A Bright Power Rising

by Noel Coughlan

  NoName tried with all his might to leap up and throw himself at his would-be executioner. His fingers stirred but his limbs remained as dead as stone. He tried to scream, cry for help, curse DawnGlow, anything, but his efforts produced only a dull gurgle in his throat.

  DawnGlow turned NoName’s head away.

  Turn me back around, you coward, NoName raged. Don’t hide from my eyes as you murder me.

  The shadows of raised batonaxes stretched before him. “I am so sorry,” DawnGlow whispered.

  As the banging of AscendantSun’s fist on the hostel’s front door received no reply, he let himself in. He bristled at this delay, but he had only himself to blame. In his haste, he had forgotten the battlefield pieces. He shouldn’t have turned back, but he possessed so few relics of his past, he could not bear to part with them.

  A deaf silence greeted his exploratory salutes. DawnGlow had to be with NoName in the cellar. AscendantSun tramped down the hall and swung open the cellar door.

  He saw the batonaxes in DawnGlow’s hands, the body lying at his feet.

  Battle roars shattered the astonished silence. In one motion, AscendantSun swung the batonaxes from his shoulder-rack and flung himself down the stairs.

  DawnGlow closed on the base of the steps, his weapons ready to strike.

  As the rolling AscendantSun reached the bottom, his legs unfurled. Thrusting through DawnGlow’s batonaxes, they delivered a violent blow to the Or’s chest, knocking him across the room.

  AscendantSun sprang to his feet.

  In the far corner, DawnGlow used the wall to begin to crawl from the floor.

  “Stay down,” AscendantSun pleaded. “I have never killed an Or before. Don’t make yourself the first.”

  But DawnGlow did not stay down. Still winded, he rose unsteadily to his feet.

  “Stay down,” AscendantSun repeated, though the determination with which DawnGlow picked his batonaxes off the ground made it clear his plea was useless.

  His fists clutching his weapons, DawnGlow charged, thrusting the points of the batonaxes at AscendantSun’s face.

  AscendantSun crouched, and slipping a batonaxe beneath DawnGlow’s weapons, yanked them forward, pulling their wielder onto the spike of AscendantSun’s other batonaxe.

  The spike punctured DawnGlow’s chest. His roar choked on the blood surging up his throat. As he collapsed on the ground, batonaxes clattered against the cellar floor.

  AscendantSun stood where he was, empty-handed, as DawnGlow spat out his last bloody, gurgling breath.

  When he did not rise again, AscendantSun turned to NoName. His gaze shifted helplessly back and forth between his twin’s motionless body and DawnGlow’s corpse. He had killed before, many times, in many lives, but this was different. This was another Or and a friend—or at least, he had been a friend. AscendantSun was lost in the shock of what he had done, as paralyzed as his twin.

  NoName’s low groan woke him from his daze. He knelt down, pressed his twin to his chest, and wept for lost innocence.

  AscendantSun’s eyes were drawn to the blood seeping through the cloth over his dead friend. “Everything DawnGlow said since our forbear came here may be false,” he said.

  “Our comrades in the Stretches may be dead,” NoName said. “And the Harbinger’s grip over our people is certainly stronger than we were led to believe. If DawnGlow could be corrupted, then nobody is immune to the Harbinger’s fanaticism. Nobody can be trusted.”

  “Both paths before us are precarious,” AscendantSun agreed. “I will journey to Sunrest and attempt to stop the Harbinger, while you must seek to learn the fate of our friends in the mountains.”

  “You will not,” NoName declared. “The destiny written on your face is indelible.”

  “The stains on my forehead are insignificant compared with that on my soul. I have shed the blood of another Or. Despite his treachery, DawnGlow was our friend. You had no part in his slaying. I must bear the guilt of it alone. We both know only another atrocity will stop the Harbinger. Fine words or clever arguments will not dissuade him. He must die.”

  NoName nodded. “And I am ready to do what must be done.”

