A dark cloud passed behind his eyes as he thought of his own father and another legacy. Last year, he’d closed down Tormentor’s Row and disbanded his Physicians of Penitent Torture. At the time, he’d intended more, but it had been enough. Now, after seeing the graves of House Li Tam and the stained cutting tables, after touching the warm pipes of the Blood Temple, he’d known that he could not let that last vestige of his forefathers’ darker ways continue.
Especially for the children who would now make their home with him.
Earlier that day, he’d met with Vlad Li Tam; he’d heard the man’s concerns and listened to his request. It had been surprisingly easy, and in the end he’d agreed to fund his work. That request had not surprised him, but the one regarding the children had.
I am a collector of orphans. The children, now scarred with the mark of House Y’Zir, would make their home in the Ninefold Forest, and it would not do to have any structure there that might remind them of their captivity. So after that meeting, Rudolfo had called his birder and sent orders home. Not one stone to stand upon the other, and no cutter’s knife unmelted and reforged into something that could cause no harm.
Tormentor’s Row would be torn down and its stones built into the library. Perhaps into a wing named for his father.
Of course, there were his other orphans.
He’d not recognized Winters when he’d taken Jakob from her. All that dirt and grime had hidden a pretty girl on the edge of womanhood. She would join them now and wait for his other orphan, Neb, to come back to her from the Churning Wastes.
And there was Isaak. If this place wouldn’t break his metal heart, Rudolfo would wish him here now to hear him talk about the library they built and the light they saved.
Rudolfo heard a low whistle behind him and knew it at once. He turned and saw Jin Li Tam approaching. The wind whipped up, catching the light powdering of snow that had not frozen yet. It swirled around her feet.
“How is he?” she asked, stepping close to them.
“He’s sleeping, I think,” Rudolfo said. He passed his son into her waiting arms and noticed the depth of her sigh once she held him to herself.
They turned, and Rudolfo suddenly realized where they stood. The snow-covered mounds, the view of the hills to the east and the south. He took a few steps forward and stood at the edge of an impact crater, listening to the ghosts that whispered to him there.
Jin Li Tam walked to the edge and stood beside him, looking out. “This is where the Great Library stood,” she said.
He nodded. “It is where we found Isaak.” He paused, turning the more painful memory over in his mind. “It’s also where I brought Gregoric the night he died.”
He remembered what the Francis said about one loss connecting to another, and he knew it was true. He could lay his finger upon the thread of Hanric’s loss and follow it back to Gregoric’s. From Gregoric’s, he wove his way back-through the Desolation of Windwir, an unfathomable chasm of loss-to his father’s and his mother’s, and to the older twin who would have inherited the Ninefold Forest if someone had not moved that river.
I could have killed the man responsible and instead I saved him.
And yet it did not unsettle him. It was the right path, and he could not question it. And truly, though he despised the pain of it, he knew that his father-in-law’s actions had also brought as much life as they had death.
In the shadow of desolation, he had found a formidable wife; and in the middle of his road, he now had a son that he could raise up to be a strong and fair king.
He looked to them and noticed the knives she wore. He chuckled and brushed the hilt of one with his thumb. “I see you’ve found these.”
She looked down and blushed. “I did. They were in your desk. I. I liked the way they felt in my hands.”
He smiled. “They were my mother’s,” he said. “My father had them made for her as a wedding gift. I intended to have them polished and sharpened for you.”
“Knives as a wedding gift?” she asked.
Rudolfo shrugged. “They are fine blades.”
She laughed and leaned close to him. He slipped an arm around her. “I can think of better gifts,” she said. “But they are indeed fine blades.”
They stood silent, then, watching the night around them. In the morning, they would strike camp and make their way home ahead of the winter’s last snow before spring. When he returned, Rudolfo knew that a desk buried in paper awaited him. There were refugees to help acclimate. And the library construction would be gearing up with the promise of spring. Soon, the sun would be out and the bookmakers’ tents would be filled with mechoservitors as they wrote their books and filled the basements with volume upon volume in a river that threatened flood. Added to that, there was the threat that grew to their north and west with the advent of the Machtvolk and the dark gospel they preached-and the trouble he now smelled to the south in Pylos and Turam.
And what of this Crimson Empress?
There was enough work ahead to keep him up nights in his den wandering a Whymer Maze of paper. He would gradually grow accustomed again to the feel of a desk and a chair beneath him instead of a horse or a ship. And of a warm, shared bed instead of a solitary cot.
And mixed in with the work, there would also be a Gypsy wedding to plan and a child to show his Ninefold Forest Houses so that his people could meet the next Gypsy King.
He would keep living despite the dead he buried. He would love his wife and his son, and he would spend himself for the light he’d gained from his time in darkness.
Even in Desolation, Rudolfo thought, life asserts itself.
Unbidden, the song from earlier found his lips and he began to sing it. Jin Li Tam looked to him, her eyes wide to see him sing, and he could not blame her. The last time he’d sung had been the Firstborn Feast when she’d been abed with their child. And the time before that? It was so far back that Rudolfo could not remember.
But he sang now, and the strains of it echoed out into the night.
In the distance, a wolf howled.
And above them, the full moon watched and lent them its watery light.
The Watcher laid down his pen, pushed back his unfinished gospel, and walked to the mouth of the cave.
Sunlight called him forth and he followed it, drawing a long silver flute from the folds of his robe.
Holding it to his mouth and placing fingers just so, he forced air into it and called the kin-raven to himself as he’d called so many other birds before.
He waited for the dark messenger, and when it landed heavily upon a boulder, it regarded him. This one had much life yet in it, and it gladdened the Watcher to know it.
“Bear a message home,” he told the kin-raven, and waited while the bird cocked its head and opened its beak to receive his words.
“The Last Son is in exile-spared to fulfill the scriptures-and the kin-healing of Frederico’s line is complete. The Child of Promise has his forty years, and the Great Mother has indebted herself to your grace. The secret faith is now preached in the open, and the Machtvolk arise from their sorrow to take back their given home.”
The Watcher paused. “Time is of the essence,” he finally said. “The Age of the Crimson Empress is at hand.”
He raised the flute to his lips and blew again, this time softly. Spreading its great wings, the kin-raven lifted and sped south.
The Watcher watched it as it flew, and when it was nothing but a speck upon the horizon, he turned and went back to his cave. He would finish this gospel, and perhaps when he did, he would walk through the forest near the Machtvolk shrine and listen for the hymns they sang there.
Clanking and clacking, the ancient mechoservitor slipped back into the shadows and took up his waiting pen.