The Godless

by Ben Peek

“Which brings us to the second point: the man who created the disease in our city.” Lady Wagan lifted a folded letter up from beside her, held the white paper up for all to see. “Our two Keepers are responsible for this disease, one more than the other.”

  “You have proof?” Meina asked.

  “Enough to make a case in Yeflam, if—” she tilted the paper forward “—we do it right.”

  “That is from—”

  “The Traders Union. I wrote to them yesterday explaining our situation with the Keepers. Their reply came much quicker than I thought it would, almost as if they were expecting it.”

  “What do they want?”

  “The Keepers in chains.”

  “And if not?”

  “There is no ‘if not.’ They will not promise us safety if we return with their bodies. They are saying that they do not have the political strength to defend us, with an army coming down the mountain after us, if we return with bodies.”

  “They…” Ayae hesitated. Then, “Fo and Bau won’t surrender themselves.”

  “No,” Lady Wagan said, “but that is why we are going to send you to Yeflam with the bird and all our civilians. With that, we can force the Traders Union’s hand, especially if you promise them that both the Keepers will be coming shortly.”

  She made no reply.

  “That task falls to Captain Meina and the Mireean Guard.” The other woman paused. “I want you all to know that I am not a fool. I know that they will not surrender. I know that blood will be spilled.”

  “I should help.”

  She shook her head. “This is not for you.”

  “You’re wrong.” Ayae took a deep breath. “I am not the Keepers, and I am not Zaifyr. I can do nothing that they can, but I can do more than most people can. On the Spine I know I move faster than anyone else. I know I am as strong as the strongest person there. I wish I could do more, but I can do something. I can stand there against them, and tell them of their law, and if they break it, then I will break it with them.”

  “You can lead our people to safety.”

  “And when I got there, what would I do? I cannot barter with the Traders Union. If you think Illaan’s father will help me, you are wrong. He will not welcome me once he hears that Illaan is dead.”

  “I would not ask this of you, Ayae.”

  “You need me,” she said slowly. “You cannot send Meina to them alone. They will resist and if I am not there—”

  “They may kill you all,” Lady Wagan said.

  “That will let you into Yeflam.” She was aware that all eyes were on her. “They will be forced to hold a trial if I die. You know that as well as I do.”

  Lady Wagan frowned. “This is not the way, Ayae.”

  “It is.”

  “Child, you do not—”

  “I am not a child.” She did not like her words, did not want to say them; but they were right, they were what was needed. “If I was a child before Orlan’s shop caught on fire, then I stopped being so on that day. This is my home,” she said, “and I will not ask others to make sacrifices for it in my place.”

  4.

  It was not a child that Zaifyr saw, but rather a young man—a soldier who emerged from the edge of the Spine, his haunt marked by the wounds that had killed him. He was the only one so marked. The man’s face was distorted by the pitch that had been poured over him which ruined the dimensions of his face, leaving a misshapen lump. His face looked like a mask, an apt description for the being that lurked behind it.

  Ger is dead. The soldier spoke with a girl’s voice, a child’s voice. My father—

  Your father?

  He was one of many who were reluctant.

  They were all reluctant. What is your name?

  I have none. I simply am.

  He smiled in response.

  You are one of the pretenders, she said. It is fitting that I speak to you today, I believe. It is as fate promised.

  There is no fate.

  There is a strand. A single strand. It is the faintest truth, one I can barely understand or comprehend.

  Did it tell you Ger would die?

  He was always dying.

  They all are.

  Yes. The broken head of the haunt tilted, the damaged eyes staring at him. But in answer to the question, no, it did not tell me. I am incomplete. I cannot fully comprehend fate yet.

  Like us all.

  No, you are a fragment, a fallen piece of fate and power. You are what you are. You have grown as far as you will. You will never be complete.

  And you will?

  Yes.

  Around him, the killing ground began to smooth. The huge blocks of cement that formed the Spine morphed into the crumbling peaks of the Eakar Mountains. When it had finished, the barren, windswept soil of the valley emerged. There, from the ground, a sphere of dirt began to rise, as if the poisoned ground gave birth. Men and women—memories, not haunts—flickered into being as they emerged: white-skinned, they fell to the ground in homage before the sphere. In their faces, the young and old, Zaifyr could not see sickness or the toll that the toxic land had taken of them; instead, he saw a fatigue hidden behind a fevered belief, a need to rest that was pushed aside by magic as they began to rip open the sphere with their hands.

  This is my birth, she said. I was not born of woman, like you. I was not born flesh, like you. I was made from the very being of the divine.

  You were born in poisoned dirt.

  I lay in the soil Linae made for me. She constructed me, saw the need for me as fate told her. In my birth she must have seen her death, but did she see the prison that you were confined in as well? It was derelict to the men and women who found me, of no interest to them. But—

  A crooked tower came into view, which Zaifyr knew intimately.

  On the tiled roof of it, however, sat a brown mountain eagle. The claws of the bird—of Jae’le—made faint scratching noises when it landed and when the eagle took flight.

  But the man you call your brother. He was interested.

  Zaifyr was unsurprised.

