The Three Lands Omnibus (2011 Edition)

by Dusk Peterson

  And against that— What? What reward lay in dying as a dog does? What was this thing called "sacrifice" that I had spoken of so lightly on so many occasions, when balanced against the pain and horror of death?

  The nut was warm in my hand. The sparks flew upwards. I curled my palm around the nut. God of Judgment, I prayed, I have only the judgment of a mortal man. I am neither god nor High Judge. If you ever loved me – if I ever served you, as either god-lover or as cousin – help me to know whether I have made the right decision.

  I threw the nut above the fire. It cracked, clear and clean.

  The relief swept over me like cool air on a summer's day. I was not such a child any more as to believe that I could receive a sign from the god by hurling a nut into the fire. But the feeling of relief when the nut cracked before it reached the flames told me all that I needed to know. I had made the right decision. I knew that this was what I should do.

  "Thank you, Jackal," I whispered.

  I became aware that someone was standing next to me. I turned my head and saw Carle, staring down at me with puzzlement in his face. "Why did you throw the nut into the fire?" he asked.

  I looked back at the fire. "For good luck," I said, and felt the pain again, still present under the relief.

  I heard him pull in his breath. In another moment, I think, he would have spoken. Perhaps, if he had asked me to explain, I would not have been able to hide my secret from him. He was too skilled at being able to read men's thoughts.

  But at that moment, Devin appeared on our side of the fire. "Lieutenants, we were wondering whether the two of you would be willing to join us in a game of Law Links. We could use your skills." He smiled at me, and I knew that this was the guards' attempt to apologize for having eaten nearly all the nuts.

  "All right," I said. "Carle?"

  He was looking uneasy, sensing, I think, that more lay here on this night than he had been aware of before. But Devin was already drawing me away, so he nodded and followed me over to where the guards sat, waiting anxiously to see whether I would forgive them for their unintentional greediness.

  I knew only three of them: Devin and Levander and Fowler. Payne was killed by a breacher nine months ago, not long after he and I made our peace together over the misunderstanding about the attack on Quentin. When the news arrived of his death, I'd been grateful that our last conversation had been a good one.

  Now I sat down on the guards' side of the fire, while Carle announced his news, and all of the guards raised their cups to toast Carle and me for our good fortunes. I thought Devin was watching me rather closer than usual, but I must have passed muster with him, for as soon as the toasts were over, he launched us into the game. I sat silently, listening to the exchange of links, and feeling the questions I had asked before tumble unanswered in my mind, except for the most important one: what I should do.

  Finally, I became aware that the link had been passed to the man next to me. Carle paused to take a sip of the fire-warmed wine, then turned to me, and with the steady gaze that he used when he was challenging me to the limits of my power, he said, "'And being as it is gravest of all—'"

  "Too hard, too hard!" called out Fowler. "Give him an easier one, lieutenant. It is not fair to make him recite one of the Great Three when he has only been learning the law for three years."

  "He is up to the test," Carle announced calmly as he handed me the wine. "The final subsection. 'And being as it is gravest of all that anyone should attack the manhood of the Great Chara—'"

  "'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or enslavement or the high doom.'" I took a deep breath and leapt to the end of the Justification to the Law of Vengeance: "'For it is yet another of the Chara's burdens that he should at all times be prepared to sacrifice himself for the sake of the people. And this he must be willing to do whenever the task is required, whether in the day or in the night, whether in Emor or in foreign lands, whether in old age or in youth. For the land cannot endure unless its High Judge be willing to give all that he has to it, even if he should be required to sacrifice his body or his spirit or his life's blood. And in this respect also the Emorian people—'"

  I paused, and in the silence that followed I could hear nothing but the crackle of the fire. The night patrol's whistles had long since died out; the hunted had been captured. Carle was watching me with a faint smile, and as I met his eyes, I felt all the fear and unhappiness in me drain away. Whatever I could have contributed to Emor, I thought, Carle will do for me, and he will do it far better than I could have done. That link will remain after I am gone.

  I took a final sip of the wine and felt it warm my blood. Then I smiled and handed the bottle back to Carle, saying, "Complete the link."

  I think Carle realized that I knew the rest of the passage, and that I only wanted to give him the pleasure of reciting his favorite law. His smile deepened, and he kept our gazes bound together as he said, "'And in this respect also the Emorian people are an embodiment of the law, for, like the Great Chara, they too may be called upon at any time to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the land. This is the way, above all, that they demonstrate their love and obedience to the Chara and his law. And it is only through their willingness to make such a sacrifice that the people receive true peace from the Lawmaker.'"

