Leviathan's Blood

by Ben Peek

  Zean would think it foolishness. He said, ‘Do you not believe that a soul can be reborn?’

  The First Queen, the reborn Queen of the original five who had refashioned Ooila with steel and blood three centuries ago, chuckled drily. ‘Oh, it is true enough. If you have read the books I have read, you would not doubt it,’ she said. ‘But I do not feel as if I am hundreds of years old, and I do not remember the intricate details of those lives. I remember merely flashes, and those are of revolutions and changes, of sweeping away old, stagnant power that had been so much like a cage. Occasionally, it causes me to think that the cage still exists, and it holds me and my daughters so very tightly.’

  Far out on the estate, a flame flickered and rose. ‘The Saan that stood behind Yoala,’ he said, ‘are bridal gifts.’

  ‘To ensure that a Dvir son sits on a throne beside my daughter,’ she said. ‘It will be announced tonight.’

  ‘She is too old to have a child, by Saan standards.’

  ‘She is too old to be a princess.’

  Bueralan did not reply.

  ‘You should have married her,’ the First Queen said sadly. ‘Like your mother and I wanted, so long ago.’

  2.

  As the afternoon’s sun began to rise, Kye Taaira said, ‘We are being followed, Captain.’

  ‘We are also being watched,’ Heast replied. As he spoke, he pulled on the reins of his horse: ahead of him, the road that he and the tribesman followed, the road that led out of the Mountains of Ger, broke down into jagged rips of soil and rock. It was different to the damage that had been caused by the earthquakes, much straighter and consistent. Ropes and ox had done most of it, but amid the rope-burnt tree trunks that had been pulled to the ground and the rough edges of ploughed ground were the marks of axes and the remains of fires. It was destruction that had been caused by the Leeran Army as they retreated down the mountain. Retreat was probably too strong a word for the path they took, Heast knew. General Waalstan and the Leerans had been bloodied in Mireea but they had not suffered defeat – a fact as clear as the exposed roots of the large, broken limbs that had been torn from the ground. ‘It started in Mireea.’

  ‘It is an interesting distinction that you make. I would have thought to be followed was to be watched,’ the tribesman said. ‘This damage continues for some distance, by the way. There is a new trail after the trees, but we will have to climb over the remains here.’

  Awkwardly, Heast lifted his right leg over the back of his horse, trying his best to ignore the pain that ran in a line down his left leg as he did. He knew that the scar tissue where the steel and flesh met had broken open – the sharp pain was what he felt when it was particularly bad. On the ground, his left hand fell to where the two met, while he held the horse’s reins in his right. ‘Is the person following us one of your ancestors?’

  ‘I believe so,’ Kye Taaira replied. ‘He is at a great distance and he is careful, but I sense him well enough.’

  ‘Will he attack alone?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ High over the tribesman’s shoulder, the heavy hilt of his two-handed sword caught the sun’s light; but it did not reflect the brightness, or glint beneath it. Rather, it looked like a darkly tarnished, brittle piece of metal. ‘I do not know which one it is, and how he or she acts will depend greatly on who it is. Who do you believe watches us, Captain?’

  ‘I am not sure.’ Heast turned away from the other man, away from his sword. A long, broken limb led up to the fallen trees, where he could see the vague suggestion of a path made by sword or axe. His good leg guided him up it, and the horse followed without reluctance. ‘Does it surprise you that the Leerans destroyed the road like this?’

  ‘I thought it strange when I first came through here,’ Taaira admitted. ‘It seemed to me that the road to an enemy had been cut off. But I told myself that it was cutting off an enemy’s road as well.’

  ‘It is not what I would have expected from General Waalstan.’

  ‘I was not under the impression that the two of you had met.’

  ‘We haven’t.’

