Antiphon

family as they scurried along the upper and lower docks, moving the last of their lives back onto the ships.

Six months and so little to show for it. Yet, even as he said it, his heart felt full. These last nights, rowing out to where the ghost awaited, had added something indefinable to him-something he’d lived without for too long. The compulsion of it was frightening, especially given that this love he felt was for a twisting, writhing mass of tentacled light. Not for the first time, he wondered if perhaps something had happened to him those moments when he first encountered the d’jin, so fresh from his time beneath Ria’s knife, with his hands upon the throat of his first grandson.

He sighed and worked the oars, his shoulders creaking with his increased activity of late.

They’d found nothing here, but there were sure to be clues elsewhere.

After all, there had been those ships. And unfamiliar, dark-robed men. And now, though his heart drew him to sea for other purposes, his brain saw clearly that whoever was out there was not coming back to this place. And despite the strange feelings that now pulled him, relentless as a tide, Vlad knew that discovering the nationality of those ships and those men meant discovering the true hands behind the fall of Windwir.

And behind the surgery that cut my family from the world.

It wasn’t that these new sensations trumped that loss-or even mitigated it. No, the loss was there, and if his soul went to it he could feel the hollow ache, like a tongue to the socket of a lost tooth.

He slowed his rowing and watched the sun lift up from the ocean.

Then, he looked back over his shoulder to the docks, adjusting his pull on the oars to line up with where Baryk stood waiting.

As he slid alongside, the old warpriest grabbed the rope Vlad tossed and tied the small boat off. “We’ll be ready to sail in two hours,” he said. His brow furrowed. “Is it still called ‘sailing’ when there are no sails involved?”

Vlad shrugged and stood carefully, grasping the edge of the dock as he climbed out of the boat. “How are spirits?”

“Fine. Nervous. Excited.” Baryk’s chuckle was more of a bark. “Should I ask you that question?”

He’d told the warpriest about the ghost, uncomfortable with the telling but even less comfortable with leading his family off to follow such a flight of fancy without speaking to someone first. Someone he trusted; someone who would not think him utterly mad. And Baryk was a metaphysick, though moderate in his beliefs. The city-state he hailed from-Paltos-was one of few in the Named Lands that not only allowed but encouraged a religious system, the people worshiping a loose pantheon of the more benevolent Younger Gods. When the Androfrancines had been in power, they’d avoided that corner of the Outer Emerald Coast and had encouraged others to do the same.

“We know their ghosts are in the waters,” Baryk had said. “I’ve not seen them myself, but I’ve heard the sailors tell of it. Your own daughter is named for them.” Then he’d offered a reassuring smile. “Who am I-and who is anyone else-to question what you’ve seen or experienced?”

Vlad had been comforted by the man’s response.

Now, he returned the chuckle. “It was a good night. But she was restless. I think she’s eager to leave.”

She. How did he know this? He blinked at his own words and bit his lower lip. He did know it. And not for the first time, he realized there were many ways of knowing a thing. He stood and stretched on the dock.

Baryk studied him. “You know that some of the older children are whispering about this. They know something is afoot. They’ve watched you watching the sea, and now these midnight rowings.”

Vlad nodded. He did know this and he’d expected it. “Let them whisper. They will still follow.”

“Aye,” Baryk said, “they will, though they may quietly think you mad.”

I think myself mad. But he didn’t say it. He held that in and turned it over and over like a Rufello puzzle. It was possible-even likely-that he saw nothing at all there in the sea. Perhaps something had broken in him during his time of captivity and kin-healing. Perhaps he’d concocted a beautiful singing spirit to pull him away from his pain and into the deep waters where he could find some kind of peace. Perhaps he was in love now with the notion of forgetting beneath the waves. Regardless, he knew the power of perception, and if somehow he was wrong in what he saw and experienced, that would work its way out as he pursued it. He vaguely recalled a Francine arch-behaviorist who’d written a slender volume on the subject of hallucination as a means of the psyche healing itself.

“What they think,” Vlad Li Tam said, summoning firmness to his voice, “is what they think. We leave as soon as the ships are loaded.”

Baryk nodded. “I’ve seen to your things. They’re in your cabin on the flagship.”

Vlad forced a smile. “Thank you, Baryk. I’ll be in the temple until we leave.”

Baryk clapped Vlad on the shoulder. “I’ll see to the ships.”

Vlad left his son-in-law and climbed the stairs slowly, inclining his head to those members of his family who passed him. He reached the top of the low bluff and climbed the marble steps up into the white building.

Once inside, he made his way to the top of the building, entering the large domed observation room on the fourth floor.

He walked to the railing and looked down, expecting vertigo and a memory of screams to overtake him and drive him to his knees.

Neither happened.

Vlad Li Tam stood still and listened. Outside, he heard the first whistles of those ships that were loaded and ready to depart.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly to the ghosts of his family.

Then he stood silent and listened for absolution in the stillness of the room. He waited, not even able to find his tears, until Baryk’s runner found him and told him that the last longboat awaited him.

Then Vlad Li Tam turned his back upon those ghosts and gave himself to the chasing of another.

Winters

In the first days following the explosion at the library, the city of Rachyle’s Rest was awash with panic, and Winters did her best to stay out of the way and help where she could.

Most of that help was filling in for Isaak to keep the work of the library moving forward while at the same time launching repairs.

Charles had hidden himself away with the broken mechoservitors, rarely leaving his workshop. The metal men that remained were already doing what they could to replace the volumes lost in that brief blaze, and fresh crews of refugee laborers had already cleared the rubble and begun repairs to the damaged wing.

Of course, it did not surprise Winters at all that even as they worked, the skies above the Ninefold Forest broke open and the first of the rains began to fall.

And it also did not surprise her that her first summons to the Seventh Forest Manor after the blast came in the midst of that first deluge. Careful of the gathering puddles of water and the mud sucking at her boots, Winters ran through the downpour in the gray of midmorning.

As she ran, she watched the city around her. Soldiers from the local brigade of the Wandering Army stood at key locations or patrolled the streets. And as she approached the manor, she saw a half-squad of scouts administering their powders, fading into the wash of water as they raced for the woods. They were running the forest day and night now, she knew, enforcing Rudolfo’s new edict and looking for any clues as to who caused the explosion.

The rainfall lightened as Winters approached the gates to the manor, and she nodded to the guards as she passed. The massive house loomed ahead, rising above the rooftops of the city. Five minutes later, she was barefoot, dripping wet and standing outside the door of Rudolfo’s study, catching what water she could with a rough cotton towel.

The Gypsy Scout at the door ushered her in.

Rudolfo and Jin Li Tam waited in the sitting area with Aedric. Between them, a pitcher of wine and a platter of cheeses sat untouched. They stood as she entered, and Rudolfo gestured to an empty armchair near the fire.

She shook her head. “I’m soaked,” she said. “I’d better stand.”