  For one moment more, our eyes remained linked. Then Carle turned the chain; facing Levander he said, "'And being as it is gravest of all that anyone should be disobedient to the Great Chara—'"

  There was a general hooting and protest. "We will be making this chain forever if you do not pick shorter links, lieutenant," said Devin.

  "All right, all right," Carle responded, laughing. "Here is an easier one. "'And being as it is more grave that a soldier should be disobedient to his official—'"

  "'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or reprimand or beating,'" said Levander. "'For however small an order it may be that the soldier is given, his obedience is necessary in all things, firstly so that he shall serve as a model for the people's unswerving obedience to the Chara . . .'"

  I rose, unnoticed by anyone except Carle, who was still listening to Levander recite the Justification to the Law of Army Obedience and who therefore acknowledged my departure with no more than a smile and a nod. Since Carle was watching, I took out my blade and held it over the fire for a moment. Then, when no one was looking my way any more, I tossed the dagger into the bushes where I had once hid and started to walk away.

  When I reached the edge of the firelight, I looked back. Levander had stumbled on some minor words, and Carle, to much laughter, was demonstrating how that tiny change could cause a disastrous imbalance of judgment in the court. I stood awhile, listening as Carle's words relinked the broken chain and the recital passed to a new man, but Carle did not look my way, so I turned finally and walked back into the darkness.

  POSTSCRIPT

  Forty-four years have passed since the final words of this journal were written, and during all that time, I have never had the courage to look through this manuscript, fearing what it would reveal about me. For the last images I retain of this time have been hard enough for me to endure over the years. There is the image of the two of us sitting by the mountain fire while I babbled on about my good fortune, and Adrian sat in unusual silence. There is the image of me standing several days later in Captain Radley's tent, where I had been summoned back from my new work to search for a missing spy, and where I had the cold satisfaction of seeing Radley turn pale as I told him what he had done, and paler still as I recited to him the charges I intended to place against him.

  But the last image of all, the one I have tried most to erase, is the one that remains most vivid: the moment when I knelt by Adrian and closed his eyes, then lifted him into my arms for the start of his journey home. The blood from his throat had dried by then; he made no mark on me.

  But of course in another sense he made a very great mark, and as he had guessed would happen, it is through me that he co
ntinues to contribute links to the chain we both revered. Looking back on his words now, I can see how, even in my small roles over the years, I have taken what he said and did, and used it to bring about great changes in high matters.

  Because Adrian was who he was and because I knew him, Koretia became a dominion of Emor twenty-six years ago. Because of Adrian, Koretia regained its independence eleven years ago, retaining the Emorian courts but rejecting the Emorian view of the gods. Because of Adrian, the Jackal now sits on the Koretian throne, serving as High Judge and High Priest, and combining Emorian law with Koretian religion in a way which I will never understand but which would have pleased Adrian.

  Whether or not he now dwells with his gods, I cannot help but believe that Adrian is still alive through what he has given to Emor and Koretia. Because of this, I no longer dread to visit his tomb in my family's graveyard. Though those last, terrible images will always remain, I now have another image to set beside them: that of a young Koretian-born Emorian, sharing my wine and smiling as he offered his small but golden link to the chain of the law.

  Completed on the first day of September in the 987th year after the giving of the law, by Carle, High Lord of the Great Council of Emor.

  o—o—o

  o—o—o

  o—o—o

  === Blood Vow ===

  Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flower can say – here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable descriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrection to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. . . .

  But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

  —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

  Blood Vow 1

  THE GODS' LAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  I had searched half the mountainside before I found him where I did not expect him, sitting in the window of the gods' house. I had come to tell him, in the cheerful manner boys have, that our world was about to be destroyed. My announcement came true sooner than I would have expected, and that was the day when I lost all that was dear to me and was forced to hide within a mask I later found I could not remove. I remember that day most clearly, though, because it contained the moment at which I first placed myself under the care of a master who was already present but whom I did not yet know.

  I stood for a long time, looking up from the steep slope below the gods' house, unable to believe what I saw. To a stranger from a foreign land, perhaps, the sight would have seemed quite ordinary. The window in which he sat was low and broad, like all Koretian windows, though otherwise the building was unlike those in our capital nearby. Like the modern priests' house, this ancient house of worship was made of stone, a building material that always seemed odd to my eyes, living as I did in a city of timber-and-plaster homes. The trees that covered the north side of the mountainside – and covered every bit of Koretian countryside, as far as I could tell from my mountainside perch – obscured most of the crumbling facade, but I could tell that some pious and very brave man had decided in recent centuries to restore the wooden door at the building's entrance.

  I stood a while in indecision. I was brave, but I would not ordinarily have been foolhardy enough to trespass on the gods' forbidden territory. The figure in the window, though, was a challenge to me, and since I never allowed him to go unprotected into danger, I decided that if the gods were going to strike him down for his deed, they would have to confront me first.

