by Ben Peek
The Cold Soul Against Your Heart
The people I spoke with, the stories I recorded, are but a fraction of what I heard. On the slaves’ blocks throughout Gogair, more and more blind men and women are being sold, and each of them has a similar story.
It is clear that the child seeks only submission. She does not seek to engage men and women in terms of reason and purpose. Her desire to reclaim the world, to repair the damage, as her priests claim, feels not just hollow, but a terrible falsity, one that hides an awful truth.
—Tinh Tu, Private Diary
1.
‘She had the better of you for a moment there,’ Bueralan said as he walked around Aela Ren. In his hand, he held a sword, the end pointed casually at the ground. ‘Her name was Ce Pueral. You’ll want to remember it.’
‘It will fade,’ the Innocent replied harshly, the bestial quality to his voice that Bueralan had heard a week ago returning. ‘They all fade.’ The scarred man regarded him flatly from above her torn body, a figure whose tattoos of violence now included the wounds left by the ghostly mouths of the creature when they tore through his armour. ‘You will fade as well.’
‘Do I look like a man who cares about being remembered?’ Around the saboteur, eight of Pueral’s soldiers remained. All but two had their stolen mounts, and of the latter, one knelt painfully on the ground. ‘How about you all?’ he said to them. ‘You still got some fight left?’
‘Don’t be a fool.’ Ren ignored the soldiers around him and focused on Bueralan. ‘You cannot stand against me.’
‘I feel fatalistic,’ he said and raised his sword.
The saboteur had a realistic expectation of what he would accomplish in the final hours of the night as he paced around the Innocent. Behind him, the horizon was a ruinous line of fire, and when the first sun rose and cast its orange-red haze over the First Province of Ooila, he did not expect to see it. He was the contrast to Pueral: the Eyes of the Queen had been angry, but her loyalty and her service to the First Queen had refused to allow her mind to be overwhelmed by defeat. That was not to say that she could not acknowledge it: she had seen it and that was why she had named him captain in the stables, why she issued him with a command to be obeyed before she began to walk into the broken horizon.
‘Get up,’ he had said to Samuel Orlan as Ce Pueral approached the witch. He grabbed hold of the grey’s reins. ‘Get up and hold tight to Taela.’
The cartographer shook his head. ‘The horse cannot carry all three of us.’
‘He won’t.’
‘Let me—’
‘Get up,’ he ordered.
‘Bueralan—’ Taela began.
‘Aela Ren will follow me.’ In the poor light of the stables, both had the appearance of being washed out, of being made from old colours. He offered them a smile without humour. ‘He wants to hear a name from me. You both know that. You will get nowhere if I am with you.’
‘We’ll get nowhere without you,’ she said. ‘Aela Ren’s army is out there.’
‘The grey will get you through.’ He rubbed the horse’s nose. ‘He’s an old soldier. He’ll find a way through. He and Orlan.’
‘You cannot kill him,’ the cartographer said, his voice heavy with resignation. ‘You can only make him kill you.’
‘All my friends are dead, old man.’ Bueralan grabbed the pouch around his neck and pulled it over his head. Gently, he placed it into Taela’s hand. ‘You take this. You take it and you destroy it. You do what I could never do.’
She began to argue, to decline, and he felt the first push of her hand against his in rejection, but then her fingers curled around it. ‘It’s cold,’ she said quietly.
‘It always was.’
He helped Orlan onto the back of the tall grey and, though the cartographer resisted, though he argued that all three of them should go, that they were surrounded, Bueralan saw the pair out of the stable. He stood in the doorway and watched the tall grey canter from the mansion, and out into the burning horizon. Maybe they would make it. He believed that they would. He had to believe that. He remained there until the cries and shouts of Pueral and her soldiers reached him and he turned to face in that direction. He saw Aela Ren lifted from the ground by a figure he could not rightly describe, but he knew it would not be enough.
