1CHAPTER FIFTEEN - THE VULTURE
Kisrel studied the vulture. Dal had sewn the dead thing up, but not very cleanly. "What are you going to do with it?" He asked with some trepidation.
"Well, I was thinkin' I'd just animate it and use it to spook people," Dal admitted. "But then I had a better idea."
- The Lives of Kisrel the Enchanter, Elsinore Lovelace
It took me a long while to reach the Old King's mountain. Given how huge it appeared, I'd assumed it was close, and I'd also underestimated how long it would take me to pick my way across the battlefield. I almost turned around several times. The smell was awful. I could only imagine how terrible it would be when the sun came up. There were still some healers working late into the night, though most of the wounded were already safe within the walls of Windward Pass.
Only the dead remained. Those too, needed to be identified and burned. In the North, folks weren't buried. There were too many Necromancers around for anyone to rest in peace. I saw the legs of a horse under a piece of canvas. Was it the Talker who'd carried me? I didn't look close enough to know. No one I was really, truly close to had died, and that was all I could bring myself to worry about.
Everyone I knew was stupidly powerful or nigh-invulnerable, but Master Beetle had also seemed that way to me, and we'd lost him anyway. Hugh had been wounded, but now he had a sword himself, something that made him safer if he was going to continue following me. I wondered if that was why the Guardians had taken his Chain. Truthfully, it was just the ordinary Tessars like my brothers that I worried for. I watched two healers load a mangled body onto a cart. They wrapped it in a sheet. The only thing about the man that was recognizable was the scarf tied around his arm, once blue, but now black from soaking in blood.
"Army of the West. Third Artillery," I heard one of the healers say. He had some paper, and seemed to be in charge.
"Another one?" A second healer sighed heavily, wiping his bloody hands on a towel.
"Two more, probably. Wyvern crushed the ballista," the man with the papers paused.
"Captain Bando was asking about the Cook brothers earlier. We'll have to see if he can identify them." "Not easy to look at a Wyvern kill," the second healer grimaced.
"I know. That's why we're going to get the Captain, and not Mama Cook." The healer made another mark on his paper.
"If those are Cook's boys, she's going to see them," the second healer said. "That old woman will knock your head off if you try to keep her from her children." He paused. "I guess we can try an' clean them up some first."
"That'd be best," the first healer replied.
I walked away a little quicker. I didn't want to be reminded of the kind of danger Sunny and Flick were in. The poor dead men on the field could have just as easily been them. I wondered how Captain Bando managed to smile all of the time, when such heart-wrenching, grisly responsibilities were his to bear. It seemed to me that all of the Captains ought to be more like Captain Orna, serious and miserable. Accounting for the dead was an awful job, and I was grateful that nobody had asked me to help with it.
I hadn't even known it was happening. That seemed wrong, and made me feel guilty to have celebrated at all.
No one I passed asked me what I was doing. In fact, no one said a word to me, though the way they bowed and watched me made it obvious that they all knew who I was. As soon as the sun began to clear the horizon, there were vultures everywhere. Only one vulture, however, was ignoring the carnage on the battlefield below. It waited for me. I followed it.
At the foot of the Old King's mountain was a cave, one of Bando's mining lanterns still hanging and burning just a few feet inside, as if it were just waiting for someone to pick it up. Though such a thing was absolutely impossible, given how the mountain had moved itself hundreds of miles from where it had formerly stood, I didn't hesitate.
I took the lantern and entered the cave. It didn't take me long to find the wall where my father's staff was embedded. I'd avoided touching the thing before, but I ran my fingers over it then, trying to sense what sort of spells it might have on it. The moment I reached out with my mind, I could see the entire mountain in all of its complexity, warring energies swirling in different directions. It didn't look like a block of stone. It looked like a living thing, a massive creature with veins of arcane power. For a moment, I could almost hear a heartbeat.
The sand inside my hourglass raged like a hurricane. I could hear every individual grain striking the glass, as if it was trying to break free. With all that noise in my mind, I didn't even realize that the wall in front of me had dissolved and I was holding my father's staff.
He'd released it to me. It was heavy and very cold. Though it didn't have a sharp edge, I suspected that the mass of the thing made it as dangerous as any sword.
"Hazel?" Someone said.
