The Strength of the Few by James Islington - 12

I KEEP MY GAZE FIXED on Tash, and my hand on his shoulder. Our faces a foot apart. Harmonics . I conceive of myself—usually done to self-imbue, and, I’ve always been told, the easiest of skills—and then mentally try to link myself to Tash. Visualise us as the same thing. “Let me see through your eyes.” Vetusian. “Let me see through your eyes.” Common. It’s the command and method Caeror suggested, though I’ve tried others. The Instruction Blade operates off intent, not the language or even wording used, but I have no idea whether that will be true for what I’m attempting. So I say it in both. Trying to create the deepest possible understanding for both Tash and myself.

We stand there like that for a minute. Two. I strain to connect us, to truly see us as the same. Employ every technique that I know.

“Nothing.” I let out a heavy breath and release the mental construct. It’s no surprise: in Harmonics the initial connection is by far the hardest part, with more disparate objects needing more mental discipline and initial Will to link. It’s why Quintii and above are tasked with it back home; it’s theoretically possible for a Sextus, but I’ve never heard of any actually doing it. Even with objects that are physically identical.

Caeror nods slowly. Pacing again. Gaze distant and thoughtful. “You used Caecilius’s actual philosophy? Not just standard Harmonics?”

I go to confirm, then frown. Consider. Caecilius was the one who coined the term Harmonics; he described it as more than simply visualisation but rather something deeper, almost empathetic in nature. Not to think of the two objects as the same, but to find their hearts and imagine those as inseparably joined. He said an axe could be Harmonically joined to a log because they looked vaguely similar, certainly—but it was better joined because one was made for the other. Or from the other. Either way a more profound, philosophical link.

“I suppose not.” Caecilius never talked about trying to link to another person—why would he?—and it’s a largely ignored area of his thesis, but I can see what Caeror is saying. I turn back to Tash. “Let me see through your eyes. Let me see through your eyes.” I think about him. The man, rather than the physical form in front of me. I do not know him. Do not know much about his life here. But I can understand that this must be confusing, for him. How unsettling it must be. And I can certainly guess at how he must feel with the gods-damned blade sticking through him, no matter that he’s been told to ignore—

Terror .

I have moved without moving. I am staring at my face. My eyes black. Hand on my shoulder above a blade that juts from my chest. It is a moment in time. A heartbeat. Dread to the point of nausea. I have so much fear but I cannot scream. I have so much fear .

And then I’m on my knees. I’m blind. Retch, gasp for air, retch again. Try to rise in panic and stumble, only for someone to catch me and lower me to the ground again.

“Easy,” Caeror murmurs, concern thick in his tone as he manages my agitated thrashing. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

My vision clears. Tash still standing there, motionless, the Instruction Blade protruding. Caeror is crouching, confusion and genuine worry written on his face as he examines me. He sees me register his presence, and places a hand on my shoulder. Calming, despite his own concern. “Are you alright?”

My stomach threatens to try and futilely empty itself again. I tremble at the aftershock, the disorienting wave of horrific sensation that I can feel as keenly as if it were still happening. “I’m not injured. But no.” I push away his hand, propping myself up and looking over at Tash. “Rotting gods. Rotting gods . He’s terrified, Caeror! Gods-damned unable to breathe utterly fearful of what we’re doing to him. And helpless to stop it.” It’s the only explanation I have. A sense. But I’m certain I’m right.

Caeror runs a hand through his tousled black hair. A strange mixture of horror and excitement in the motion. “That’s awful, but Vis… it worked?”

“I can’t do it again.”

“But it worked . We can use the Instruction Blade to tell him not to be afraid. We should have done that beforehand.” Caeror looks distressed at the thought. “You felt what he felt?”

“Yes.”

“And you saw…”

“Yes.” Bile again. Me with black eyes. Embedded blade jutting between us.

Caeror’s compassion battles with his initial enthusiasm, but the former wins out. “I’m sorry,” he says eventually, brow furrowed. Addressing it partly to me, partly to Tash, though the other man would have no way of understanding the Common. “He volunteered, so I just assumed… I only thought about the physical pain. That was…” He exhales, shoulders slumping as he realises. “Gods’ graves. I’ll talk to him. Give us a minute?”

