Soulkeeper Page 41

  “Please, let me leave,” Tesmarie pleaded. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see this.”

  “Does this shock you?” Janus asked. “Does the killing leave you numb? You must crush these instincts, Tesmarie. What you have witnessed is the inevitable confrontation approaching all of us dragon-sired now that we have reawakened to a world that forgot us. Even those who love you will grow to fear you by the end.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t!”

  Janus knelt so they might see eye to eye.

  “I am not as old as some of Viciss’s other creations, but I saw much in my time before the dragon imprisoned me,” he said. “I saw hundreds of our kin slaughtered for the most petty of reasons. Human minds are weak, broken things created with the same false dichotomy that the Goddesses clung to since they set foot upon the Cradle: all things in pairs, one or the opposite. Alive or dead, male or female, day or night, good or evil. The most powerful of all? Us or them.”

  Tesmarie felt her insides trembling. There was power to his words, and worse, it felt like he spoke the truth. This truth brought no comfort, for it was a bladed weapon that sliced her sides and bled out her hope, joy, and peace.

  “We are different, Tesmarie. To a human mind, you will never be us, only them. I have seen the horrors humanity is willing to inflict on those who are separate, who are different, even among their own kind. We are that much more distant. We are that much more endangered.”

  Janus stood to his full height, and it seemed a change swept over him. His intensity lessened, and the muscles in his frame visibly relaxed. His smile became almost jovial.

  “You may leave soon, little faery,” he said. “I must admit, my selfishness keeps you here. An artist’s pride, if you will, for I would not have my art go unappreciated.”

  “Art?” she asked. “How could anyone call this art?”

  Janus sadly shook his head. He didn’t look at her as he talked, his attention on the ground as he paced the area.

  “The act of creation does not always mirror the final result,” he said. “Sometimes suffering and brutality must precede a wellspring of beauty.”

  Janus knelt amid the bodies and dipped a single finger into the pool of blood that covered everything. His eyes closed. His body gently swayed. The air itself began to shimmer with a steadily growing power. Magic swirled through the market, drawing in the power of the dragons and then flowing out through Janus’s touch. The blood shimmered, its dark, dirty red growing in vibrancy. Janus stood, and his hands pulsed that same lively color.

  Crystals spiked into the air at his sudden sway to the right. The outer layer of these formations was perfectly clear, while the interior contained thin tendrils of the blood they grew from. Janus drifted back to the left, his hands weaving like those of a dancer. The crystals cracked, tilted, and sharpened under his control. The frozen blood slowly shifted into shapes deep within frighteningly sharp pentagonal cones. Mesmerized, Tesmarie watched them form. Birds in flight. Schools of fish. Deer, crows, foxes; animals of sky, earth, and water all painted into miniature replications and locked inside their crystalline prisons.

  Janus swayed faster and faster. Sweat dripped from his brow. Bone, flesh, and tissue ripped and melted away into a giant disgusting pile atop the wooden stage. Only the blood would be molded. Though the spray was chaotic, the formations were controlled, even beautiful. The larger pieces began to connect, the sharp points of one seemingly melting into the sides of another. What had been a simple clearing before a mummer’s platform turned to a wondrous cavern. Light shone through the crystal, casting red shadows in the shapes of the animals frozen inside.

  Still Janus was not satisfied. He slammed his fists into one side of the cavern that had swallowed them up. The side cracked and then swelled outward like an inhaling lung. A lash of his arm, and cones of blood shattered. Their shards layered the bare ground, shimmered, and then spread out to form a perfectly smooth walkway. Last he turned his attention to the stage. He calmly walked to the pile of bones, skin, and tissue so he might rest his hands atop it.

  The mass rumbled and swirled as if captured within a tornado. It started with the bones. They clacked and grew atop one another, becoming the skeletons of human statues. Cracked, dry muscle layered atop them, followed by skin as smooth and immovable as marble. These statuesque humans gazed in frozen wonder about the new blood cavern Janus created, yet still the monstrous being was not satisfied. He gave the naked statues picks and axes, shovels and wheelbarrows, every possible tool humanity might use to plunder the wondrous crystal formations and their animals safely kept within.