  Heast slowly made his way along the thick trunk. The cutting of smaller branches and leaves had not been done to ease the path of horses, and twice, before he reached the huge rounded knot that joined it to an even larger log, he was forced to stop and snap off sharp broken ends that would have dug into the horses’ flesh. Yet, as he continued, walking carefully over the uneven lane of tree trunks, Heast’s memory returned to the night that he had led the retreat out of Mireea. He had expected the Leerans to follow them, to use the lightly armoured raiders to trail them down the mountain, attacking their flanks. Each morning for the first week, he expected to awake to the report of men and women with filed teeth attacking, but no such report came. He had eventually explained it by the presence of the ghosts in the city: any general would have a hard time pushing his or her soldiers through the broken streets, even more so with the earthquakes. Waalstan had made a few mistakes assaulting the Spine of Ger, and while Waalstan had revealed himself to be a well-planned and thorough general, Heast had thought that he reacted slowly and poorly to changes on the battlefield. Eventually, that characteristic had bled into his assessment of Waalstan and he had reasoned that the lack of pursuit had been unsurprising, but this . . .

  ‘It is the kind of destruction that would force the Yeflam military to travel by sea,’ Heast said. ‘If they were to go to war, that is.’

  ‘Yet the Leeran god arrives in Yeflam,’ the tribesman said. ‘Surely she would not be there if she was at risk.’

  ‘The trial may have been worth such a risk, but perhaps we are overlooking the obvious.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Where are the ghosts of Mireea?’ A thick branch appeared before Heast, the first in a series of limbs that led down the trees. ‘Our caution was unnecessary. We could have gone through the city in the night and seen what we saw during the day. We took a safer journey, but it turned out that it was only safer for us because we could see the ruined road we walked. The priests you followed obviously thought that there was a threat – they believed that enough that they skirted the edges. You do not do that unless you have seen what your threat is.’

  Behind him, the tribesman was silent. A gap appeared before Heast. ‘You believe that the Leeran god drove them away,’ Taaira said, finally.

  He stepped awkwardly across the gap. ‘Is that so hard to imagine after what you saw in your own home?’

  ‘It is not,’ he said. ‘Nor is it hard to imagine that she did not drive them off, but claimed them as her own.’

  ‘If that is true, we are both in trouble.’ Heast stepped onto the hard ground and began to lead his horse to a narrow path that had been made, again, by axe and sword. ‘The ghosts of Mireea are watching us, Taaira. They have been watching us for some time now.’

  3.

  When Zaifyr first spoke, his words felt as if they had come from a distance, and that they tasted of the salt of blood and seawater. He said, ‘No, I have no questions,’ and the words echoed in his head, mingling with the final exchange between Muriel Wagan and the Pauper, the combination of which left the latter’s words, his admonishment of the Lady of the Ghosts that she was protected in Yeflam, even more hollow than they were in truth. The echo faded as he rose, much as if he was surfacing from beneath the black waves of Leviathan’s Blood, and he said, ‘However, I do believe I will speak now.’

  ‘You must wait until you are called.’ It was Lian Alahn who spoke then, his voice a series of snaps. ‘We have established a process, Qian—’

  ‘That is not my name.’ He could still taste salt in his mouth, and spat. ‘Not any more.’

  The silence that followed was sharply pronounced. The emotional intensity of the crowd was still strong from Muriel Wagan’s testimony, her denunciation of Fo and Bau connecting with the crowd’s animosity. His spittle – a mistake, he knew – allowed for that emotion to flow into him, for the arrogant actions of the two Keepers to appear
like an echo of his own.

  ‘Your complete lack of respect for us,’ Alahn said coldly, ‘and your lack of respect for the people around you has been duly noted. Return to your seat and wait to be called. You must abide by our process here today.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘This trial can be ended,’ he said. ‘This day can end. You are not in charge here.’

  ‘This trial is nothing but a cardboard set in an expensive play.’ Zaifyr could still taste the salt in his mouth, but he knew now that it was not real, and he did not spit again. ‘I know this because I helped build it.’

