by Davis Ashura
“You're being ridiculous,” Gren snapped. “Let her continue.”
“Thank you.” Jessira dipped her head to Gren in acknowledgment. “Li-Choke believes that a few days ago, nearly every Bael in Arisa was killed. Chak-Soon confirms his guess,” Jessira said. She went on to explain why Choke believed as he did.
“It's only the word of one Bael and one Tigon,” said Jone Drent, the Duriah Magistrate. His heavy features were set in a sneer.
“A Bael and Tigon who saved my life,” Farn countered.
“And those of every Ashokan sent to Stronghold and the few OutCastes who escaped Stronghold's destruction,” Jessira said.
“They saved my life, too,” Rukh added.
Fol sighed heavily. He rested his elbows on the table and his forehead on his fisted hands. He stared downward. “What do you want us to do, Rukh?” he asked without looking up.
Rukh eyed the Cherid Magistrate in concern, unclear why the man was behaving so erratically. “You know what I want,” he said. “I want us to offer sanctuary to the Baels, Tigons, and their Bovars.”
“Then it will be done,” Fol Nacket said, still staring down at him.
Rukh shared a look of elation with Jessira and Farn. This had happened far more quickly and easily than he had ever expected.
“We haven't had a chance to discuss the matter,” Poque Belt protested. “And we certainly haven't voted yet.”
Fol looked up. “We know how the vote will go,” he said, glancing the Sentya's way. “Krain, Dos, Brit, and Gren will vote for the measure. You, Jone, and I will abstain. The measure will pass.” He shrugged. “Besides, how can we deny him?” He pointed to Rukh. “He is the Hero of the Advent Trial. The First Father reborn.” His voice was full of sarcasm, and his face tightened with anger. “Whatever his wants, we are expected to provide. I only hope this is the last of his demands.”
Jessira motioned to Rukh when she noticed something odd about the crowd in the Plaza of Toll and Toil.
“I know,” Rukh whispered to her. “There aren't any women.”
Jessira studied the milling people with concern. They were entirely comprised of men who kept glancing about at one another, as if waiting for a signal.
“Get your swords ready,” Farn murmured through the side of his mouth.
“We've seen them,” Jessira said.
“Who are they?” Farn asked.
“Who knows,” Jessira muttered in annoyance. “But I'll tell you this much: I'm tired of being attacked.” She held on to her anger, using it to settle the sick sensation in her stomach. She didn't want to do this again. She didn't want to ever again kill another Human. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing worse. During the battle with the Virtuous there hadn't been time to think of such matters. It had all been action and reaction, but now, Jessira knew the horror of what was to come.
“Form a Triad on me,” Rukh ordered.
“What's our goal?” Farn asked, also looking ill at ease.
“Survival. All of us,” Rukh answered. “It'll be any moment now.”
Jessira conducted Jivatma from her Well. It pooled like honey in her mind: thick, heavy, and potent with potential. It lifted Jessira, making her believe in the possibility of immortality.
Someone in the crowd shouted a call to battle. “Take them!”
Jessira drew her sword. Rukh shifted to her left and Farn to her right. She felt a whispering caress against her mind and stretched her inner senses. She found Rukh and Farn. They Annexed, and Jessira's thoughts slowed, becoming distant and blanketed with a textured fog.
The Triad was born.
The Triad Shielded. A searing set of Fireballs were hurled its way. Tertiary bent low and evaded. Secondary allowed a Fireball to strike his Shield. Primary leapt. A Fireball passed below him. It streaked between Secondary and Tertiary and burned a cluster of the enemy.
Still mid-leap, Primary hurled his own Fireballs. Five of the enemy were down.
The Triad took note of four Kummas coming its way. These others moved smoothly and were well coordinated. They were a Quad. Primary drew back.
Tertiary hurled Fireballs as she incinerated those who threatened to close on them. Secondary glowed brightly. A Fire Shower would thin the ranks of the enemy. Primary moved to cover Secondary until he was ready.
The Triad paused just then.