I wander as Ulciscor’s brother pulls the Instruction Blade from Tash’s chest, refusing to watch as the gaping wound pulls tight again. Not healing—not regrowing flesh or knitting together—but sealing itself thanks to the scarab disc wrapped tight around the iunctus’s arm. There are four iunctii in Qabr, apparently. The amulets we wear imbue more than enough to bring someone back.

Though if they lose theirs, the consequences for them are much more immediate.

I wait a distance away, leaning against the grey stone between tomb entrances. Caeror’s arm is around Tash, their heads bowed close. Then Tash nods. Embraces Caeror, a tight hug that holds more emotion than anything I’ve seen from him. He starts back toward Qabr.

“I think that’s enough for today.” Caeror says it quietly as he joins me, wiping gore from the obsidian.

“And tomorrow?”

“You know the answer.” Apologetic.

“But it barely worked. Harmonic links are supposed to be the difficult part, and maintaining the linkage easy. I was only connected to him for a moment, and—”

“A moment longer than anyone else I have ever heard of, except the Concurrence.” He fixes me with a look. “Vis. You did it . It doesn’t matter how long it lasted. We have our starting point. Next time, we’ll tell him not to feel that way. We can work with this.”

Fear. Fear . I can’t shake it. “I’m just… not sure I can do it again. Even if we tell him not to feel those things, Caeror… he’s still a person . He’ll still remember. He’ll still have to live with it when the blade’s not in him. The horror of knowing he is so completely and utterly under someone else’s control.”

Caeror rubs a hand across his face. “He was afraid,” he says slowly, “but he is willing to keep going. Yes, Vis. He was terrified. But this is exactly what Ka does to thousands of people, what Tash has spent his entire life, and death, hiding from. He understands the importance of what we do here. Why we do it.”

There’s a heavy silence. My hands are still shaking.

“Let’s head back,” says Caeror gently.

We leave the crashing of the toxic waterfall behind us, its echoing chasing us into the gloom of the chasm. Neither of us say anything for a while. Caeror, I suspect, is letting my frayed nerves settle.

“You are wondering what you are becoming,” he says eventually.

“I’m training to kill someone. There’s not a lot of wondering to it.” I kick a loose stone ahead of me. It skitters into the hush. “A friend once told me that we needed lines we cannot cross. Are you sure there is no other way?”

“This isn’t some clever application of Will that some other clever application of Will might be able to counter. Ka wields the power that split the world into three. He has done it for thousands of years. And people have tried to stop him for thousands of years.” Benignly delivered, but no doubting his certainty. “I prefer for you to think of it as impossible, than think of it as optional.”

I nod slowly. Take a deep breath. It’s an acceptance I’ve already made, but I make it anew.

Caeror sighs. “You should know—there is something else we need to test. It’s about getting into Ka’s pyramid in Duat. The walls are guarded not just by iunctii, but by a… kind of barrier. It’s the main reason that you, specifically, need to do this. Yusef believed that only people who are Synchronous can survive contact with it.”

Another lull as I digest it. The black mouths of the tombs wide around us. “You didn’t mention this earlier.”

“I wanted to be confident that you were Synchronous. It’s not a second-chances kind of thing,” he adds dryly.

“And you think we should test it now?”

“If you’re capable.” Caeror’s reluctance is thick, his tone rueful, but it’s all threaded with determination. “We have to push. Weigh prudence and your comfort against the time we have.”

I feel like nothing more than sleeping. “Alright.”

Neither of us speak for a while as we walk. I study the glyphs carved around the paintings on the tombs we pass. My initial impression was right: according to Caeror, it runs very close to the Nyripkian language back home. There are hundreds upon hundreds of different characters.

“What do they say?” I ask it absently as I inspect them. Trails of sand drift down the crags and catch the fading light, shifted by some gust of wind above. My voice echoes into the gathering dim.