  ‘Qian, you must stop this.’ Kaqua raised his hands as he spoke, not to silence the crowd, which remained silent, but to calm those on either side of him. ‘We are examining your role in relation to the deaths of Keepers Fo and Bau. We have gone to extraordinary lengths to organize this trial that you wished to take part in. We have all responded to the difficulties inherent in it and we have done so by creating a unique process that is unprecedented in its democracy. A thousand and one men and women from Yeflam have the right to cast votes for or against your innocence. The men and women who sit here on either side of me are but volunteers who will lead the discussion. Some, I admit, are not as neutral as others, but your actions have had repercussions that extend widely. We have endeavoured to ensure that a fair balance exists across the twelve of us. To claim otherwise is merely to insult us and our work. If you believe the evidence that has been presented is against you, then it is possible that what you are seeing is a life of such violence and horror that all who hear of it are properly appalled.’

  ‘With that, I do not disagree,’ he said, and turned away from the podium.

  Before the white wall of the Enclave, he saw Jae’le and Aelyn. Both watched him intently. Jae’le had told Zaifyr that this moment – the moment where he took control of the trial’s narrative, where he subverted it to show the threat of the child – was one that was fraught with dangers. If he lost them . . . well, he would not. Not here. Not so close to what he wanted. ‘I was caught by Fo’s disease,’ he said aloud. ‘It was as Lady Wagan said, but what she did not know was that it was an accident that I was. Fo had intended the disease to be spread through the population of Mireea. He had no plans to attack me: I was simply beside the woman he had infected at the wrong time. When he found me, he was surprised. He was not overly concerned, but he did at least acknowledge the fact that he had struck me down. It was more than he bothered to show for the men and women who had been in the hospital with me.’

  Before him, the crowd lay like a flat ocean. At the back he could see the lingering undercurrent of Lady Wagan’s speech, like a swell rising.

  ‘I am here to answer for a mortal crime – that is, the deaths of two men who were responsible for the deaths of over a dozen others – but you do not ask me about the men and women in that hospital.’ Zaifyr saw Ayae, half a dozen steps away from him. She would understand the distinction that he was talking about. ‘You do not ask because you have no interest in what Fo and Bau did,’ he continued. ‘My sister asks you if you will see the immortal excuse for murder, but she does not need to ask. You already do. You believe that immortals are worth more than mortals.’

  ‘You overreach, Madman,’ Eira spat. ‘They would have been gods had you not killed them.’

  The unrest at the back of the crowd rose like a wave, rippling through the people in a deep and profound unease.

  ‘No,’ Zaifyr said, ‘we will never be gods.’

  In the middle of the crowd stood Eidan, and beside him, the child. His gaze fell on the latter as he continued forward.

  ‘We must all admit that, if we wish to repair the world that the gods have destroyed,’ he said, his voice raised for all the men and women around him. ‘We can no longer alter history, rewrite deeds and reclaim morals. We can no longer carry the deceit of the gods as if they were ours. We can no longer carry their prejudices and their hates. We can no longer hold tight to their belief that all other creations were imperfect in comparison to them. It is a cage to us.’

  ‘Qian.’ The child offered him a smile. It was beautiful because she was beautiful, but he saw only the empty conscience behind it. ‘I am not on trial here.’

  ‘No, there is no trial for you,’ he said.

  Behind him, the ghost of Lor Jix emerged on the stone platform. He did not need to turn to confirm it: the charm-laced man could feel the chill of the ghost as he drew closer, a chill that was different to the coldness of the haunts and their broken forms around him. It was a chill that passed through the clothes of those nearby, a chill that sank into the flesh, and into the bones.

  ‘So this,’ Captain Lor Jix of the lost Wayfair said in his waterlogged, awful voice, ‘this is your god.’

  4.

  The ancient dead circled the child.

  His colourless boots marked his path in an ominous and deliberate step, each fall of his foot forcing the crowd back, each new tread cutting her and her followers from Yeflam. After a complete circle, he stopped beside Zaifyr. ‘You do not speak like a god,’ Lor Jix said, his voice cold and hard. ‘You speak with the air. You speak with your mortality. A god does not speak like that. A god speaks in your head. It is a terrible thing to hear. It is made from words without breath. It is endless. A word could drag itself out for years. A paragraph in a second. There was no respite once a god knew your name.’

  ‘Are you,’ the child said, ‘suggesting I am not a god?’

