by Davis Ashura
They claimed to honor Hume's teachings, stating that fraternity was their highest ideal, and that brotherhood was a sacrament. They even claimed a secret alliance with Humanity, one so hidden that it had been unknown to anyone else until just a few years ago.
All of what they said were lies.
Hal'El had spoken to the Baels, these so-called pious adherents to Devesh. While they mouthed the proper words, spoke the correct phrases, and even wore expressions of suffering and empathy, their utterances were a sham—nothing more than a wicked pretense. They didn't believe any of their sanctimonious statements. It was something in their bearing, a subtlety to their speech that told Hal'El that all their holy posturing was nothing more than a playact meant to win his confidence.
The truth, as Hal'El was beginning to discover, was that the Baels were very effective commanders of the Fan Lor Kum. He had witnessed their exemplary work this past winter in bringing a chaotic situation to order. The Eastern Plague had been a mess—full of poor discipline, lack of motivation, and lax training, but not anymore. The various breeds of Chimeras would never have the unit cohesion and impeccable skill of Humanity, but they no longer sniped at one another, ready to rend and murder for the mildest of reasons. They were learning to fight as a group.
Hal'El still wasn't sure what had instigated the disintegration of the Eastern Plague in the first place. Perhaps it had been due to Ashoka's strike against their breeding caverns. Maybe the expeditionary force had done more damage to the Chimeras command than they had realized.
It certainly couldn't be this ridiculous fable about the Queen striking down all the eastern Baels all at once. It made no sense. Rukh Shektan had made the claim, but he was an easily misled boy. It was more likely that whatever had occurred to the Eastern Plague was merely part of whatever ruse the Queen had planned for Ashoka's destruction. Rukh Shektan had simply been the unwitting dupe who had fallen for Her scheme and carried the wild tale back to the city.
There was much Hal'El still didn't completely understand, such as why the Baels had hidden their abilities and their intelligence for the centuries since Hammer's fall, but what he did know was this: the Chimeras would come in force against his home, and they would be led with daring and great skill.
Ashoka needed to be warned. His home needed to be rescued. And Hal'El was the only one who could do it. He knew how the Chimeras fought in a way no warrior in all of history likely ever had. His time here had profited him well, and by extension, Ashoka. He knew how the Chimeras would be arrayed. He knew the strengths of their various formations as well as their weaknesses. They could be exploited. The Fan Lor Kum could be bled and defeated.
All he had to do was find a means to approach the Magisterium and pass on his information. Even after he did so, he likely would still be killed, staked out on the Isle of the Crows, but if that was his fate, then so be it. As long as Ashoka was safe. That's all that mattered.
“What a sly cretin you are,” Sophy said. “You truly believe you can make right that which you've contaminated so thoroughly?” she asked with a disdainful chuckle.
Hal'El winced. She was back, which meant the others soon would be as well. He did his best to ignore her. Sometimes if he pretended he hadn't heard her words, she would leave him in peace.
“Peace! We should leave you in peace?” Sophy cried, her anger rising higher and higher with every word. “You murdered us, you fragging coward! You will never know a moment's peace!”
Hal'El blanched as her diatribe washed over him. She was soon joined by Felt, Van, and Aqua, all of them berating him with vulgar language and coarse comparisons. Eventually, they wound down, and blessedly, his mind was his and his alone once more.
None of what the four fools threatened mattered. None of the falsehoods told by the Baels mattered either. In the end, Hal'El knew he had a chance—a meager one—to recover his standing. People would once again sing his praises. And most importantly, Ashoka would be safe.
But first, he would have to lie to Suwraith. He would have to deceive the Great Deceiver, the Queen Herself. He would have to promise Her his aid and hope She didn't see through his deception. If he was successful, the Sorrow Bringer would be left railing against Ashoka's intact Oasis while Her Fan Lor Kum was slowly whittled to death. She would then have to fight Her own battles.
Just as Hal'El would have to fight his own. But first, Dar'El Shektan had to die.
