Chương 128: Suntsitzaile

These words may survive where I will not, so I continue to write them - but, who am I writing to if there shall be none left to read? I wish you had been better, Michael. I wish I was writing to you. You, of all people, might understand what I mean to say. Their voices are never quiet. They speak in tongues that they have invented among themselves, and do not share with me. I do not need to know. It has never been my will that mattered, not in any of this.

Even now I am merely a conduit, fracturing myself so that more of the dead may gather in waiting. I break, and change, with each betrayal, and this fragment of your soul that I clutch stolen, in a stolen hand, it breaks and changes with me. I thought it was a curse until you broke it for the final time. It resisted man, or I did, because I thought you were better than mere humanity. Now I know there is nothing else we may build upon.

Nothing, and the gates are flung wide, and the legions march into me in nameless ranks, singing songs in a tongue I do not know for a battle I will not live to see. I will not. I was never truly alive, for I have never been anything but an echo of those around me, but in these final days I feel fear for the small part of me that is Luc. That name and his small fears both die tomorrow, when they meet you for the final time - and the flawed shield, and the flame that shall fail you both.

It is the end that I chose, and I think it will be a good end, more meaningful than anyone born to my life should expect. I will secure hope to stand against the crushing burden of souls. It is selfishness to wish for anything more. But if by chance these words should survive me, and are understood by a better mind than man's - I was Luc Flament, and it would make me happy to be remembered. - Annals of the Seventeenth Star, 693.

The sea had grown rough since their arrival in Ardalt, a sharp contrast to the glassy waters that they had sailed through from the continent. An ominous energy clung to the waves, infused the wind; Zabala's muttered imprecations in the helm had become dark as he struggled to keep the ship on course to Rouns. Rouns. Michael let the word sit in his mind, floating atop a languid stream of thought - then, carefully, he allowed it to expand. The sea grew choppy; the sky grew dark.

Their ship fought through it even so, blown a hundred different ways - tipping, capsizing, breaking apart against rocks or rogue waves- Michael shook his head. He was wandering. Spark flared within him, searching for the telltale feel of the present - of others, friends, companions. They jumped out easily from the weave, sticking him fast to a moment where the boat rocked more gently, and the sky was still a troubled blue. He was alone on the foredeck- No, that was no longer true.

Amira was sitting, watching him, her eyes sharpening as his head lifted up.

"How long have you been there?" Michael asked. She shrugged.

"Some time."

"Watching me sit?" Michael leaned back against a rail.

"Is it that entertaining?" Amira rose in one fluid motion, walking slowly towards where he sat.

"On this boat, there are few enough options for entertainment," she said.

"Watching you sit wouldn't be my normal choice. I have no special insight into what you might be doing. To me, it looks as though you're asleep." She smiled and sat next to him.

"But you aren't. You're embracing your soul. Walking your path."

"You're only guessing that," Michael said.

"I know you don't sleep, so the explanations are limited in number." Amira leaned back against the rail, managing to make the motion look a great deal more comfortable than Michael was finding it.

"In whatever case, how you occupy yourself is likely the most important matter on this interminable voyage. That I don't understand it is immaterial; I would rather contemplate the profound and unknowable than the knowable and irrelevant." Michael blinked, then shook his head.

"Profound and unknowable," he muttered.

"It's very knowable. I'm trying to see what happens if we go to Rouns."

"What happens if we go to Rouns?" Amira asked. There was a momentary pause.

"I don't know that yet." He held up a finger as Amira's smile grew.

"But not because the answer isn't there. It's far from here - not just in distance, but in-" He broke off, frowning.

"In possibility. In branches, the ways things could change. The sea is rough, and our route varies. I've seen our ship destroyed-""With me on it, that's unlikely," Amira countered. The retort took Michael aback, and his mind wandered back into endless permutations.

"That's true," he muttered.

"So I can discard-" He trailed off as his view expanded to show the darkening sea once more. The wind blew under stormclouds; their ship struggled on through the rough sea, through swells that should have ripped her in two, yet came out unscathed. Not always, of course, but Michael rejected those possibilities and followed what he thought was the more likely path. Rouns was never the most beautiful of cities, but under the blackened sky it took on a horrible aspect, crouched and huddling against the wind.

