by D. P. Prior
***
Deacon cradled Nub in his arms as he pushed through the garden gate and let it squeak shut behind him. His cuts were stinging, his arms numb from the bruises that were already turning yellow. But at least the tears had stopped, and maybe he’d done enough for Nous to forgive him.
He could see two shapes through the kitchen window, and his heart skipped a beat. It was Father, back for his birthday. He took a lunging step and then faltered under the weight of the dead dog. He couldn’t face his father like this, covered in bruises, without a single one on Brent; and Mom would cry and hug him and make it all a whole lot worse. And what about Nub? What would they say about Nub?
Mom peeked out the window and then opened the door. She put a hand over her mouth and stared with wide eyes. There was a flash of white behind her, and then a hand on her shoulder. Only, it wasn’t Father: it was an old man, bald and bearded, and he was wearing a white robe that hung over one shoulder. His blue eyes sparkled, keen as stars on a cloudless night. The barest hint of a frown tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Sweet Nous!” Mom brushed the old man’s hand off and ran to Deacon. Together, they lowered Nub to the ground, kneeling over him like the wise men over the Nous child in the crib on the mantelpiece.
Mom pressed her forehead to Deacon’s, wiped at the fresh tears spilling from his eyes with her thumb.
“Oh, my boy, what happened? Who did this? And Nub—”
“Dead, Mom. Nub’s dead.” Deacon’s body was racked with sobs, and soon Mom was crying with him.
The old man’s shadow fell over them, and he rested a hand atop Deacon’s head.
“But you won’t say who did it, eh, lad? Seems you are right about him, Gralia. I bet Jarl’s none too happy, though.”
Mom looked up, her sobs dying in her throat. She drew a sleeve across her damp eyes. “Then you don’t know him as well as you think,” she said. “My husband’s a fighter, true, but he’s not against me on this.”
“And neither am I, my dear,” the old man said. “Quite the opposite. You have laid the foundations, but we must not neglect the strengths of the father if young Shader here is to be the man he should be.”
“It’s Deacon, not Shader,” Deacon said, rolling his head away from the old man’s hand. “Father’s Shader.”
The old man gave a long studied look at Nub’s lifeless body and chewed his lip. When he spoke, it was almost to himself, as if he didn’t really care if anyone was listening. “Under my tutelage you are Shader, as would your father be, were he my student. It’s how we did it in the old days, and it’s how we’ll do it now.”
Deacon hefted Nub into his arms again and stood, finding Mom’s eyes. He shook his head, wanting so much to say, It’s my birthday, Mom. Do we have to do this now?
“Maybe he’s still too young,” Mom said, ruffling Deacon’s hair.
“Seven is what we agreed, Gralia,” the old man said. “It’s the perfect age.”
“But, Aristodeus—”
The old man stepped in close and put a finger to her lips. “Seven,” he said with an air of finality.
Deacon pressed himself into her hip, hugging Nub tight to his chest.
Mom sucked in a breath through the gap in her teeth and gave a resigned nod.
“But,” the old man said, “do bury the dog first.” He took a pipe from the folds of his robe and let it hang from his mouth while he patted around for something else. “Don’t suppose you have a light, my dear?”
Mom narrowed her eyes and shook her head. She fetched a shovel from the shed and then led Deacon back down the garden and through the gate. Clouds had rolled in from the coast, bringing the threat of rain, and so they hurriedly set about finding a good spot that would be Nub’s last, and Mom dug while Deacon rocked his dog like a sleeping baby and ran through all the prayers he’d learned by heart.
***
Aristodeus was seated by the hearth when they came inside. He was using a smoking twig from the kindling to relight his pipe, sucking on the stem and puffing in quick succession. He had a package in his lap, something long and thin and wrapped in oilcloth, and there was a sword in its scabbard hanging from the back of his chair.
Mom excused herself, saying she needed to go upstairs to wash her hands and change her clothes after the digging. Deacon made as if to follow her, but the old man coughed in the back of his throat, and Mom nodded that it was all right.
“Remarkable restraint,” Aristodeus said.
Deacon stood dumbly for a moment.
