Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Anatoli, who led their pony and cart, pulled on the pony’s reins until it came to a stop, then regarded Pluvius flatly. “What’s wrong?” he asked. He was two years Pluvius’s junior, but just then he seemed much older.

  Pluvius shook his head, staring up at the pillar. “I only missed it is all.”

  “You’re lying,” Anatoli said.

  The Temple of Oltomaño, the place that had been his home for as long as he could remember, lay hidden behind the grass-covered hills ahead of them, but the pillar could be seen in all its glory. He wished, as he had for some time, that he could have found a way to remain at the temple. His time as a soprano was nearing an end, and soon his voice would change for good and he would be forced to live beneath the very thing that would never again fill his heart with rapture. It was something that would, were he to remain, eat at him night and day. He couldn’t face such a life—to be robbed of the rapture of singing for lost souls—so he’d arranged to leave.

  He was about to berate Anatoli for doubting his words, but just then something he had never thought to see played out before his very eyes. Near the top of the column, one of the spectra—the remnants of a soul on its long journey up to the heavens—broke away and drifted southward in a lazy, curving path. He watched it for a long time, hoping it would return to the pillar, hoping it was only some strange oddity.

  Finally, the reason for such a thing happening could no longer be denied. “They’ve come, Anatoli.”

  “Yes,” Anatoli replied in a measured, almost accepting, tone.

  When Pluvius turned to him, he was staring up at the column, his face unreadable. Perhaps, Pluvius thought, he was simply exhausted from the journey. “Come,” Pluvius said, striking a deliberate pace toward the temple.

  As Anatoli pulled the pony into motion, and the cart rattled down the rough road, the wayward spectrum continued to drift like a jellyfish being drawn out to sea on the currents. Pluvius and Anatoli both gasped, however, as it dimmed and then died out altogether. No preamble. No warning. It was there one moment, gone the next—a soul now lost to the world and the heavens both.

  As they watched, two more spectra broke away in quick succession.

  “It cannot be,” Pluvius said as he began to run. “They cannot become lost.”

  Anatoli dropped the pony’s reins and raced after him. “You’ve heard the rumors...”

  “I thought they were lying,” he said between labored breaths, “foul words from the enemy.”

  When at last they reached the crest of the final hill, Pluvius came to an abrupt halt. Oltomaño, the Grand Lady of the North, lay in ruins. Her homes had been burned to the ground. The basilica, which once stood near the bend in the shallow green river, was now a blackened husk, still smoking from the attack that must have come less than a day before. The tower—Pluvius swallowed—lay shattered on the ground between the temple and stables as if Taleneo himself had grown tired of it. Pluvius was certain no one would be found alive. No one. The Ambarran horde, despite the prayers of the temple leaders, despite the remaining forces of Sypria that had stood in their way, had reached the southern edge of the empire.

  Pluvius felt his breath quickening and his throat tightening, but Anatoli was staring down as if he were looking at a wounded dog he’d found on the side of the road—as if he felt sorry for it, but couldn’t find it in himself to summon more emotion than that. Anatoli had always been one to keep to himself, to learn his lessons quietly and to speak little during his chores. Pluvius had agreed with the common gossip, for everyone had believed his heartless nature to be part of his unknown past as an orphan, but here, seeing him gaze upon this heartrending scene with such dispassionate eyes, Pluvius realized there was much more to it than that.

  “Come,” Pluvius said. “We need to look for the anchor.”

  “They always take them,” Anatoli replied.

  “Still, we will look.”

  As they jogged toward the wreckage, the gruesome details of the recent slaughter became clear. Bodies lay scattered among the temple forecourt and stables. Many of the men had been sliced from their privates all the way up to their throats. Mounted on pikes at the archway that marked the edge of Oltomaño’s grounds were severed heads, all women’s.

  And yet despite this carnage, Pluvius’s gaze continued to focus on the pillar. As he watched, four more spectra sidled away from the column. Even though there were thousands of them, tens of thousands, if the rate continued to increase they would be gone in weeks, perhaps even days. Pluvius had never felt more out of place, more out of control, than he did now, and he wondered, feeling this reaction inside himself, if he would have found the courage to actually leave the temple when the time had come.

