Part 20 (1/2)

Bon lifted a hand and indicated the lake. 'So touch it. See it.'

Leki sighed and came closer to Bon. This time he did not step back, but neither did he react when she placed a tender hand on his face.

'The Spike are already coming,' she said, sounding uncertain, perhaps even afraid. 'They set sail days after me. I'm just ... advance intelligence.'

'You've been in contact with them already?' Bon gasped.

'Several times, when I've been alone.'

'How?'

'That's what I want you to help me with.' She took his hand and lifted it, kissed it. 'Please, Bon.'

Bon did not reply. He thought through what she had said, and wondered how much sense it made. About Aeon, and why it was back, and whether revenge was a part of its aim. The idea of that was terrible, because, much as he hated the Ald and what they stood for, Alderia was his home. He could not bear to see harm visited upon it.

Can you call it a G.o.d when you can touch it? Leki had asked. Yes, Bon thought.

Leki sighed at his silence. 'At least don't try to stop me.' If there was threat in her voice it was cool, and camouflaged.

It turned out she did not really need Bon at all. She said she did a told him to stand in a certain place, hold a certain small, metallic valve which she produced from her pocket, and he silently helped a but, in reality, she did everything herself. Asking him to help was asking him to accept, and in observing, he feared he gave tacit approval.

I should be stopping this. I should do something.

But Bon's mind was still distant from things, and he could not answer his own silent self-condemnation. Leki was unusual a an atheistic Ald, believing in the good of Alderia. And whatever knowledge she had withheld about Venden, she seemed to care about Bon.

He had heard of racking, and knew that the Ald and Spike used it for keeping their extensive networks in touch across Alderia. Its use was forbidden by civilians or those not involved in government business, and the shoot dust necessary for racking was a rare compound. He had never believed that he would see the act performed himself, but even so his interest was slight. More important was the information that Leki would send, and the result of that communication. He was witnessing Skythe's history changing again.

'There must be another way,' he said, but Leki merely took the valve from his hand and inserted it into the apparatus.

She must have carried a component in each pocket. Set up at four corners of a square, the valves were stuck into the ground three handwidths apart. Leki made a cursory effort to clear some of the gra.s.s and loose soil within the square, then she extracted a long, flexible tube from her sleeve.

'The shoot dust,' Bon said.

Leki nodded. 'Not much left.' She popped a stopper on the tube, then carefully sprinkled two lines of dust along the square's intersecting diagonals.

'I hear rumour it's still living,' Bon said.

'It's the crushed eggs of fleeting lizards,' Leki said. 'About as alive as hair we'll cut off and discard.'

He'd heard talk of fleeting lizards, but had never been interested enough to investigate further. The Ald a and especially its army, the Spike a was surrounded with rumours of arcane knowledge and technology, of which the steam weapons were most visible.

'I went on a hunt, once,' she said. 'I was basic training with the Spike, and the Blader took us down into the caverns beneath New Kotrugam. Deep down.' She worked the square as she spoke, making sure the dust lines were straight and the steam valves properly primed. She was ready to perform a racking now, but Bon realised she wanted to tell him this story. As a matter of trust, perhaps. Or simply an admission. 'There were hints that many had gone deeper, and we'd heard the rumours, of course.'

'The Ald think it's a voiceway to the Fade down there.'

'Well.' Leki paused, kneeling, and looked up at Bon. 'The lizards are a voiceway to something. They flit in and out of existence. I caught one.' She looked at her hands. 'I held it as surely as I've ever held anything before. And then it was no longer there. And then it was there again.' She clasped and unclasped her hands. 'For a while I wasn't sure if it was me travelling, or the lizard.'

Bon shrugged, looked out across the lake. The sun was sinking into the forest beyond the water, setting the trees afire and spilling its colours across the lake's surface. It was beautiful.

'But you're not common Spike,' he said confidently.

She paused only for a moment. 'Arcanum,' she said.

Bon gasped. 'Arcanum,' he echoed. They were the darker side of the Spike, less known, much more mysterious. I can't allow this. Aeon hasn't risen for war. Venden would have never been helping something that wanted to return for war! He swallowed, then took a step forward.

Leki whipped something from her pocket and aimed it at him. Juda's steam pistol. The valve plugged into its barrel glistened with moisture, heavily primed.

'No, Bon.'

'You won't shoot me.'

'Neither of us wants to find out. Now Bon ... just listen,' Leki said softly, and she commenced racking.

The valves steamed gently, and the cross of shoot dust glowed a little, faded, glowed again. Between blinks Bon saw it vanish and reappear, and parts of the ground around it grew darker than night, and deeper. A s.h.i.+ver chilled Bon's spine and tingled his b.a.l.l.s, but he thought of Venden again and looked away. His son might have loved this. His son, had he remained on Alderia, might well have travelled down beneath the city and touched the fleeting lizards himself. He had never been one to listen to authority, and had always been curious.

Leki, still kneeling, still pointing the pistol unwaveringly, leaned forward until her face was close to the crossed square. She began whispering, and Bon walked quietly away, no longer interested in what message she was sending across the sea.

He sat by the lake and swished his hand through the water. It was music to the falling night. Soon, Leki knelt beside him and put one hand on his shoulder.

'It's done,' she said.

'And now, war,' Bon said.

'They'll come, and it will end quickly.'

'Like last time?'

Leki did not respond.

'You're not certain at all,' he said. 'You're scared.'

'I can only hope,' she said quietly.

They knelt together and watched the last of the sun sink away, then she stood, groaning as her knees clicked.

'We should make camp. And in the morning, we'll try tracking Aeon once more. They'll need to know where it is when they land.'

Bon wanted to flee, to run and leave it all behind. But he felt at the centre of events. Things between him and Leki were far from over.

Chapter 14.

blader Blader Sol Merry had fallen in love with an amphy. For a man who had gained intense respect and trust in New Kotrugam, who had high ambitions in the Spike, and who was a Fade devout, such a pairing was frowned upon, though not entirely forbidden. It was preferred for the Spike to marry into their own. That reduced any chance of conflict within the army, and also lessened the amount of distant blood in the ruling Ald's own defence force. The amphys were of Alderia, but so far south that some considered them as Outers. Such prejudice could be damaging. Such love could distract.

The argument had never sat well with Sol. His family's heritage was Steppe clan through and through, and though he was the third generation to serve in the Spike, his history was plain for all to see. He bore the wide shoulders and narrow hips, the enlarged teeth, the strong fingers and toes of those climbers and canyoners suited to living in Alderia's expansive, remote, central mountainous regions. He was almost as far from a model Spike soldier as an amphy, and that made his love for Lechmy Borle even stronger.

The one time a fellow Spike had questioned Sol's dedication to the Ald after his affair with Leki had come to light, Sol had beaten the man unconscious, dragged him from the barracks where they were based and tied him to an old execution column in one of New Kotrugam's more exclusive quarters. He'd been driven with fury, but also restrained by the Spike training which informed much of his life. The civilians who had watched the gruesome spectacle had feared what they might see, but the Spike who had followed knew that it would not end in murder. The execution column remained as dry as it had for generations, and the man was left tied there long enough for humiliation to colour him, and for shame to lower his eyes.