  Tesmarie clutched her arms to her sides and held back her horrified gasp. Each and every tool was crafted of the bones and flesh of their fellow humans. Linked ribs became the wheels of the wheelbarrows, skulls and femurs its trays. Arms and legs fused together to become handles of shovels. Curled fingers and toes linked into the teeth of rakes. Hair of all colors threaded through the cracks to give them strength. Dried skin layered over the rough edges to smooth them over.

  At last Janus was satisfied. He lifted his arms and smiled as he took in the sight of his art and basked in its otherworldly beauty.

  “What I have crafted in moments they could never create in years,” he said. His opal smile tilted her way. “Remember the awesome power we once wielded, little faery. Remember humanity’s jealous fear of it, and remember the steady erosion of our gifts in the name of coexistence. I assure you their primal cortexes have not forgotten.”

  Janus touched her wings. Their weight vanished, stone becoming chitin, gray becoming a gossamer rainbow.

  “Live for your beauty,” he told her. “Don’t die for their hatred.”

  He touched the smooth floor and it opened for him, creating a set of stairs leading down into a deep chasm. It slammed shut upon his descent, swallowing him. Tesmarie hovered in his absence, the quiet interrupted only by her soft, miserable crying. She wiped away some of her tears.

  “No,” she told his lingering presence. “No, no, no, no. You’re wrong. I know you’re wrong! They… they…”

  But what point was there in arguing to emptiness? She flew toward the cavern’s ceiling. Her small frame easily fit through a triangular opening near the ceiling’s center. She flew higher, leaving the red crystalline structure behind. Dozens of humans gathered around its edges, many of them brandishing armor and weapons. What would they do with the building? Tear it down? Could they, given how strong the crystal appeared?

  Tesmarie took a straight line between the market and Devin’s home, her wings buzzing as fast as they allowed. A squirming paralysis clutched her mind, the horror of everything ricocheting about inside her skull. The city could not pass below her fast enough. Devin had left a window cracked open for her, and she zipped right on through. He sat in the rocking chair beside the fire, and she slammed into him without warning, her knees on his stomach, her face buried into his chest. Her arms clutched the soft fabric of his shirt as if wrapping him in an embrace.

  She didn’t know what she expected, but when his hand ever-so-gently settled atop her back like a blanket, she melted down into a fresh wave of sobs. It was only a ghostly pressure, but it was her first returned embrace since waking up in this new and changed world. Tesmarie dusted Devin’s shirt with diamonds, letting out all her pain, all her confusion and betrayal. Janus was wrong. She had to believe that, or this comfort and sympathy she felt from Devin were lies. She wanted no part of a world as cruel as that. Let her naïveté kill her if it must.

  At last she felt she could cry no more, and she wiped away the tiny glittering pile.

  “What is wrong?” Devin asked her once it was clear she was composed enough to speak. “Tell me so I may help.”

  “His art,” she whispered. She felt the phantom weight of stone wings on her back and nearly broke once more. “Janus made me watch him craft his art.”

  CHAPTER 37

  A
dria looked up from her prayers as the door to the church burst open. A young novice rushed down the aisle to the pew where Adria knelt. Sweat covered the boy’s face and neck, and splotches of both were colored red.

  “It’s an emergency, Mindkeeper,” the novice said after a rapid half bow. “Your skills are needed at the southern market district.”

  Your skills?

  Adria immediately assumed the boy meant her hidden healing powers but caught herself before responding. There was no reason yet to believe that.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Janus attacked the crowd at Faithkeeper Nolan’s sermon,” the novice said. “It’s… it’s bad. We need all skilled healers to come.”

  Not my prayers, then, but my talent with a needle.