  It was then that the sound of galloping horses came to them through the hot and heavy air. Pluvius’s heart began to thunder in his chest as he turned and looked. A handful of horses with fighting men astride them crested the hill and stopped near their pony, which was grazing at the side of the road. He had reasoned that the Ambarri would be long gone now, keeping a high pace to stay ahead of Sypria’s army, but clearly some of their forces had been left behind.

  He grabbed Anatoli’s tunic and pulled him into a dead run, heading for the temple. He prayed they would leave two boys alone, but the sound of galloping horses relieved him of the foolish hope.

  Before he had reached the hedges bordering the temple grounds, he was snatched from the ground and hauled over the withers of a horse. The horse’s gait pounded his ribs and stomach, and he thought surely he would slip to the ground and be trampled, but the horseman’s grip remained tight, and their breakneck pace eventually slowed.

  Anatoli screamed as he was hauled up to another man’s horse.

  “Let him go!” Pluvius screamed.

  The rider’s only response was to press Pluvius hard against the horse, making it difficult to breathe. They were carried back to the top of the rise, where Pluvius was dropped to the ground like a sack of grain, Anatoli right after.

  Pluvius picked himself up, only to find himself staring at the head of a great host of cavalry. He recognized them now as Molbredans—horse lords from the north. Their mounts were tall and fine, not like the scrawny breed the Ambarri rode, and most of the men wore uniforms of crimson and gold.

  A number wore the Triad about their necks, and one of the riders was clearly a man of the One True God, for he wore his hair closely cropped, down to the skin on the sides and back. This did little to calm Pluvius’s nerves. Sypria’s border with Molbredo had been peaceable for years, but only because of the emperor’s ongoing tribute to Molbredo’s king. Word among the temple was that the tribute had decreased steadily over the last year. What would Molbredo do now that the last of Sypria’s forces had failed to keep the Ambarri at bay?

  A huge piebald stallion bearing a tall and impressive rider broke away from the host. Of all the men Pluvius could see, only this man wore Molbredo’s seal upon his shield: a golden falcon, wings and talons spread wide.

  As he approached, Pluvius stepped forward, doing his best to appear confident. “What would you have of two simple boys, sir?”

  The man looked at Anatoli with something akin to recognition. Perhaps he was confused—Anatoli was one of the very few sopranos that had come from the north, and his black hair marked him as such.

  Then the man leveled a severe look upon Pluvius, and he did so for long moments that seemed to stretch into hours. Pluvius felt inadequate under that stare, but he did his best to meet it with humility instead of fear. Finally the man looked up to the plume of souls, the Pillar of Oltomaño. “What do you know of this?” he said while running a gloved hand down his long mustache. His accent was thick but more than understandable.

  “I know as much as you do,” Pluvius said.

  The soldier that had carried Pluvius dismounted, but at a wave from his leader, he remained near his horse. Pluvius realized how impertinent his voice had sounded. He had to be careful; these were men of war, not le
arned men like those from the temple.

  The leader tipped his head. Pluvius couldn’t tell if the gesture was mocking or not. “Forgive me. I am Régusto di Juavarra.”

  Pluvius bowed. “I’m Pluvius. And this is Anatoli.”

  “I mean you no harm, Pluvius.” Régusto motioned to the temple. “Please, tell me what happened to Oltomaño.”

  “Pluvius had the right of it, sir,” Anatoli said. “We’ve only just returned from Brenna, to the west. The temple was like this when we arrived.”

  Régusto’s attention shifted to Anatoli momentarily, then back to Pluvius. “This is true?”

  Pluvius nodded and glanced at the holy man with the shaved head. “We were going to look for the anchor and—if Taleneo shines on us—survivors.”

  Régusto’s smile was patronizing. “I doubt the Ambarri would have left either, but we will look, yes?” He kicked his horse into movement. “We will look.”

