Part 30 (2/2)

Leki's laugh was forced. 'You look different also.'

'What's that?' Sol asked. He held out his hand, nodding at Bon's hand.

'No,' Bon said. Sol's eyes flashed with anger. Here was a man not used to being refused.

'Not for the likes of you,' Leki said.

'The likes of me?' Sol asked.

'Or me,' Leki continued. 'Or Bon, or even the Skythians. It's not for the likes of any of us, except as a message.'

'Did you find Aeon?' Sol asked. 'That was your duty, and your mission. Where is it? He can stay here, hold that thing up and keep these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down, and you and I will go south with the news.'

'And then the Engines will raise magic to destroy Aeon once again,' Leki said.

'Of course,' Sol said. 'That's what we're here for, isn't it?' Bon could already hear doubt in the soldier's voice, and confusion.

'Everything you know is wrong,' Bon said. He was surprised at the conviction in his voice, the strength. He lowered the bone in his hand a sighing as the discomfort lessened a but kept one eye on the Skythians. The fight seemed to have gone from them all, but it might return without warning. Everything was in the balance.

'You speak when I address you,' Sol said softly. He was looking back and forth between them, his expression dark and unreadable.

'Bon, I told you to let me-' Leki started, but Sol reached up suddenly, grasped her arm and pulled her from the s.h.i.+re. She tried to land on her feet but stumbled, falling onto her side and hitting the ground hard.

Bon stiffened on his mount, but the heavy woman had slipped silently to his side. She rested her spear against his right thigh, ready to shove its tip into his stomach.

Sol paused for an instant, then bent to grab Leki's arm again.

Leki kicked up and out at Sol's hand, knocking it aside. He inhaled sharply. Fisted his hand, examining his fingers. The moment froze as Sol Merry avoided looking at anyone.

'So, Leki,' Sol spoke softly. 'Have you and he ...?'

'No!' Leki stood, tense and ready. She looked shocked, confused. 'Sol, why are you doing this?'

'I thought you were ...' He stood away from his wife, and Bon noticed something strange. It was no trick of the light, and no imagination on his part. Leki's blood-spattered husband was shaking. 'I thought you were dead.'

'Things have changed,' Leki said. 'Everything's changed.'

Bon wondered what she meant.

We don't have very long, he thought, not quite sure where that idea had come from. He glanced across the battlefield, at the blazing fires and the people who had until recently been trying to kill each other. And he was struck by a terrible sense of hopelessness. In his right hand he carried something beyond human comprehension, and humans continued to fight and kill in the name of one G.o.d or another.

'There's nothing we can do,' he said.

'You. Quiet, or Deenia will-' Sol began.

'Will what? Kill me?' Bon glared at Sol, holding the bloodied soldier's gaze, and slowly shook his head. He carefully showed him the bone-like object, not wanting it to look at all like a threatening gesture. 'This is incredible, yet you want to destroy it. We live in a time of wonders, and you want to fight, and to kill.' He looked across at the bridge, and the slew of bodies across its span. He felt beyond sad. He felt empty.

'We have orders,' Sol said. He nodded towards Leki. 'Both of us.' He and Leki stood apart, and their stances said that the distance between them had never been greater.

'Founded on wrong information,' Bon said.

'So wrong,' Leki said. 'Aeon is not the enemy here. It's just a thing, a wanderer. Magic is the enemy, Sol, because it will raise something terrible. You have to know what I've found out, and if you'll only let me tell you-'

Sol drew his sword and pointed it at his wife's face. Bon tensed, and felt the tip of the heavy spear pressing against his jacket and the roll of fat around his stomach. The eyes of the woman holding the weapon had barely changed, and he knew that she would gut him without blinking.

'You believe all this?' Sol shouted. 'You're blaspheming. Why? Because you're Arcanum? Because you're a witch?'

'Magic came from another G.o.d,' Bon said. He tried not to look at Leki, knowing that anger would not serve him well against these killers. 'A being as much a G.o.d as Aeon, at least. It was called Crex Wry; it fell long ago, and must never rise again.'

'What?' Sol said, angry. 'So now you'd tell me a story?'

'A story is fiction,' Bon said. 'This is the truth. If the Engines work and magic is raised, it might be the end for us all. It will destroy Aeon, magic's Kolts will rise, and this time they won't be so easy to put back down.'

'And if we let that Aeon thing wander the world, what then?' Sol said.

'Then nothing,' Bon said. 'Aeon and its kind wandered the world for ever, and witnessed the creation of the world we know today.' Bon felt the warmth in his hand. 'But one of them went mad.' The warmth seemed to pulse, a living part of Aeon. 'They put it down, because it was set to destroy everything they had made. And they worked hard to keep it down, for so long that the mountains forgot magic, and the valleys and seas had never known its corrupt touch.'

He held the bone tighter.

'I'm not interested in stories,' Sol said. 'Not even if they're the truth. I'm a soldier, and I'm only interested in orders.' He turned away from Leki and raised his sword at Bon. 'Now if you don't hand that thing over-'

'No,' Bon said. 'Not to someone like you.'

'Then I'll take it.' Sol came for him.

Bon glanced at Leki. He saw a slight shake of her head, a widening of her eyes. Sol saw it also, tensed- Bon thrust his hand forward and struck the woman across the nose with the part of Aeon. She grunted and fell back, and Bon winced away from the spear's point as it slipped from his leg and fell with her.

He waited for the bone-thing to grow, or surge, or flow with the power of Aeon, spewing its message across the landscape so that these fools would know the truth. I have Aeon in my hand! he thought, feeling the heat, the pulse.

But nothing happened.

Hands grabbed him and pulled him down from the s.h.i.+re. Bon gasped in a breath to shout. Something struck his face, the fires visible between the startled s.h.i.+re's legs faded and true darkness fell.

The priest watches the battle, but is no part of it. Hers is a higher purpose. She keeps close to the Engine, one hand against its warm, s.h.i.+vering surface, the other nestled between her legs. The Engine seems to speak to her of its intentions. She listens, and loves.

They moved twenty miles along the coast before the enemy came. The going was easy, and the three Blades escorting her and the Engine a a hundred and fifty Spike soldiers, armed and ready for a fight a made sure the ground ahead was scouted, and any dangers eliminated or avoided. The priest watched some of their creatures of war move ahead, and sometimes she caught rumour of their implementation. A smell, a smear of blood on the sand, the ruined remains of some unknown enemy.

They said the Skythians were little threat.

And then the attack.

But the battle is almost over now, and the Spike soldiers are close to victory. The glade close to the sea where the ambush took place is covered with dead. Several large fires have been started, and in their deceiving light she can see piles of corpses, all of them Skythian. They are being heaped high and burned, and the Spike dead will be taken to the beach and given proper cremations, their ashes and the heat of their demise given to the G.o.ds.

'May the G.o.ds of the Fade smile as they accept the sacrifice made today,' the priest says. The Engine throbs in response, the sensations travelling across her shoulders and down her other arm. She closes her eyes and sighs.

'It'll be ready soon,' the engineer says. He is a weedy, rodent-like man, and she has never liked him. She once saw a tattoo on his shoulder that might have been Outer, and when she confronted him and forced him to strip before a jury of Fader priests, it was revealed as a birthmark. He has never trusted her since then. He says she does not believe how devout he is.

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