by Remi Michaud
Stiff, ankle length grasses that bent under the force of the wind patched the flat land before the mountains in a quilt of ill green and straw yellow. A single lilac tree rose from the parched grass. It was not a pretty thing. Ravaged as though by years of powerful arctic winds, it stood gnarled, bent like an old man, bark peeling away like burnt flesh, limbs lifeless, leafless except for a few shriveled shreds of rusty rotten boughs that clung determinedly, like a reminder of glory long past, to ragged branches that seemed to reach to the sky in pathetic prayer. He had neither been able to banish it entirely nor return it to its previous glory.
Jurel leaned against the coarse bole of the tree, staring at the ground, seeing nothing. His sword rested across his lap and his fingers slid along the cool blade distractedly. His thoughts were as dark as his place. His home was gone, his past was gone, his life was gone. Everything. Gone. Well, almost everything. The fact that he was the God of War remained. The fact that he was the very embodiment of the thing he hated most remained.
Images rose in his mind, unbidden for he wanted nothing more than to forget. Daved glared disapprovingly with those hawk's eyes. Gram and his beautiful mother Wendilla gazed upon him sadly. Galbin shook his head in disappointment. Metana beseeched him with outstretched arms to come home. Valik laughed viciously, and Trig and Darren turned away, ashamed of him, for him, as Erin lowered sad eyes, unwilling to look at him.
His brow furrowed further as something snagged his attention. Something that was not quite right. It caught his attention like a knock at the door. He concentrated. Thought vanished, and images fled. Most of them. Metana's image remained, with her outstretched arms and her eyes wide, pleading. He closed his eyes and saw her, every line of her, every curve and color as though she stood in front of him. He choked back a sob.
“Jurel, please answer me.”
He grunted. So caught up with her was he, so foolishly enamored, that he even heard her voice in his thoughts. Stupid. It was just a dream, an illusion. She was dead. Because of him.
“Please, Jurel. Please.”
He sighed, pushed at the image. He gasped when the image pushed back.
“Stop it, Jurel. Answer me. Please?”
Not possible.
“Metana?”
“Yes. Please come home. We need you.”
Again he concentrated, bent his thoughts to her like a flower to the sun. There was a strange feeling of displacement as though the world shifted under him and when he opened his eyes, Metana stood before him gaping like a fish, arms still outstretched though the fingers hung limp, seemingly gone numb. He rose slowly to his feet, staring dumbfounded at her.
He took a hesitant step forward.
“Metana? Is it really you?”
She flew into his arms then, wrapping him tightly in hers. The feel of her, soft and tender and hard as steel, the scent of her, lavender and something that was all her own, enveloped him. She trembled as she clung to him, like a leaf in a high wind. He trembled too as he murmured over and over again, “You're alive. Oh gods, you're alive.”
Two great tears formed in his closed eyes, slipped free from confinement and slid down his cheeks. The dominant force within the roil he felt inside was profound relief. Metana was alive. Metana was here, breathing, crying against his shoulder. He had not killed her. And if she was alive, could others be as well? He hardly dared to hope, but he had to know.
“And the others?” he asked gruffly.
She pulled back, her rapturous gaze dimming somewhat, though she tried to hide behind her smile. “Gaven and Mikal are fine. I'm with them right now.”
And of course, Jurel heard the omission. His guts turned to ice.
“And Kurin?”
Now her smile did fall away. “Captured, we think. Taken by the Gaorlans toward the end of the battle.”
Jurel let out the breath he had not realized he was holding. It was bad news, very bad, but it could have been worse. There was a chance, at least, that Mikal could mount a rescue.
“And what of the rest? Flain? What happened to him?” he asked quietly.
Her expression of discomfort turned to pain. “Jurel, I don't think-”
“Tell me,” he demanded, glaring at her.
She seemed to wilt under his eyes, her own turning to the spoiled ground beneath them. He felt her stiffen in his arms as though she were steeling herself.
“I don't know exactly,” she said. “The latest news is not promising.”