  He followed the men and women who came for me, my Faithful. He followed them for each year that it took to bring me home.

  The landscape changed: the Spine returned to its truthful structure and a large wagon passed through its gates. Pulled by a pair of heavily muscled oxen, it was heavily laden, a thick, discolored canvas cover pulled over its cart. The driver was one of the older men from the Eakar Mountains, while those who had stood with him ringed the cart on horses. The fatigue he had seen earlier was now etched even deeper into their features. In the back of the wagon—through the opening of the canvas—sat a crumbling sphere of dirt, the poisonous casing barely visible.

  In its cracked crown lay a child.

  Still quite young—too young, Zaifyr thought, when compared to how those around her had aged—she was wrapped in a dirty cloth and slept soundly as the cart began its steep descent of the mount. A wild dog lurked behind, following from the edge of the Spine before it disappeared into the bush.

  He never took control of the oxen, never thought to slow us. He but watched until we arrived in Leera, then returned to you.

  Where, Zaifyr knew, the door to his prison was soon unlocked.

  Interesting, but I never sensed you at all, he said. For a thousand years there was only the dead—

  Who spoke of you. The images faded, revealing the broken killing ground, the flags, and the stillness of it all. I did not have a form for a long time and so I did not sense you, either. But I knew of you. I was told about you. It was not until much later that I realized you were not a haunt like them, that you were not their dead king who would not serve me.

  A haunt serves nobody.

  They do. He sensed pleasure, a smile through the soldier’s still lips, and frowned. I do not yet know all of fate but I can feel its strand, as I said. Its length is one I can grasp, if not know. And I know that it affects not just me, but you and all the living and all the dead. The h
aunts on the mountains knew this. They knew I would give them life, give them birth, again and again.

  You cannot.

  It is my right.

  No—

  I can keep them dead, or I can let them live. Her voice rose. It is my will, my power—

  Then why do your Faithful use blood to work their miracles? Why not just gift them what they ask for in prayer?

  The movement was a shimmer, a slam into his chest, a burst of pain across the haunt he was in. The intent, he knew instinctively, was to drive him out of the haunt, to shock him with the power she wielded. In that, she was not entirely unsuccessful. For while he kept the body of the haunt, kept his control over her, he also felt an echo in his being, a reverberation that left him with the sensation of being hollow. He could explain it no better and took the second slam to experience it again, but when she made to hit him a third time, the arms of haunts emerged from the ground and wrapped around the legs of the soldier.

  You are different, he said to her, slowly.

  I am the last God, she said. I am Fate. I am Divine. I am the Child. You may have power here but it is a feeble thing. You do not wish to stand against me.

  Not if I have a choice.

  And, suddenly, the anger and the power drained from the haunt of the soldier. Yes, you have a choice, she said softly. At this instance, it is before you.

  He shook his head.

  Do you not believe me?

  No, you are different. I imagine that my brother knew, as well. I wonder if he felt as if a part of him were drawn in, being consumed as if tiny mouths were trying to pierce his very being?

  The laughter was a girl’s laughter: musical, light and sinister through its innocence.

  But I have no interest in the return of gods, especially if you do as you say, and keep the dead here. His voice grew cold. If you have done that, you are nothing but my enemy.

  To that, there was no response.

  In front of him, the haunt of the soldier began to dissolve. His head crumbled first, sinking into his chest, collapsing until the rest of his haunt began to do so, and the man stopped existing in any way that Zaifyr knew.

  5.

  Before they entered the Spine’s Keep, began walking through the long, empty corridors and stepped onto the open bridge before the silent tower, Meina returned to the Spine.

  She had said only that she wanted to gather others, offering little to Ayae in terms of advice or tactics. When the meeting had finished, the mercenary captain had nodded to Lady Wagan and stepped outside, waiting for her—the Lady’s final words to Ayae had been a grasp of her hands, a whisper that she stay safe—and had fallen in beside Ayae as they descended the stairwell. If she had had words to speak it would have been there, but she had none and it was not until they reached the bottom that Ayae realized that while none of the doubts she felt were voiced by Meina, her quiet and straight mouth were not the contrast she first thought that they were.

  Outside, she said, “You ever done anything like this?”

  “First time,” the mercenary replied.

  “It’ll probably hurt the first time.”

  “It always does.”

  “There was less pain the second time. That was my experience.”

  “For me, it was the third. Maybe the fourth.”

  “We’re lucky there’s another twenty-five in Yeflam. I’m sure we’ll be able to enjoy it by the end.”

  Meina’s laugh was short. “You don’t have to come for this,” she said. “Those two will fight before they surrender. And we’re—”

  “Going to hurt for it,” she finished. “If anyone should go alone, it should be me.”

  “I’d never hear the end of it.” The mercenary began walking toward the Spine. “It might be that the Mireeans would agree to it, but Steel never would. They don’t abandon their own.”

