Page 63 of Beyond

“Kristoff!” Alberdina shouted from the other side of the water-Gate. “Get yourselves out of the way! Barges are coming through!”

“Jump, milady!” Kristoff told her, and she jumped, and somehow he caught her, and they both scrambled out of the way just before the prow of a barge and a spill of water appeared on her side of the Gate. It slid rapidly into the lake with an enormous splash, sending the round boat-thing spinning away.

“Well now,” said Kristoff, staring after his coracle. “I don’ s’ppose ye c’ld Fetch ’er back, c’ld ye?”

Delia was more in the spirit of things now, though, and flashed a genuine smile back to him. “What, and deprive you of the great honor of being the First Swimmer in the Lake?”

* * *

Kordas could tell that Isla was still furious with him. And she had a point. He was being reckless. He was promising things he had no right to promise.

He was going to steal the Emporer’s entire Palace workforce.

He was proposing to kidnap fifty children in the name of “saving” them, which was morally dubious.

And when the Emperor discovered he had done this—he’d have to make sure everyone who was going to remain in Valdemar went into hiding, or find some other way to deflect the Emperor’s wrath. He could only hope that those who stayed behind would be so insignificant in the Emperor’s eyes that he wouldn’t bother with them.

Of course Merrin would be left behind. And Merrin was certainly significant enough to make a good target for wrath.

And the Emperor will surely be furious that Merrin didn’t see any of this coming.

And yet, the conviction remained that he was doing the right things, promising the right things, no matter how it seemed now.

So he ignored the smoldering anger in Isla’s eyes, and asked, “Have you got Gate talismans for the two new Gates yet? And can Delia Fetch them to me?”

“Yes to both,” she said, though it was clear she was doing so around gritted teeth. She moved aside, and Delia took her place in the limited view in the scrying mirror.

“Can you tilt your mirror so I can see the table?” the girl asked, holding two metal disks in her open hand.

Rather than saying anything, he did so. And there was a long and uncomfortable silence, as she stared straight ahead of her, while beads of sweat began to run down her forehead and she grew paler and paler with effort.

And then, just as he was about to tell her to stop trying for the moment, there was a clink, and two metal disks appeared on the table in front of him and skidded to the floor.

Delia swayed, and Isla’s hand appeared on her shoulder, steadying her. “Go lie down,” Isla told her sister, and Delia vanished from view.

“You are certain these—Dolls—can do what they say?” Isla asked, somehow managing to look both dubious and angry at the same time.

“As certain as I am of anything in this world,” he told her. “This will turn any Gate in the Duchy into a way to our refuge. And no one will be the wiser. Our mages won’t have to make any tokens at all, unless you want some more permanent ones, and from here we could make one for every man, woman, child, barge, or anything else we need to bring across.”

“Well,” Isla said, still smoldering. “I suppose that will be worth what you promised. To those of us who escape, that is.”

Unspoken were the words he had already thought. But it will certainly make those who stay into targets for the Emperor’s anger.

“I’ll try and think of a way to make things look like something else freed the vrondi,” he said, feeling a bit of desperation. “We’ve got a lot of minds over here. Maybe we can think of something.”

* * *

Kordas admitted to Star that he had trouble remembering every step and detail of the Plan, and Star reassured him, “We can remember it for you.”

“Wholesale?” Kordas replied. “It’s a lot of knowledge. There are two generations of planning in this. It isn’t getting any easier for me to keep track of it as the Plan is modified.”

“This one understands the burden of this and your other Plans upon you. We would be wise to visit with the Keeper of Records soon. The Keeper of Records speaks through this one often, to share insights and answer you with precision that this one does not possess alone.”

Kordas had always thought of vrondi as—in all honesty, as minnows, swimming in lovely schools, every one of them as smart as, maybe, a toddler. Now, his first impression of Star as being particularly intelligent was challenged. What if every minnow was part of a greater mind, instead of being a thousand little minds? What if they had a collective memory? Then he recalled the sound of Star’s voice when the Doll pleaded to be set free. Maybe that wasn’t the emotion of just one Doll he’d heard in that plea—it was, perhaps, a cry from all of them.

And you know the sound of someone pleading for their life, don’t you? Kordas rubbed at his neck absently, frowning. No, now wasn’t the time to think of that. Really? Feels like any time is the right time. You know what you are. And you’re ready to take on more, aren’t you? You know that even in a tightly controlled operation, someone always dies. Accidents happen, but they wouldn’t happen at all if the operation hadn’t been ordered. So are they really accidents? You know the Plan is going to kill people. A lot of people. That’s the real pity in you—you decided you could live with killing a lot of people before you even figured out how many it would be. You know it, and you’re still not stopping.

As if to match his mood, the Copper Apartment shook and rumbled. Another earth-shaker, and even in the City, they never seemed to be very far away.