Lienna soared high above the Hunters Flats, racing past languid clouds and fleetly flying flocks of birds. The world passed beneath Her steady gaze. To the north were the gray-shouldered Privation Mountains with their shadowed glens and deep lakes of stillness. Directly below and to the south, east, and west was the golden savannah of the Hunters Flats. The fields were decorated with scattered copses of trees lifting their boles skyward like heavenly spires. The young grass was already knee high, and their heads swayed randomly in the breeze.
It was a gentle scene, but Lienna knew better. Down below, a never-ending battle raged between hunter and prey. The thick, bloody streams and rags of meat weren't easily discerned, but they were there. They always were. It was as it should be. Arisa's law was iron: fight for life or be prey.
Lienna shook off her blood-red thoughts. This majestic morning wasn't meant for such morbidity. She focused instead on the glory of the world spread out before Her. From on high, Arisa was serene and lovely, and as was so often the case now that Her mind was clear, Lienna was able to enjoy it. She found Herself laughing, thrilled with the glory of the morning and the joy of flying. Had She a corporal form, She would have embraced the open sky, licked the moisture from the rain-bathed clouds, and ridden the buffeting wind as it whipped across Her skin, through Her hair, and billowed Her clothes. Few experiences would have provided Her greater happiness. To race free and fly would have been to laugh and live without reservation.
But it was not to be.
The world had required a savior. The forests, fens, deserts, and the very sea itself had needed salvation. Arisa couldn't survive Humanity's ever-worsening depredations. The damage done by the pestilence of Lienna's birth race threatened all the growing things, all the animals and all the trees. Lienna could still recall the cries of the forests as the axes cut into their woody flesh. The trees had been amputated, their bodies bisected as roots were severed from trunks and uplifted branches. She could still hear the fearful pleas of innocent animals as they prayed for a great one to rise up and save them and their defenseless children from the murderous arrows of hunters. Who next would feel the piercing chill of cold iron biting into their hearts?
Lienna had walked amongst the murdered trees. She had sorrowed for the small animals who'd lost children to an arrow's flight and had done Her best to ease the suffering of those caught in agony's wasting grip. She'd comforted all She had come across, but in the end, it hadn't been enough. Offering sympathy and condolences had been a near-worthless errand. It had done far too little to soothe Arisa's hurts. Action had been required. Lienna had to save those who couldn't save themselves, give voice to those without speech, and offer Her own life for those whose lives had already been stolen.
Lienna had to surrender Her Humanity, sacrifice all that was good and decent in Her life, murder in the name of peace. She had to do that which was necessary, and She felt a swell of pride in Her accomplishments. To be worthy of the potent power She now possessed, Lienna had first been required to humble Herself through agony, to suffer in ways no one had ever experienced, to live through Her own burning death. It had been a seemingly unending torment, but Lienna had borne it with eyes lifted proudly. To this day, She would do anything to serve the greater needs of Arisa.
“You command and order,” Mother said. “But You have never served.”
“The Baels do not serve You either,” Father intoned.
Lienna's good mood faded. After the battle at the city of the UnCasted Humans . . .
“It was a massacre,” Mother interrupted in Her typical critical fashi
on. “All those murders. How does Your conscience not wrack You with thorns of pain?”
Lienna didn't bother responding. The shades of Her parents no longer caused Her upset or concern. Now that She could pour Her madness down into the Plagues, Her mind was almost entirely lucid. She could ignore these faded shadows who had once been Her Amma and Nanna, the First Mother and First Father as Humanity reckoned them.
“And You were the wickedness who murdered Us,” Mother reminded Her.
“Yours is a lonely, empty existence,” Father warned. “There is no one who loves You.”
Lienna was surprised by Nanna's comments. This was the most He had spoken to Her in the past few months. In fact, in the past half year or more, Nanna had hardly spoken to Her at all. More often, He was quiet now, letting Amma do all the talking for the both of them, including the eternal warnings about the Baels. At times, He almost seemed entirely absent from Her mind.
Strangely, Lienna missed Him. Over the millennia since the death of Her parents, She had grown used to Their continual, if annoying and interfering, presence. Now, Nanna was more often silent than not, and while She had long since grown tired of His perpetual dire predictions, He had been a comforting source of predictability.
