Child of Sorrows

by Michaelbrent Collings

  4

  The listening post was a bloodbath.

  Malal had believed Iwala – it wasn't like the man to lie, or even to exaggerate – but in the face of something so bizarre, only first-hand knowledge would suffice.

  The listening post was in the depths of the palace, just a few levels above the dungeons. The dungeons themselves were far less populated now, since one of the first decrees of the (unknown) new Malal's regimes was to release most of the inhabitants – the political prisoners, those held captive because they had spoken against the Empire or her Emperor, those who had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. But above the quiet dungeonss, the listening post had continued to hum and buzz as it always had.

  The Ears themselves required little. They simply came at the time their shift began, sat on one of the many rows of chairs provided for the purpose, and waited. Other Ears would contact them, and the business of the Empire would go on. Exchange rates needed to be calculated – wheat for minerals, minerals for water, water for wheat. News needed to be shared – convicts sought by the Imperial Crown, battles won by the Army over rebel forces, new inventions and innovations by the Empire's best and brightest.

  If it was important, or even just gossip-worthy, chances were it would make its way from some Ear in a faraway place to another Ear, right here.

  Then the work began. Each chair had a desk attached to it. There, the scribes took down every word as it fell from each Ear's mouth. The words, once transcribed, went to the next room, where the sorters gave the information its first, most basic organization. Then the words were analyzed and, once analyzed, and sorted again. Anything deemed time-critical was pulled and acted on as quickly as possible.

  The Empire depended on many things. And of them all, the speedy flow of information within itself was one of the greatest.

  Each Ear still sat at his or her seat.

  But none of them would ever Hear again.

  When Malal said he wanted to come to the listening post to see for himself, it was hard convincing the Imperial Guard not to accompany him en masse. It was only Wind, their Captain, threatening them with bodily destruction, that got them to agree to have only six of them accompany him.

  And when Malal and the six guards, along with Wind, Cloud, Arrow, Brother Scieran, Father Akiro, Master Iwala, and Sword, pushed their way into the room, two of the guards immediately pushed their skull-helms back far enough to vomit onto the floor.

  Arrow's gift was one of faraway sleep. He saw the dead, and saw their blood as his bullets or arrows found their marks, but it was distant… and he usually barely took the time to confirm death before moving on to the next target. Wind and Cloud also killed from a distance, and in groups – they tossed masses of enemies in storms and hurricanes, eradicated them with lightning.

  Only Sword killed up close. Only she killed one-on-one, and only she looked in the eyes of those she killed, and watched as the life drifted away from their gaze.

  But even she, with her experience in battle and her near-friendship with Death, felt ill when she saw what waited for them in the listening post.

  Brother Scieran started murmuring. A moment later, Father Akiro joined him. A prayer for the dead, and perhaps a curse for the living – for whoever had done this.

  Or whatever. Because there's no way that this could be the work of a human being. No human could be this cruel, this evil, this powerful.

  The Ears were dead, yes. And they had died in agony. Sword had known that – the fact that she and the others had heard the screams from so far away, through so many walls of stone, could only mean deaths so painful as to defy understanding – but knowing they had died in agony meant nothing without seeing the expressions on their faces.

  The Ears' eyes were open. All of them. And though the light of life was gone from their eyes, still they managed to look as though they stared even now into some pit, into the darkest realms of the Netherworlds. Their mouths curled into death rictuses. Their heads were pressed hard into the cushions of the high-backed chairs, and that was the thing that stood out most to Sword. It was the most insane, the most gruesome, and the most impossible rolled into one.

  Their heads pressed back. Pushed against that cushion, high up on the chair back. But they shouldn't have. They couldn't have.

  Because there was nothing to hold them up.

  Below the heads, there was nothing. There was just a head that became a stump, and below that stump the bloody outline of a body. As though the bodies had exploded so forcefully that they had nearly evaporated.