  “You speak as though we are interchangeable. That…” AscendantSun pointed at DawnGlow’s corpse. “That differentiates us. The old AscendantSun divided to insulate his lineage from the consequences of the Harbinger’s murder. He understood guilt would kill the Harbinger’s slayer if he survived the deed. Division provided the means to stop the Harbinger and at the same time preserve our lineage. I am already a murderer. Therefore, I must be the one who deals with the Harbinger.”

  You can argue as much as you like, AscendantSun thought. But you are going to the mountains.

  “Do not blame yourself for DawnGlow’s demise.” NoName waved toward the corpse as if tossing something away. “You acted in my defense. You offered him every opportunity to surrender. We are not long divided. I would have done the same in your place.”

  AscendantSun shook his head. It all happened so fast. Why hadn’t DawnGlow stayed down? Why did he force AscendantSun to kill him? The original AscendantSun should never have dumped this predicament on DawnGlow. It was unnatural, cruel. And it had cost DawnGlow his life.

  “What you might have done is irrelevant. The critical point is that you had no hand in DawnGlow’s demise,” AscendantSun said, wiping a tear away.

  “This is foolishness. Shed no tears for DawnGlow Fulgur.” NoName’s voice escalated with repressed passion. “Had you not intervened, that coward would have merrily butchered me as I lay helpless on the floor. I doubt he would be weeping over my corpse.”

  “I weep for DawnGlow because he was once our friend. Do you feel no loss?”

  “It is hard to be sorry when I still taste his perfidy on my lips.”

  “I know we had agreed you would head east, that you have prepared yourself for almost certain oblivion. But that fate is mine now. You must live, or our lineage will fail.”

  Guilt is gnawing at NoName, AscendantSun mused, the guilt of the survivor. Well, too bad for him. He has a future with which to salve his pangs of conscience. Only death can free me of my guilt.

  But death might be the beginning of his suffering. His adopted religion proclaimed life after death, and the existence of a heaven and a hell. His acceptance of these tenets had been somewhat abstract. The sprawling immortality bestowed by division had permitted his ancestors to ignore the implications of resurrection. Perpetuating their lineage was their principal focus. As long as it survived, their essence would continue on, their memories and thoughts echoing through the divisions. Death, final and absolute, was not a certainty but merely a hazard to be avoided. The luxury of that apathy was gone. The prospect of such a death filled him with dread.

  “You assume whoever goes west will avoid having to fight our people,” NoName observed. “You may be wrong.”

  “I do not assume. I hope.”

  The twins regarded each other in silence.

  “I surrender,” NoName said, raising his hands. “If you are determined to throw away your life, I will not stop you.” He filled two goblets with mead from one of the casks and passed one to AscendantSun. “Let us toast to a successful outcome of your mission.”

  AscendantSun reciprocated by toasting to his twin’s success. NoName made a third toast, a vinous prayer that they might meet again in happier circumstances. Next, he generously proposed a toast in honor of DawnGlow, followed by a meditative quiet. AscendantSun was moved to take a deep gulp of honey wine each time, despite its dissatisfying tartness.

  He smacked his lips to relieve their sudden numbness. Vague light-headedness gave way to debilitating giddiness. The room whirled as he fell. NoName’s embrace prevented him from slamming against the floor. He could not move. His muscles were insensible to his bidding.

  “You made some fine arguments,” NoName said as he laid AscendantSun on the floor. “But action is more eloquent than words. I am afraid you are under the influence of the dre
gs of the same drugged libation that DawnGlow used to incapacitate me. You ingested a diluted dose, so you should recover quicker than I.”

  His mouth slipped into a wan smile, but his eyes were dull with sorrow. “By the time you can move, I will be well on my way to the land of Sunrest. In time, your angst over the death of our murderous friend will wane, and you will become reconciled to your part in it. Greater tests of fortitude may await you in the Stretches. Your guilt is naive. Your crime, if it is one, is paltry compared with the assassination of the Harbinger. My heart has already committed that sin a thousand times. If our lineage is to survive, then you must be the seed of its continuation. I am unfit for that purpose. I am corrupted beyond redemption already.”