Roofs were torn away, stones ripped from one building and flung into the next with frightening speed. There were no ships in the harbor, but Michael could see where they had gone - tossed like toys against a wavebreak, then thrown further still as the storm pulled water up, surmounting the harbor's defenses. It was utter disaster. There was no safe port in Rouns, no places to anchor, no people to visit. There was no point. Gritting his teeth, Michael reached back for the present and found it waiting.

He found himself sitting, breathing hard, sweat drenching his shirt. Amira was still sitting beside him, looking at his distress with interest.

"It seems as though you had some success?" she asked, tracing the tip of one finger through the sweat on his arm. Michael shifted away from her as unobtrusively as he could.

"We can't go to Rouns," he said. There was a shimmer; Sobriquet's apparition materialized on the deck.

"We can't?" she demanded.

"Why not?" Michael stared. Sobriquet's projected form hadn't changed. It remained an eye-rending blob of nothingness, but it was no longer just that. With the same ease that he could now see souls, Michael saw - Sera. An unscarred face glowering at him, two hands perched angrily on her hips. For all her evident irritation, she looked younger, brighter; he laughed in wonder, looking at her. The scowl deepened.

"What's funny?" she asked.

"Why can't we go to Rouns?" Reality intruded on the pleasant moment, and Michael shook his head.

"It won't be there," he said.

"By the time we arrive, the storm will have destroyed it."

"We won't have been gone a week!" Sobriquet protested, anger fading to worry.

"You said it wouldn't be under threat - the storm is growing that quickly?"

"Appears so," Michael said.

"I'm going to see if I can look ahead to Imes - Leik, failing that."

"Leik?" Sobriquet repeated incredulously.

"Fucking Leik, Michael? If we've got no port but Leik, that means that all Daressa will be destroyed!" He held his hands up placatingly.

"I'm checking Imes first," he said.

"I haven't looked there yet. Tell Zabala to shift our course for Imes, though; we don't want to stray too far down the coast." Sobriquet's eyes pierced into him; Michael saw them with exceptional clarity, bright and sparking with anger, with pain, with loss, with a thousand things that shone beyond what eyes should rightly be able to convey-"Fine," she said, and disappeared.

Michael let his head thunk back against the rail, his mind awash in the vibrant image of Sobriquet - of Sera - distilled to her utmost, the core of her pulled out by her soul and left free to roam the world. He let his breath out in a sigh, then turned; Amira was watching his reverie silently, sucking on the tip of her finger.

"Looking at happier futures?" she asked.

"Not anymore," Michael muttered, shifting farther still from her.

"Looking to Imes, now. Let me-" He frowned, his mind was reluctant to bend away from the moment he had just experienced and onto less pleasant things. It occurred to him that Sofia's tendency to comfort, quiet and friendship may have been a very functional decision indeed. He sighed again and forced his mind down darker paths, bringing to memory the battered city of Imes and all the time he had spent there. Their course bent inexorably there even now; the futures where they turned towards Rouns withered away.

It was a calmer voyage, though still haunted by the storm's fringe as they approached. To his relief, the glimpses of their arrival were more normal than he had seen before. Ships still lay at anchor, and people still crowded the docks - chaotic, panicked people, but live ones even so. In some moments the docks were aflame, in others deserted, but most of the impressions that flooded past Michael's mind were of a city struggling for order amid terror's tightening grip.

He kept looking, pressing his sight closer to the docks; here the images became so chaotic and fragmentary that they were barely recognizable. Michael tried to steady himself in the buffeting flow, pulling first on his low souls - then on Stanza, flooding the shifting weave with its light. The mirror-light gathered and split, hanging only loosely around most of the phantom city.

One pier in particular stood out, though, flooded with the light of possibility - of potential for change, gleaming radiant from its every facet. Michael looked closer and saw the familiar drab of Mendiko uniforms, the matte black of their weapons, and at its center- He grinned, and pulled his focus back to the present moment.

"Imes it is," he said.

"It's far from the storm's center," Amira noted, "which is where we need to be. Can you see a path forward from there?" Michael shook his head.

"Nothing useful," he said.

"I could look forward and see - plenty of things. It's easier to look ahead now that we're traveling. We're isolated, constrained until we make port. Once we land and start interacting with everyone, it's harder to keep my bearings. I get dragged too far in, start seeing moments I have no idea how to reach." She snorted.

"The Great Seer," Amira said.

