It was a glancing blow, but still deep enough that Inmil felt his left arm deaden. The blade had cut across the top of his bicep, slashing easily through his robe and the flesh beneath. He cried out, and heard a sharp intake of breath that sounded like a grunt of triumph.
He did not know what was happening. Only that it was happening now, to him, and he had little time to stop it.
He knew what would come next –
(you've seen it you've done it yourself, Inmil)
– from the attacker: the blade had cut through his bicep, passing him in a side-to-side pattern. The next motion would be a reversal of the movement, coming at him from the other side – probably with a deeper slash designed to hack off his right arm, bury itself in his chest, or even simply take his head off.
He knew what the attacker expected. Knew that he would be waiting for an old man who would simply stop and wait for death to claim him.
Not in all the Netherworlds.
Inmil folded forward, a motion that would have been graceful threescore Turns ago. For now he would have to settle for effective. The fall took him below the attack – again he felt that blast of cool air as the blade just missed him – and as he fell he jammed his knife forward.
He felt the knife bite flesh, then the particular –
(familiar too familiar Gods forgive me)
– warmth of blood flowed over his hand. His attacker shouted, a mixture of pain and surprise, and fell back. Inmil almost dropped to the floor as the weight he had been leaning against suddenly disappeared.
Scrabbling. Off to the side.
The book!
How he knew it, he wasn't sure, but in that moment he would have bet his life – whatever might remain of it – that this was his attacker's goal. Not to kill Inmil – he was just an obstacle, something to be gotten out of the way – but to take the book.
The scrabbling continued, just long enough. Inmil slashed in that direction with the knife, aiming low. If whoever it was knew that the book was there, they'd be leaning just… so.
Again the blade found its target. The muffled, wet sound of a blade cleaving flesh; the muffled, wet sound of a gasp through punctured lungs.
Then silence. Inmil suspected he might have heard the other man gasping, if he could have stopped his own labored breathing. As it was, all he could hear was the thunder of air going in and out of his lungs.
Hopefully he can't hear me, either.
"Where are you, old man?" The voice that came was pained, but stronger than it should have been.
Stronger than me.
No.
Inmil turned to follow the sound. Whoever it was was moving as he spoke, the echoes of the caverns making it difficult to pinpoint an exact location.
Inmil moved as well, slipping to the side along the wall, trying to keep from being pinpointed.
The voice in the dark: "All I want is that book. Just walk away from here, leave it behind, and you can live through this."
So it is about the book.
Inmil stumbled. He was losing blood, and certainly no longer the young man he once had been. He thought he had scored deep wounds on his attacker, but that didn't mean he would outlive him.
Scrabbling as the other man moved toward the sound of Inmil's misstep. Again, Inmil rapidly calculated what his attacker would do: he would lead with his blade, slashing as he came close.
Lower this time, though. He won't let me get under him again.
Inmil ran forward. He threw himself sideways, bouncing off the wall there, hoping it would get him past the sword's range.
It did. He collided with something soft. Again, his knife flashed out. Again, he was rewarded with a grunt of pain. More blood on his hands.
Gods, will I ever be clean of it?
The body surged against him, but Inmil was too close for the sword to do more than nick his shoulder blade.
He yanked the knife free and drove it home again. And again.
The body sagged.
"Who are you?" whispered the voice in the dark.
Inmil lowered the man to the ground. "Two kinds of people run to the priesthood, my child. The kind who run to the Gods, and the kind who run from the evil of their pasts." The man in his arms breathed out and did not breathe in again. "I am of the latter type," said Inmil.
Then he, too, fell. Blood flowed from his arm and soaked the dirt floor. He lay in blood and mud. His good hand reached out blindly and found a rectangular shape: the Old Book. Almost he pulled it close, then a fading space in his mind told him not to: the blood would ruin it.
He lay in darkness, and fell into a deeper black, hand still touching the book and mind still wondering who had done this, and why, and if he would ever truly be the good man he had hoped to be.