On the stable floor, where the first of Pueral’s soldiers had fallen, a sword was still in its sheath. Bueralan bent down and rolled the corpse over before he pulled the blade free.
The weight was decent, but the cross-guard was a rounded piece of steel that did not cover his entire fist. ‘It will do,’ he said to the soldier, rising. ‘Let’s see if you’ll be proud.’
He strode out of the stables without armour, wearing the black clothes he had worn to Yoala Fe’s engagement party, but that did not concern him. In some way, he believed it was better. Armour blunted a blow. It softened a thrust, it turned a cut, it kept a man alive when he otherwise should not be, and Bueralan had already been alive longer than he should have. He should have died in Ranan. He had, to a degree, died in there. The wound had been struck when he had found Kae. He had been struck again when he found Ruk and Liaya, and then her sister, Aerala. He could see them clearly, still, on the floor. But it had been when he found Zean, his body covered in what looked to be a thousand wounds, that the final blow had been delivered. His blood brother. His family. He should have drawn his sword then. He would have died in that cathedral, Bueralan knew, but he would have died beside the people who mattered to him. He would have been spared the journey of grief to Ooila, the futile attempt to turn back what had happened, the path that ended with him standing before the Innocent, Aela Ren.
Pueral’s soldiers were the first to strike.
A rider from the far left charged first. She leant low on the saddle and urged her mount into a gallop while her sword swung free. In her wake, the other five found their footing, and soon the six mounts were charging at the spot where Ren stood, his gaze never leaving Bueralan. When the first sword came close to him, its length holding the smoked horizon in its blade, he merely shifted to his left. He continued to move to his left, turning in a full circle to come into the path of the mounts that had followed, but he did not move as they came closer. Instead, he met their slashes with heavy, angry cuts, each quicker than Bueralan could follow – and within a handful of heartbeats, Ren had pulled himself into the saddle of one, replacing a man by grasping him by the throat.
He had not quite got settled when Bueralan grabbed him, his hand snapping around Ren’s arm a moment before he hurled him from the saddle. The Innocent went with the movement and came up from a roll with his sword thrusting at Bueralan, but the saboteur turned it aside. He met the speed with his own, catching each strike before returning in a low cut that allowed him to step inward, grab Ren’s leathers, and bring his forehead down to strike the Innocent hard on the head. The blow hurt, but it always hurt, and it left the scarred man open to Bueralan’s fist, which released the leather jerkin and jabbed shortly into his throat. He had killed other men with the move, but Ren was quick enough that he caught the punch only on the side of his neck, and stiff-armed Bueralan hard in the chest to get some distance – only to find himself on the back foot as the saboteur quickly closed the space.
2.
‘Let me take him.’
The words sounded distant to Zaifyr, as if spoken by a haunt he could no longer see; yet he knew that it was spoken by a man, by Jae’le, just as he knew that in his arms he held his brother, Eidan. The large man’s blood was seeping over his right hand and down his arm. But his focus was on the beautiful young woman walking towards him, on the woman whose very presence caused the dead to respond as they did to him: by whispers of words and cold touches, by imitating a sense of closeness that their brittle bodies remembered only in the most primal sense of longing. In their need, they did not know that she was responsible for their situation, that she had kept their remains in the world to give her power. They merely responded to he
r power.
‘Brother,’ Jae’le said, his hands drawing the weight of Eidan from him, ‘you can let him go.’
‘You must beware of those with her.’ The large man’s voice was a pained whisper. ‘She raised them on the Plateau.’
‘I know where they are from,’ Zaifyr replied.
The large man’s hand grasped him. ‘Qian—’
‘That is not my name.’
‘I did not think she would bring them here,’ Eidan continued, his breath laboured. ‘I thought she had entered Yeflam only in the company of myself. I held no suspicion. I thought she left them in Faaisha. But they are here. They came upon me before I reached the edge of Nale. There were seven of them. They were wet, as if they had been in the ocean, as if they had been hidden beneath the black water for all this time. When they saw me, they let out a roar and attacked. I crushed their bones. I broke their limbs. But they would not die. I threw four back into Leviathan’s Blood, but I fear there are more. I fear they are all here.’
