Leviathan's Blood

by Ben Peek

  Yoala had spoken to her mother shortly before the announcement. Bueralan had been with the First Queen when her daughter had opened the glass door, dismissing the Queen’s Voice with a wave of her hand, before walking determinedly across the balcony. As she drew closer, Bueralan thought that the hardness in her matched her older self well. In their youth, he had always thought that it ill suited her and Zean had laughed at his attempts to soften her. His marriage to Yoala had been decided at a very early age, and he had adhered to it until he was old enough that his interests, along with her own, had diverged to such an extent that the prospect of marriage was simply one of unhappiness on both parts. By the time he had become involved with the Hundredth Prince, his engagement to the Third Princess had been over for three years, and the two of them had not spoken since.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ Yoala said to him coldly, ‘I’d like to speak to my mother alone.’

  Bueralan glanced at the First Queen, who replied that she would be fine. He nodded and left. After he closed the door, he stood beside the Queen’s Voice and watched the party before them.

  ‘Are you having fun?’ she asked him.

  ‘I was promised that,’ he said drily. ‘I keep waiting for someone to ask me to dance.’

  ‘Don’t look at me.’

  ‘Perish the thought.’ A moment of silence passed between them. On the floor, people stood close to each other, clumped in sections while young men in robes of pale yellow walked among them, holding trays of food and drink. ‘You want a drink?’

  ‘Very much so.’ The Queen’s Voice shook her head. ‘But just water, and if you don’t mind, could you pour it yourself?’

  ‘The Saan rarely poison,’ he said.

  ‘Who said I feared the Saan?’

  He left her on the first floor, taking slow, lazy steps down the large staircase that ended on the smooth stone floor. At the far edge of the room were a series of long tables dominated by a set of ice sculptures. They depicted half a dozen warriors fighting a single Saan warrior, who held two broken blades in his grasp. The Saan warrior loomed over the others, and though his swords were in a defensive position, there was no doubting that he would fend off these attackers, who had begun to melt into large pools of water from their torsos, giving the impression that they were about to drown in their own blood.

  ‘Impressive, is it not, Captain?’

  Bueralan dipped a glass into the cold water. ‘Hello, Usa,’ he said.

  ‘It is meant to be a depiction of the Blade Prince in his famous battle at the Jajjar. He had been cut off from the rest of the Dvir army and found himself isolated in the small town. Over one hundred warriors swept into it to kill him, and in a battle that took over a week, he killed each and every one of his opponents. It was said that on the third day his blades broke, and he fought for four more days with the shattered remains. Personally, I suspected he picked a fresh blade, but legend is a strange thing, beholden to no fact.’ The Dvir war scout moved to stand beside Bueralan, his back to the sculptures, to the fragile glasses and beautifully arranged plates of food, his gaze on the floor above. ‘Do you know, I did not think the old woman would ever let you out of her clutches. She must like the fame you come with.’

  ‘There will be a new topic tomorrow.’ He dipped a second glass for himself into the water. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Yes, but the shock of the marriage will be greater, thanks to you. I ought to pay you for that.’

  ‘The Saan do not hire mercenaries.’

  ‘I have heard such a thing said myself.’ He smiled faintly. ‘She is a beautiful woman, is she not?’

  Bueralan followed the other man’s gaze and found it centred on the Queen’s Voice. ‘I don’t think she is your kind.’ He recognized the insult as he spoke, knew that he should stop himself, but found that he continued drily, regardless. ‘She has too many opinions and is much too old for you.’

  The war scout’s smile faded. ‘We’re all just flesh, Captain.’

  ‘A fascinating insight, Usa.’ Bueralan picked up the two glasses, the moisture running over his hands. ‘Do you have more written down?’

  ‘It was always said you had a soft spot for slaves.’

  Bueralan left him, then.