  Faithkeeper Sena’s ninth-day sermon had concluded an hour ago, and she’d left for a midday meal with some wealthy attendees who’d visited from Quiet District. Adria didn’t like leaving the church unattended, but if it was an emergency…

  “Please lead the way,” she told the boy. “I shall follow.”

  The two hurried out of the church and down the steps. For once the old woman was not there to harass her for copper. Good. Maybe she’d finally taken up a spot in a shelter instead of constantly begging. Adria tried to pry information out of the novice during their walk, but he had little to offer.

  “I’m sorry, Mindkeeper,” the boy said. “I only know what I saw before Faithkeeper Maria sent me away. There was, there was…” Adria belatedly realized the boy was struggling not to cry. “There was a lot of blood, and a lot of hurt people.”

  Adria put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and walked alongside him.

  “Stay strong and lead,” she said. “Save your tears for in private. If it is as bad as you say, the friends and family of the wounded will look to us for strength, even down to the smallest novice. We must give it to them.”

  The boy sniffled and stood up a little straighter.

  “I understand.”

  They resumed their hurried jog. Adria could tell they were nearing their destination, not by passing through one of the many archways leading into the merchant district but by the crying and screams of pain. She steeled herself for a horrific scene, and even then she had to stifle a gasp behind her porcelain mask.

  A crystalline structure as wide as the road and taller than most nearby buildings blocked the way through the market. Adria saw an entrance but refused to peer further inside. She wasn’t sure her mind could handle whatever might be within right now. A large swathe of space before it had been cleared out for the wounded. Injured men and women lay in haphazard rows, some on blankets and pillows, most just on the bare ground. Several apothecaries moved from person to person, dressing wounds and applying stitches while a handful of Mindkeepers and Faithkeepers held towels and cloths against gaping wounds to stanch the blood flow. A few even held torches for cauterizing wounds.

  City guards formed a loose barricade to keep away gawkers, and they quickly moved aside to allow Adria and her novice to enter. Together they walked the rows, listening to the cries and wails. There appeared two distinct types of injuries: those with cleanly severed limbs, and those who were horribly scarred and mangled as if attacked by wild animals.

  “Who is in charge?” she asked. She wished she felt as calm as her words sounded.

  “Maria,” her novice said, and he pointed to a tall Faithkeeper with the deep tan and curly hair of a Vibrant Islander. Her white suit was stained from head to toe in blood. Adria thanked the novice and joined Maria’s side. The Faithkeeper held a torch in her right hand while her left pinned down a weeping man whose arm had been cleanly sliced off at the elbow. A second man knelt on the other side and helped hold him still.

  “The more you move, the more I burn unnecessarily,” Maria said.

  Adria tapped her on the shoulder to gain her attention.

  “Adria of Low Dock,” she said in introduction. “What happened here?”

  “Janus happened,” Maria answered. “Did you bring your stitching needles and thread?”

  Adria withdrew her little metal tin containing both from a hidden pocket. Maria saw it and nodded.

  “Good. Find someone bleeding and make it stop.”

  She turned back to the man beneath her and, without warning, thrust the torch against the weeping circle of flesh and exposed bone. Adria stepped away, and she noticed that the novice had clutched his fists to his mouth.

  “I… I can’t,” the novice said before dashing toward the line of guards.

  Adria watched him go, and she didn’t blame the young man in the slightest. She slowly turned in place, the sounds and sights of the horror seeping into her body. Two children nearby shared matching sliced stomachs, their intestines poking through the perfectly smooth gashes. A woman without a leg shrieked as presumably her husband clutched a blood-soaked towel against the severed limb. The nearest Mindkeeper sowed stitch after stitch into the face of a passed-out woman whose face looked like it had been chewed to pieces. Row after row of bleeding, suffering, dying.

  The little tin shook in her hands. What good would it do? What help would it be against such brutality?

  Adria stuffed the tin back into her pocket and hurried to the woman with the severed leg.

  “Move the towel,” she commanded.

  The husband glared at her with mistrust.

  “Where’s your torch?” he asked.