I whirled around, almost whacking whoever it was that had startled me. My father's staff stopped on the blade of a Tessar Sword. I felt the staff weaken. It was a powerful thing, but black steel was made something dark. It couldn't easily withstand the bright force of a Tessar sword, and no doubt, the True Sword would've cleaved it completely in half. I wasn't sure who I expected to see. Captain Orna, probably. But the Captain wielding the sword was Hugh.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded. "You shouldn't be here!"
"Neither should you!" Hugh retorted.
"Yes, but you're drunk!" I argued.
"Not too drunk to see you following that vulture!" he replied. "Hazel, you promised me you wouldn't!"
"I know. I know I promised! But it's not just the vulture," I said. I held up my hourglass, and he stared at the swirling sand. "Look at my Chain! It's driving me mad!"
"What… what's wrong with your Chain?" Hugh stared. He'd been a Seeker a long while. I'd hoped that maybe he'd seen something similar before. But then again... my Chain was hardly an ordinary one.
"I don't know, but whatever the Guardians want, I have to do it, and I have to do it now! I've been trying to resist, and now I just can't anymore. My Chain might be strange, Hugh, but it's still a Chain. And you know what that means. You, better than anyone," I finished.
Hugh nodded solemnly. "I know. And I'm not going to stop you, if this is what you think you have to do. But I'm not letting you do it alone either. Why do you always try to go alone? Doesn't that ever seem stupid to you?"
"Please, don't," I said. My voice sounded very small. I didn't have any resistance left in me.
I didn't finish saying that I'd gone without him because I couldn't risk him getting hurt. He wasn't listening anyway. He was obviously mad at me for lying and sneaking off, and I deserved that.
The vulture flew in front of us. It perched on a rock that looked like an arm. As we headed deeper into the mountain, I realized that there were stone faces, hands, and legs everywhere. They weren't different faces though. They were all different expressions of agony on the same face, as if a man had been tortured for a horribly long time, and every moment of that suffering chiseled into stone by some macabre artist, captured for eternity. I took a long look at one of the whole faces, eyes open, and mouth closed. He looked resigned, somehow, as if he knew what was about to happen and could do nothing to prevent it. I knew that I was looking at my father. I could see the resemblance between us. What I couldn't comprehend was how he'd been turned into such a thing.
Hugh grimaced. "I think... I might know what happened here. Cirat told me that when a Guardian dies, they return to the Ways where they sort of fall apart. They don't die as we think of death. The Ways are sort of… disjointed. Time and place are blurry, I guess you'd say. And I think, if you spent hours dying, and it was somehow all pushed into one moment..."
"This is exactly what that would look like," I said. "Something my father did must've pulled so much power that everything around him started to break apart and fall into the Ways. Magic tearing a hole in our world. And when he realized what he'd done and tried to stop up that hole… he tried to stop it with Earth. As much Earth as he could, because it would be the most solid, the most likely to hold."
"To get a mountain like this he must have channeled Earth until it killed him," Hugh observed.
"That's the thing. I... don't think it killed him," I admitted. "If it had, how would the mountain move now? He's still here. Alive, sort of. He's just in pieces and he can't put himself back together. It's like Kisrel and his book. But... so many more pieces. Everywhere at once. Allen told me it was bad. But this is really bad. If this mountain was destroyed... would it be like pulling a cork out of a bottle? Only the Ways? Stars, no! It'd be like a cork holding back the ocean! What am I even supposed to do about this?"
"We should go," Hugh said.
"I can't," I shook my head heavily. "I have to see what he wants me to see."
We continued walking. After about ten minutes in silence, Hugh froze.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Someone is following us," he told me.
I felt a chill. "I thought everyone was too smart to go near this place."
"With the exception of Bando, that's usually true," Hugh admitted. His hand drifted towards his sword. It had never really gone away from it, but the blade came out of its scabbard a little.
"Well, Carline and his crew are lunatics too," I said. "At least in my experience. I saw him break a sword on Christie earlier."
"Hazel, I really think we should go," Hugh repeated.
It must have been the third or fourth time he'd said that. I brushed him off.
