Soulkeeper Read online

  “You had good reason?”

  “Well, the black water solidly defied normal understanding, so who was to say other previously derided ideas couldn’t be useful? Oh, and did I forget to tell you? I had lightning sparking out of my fingers.”

  Devin blinked.

  “That is something you failed to mention, yes.”

  “It was at its worst not long after the black water came.” He squinted at his now empty tankard but decided against refilling it. “Though it’s died down somewhat since. Sometimes if I snapped my fingers or drummed them too long on a surface, little sparks of electricity would zap from my fingertips. It was one of the reasons I was convinced I was insane. Once I decided I might actually not be insane, it was perfectly logical to assume that the sparks indicated a significant change, hence my decision to keep the book instead of throwing it in the face of another one of those creatures.”

  Tommy shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “I read Salid’s tome cover to cover and picked what appeared to be the simplest of incantations. Most involved some sort of elemental or energy manipulation, so I started small. Well. Relatively small.” His face flushed a little. “All right, I admit it, I’d actually read that book before and attempted to cast its spells years ago while severely intoxicated. Is there something wrong with a nineteen-year-old wanting to throw a giant fireball in a cellar?”

  Devin smiled at Tommy and did his best to reassure him. “The Fifth Canon assures us that with the greatest of faith we might walk lighter than our souls to the heavens. When I was fifteen I fasted all night in prayer and then, with my heart full of belief, I lifted my eyes to the clouds and stepped off a diver’s cliff near Stomme. I flipped head over heels and splashed twenty feet down into the ocean. Trust me, Tommy, I know what it’s like to fantasize of one’s special uniqueness and fail spectacularly.”

  “You never told me that story before,” Tommy laughed.

  “You never told me of drunk Tommy rambling ancient spells in a cellar, either.”

  “True, true, you have a point, Mister Soulkeeper. Anyway, my earlier failures resulted in having studied rather thoroughly the proper pronunciation of Salid’s words, so I read them aloud, and…”

  The young man’s smile spread ear to ear.

  “Goddesses damn it all, Devin, I know the world’s ending, but I summoned fire with my bare hands. Do you know how incredible that is?”

  “I imagine it was… exhilarating,” Devin said.

  “Exhausting is a better way to describe it,” Tommy said. “I shat bricks when that fireball leapt off my fingertips. Felt like I’d run a mile after it happened, too. I sat in the window and stared at the dozens of charred bodies and told myself, very slowly and very clearly, that even if I was insane I was going to have as much fun as possible amid my insanity. So while I waited for my pounding headache to fade I studied some other spells.”

  “Did they work?” Devin asked, curious. He’d heard a handful of tales over the years of supposed spells lost to time, ranging from petty (changing copper to gold) to absolutely ludicrous (pulling the moon from the sky, turning whole towns into fish).

  “The vast majority, no,” Tommy said. “I’ve not tried them all, and I have theories as to why certain ones work and others do not, but I’ll not delve into that right now. I picked a few that seemed most likely to succeed and returned to the window. I only meant to cast two or three, especially after how physically demanding the fireball had been, but when I returned to the window something had… changed. The world felt electric. Hundreds of those creatures surrounded my tower by that point. I summoned a thunderstorm first, the angriest you can possibly imagine. Lightning shredded their numbers. Fire leapt from my fingers in torrents, then ice. It all flowed, Devin, like somewhere in me a dam had broken and nothing could stop the river. The essence, or the ‘Aethos’ as Salid might put it, permeated the air. It suffocated me, but every new spell was a cold, clean breath.”

  Brittany had often joked that her brother was too kind to swat a biting mosquito. Imagining Tommy wielding enough strength to tear apart armies and ascend to the realm of the Goddesses was impossible.

  “I stopped sometime after midnight,” Tommy said. “Though I don’t remember choosing to stop. I think I just passed out on the floor. I’ve tried casting some of those spells since, but the moment has certainly faded. A single lightning bolt left me sleepy this morning. I can’t fathom how in the world I managed that torrent.”