“Sit.” Aristodeus indicated the chair on the other side of the hearth. “I meant you taking a beating.”
Deacon sat on his hands on the chair. He wasn’t sure what to say yet, if anything. He didn’t know what the rules were.
“You’re tall for your age,” Aristodeus said, “and there’s fight in your eyes, but you’ve got it under lock and key. I’m sure if you’d wanted to,”—he leaned over to fling the twig into the fire—“you could have given as good as you got. Probably even better.” He settled back in his chair and blew out a smoke ring.”
Deacon felt his cheeks burn, and he caught himself on the verge of a smile. He pressed his lips tightly together and tried to look like he’d never given it a thought. Aristodeus was watching him, as if he already knew the truth.
“Last time I saw you, you were just a babe,” Aristodeus said. “And here you are almost up to you mother’s shoulders. Another blink of the eye and you’ll be a man, bigger, stronger than your father, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
Deacon didn’t know how he felt about that. Father was a warrior through and through. He was bred for strength, and there weren’t too many who’d stand up to him in an argument.
“You have a good mother,” Aristodeus said. There was something smug in his tone, but he quickly moved on. “Pure and holy.”
“I am blessed,” Deacon said. It was always easier saying the right thing. Nous had been kind to him.
“Indeed,” Aristodeus said, popping the pipe from his mouth and using it for emphasis. “Couldn’t have picked better myself.” He grinned, but there was something unsettling about it, some hidden joke he wasn’t sharing. “A man is the sum of his parents, and a great man is the sum of all he learns and experiences without them. Most people are like iron.” He reached over his shoulder and tapped the pommel of the sword hanging from his chair. “The years weaken them, morally and physically. Rust sets in—flaws and decay. You, young Shader, must be like steel. First, the impurities must be removed from the iron—excess carbon, silicon, phosphorous. In your case, that shouldn’t be such an arduous task. Your mother’s done most of the work for you.”
Deacon scrunched his face up, trying to concentrate. He couldn’t keep up with all the big words. For all he knew, Aristodeus could have been talking about magic, rather than steel making. The thought got his guard up.
“Then you need to add the alloying elements,” Aristodeus said. Catching Deacon’s blank look, he explained: “Manganese, chromium, nickel, and vanadium. Oh, don’t worry, I don’t expect you to understand yet; but I will do in time, and I’ll expect a whole lot more, too. You must be tempered, Master Shader. Trained body and soul so that you are hard as steel and pure as a dove. And your mind,” he added with a jab of his pipe to Deacon’s forehead, “must be a sword against the world.”
A thrill ran along Deacon’s spine. He thought he was starting to get the point at last. “Against the Demiurgos? Strong against his wiles?”
Aristodeus’s eyelids snapped shut and he leaned back with a long sigh. “Yes. Against the deceptions of the Demiurgos.”
“Why?” Deacon said. “Why do I need training? I thought only the grace of Nous could save us from the evil one.”
Aristodeus opened his eyes and focused them on the crackling hearth fire. A string of smoke coiled up from his pipe and glowed briefly in the light of the hanging lantern before it vanished. When the old man finally answered, his pipe had died.
; “It is necessary,” was all he said.
The creaking of the stairs broke the spell of the moment. Mom walked to the back of Deacon’s chair and put her hands on his shoulders.
Aristodeus smiled at her and then abruptly stood, holding up the oilcloth-wrapped package. “Know what this is?”
Deacon shrugged.
“Your birthday present!” He flung it to Deacon.
Deacon caught it in both hands, shocked at the weight.
“Happy birthday, Shader,” Aristodeus said, watching intently and raising his eyebrows to say go ahead.
Deacon struggled with the string binding the oilcloth and looked round at Mom. She took a knife from the drawer and cut it away. Deacon unwrapped the cloth and gasped.
“A sword…” He looked from Mom to Aristodeus, not knowing how he should feel.
Aristodeus winked. “Brought it back from the Eternal City just for you.”
“Aeterna?” Mom said. “You’ve been to Latia? Did you see the Ipsissimus?” There was awe in her voice.
“Briefly,” Aristodeus said, as if it were nothing to meet the supreme ruler of the Templum. “But the main reason for my trip was to speak with the grand master of the Elect.”