  Ayae did not reply. She had not been given the rotten straw as Meina had, she had drawn it. Yet, she could not lie to herself and say that she wanted to face Fo and Bau alone, and did not, in truth, want to face them at all. Oh, she knew why she had to, and she knew that even if she did not have her power and Meina and Steel had been ordered to enter the Keep, she would have followed regardless. As the captain had said: you did not abandon your own. But that she was part of the mercenary band without having joined was a strange sensation. Yet, as she drew closer to the Spine and the faces of those she had fought beside came into focus, she acknowledged that it was not entirely untrue. She had fought beside the men and women before her, watched others die, and she had saved more than once. She was bonded by friendship, blood and experience, bonded in the same way that she was to her home, here, in Mireea.

  As she reflected on that, Ayae watched Queila Meina gather ten mercenaries to her. The tall woman pulled herself up onto the wall of the Spine, walking among the battlements that had already been patched and repaired. She looked at home there: a dark-haired, pale-skinned, lean figure raised on war, on its violence, its devastation and terror. She was more comfortable in its company than in the suite she had just left.

  The mercenaries she chose numbered four women and six men. Each was a scarred and even-gazed veteran who nodded and rose with a sword and shield.

  “Are you sure you won’t take more?” Bael asked as the two returned.

  “The Spine still needs to be defended. If we cleared the wall it would be a signal to the Leerans to swarm, and rightly so. Besides—and I want this to be clear—if we don’t come back, I don’t want you or Steel going up there. Take them out of this city.” Then she added quietly, “There will be nothing to be gained if we fall.”

  “Queila, think about this, please. The Innocent has slain—”

  “The Keepers are not Aela Ren,” she interrupted. “And we do not go alone.”

  Ayae met Bael’s gaze and smiled, feeling none of the confidence that she should. He began to respond—to point out, she thought, the inadequacy of Meina’s statement—but stopped when twelve members of the Mireean Guard arrived. They were reporting, the large, lean man who led them said, on the orders of Captain Heast. They had the look of veterans, professional soldiers in well-kept and well-worn boiled leather and chain with heavy swords by their sides.

  “What’s your name, soldier?” Meina asked.

  “Vasj.” He offered no rank, no introductions to those behind him.

  The Captain of Steel did not expect either. “You seen these shields we have before, Vasj?”

  “We have.”

  “Do you know how to fight beside them?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Shortly after, they set out for the Spine’s Keep.

  It was the silence of the building that struck Ayae deeply as she passed beneath the gate. The only reminder of Lady Wagan’s staff—and of the Lady herself—was in the recently planted gardens, the moist and mulched soil around the new life. But there was no sign of who had carried the watering can from the well or left the deep prints in the dirt. There was only absence. Stillness. A mixture of loss that mirrored Ayae’s own feelings from earlier, and grew as they entered the Keep, as they walked the long halls, the walls unlit, their quiet footsteps echoing loudly, interspersed with the clink of chain mail and the low breaths of each.

  And then they were before the door.

  Meina moved ahead, but Ayae’s warm hand fell to her shoulder. “I should go first,” she said, the words threatening to catch in her throat.

  “It will be cramped inside,” the other woman said. “There will be no fighting room with all of us there, but that’s okay. We’ll pen them in. We’ll use our numbers like a weight. Let the shields stay close to you. Don’t step out of them.”

  She nodded and pushed against the door.

  It opened easily.

  Inside, the room was still, quiet. The boxes remained pushed against the empty benches, the furniture isolated comforts. Yet there was a quality about it, about the pronounced nature of it that she thought, as she stepped further into the room,
spoke of the two men who had taken residence in the tower. A quality that spoke of their emotional state, of an absence dissimilar to the one she felt; of a singular notion and a selfish need.

  “Upstairs.” She heard Bau’s voice. “Don’t be shy now.”

  The Keepers stood by the window of the second floor. Two chairs had been moved to the window, but the remaining furniture was untouched. “Ayae,” the Healer said, as soldiers and mercenaries followed her. “Little flame. You are going to make us break the rule.”

  6.

  When he was sure that she was no longer there, when he knew that he was—for as much as he ever was—alone, Zaifyr took hold of the tether that would return him to his life. It was not physical, yet he could feel it. It was not real, yet it guided him away from the haunt he had hidden in, away from her pain and the dim sense of loss in her. He was careful, his steps that were not steps slow, fearing the calm that had followed Ger’s death would break—as it must. As it must, he repeated to himself, drawn by a truth in the words, though he did not fully understand it. As with the steps that he took, the cord that he held, it was a realization of truth with no easy definition and no physical counterpart. It was not like the tents that emerged around him, forming like huge white waves that threatened to fall over him as he drew closer to his body. For the first time he wondered just what he would do when he reached—

  His eyes opened, his breath a startled draw that turned into a cough, that drew the attention of all to him.

  It was the elderly healer, Reila, that reached him first.

  7.

  “We have come to take you into custody,” Ayae said. “You have—”

  “Ger has died.” Bau spoke, ignoring her, while Fo’s scarred eyes drifted lazily over the men and women around her. “A god is dead. Do you feel the difference? It is as if a wound was drained and you can suddenly move that limb freely, again.”

  She tried again. “You—”

  “You can feel it, can’t you?”

  Around her, soldiers and mercenaries began to encircle the room, Queila Meina falling in beside her. “I did not know it was that,” she said finally.