“Names. Their lives and deeds. Their families.” He joins me in my quiet scrutiny. “The paintings show what they wish to do when they reach Aaru, the Field of Reeds. Their afterlife,” he adds, though I’d guessed that much.

“It’s a strange style.” Faces always in profile, bodies always drawn from the front. Everything simple and defined, a sense of orderliness and balance to it all.

“Yusef said they didn’t care so much about what something looked like, but rather what was it was like—not drawing for creativity or expression, but to give something permanence and meaning. So once they worked out how to depict the essential qualities of what they were representing, consistency was more valued than originality.” He sees my inspection of one tomb in particular, the symbols on it clearly scraped away. “I don’t know why some of the names are scratched off. Sometimes people don’t like monuments to the past, I suppose. I don’t think it happened recently.”

We press on; after a while we’re getting close to where we started this morning, and I’m just beginning to wonder whether Caeror’s forgotten, when he abruptly stops in front of an opening to our right. “In here.”

The tomb entrance looks like any other. Carved stone pillars on either side, etched with symbols I do not understand. I trail after Caeror. The mausoleum is as utterly dark as any of the others, and three steps in I slow, despite hearing my guide’s footsteps echo ahead. “I can’t see.”

“Just wait.”

Nothing for a few moments, and then I’m holding up a hand to shield against the abrupt pain of bright, eerie green light.

“Rotting gods.” I grit my teeth against the ache behind my eyeballs. Wait to adjust. The light is outlining a doorframe, I can see now. More specifically, it’s coming from a series of glyphs etched into it. Each one pulses with a deep jade radiance, surrounding Caeror as he stands in front of the closed door. “What is this?”

“Old machinery. Made by the same people who built the Channels. Another leftover from before the war.” He starts pressing symbols in a seemingly random order, though his silhouetted motions are quick and sure. Each one he touches flashes briefly.

Then the barrier in front of him suddenly shifts, folding away to reveal a passageway beyond. It’s lit by a thin, pure white line along the centre of the roof. Everything else—floor, walls, and ceiling—glimmer darkly.

“Come on,” says Caeror, stepping inside.

I follow. Frown at the mirrorlike black stone, brushing my fingers along it. “Is this obsidian?”

“It certainly looks like obsidian.” He pauses, then draws the Instruction Blade and slashes with abrupt force against the wall; there’s a sharp cracking and sparks where the two collide and I flinch back, startled. Caeror grins contritely and holds up the sword. “No damage. To it or the wall. We haven’t found anything that can even scratch it.”

I consider. On Res, obsidian’s one of the easiest substances to imbue, but otherwise it’s naturally somewhat fragile. “Is it imbued?” That’s how the Praetorians ensure their Razors don’t constantly break.

“I don’t think so. Otherwise we’d be able to adopt the Will from it. Same with the sword.” He presses on; the short passageway suddenly opens into a massive room, and my questions about the obsidian are quickly lost.

“This is the garden,” he adds, somewhat unnecessarily.

Rows of carefully tended crops fill my view for hundreds of feet. Beans and other legumes, for the most part. I rub my eyes; the light in here is a shade softer than in the passageway, faintly warm against my face, perfectly straight lines of it striping the roof between the reflective black stone. It’s the leafy greenery that I can’t stop looking at, though. I find myself oddly moved by the sight. I haven’t seen anything growing since I got here.

A half dozen people move between the rows, harvesting or replanting. All naked to the waist, just as everyone here seems to live. A few of them pause at our entrance, and I can’t avoid seeing their anxious expressions as they spot me, though they’re quickly back to work, heads bowed.

“This light. It mimics the sun?” I stare up at the stripes along the ceiling.

“It’s not as effective. Or as warm,” says Caeror, a little regretfully. “But it’s enough for things to grow.”

“It’s incredible.” I cough a short laugh. “Rotting gods . This is really from the war?”

“It is. Four thousand years old. If only we had a fraction of their knowledge.” Caeror stares around, almost wistful, then notes someone waving to him a short distance away. “Give me a moment? I just need to talk to Khensu.”

I watch as Caeror greets the stranger with a smile and affectionate slap on the back, acutely aware of how far I am from any such interaction. Then, as their conversation seems to be an earnest one, I let myself wander. Examining the room, the lighting. It’s a marvel.

