Harbinger

FOURTEEN A Waking Dream

The Emperor had come in his airships and nothing was the same. Eriloyn stood in the shadow of the building where he had once apprenticed a blacksmith. The roof, along with the blacksmith, had been destroyed the day of the attack. Coincidentally, that had also been the last time Eriloyn had seen food.

He’d always been a tall, strong boy, but since the destruction of Waikein he’d been whittled away to painful thinness. His stomach had ceased to bother him, but his brain had been enveloped in a fog that was just as dangerous. In this state, he knew he could easily make mistakes, but he was desperate. Only the day before he’d been drinking from a dirty puddle of water in the street, mad for some kind of moisture, and had nearly been run over by a carriage.

Some small instinct of self-preservation had jerked him back out of the way, and the dark shape had rattled and bounced past him. He’d only caught a glimpse of the crest on the door; the mayor of Waikein’s pair of crows holding a massive yellow wedge of cheese. It seemed cruel with the current state of affairs.

Even now, Eriloyn’s mouth watered at the recollection, his tongue circling around the cavity that felt as dry as wool. The image of his mother knitting by the fire drifted up from his memory, and along with it the recollection of the warm milk and honey bread she brought to him when he was ill. It was a cruel jab from his own treacherous brain, because it drove his stomach, which had been silent for so long, into a knot of wrenching hunger. That was why he had followed the carriage and now stood huddled in the gently falling rain, looking toward the town hall across the square. The mayor had to have food.

The boy glanced up and down the street, searching for any movement, human or otherwise. Nothing stirred—as it had not for days. The terror of the geists had sent many running for the hills, while others had taken their own lives or fallen into madness from it all. Those that remained kept themselves hidden—which was the sensible thing to do.

Except now that the wind changed, Eriloyn’s senses brought another terrible blow. It was the smell of baking. It pierced the boy through and made any sensible thoughts impossible. The primitive needs of the body overrode anything else.

Wrapping his arms around his middle, the boy darted across the road, borne aloft by the tempting smell that promised food of unparalleled delight, scuttling from spot to spot like a rat that dared not be caught in the light. His first sanctuary was an overturned cart near the edge of the town square. It was not a food stall, but rather a toy display. Broken wooden dolls lay scattered about where citizens had trodden on them in their mad dash to escape some horror.

The second refuge he scampered to was the remains of a carriage. Once it must have been very grand, because the cerulean paint on the side was a sign of nobility—his mother had taught him that much. The boy dared a peek inside, and had the ravages of the geists not already beaten him into a wreck he would have screamed. The perfectly preserved head of a woman was turned to him from her seat within the carriage. Whatever geist had come upon these travelers had turned their flesh to the consistency of jerked meat. The shriveled eyeballs of the woman seemed to regard Eriloyn with disdain.

If it had been only a few weeks earlier, he would have lurched back screaming for his mother, but in the decimated and unrecognizable town that his home had become, he’d learned to control such instincts. His hands clutched the edge of the carriage, but he stayed where he was, pulling his gaze from the woman and toward the town hall. The smell of warm bread baking thrust itself into his nostrils and made all other thought impossible.

Abandoning all attempts at covert approach, Eriloyn leapt up and sprinted for the door of the Council building, the smell of bread luring him on, as if he were a hungry trout and there was a hook jammed in his snout. The huge oak doors of the building loomed over him but were slightly ajar. Eriloyn looked over his shoulder, but the street was silent.

The town had not been silent for a long time: screams, wails and people begging for their lives. He’d prayed for silence during those horrible days, and yet, now it was here, he was terrified by it. He turned and slipped into the building.

As a young boy, Eriloyn had gone with his father to pay his taxes in this building. It had seemed huge and beautiful back then: high oak beams, blazing fires, and people bustling around on important matters. Now only the oak beams remained. Chairs were overturned, books ripped from the shelves, and the remains of the fire from the great hearth scattered everywhere.

Eriloyn walked on haltingly, feeling his breath choking in his throat, and his heart beating in his ears. As terrified as he was, the hunger was greater.