  He walked up the stairs slowly, returning to the Queen’s Voice without rush, aware that he had most likely made an enemy of Usa because of her. He was surprised, despite himself. He had gained a greater respect for the Queen’s Voice over the night, at times watching her converse with men and women while the First Queen was silent beside him, watching the sureness and confidence by which she maintained the standards of royalty without compromising her own grace. She had made his job much easier, allowed him to learn faces, names, to note those who approached and those who did not. But he did not think that he had been so impressed that he would insult the war scout of the Dvir family. But he supposed that it did not truly matter: any retaliation that Usa could undertake would have to be done outside the Dvir interests, and once the night was over, the war scout would be busy enough that he would be forced to put aside Bueralan’s words.

  Yet, as the announcement of marriage was made, and Yoala Fe took her young fiancé’s arm in her own and stepped into the middle of the downstairs room, which filled with applause as orange-and-yellow confetti dropped from the ceiling, Usa Dvir turned to stare at Bueralan.

  ‘You’ve made a friend,’ the Queen’s Voice said.

  ‘I’m very charming.’

  She might have said more if the applause in the room had not faded to one strong, steady clap, much like a war drum’s beat.

  ‘I did not know that I had arrived for a wedding,’ a man’s voice said. ‘Samuel, did you know anything of this?’

  A brown-skinned man stepped into the room without waiting for a reply. From his position upstairs, Bueralan could not see his face, but he could see the old dust-stained leather armour that he wore, and the hilts of two worn weapons, one a dagger, the other a sword. But it was the chain in his hand that drew Bueralan’s attention, the chain that fell in a slack loop behind him, and was connected to the neck of Samuel Orlan.

  ‘Guards!’ Yoala demanded. ‘Guards! Who has let this man in?’

  ‘I am afraid they all stepped aside for me.’ The hand that held the chain was heavily scarred. ‘They knew my name, both my names, and they laid down their weapons for me. One even called me Mister Ren, but I told him that that was my father’s name, and that I was simply Aela.

  ‘Aela Ren.’

  Three Stories of an Innocent Man

  ‘The second offer,’ Jiqana told me, ‘was given a week after we had been in the camp. In the days before, the soldiers would come up and talk to you. Some were frightening: they had filed their teeth down, or dug trinkets beneath their skin, but some were not. Some were normal. Friendly. But both would ask you about your life, about the things that you had done, and the things you wanted to do. It did not seem to me that anything anyone said was right, but nothing appeared to be wrong, either. In some of us, it bred a kind of confidence. After two or three days, they would begin to whisper about what they saw in the camp. They would point out that the Faithful did not have much food. That they did not have a single uniform. That their siege weapons were made from town walls and buildings. By the sixth day, some were even talking openly about how many of the Faithful weren’t even soldiers.

  ‘When the second offer was made, it was those people who said yes. They did not believe it, so I do not know why they did agree, but I believe there was some sort of compelling notion within them, something that forced them to raise their voice.

  ‘The Faithful cooked them alive. They sat the rest of us around the fires they lit and made us watch as they pulled the flesh off the men and women we had known and devoured them.’

  —Tinh Tu, Private Diary

  1.

  Aela Ren was not a tall man. He was five and a half foot and was neither thick-necked or muscular in frame, and at first glance, that
lent him an air of innocence. A second glance revealed a leanness that spoke of a soldier who had spent years on campaign. But it was the third glance, the glance that turned into a stare, that allowed the terrible nature of the man to unfold. From beneath the shorn black stubble of his hair to the ends of his fingers, Bueralan saw a man whose body was mapped by scars, tattooed by extreme acts of violence. They were old wounds, dried and puckered and faded into his skin until they would fade no more. There was no uniformity to them: the injuries had not been caused by a single blade, mace or arrow; they corrugated across his arms and neck like bites and ran in cuts both thick and thin between. Both the number and the age of them left no doubt that the Innocent had come as close to a violent death as any man or woman could, and that only by sheer force of will had he overcome it. Yet, when Aela Ren turned, his gaze running over the people before him in a curiosity before it settled on Bueralan, he revealed a face that was neither defined by pain or stubbornness, nor a face that by the story of his body had a right to be taciturn and abrupt. No, he revealed a face that was alert, intelligent and – despite its scars – approachable.