"Hugh, this is either my father's body or his tomb. Part of my Price was to speak to him. I've been on my way here since I became a Seeker," I said, running my fingers along the walls. The mountain felt exactly as a mountain should feel, cold and lifeless. And yet, when I looked beyond what I could see with just my eyes, I could still feel power running everywhere. So far as I could tell from seeing his final resting place, all of the magic he's possessed, everything that would have made him definitively a wizard and a Signer of the Great Pact was still in place. Was he dead? I was more convinced than ever that he wasn't. He wasn't dead at all... he was just too much of a mess to put together. Something very important was missing.
"Where's your critter?" Hugh asked.
I realized I hadn't seen Pistachio since my long, cold walk across the battlefield. "I don't know. He's been coming and going," I paused.
"Worth noting he isn't here now. He's got a sense for things that aren't right, doesn't he?" Hugh pressed. "What if this is Leviathan manipulating you?"
I bit my lip. "He did tell me he'd strangle me with my Chain it if he could. But... I don't think he can."
"You don't think the Guardian who has already tried to kill you once is still trying to kill you? Stars, Hazel!" Hugh said. "Do you hear yourself? And even if it's not Leviathan, you know this has got to be either your Price or the Great Pact! And both of those are dangerous! Why am I even telling you this?"
I didn't respond. Something had changed. A brilliant blue butterfly fluttered ahead of us. It was warmer as we descended further into the heart of the mountain. On the cold gray stone where no sunlight could possibly touch them, beautiful red roses were growing.
Hugh hesitated. Then he wrinkled his nose and followed after me.
I remembered how he'd said I could ask him to do anything, and he'd do it. That didn't mean he'd like it, obviously.
We entered into an enormous cavern. It looked like a great castle hall with majestic stone arches, and light poured in from somewhere above. There were roses everywhere. And in the center of the space, curled up in a ball on a massive, slate gray throne was the figure of a man turned to stone. In his arms he was clutching something that glowed and pulsed with life. I didn't have to get closer to know what my father was holding.
It was the last xiaoshin egg.
"Shit," Hugh observed.
"Pact," I said. "And Price." The sand in my hourglass finally calmed as I slowly approached my father and the Earth egg. I wasn't happy to be right.
"Be careful," Hugh warned, though he must've known it was useless to keep scolding me.
"Hello?" I said, not sure how to best start a conversation. "Um, I don't know if you can hear me, or understand me… and I know you don't know me, but I'm your daughter, Hazel. Maeve Lariolle is my mother," I added, thinking that might help.
It was hard to tell if anything I said was heard at all. The turbulent energies within the mountain shifted slightly, so it was obvious that my presence did something, but it was hard to tell if my father was listening, or getting worried. The Earth egg reached out and brushed my fingertips with a single soft vine. It was trapped. The egg wanted me to set it free, but I didn't know how. I tried to pull on it a little, but the space between my father's arms was too small. It wouldn't fit though.
"It's stuck," I said.
"Then leave it," Hugh replied. "If you can't get it, no one else can either. It's as safe as it can possibly be in here. In the morning, we can try what we did with Piasa. Summon the Guardian of the West."
"No... I don't think so. I think I have to take possession of the egg in order to surrender it. And right now, it still isn't mine." I considered the room, and my eyes came to rest on my father again. I tightened my grip on his staff. I really couldn't carry it with only one hand. It was just too heavy. But if I raised it over my head, its own weight would make it powerful. Maybe powerful enough?
"Hazel?" Hugh gave me a worried look. I didn't have an answer for him, but it was suddenly very clear to me what I had to do.
"Do it," the vulture said.
The vulture was perched on top of my father's throne, and staring down at his motionless form as if it were waiting to pick the bones of the dead.
I stared at the vulture. It was the first I'd ever heard it speak.
"Hazel!" Hugh protested. I didn't hear him. I brought the staff down, right above the Earth egg. When it struck, it made a sound like a thunderclap. The stone arm clutching the egg crumbled, and then it began to bleed. The whole mountain quaked, but as if I was being controlled by puppet strings, I struck for the second time. More blood flowed from the wound I'd made in the stone. I was halfway through my father's arm. The Earth egg flailed madly, desperate to be free from my father. Or trying to escape from me smashing it, I couldn't tell which.
"Stop, Hazel! Stop!" Hugh said. "You need to stop now!"
I hesitated. "I… I don't think I want to do this," I said, preparing for a third strike. "But I have to."
