“My ship is always open to you,” Andel said, adjusting his collar. As frustrating as it was to hear Andel refer to The Testament as his ship, it was still gratifying to imagine him below, tucked in among the cargo.
Eight hadn’t even waited for Jerri to finish speaking. He kicked the door open, laying Nine down on a bunk. Jerri rushed down the ladder for some wine, and Andel headed into the cabin to see to his belongings.
They left Calder on deck, which he didn’t mind. He needed a moment.
His hands trembled with excitement, and he opened and closed his fists, trying to work out the excess energy. A strange expression had been carved onto his face, and he couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a rictus of fear. His stomach roiled, almost as though he were seasick, and his thoughts moved too fast for him to catch up.
From the appearance of the dancing lights to Eight carrying Nine inside, not three minutes had passed. Calder had endured too many emotions in too short a time to even understand them all.
A voice rumbed up from the cage in the center of the deck. “That was well done.”
Calder looked to the sixth passenger, whom he’d all but forgotten in the excitement. Urzaia still lay on his back, hands folded under his head like a pillow, eyes closed. He looked like a man enjoying a relaxing nap.
“Did we wake you?” Calder asked, voice dry.
Without opening his eyes, the prisoner grinned, flashing his perfect teeth. “The sparks are not Kameira or Elder, but something born of the Aion. They have order. Patterns. They like to…straighten things that are crooked. It is said they are drawn to lost ships, and they will guide you toward right paths.”
Uneasy, Calder glanced at the seamless deck of his ship, where orange embers were still dying. “They were here to help us?”
The big man shrugged, shoulders brushing against the bottom of his cage. “Have seen ships they helped before. Burned, black skeletons of ships that drift on the water. If they could not protect themselves from the fire, they died. But hey! They are not lost anymore!”
He laughed, and Calder chuckled along with him. He couldn’t help it; the bound man seemed to invite cheer.
As Sister Ulinda had once said, “A smiling man is a friend to all.”
“But enough about the fires,” Urzaia said, suddenly sitting up. He looked Calder in the eye, smile never fading. “I said you did well. You saved that man, the one who pretends his name is Nine. He may have survived the burns, but he would have spent a long time healing. It will not take so long, now. He owes you.”
Even though it was coming from a man in a cage, at least someone noticed what Calder had done. “It’s my ship, isn’t it? I’m responsible for what happens here.”
Urzaia tapped his knuckles against the inside of his cage bars. “You react quickly. That is good, on the Aion Sea. Make decisions quickly, act quickly, and you will be a good Captain. If you listen to your crew, and not to the Emperor.” Urzaia made a disgusted face, as though he’d bitten into something sour. “He makes so many decisions for the Guilds, but he does not care about us.”
Hurriedly, Calder glanced behind him, making sure that the other Champions weren’t close enough to overhear. He wouldn’t be surprised if they punished him for simply listening to treason like this.
And some part of him sensed an opportunity here. He never would have thought he’d find someone else who saw through the Emperor’s façade. Certainly not so soon.
Calder leaned closer to the bars, lowering his voice. “How did you end up in a cage, Urzaia?”
The big man’s eyes moved behind Calder to the open cabin door, then back. His smile widened a notch. “Come back tonight, second watch. There are no longer two of them, so they cannot keep eyes on me all night. You promise to watch me, and we will speak then.”
He lay back again, resting his head on his hands. “For now, I will catch a little sleep. If we are attacked again, I don’t want to miss it, yes?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Each of the Great Elders has their own goals, and they are often in conflict. But why have they not destroyed each other? Why have they not destroyed us? On some level, toward some mutual objective, they must be working together.
Calder stood in the courtyard outside the Emperor’s quarters, watching the Guards hack away at gray-green flesh. Bliss ran her hands along the skin like a child trying to find her way out of a cave.
The stars were still out, and Calder didn’t remember getting out of bed.
“The bearer of Tyrfang has already given you her tour. I thought I’d give you mine.” Kelarac turned to him, the steel over his eyes glinting silver in the moonlight, and smiled.
The Great Elder looked exactly the same as Calder had last seen him: metal blindfold, decked in jewelry, thin goatee, two gold-capped teeth. Maybe the Soul Collector appeared this way to everyone, as a sort of signature.
“If we keep meeting like this, people are going to talk,” Calder said. He had already written this off as a dream when Kelarac appeared and Bliss didn’t immediately notice and attack.
Although…the Guild Head had stopped running her hands along the bulbous skin surrounding the Emperor’s quarters. She’d tilted her head as though listening for something.
Kelarac chuckled. “I have spoken with you more than anyone else this century. Some would say I favor you too heavily.”
“You and Ach’magut both. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect I was being manipulated.”
Kelarac wove his fingers together until his rings shone.
“You’re a piece on a board, Reader of Memory. A card in the hand. You know it, too. But it’s fortunate for you that you are a well-positioned piece, so that you may be lured into place rather than prodded. Your kind prefers sugar cubes to switches, don’t they?”
Calder crushed any irritation before it could pollute his voice. Before one of the Great Elders, he had to keep his Intent on a tight leash. “I believe you’re thinking of horses.”
“No…no, I don’t think so.”
Kelarac waved a jeweled hand at the flesh-covered building. “I like to show my workers the result of their labor, it helps to support a grander vision. And this…without Nakothi’s Heart, I could never have built this.”
A chill ran down Calder’s skin, as though he was wearing his real body and not just inhabiting a dream. “What have you built?”
“However imperfectly, however temporarily, I have created an organism that can control the Emperor’s Optasia.” He put his hands on his hips, smiling like a proud mother. “Without the attack on the other Navigator’s ship, you wouldn’t have ended up here. Not for a long time, at least, and by then certain windows would have passed.”
It was growing harder and harder to control his Intent. “You have the power to destroy the world, and you used it to change my travel plans?”
“I told you before, Captain, I don’t want to destroy the world. Only Urg’naut wants that, though Tharlos might accomplish it as an incidental byproduct. I like the world the way it is now, only perhaps a tad more so. You’ll understand. Bringing you here was one domino in a very long line, one note in a symphony that lasts millennia.”
Whatever else the Great Elder was, he sounded very proud of himself.
“And you’re telling me now out of a newfound spirit of fair play?” The Collector of Souls didn’t give anything away for free.