He stumbled and staggered through the broken room, down hallways smeared with blood and other terrible things. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could hear voices; and not the voices he’d been used to in recent weeks. These were not screams; they were of genuine laughter . . . maybe even children like him.

Eriloyn’s feet began to quicken all by themselves. He slipped and slid down the stairs of the hall into the lower floors. Now the smell of fresh baking was overwhelming, and already in his mind’s eye he could see other orphans playing, both hands full of warm bread.

The tread of a stair broke under his foot, trapping his leg for a moment. With a sob Eriloyn tore it free. The pain of the wood ripping into his flesh was a distant thing to the hunger. He was almost passing out from both of these by the time he made it down to where the kitchens of the town hall were. It had once produced bread for the poor and the needy, now surely it was doing it again.

For a moment the boy was confused. He stood there in the wreck of the kitchen, blood pouring down his leg, stomach cramped with hunger, and looked at the broken crockery lying on the floor. Everything was turned over and rotten. The hearth itself was snapped in two, the great stone smashed as if by an iron fist.

“Quite the sight isn’t it,” a voice hissed behind him.

Eriloyn spun about, but he couldn’t see anyone there—only the shadows in doorways he was too terrified to enter. His skin was crawling, and the darkness was now creeping into the edges of his vision. Fingers were creeping over his skin, and he couldn’t find the strength to rip himself away from them. Terror that he had been fighting off for weeks flooded over him, like an ice-cold tide that he could no longer hold back.

“Give in. Give up. It’s all right to surrender,” the voice at his back whispered into his ear. “You’re tired. Rest for a while.”

It made complete sense to do so. He’d been running and terrified for a very long time, so he listened to the voice and fell into its cold embrace.

For the longest time that was all there was, but Eriloyn could not hide in unknowingness for long. Slowly, his eyelids fluttered open. He hurt everywhere, but his leg ached worst of all. Suddenly the need for food was not as important as he had thought it was. Survival now loomed large.

All of this flashed through the boy’s mind even before he took in his surroundings. He’d made a promise to his dad to survive, and he had to keep that promise. So slowly he levered himself upright, feeling the grind of hard metal and straw under his palms. He looked straight into the eyes of a girl. She couldn’t have been any older than he was, and she had long matted dark hair, blue eyes and a massive bruise that covered half of her face. Her gaze, when it locked with his, was empty, though, as if the light had been snuffed out behind them.

Eriloyn would have smiled in normal circumstances, but here and now he merely nodded. Looking down, something caught his eye, a gleam of metal. Shackles. He and the girl were shackled together by the ankles. Tilting his head, the boy saw that they were not alone; other children, silent and huddled, ran in a line behind the girl. They were in the basement, and there was no longer any smell of bread in the air; there was only the odor of frightened children.

Eriloyn pushed his hair out of his eyes and tugged on the chain. It was pointless, he knew that, but he had to try.

“Don’t bother,” the girl whispered to him, her voice hoarse. “He’ll be here soon enough. You’re the last they needed.”

A little voice in Eriloyn’s head was screaming in horror, but somehow he stuffed it down with a hard swallow. He turned his head and saw that night had come on while he’d been wrapped in unconsciousness. The night was the worst. Something about the darkness gave the geists bravery.

While that thought possessed him, a very real man made an appearance. Unlike those men left in Waikein, he appeared well fed, well cared for, and with not an ounce of pity for the children. They began to sob, but quietly, as the man unhitched the chain from the wall and began to lead them away.

Eriloyn however would not go quietly—not with his father’s last words ringing in his head. Promise me . . . survive.

As the man wordlessly swung away to tug the captors upstairs, the boy dashed forward, throwing himself at the stocky man’s legs. He was young, small and poorly fed, so the adult swung at him, knocking him down as if he were nothing more than a fly. The tunnel seemed to spin, but Eriloyn felt the nameless girl’s hands on his shoulders, guiding and holding him up.