Mom reeled away from the chair as if she’d been slapped. Deacon was up in a flash, letting the sword clank to the tiles as he clung to her skirt.
Aristodeus raised his palms, and for a moment he looked genuinely sorry. “They will accept him, Gralia, but not until he’s turned thirteen, and not unless he’s proficient with a blade and fluent in Aeternam.”
Mom’s breaths came in great heaves. She shut her eyes for a few seconds, her lips working silently over a prayer. She planted a kiss on Deacon’s head and sighed. “Six years, then.”
Aristodeus nodded. “Six more years. He’ll be well on his way to manhood by then, Gralia, and I’m sure the last thing you and Jarl will want is a teenager on your hands.”
Mom blinked back tears, and she shuddered as she drew in another breath. Deacon knew what she was doing: offering it all up to Nous in reparation for her sins and those of the whole world.
Aristodeus stooped to pick up the sword and hand it back to Deacon. “Come on,” he said, grabbing his own sword from the back of the chair and drawing it from its scabbard. “No time like the present. Let’s get started.”
With a hesitant look at Mom, Deacon followed him outside. It was still spitting, but there was a growing patch of blue sky coming from the north as the clouds blew out to sea. The sun shone through the passing haze, and a half-rainbow hung above the trees of the forest.
Mom followed and lingered in the doorway.
“I’m to join the Elect?” Deacon asked. Was that Nous’s will for him—to fight demons?
“Few are chosen,” Aristodeus said, and then with a smirk he added, “and even fewer are squeezed in by men of wisdom and not a little influence.” He gave a mock bow.
Deacon tested the balance of his sword, imagining he was a knight going to do battle with the unnatural monsters of the Liche Lord in Verusia.
Aristodeus put a hand on his wrist, forced the sword down. “It’s not just demons they fight, you know. It’s men you have to watch out for: changing allegiances, broken oaths. I may not share your faith, lad, but the Templum brings order out of chaos, and sometimes order comes at the tip of a sword.”
“But, Mom—” Deacon turned to implore her with his eyes.“—you can’t serve Nous and the sword. That’s what you told me.”
She touched the Monas pendant around her neck, enclosed it in her fist. Father said the same; said he knew what kind of man he was. Knew he couldn’t be anything else. He nodded when Deacon and Mom prayed, drank with the monks at Brinwood Priory, but he was clear about one thing: to be a Nousian, he’d have to give up the sword. Anyone who told you otherwise, he said, already had one foot in the Abyss.
“The Elect have done so for centuries,” Aristodeus said. “Almost as far back as the Reckoning.”
“But—”
Aristodeus clanked his blade against Deacon’s. “A little thing called malicide.” He chuckled as if he’d make a joke. “Perhaps we’ll make it the subject of your first philosophy lesson.”
Deacon frowned at him dumbly.
“Yes,” Aristodeus said, raising his sword. “Uses and Abuses of Theology, I think we’ll call it. But that’s for another time. I’m sure I come across as somewhat long in the tooth and a pontificating ivory-tower philosopher, but the things I aim to teach you are by no means limited to the mind. Heads up!”
He lunged, but Deacon dropped his sword and scampered out of the way. “Wait. I can’t. I mean, I thought the Elect fought monsters, like they do in the stories. They can’t kill men. Mom, tell him. They can’t.”
Mom shook her head.
Aristodeus rammed his sword into the ground and put his hands on his hips. “Erlstein did. I take it you’ve heard of him?”
He had. Erlstein was one of the greatest heroes of the Elect. He was the one who’d knocked out the Demiurgos’s tooth and turned it into an arrowhead that never missed its mark. He was the one who’d faced down a horde of dragon-riding devils with nothing more than a bone club.
Aristodeus seemed to read his thoughts and laughed. “Remind me to lecture on legends and their embellishment. For now, you’ll just have to trust me: Erlstein was a great luminary, in his own way, but he was indomitable and as ungiving as … well, as steel. Now, pick up your sword and let’s gauge your reflexes.”