As he spoke, Zaifyr heard shouts from outside the gates, while the drums from the ocean were lost beneath breaking waves.
‘Eidan,’ the child said, stopping a dozen paces before the three men. The white robe that she wore was unstained, either by dirt or by blood. ‘You must be stronger for me. I want the first of my betrayers to rage against my justice. I want him to test my power before he fails. Only then will you be an inspiration to my faithful.’
‘In other words,’ Zaifyr said, stepping in front of his injured brother, ‘you want to rely upon fear.’
Her laughter still held its sweet lie of innocence. ‘I will claim you as well as my betrayer, all the brothers together.’
Zaifyr had begun to let his power flow into the dead around him, but he paused. Something in her words had caught a hold in him, had allowed for a moment of uncertainty to find a perch in his mind. ‘Where is Aelyn?’
‘I had a vision.’ The child ignored him, the smile on her face fading as her lips straightened. ‘It was after your trial that it came to me, a thread of fate revealed. I saw you, Qian, standing on the deck of a Yeflam ship. The sight of it brought me a great sense of foreboding. Behind you were the Floating Cities, but they lay wrecked, and yet were complete. My vision would shift between the broken pillars and sunken cities and that of an intact and whole country. Yet, as I drew closer, it became clear to me that Yeflam was in ruins. A sense of dread started to overcome me and I was drawn to the very centre of the wreckage. Drawn here, in fact, to where Nale once sat. But once here I was drawn beneath the water, but when I tried to enter it, I could not. In the reflection of the water, however, I could see myself. I stared at it for some time until I began to hear a name spoken from the depths of the ocean, a name spoken by my image. I could not hear it properly, but I know that it is mine.’
‘You did not answer his question,’ Jae’le said from behind him. ‘Where is Aelyn?’
‘Not here,’ the child said simply.
It was the creature who held the huge spiked mace who attacked first.
He let out a bellow, and Zaifyr saw the ancient dead within curl throughout the body, giving it a strength that it would not otherwise have had as it leapt into the air, lifting the ugly weapon high . . . but Zaifyr, his power flooding into the bodies of a pair of haunts, saw two cold, barely formed figures emerge in the air next to the creature. Their cold hands wrapped around his arms and tore the mace from his grasp, before the creature was thrown into the ground.
‘Lor Jix,’ he said, flooding his power through the words, reaching down through the dark ocean quickly and sharply, ‘it is time.’
He received no answer but for the brittle coldness that flooded through him, a chill that, he saw with a grim pleasure, went through the child as well. Anger straightened out the lines of her face and, above them, he saw the sky bulge as the dark mass pressed against the reality that it was not part of. But as it did, the first of five tall mastheads began to rise beneath the feet of the child. It forced her to take a step backwards to avoid being impaled, just as it forced Zaifyr and his brothers to do the same. Slowly, the masts continued to rise, outlined by a pale, broken light. From each, long pieces of rope led down to the thick rails that edged a massive deck. There a large, square cabin rested at the stern, behind a wheel that was easily the size of two men. At it stood a solitary figure, a short, ugly man who radiated a cold fury similar to the three creatures who stood around the child. Yet his feet appeared to rise from the ship’s deck and, as it continued to lift into the night sky, as more and more of the mammoth vessel was revealed, as a ship greater than some icebergs rose, more and more men and women appeared on its decks. Finally, the last of the hull lifted through the stone of Nale and the ship that Zaifyr had glimpsed in broken halves on the bottom of the ocean rose full and complete into the night sky.
It rose into a sky that was cracking apart, a sky that was giving way to the darkness behind it. As it did, Lor Jix appeared beside Zaifyr.
It was from his awful voice that the order to attack the child was given.
3.