  “You didn’t seem too exhausted from flinging me across the room,” Devin said, and he lightly punched the young man in the shoulder.

  “Careful now,” Tommy said, and he winked. “You never know what might set this powerful wizard off.”

  Devin drained the last of his wine and thudded the tankard down with a chuckle. “Damn right, high and mighty Wise of Crynn. I’ll do my best not to forget.”

  Tommy did his best to finish his own in one gulp. He sputtered a little of it back into the tankard, then chucked the whole thing to the floor. It bounced with a nice, satisfying clack.

  “So what now?” he asked.

  “Now we prepare for the journey ahead. I’m not sure how safe this town is, but I have no desire to stay in it longer than necessary. How many days of food and water do you have stored in here?”

  “Another week at least,” Tommy said.

  “Good.” Devin rose from the table. “Pack it up. We’re leaving.”

  It was late afternoon by the time they exited the tower. They’d taken everything dried and salted they could carry, as well as filled multiple water skins. Tommy had changed out of his bedroom attire and into the stuffy brown robes of a Wise. Nothing could contain Tommy’s excitement at meeting the firekin, but there was one small problem: Puffy was nowhere to be seen.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much,” Devin said. He adjusted the heavy pack on his back. “Puffy can be quite skittish at times, and I think it’s shy when it comes to new people.”

  It seemed ridiculous saying so after watching the firekin burn one of the corrupted humans to ash and bone, but it was still the truth.

  “So it’s more like a cat than a human?”

  “A little bit, but it’s your hide if you want to say that to its face. I have no clue what might offend the sensibilities of living fire.”

  They walked the road to the town entrance. Devin kept a watchful eye out for any more of the corrupted humans. Between the charred field outside, Tommy’s pile of corpses below his tower, and the few Devin had killed during his ambush, it appeared the last of the creatures were gone from Crynn. At no point did he spot Puffy following. By the time they reached the exit, Devin had begun wondering if the firekin decided to move on without him.

  “Hey, Devin,” Tommy asked as they made their way toward the path the Dunwerth villagers had carved eastward, giving Crynn a wide berth. “Is… is that it? Is that Puffy?”

  Devin glanced behind him. A streak of fire danced its way across the charred ground from the city entrance. The two halted and waited for the firekin to catch up. Puffy arrived with a flourish of sparks, leaping up to pirouette onto the barren earth. It settled into itself, a single waving candlelight with two black eyes peering up at them.

  “Puffy, this is my brother-in-law, Tommy,” Devin said.

  Tommy’s smile was ear to ear, and he seemed unable to speak for a long moment.

  “It’s so cute.”

  One of Puffy’s eyes slanted. It peered Devin’s way with an unmistakable look of annoyance.

  “I’ll make sure he behaves,” Devin said to the firekin. “Here. I got you something.”

  The Soulkeeper set his pack down and pulled out a wax-candle lantern he’d taken from Tommy’s tower. He flipped it open, and Puffy happily hopped atop the wick. Pack over his right shoulder, lantern in his left hand, Devin gestured for Tommy to follow.

  “Can I hold the lantern?” he asked.

  Smoke bloomed out the top of the lantern in a rapid series of plumes. />
  “No.”

  They followed the trail of the villagers, Devin in silence, Tommy rambling semicoherently as the sun slowly set. The changes to the world had lit a fire to his imagination.

  “Think of how many once-derided stories might now be true?” he wondered. “What if what we considered old wives’ tales are faintly remembered pieces of history?”

  “And I thought you were a man of science,” Devin said, shaking his head. “Do you really think a blue goblin will steal away your old teeth if you put them under your pillow? Or that if you leave a small bowl of milk overnight on your doorstep you’ll be blessed by a passing faery?”