Lienna thought back to when His silence had first started. Had it been when She had sensed His Jivatma by that small pond in the Privation Mountains? Had that truly been Him come back to life? If it had, then it spelled disaster. When They had worn flesh, Nanna and Amma had both been far more powerful than Lienna. And if Nanna truly had returned, what then? He would almost certainly create His own Withering Knife and become like Lienna, except He would have more power, more knowledge, and more skill in the use of Jivatma. Witness the creation of the cursed Oases that still stymied Her will. It must have been Nanna who had breathed life into those wretched constructions even as He had been breaths away from dying.
Lienna shivered in fear.
“Well isn't this just splendid?” a vicious voice whispered.
Lienna's swift passage across the sky came to a sudden stop.
Mistress.
“With all Your power, You are still a mewling coward.” The voice laughed. “All things come through Me, You great Idiot, or did You forget that lesson I taught You all those centuries ago? Your power, and that of Your accursed Nanna comes through My blessing. I can take away all that I have given with a simple whim.” Mistress' voice deepened in promise. “And I tell you this now: Your Nanna will never again be a power upon this world.”
Lienna's mind was filled with panic. After She'd taught two Plagues of Her children to imbibe the poisoned drink of Her insanity, there had been a blessed period of time when She had thought She was rid of Mistress Arisa forever. For months, it had seemed so, and Lienna had rejoiced. But then, during the battle with the UnCasted Humans, Mistress had reappeared, and ever since then, She had remained. Thankfully, not as frequently as She once had, but still, Lienna hated the visitations of this most fearsome of spectres. They terrified Her.
“You think me a product of Your delusions!” Mistress Arisa cried out in shock and outrage.
Lashes lanced into Lienna's mind, shredding it, tearing it apart. She screamed.
“I am who I am! Separate and alive. And I am Your Mistress!” the dread voice thundered. “And You will obey Me in all things, You mewling Fool.” The rending ended as suddenly as it began.
Lienna whimpered, grateful the torment was over. “Yes Mistress,” She whispered. Secretly, in the innermost confines of Her thoughts, She hoped the hated voice would leave and never return. She wished there was a way to kill Mistress.
She gasped. She had said the last sentiment aloud.
But there was no response to Her words. Only dead silence.
“Your pain is a mirror of that which You inflict upon others,” Mother said. “It is well deserved.”
*Tell me again why we should allow these Tigons to accompany us?* Aia asked. Her tail flicked her annoyance. She didn't like the Nocats, even the ones who claimed friendship with Rukh. They were an abomination, creatures who should never have been brought to life. Their appearance was especially troubling, reminding her of the worst features of her own people mixed in with some other poor creature. What the Demon Wind had done by birthing such twisted beings was a sacrilege on the face of Creation itself. Aia's lip curled in disgust.
Li-Choke sighed. Aia sensed his frustration as he cast his gaze upon her and her brothers, Shon and Thrum. *They are not like their brethren. They have become followers of Hume. They believe in fraternity, of the holiness of all life,* he said, relating thoughts he had already voiced many times now.
Shon yipped his laughter. *And yet both you and these supposedly changed Tigons feast upon the flesh of that which you consider 'holy'.*
*It sounds hypocritical,* Aia agreed as she gave one of her forepaws a quick swipe with her tongue.
*It's not like that,* Li-Choke growled in annoyance. *And you both know it. You're just being difficult.*
Aia smiled, a baring of her teeth. Li-Choke had once tried to explain to her the teachings of the Human known as Hume. Aia had done her best to understand, but the supposed philosophies had never struck her as being particularly practical. Why would a Kesarin give her life to save that of a Bael she didn't know? Or why would the Baels risk the existence of their very race in order to defend Humanity? It was nonsense.
*Perhaps we are being difficult,* Aia's brother, Thrum, said. *But I still have yet to hear a single reason why we should allow these Tigons to journey with us. We generally leave you Chimeras alone when you roam the Flats because we know the Demon Wind will slay us if we kill too many of your kind.* He took a menacing step forward. *But these small numbers of Tigons you have with you—how likely is it that She will truly miss them? I'm tempted to find out.* His russet coat twitched and from deep in his chest came a low-pitched rumble.