20
Tiawan flew, and flew, and when he landed he expected to feel better. More whole. At least different.
But when the iron legs that clad his own touched down, when his suit folded back to the shape of the moving chair he had fashioned, he felt… empty.
Wahy and La'ug hopped to the ground as the armor disappeared, and their perches with it. Wahy laughed, and the sound was beautiful and heartbreaking at once. Tiawan looked at his grandson, and marveled at the changes wrought. Wahy had been born a Strong, and even though all with that power were slight of build, Wahy had been small even compared to others like him.
Part of the sickness. Part of what Fear does to those who are consigned there by the Emperor.
Then the man came to them. With his magic, and with his promises.
"I can change him," he said. "I can change you all."
And he did. Wahy slept when the gem was put inside him, and when he woke he was a giant of a man, strong not merely magically, but physically.
But still the same mind. The brain of a child in the body of a warrior.
The gem had changed him more than physically, of course. It had taken his magic and twisted it. Not just a Strong anymore, but something else. A man who was not simply powerful, but who grew more so whenever his blood flowed.
The same twisting had occurred with the girl. La'ug had been a Critter when the man came to them. Able to speak to small animals, like her pet woolly. A poor magic, not useful for much. But the man changed it, as he had changed Wahy – as he had changed Tiawan. She was no longer merely one with the mind of her animal, but one with its body – and that body changed when the magic came. A child's pet became a monster.
And is that what we've all become?
For a moment, Tiawan heard the screams. Not just the guards around the Walled City of Fear, nor those who had been atop the castle wall when he blasted it apart. Those were the Emperor's men, and deserved whatever pain he could visit upon them.
He heard the screams of the men and women outside the moat. The people crushed by falling rock, burned by the fires that took their homes and their stores. He hadn't thought the would be caught by the destruction. Hadn't expected that.
Did they deserve this?
He shook his head. It wasn't a question of whether individuals deserved it. He hadn't deserved it. Hadn't deserved to have his legs stolen from him by beatings from Imperial officers when he was a child. Hadn't deserved to marry a woman killed by a minor noble simply because she was beautiful, and a "great man of the Empire" could not stand that she belonged to a lowly cripple.
He didn't deserve to lose his children – the only memories he had of his wife. They had been on a pilgrimage: his three daughters and their husbands and children taking a trip that they had scrimped and saved for, and from which they never returned.
Only Wahy had been left behind, the man-child unwilling to go on the long trip. They gave him to Tiawan for safekeeping until their return.
They took it all. He took it all.
Tiawan pressed a button on the side of his chair, moving forward on the road they had chosen as though by doing so he might outpace his rage, his fears, his doubts.
The chair hissed and clanked as he mo
ved forward. A marvel that he never would have been able to create before. Even as a Smith, such a mastery of iron and fire and air would have been beyond him.
One more thing changed.
Made better.
(I hope.)
La'ug and Wahy fell in beside Tiawan. The big man breathed heavily, as though still figuring out how to run his new body. The girl cooed to her woolly, petting it absently.
"We could just make them do what we want, you know," she said.
Tiawan shook his head. "No. We're not the Emperor. We're better than that. We'll let them choose."
"And if they make the wrong choice?"
Tiawan's jaw clenched. "Then it will still be their choice."
The road they had landed on wasn't far from where they wanted to go, and within a few minutes they rounded a curve and saw them: the tents and cloths that had been spread over the ground, the men and women who lay thick as lice over the land.
One of them hailed the trio. He looked like he had once been a strong man – perhaps even as big as Wahy. But lack of food had drawn him down to a skeleton. Still, there was fire in his eyes. He held a stained sword in his big, knuckly grip.
"Ho!" he shouted. A few of the other people nearby stirred, though most simply lay still. "Who are you?" Tiawan looked at the man long enough that he started to shift, pointing his sword at them with a mixture of nervousness and bravery. "Who?" he demanded again. More people were standing, drawing closer.