  Lor Jix laughed.

  It was a terrible sound: without humour, it echoed, as if a hundred souls had been forced to laugh by his command.

  The crowd withdrew further from him and in doing so, revealed the Yeflam Guard who, like teeth unveiled in a smile, had moved from their positions. At the head of them stood the Soldier and his second, Oake. Their swords were still sheathed at their waists, but the soldiers who had emerged from the crowd around did so with swords in hand and shields over arms, both of which they put before the civilians of Yeflam. Only the twelve judges from the podium were not so protected, for they had pushed their way past the steel and flesh to stand behind Zaifyr.

  ‘At the bottom of the ocean, you do not hear much of the world,’ Lor Jix said. ‘But I was not always caged, child. I remember you from my time on the waves.’

  ‘Qian.’ Aelyn descended from the sky and landed across from him. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Captain Jix is going to reveal to us a truth about this child,’ Zaifyr said. Before him, the smooth black figure of Anguish climbed out from beneath Eidan’s shirt and sat on his shoulder. His eyes were still closed, but his small body moved quickly and surely. ‘I came here to talk about the gods, but we have made that difficult. We destroyed so much during the Five Kingdoms that all that remains is fragments and lies and misdirection. That is our legacy, Aelyn. We believed we were gods, but we knew that we were unlike those who had been before. We did not stand in the clouds. We did not sleep beneath the ocean. We could not change our bodies. Our blood did not give life. And we had no paradise to offer the dead. We were the children of the gods, but we could not live beside the words of our parents: the stories of their power diminished ours. To hide that, we destroyed their words and destroyed their history. There are few left who can tell us about a god.’

  ‘I have pleaded with you, brother,’ Aelyn said. ‘Pleaded with you not to go down this road.’

  ‘He must.’ Eidan’s voice announced itself for the first time, a voice so deep it sounded as if it had been drawn from huge, dark caverns. ‘Our brother has lived with the horror that the gods left in our world. He, more than anyone else, knows the pain.’

  Around the child, the ring of brown-robed men and women turned to him, but it was she who spoke next. ‘You would do this?’ she asked coldly. ‘You would make your choice here?’

  ‘I have,’ Eidan replied.

  ‘And Anguish?’ At the sound of his name, the black-skinned creature pressed against Eidan’s neck, as if he could
be hidden there.

  ‘The first true betrayal.’ An anger simmered in her voice. ‘Upon both of you I will craft a lesson.’

  ‘You have done enough to him,’ Eidan replied.

  ‘No, I have barely begun.’ The crowd watched his brother and the child, but Zaifyr watched the ancient dead intently. The dead man’s gaze had not left Anguish since the child had spoken to him, as if, in the first pass he had made around her, he had not seen or felt the tragic being. Now, though, his haunted gaze did not leave Anguish, and Zaifyr recalled their conversation in the ruins of Wayfair. Lor Jix had not argued with him after he had mentioned the child. Instead, he had raised his head, as if he could see through the dark depths, as if the huge constructed country of Yeflam was a shadow he knew to be above him. I have waited for a time longer than I could ever have imagined, godling, he had said, but you have finally arrived. Tell me, is she yet named?

  She is not, Zaifyr said.

  On Yeflam, Lor Jix lifted his hand to Anguish. ‘A god must create. It is an urge within, a mark of their divinity – what does your blind creature of pain say about you, child?’

  ‘You think to question me?’ She almost snarled the question to him. ‘I will not be spoken to in such a way by an old ghost, angry at the curse laid upon him.’

  ‘There is bitterness in me. I will not deny that,’ the Captain of Wayfair said. ‘But it is not for the reason you believe, child. I have sat in the remains of my god for ten thousand years, and for all that time, I have been reminded of her anger. The Leviathan was not an angry god until the day that you began to exist. I will not claim that all her words to me were a delight. Her words would burn in me when I disobeyed, but her pleasure . . . ah, but that was a pleasure without comparison. On the day you came into the world, however, her pleasure ceased. An anomalous future had created a new truth, one that betrayed how the world worked.