  “Milk and honey,” Tommy clarified. “Just milk won’t do it. Not sweet enough. And don’t you give me that look, either. It might seem pedantic, but those tiny differences might be what separate fiction from reality in our strange new world. A lot of these old tales and fables will only contain partially complete information, for even the truest of stories will be warped over time from the retellings, but we work with what we know until something contradicts it. For example, did you ever read Hauncer’s Elemental Dance?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “It’s a retelling of an old Vibrant Isle tale, of how fire and water took human forms to battle over the fate of the island. In it, the fire creature is the villain. I presuppose that these elementals might in fact exist, and posit Puffy as proof. But what about the good and evil dichotomy? Does that fit? Were the fire elementals the villains?”

  “I don’t know,” Devin said as he lifted his lantern. “Were you the villains, Puffy?”

  Puffy narrowed its eyes and tilted its head like a disappointed parent admonishing a child. Devin laughed. It felt amazing to have company, even someone as talkative as Tommy. The world was that much more alive, that much more hopeful.

  Grass rustled underneath Devin’s foot. He froze. He’d not looked. He’d not even paid attention, only followed the path ahead. His tightening throat expected a burst of caustic powder. His eyes watered of their own. But it did not come. The grass was not black. There was no mistaking that dwindling yellow-green shade lit by the light of his lantern.

  He looked up, and saw that starlight lit the valley ahead. A distant pond sparkled under the reflection of the heavens. Blue-tinted trees waved in the soft nighttime wind. For the first time in what felt like years, he heard chirps of the midnight songbirds. None of it bore the signs of corruption. As far as the eye could see, nature appeared untainted by the water’s passage.

  “The black water stopped,” Devin whispered. Relief quivered through his entire body as the muscles in his chest and back loosened from tension he never knew he carried. “Goddesses almighty, the black water stopped.”

  Londheim. Nicus. Steeth. The church’s capital in the Kept Lands, and Queen Woadthyn’s throne in Oris. It all might still exist. Its people still woke with the morning, spoke with friends, bathed and loved and slept like all of humanity had before, and would continue to do so long after they were gone. The world had not ended. Hope was not all lost.

  “I never…” Tommy said, and he frowned and shifted awkwardly. “I never really thought the black water would have gone forever. That seemed… not possible. Not fair, you know?”

  Devin dropped to his knees. He brushed his hands across the grass, and he laughed with so great a release that tears swelled in his eyes. His friends, his family, they survived. The carnage unleashed upon the far west was still catastrophic, but it was understandable now. It was bearable. He could relinquish at least one of his burdens, for his sister was likely alive and well inside Londheim’s walls.

  “We’re coming, Adria,” Devin whispered softly. “We survived.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Adria Eveson knelt beside the bedridden old woman in the tiny little room she called her home.

  “This is the third time this week, Rosa,” Adria said as she washed her hands in a small basin of fresh water. “You cannot expect such an ailment to improve overnight.”

  “You Mindkeepers are always so quick to call for patience,” Rosa said. “When it’s your knee crying out like a roasting goat, maybe then we’ll see how patient you are between treatments. And don’t frown at me, Adria. I can see it in your eyes.”

  A smooth porcelain mask, the right half deep black, the left shining white, covered the entirety of Adria’s face but for two thin ovals for her eyes. She was indeed frowning behind it. For good or ill, Rosa had always been a sharp woman, and her mind had not aged along with the rest of her body.

  Adria reached a hand into the folds of her ornate white-and-gray dress. Though it appeared to have no pockets, there were in fact dozens of them hidden within the overlapping fabric. Adria withdrew a slender bottle with a clear crystal stopper. The brown contents swirled, remixing the layer of white that had settled on the top. Adria had personally crushed the six roots and herbs within, work normally reserved for a novice, but none had been assigned to her church. Supposedly her little corner of Londheim was too dangerous for the younger, untrained students.

  Adria withdrew one of Rosa’s spoons from the basin and carefully poured her mixture into it.

  “Piss on that tiny dose,” Rosa said. “Can’t you give me the whole bottle?”

  Adria turned her mask to the woman.

  “The whole bottle would kill you.”

  “That ain’t as good a reason as you think it is, Mindkeeper.”

  Adria was glad for the mask. She’d hate for the spindly, dark-haired woman to see how frustrated and exhausted she was behind it.