I round a tall row of plants and come face-to-face with a thin girl, maybe fifteen, surreptitiously stuffing her mouth with beans. She stands as soon as she’s aware of my presence, swallows and hides full hands futilely behind her back. We stare at each other.

“Vis.” I point to myself. Smile what I hope is my most nonthreatening smile.

Her eyes shift and lock on mine, instinct to flee momentarily arrested. A frown. Hesitation. And then, carefully, “Nofret.”

“Nofret.” I nod to her hidden hands. Still smiling. “I will not tell,” I assure her in solemn, conspiratorial Vetusian.

We both jump as someone nearby calls out something that very clearly ends with her name.

Nofret puts a finger to her lips, and I nod gravely at the universal sign. Slowly—as if I’m a wild animal that may suddenly attack—she reaches out and picks a few lentils, stuffing them with comically gradual movements into a pouch at her waist. Then, deciding I’m not going to betray her, she pops one in her mouth and, with a grin, tosses me one too before scurrying away.

I catch the stolen legume, allowing myself a chuckle before trying it. It’s bland, vaguely nutty. I make sure I chew and swallow before I emerge back toward the garden entrance. Nofret might get away with sneaking an extra bite or two, but with the way the Qabrans still look at me, I doubt I would be treated with the same leniency.

Caeror is already on his way back when I retrace my steps. Sees something in my expression. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

He raises an eyebrow, then shrugs and gestures for me to follow.

We leave the garden behind and move down a series of polished black stone corridors, each lit with a single clean line of white light that never flickers. We walk for minutes, silence broken only by the muted echoing of our sandals.

And then there’s something else.

It’s the sound that hits me first. So low and faint I think I’m imagining it, that something else has triggered the abrupt, instinctive tightening in my chest. My footsteps falter.

“What is it?” Caeror slows, turns back to look at me.

“That hum in the air.” I rub at my ears. My hands are shaking.

“You recognise it?” He examines me curiously. “Where from?”

I lick my lips. “The Anguis attack I told you about. When I saw the pyramid that looked like Duat.”

I don’t want to go into it, and I think he sees that because despite his evident interest he just nods. “There’s no danger here,” he assures me gently. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

He moves on without waiting for an acknowledgement and I force myself after him. The air is suddenly thick, too heavy. Hot. Everything feels distant, vague. I’m light-headed.

We turn the corner, and the end of the passageway is in sight.

I stop, a few paces behind Caeror. Feet arrested. Eyes fixed on the door at the end of the corridor.

It’s made entirely of gold. Etched with hundreds of glyphs surrounding a dominating, intricately inscribed cross comprised of what looks like a crook and a flail, similar to the symbol on the amulet Caeror used to activate the Channel from Solivagus. The entire door seems to emanate its own warm, ethereal light that’s amplified by the polished black walls and floors.

And it flickers and fuzzes and blinks in and out of existence. A hundred times a second. Quivering and pulsing and dizzying to the eye.

Thrum .

I cannot move, cannot take my eyes off it. The glyphs around the cross are too small to make out from this distance, impossible to properly perceive as they shiver and shift and fade.

Thrum .

And even without seeing it, that sound. That low, pulsating sound . I hear it too often in my nightmares not to recognise it. My hands begin to shake. I am there again. Frozen. Hopeless screams echo in my head. Stands coated in red. The smell . It hits me so suddenly and so hard that I don’t know what to do, how to react.

I am afraid, and though I know it is irrational, I do not know how to make it stop.

“Vis, you’re safe.” Caeror is peering at me. Deep brown eyes concerned. Brow furrowed. “It’s disorienting, first time. Breathe. Just breathe.”

I breathe, and breathe again. I am straining toward Estevan. Screams and blood and roiling dust and burning wreckage. Thousands dead and the certain knowledge that I am next. My heart pounds and I shake uncontrollably. It is a dream. A memory. But I cannot be sure. It feels so real .

Thrum .

It is too much. Too much.

With a wordless cry, I flee.