  ‘Mister Le,’ he said. ‘Just who I came to see.’

  Call only – Bueralan’s hands tightened on the railing at the top of the stairs as he remembered the child’s words – when what is at stake is innocence.

  ‘Samuel did not want to bring me here.’ Aela Ren released the chain he had wrapped around Orlan’s neck and let it clatter to the floor. ‘I arrived at his shop this afternoon and he began to argue once the door opened. My first time seeing him in over two hundred years and his first word to me is no. He tells me he has done enough to you, Bueralan, and enough has been done to you. If I were to be truthful with you, I expected as much. Samuel Orlan has always argued with me. It is the name, naturally. The first Samuel Orlan sounded like the fifty-eighth, and the eighty-second is no different. They are all the same.’

  In the silence that followed Ren’s words, Bueralan heard the old cartographer unwinding the heavy chain around his neck in painful grunts and gasps. The rest of the mansion was caught in the words of the Innocent and, a handful of steps away from him, Yoala’s young groom, Hua Dvir, best exemplified the fear of those around them. He appeared as if he had been caught in amber. He was unable to move from where he had been when the celebration of his marriage announcement began. The same, however, could not be said of Yoala, whose terror was giving way to indignation at Aela Ren’s intrusion. She took a step forward without hesitation and said, ‘You do not—’

  Her body slumped to the floor, her throat torn out.

  ‘I did not invite conversation.’ Aela Ren shook his right hand, spraying blood across the tiled floor. ‘But that is the problem with people of pride and ambition.’

  The Innocent’s movements had been swift and sudden, the ends of his fingers tearing through Yoala’s neck with a callous disregard that Bueralan had never seen before. Call only when what is at stake is innocence. The child’s words repeated as Aela Ren began to walk up the stairs. Call – the terrified crowd parted before him as his worn boots marked a path to the saboteur – call only when – across the smooth stone floor, blood dripping from his hand – call only when what is at stake – each step a beat to the child’s words – call only when what is at stake is innocence – words that Bueralan knew with certainty were intended for the man who approached, words that demanded he speak a name he did not know.

  ‘I am the oldest person here.’ The Innocent stopped before the Queen’s Voice, his right hand still wet with blood. ‘Even so, I can still acknowledge great beauty. Does that flatter you?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  Aela Ren reached for her dress, gathering it from up high around her thighs, and wiped the blood off his hand.

  ‘I like her.’ He said the words to Bueralan, but he remained in front of the Queen’s Voice for a moment longer, still holding her burnt-orange gown in his hands. Gently, he released the dress and turned to the saboteur. He approached the railing where he stood. ‘She is genuinely terrified,’ he continued. ‘It took a lot of courage for her to tell me no. Many others would not find it. Most are simply afraid to speak when they meet me. Afraid that if they draw attention to themselves they will die like that woman on the floor. Their fear is a truth deep inside them. It is caused by my name, by my presence and by my actions. I enhance it, naturally. My master gave me that gift long ago – to let the truth inside someone be that which guides them around me. Samuel’s mistress gave him the gift of the world’s borders. But your master – what did your master give you?’ A scarred hand reached for the leather tie around his neck, for the pouch—

  Bueralan’s hand snapped around the Innocent’s wrist. ‘That’s not for you,’ he said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ He pulled his arm away. ‘Your master did not give that to you, did he?’

  ‘I do not have a master.’

  ‘That is not true.’ The First Queen’s interruption was a harsh whisper. ‘And unlike others in this room, Aela Ren, I am not terrified of you.’

  The Innocent turned his attention away from Bueralan, turned to the old woman. ‘But you are dying,’ he said simply.