  But, at the same time, it had happened slowly. So slowly the Ears had felt every atom disintegrating. So slowly they went mad even as they died. So slowly that none of them could run, so slowly –

  (their heads pressed back paralyzed with pain how are their heads there how are they still there?)

  – that it did more than kill them.

  It sent a message.

  One more of the guards vomited. Master Iwala looked at the man who did, as though fearful the guard would transform to a mad, murderous beast. "They screamed," he said, and shuddered, "and then this happened."

  "Where are the scribes?" To his credit, Malal's voice did not tremble. He sounded utterly the way Sword thought an Emperor should: in control, both of himself and of the situation. As though there were some rulebook somewhere that had prepared him for just such an eventuality: Scenario #143224h: Explosion of Ears.

  "In the next room," said Iwala. He seemed to gather strength from Malal, sounding a bit less shaky himself. "When it happened most of them were… er… sprayed. I ordered clean water and towels, but also ordered guards to keep them there."

  "You did well." Malal sounded even more an Emperor. "We will speak to them one at a time, to find out if there was anything in the messages received. Then we will…." He drifted to a stop. Then any sense that the moment was under control fell away as he, too, turned his head and threw up.

  Brother Scieran and Father Akiro fell silent, their prayer complete.

  Sword felt Arrow reach for her hand. It was meant as a comfort for both of them, but for some reason in that instant she felt as though darkness gathered in the room. An ill omen.

  She was suddenly possessed of the conviction that one of the people in this room – not the guards, not Iwala, but one of her friends – was going to die.

  And, as though whatever evil magic was behind this all had heard her thoughts, the heads all twisted in place. Still hanging against the backs of the seats, but now they stared at Sword and her friends. A long moment – a moment as eternal as the Netherfires into which those dead eyes stared.

  Then, with a sound that Sword knew she would hear forever in her worst dreams, the heads all fell as one to the stone floor.

  But they rolled, and even though she could tell the magic finally and fully abandoned the room, it did not do so before positioning every head so it stared straight up, as though peering into the eyes of whatever demon had killed it.

  5

  The day had been long, then longer, and then become the longest that Sword had ever experienced.

  Wind was all for bringing in the scribes one at a time, on the assumption that they had had something to do with what happened, and cutting them to very small pieces until one of them confessed – then broadening the search to the rest of the Empire, if necessary.

  Arrow, though, had been the son of a noble. His father had had a room much like this one – until Sword had killed him. He was the first to point out the obvious: that this might not be an isolated event.

  "What if it happened everywhere?" he said. "What if this is the beginning of some kind of attack?"

  "He's right," said Brother Scieran. "We have to find out if other Ears have been injured –"

  "Or killed," said Father Akiro.

  "Always a ray of sunshine," grumbled Brother Scieran.

  "Always a stupid student."

  Brother Scieran growled but didn't say anything.

 
"I win," cackled Father Akiro. "That's seven to two, my favor."

  Brother Scieran gaped. "Are you… Gods' charity, are you keeping track of who wins our arguments?"

  Father Akiro looked insulted. "Of course. How else am I to confirm how stupid you are."

  Brother Scieran still wore a sickle and a whip on his waist –the traditional weapons of the Order of Chain – and he looked like he was seriously considering using either or both of them.

  "Enough," said Malal. He looked hard at both of them. "Don't you think we have more important things to do?"

  Brother Scieran's growled again, but he nodded.

  "And that's eight," mumbled Father Akiro. Brother Scieran glared, then sighed and looked away from his old teacher.

  "So we need to find out if the other Ears have been harmed," said Brother Scieran.

  "But we don't have a way to do that, since our Ears can hardly call to them," said Father Akiro.

  They all looked to Malal. He shrugged. "I'm open to suggestions." He looked at Wind, who was Signing the conversation to Cloud. The two shook their heads, so the Emperor turned to Sword and Arrow, who gestured likewise. "Father Akiro?" he said. The old priest shook his head, too.

