Myrmeen realized she was not looking at a building at all. This was the apparatus. The object created a whirlwind of shapes, each configuration more unusual than the last. Suddenly she became aware of the children in the acolytes' arms. She felt her body shake as revulsion coursed through her. She was witnessing the opening procedures in the ceremony that once had been enacted to metamorphose her sister into the progeny of darkness. She finally understood the true purpose of the apparatus: it was a machine for conjuration, a creation that evoked spells too complex for humans to manage.
Myrmeen did not want to know what the spells would bring into existence. She only knew that somehow she had to stop the ceremony before it reached its conclusion and the infants' humanity was sacrificed. The beautiful fighter studied the situation as calmly and rationally as she could under the circumstances. Getting to Lord Sixx was her first problem; directly before him lay the structures created by the apparatus, and close behind him was a gathering of monsters, including the flayed man whom Krystin had described, Ord's murderer. To make her task more difficult, the dark man was wreathed by the circle of robed women. At their backs lay the churning waters of the Shining Sea. From above, the endless daggers of rain created a shimmering curtain that lent a dreamlike quality to the proceedings.
This was not a dream, she reminded herself. People were dying, and if she did not develop a plan quickly, the children born in Calimport this night would become monsters.
"Don't jump," a voice called.
Myrmeen felt her heart stop as she spun and stumbled back. Krystin's movements echoed her own. They both were stunned to see the rain-drenched, swarthy-skinned face of the man they had sent away to find help.
"Reisz," Myrmeen said as she launched herself at him and threw her arms around his neck. He tensed, placing one hand on her shoulder to hold her back. "What's wrong?"
Reisz stepped back and proffered a small bundle to them, a child wrapped in blankets. "I didn't want you to crush the little one."
Staring in wonder, Myrmeen saw that the baby was asleep. "What happened?"
"My boat capsized while I wasn't far from shore. I swam back, then fell victim to that strange music. When it ended and I regained my senses, I started to scour the docks looking for you. I'd have missed you completely if not for that flash of light on the roof. I thought of the fire lord and feared you might have engaged him. I hunted until I found you."
"What about the baby?" Krystin asked.
Reisz hunched over slightly to protect the infant from the rain. "I found a monster carrying the child and had to persuade the thing to part with the little darling-and its life, of course."
Krystin stood beside Myrmeen, watching the tiny baby's movements as it slept. Sadness overcame her as she said, "Myrmeen, there is a way for you to get close to Lord Sixx, but I don't think you're going to like it."
A quarter of an hour later, Myrmeen was walking in the direction of the conclave of monsters. She tried desperately to force back her fear of the creatures, her fear of dying, and her revulsion at her own decision to go along with Krystin's plan. Although the child she carried in her arms was very light, she strode as if she were weighed down by the burden of a lifetime spent with guilt.
Don't do it, she thought, don't give them the child. If you fail, it is a life that might have been spared, and your soul will be plagued for all eternity.
But she knew there was no other way. She steeled herself for her confrontation with the monsters. The heavy winds accompanying the rain licked at the hood she had procured from the creature Reisz had slain and threatened to pull it back and expose her humanity. She had disguised her features by covering her face in the gore of the city's gutters. The weapons she had looted from a shop two blocks away slapped against her waist and thigh.
Reisz had positioned himself on the rooftop where Tamara had been struck by Zeal's flames. Krystin had promised to remain in the alley and wait for Myrmeen. If she was killed, Krystin had been made to swear that she would turn and run, never looking back. Reisz was fairly certain that once he performed his task, the night people would not allow him to escape alive. He told Krystin that he would draw them away from her so that she could escape.
"It is my duty as a Harper to die if necessary in the task of protecting others," Reisz had said. "If you try to take vengeance on the Night Parade, you'll end up dead, too, and no one will be left to tell the tale. You must get back to Arabel and warn Elyn-she will tell the other Harpers, and they can rally an army to ferret out these killers."
Krystin solemnly had agreed, then held her mother and kissed Reisz lightly on his cheek, which had been softer and more inviting than she ever would have guessed. She even had made a comment to this effect when she had been left alone with Myrmeen.
Myrmeen had touched the girl's hair lightly as she said, "My father told me he wanted to make the monsters go away. He didn't know about the Night Parade. That isn't what he meant. There are things in our hearts that only we can dispel. If I don't come back to you, it's not because I don't love you. It's not because I don't want to come back. This is something I have to do, something I have to try to stop, or the nightmares that I've had will seem like pleasant dreams compared to what dreams may come after this night. I pray they don't come for you, Krystin. You don't deserve them."
"Neither did you," the girl had replied.
Myrmeen had smiled sadly and kissed Krystin's forehead, then gathered the baby to her and raced from the alley. Now she was yards from the gathering, trying to divorce her thoughts from the horror of what was about to occur.
"Another one," a bilious creature more smoke and mist than flesh and blood shouted.
The crowd parted to let Myrmeen through. She trained her gaze downward and registered that the baby was awake, squirming madly in her arms, but it was not crying. A strange sucking noise came from the child, competing with the heavy winds, the shouts of Lord Sixx and his acolytes, and the steady drizzle engulfing them. She parted the folds of the soggy blanket obscuring the child and saw two small marks on the infant's neck.
Her vocal chords, Myrmeen registered in dull, throbbing waves of shock. The child's vocal chords had been severed or pinched to prevent the little girl from screaming.
I can't do this, Myrmeen suddenly decided, but then she understood that it was too late, and that she had committed herself. If she tried to turn back now, she would be captured and killed with no chance to redeem the children like the one who now depended on her.
She walked past the gathering of monsters, passing directly before the flayed man. She was about to lay a single boot upon the slight rise where Lord Sixx and the acolytes had gathered when a glob of darkness burned the fabric of reality before her and stretched itself into a perfect replica of the first acolyte.
"She's hurt," Myrmeen said. "She may not be worthy-"
"The Draw will heal her," the acolyte said, reaching out with her pale, withered hands.
You know what to do! Burke's voice raged in her head. You have no choice. You have to save the children. Go ahead!
Myrmeen lifted the baby slightly and hesitated. Suddenly she felt as if she had been returned to the quarters she had shared with Dak fourteen years ago. She once again was turning away, taking the easy way out: Our child is dead. You don't want to see. Close your eyes. Close them.