  “Take it,” she said, handing over the spoon. “That’s the last you’ll receive for three days, Rosa, no matter how much you complain. Anwyn, not my medicine, will take you when it’s time.”

  Rosa gulped the foul spoonful down. Adria opened the curtain to the lone window, spilling light across Rosa’s bed. The elderly woman winced and turned from it.

  “The sunlight will do you good,” Adria said.

  “Ain’t nothing good out there,” Rosa said. She sighed and closed her eyes. “And I got a full day’s sun for fifty years working Quiet District’s gardens. Didn’t do me good then, won’t do me good now.”

  Adria glanced out the window. Haggard men and women walked the street, most heading east to work the docks alongside the Septen River. A raven-haired mother carrying her child on her shoulders noticed Adria in the window and quickly averted her eyes.

  “You’re losing hope,” Adria said, turning away. “Lyra’s healing comes to those who believe and endure.”

  “Save that bollocks for the young, Mindkeeper. Come pray your prayers and be done with. I already got what mattered.”

  Adria had thought herself used to such sentiment. Perhaps not.

  “I can leave now if you wish,” she said stiffly.

  Rosa let out another sigh.

  “I’m sorry, girl. I’ve not slept well in weeks. Please, come pray your prayers. If I’m to walk again I’ll need every little bit of help I can get.”

  Adria withdrew a small, well-worn leather book from one of her interior pockets. The book wasn’t much larger than her hand, and like all other copies of Lyra’s Devotions, it contained exactly seventy-nine pages, one for each prayer. Adria had memorized every page, but she’d learned that bringing it out during her visits to the sick and elderly added an air of ceremony to the process. She knelt beside the bed, the 36th Devotion open before her, and then slowly pulled away the blanket covering Rosa’s right leg.

  The knee was an uneven purple blotch, colored like someone had smashed an enormous grape underneath her skin. Adria was thankful her mask hid her grimace. No wonder Rosa had summoned her so quickly. It had grown significantly worse over the past two days. If the illness continued to spread at such a rate…

  “Might you do something for me?” Adria asked. “Pray along with me this time, please. You must believe to be healed.”

  Rosa shifted uncomfortably, and her inability to meet her gaze did not
go unnoticed.

  “I’m sorry, Adria. I don’t have it in me to lie. We both know this knee ain’t getting any better.”

  Adria did know it, but she could not believe it, otherwise what hope was there? She gently placed both hands on the sick knee and closed her eyes. Rosa had been one of her first visits when Adria was assigned to the Low Dock church three years ago. Hearing her so defeated made Adria physically ill. Where was her fight? Where was her faith? Had the agony stripped her of both?

  “Lyra of the beloved sun,” Adria recited. “Hear my prayer. Your children weep for your touch, and so I come, and so I pray.”

  Most devotions began similarly, but this time Adria poured her heart into it. Perhaps she could compensate for Rosa’s uncertainty. Perhaps she could show that it wasn’t so hopeless. The disease didn’t have to spread. Flesh could heal. Rot could recede.

  “Sickness fouls the perfection you created,” Adria continued. Her breath caught in her throat. Was it her imagination, or did the ground shake beneath her?

  “Darkness mars the glory you shone upon us.”

  Another tremble. Her hands quivered as they held Rosa’s knee. Something wasn’t right. The hairs of her skin stood on end. The sound of the outer world faded in her ears.

  “With bowed head and bended knee I ask for succor. With heavy heart and weary mind I ask for blessing.”

  The words came of their own accord. Adria felt like a helpless passenger trapped on a carriage that would not stop. Rosa let out a soft gasp but Adria dared not open her eyes. The end of the devotion neared. She knew the words, but something was changing in them. She could not control her tongue.

  “This beloved soul requires healing, Lyra, my savior. Cleanse the sickness. Chase away the pain. Precious Lyra…”

  Not ask. Demand.

  “At my touch, heal this woman.”

  At last she opened her eyes and withdrew her hands. The purple was gone. The flesh was healed.