  NoName was wrong. He was making a terrible mistake. AscendantSun wanted to scream it, but his corpse-like paralysis prevented him. It was hopeless. NoName had said that his digits recovered first from the drug’s effects. AscendantSun’s fingers shifted a little at his command.

  “I had better go,” NoName said. “Your fingers are already starting to twitch. If you do not mind, I will take your backpack since it is already packed. I need this as well.”

  He undid the clasp of AscendantSun’s cloak. The soft cloth pulled AscendantSun onto his side as it slipped from under him.

  “Do not dally too long after you have recuperated,” NoName warned. “DawnGlow’s absence from the city is certain to attract curiosity.”

  He wished his twin a final farewell, before seizing the backpack and dashing up the stairs. AscendantSun raised a hand and groaned, but NoName had already slammed the cellar door behind him.

  It was too late to stop NoName now. AscendantSun had no choice but wait for the drug to wear off, and then head for the mountains.

  AscendantSun climbed the frosty slopes of Broadwall, leaving spring behind him in the valley. He looked down on the valley of Tincranny and the city that dominated it. Even in the sickly morning light, it shone resplendent, like the heart of an enormous flower, its gardens radiating out like petals. The scent of its smelting works wafted on the breeze like an acrid perfume. He had a strange urge to reach out and pick the city like a flower. Despite its bloody birth, he loved the city. He had nursed it through its precarious early existence and shared its disappointments and triumphs for several lifetimes. It was his home since the fall of Gleam.

  The familiar heartache stirred that he might never see it again, this time more intense because of its certainty. It was unlikely his twin would share his sense of loss as he, too, beheld Tincranny for the last time. NoName had other concerns.

  Was living so hard that the twins should compete for certain death? Their forbear’s scheme to protect his lineage was defective. The flaw was analogous to the saints’ concept of original sin. The twins and their progenitor were successive stages in a continuum of consciousness reaching back to the moment that the first Auctor’s eyes fluttered open in the maturation tube. One twin could not remain free of guilt when the sin began in the parent.

  As was his custom on traveling into the mountains, AscendantSun resolved that he would gaze on his city one last time when he summited the ridge, but before he reached it, a mist descended to thwart his plan. He lingered for a while to see if the accursed veil might dissipate, but his wait was forlorn. He recalled the city and seared it into his memory that he might never forget it.

  On the col, surrounded by several rocks, stood an anonymous stone stump. AscendantSun rubbed the snow off it and prayed to the Forelight for forgiveness. This was what remained of the furka that the Stretchers of this valley had died defending so long ago. The Ors had broken off the arms after the battle to impress upon Stretchers that the valley was no longer theirs. AscendantSun consoled himself that the sacrilege had been the act of others, but the familiar shame stirred, nonetheless.

  The Stretchers hardly remembered the battle. Those whom MixyBane dispossessed were long dead. Time’s passage made their descendants forget the wrong done to them. Only AscendantSun remembered. Only AscendantSun cared.

  The brevity of the Stretchers’ lives was a gift in one respect. The flow of generations cleansed past sin. The remembrance of old wrongs did not haunt them through the ages, as it did Ors.

  Then again, few Ors had as much to regret as AscendantSun. He had sinned against two gods: against the Forelight in the past and now against Aurelian. He was damned from all directions as he trudged across the snow-blurred landscape.

  His thoughts drifted again to NoName, and shame surged. It did not matter which of them drove the dagger into the Harbinger’s heart. The twins were equally culpable for their forbear’s premeditation. All that differentiated them was the prospect of redemption. Confession and penance might exonerate AscendantSun in the Forelight’s eyes, if not his own. Death without absolution condemned NoName to eternal damnation. Did NoName comprehend that his sacrifice was so profound? AscendantSun declined to dwell on that dark thought. Despair was a luxury that he could not afford as he headed toward an uncertain fate in the Stretches.

  12

  Beware the desolate mountains of the Stretchers,

  For that land is as treacherous as its masters,

  Prone to trickery and malevolent caprice;

  Every rock and stone, every tree and bush,

  Every blade of grass, every drop of water,

  Desires to betray, a trap for the unwary.