  “I don’t need one. Move the towel or I shall order a guard to make you.”

  He relented. The towel peeled back, revealing bone and meat where the cut had cleaved directly above the knee. Blood poured from still-open veins. That the woman was alive bordered on a miracle. Adria put her hands directly against the bone. Warm blood trickled across her fingers. The words of the 36th Devotion floated across the surface of her mind. This was it. There was no turning back.

  “Lyra of the beloved sun, hear my prayer,” she whispered.

  The words flowed off her tongue with ease. She closed her eyes. Somehow seeing the healing happen felt like a betrayal to the miracle. Warmth grew beneath her touch. The flow of blood ceased. The touch of bone softened. Her prayer neared its completion, and she spoke the final words with great weight and reverence.

  “Precious Lyra, heal this woman.”

  She opened her eyes to see pink skin underneath her fingers. Even the blood had dried and flaked away, leaving a smooth stump where the leg had been severed. The woman had ceased screaming and instead quietly sobbed, as did her husband.

  “What did…” he asked, struggling for words. “How… Sisters above, thank you, thank you.”

  Adria pushed herself to her feet. One down. Dozens more to go. The husband grabbed her wrist before she moved on.

  “Your name?” he breathed.

  “Adria,” she answered without thinking.

  “The Goddesses bless you, Adria. They bless you. They bless you!”

  Next were the two children. They writhed beside one another, not yet attended because, cruel as it sounded, they would not likely survive any traditional treatments. Adria knelt between them, and she softly stroked each of their foreheads.

  “Lie still if you can,” she told them. “This won’t take long.”

  She pushed the thin rope of intestines back into the girl’s stomach, then laid her hand over the wound. Eyes closed, she prayed the 36th Devotion. When she opened them, only a single white scar marked where the cut had once been. Then came the boy’s turn, and though he squirmed and screamed when she put his intestines in, his motions ceased the moment her prayer began.

  “Precious Lyra, heal this child.”

  Another long scar. Another life saved. Others were starting to notice now. An eerie silence seemed to have fallen over the onlookers at the line of guards. Adria moved to an elderly man whose entire left half was ripped and torn as if he’d rolled through a hundred shards of glass.

  “The children,” the man said. “I saw… are you a miracle worke
r?”

  “Hush now,” Adria said. “Let me pray.”

  From Adria’s experience it would have taken over sixty stitches to close that many wounds. Her prayer needed none. The old man sat up once she was done. His hands shook.

  “Surely you are the Sacred Mother reborn,” he said, reaching for her mask to remove it.

  “Keep such blasphemy to yourself,” Adria said. She yanked the mask back over her face and fought against a rising panic attack. “Go home.”

  The old man went to the crowd, but he did not go home. Instead he began shouting to the others.

  “Who is she? Who is the Mindkeeper with the dark hair and the touch of the Goddesses?”

  “Adria! Adria, lady of miracles!”

  The name spread like wildfire through the crowd. Adria shuddered at the sound. She wanted none of this praise, and it sickened her stomach hearing such a lofty title like “lady of miracles.” It seemed she wasn’t the only one worried, either. Faithkeeper Maria pulled her close so her low voice might be heard over the growing din.

  “What in Anwyn’s name is going on?” she asked. “How are you healing them?”

  “I’m only praying,” Adria said. “The Sisters do the rest.”

  “I’ve prayed over them as well, but my stitching is closing the wounds, not the Sisters.” Maria looked to the rows of dead and dying. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Keep going. Others still need you.”

  And so Adria moved to the next, and the next, prayers on her tongue and healing flowing from her hands. Deep exhaustion settled over her body, steadily worsening with each wounded man and woman she healed. The words of the 36th Devotion grew tired on her tongue. The syllables began to lose meaning. The prayer, the request, it shaped this power she wielded, and when she knelt beside a man bleeding profusely from a cleanly severed leg, she pushed her fingers into the wound and simplified the prayer tremendously.

  “Precious Lyra, at my touch, heal this man.”