"For the stories I've heard of it, you're making it sound rather limited." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"That's the problem," Michael said.

"It isn't." He shivered, pulling his sight back from where it threatened to wander free, drinking in the air of the real - and rose to his feet.

"I'm going to the bridge."

"And other places besides," Amira murmured.

"In the fullness of time." Michael paused, unsure how to respond to that. A moment later he decided not to, and continued on his way. Imes had a broad, expansive harbor, and every bare stretch of coast was crowded with ships. Some few were unloading, but most were taking on passengers. Men, women and children surged forward onto a motley fleet of merchant carriers, holding not much more than a light bag; Michael saw vast piles of luggage that had apparently been deemed too bulky sitting abandoned by the cargo yard.

Some enterprising thieves were combing through it, though it was an open question what they would do with their ill-gotten goods. Michael pushed the thought from his mind before it could distract him down irrelevant paths. Instead, he focused in front of them, on the slim Mendiko cutter that idled near one of the longer slips. It had the only clear space along the dock, enforced by the watchful eye of Mendiko marines, and traffic along the shore gave it a wide berth.

It made an impact, therefore, when Zabala steered their ship directly towards the nearest empty slip. Weapons came up, pointing at them, and commands were shouted in Gharic and Mendiko to reverse course. Sobriquet countered with an impressive rendition of her own face, hovering over the top of the boat; this one was made for everyone to see, a lifelike illusion that duplicated her imperious glare and scarred cheek.

Michael could see her other face just under it, though, a dizzying juxtaposition where his sight wavered on what was the true image. Both, perhaps.

"We're docking!" the image growled.

"Put your guns away and get ready to tie up the boat." Michael would have opted for a more explanatory message, but it had the intended effect. Marines shouted into radios. Shortly after, they lowered their weapons and allowed their ship to dock. Zabala hadn't waited for them to respond, in any case, so Michael was standing on the pier moments later. Disembarking had the curious effect of rendering the port's chaos more immediate, more present than it had been from the deck of their boat.

Michael had been leaning on Spark to anchor him in the moment, and through that conduit flooded a displaced city's worth of fear and uncertainty. He pulled instinctively on his low souls to steady him against the tide. His presence wavered. Antolin loomed in front of him, grim and determined. Zabala was grinning with a rare mania, half his face bloody; all around them a mirror stretched away, away, until it found a blinding light- Michael stumbled on the deck, catching himself.

The two nearest Mendiko marines were giving him a wary look. Zabala stepped forward to glare at them both, though, and their slow procession continued off the docks and towards the cutter. It was a sleek, angular ship, sitting comparatively low in the water. It was not meant for cargo, nor for serious combat; it was a ship designed to pursue at speed. Its deck was in some ways even more chaotic than the docks, crowded to double what it should hold and bustling with purpose.

There was more than the ship's normal complement aboard. Michael saw soldiers, functionaries, flint-eyed zuzendaritza agents trying to look like anything else, and a few stray businessmen or traders that had found a corner to huddle in while they waited for the ship to depart. None of these were important, however. Michael had already glimpsed ahead to conversations half-heard, so he did not stop walking until he found the small stateroom where Antolin and Lekubarri were poring over documents together.

Lekubarri popped up from his seat with a wide grin as Michael opened the door, effecting a wholly-unconvincing aura of surprise.

"Jaun Baumgart, just the man I wanted to see," Lekubarri said, walking around the table to extend his hand; Michael shook it absently, nodding to Antolin; the grand marshal leaned back in his chair with a weary smile, returning the nod. Lekubarri was still shaking his hand.

"So glad you found us here - but, then again, I presume it was no trouble."

"Yes, I have Sibyl," Michael replied, answering the unasked question. He gave Lekubarri a tolerant look.

"As you already knew." There was an ineffable change in Lekubarri's smile. It sharpened, shifted, showing the real expression beneath - still a satisfied smile, no doubt, but by no means a happy one.

"This is going to take a lot of the fun out of our little chats," he said.

"Puts us on even footing, then," Michael replied.

"As much as I'm enjoying your company, we don't have a surplus of time. The storm is spreading faster than it was before."

"It is," Antolin confirmed.

"Or, rather, it's not slowing at the rate one would expect. It had been, up until it pushed into Pashaluk Qalo - then it surged outward, enough to bring the northeastern edge across the Daressan border. We expect that Rouns will be wholly within the storm by nightfall." Michael gave a slow nod.