  From On Hunting by BrightGleam Risus.

  FROM ON HUNTING BY BRIGHTGLEAM RISUS.

  The stone furka’s trunk was drenched in the blood of the warriors heaped at its feet, its surfaces chipped by the crossbow bolts that mowed them down. Some of the centurions had bristled at IronWill Defensor’s orders, preferring to fight at close quarters, but the legate had been adamant. He had witnessed long ago at the Battle of Tincranny the high price exacted by defenders of a furka in hand-to-hand combat, and he was unwilling to pay it. There would be no songs composed to honor this victory, no trophies made of the red and white halos of the vanquished Stretchers, but his side had not suffered a single casualty either.

  He smiled as he remembered how the Stretchers’ boisterous chant, dripping with hate and bloodlust, turned to confused silence as the crossbowmen formed neat rows beyond the range of their missiles. As the first round of bolts ripped through the mob, the Stretchers howled their disapproval. The legate laughed at their protests as they decried such underhand tactics. He ordered one volley after another, as indignant demands turned to pleading and then to diminishing groans. In the end, the only remaining sound was the legate’s laughter.

  IronWill personally snuffed out what residual life clung to the bloody, torn corpses. As, one by one, the dead and dying suffered the spikes of his batonaxes, he relished the defeat on their faces. He had not just taken their lives but also robbed their deaths of meaning.

  “The fires in the houses are extinguished,” the tribune, SunTalon Risus, said.

  “Assign a squad to get rid of this mess before it attracts flies,” IronWill said with a dismissive wave at the bodies. “Get them to uproot that forked stone as well. Not even a stump is to remain. As for the dwellings, I want them carefully dismantled. Retain any material that may be reused in constructing our fort. Have the palisade repaired. We will keep it in place till we have built our own wall.”

  SunTalon nodded. “Pardon, Legate. Perhaps you have noticed there is little enthusiasm for this victory. Many regard the battle as an anticlimax.”

  IronWill sighed. Must the only battle to satisfy the Ors be one offering them the prospect of heroic death? The Ors were nearly as obsessed with martyrdom as these idiot Stretchers. “When we raise the gnomon, I will remind them this conquest is the first step in the Harbinger’s campaign to extirpate the Stretchers. There will be plenty more battles to slake their thirst for glory.”

  In all directions, the Bonefield stretched, a vast, arid plateau flagged with fractured stone. The only hints of life were small plants here and there, bravely eking out an existenc
e in the black crevices, and random sprinkles of small animal droppings, but the blue and gold flesh of the peeled sky promised some sort of summer had come to the mountains. All that AscendantSun had to do was cross this waste to find it. After his incarceration in DawnGlow’s dank cellar, the warm sunshine against his skin was a surprise and a sumptuous treat. For a time, the terrible events in the Hostel of Fulgur were forgotten. Then clouds crept across the sky and walled away the sun again, plunging him back into his personal gloom.

  He caught the faint sound of flute and drum tossed about by the wind. The tune was familiar—a legionary march—and it was getting louder. The music spurred his progress across the barren plain. When he reached the higher ground on its western edge, curiosity overcame caution, and, concealed amongst the rocks, he waited.

  He watched the army slither across the plain like a giant, saffron snake. It was two cohorts or maybe bigger. Batonaxers in the vanguard exhibited their martial prowess by twirling their weapons in the air. The batonaxes would have shone as though afire in the glare of the sun, but in the Ill-weather’s gloom the display lost some of its flamboyance. A squad of musicians followed, playing their proud tune, then an endless procession of legionaries interspersed with cattle-drawn carts laden with victuals and other supplies.

  The scene was like a memory from Gules brought to life. The war he had hoped to avert was close or perhaps had already begun, but he wanted to know more, so he followed the column. Its blatant trespass was impressive, but the army had little to fear. It was more than a match for Stretchers mustered from a half-dozen villages, and the Stretchers were incapable of such a coalition.