers
had placed his chosen ten.

Then they began to move. Every piece had its strength, as
indicated by the number on top of it. Certain pieces could move more freely
than others, so it often required a group effort by several lesser pieces to
bring down a single greater one. Whenever a piece became ‘wounded,’ it was
flipped upside-down, which changed its strength and movement capabilities. If
wounded a second time, the piece was eliminated.

This elaborate dance of strategy started out heavily in
Bastille’s favor. She was surprised with herself at having taken such a
decisive early lead; it was all coming back to her. But she soon realized
Brother Travers had been allowing her these small victories as a means of
executing his larger plan. By isolating his most powerful pieces and luring her
after them for what seemed an easy series of victories, he had spread her
pieces thin so he could pick them off one by one.

By the time the game was over, the table was a graveyard of
fallen pieces, the vast majority of them hers. Brother Travers sat proudly
while his forces stood arrayed across the board in domineering fashion. The
game had jogged Bastille’s memory, but Travers’ victory had been decisive all
the same.

“That was a good game,” said Travers. “You play better than I
thought you would. And here, you had me believing you were a novice.”

“Spare me your sympathies, Brother Travers. That was a
terrible game.”

“Another?”

“You’ve got a hundred textbook pages to read, kind Brother.”

“Add another hundred if you beat me this time.”

Bastille sighed. “One more.”

This time, she held out a little longer before she succumbed.

“You’re getting better,” Travers said. “You almost had me
that time.”

“I wasn’t even close,” she muttered.

“Not true. Had you taken your Levitet over here instead of
here, you’d have been in a much better position to pull it out.”

He was right. She couldn’t believe she’d missed so obvious a
move. “One last game,” she said.

“Hmm. I don’t know,” Travers began.

Here it comes
, Bastille thought.
The trap is set.
The game outside the game. Eustis did warn me, but I simply must see it for
myself
. Brother Eustis had gone off to some other corner of the room by
now, but she would have to ask him later how Travers had hoodwinked him.
“What’s your hesitation?” she asked.

“I’m already playing two pieces down, and the wager is far in
your favor. Since you stand to lose nothing, regardless of your performance, I
think it’s only fair that you give me something if I win.”

Bastille rolled her eyes. “What do you want, Brother
Travers?”

“How about this. For every game I win from now on, you have
to spend one class period teaching Sister Severin and I. No reading. No
studying. No lectures or note-taking. I want you to teach us something real.
Something useful. Something that will give us hands-on experience with the
rites.”

“No,” she said, standing up. “You’re not ready.”

“Okay, fine. Half a class period. And two hundred pages every
time I lose. If you beat me, I’ll be reading for the next week straight.”

Bastille sat down. She was no fool. No simpleton to be taken
advantage of. She knew what he was trying to do, just as she knew what it meant
if she accepted his terms. She couldn’t go back on her word, as tempting as the
prospect might’ve been. The greater temptation was to put this smarmy, arrogant
little man in his place. She knew she might be signing her own death
certificate, but the chance was too good to pass up. “I will play
one
more game with you. That’s it.”

“Great,” he said, gathering his pieces.

She lost.

Travers beat her worse in that game than in either of the
first two. It was as if he’d been holding back a measure of his true skill all
along, only to unleash it on her when the stakes were high.
Playing me false
indeed
.

Afterward, Bastille found herself wanting to sweep the board
and storm out of the refectory. But the largest disservice she could ever do
herself was to follow her stepmother’s example. She stood wearily and thanked
Brother Travers for the game before heading for the exit.

“See you in class,” Travers hollered after her.

Sister Voclain appeared in Bastille’s path. “Is there
something I can get you, kind Sister?”

“No,” Bastille said, pushing past.

“I’ll be here if you need anything,” Voclain said brightly.

Bastille gave her a grunt and a half-hearted wave before
leaving the dining hall and heading for her bedchamber.

When she passed the storeroom, her thoughts turned to Brother
Belgard, the unfortunate assistant clerk saddled with the unenviable task of
replenishing the Order’s stores in the wake of Froderic’s utter mismanagement.
If she were honest with herself, Bastille doubted Belgard had the acumen to
pull it off before the Most High discovered his deception—if they hadn’t
discovered it already. She considered checking on him, as he had fallen ill
shortly after the starwinds came. But she could feel a headache coming on, and
she’d done all the socializing she could handle for the time being.
Besides,
I’m certain I’m the last person Belgard wants to see right now
, she
decided.
Except for maybe one of the Most High
…

No sooner had she removed her robe and sunk into the softness
of her bunk to wait out the throes of her headache than there was a knock at
her door. She pulled the covers up around her shoulders and bade the visitor
enter.

The door creaked open, and Brother Reynard poked his head
into the room. “Pardon the intrusion, kind Sister. I’ve just come from tending
to Sister Helliot, and I happened to notice you stumbling toward your room in
what I can only assume was pain. Have the starwinds claimed you too?”

“The headaches never let up for long,” she said feebly,
“though they do seem to worsen when the starwinds come.”

Reynard gave her a warm smile. “Never fret. I’ll have you
fixed up before you know it. Wait here.”

As if I’d wait anywhere else
. She shut her eyes tight
as the pain throbbed through her temples, wondering what Brother Reynard could
possibly have in mind. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long; he was back a
minute later with the remedy in hand.

“You’ll have to sit up for this, I’m afraid,” he said,
closing the chamber door behind him. In one hand he held a damp cloth; in the
other, a glass flask. “Don’t be alarmed, Sister. This is only liquid morphine.
A substance you’re quite familiar with. You know we’re normally very stingy
with this, but we’ve built up quite a supply, even after all the surgeries
you’ve performed lately. I know how bad these headaches of yours can be, and I
think we can spare a few sips for the savior of the basilica.” He gave her
another smile.

You’re up to something, Reynard
, Bastille knew. It was
the same thing all the other priests were up to: buttering her up for a chance
to be the next inheritor. As one of the Greatly Esteemed, Brother Reynard
should’ve been a prime candidate for a place among the Most High. With dead
Brother Froderic getting the nod over him, there was no telling when his next
chance would be.

This whole business with Froderic’s concealed urn was still
bothering her. Perhaps there was something to be learned from Sister Gallica’s
assistant, Brother Lambret. As always, she would have to tread carefully if she
decided to pursue a new lead.

At the moment, she needed to decide whether to drink the
morphine Reynard was offering her. She knew how foggy it would make her, and
she had a class to teach later. The headache was so terribly painful though,
and getting worse by the minute. She was tempted to gulp down the whole flask
and cancel the night’s class altogether. But she had promised Travers she would
give him a good lesson, and she’d lost that game of godechente fair and
square—insofar as she knew.
How bothersome to be a teacher whose only hope
of keeping her position is to do a poor job of it
, she lamented.

In the end, she did take a sip of the morphine—perhaps too
big a sip, for all she could remember thereafter. Next she knew, she was
lifting her head from a pillow crusted with dried spittle. Her underclothes
were twisted about her chest and hips. It was nighttime, darker still than the shroud
of sandstorms, which had all but blotted out the light-star earlier that day.

Having no idea what time it was, she dressed herself and
hurried down to her preparation rooms. She was fortunate enough not to run into
any doting priests or gossiping acolytes along the way. When she arrived,
Sister Severin was there, studying quietly as usual.