  Brother Scieran's eyebrows went so high they almost touched his hairline. "Really? Really, oh sage and wise one?" He cleared his throat. "Eight to three." Then he turned to Malal. "Call an Eye."

  Malal thumped himself on his forehead. He gestured, and a guard who had been waiting in a corner of the room nodded and disappeared.

  A moment later an Eye came in. A young man dressed in a tunic and leggings, the fact that this was his first audience with the Emperor obvious in his tense posture and the dozen bows he made as he entered.

  "Yes, Lord, I mean, yes, your Emperorship, I –"

  "You may be still," said Malal. Again Sword wondered at her friend. He had spent most of his adult life as a prisoner in Fear, now he ruled all of Ansborn. And in between acting the fool – and it was an act, she was certain, something he did to amuse himself and to irritate Brother Scieran – he actually did a good job of it. Certainly better than she could have done.

  Malal drew close to the young man. "What is your name, my son?"

  The young man beamed. No doubt he would tell that tale to his grandchildren: "And the Emperor called me his son, he did, I swear it! His son!"

  "My name's Janos, my Lord."

  "Excellent, Janos. Wonderful name. From the north?"

  "Yes, Lord."

  From the moment he walked in, Janos was utterly calm. Sword thought the man was possessed of an unnatural bravery – or perhaps he was a butcher before coming to work at the palace, someone used to blood and death. Either way, he hadn't batted an eye when stepping into the listening post.

  But now… his eyes widened as though suddenly realizing where he was, and what surrounded him.

  Gods, he didn't even realize what he was stepping into. He was too busy worrying about appearing before the Emperor.

  Janos took a sudden step back, tripped, and tumbled over. "What? What? What?" He kept saying the word over and over, his eyes whipping from side to side like he was watching a fierce game of deuces.

  Malal leaned down. He touched the Eye lightly on the shoulder. "It's okay. You're safe."

  "We probably should have warned him," whispered Arrow. He tried to make a joke of it, but his smile was forced and sickly.

  Sword nodded. It wasn't until he said that that she realized it: they were all panicked. She and her friends had fought a bloody war, a revolution that few knew about and even fewer knew had been successful. They each had known devastating loss and seen terrible things.

  But nothing like this.

  We're not thinking clearly.

  That could kill us.

  And she realized that she was now thinking of what had happened as a first attack. Not a single, isolated incident. This was the first salvo of something that promised to become worse.

  "Easy," Malal was still whispering. A moment later, Cloud joined him. It was easy sometimes to remember the young man was even in the room. He had always been quiet, but ever since he had been deafened he carried silence like a cloak.

  He put his hand on Janos' other shoulder. Squeezed. The panicked Eye looked up at him. Cloud smiled – a rarity on his usually expressionless face. The smile seemed to do more than any amount of Imperial encouragement, for the young man on the floor calmed. He looked at Malal.

  "Forgive me," he whispered after a moment.

  Malal laughed. A low laugh, totally inappropriate on this killing floor, but it put Janos at ease, and Sword felt a bit of the tension melt from her own shoulders.

  "I had the same reaction myself," said Malal. He looked around, visibly working to do so. "I am sorry for bringing you in here without warning. The fault was mine." He put out a hand, and Janos took it. Malal helped him up. "As you can see, we suffered a rather horrible – well, we don't really know what to call it."

  "A Tear," said Janos.

  "What was that?"

  Janos bowed low. "I’m sorry, my Lord."

  "No, don't be sorry. What was it you said."

  "It's a bedtime tale from the village where I was born. Something the parents tell the children to get them to eat their wheat. If you do wrong and don't be fair/ Then soon will come the wicked Tear/ To tear your body from your Head/ So eat your wheats and go to bed." He cleared his throat. "It's said that the story dates to the beginnings of the Empire, that the Emperor Eka told it to his children, and that it came from below the clouds."