“It’ll be over soon,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.” Her damp hand clutched onto his. It seemed to be her mantra.

Eriloyn tried to clear his head, struggling to hold himself up. The town hall flashed past him in a series of blurry images. The chain between the children dragged them onward.

Now they were outside. Night was about the city, but there were lights. By the time Eriloyn came back to himself, their captor had reattached their chain to one on the side of the town hall.

They were not alone. Eriloyn swallowed hard. He had not seen so many citizens of Waikein since before the geists came, and now they were all here. It should have gladdened his heart that so many of his living fellows were in one place, instead it only filled him with an abiding dread.

Once he pulled his gaze away from the assembly, it traveled naturally to the man that stood before them. He knew him, though he had seldom seen him this close. It was the mayor of Waikein. A tall man, still well dressed despite the situation, his red and silver hair immaculately styled as if barbers had somehow survived the chaos. The mayor stood on a raised platform, and from where he stood Eriloyn could see that he was smiling. However, it was not a smile that would soothe any fears. When he pulled back his lips, he revealed rows of sharp, pointed teeth—as if they had been filed to a predatory gleam.

The girl holding his hand squeezed it once more, her empty eyes following the mayor as he waved at the crowd. Eriloyn tugged at the chain, but it was tight and strong.

“Survivors of Waikein”—the mayor’s voice carried over the heads of the citizens and echoed off the hollow buildings that surrounded the square—“I am here to offer you salvation, and a way to keep yourselves alive.”

Eriloyn tilted his head; there was something strange about the air around the man’s head. It was bending slightly, and there was an odd smell coming off him, something sharp that hurt his nostrils.

“Do you smell that?” he whispered to the nameless girl, but she shook her head.

The odor overwhelmed him, and the boy gagged on it, not understanding how she could be so lost to the world as to not be affected by it.

No one else in the town square seemed able to smell it either, because they were actually drawing closer to the mayor as he spoke. Could they not see his teeth?

“We have to live with the geists now.” His voice was soothing and sounded reasonable. “The Order is all gone, and we must make our own way. All the undead want is small sacrifices, little offerings, and they will let us live in peace.”

Again Eriloyn knew that only a few weeks earlier would have made a world of difference; everyone knew that you didn’t make deals with geists. They always turned on the humans eventually—it was written in every legend and myth ever spoken to a child anywhere. Yet, these were people who had seen their loved ones ripped from them, who had lived in abject fear for weeks, and so were willing to reach out for any tiny sliver of hope.

When the mayor turned to look at the line of children ranked behind him, Eriloyn was not surprised to see that he had a long knife in his hands, and a weirstone gleaming in his fist. Blood magic and the gleaming orbs went together like snow and winter.

“Small sacrifices, that will take but an instant,” the mayor said. “If anyone objects, speak up now.”

He wanted their complicity—he needed it—Eriloyn realized. Gleaming in the mayor’s jovial eye was something undead, and it required something from the people assembled. The boy’s stomach twisted, and he bent over for a moment; fearful that he was going to throw up whatever little remained in his stomach. When he finally regained control, he stood up tall, and looked not at the mayor who was approaching, but at the girl who still held his hand.

“What is your name?” He whispered the question to her, suddenly consumed by the need to hear it, even as he was aware of death’s approach.

Deep down, there was a small spark in her. She hesitated only a moment. “Aloisa,” she replied, a tiny smile on her mouth.

The mayor’s shadow now blocked out the tiny lights that the people held—the people who were silently watching events unfold. No sound or protestations came from them.

Then, just as the mayor was coming into striking distance, a voice did rise from among the crowd. It was none that was familiar to Eriloyn, though he did recognize that it was a woman’s voice. Somehow it carried and caused even the mayor to pause. “You will want to be moving slowly, and carefully away from those children.”

From his vantage, the boy saw the thing behind the eyes of the man flicker. Was it possible it was recognition, or could it be panic? Everyone in the crowd strained this way and that to find who had spoken.