Bueralan pressed forward, his sword leading in a series of quick jabs that forced the Innocent into a pattern of defence until, finally, a slippery parry allowed Ren to gain an opportunity to thrust in return and stop momentum, but the bottom of Bueralan’s sword caught the blade and flipped it up before battering it to the side with a wide slash that caused Ren to move backwards. It was a small victory, but against a warrior of the Innocent’s skill, small victories began the path to victory, and Bueralan, stepping up the speed of his own attacks, felt the moment seep into his muscles, into his movements, and the rhythm of violence that he had not felt for such a long time returned to him. A low thrust forced Ren into a block, and a cut at his waist saw him move to the right, but it was Bueralan’s charge that caught the Innocent by surprise, and the saboteur’s blade sliced across the side of Ren’s face as he dropped beneath a slash that would have easily crashed into another man’s skull. Bueralan followed with a series of controlled cuts, but as Ren came to his feet, a solid block turned to a powerful thrust and Bueralan was forced to step back, moments before a riderless horse thundered past.
‘We are not alone, not any more,’ Aela Ren said, his sword held low as he continued to move to his right. ‘We can end this now.’
‘I’m just starting to hit my stride.’ Bueralan held his sword behind him as he moved to his right. ‘Maybe I’ll take an ear next.’
‘We have come a long way to hear you speak.’
‘Maybe a tongue.’
Ren did not step back from his charge, but rather met each blow. Each block and parry he made picked up speed, as if he had been learning from Bueralan, mirroring the Saan who had stood around the Innocent a week ago and watched his battle with one of their own. Bueralan met his speed, however, and when he could not raise his weapon in defence, he moved to dodge the attacks that the Innocent made. At one point, he dropped low to cut in a wide circle at the shins of the other man. Aela Ren leapt over the sword and Bueralan caught his sword in a block on the way down and drove his fist into Ren’s chest, beneath the crossbow bolt. The Innocent grunted in pain and Bueralan punched him again, and then a third time, before the Innocent grabbed his shirt and dropped him in an ugly flip over his back. Ren’s foot came crashing down onto his chest and his breath burst from him. A second blow cracked his ribs, but Bueralan knocked the other foot out from under the other man and came to his feet, his sword parrying a thrust. In desperation, he tried to turn it into more, tried to turn the parry into a thrust, and instead, the sharp edge of Ren’s sword cut deep into the side of his chest.
Bueralan’s left hand tightened on Ren’s sword arm, trapping the blade in place. With a shift of his weight, he crashed his head down again, but Ren, ready for it, shifted and the left side of his face and eye hit awkwardly and bloodily on his skull. With a grunt, Bueralan released Ren’s trapped arm and spun around, his sword arcing through the air to slash down
on the Innocent, only to find that he had moved through him. Bueralan felt the man’s boot crash into the back of his calf, trying to shatter the bone, and his foot twisted as he moved out of the blow. Stumbling, he left Ren’s reach and came upon the body of Pueral, who lay on her back, her armour and stomach sliced open, revealing a dark, bloody mess.
‘You holding back?’ Bueralan turned back to the Innocent, his left hand going to the wound on his chest, his leg protesting the weight he put on it. ‘You sliced her open. You shouldn’t find it a problem to do the same for me.’
‘You are making it difficult.’ Aela Ren spat a mouthful of blood on the grass and grasped the bolt in his chest. With a grunt, he pulled it free and tossed it onto the ground. ‘But as I said, we have come a long way to hear what you will say.’
Though one eye was blurred with blood, Bueralan could see men and women standing on the edges of the field. They emerged from the smoke and fire of the horizon but were little more than shadows. He could see the silhouettes of riderless horses both behind and in front and he assumed that the soldiers who had begun the fight with him were now dead. But one – one of them drew his eye, a horse whose silhouette gave way to a smoky grey, and who had, he knew, carried Taela and Orlan.
‘What is her name?’ Ren asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, a familiar sadness filling him. ‘I’ve never known.’