"Why, so you can complete your Signing?" Hugh asked. "No, it's not worth it! If this mountain explodes into the Ways, you're going to kill everyone at the Pass! You said it yourself! If you pull this cork, what happens? At what Price, Hazel? At what Price!"
The vulture was gone from where I'd first seen it, and it had taken up a perch behind me. Its eyes, for a moment, looked human. It pecked at my father's enthroned corpse, not drawing blood, but making its purpose clear. I noticed that the vulture's left wing was bleeding, and the more it pecked at the stone, the more feathers fell from its own body.
It was part of my father? Like Kisrel's book?
My father had been with me since the beginning?
I realized that didn't mean he cared what happened to me at all. He obviously didn't care about either Miranda or James, and I wondered if he'd ever loved my mother half as much as she'd obviously loved him. Quite possibly, he was leading me toward my own destruction. All I knew was that I wasn't able to resist him, no matter how badly I wanted to.
I turned to Hugh, one last time. I didn't know if he'd heard the vulture speak, and I wasn't sure how to explain to him the hold it had over me.
"He's right, you know," the vulture said. "You shouldn't do this. You'll never be free if you do."
Though I was very afraid of Leviathan, and I still had reservations about Malcit, I'd also seen goodness and kindness in the Guardians. Sinnifer was absolutely committed to the Pact. So was Piasa. But was that because they needed it? All I knew was that I had only one choice to make, and that regardless of what I decided, that choice might cost me everything. I could die for something that I wasn't even sure was right.
"But you can be free, you know," the vulture said. "Don't want to be a pawn of the Guardians anymore? Can't say I blame you. Break the Pact. Destroy the egg."
That was not something I'd expected to hear. I froze. "Destroy it? But…"
All I could think was that the unborn xiaoshin had not done anything wrong.
I could break my father's arms. He probably deserved worse. But the egg began extending its green tendrils in all directions. They looked like delicate things, but they crumbled the rock around them as if they were made of expertly-spun spider silk. It didn't feel dangerous to me. It felt... scared.
No, I couldn't destroy the egg. It wasn't right.
"Hazel, look out!" Hugh shouted. A huge chunk of rock fell from overhead, and it would have crushed both of us if something hadn't stopped it in midair. I could feel the force of a powerful spell crackling in the air above my head.
I slowly turned. Cirat was holding the rock, though not with a Ward. It was some kind of Air Invocation, a devastating one.
I stumbled. There was nothing for me to trip over, but my legs suddenly wouldn't hold me up. I stared at Cirat, realizing that he was saving us by draining me. I dropped my father's staff. It hit the floor with a resounding clang.
Necromancy. He'd resorted to Necromancy?
"Get out of here! Cirat ordered. "The mountain is collapsing!"
"I can't!" I protested. "I can't even stand! You're taking all my strength!"
"Find more!" he ordered, grabbing me by the arm. His fingertips left marks of frost on my skin.
"Why are you doing this?" I wondered helplessly.
Cirat hadn't been willing to use Necromancy on the battlefield. It made no sense.
He didn't answer. The power Cirat was taking from me, I would've just thrown it to him, if he'd shouted for it. Or, he could've channeled himself some Air.
It occurred to me only too late that what Cirat was trying to do was not save me from being crushed by the mountain, but break the Old King's hold on me.
And it had worked.
The vulture flew at his face. It didn't hit him though. A rock dropped it to the floor.
It would've been dead, if it were a thing that could be killed.
Hugh didn't hesitate. He ripped the egg right out of the Old Kings' arms. Then he grabbed me, because I was too weak and stupid to act on my own, and drug me in his wake like a rag doll. The passageway collapsed behind us. I didn't see what happened to Cirat, but not a moment after we escaped the mountain, the whole thing obliterated itself from the inside out.
Half of the valley was swallowed into the gaping sinkhole, and if the Tessars hadn't all been behind the walls of Windward Pass, Hugh was right.
I would've killed everyone.
Cirat was surely dead. And maybe I hadn't released Menenan... but I felt in my gut that I had released a monster. Terrified as I was, I wanted Hugh to hold me and tell me everything was going to be all right, but he didn't. He stood several feet away from me, and stared down into the massive pit.
The Earth egg raised its tendrils to the rising sun. Like all the others, in the light it was staggeringly beautiful. Pistachio swept down from my shoulder and flew in a loop around the earth egg, making excited chirping noises. I didn't share his optimism.
