Read Online Heartland-The Second Book of the Codex of Souls by Mark Teppo - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Teppo
Tags: Science-Fiction
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ace. I took power from other souls, and I could even reach through them to the leys if they were connected. My soul was broken enough that I couldn't ground myself, but I could draw power from a radiant conduit more readily than anyone else.
Pluses and minuses. These are the crosses we bear. The damage done, and the way we survive. The knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill. John Milton, talking about the price of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The price of what we became when we touched the other side and learned the magick arts.
Two months ago, Antoine and I had faced off over the experimental device built by the Hollow Men, who had been working off an ancient design, cobbled together from a variety of medieval-era sources—both European and Islamic. The Key of Thoth harvested souls, storing them in a reservoir that a schooled magus could then tap as an energy source. Bernard du Guyon, the grubby-fingered alchemist who had figured out the lost Key, had tried to breach the Veil and do something unsavory with the Divine. If there even was a Divine Presence waiting for us, on the other side. All in all, there had been a lot of theory and not a lot of practical knowledge at the basis of their plan.
I got ahead of Antoine by catapulting him across a parking lot, trying my best to remove him from the field. The only way I got the drop on him was that I had had a reservoir of power, a mass of energy taken from others earlier that day. I slowed him down enough that I could throw a wrench in Bernard's plan. I couldn't stop the harvest, but I did mitigate the scale. And, while waiting for dawn and the opportunity to stop the remainder of Bernard's experiment, Antoine and I realized we had both been played.
The Hierarch had been shaping a grander pattern. Antoine had thought he had been manipulating the Hollow Men to his design, but his actions were still within the parameters of a larger plan. And it went back further than that: our duel under the bridge in Paris five years earlier had been part of that design as well, as had my subsequent exile. It hadn't been chance that we had found each other again in the Pacific Northwest. There, on the river's edge, Antoine had glimpsed the larger Weave and realized it wasn't his place to stop Bernard. It was mine. As a Qliphotic -damaged soul eater, I knew better than he did what the device was and how to destroy it.
And if I died in the attempt? Well, that would have solved the other nagging problem for Antoine.
Seeing the Weave isn't the same as scrying the future. It's more like seeing the complex combinations and permutations of possibilities. Manipulating the threads of the Weave is like using your hip to influence the ball on a pinball table. Just the right amount of force at the right time will cause a ripple in the fabric. You can't always control how the ripple spreads, but as you get better at it, you learn how much influence—how much pressure—you should bring to bear.
But there are always spots where there is too much interference. There are too many possibilities to consider, or the outcome of a situation is so radical and catastrophic that seeing behind the knot is too difficult. Maybe it was easier for the Old Man. Maybe he could see further than any of us.
But Antoine and I couldn't see beyond dawn. We didn't know what was going to happen when I returned to face Bernard in the tower.
And Antoine had been a little disappointed when I came back. It would have been easier if I had fallen—I didn't necessarily disagree with that assessment—but in the end, I hadn't been ready to be unraveled. When I returned from the tower, having broken the Key and liberated the captive souls, he and I had talked about the problem we had in common. A rebellion was forming in the rank, a schism that was going to have far-reaching repercussions, and based on what we had Seen of the Hierarch's hand in the Weave, he wasn't entirely unaware of the mutiny that was
Pluses and minuses. These are the crosses we bear. The damage done, and the way we survive. The knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill. John Milton, talking about the price of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The price of what we became when we touched the other side and learned the magick arts.
Two months ago, Antoine and I had faced off over the experimental device built by the Hollow Men, who had been working off an ancient design, cobbled together from a variety of medieval-era sources—both European and Islamic. The Key of Thoth harvested souls, storing them in a reservoir that a schooled magus could then tap as an energy source. Bernard du Guyon, the grubby-fingered alchemist who had figured out the lost Key, had tried to breach the Veil and do something unsavory with the Divine. If there even was a Divine Presence waiting for us, on the other side. All in all, there had been a lot of theory and not a lot of practical knowledge at the basis of their plan.
I got ahead of Antoine by catapulting him across a parking lot, trying my best to remove him from the field. The only way I got the drop on him was that I had had a reservoir of power, a mass of energy taken from others earlier that day. I slowed him down enough that I could throw a wrench in Bernard's plan. I couldn't stop the harvest, but I did mitigate the scale. And, while waiting for dawn and the opportunity to stop the remainder of Bernard's experiment, Antoine and I realized we had both been played.
The Hierarch had been shaping a grander pattern. Antoine had thought he had been manipulating the Hollow Men to his design, but his actions were still within the parameters of a larger plan. And it went back further than that: our duel under the bridge in Paris five years earlier had been part of that design as well, as had my subsequent exile. It hadn't been chance that we had found each other again in the Pacific Northwest. There, on the river's edge, Antoine had glimpsed the larger Weave and realized it wasn't his place to stop Bernard. It was mine. As a Qliphotic -damaged soul eater, I knew better than he did what the device was and how to destroy it.
And if I died in the attempt? Well, that would have solved the other nagging problem for Antoine.
Seeing the Weave isn't the same as scrying the future. It's more like seeing the complex combinations and permutations of possibilities. Manipulating the threads of the Weave is like using your hip to influence the ball on a pinball table. Just the right amount of force at the right time will cause a ripple in the fabric. You can't always control how the ripple spreads, but as you get better at it, you learn how much influence—how much pressure—you should bring to bear.
But there are always spots where there is too much interference. There are too many possibilities to consider, or the outcome of a situation is so radical and catastrophic that seeing behind the knot is too difficult. Maybe it was easier for the Old Man. Maybe he could see further than any of us.
But Antoine and I couldn't see beyond dawn. We didn't know what was going to happen when I returned to face Bernard in the tower.
And Antoine had been a little disappointed when I came back. It would have been easier if I had fallen—I didn't necessarily disagree with that assessment—but in the end, I hadn't been ready to be unraveled. When I returned from the tower, having broken the Key and liberated the captive souls, he and I had talked about the problem we had in common. A rebellion was forming in the rank, a schism that was going to have far-reaching repercussions, and based on what we had Seen of the Hierarch's hand in the Weave, he wasn't entirely unaware of the mutiny that was
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