  ‘I have been dying for many years.’

  ‘Yet you believe it has made you strong, immune to the fears and indecision of others.’ The Innocent’s hand waved across the crowd, waved to where Saan warriors emerged, their copper bracelets catching the light sharply. ‘But it has made you weak. That is why men of conquest are on your shores, Zeala Fe. Tell me, how long do you think your daughter would have allowed you to live once she was married?’

  ‘That is for mothers and daughters to decide, not men from across the ocean.’ The First Queen slowly rose from her wheelchair, her arms shaking with the effort. Upright, she was a thin woman, her shoulders hunched under a weight that no one watching could truly have appreciated. ‘Why don’t you let these people go home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then kill them now.’

  Around the First Queen a gasp escaped the crowd.

  Aela Ren’s scarred lips smiled faintly. Instead of answering her, he turned to Bueralan, turning his back to both the First Queen and the Saan warriors who drew closer to him. Yet the saboteur did not look at them. Instead, he followed the Innocent’s gaze down to the floor where Yoala’s body lay alone, her blood forming a tranquil pool around her. At the far edge of the crowd, Usa Dvir had taken the arm of the Saan prince and led him into the crowd, leaving Samuel Orlan alone in the centre of the room.

  The cartographer had regained his feet and, free of the chain that had dragged him, walked past Yoala Fe’s body to the long table of ice sculptures.

  ‘My master was the god Wehwe,’ Ren said to Bueralan, his voice conversational. ‘He was the God of Truth, and he died in the middle of the War of the Gods, struck down by Uditos, the God of Necessity. The loss was great to me, but the irony of it did not escape me, even at the time. For war to continue, truth must die. Wehwe was the first to say that. He had made me write it. It was one of the few pieces of writing that he did not make me destroy after I had completed it. Over the thousands of years that my master spoke to me, he would have me transcribe whole books and then burn them. He believed that once words became print, they were no longer true, but it was my duty to search for those that were not.’

  At the ice sculpture of the broken-bladed warrior, Samuel Orlan dipped his hands into the bowls of water, bringing the liquid to his face.

  ‘I was a monk when Wehwe first found me,’ Ren continued. Bueralan risked a glance behind the Innocent, and saw that the Saan warriors were drawing closer, but with great caution. ‘I know that it is not true now, but for the first few decades of my life, I was dedicated to the pursuit of peace and harmony. I had not seen a sword or raised my hands in anger. I lived in a monastery on a mountain that no longer exists and I owned nothing but the robes and boots that I wore, clothing that I made with my own hands. The trail to the monastery was a long an
d twisting one, made from bridges of rope and wood, and secured into the smooth rock of the mountain by monks like myself. To travel to it was such a danger that few did, and the monks there were forced to grow their own food and sink their own wells for water. The monks would leave twice a year. On both those times, we would travel along our dangerous trails until we reached the base of the mountain, where we would trade for cloth and seeds, and we would help with the ill and take in abandoned children. I was one such child, left by parents too young and too poor to care for me, and I was carried to the monastery on the back of another monk at six months of age. For thirty-four years I lived in the grounds. I did chores, I studied and I lived an unremarkable life until the winter Wehwe noticed me.

  ‘He came to me first as a small rodent, and he followed me around the gardens for a month. He would lead me to hurt birds, hungry rodents, struggling insect colonies, and I would help all of them. I did not know he was a god then, though I knew something was strange about the rodent, and when it died, I wept. Later, he appeared as a woman heavy with child who needed my help. I saw her in a dream, and found her on the mountain, beautiful and alone and vulnerable. He tested me with her in a number of ways, and I resisted them all. After her, he appeared as an old man with no legs. He sent a letter to the monastery by bird, requesting that I make the journey along our paths to reach him and bring him up, in the middle of winter. I carried him on my back for nearly a month as I brought him to the monastery steps.