I very slowly turned to Hugh.
"Why did you do that?" He demanded.
"I… I thought I had to get the egg. But then the vulture told me to destroy the egg. He told me to destroy the egg, and I have no idea why Cirat started draining me…"
"Cirat started draining you?" Hugh blinked in surprise.
"For his spell. To save us," I said. "But… there were at least a dozen other things he could've done! I don't understand! Why did he tell me to destroy the egg?"
Hugh did not have an answer for me.
In the long silence that followed, I started to form an answer for myself.
My father wanted his mountain destroyed. As long as the vulture had been following me, he surely knew I'd never shatter a xiaoshin egg. He'd told me to do it, not because he thought I would, but because he wanted me to freeze. And I had. I'd done nothing, except bash his door open and then stand there like an imbecile while his house fell to pieces all around me.
What made me feel like my stomach was full of lead was that I suspected the prison was one my father had earned, just as Malcit had, a prison I had no right to break
"Are you in control now?" Hugh asked.
"I… don't know," I admitted. My chain felt heavier than ever before. Pistachio perched on the earth egg as if it was some large, ripe, melon. For a brief moment, I could see the shape of the young xiaoshin swimming inside, playfully nipping at Pistachio's tail. A red rose began to bud and then blossom where I touched the egg. It reminded me of when I'd first seen Kefri. I still couldn't recognized how something so beautiful could simultaneously be so awful.
Hugh shook his head heavily, realizing I was more focused on the egg than what he was trying to tell me. As I picked up the egg, several of its leaves turned black and fell off.
I set the earth egg back down. New leaves began to bud.
Maybe I hadn't hurt it? Was it just the cold of being drained by Necromancy? I'd experienced that before, but it was worse somehow, feeling my life sapping away at the hands of someone I'd almost trusted.
Almost.
"I can't stay here. I have to go," I said.
"No, first you have to tell the Captains what happened," Hugh said. "Which is what you should've done in the first place! Instead of following that vulture!"
"It won't matter what I tell them. They can't help me. No one can help me!" I said. "The Guardians need this all to happen and they are just going to take and take and take until I have absolutely nothing left! And I let them put this Chain on me!"
"Hazel! Stop!" Hugh shouted back. He'd been angry at me from moment we'd set foot inside the mountain, but not as angry as he was then, and for a moment I was actually afraid. "I know how this seems, but you're not the Price, Hazel! You can't be the Price!"
"And how would you know? Leviathan has never given one of his Seekers their Price," I said.
Hugh twitched. He'd never told me that before. But... he knew. He'd known all along. Was that why he'd a;ways been kind to me? Because my Chain was as endless as his was?
I didn't even take the Earth egg. I just started crying and ran away from him.
Captain Orna did not miss the mountain falling. She arrived on the back of a griffon before I reached the edge of the forest, and cut me off. The other Captains arrived right after her on horseback, and more Tessars than I could count were following them. I didn't see my brothers, and I was glad for that. They'd know what I'd done, sooner or later, but I couldn't bear the thought of how disappointed Allen would be. He'd warned me, and I'd ignored him.
Christie landed in front of me. "Well now," she said. "I thought better of ye. An' Piggy. Fools, both o' ye."
There was nothing I could say. Christie obviously knew that Cirat had gone after me, and that he'd been too exhausted and mentally broken to make any sort of sensible decision. She didn't ask me where he was, but she stared for a long while at the rubble. Despite the fact that Cirat had declared they weren't friends, it was obvious that Christie did not consider my life an appropriate trade for his. I didn't feel like I was worth it either.
The Captains were all silent for a long while.
"I'm disappointed in you, Hazel. Now, you're not the first one our father has sunk his claws into," Captain Orna said. "He did the same to Miranda, and he tried for your brother years ago. Allen was able to resist him. Miranda never could. Yes, the odds were well-stacked against you. The trouble is your actions have now endangered the Armies of the North and West. You disobeyed the direct orders of at least three of your superiors and lied to your friends and family. Which means you're done here. Pack and go. Tonight."
"Take that egg to the West. To the Mother," Christie said. "Go alone."
"Captain!" Hugh protested. I didn't know when he'd arrived, but it was soon enough to hear Christie's order. It was obvious that none of the Tessars would question Christie's decision. "Captain, you can't send her alone!"