"I'm not from the Empire," said Tiawan.
The big man nodded, staring pointedly at his useless legs. "I gathered that. So who are you?" He grimaced, then added, "I'm not going to ask you again."
Again, Tiawan paused before speaking. "Who's in charge here?" he asked.
"I am," said the man with the sword.
"No, you're not. And whoever is in charge is going to be vexed that you made us wait."
"Kill him, Meinra," said a woman nearby. "He's trouble. They want to take us back."
Tiawan ignored her. In the silence, someone threw a stone.
"No!" yelled Tiawan. But it was too late. The stone hit Wahy on the forehead. Blood immediately sprang from the cut that opened.
Wahy shook – more than shook, he trembled, a leaf being tossed in a magic storm that always looked like it was killing him. He threw his head back, screaming without sound. People murmured at the strangeness of the big man's reaction, but they didn't seem particularly afraid.
Then Wahy's head snapped back forward, and now they were afraid. Gazing into the blank holes where the man's eyes had been.
And then he was among them.
Wahy had been a Strong. And now he was still a Strong, but also something more. A berserker, and as his blood flowed he became a beast of killing fury and unstoppable force.
Wahy moved so quickly that Tiawan couldn't react in time to save the woman. The one who had urged Meinra to kill them was closest, and so she was the one who found herself in Wahy's grasp. A look of shock, an instant of surprise, and then her lifeblood was pouring into the stone at their feet.
"Stop!" Tiawan screamed, then concentrated as hard and fast as he could. The jewel in his own chest pulsed warmly, and as always he felt like he was in three bodies at once – his, La'ug's, and Wahy's.
His grandson was already reaching for another victim. A few of the men and women on the road – including Meinra – had managed to overcome their fear and surprise enough to start moving toward the berserker, but Tiawan knew that would just end in more of them dead.
"Enough!" he shouted, focusing on the lifepulse within him, the tether that tied his jewel – his soul – to that of his grandson.
As always, when he did so he felt himself disappearing into the madness that had gripped Wahy. He felt a formless need to destroy, and it almost stole him away from his own mind.
No. Wahy, stop. Stop, my child.
There was nothing there. The madness seemed to become deeper and deeper every time, and Tiawan wondered if one day it would steal Wahy away entirely, if there would be nothing of the good-hearted child he had known, only the beast that thirsted for blood.
He wondered at that madness. He wondered how much of that madness was really Wahy's, and how much of it was his own. Wondered how much the jewels had twisted their magics, their bodies… and how much they had twisted their minds.
Stop.
Wahy had already reached another person. With a sickening yank, an arm separated from its shoulder. More blood soaked the black earth of Fear.
Please. Please stop.
And with this last, he felt the pull of his grandson's heart – his real heart, not the yellow gem the man had placed there – and was able to fold it into the embrace of his mind. A moment later he felt La'ug within him, adding her own consciousness and strength to the task of taming the monster before them.
Wahy had another person in his hands. A little girl –
(how can that be how can there be a child here in this place with these people?)
– who screamed once before her eyes rolled back in her head. Tiawan thought Wahy had killed her, then he realized the girl had just fainted. Wahy was actually supporting her now, and Tiawan saw with relief that his grandson's eyes were back, that he had become himself again.
Wahy looked at Tiawan, concern for the child in his arms replacing the insane darkness of a moment before. He grunted, a questioning noise that was as close as he ever got to speech.
Meinra was beside Wahy, his sword drawn back for a slash that would cut off his head. Tiawan honestly didn't know if that would stop his grandson, or just start the madness anew.
"Stop!" he cried. "If you want to live, stop your blade!"
Meinra looked at Wahy, who was now lowering the little girl to the ground, kneeling beside her and tenderly wiping sweat and tears from her cheeks. Tiawan thought it was as much the sight of Wahy's innocence that stopped Meinra's sword as it was his own words of warning.