The children in the chained line shifted. Little sighs and sobs escaped them. Eriloyn shook his head, blinking; he could swear that the air around the crowd was moving to a strange pinkish hue. The boy wondered if fear was driving him mad.

These worrying thoughts were set aside however when she stepped out of the crowd. The boy found himself stumbling toward her but was caught up short by his restraints.

It was hard for him to see any details of this woman. All he could make out was that she was not particularly tall and was wearing a plain black cloak. It was what his wavering eyes saw, though, that brought him almost to his knees. Whatever madness it was that had wrapped him up, he saw other things about her; silver threads swarmed around her, and they twisted themselves into patterns his eye could not follow.

Yet, unlike the smells and visions he saw around the mayor, these did not fill him with fear. Instead, something like hope welled up in his chest.

The mayor took a step back—so perhaps he did see what Eriloyn did. If that was true, he was a great deal less heartened by it. Still the darkness within him drove him on.

“You are but one,” he hissed.

“You do not see so well, geist,” the woman said calmly. “I am not alone. I am one of many, and many more to come. We will be the Enlightened who stand against you. I am merely the Harbinger of those to come.”

Her words struck Eriloyn hard, and he looked around at those that filled the town square. They knew it too. They all did. This moment was important.

“Harbinger?” The mayor’s face turned in on itself, revealing the undead thing beneath. A maw of teeth and coiled hatred wiped away any illusion of humanity. “I see what you are; a weapon left lying to rust. They should never have tried to make such an—”

“An abomination?” The woman unhooked the clasp of her cloak and let it slide from her shoulders to the ground. Beneath she wore a simple pair of trousers, a thin sleeveless linen shirt and a wide leather belt. The light of the torches flared brighter, and they all saw what was carved on her arms. She laughed at the geist who wore the mayor like an overlarge robe. “A weapon may be created for one purpose, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be reforged into another.”

Effortlessly, she raised both her hands and they flared to light; one was clenched on a shimmering globe of green energy, while the other ran with scarlet flames that danced up and down her outstretched hand.

Eriloyn had not seen the Runes of Dominion for a long time—not since he was still a tiny child, clinging to his mother’s skirts—but they were his first real memory. Something had happened in his father’s barn, and Deacons had been fetched. He could not recall the faces of those who had come, but the recollection of the silvery blue fire they had summoned was as clear as the day he’d seen it.

Now, here was a woman standing in his ruined city, facing the undead calmly, while the runes burned on her actual skin. This moment was not one he would ever forget either.

His gaze traveled over the crowd, and now he could pick out others among the citizens; all wore simple black cloaks, and stood completely still in the sea of confusion. They were like rocks dropped into a churning stream and that made Eriloyn smile—though he did not understand why this woman called herself a Harbinger and not a Deacon.

The mayor moved toward her and even his footsteps were no longer human. His gait was twisted and awkward as he neared her. The citizens of the city shrank back from him, so that the cloaked figures in their midst were revealed, as when the river dried up, making plain the rocks within it.

The mayor’s head swung from side to side, and an ugly laugh welled up in him. “Is that all you bring, Harbinger?” His voice cut sharply on the title she’d given herself. “This is our city now, and even if you should drive me from this world, you will never triumph over the many to come.”

Eriloyn’s heart began to race and that dreaded fear trickled over his skin once more. Even as other cloaked figures appeared out of the crowd and ran to free the line of chained children, he strained his head left and right to see what would happen next. His eyes were fixed as completely to the Harbinger as any rivet his father had ever secured.

“So many?” The woman said with a note of sadness in her voice. She shook her head. “Yes, there had been so many of your kind unleashed here; so many folk who have been twisted by the undead and made into geists themselves. I can see them, feel them. More than that.” She raised her hands, still burning with red fire, and now Eriloyn gasped.