  Régusto granted them time to search for what they would while the horses took water at the river. Napo, the Molbredan priest with the closely cropped hair, offered to help, and Pluvius gratefully accepted.

  Together, he, Anatoli, and Napo searched every room of every house and those parts of the temple that could be reached. They found no survivors, and the gruesome sights—so many men burned and slaughtered systematically—made him feel ill, but such things mattered little in comparison to what was happening to the pillar.

  Each moment represented the chance that another soul would be stripped away, lost to the touch of Taleneo, lost to the world forever once it dimmed. Not only were the souls that had been culled over the previous years in danger, but also everyone he had known in the temple. The masters, the scribes, the other sopranos. The cooks, the seamstresses, the chandlers, the stablemen. Dozens, all told, their spectra floating among the others in the pillar, soon to be lost.

  The anchor, of course, was gone. In fact, it had most likely been the reason the Ambarri had made such a bold thrust northward; Oltomaño would have held the last of the great white copper anchors that had fallen from the heavens three centuries before. They had been used by Sypria—Taleneo’s chosen people—ever since, and now that the opportunity to take them had finally presented itself, they would not pass it by.

  There was one small consolation. In Master Callia’s office they found a treasure of sorts: cruentus, holy water that had rested at the base of the anchor, drawing the power of the heavens until it had become akin to the blood of Taleneo himself. In the absence of the anchor, cruentus would do them little good, but it heartened Pluvius to find such stuff. Surely it was a sign that they were right to return to the temple.

  “Come,” Pluvius said to Anatoli. “We’ll take sacrament one last time.”

  Anatoli nodded, and together they stood at the base of the broken stone pool that had once held Oltomaño’s anchor. They drank of the tangy liquid, both of them closing their eyes and humming softly while meditating on the countless souls that needed guidance to the afterlife. Afterward, he and Anatoli sang the Lays of Dawn, the one the sopranos sang to offer the spectra a glimpse of their previous lives. It was meant to provide them a sense of what they had left behind, not so they would yearn for it, but so they could celebrate it. But he felt nothing. Nothing at all. The anchor was gone, and so was their connection to the souls among the pillar.

  When they were done, Pluvius turned, sensing someone nearby. Just beyond the broken walls of the temple stood Régusto, watching them with an expression of disapproval. “We leave now, sons of Taleneo.”

  As he turned and left, Anatoli watched Régusto with a look Pluvius couldn’t quite read. Hatred? Anxiousness? Neither of them made sense, but then the look was gone, and they were soon off.

  The army pushed hard. Pluvius wanted to take their pony, but Régusto insisted that they share a larger horse so as not to fall behind. They rode in silence until camp was made shortly before dusk. Régusto’s men set up several tents, but many of them slept beneath the stars with small campfires to warm them. After they’d been given some apples and nuts and watered wine for dinner, a messenger came, saying that Régusto wished to see Pluvius alone. He didn’t want to leave Anatoli, but Anatoli insisted he’d rather be alone anyway.

  Pluvius found Régusto sitting on a canvas stool, legs akimbo, staring into a healthy fire. Napo, carrying a large pear in one hand, a yellow apple in the other, walked out from behind the large tent that stood behind Régusto. After sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire, he tossed the apple to Régusto.

  After taking a long pull from a wineskin, Régusto cut away a section of the apple and regarded Pluvius. “Why did you run,” he asked, “when you first saw us?”

  Pluvius shrugged. “I thought you were Ambarran.”

  The fire popped, sending sparks flying upward like souls into the cold, uncaring night.

  “Do they teach you so little at the temple?” Régusto asked. “We look nothing alike.”

  “You were far away,” Pluvius replied, “and I didn’t think Molbredo would wander so far south.”

  “We do not wander. The Ambarri must be taught that Molbredan lands are not ripe for the taking.”

  “I may have lived most of my life within the temple, Lord Régusto, but I’m not so simple as that.”

  “Oh?” Régusto’s mouth crooked up in a wide smile. “Then why have we come?”