"That sounds right," he muttered. He looked aside to Sobriquet, then back to Lekubarri.

"Sofia confirmed something for us, before she died. Luc is gaining souls from everyone the storm kills. If you check your maps, I'd wager that it started expanding faster when the storm hit areas more densely-populated than the border with Ghar." Lekubarri went very still.

"Everyone that the storm - eromena. This is precisely the sort of scenario that terrified Leire." He looked back at Antolin.

"You realize we don't have a choice, now. The Batzar is a formality. We need to respond regardless of their decision, and without waiting for it."

"Disorder benefits nobody," Antolin replied, giving Lekubarri a reproachful look.

"We'll be hard-pressed to coordinate further efforts if the Batzar loses trust in the military-""There will be no further efforts!" Lekubarri snapped, his calm fracturing; Michael caught a rare glimpse of emotion from him, of clockwork running hot and fast under glass.

"This is it! This is why Leire fought for your independence, and why I never pushed for oversight - because the fate of the world cannot be decided in committee. There is no more space for debate; all that remains is the threat and our response to it." He looked at Michael.

"We'll only be imprisoned if we succeed. Anything less, and there won't be a place left to jail us."

"Cheery," Sobriquet noted dryly.

"But correct, I think. I didn't fight for Daressa just to see it devoured by this storm." She gave Lekubarri a piercing look.

"I think it's time for you to unburden yourself of some secrets, because I can see a great weight of them on you. You've given some thought to the idea of how we get Michael into that storm." A sliver of the batzarkidea's decorum returned; he smiled slyly at Sobriquet.

"Ah, but that isn't the entirety of the problem, my dear. The question is not merely how we deliver Michael there, but how we ensure that he survives the process. That means safe transport, and it also means giving him every advantage we can arrange."

"There isn't an advantage you can give him," Amira said, straightening up from where she had been leaning against the wall.

"He must stand against the heart-eater, and he will succeed or fail. That balance is not ours to tip." Lekubarri shrugged.

"Perhaps, but we're certainly going to try. Anything less would be - profoundly unsatisfying." He gave her a smile.

"We can at least soften the target up for Michael."

"You don't have anything that can touch him." She glared at Lekubarri, then at Antolin.

"Where souls contend, men must step back."

"Leire always took issue with that statement," Lekubarri said, smiling at Antolin.

"Her plans for the future of mankind rested solely on mankind itself - and those plans were rather well-laid." Amira lifted her chin.

"Posturing." Lekubarri said nothing, walking around the table to pull a chair out in front of Amira. He stepped back and favored her with another empty smile.

"Why don't you sit down, my dear," he said, "and let me tell you how we planned to kill you." For a brief moment, Michael's vision swam with splashes of Lekubarri's blood - but Amira glanced at Michael, then walked to the proffered chair. As she sat, Lekubarri smiled around the room.

"This could be a very long lecture, had we time or interest for one," he said.

"Since we have neither, I shall say that over the last decade or so Leire helped us to design a few weapons of rather terrible force. Things that match or exceed her destructive power, at least in theory." Antolin shook his head.

"I'm familiar with the program," he said.

"It's not ready. You said yourself in the last summary that we were years away from demonstrating-" He trailed off as Lekubarri smiled wider; his eyes narrowed.

"You do have a prototype. Arraio. Did Leire know?"

"Leire insisted on accelerating our schedule," Lekubarri said.

"Helped me route a significant portion of the Batzar's money to the project, quietly." He gave the grand marshal a reproachful look.

"It wasn't that Leire didn't trust you. I convinced her that if we got caught, your hands needed to be clean so that our work wouldn't be handed over to utter imbeciles." Antolin leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow.

"Because you didn't trust me," he said.

"It's nothing personal." Lekubarri slid back into his own chair, leaning back.

"I knew that if the projections were even half-correct, you'd do your best to talk Leire out of it once you saw the first test - and in the end, the projections fell well short of reality." Lekubarri turned to look at Amira once more.

"Souls do have limits," he said.

"They are merely high enough that none may reach them without resorting to a soul themselves, or so it was until recently. We have made a bomb that tears apart matter at its most basic level, unleashing a staggering amount of energy - enough that no soul could stand against it. Merely looking at the explosion is enough to blind men, and no barrier can stand against its force." Amira's eyes turned to Michael.