Captain Orna turned to him, a very cold expression on her face. "Hugh, if she must be stopped, are you going to stop her?"
Hugh's face fell. He didn't answer. He knew he should've said "yes", but he didn't want to lie, and I was a little glad for that. Captain Orna had just asked him if he was willing to kill me.
"Get gone, all o' ye'! Tis done!" Christie snapped, her hand on the hilt of her sword. Everyone within her reach immediately scattered. Even Captain Orna retreated.
"They're right. I... don't want you to have to," I said.
Hugh still did not respond. He looked weaker than I'd ever imagined he could be.
Eyes watched me as I left, though everyone seemed afraid to be caught staring. When the last faint glow of torches and campfires vanished into the swirling snow behind me, I realized I was not alone. The vulture circled over my head.
"Leave me!" I told my father. "Go away! I'm not going to destroy the Pact for you!"
"I never wanted you to destroy the Pact. You ain't stupid," he whispered, sounding very much like a Tessar. "I needed you to hesitate. Which you did. And you can say whatever you like, but you don't want to be alone. You asked to speak to me. In the beginning, when you dropped your blood into the Ways. You specifically requested it."
That last bit made him sound more like a wizard than a Tessar. He stared at the Earth egg.
"Well, I know things now that I didn't know then," I replied. "This conversation is over."
"No, you don't get to decide that," he scoffed at me. "Ways have been bent for you, and that weren't ol' Leviathan's doing. You've caught the eye of somethin' even greater and more awful, and you an' me both are wrapped in this together now, whether you like it or not. You must earn your Price, and you won't do that by being soft! You're gonna have to eat the bark you've clawed off trees, and don't bother wasting your money on no boots. Everything, everything is a test! And that test only goes two ways. You either swim, or you sink, an' air you will not need, if you know what that means. This is just the start. You're gonna burn an awful lot of bridges. You won't have a choice. Your Price must come first. You have to want it more than anything."
That was a very Seeker thing to say, and I remembered that the Old King had also been a Seeker, before he was either a Tessar or a wizard. He was the very first Seeker, and beholden to Leviathan just as I once was myself.
"Right. You want the House of Wells restored? Well, you're free now! Do it yourself," I said.
He snorted. "Hazel, I don't give two shits about who rules the East or any other part of the world. But those muckety-mucks are sitting on their asses and choosing to ignore something they ought to be mindin'. The War's too far north. It's been there too long, Ellie's done too good of a job. It's gotten too easy to ignore. The War must go East. It needs to cost."
"You want the War to get worse?" I demanded. "How does that help anyone?"
"Consequences move those who must be moved," he replied. "You obviously ain't never been a king. Take the egg to the Watchtower of the West. Finish what you can of your Signing."
"Does the Guardian want this egg?" I asked. "Or does she want to destroy it like Leviathan wants to destroy his?"
"I don't know," he replied. "Seemed... safer not to find out. But now that you're taking point, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next."
"I can't believe you used me like this!" I snapped. "Ma was right to leave you!"
It was the very worst thing I could think to say, and I meant it. I felt it in my bones.
My father was more than just a terrible king. He was a monster.
"Child, you are talkin' out your ass about things you do not understand," he snapped at me, sounding very Tessar again. "A Chain is a noose around your neck, Hazel. The more you fight it, the more it will hurt you," he said. "I know. And before you decide to be all noble and let yourself dangle, you ought to consider that if you refuse to do what must be done, the Guardians will find someone else, and they will make them do it. A child, probably. Someone who'll say yes before they ask why. Think on that one a bit."
I hated that he was not wrong.
The vulture landed on my shoulder. I plodded stubbornly forward with that monstrous bird digging his claws into my skin. My father didn't speak. He didn't tease. But he remained, and I couldn't find the strength to be rid of him.
FOOTNOTES:
41. I realized when he said "Ellie" that he meant Captain Valenor Orna. Her real name is Eleanor Wells. Nobody calls her "Eleanor", except for James and Duchess Neris. Her friends call her "Vel", and everyone else calls her "Captain". I cannot imagine that she would appreciate being called "Ellie", but it is also obvious to me that my father does not care what anyone thinks.
The Story Will Continue in Book 4 - Rebel