As Deacon bent to retrieve his sword, Aristodeus whipped his own from the earth and came at him, batting him on the shin, and when Deacon turned away, slapping him on the buttocks so hard it hurt. Deacon stumbled and fell, but Aristodeus was on him in an instant, sword raised high as if for the killing blow.
Mom screamed, and Aristodeus whirled on her. “No! No, Gralia, you will not interfere! Now, make yourself useful, and go cook us up a meal. I’m sure we’ll both be famished by the time this is over.”
The sight of Mom’s terrified face, then of her obediently doing as she was commanded, filled Deacon with rage. He kicked out at the old man’s knee. As Aristodeus staggered back cursing, Deacon rolled across the grass, coming up with his sword. He swung it in a wild arc, but Aristodeus blocked it with casual disdain. Deacon hacked and stabbed and sliced and bludgeoned, but each attack was turned aside, as if the old man were out for a leisurely stroll.
“Good,” Aristodeus kept saying. “Good. Now all we need to do is channel the ire we’ve awoken. Who knows, if you’re everything I hope you are, a few years of this and you’ll stand a chance of winning.”
Deacon stopped, doubling over and panting heavily. “Winning what?”
“Why, the Sword of the Archon,” Aristodeus said. “Isn’t that every little boy’s dream?”
The old man’s eyes flared, and for a moment Deacon thought they reflected the light of the sun, but already another bank of cloud had rolled overhead and the day had been swallowed by a far too early dusk. When he looked again, flames swirled in Aristodeus’s eyes, and Deacon was drawn deeper into their depths. Shadows flickered in the blaze, and a terrible keening filled his head.
Suddenly, he was running through burning streets. Torrents of lava flowed in great walls to either side of him, and geysers of fire spouted high into a sky of acrid smoke. His skin was bubbling and blistering, and his lungs were filled with scorching fumes. Behind him, there was such screeching, as if all the souls of the damned were coming for him, coming to tear him to pieces. He pushed himself faster and faster, screaming at the leering horrors shambling from every twist and turn of the fiery maze. Must keep running! He told himself. Keep running.
***
City of Aeterna, heart of the Nousian Theocracy
Year of the Reckoning: 908
Shader woke with a start and flung the bedclothes back as if they were on fire. Sweat drenched the sheets beneath him, and his throat felt like he’d swallowed sand. Lots of sand. He must have been yelling in
his sleep again. It was starting to become a problem.
He propped himself up on one elbow and groaned. Every muscle in his body protested, screamed at him to lie back down and stay there for a week. He screwed his eyes up against the stark light lancing through the louvered shutters. With a jolt of panic that he’d missed the final bout of the tournament, he stood, wincing at the cramp in his calves, and hobbled over to the window. Throwing wide the shutters, he blinked against the blaze of the sun, and bit by bit the skyline of Aeterna came into focus, an infinite panoply of domes and spires, columns and arches indistinguishable from those that had been reduced to rubble during the Reckoning. Every brick, every mosaic, every statue painstakingly restored to the greater glory of Nous at the bidding of his vicar on earth.
Down below, the piazza was awash with color as the red-robed Exempti processed from Luminary Tajen’s Basilica on the way to the Colosseum. There was still time, then, but not as much as he’d have liked. The preliminaries had taken it out of him. Not that he’d received even a scratch, but the footwork, the thrust, parry, slice, block took its toll on a body—and it wasn’t as if he was a young man anymore.
The dream still hovered on the edge of his consciousness. Seven. He’d been seven when Aristodeus had first sown the seed that he might one day win the Sword of the Archon, and here he was now, thirty years on, finally within a bout of achieving just that. And for what? To make up for his failures in Sahul? To prove himself worthy of something after he’d given up all that he was, all that he had. First his adopted life at the abbey, where he’d found the inaction stifling, and the confinement a cauldron bringing all his flaws bubbling to the surface; and then the new Order he’d established for the youth of Oakendale in the wake of the mawg attacks—Nousian warriors in the mold of the Elect. He’d abandoned them. Left them to their own devices, and all for the sake of a woman who had cut him deep. All for Rhiannon. He grimaced. The thought of her rejection still chafed. Was that all this was about, really? Restoring his hurt pride? Wasn’t that the antithesis of the Nousian way?