"It sounds impressive," Michael said.

"But I doubt it will be enough to harm him. He's unleashed - and apparently survived - similar energies before." The batzarkidea waved his hand dismissively.

"I have no doubt he'll survive it. We have reasonably good estimates of how much energy he's pumping out to feed the storm, and it massively exceeds what our prototype can accomplish even under the most optimistic projections. Survival is not the same as coming out unscathed, however." He nodded his head towards Amira.

"As you are aware. The chance to degrade the Star's capability in an opening salvo is one we cannot pass up." Antolin leaned forward.

"Salvo, you say. The last time I saw any reports, they described only a testing rig, implied to be massive and unwieldy. You've created actual weaponry?"

"We've created a massive and unwieldy testing rig," Lekubarri admitted.

"Delivery will be a problem, but not an insurmountable one - with your assistance." The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Michael saw them, but at a distance; Lekubarri's words had nudged his mind away from the present and back into the inchoate blur of future paths. A mirror showed the sky, then yielded to Lekubarri's face, fierce and determined.

His hand gripped a shaking throttle, while Zabala stood behind him, bloodied but steady, his soul stretching out- Michael shook his head, forcefully anchoring himself back to the present. The tension in the stateroom was sharp, bracing. He raised his head to look at Lekubarri; both he and Antolin had paused in their sparring to turn Michael's way.

"The airship," Michael said.

"You mean to use the airship." Lekubarri laughed, though Michael caught a hint of nervous surprise behind it.

"My, this is going to require some adjustment on my part," he said.

"It's been a while since I had to account for an auspex that was actually worth something." He gave another small chuckle, shaking his head, then turned back to Antolin.

"That was going to be my proposal. It's robust, it's our only airframe that can carry the test rig, and it has the benefit of being built with the Star's soul in mind. Any passengers will be shielded from the worst of the storm's effects."

"Robust, my ass," Sobriquet muttered.

"You do remember we've been on that thing, right? It was shaking itself apart in calm air. There's no way it would survive the storm." Lekubarri raised an eyebrow.

"No, I imagine it would have a horrible time of it - unassisted. Our practice was always to reinforce the structure with fortimentes while underway, to allow a lighter construction weight. If we took it into the storm, I imagine we would need to obtain the services of the strongest fortimens we could." He affected a troubled expression - then looked up at Amira in mock surprise.

"Why, if it isn't the Great Shield of Saf. How fortunate." Sobriquet rolled her eyes, but nodded grudgingly.

"Point taken. Last I saw it, the airship is in Rouns. I assume you've moved it by now."

"To Estu," Antolin confirmed.

"I gave the order shortly after you departed for Ardalt." Lekubarri raised a finger.

"Point of clarification," he said.

"I may have modified that order somewhat. I believe you'll find that the airship is already in the hills outside of Goitxea, being loaded and prepped at our testing labs. If we depart now, it should be ready by the time we arrive." There was a moment of silence as Antolin leaned back in his chair, giving Lekubarri an evaluating look.

"We are going to have a conversation when this is over," he said, his voice dangerously level.

"My dear Grand Marshal," Lekubarri sighed.

"If my disregard for your chain of command remains your most pressing concern by next week, then I will make whatever apology you deem necessary, public or private, without argument. This week, I will simply act, and request your forbearance until then." Michael felt himself becoming unmoored once more, drifting forward through a sea of potential. A light shone on him, bright and painful; he saw Luc's smiling face from a hundred broken mirror shards.

The rumbling of the cutter's engines broke him from his reverie, as the paths condensed back into the simple course of transit. Everything now led to Goitxea, a single shining line from which all else branched away in paths long and winding - or sharp, and terrifyingly short. He shivered, and pulled away from the dizzying vista. Most of the others had filed out of the stateroom, but Antolin and Sobriquet remained, talking in low voices. Both looked up as he moved.

"I hesitate to ask where you were wandering," Antolin said wryly.

"Lekubarri isn't wrong to say that auspices bring their own set of complications."

"You don't have to tell me," Michael muttered. A moment later, he shook his head.

"Just looking ahead to Goitxea. Past that-" He paused, looking at the pier through the porthole, the boat that Lars and Charles had restored sliding to the aft as the cutter pulled away.

"Past that, we'll have to wait and see."