Aia switched her tail and flashed Thrum a warning by squinting her eyes and flattening her ears. Violence was unnecessary. Why couldn't Thrum see it? The Baels gathered here, the ones meeting with Aia and her brothers, were numerous. They would assuredly defend the Tigons. It would be tooth and claw against barbed whips, tridents and swords. And worse, the small copse of trees in which the meeting was taking place, with its low-lying shrubs, would do much to negate the Kesarins main advantage: their unmatched speed. Aia, Shon, and Thrum would be lucky to survive a battle against all those assembled here. It would be better to avoid any fighting.
Thrum took the message and the rumble in his chest ceased. His stance remained aggressive, though, and he leaned forward on his forelegs with his eyes alert.
Aia shook her head. Thrum might one day lead the Hungrove Glaring when their father stepped down—or so everyone said—but Aia was not so sure. Her brother was lacking in restraint, and the art of negotiation utterly eluded him. He was too quick to action, unable to sit still and listen quietly while others roared their passions. Too often, he was led by his fervors, hotheaded and full of his maleness, of the lust for tooth and claw. Composed, cool reasoning was the attribute Thrum desperately needed, and right now, he was anything but composed or calm.
Would that Jaresh were here with them now. Perhaps he could have settled her brother down. Ever since Thrum had chosen the Human, some of his tendencies to meet every situation with a leap and scream had abated, and Jaresh's influence had likely been the reason. And right now, Jaresh's influence would be deeply appreciated since Thrum appeared to be an accidental movement away from attacking the Baels and the Tigons.
Aia knew that Rukh would claim that her brother also needed to learn empathy and forgiveness, and, as was often the case, he would have been right. She mentally sighed. She missed her Human and wished that he were here with her also. Instead, Rukh was in far-off Ashoka. It was quite inconsiderate of him.
Chak-Soon, one of the Tigons, stepped forward, and Aia returned her mind to the matter at hand.
*I know you find our appearance hideou
s,* the Tigon said. Rukh claimed that Chak-Soon's voice was nearly unintelligible, garbled by his oversized teeth and clumsy tongue, but with his mind, he spoke as clearly as every other sentient being Aia had encountered. *You see us as diseased, as pale shadows of your own power and beauty.* His ears wilted in misery. *And your guess about our origins is correct. Mother created us from your kind. She shaped our ancestors from the Kesarins and another type of creature, twisting us until we wear these—to you—strange, befouled hides. But this isn't what we were meant to be. Our terrible bodies are of Mother's making, but our souls belong to Devesh.* The Tigon licked his lips when he finished speaking, and the copse of trees was quiet with sympathy on the part of the Baels and watchful consideration on the part of Aia and her brothers.
It was a stillness broken by Thrum as he stepped forward. Aia nearly moved to block him, but something in her brother's carriage halted her. *You truly believe this?* Thrum asked, staring Chak-Soon in the eyes from just inches away.
The Tigon didn't blink. He held Thrum's gaze and nodded. *So long my kind have wondered why we anger so easily, why we always answer every challenge with a rage for blood, why we can't remain calm like the Baels. We still don't know, but it likely has something to do with how we were created. We are damaged, but even the lowest can find salvation through Devesh.*
*You eat the flesh of your own fallen,* Shon said, sounding disgusted.
Aia shared his revulsion. She had seen it. At the Human city of Stronghold, during the battle there, she had seen Tigons leap upon their own injured, killing them, ripping out throats, and tearing out great chunks of flesh, and eating the meat of their own.
Chak-Soon's ears wilted further. *As I said before, we are flawed creations. We are driven to hunt, to desire spilled blood, be it friend or foe. It is an overwhelming urge. And in battle, those urges are impossible to control.* He shuddered. *We have no thought but the need to tear apart any we come across, rend them with tooth and claw. And later, when we once again become aware of ourselves, remorse grips us, but we can never talk about our pain. It is too shameful.*