Another group of men had entered the square. Thirty of them. All armed. They lit into the rear of the enemy. An unexpected ally.
The bulk of the enemy turned to confront these new attackers.
The Fire Shower wasn't necessary.
The Quad raced forward, and Fireballs heralded its approach.
The Triad dodged the blows. Once again, the Fireballs ended up impacting other members of the enemies. The Triad noted their screams. The hosts were horrified by the deaths.
The Quad arrived.
The Triad shifted to meet the enemy.
Tertiary's enemy was a much older Kumma who had the age spots, arthritic hands, and deep wrinkles of a wizened grandfather. However, despite his advanced age, he was still stronger and more skilled than Tertiary. She was immediately hard-pressed. Thankfully, Tertiary was faster. She defended, beating aside several blows. One hard slash left her fingers numb, but her riposte rocked the enemy's Shield. Another set of blows came her way, but she parried them. She slid aside a disemboweling thrust and rolled with the motion before bending to the ground and cupping a hidden handful of dirt. The enemy came forward. Tertiary let him. She stepped into his guard, slipping through his Shield. Too late, he saw his danger. She threw the pebbles in his face, blinding him. He leapt up and back. She kept after him. He partially blocked her powerful blows, but several got through. His Shield shuddered and disintegrated. A slash sliced open his thigh. He crumpled to the ground. Her next thrust took him in the throat.
Secondary faced off against his opponent. They were evenly matched, with neither able to gain the advantage over the other. Thrust and parry. Riposte and block. A hard blow, a punch, got past Secondary's Shield and hit him in the face. Secondary stumbled back on rubbery legs, but still he defended. A kick and punch were turned aside.
Meanwhile, Primary faced off against two members of the Quad. He parried a thrust and slapped down an enemy's blade. A sidekick punched past an opponent's Shield and hurled him ten feet away. Primary stepped into the guard and Shield of the remaining enemy. His elbow leveled a hard crack to the man's head, causing him to stumble away and almost fall. The other opponent returned to the battle before Primary could take advantage of the momentary opening. Another opportunity came, though, and the Triad took it. Primary allowed a blow to scrape against his Shield and ducked a kick to his head. Another parry. Primary's blade spun in his hands. He parried again, and his riposte hammered his opponent's Shield, making it shudder and blink apart.
Both his opponents leapt back to gain distance, and Primary moved to support Secondary. The Kumma facing them twisted to keep them in sight. Secondary feinted, and the enemy responded. Primary took him through the armpit.
The Triad sensed seven new opponents were heading Tertiary's way. They were Blended. The ground shook, hard enough to make Tertiary stumble. Some Murans then and maybe some Rahails as well. The first two Kummas Primary had faced were also back. The Triad shifted its hosts to defend. Primary was sent against the two Kummas while Secondary moved to support Tertiary.
Tertiary had incinerated one Muran with a Fireball. She moved smoothly amidst the remaining six but was taking heavy blows to her Shield. She evaded a thrust to the leg. Parried another aimed at her chest. Her hilt hammered into the forehead of an enemy, dropping him.
Secondary arrived in a blaze of Fireballs. Two Murans screamed their last breaths. Secondary's sword was just as deadly. He hurled into motion. A corpse fell headless. Another took a slash across the chest, nearly cutting him in half. Tertiary disemboweled the final enemy.
Primary faced off against what was now a Duo. Impatience reared within the
host. He took the fight to the enemy. He blocked a blow aimed at his head, slithered around a punch, and thrust past an enemy's Shield. He cut his foe deeply across the back of his arm. There was another pass and another parry. Primary checked a kick and spun with the contact. He ducked low, and swords passed overhead. Primary leapt up from his crouch. His sword arrowed through a Shield and took the enemy in the chin. The man dropped.
The final opponent was now just a man. He was a little older than Primary's nanna, and he was scared. The Triad could see it in the man's eyes and sense it from the sudden sweat pouring like a cascade down the man's forehead.
The host didn't want to fight this man, and the Triad stepped back. “Concede, and you will live,” the Triad said.