Even as kindly hands undid the restraints on his injured ankle, he was entranced by what he saw. From all over the city they came; chill winds, spinning shapes of the undead, and lost souls still crying for their lives. They gathered in the town square, just as the rest of the citizens had, but bound together. In short order the air above the Harbinger looked like a shimmering spiderweb of geists. They darted about, and while Eriloyn was sure the survivors of Waikein could not see what he was seeing—else they would have fled in horror—they did appear to feel the presence. Some people shivered and clasped their coats and cloaks tighter, while an odd few bent over double, afflicted by nausea at the undeads’ presence.

The mayor made a choking noise, dropped to his knees, and then to his elbows. Some kind of war seemed to be raging inside him, because he crawled forward, howling, and twisting—it was as if he were being dragged like a mad dog by some unseen leash.

The Harbinger did not take any notice of any of these things. She was the calm center of this mad storm. However, when she spoke, her voice was heard all over the square. “I see you all—every one of you. I draw you together. You belong to me.”

Eriloyn knew immediately she was talking about the strange, undead shapes wheeling above the humans. However, at the same time, the cloaked figures also came together behind the Harbinger and shed their cloaks.

All of them wore their runes directly on their skin as she did. As one their hands clenched around the flames and claimed the eerie green glow. The light was so bright it eclipsed any meager lanterns that the citizens of Waikein had with them.

The mayor howled, and his cry was echoed by the wind that whipped around the town square. The Enlightened—since that was what she had called them—raised their hands wreathed in the green, and it flowed out of them. It encompassed everything from air to cobbles.

Eriloyn felt it wash over him and pass by. The mayor however was not left alone. To the boy’s ears it sounded as though something was being ripped free of him. The Enlightened seemed to straighten taller and, from his point of view, grow stronger as the light whipped around the square, turning back to them.

The mayor sagged, almost falling to the cobblestones that he was crawling on. Briefly, he managed to lever himself upright. His mouth worked on words that he would never say, because the other arm of the Harbinger came down, and this time the flame did not stay on her own flesh.

Eriloyn did not look away as the mayor and the undead creature within him was consumed by flame. He made sure to take in the sound of flesh and clothing burning and inhaled the odor. He wanted to remember this.

Around the Harbinger, the other Enlightened raised their hands into the air, and fire arched up into the sky. Some of the citizens looked away in fear, but many—if not most—watched the display of power above them.

It kindled hope in Eriloyn and a sort of grim determination that survivors all shared. It shall not happen here again.

Aloisa stood at his side, and her eyes were haunted but no longer empty. Long streaks of tears flowed from them, leaving paths in the dirt on her face.

As the Enlightened fanned out through the crowd, moving to help the injured, and comfort the grief stricken, Eriloyn found himself staring at a figure just behind the Harbinger herself.

The man’s eyes were locked with the boy’s, in a kind of shock. He was a tall man with dark curly hair and wide brown eyes. Something hung around his shoulders, a stain of power in the ether that might not have been as noticeable as around the Harbinger, but it still drew him.

In the ether? The boy shook his head. What did that mean?

The Harbinger was speaking to the crowd, but it was no longer she that was important—it was the man and those eyes that saw too much.

Then the world was spinning, and Eriloyn was wrenched away.

Merrick took a staggering step back and found he was staring at the boy with the haunted eyes; the one that he’d ridden in the head of. The runes that he had summoned had drawn him here, to this boy at the very edge of death. He’d been locked in the boy’s head for a week, so that they all might be drawn to the correct place and time. The rune Sielu had shown him this for a reason, brought him here for this moment. It was indeed the perfect place and time for Sorcha to reveal her plan.

Eriloyn had provided the information on the city the Deacons needed.

Such an experience was one he would never forget. Merrick had never before considered how the geists would look to everyday folk, or indeed how the Order would. Now he knew. They were hope and salvation.

He looked at his partner’s back, tall and straight before him, and knew she had done what she set out to. She was now the head of the Order that she’d given a new name: the Enlightened. The city of Waikein would be remembered for this moment—if any of them survived the coming destruction that was.

The future and his vision had melded and caught up with each other. He wondered what else lay ahead and what the Wrayth power Sorcha had just unleashed could mean. Even he could not see that. They could only go forward as bravely as the boy had.