  I raced up the mountainside, waiting until the last minute to dodge each tree, simply for the thrill of the danger. Then I stopped at the entrance and cautiously opened the door.

  A corridor ran left and right of me, well lit from the summer afternoon sun casting forth its glow through the corridor's windows. Whichever man had restored the entrance door had also taken the trouble to restore the doors to the priests' cells, but several of these were open. As I walked by, I peered in boldly to see what I would find. I was disappointed to discover that the windowless rooms were not much different from those in the present-day priests' house. Oh, small differences existed. A tiny hole was cut in the ceiling of each room, just above a shallow pit for the central fireplace. These cells, I had been told in the past, did not possess the modern hypocausts that Emorian engineers had installed in the priests' house the year before, which had caused half the city pilgrims to cease visiting the house during the installation, lest they be contaminated by contact with our enemy. The only other objects in this cell were a small stone ledge against the wall, which could serve as a table, and a man-sized stone slab on which one could place a pallet. This made the gods' house look luxurious in comparison with the unfurnished cells of the priests' house, lower below on the mountainside.

  I had dulled my curiosity concerning the house's appearance – and incidentally sharpened my courage, since this did not seem to be so mysterious a building after all. I swaggered my way down to the left end of the corridor and paused at the open entrance to a large chamber.

  This must have been the sanctuary in ancient times, but the altar had long since vanished, and all that was left were warped, wood-lined walls and the windowseat opposite the door. Though not the type of boy who was granted visions from the gods, I could nonetheless imagine vividly the room as it must have looked in the old days: priests in hooded brown robes surrounding the altar where the goat was bound, while over the sacrificial victim was poised a dagger held by the priest who spoke for the god. No – I corrected myself – for I had heard about the fearsome nature of the ancient rites. The priest was the god, taking on the god's powers for the length of the ceremony.

  Then the vision vanished, and all that I could see was a boy sitting in a windowseat, staring intently at nothing I could see.

  John was in his tenth year at this time, two years older than me. Our age difference had caused no breach between us – indeed, I was usually the leader of our expeditions, decreeing with the imperiousness of a king what we would do and how we would do it. John almost always meekly complied with my orders. The "almost" was a qualification I preferred not to think about, for his infrequent refusals invariably came with such composed self-assurance that I was the one who ended up feeling foolish.

  He was dressed in the shapeless brown tunic that was worn by all of the orphan boys at the priests' house, which made me grateful for my own single, leaf-green tunic, lovingly woven by my mother, who managed to keep both of us alive by selling her weaves. Clipped at the left side of his belt, nearly hidden in the shadow of his body, was the leather sheath of his dagger. If I had been wearing such a dagger, I would have found it hard to keep my hands off it, but his own hands were loosely wrapped around his knee-bent legs, while his head was tilted back against the post of the window. He was looking at something, but the object of his witness was not in this room.

  I felt a pang of loneliness bite into me, as I often did when John departed from me in this way. Without thinking about what I was doing, I reached my left hand toward the slingshot at my belt while my right hand dipped into my belt pouch for one of the smooth stones I stored there. For one glorious second I lined my shot toward John's head; then, at the last moment, I turned the aim of the sling and let the pebble fly.

  The stone passed closer than I had intended, missing John's face by a hand's length. His body did not move, but he turned his head, startled out of his vision. Then he saw who sent the shot, and his expression relaxed.

  "You'll kill somebody one of these days," he said soberly.

  I laughed as I skidded my way up to where he was sitting. He gestured me onto the windowseat, as though this were his own house, and I said, landing with a bounce, "I wanted to see whether you would draw that dagger of yours."

  A smile eased its way on
to his face then, and he looked at me with open affection. "Not against you," he said.

  His smile had a way of lighting up even his eyes, which otherwise looked solemn under his straight eyebrows. Like nearly all Koretians, he had dark hair and brown skin – light brown, since neither of us yet had the dark skin acquired after years of living under the scorching southern sun. But his eyes, rather than being brown or hazel, were completely black, like those of a mountain cat that is staring hard at its prey. Tbe color always made it difficult for me to tell what he was looking at, and they made even more irritating his tendency to withdraw from conversation and stare at visions I could not share.

  "John," I said, "why do you bother to carry a free-man's weapon if you're never going to use it?"

  "It is dedicated to the Unknowable God, as I am," replied John. "My parents didn't leave any note with me telling the priests which god they wished to dedicate me to, but they did leave the dagger, so that must mean something. It's up to me to discover which god I'm meant to serve. Besides," he added, more to the point, "I might need the dagger for a blood vow."