The man licked nervous lips and seemed to steady himself. “No,” he pronounced.
The host was disappointed but prepared himself for battle. Secondary and Tertiary, their brief engagement with the Murans over, moved to cover Primary's flanks.
The Kumma they faced licked his lips once again.
Primary moved forward. Hard lethal blows rang out. The Kumma enemy blocked as best he could, but several blows got through. The man's Shield flickered out. Before the Kumma could evade, Primary stepped inside the man's guard. A hard thrust, and it was over.
The Triad gazed around the Plaza of Toll and Toil. Scattered remnants of men still fighting could be seen, but even as it watched, those battles quickly ended. The Plaza had turned into a field of bloody corpses and wounded men, crying or moaning in pain.
The sight made the hosts want to weep.
Shur looked around the Plaza of Toll and Toil. Men still fought in small clusters. The injured moaned in pain, and blood soaked the ground in pools. The terrible violence that had occurred here was awful enough, but Shur would have reckoned it as a justifiable cost if he'd seen Rukh and Jessira Shektan dead.
It might have even happened just as Shur had intended—it would have occurred just as Shur had intended if not for the untimely intervention of these interlopers. Without their interference, the Virtuous would have won.
A shock of deepest disappointment raced through Shur when he realized that he recognized some of the men who fought in opposition to the Virtuous. He knew them all. They were also members of the Virtuous—or had been—but for some inexplicable reason, they now fought to preserve the life of the ghrinas.
Why?
The answer came to Shur as soon as he asked the question. These once-members of the Virtuous were traitors.
Shur gritted his teeth in fury.
And as if summoned by a treacherous wind, here came the Rahail, the original traitor. The man wore an expression of regret but still managed to look triumphant.
“I promised that I would oppose you if you came against Rukh or Jessira,” the Rahail said.
Shur didn't bother responding. He simply attacked the Rahail with an inarticulate cry of fury. He hacked and slashed, taking no care of form or technique. Zealous rage powered his movements.
He never felt the slice across his ribs or the blood soaking his shirt. He never noticed the stab into his biceps or the slash across his shoulder. He never noticed any pain, but he noticed sudden weakness.
The cuts he suffered at the hands of the Rahail made his limbs heavy, made them slow.
Shur Rainfall finally became aware of his imminent death when his hand holding his sword was amputated. Then he became aware of pain, and he screamed.
His scream was blessedly short-lived.
Death is both the end and the beginning. It is the contradiction that orders the world.
~The Word and the Deed
Satha awoke from her slumber, confused momentarily as to where she was. It took her longer than she would have liked to recollect her surroundings, but slowly, memory returned.
She had been waiting for Dar'El in the study. She'd been wheeled there a few hours earlier, intending to review some missives and proposals, issues that had piled up since her injury. Beyond needing to be done, the work also helped occupy her mind. It kept her distracted from what she had lost, kept her from lingering on what could never be and also served as a reminder that her life still had a purpose.
Unfortunately, as it so often did, her body had betrayed her. The work had proven fatiguing, and Satha had ended up dozing for most of the time she'd been in the study.
And now, she suspected she had to go to the bathroom. She couldn't tell for sure. Ever since the attack at the Advent Trial, the sensation that indicated the need to pass water had grown vague and was easily missed. More than once, she'd had an accident when she'd waited too long. It was humiliating. Privately, Satha hated the terrible turn her life had taken, but even more, she hated the whispers about her, the sympathetic glances and the pity.
She had once wondered if it was her pride that made her situation so difficult to accept, but time had taught her that such wasn't the case. Pride had nothing to do with it. Anyone who had experienced what she had would have grieved just as deeply.
Dar'El arrived just then. His expression told her all she needed to know.
“The meeting didn't go well?” Satha guessed.
“Nothing seems to be going well,” Dar'El replied with an audible sign of frustration.
“What happened?”
“The Society of Rajan feels that Rukh should turn over The Book of First Movement.”
“To what end?” Satha asked.