  That hung there for a long time. Finally, Wind Signed something. "What did she say," asked Father Akiro.

  "She says," said Malal with a tight, humorless smile, "that she is glad she did not grow up in your village."

  "It was a hard place," agreed Janos.

  "Well," Malal said after a moment, "whether it be a bedtime monster come to life or some other evil, what we need now is to find out whether or not this has happened anywhere else."

  Janos nodded. "I am at your command."

  "Good." Malal clapped him on the shoulder. Janos managed to both burst with pride and cringe as though with the gesture the severed heads that still lay all about would rise up and begin to chew on him. "Have you ever seen any other listening posts?"

  Sword knew why Malal was asking: to find out if this was happening elsewhere, they had to see elsewhere. The Gift of the Eyes was that they could See anywhere at all, instantly… as long as it was a place they had actually seen before, with their physical eyes.

  Janos was nodding. "I've been to the one to the one in Jax, near my home village, and I went to one in an exchange once, in a mine." He grimaced, "I'll explain that, of course, how I came to be in a mine, though I'd rather –"

  "No, of course not, that's your business." Malal hastened to reassure the young man, clasping his arms in his hands. "But this is something we should be quick about, so…."

  "Of course."

  "I See," breathed the young man. His eyes closed. He stood silent. Still.

  They waited. Sword had experienced this Gift with a different Eye, shown visions of distant places by the old woman who was one of the first people she met at the palace. That had ended badly, the old woman being murdered in the middle of the vision.

  But she had never seen the process from the outside, watching as someone not being carried away with the Eye.

  It was a bit anticlimactic. Janos just stood there. He didn't stiffen, didn't weave as the charmers did at the bazaar. He didn't even nod or let his chin drop as though relaxed. Except for his closed eyes he might as well have been standing in the corner of a party, attentive to the goings-on but not interested in participating in the conversations.

  Then, after what seemed like many minutes, his eyes snapped open.

  "They are dead. They are all dead," he whispered.

  "Who?" said Father Akiro "Who are, boy?"

  Janos' eyes jerked to Father Akiro, then back to Malal. "My Lord,
I Saw the listening post at Jax. But I wished to be thorough. To do well for you, Lord. So I went to the listening post at the mine, as well."

  "And?" Malal asked softly.

  Janos closed his eyes. He looked like someone who would give anything to be anywhere else.

  "All was as it is here," he said. His eyes snapped open, horror to the point of near-madness sparkling within their depths. "All the Eyes were dead."

  He gulped, then added, "What could do this, my Lord?"

  No one answered.

  6

  They questioned Janos after that – all of them. It always amazed Sword how much Wind could communicate without speaking a single word, and how much Cloud seemed to listen even though he heard nothing at all. How gentle Brother Scieran and Father Akiro could be, how strident Arrow could become when the situation turned strange and dire.

  We each become what we truly are. Warriors, men of the Gods, children of power.

  And what are you, Sword?

  Still a Dog?

  No. Never that, never again.

  She asked her own questions, to be sure. But to be sure, she asked fewer than the others, simply because she had less knowledge than they did. She knew that it was better to be silent and let those with knowledge speak than it was to waste time in a futile attempt to appear knowledgeable herself.

  That was, in itself, a kind of knowledge.

  But no matter how they prodded, or nudged, or commanded, or wheedled, Janos could tell them little more than he already had.

  "It was death," he said more than once. He shuddered when he said it.

  They let him go at last, telling him to go to one of the many guest quarters at the palace, that refreshment would be sent to him. Malal, sounding very much the Emperor once again – but a great, a powerful, a terrible Emperor this time – said, "If you speak of this, ever, to anyone, your head will be forfeit."

  Janos, to his credit, did not shudder or shake. He simply nodded. "My allegiance is yours, Lord," he said. Sword realized the stutter he had first entered with was gone. He had aged in the few short moments he had spent in this place. Royalty no longer terrified him – how could it after what he had seen?