Meinra moved the sword away from Wahy, but pointed it at Tiawan. "Who are you, old man?" he demanded. "What do you want?" The words were a roar, fear becoming rage in the aftermath of Wahy's destruction.
Tiawan looked at those gathered near. More of them were coming close, leaning in to hear what he would say. A few had gone to the bodies of those Wahy had killed, praying over them or just staring morosely.
He sighed. "I'm the man who freed you," he finally said.
Conversation erupted. Some hadn't heard, and the words were relayed to them. Others had heard, and simply couldn't believe. Both groups stepped forward, and Tiawan knew that their fear would propel them to places from which they could not return.
He concentrated on his jewel again. This time not to calm Wahy, but to find his own new power.
Why did he give us this? Why us?
He still didn't know. But he knew what he was capable of, and what he must do.
The chair shifted beneath him, altering itself to become the armor that clad him and made him tower above the gathering crowd. And as far beyond his original skills as a Smith the chair had been, this thing it became was monumentally beyond all that was possible. He didn't know how he had made it, only that he had done so.
The armor – like all things created by Smiths – was a thing of metal and fire and wind. Smiths took such things in bare hands and worked them to wonder. The armor was metal, with fire at its heart, with air that stoked the flames and pushed it to greater heights of power.
It was also, he discovered, harder than any steel. It could take to the air on its flames – and no flames or air could hurt it. Not even that of the Greater Gift he had faced at the palace, with his tornadoes and his lightnings called from the sky.
And it was all impossible.
No person could do such a thing – not even a Smith.
But he was no longer a Smith. He was, like Wahy and La'ug, something more than he had been. A kind of Greater Gift, but not by birth – only by the power of the man who had come to them.
("I w
ill make you my instruments. My messengers.")
The armor clanked as it shifted, the sounds of gears turning and unseen fires stoking growing louder, then all but silencing as the helm clapped over his head.
"I understand you're frightened, and angry, and confused," he said. "But understand this: I brought down the walls of Hawal. I opened the City of Fear, and killed every soldier who made it their home." He raised his arm, and the tube on the side, which cast rays of light so hot and strong they destroyed everything before them, began to glow. "I freed you. I have no wish to kill you."
The tube glowed brighter as he spoke. It hurt. It all hurt, always. That was one thing the man hadn't told them: that exercising their new power would bring pain. Would feel, sometimes, like death.
The crowd fell back. No one made a sound, except Wahy, who kept looking around expectantly, keening softly and clearly hoping for someone to come take care of the little girl he still held.
Tiawan looked to Meinra. The skeletal man was twitching with fear, eyes darting wildly between Tiawan and Wahy.
Tiawan's helm flipped back to reveal his head. "You are safe," he said. "As long as you don't try to harm any of us, no one else has to get hurt. But I do need to talk to whoever is in charge." He pointed at Meinra. "Take me. Now."
Meinra nodded and lowered his sword. He gestured for several others to go to Wahy. "Help her," he said. Those he commanded did not move for several seconds, clearly terrified of what Wahy might do to them.
"Go," said Tiawan. The armor shifted back to the moving chair, and the disappearance of the juggernaut of flame and steel seemed to reassure them. They went to Wahy and pulled the little girl from his arms. Wahy watched her disappear into the crowd, then returned to Tiawan's side. He hugged La'ug, as though to reassure himself that she was there, that all was well. The girl hugged him back, one-armed since she was still holding the woolly. She whispered in his ear and the big man visibly calmed.
La'ug nodded to Tiawan. She had been his helper when he was a simple Smith, and from the first moment she stepped into the smithy she felt a close bond with Wahy, and he with her.
That thought brought another pang to Tiawan's heart. Wondering what might have been if Wahy had been born with a normal mind, not stunted by the sicknesses that plagued Fear. If he might not have great-grandchildren by now, if perhaps La'ug had grown a few more years and the two could have fallen in love and –
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