Dar'El gestured to the window. “The Chimeras have come to Ashoka as we've suspected they would. Suwraith has been seen speeding across the skies, and the Society fears Ashoka will fall. They mean to send The Book to another city so it will never again be lost as it was when Hammer fell.”
“Rukh will never allow himself to be parted with The Book. He doesn't see it, but it's become an obsession to him. He thinks himself bound to The Book, especially if he truly did share the final thoughts of the First Father.”
“I know. But the Society expects me to talk him into doing so anyway.”
Satha snorted in derision. “You'd have better luck convincing him to send Jessira away.”
“Of course if he was foolish enough to bring up such a suggestion to her, I'm sure she would tell him exactly what she thought of such a plan,” Dar'El replied.
“Yes she would,” Satha agreed with a smile. It was during times like this, when she and her husband discussed their children and their lives, that she once again felt as vital and vibrant as she ever had. “She's like the rest of the women in our family.”
Dar'El chuckled at her words.
“Was there anything else?”
“There was some discussion about the so-called Virtuous,” Dar'El said.
“What about them? The sooner they're left as food for the crows, the better,” Satha said with a curled lip. Those were the men and women who had done this to her, left her hobbled and broken in body. They were the ones who had tried to murder her children. As far as she was concerned, death would be too easy for them.
“They are being questioned first,” Dar'El said. “We need to know everything about them, especially since their leader, this Shur Rainfall, died in the attack at the Plaza. Some of the masters and journeymen in the Society are worried that the Virtuous might act as a treasonous column when the battle for Ashoka begins, especially if there are more of them than we know.”
“Allow me to question them,” Satha said with a snarl. “I'll find out what they know.” Being confined to a wheelchair had allowed her to come up with many imaginative ways to exact vengeance on those who had harmed her.
“No need,” Dar'El said. “The ones who survived the attack are already telling us everything they can about the Virtuous, and we also have information from those others who defended Rukh, Jessira, and Farn.”
Satha frowned. “I still don't understand who these supposed defenders are.”
“They were once members of the Virtuous,” Dar'El explained. “After the Advent Trial, they became convinced that Rukh and Je
ssira were touched by Devesh. They are amongst our son's most devoted followers.”
Satha shook her head in disbelief. No matter how long she lived, she would never understand how her son could have grown into this man who was touched by the miraculous and holy. Whenever she saw Rukh, she only saw her troublesome little boy.
A sudden pressure from her bladder interrupted her thoughts. She shot a panicked look at her husband.
“Let's get you to the bathroom,” Dar'El said.
Devesh bless the man. He had taken in her expression with smooth aplomb and offered her no measure of sorrow, pity, or disgust.
Satha shot him a wordless look of gratitude.
Lienna disregarded Mother's whispered warnings. She paid no heed to the biting exhortations of Mistress Arisa—or at least She tried not to. It wasn't easy. With the betrayal of the Baels, Lienna had lost many of Her children. Even worse, Her Plagues had been left positioned near Human cities, left vulnerable without Lienna to defend them. They would have been utterly destroyed if She hadn't acted swiftly and pulled them back. Even then, many of Her children had still died. It left Lienna with woefully few of Her children to take on Her madness.
Lienna mentally gritted Her teeth at the near disaster. It had been bad enough that Her breeders had been eradicated, but to lose Her Plagues would have also meant the loss of Her sanity. It was a knife's edge Lienna now walked, and on either side lurked Her hungry madness.
“A Knife is what You used to slay Me,” Mother said.
Lienna ignored Her, and instead, She wondered again about Father. Where was He? She had heard not a word from Him in weeks, not since She fought the Human outside the gates of Ashoka. As She so often had since that battle, She pondered what had really occurred. Her Father was dead, of this She was certain. But then who had been . . .
She pulled back Her wandering thoughts and chided Herself. She had other matters with which to attend on this auspicious day. Her Chimeras awaited Her command. There stood Her loyal Bael, Li-Boil, the newly installed SarpanKum, piously droning the Prayer of Gratitude along with the rest of Her faithful children.