  “For Sypria’s lands, My Lord, for they are the ones ripe for the taking.”

  Régusto leaned back and laughed. “You see, Napo? He is not half so dumb as you thought.”

  Napo gave Régusto a look that said he’d thought no such thing.

  Régusto returned his mischievous gaze to Pluvius. “And this young man, Anatoli. I thought all the sopranos had hair like yours.”

  Suddenly Pluvius was very conscious of his blond hair. “It is uncommon to find sopranos with black hair, but not unheard of.”

  “Isn’t that why we don’t sing, Napo? The hair?”

  Napo halted mid-bite on his pear. He crunched, finishing his bite, and chewed noisily while studying Pluvius’s face. “We do not sing, Lord Régusto, because it is not the way to Taleneo.”

  Pluvius felt his face flush, and wondered whether the men could see it in the firelight.

  “But the Syprians sing, Napo. Are they not one with Taleneo? Did they not teach us our ways?”

  Napo rolled his eyes and removed another hunk of pear with a large bite.

  “Come, now. You cannot argue.” Régusto motioned eastward to the bright column of souls as if he were introducing a character in a play. “You can see evidence of it there.”

  “Enough.” Pluvius stood and bowed to the men. “I’ll not sit and have my religion mocked, especially considering how much water has been added to the wine in Molbredo.”

  Pluvius expected them—Napo especially—to become angry, but Napo merely watched with an expression of curiosity. Régusto, a glint in his eyes, looked like one of the fallen gods—perhaps Tuto, Lord of the Harvest.

  “My men tell me I’m an ass with no feelings. And sometimes”—Régusto took another pull from his wineskin—“I think they’re right.”

  Pluvius stared into Régusto’s eyes, his heart pumping hard in his chest. The fire snapped.

  “Sit.” Régusto’s face was not unkind, but it was clear that there was no other option.

  Pluvius sat with his back straight, his chin held high.

  Régusto nodded toward the pillar. “The Ambarri stole your anchor, yes? The spearhead sent to you by Taleneo?”

  “It seems so,” Pluvius replied.

  “And you wish it back?”

  “Of course I do, but what hope—”

  “What if you were to come, hmm?” He allowed his gaze to roam over the camp around them. “Join us, until we find it.”

  “And what would I do then? It weighs three hundred pounds.”

  Régusto snorted. “You can have your cart back, and a horse for your troubles.”


  “And then I would return here and rebuild the temple by myself?”

  Régusto shrugged and shoved another slice of the yellow apple into his mouth. “You don’t wish to rebuild?” he asked around his chewing.

  Pluvius considered. “Wouldn’t these lands be in Molbredan hands by then?”

  “They may very well be.”

  “You would allow such a temple?”

  “I cannot speak for my king, but I don’t think he would deny it. Faith, as you well know, is a rather hard thing to shake.” He threw what little there was left of the apple core into the fire, sending more sparks spitting and hissing into the cool night air. “Come, sing for us. Help tend to the wounded.”

  Part of Pluvius wanted to agree. It seemed a simple enough request, even if it was a bit dangerous. But there was something about this Régusto, and the Molbredans had always been tricksters. “Begging your pardon, but why bother with us? Surely Napo can heal the sick better than we can.”

  “What army couldn’t use more to tend the wounded? And besides”—Régusto shrugged—“sopranos can do more than heal, can they not?”

  No one spoke for a time. As a drinking song picked up a few tents over, Pluvius studied Régusto’s face. Do more than heal? Suddenly the reason Régusto wanted him with his army became perfectly clear.

  “You wish me to sing the songs of war?”

  Napo snorted and shook his head as he stood. “I told you he was too smart for you.” And with that he walked away, leaving Pluvius alone with the horse lord.

  “Your brethren in the south have done so for generations,” Régusto said.

  “Which is why their anchors failed and the Ambarri have flooded our lands all the way to your borders. It’s why the empire has crumbled.”

  Régusto shook his head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Some might say it’s the split in the church that weakened the empire.”