She halted again, her eyes pleading him to let it drop, to not make her answer his question more precisely.
He simply continued to gaze at her, silent, immovable. He would hear his crimes spoken aloud.
And what was she to do under such an implacable glare?
“Maybe two hundred survived. It was thanks to Flain. Mikal said if it wasn't for his last charge pushing the prelacy back, there would have been fewer survivors, if any.” she whispered.
He released her and stumbled back into the broken lilac. He slumped to the ground. Two hundred remained. He had started with over a thousand.
As though the air were suddenly too thin, he struggled to catch his breath. The landscape whirled and darkened in his vision. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. He should not have been surprised. He knew he had caused a catastrophe. He knew his pride had gotten a lot of good people killed. But to hear it, to have proof of his lethal foolishness made it real, made it unavoidable. He had wanted to hear it. But gods damn him, having gotten what he wanted, he now wished...
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
His horror mingled with a white hot rage, a hatred of himself that was so profound, he gripped the hilt of his sword, the thorns ripping into his palm, almost plunged his sword into his guts. He had killed them. He deserved far worse than a sword in the guts. This self-imposed exile was but the start of the punishments he would heap on his own shoulders in the days ahead. It would also see everyone free of his terrible influences. It was the only way he could think of to stop the pointless waste of life. This self-imposed exile, however, was not yet complete. He lifted his eyes to Metana.
As though reading his thoughts, she paled. Slowly, her eyes lifted from his, and her features twisted in pain. She turned, seeking to change the subject before Jurel could hammer the final nail hone. She surveyed his place, taking in the barrenness, the lack of color, of light, life. When her eyes found his again, tears brimmed like crystals, balancing precariously, ready to tumble at the slightest provocation. It took a great deal of willpower for him to remain where he was, to keep from rising up and gathering her in his arms. Almost, he did anyway. But the thought of her trying too hard to convince him while he held her close, the thought that she would speak rapidly of his need to return, the pain that it would cause, provided plenty of incentive to stay right where he was.
“What have you done?” she breathed.
He chuckled sourly. “Not much. A little redecoration is all. A new coat of paint, moved the furniture around. What do you think?”
She leaned close, stretched a hand out, laid it against the bole above his head. He stopped breathing. To breath would be to fill himself with her scent: the flowers, the tang of her, the life of her. Now that he knew what he must do, even breathing her would drive a barbed dagger through his heart.
She shuddered. “Why?”
“Oh, no particular reason.” He waved a hand airily. “I got tired of the old look. You should have seen it before this. Now that would have curled your toes, if you had survived long enough.”
Slumping to her knees, she drew in a ragged breath. Again her hand reached out, this time toward him, but it stopped short as though a wall stood between them. A tear finally slipped free, streaking a line down her cheek.
Oh how he wanted nothing more than to taste it, to kiss it away.
“Why?”
“It seemed appropriate.” He said with all the gruffness he could muster.
She recoiled at the coldness in
his voice. She breathed deeply, almost panted; it took him a moment to realize that she was stifling the urge to weep.
“Jurel, please. You...I—I thought that...”
Hot fire washed over him. The sere grasses in his place withered further: where fragile green was, dead yellow replaced it; where yellow was, the madman's mosaic appeared. The tree wilted as though melting, and the wind grew hotter.
“What? What, Metana? What did you think? What do you want?”
Her brow shone where sweat appeared, her cheeks grew flushed.
“I—I want...please. Stop this. It is too hot. I'm starting to feel faint.” True to her words, she began to sag, to waver and her eyes, pale gray, flickered on the verge of losing their light.
Puzzled, Jurel glared at her before he noticed his place. Shock replaced puzzlement as he realized what he was doing. To her.
“Oh. Oh, Metana. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Sorry.”
The heat dropped, the green returned but it seemed tentative, as though his grip on his place, on himself, was weak. The lilac remained wilted like melted candle wax.
She breathed deeply, smiled tremulously. “Thank you.”
More gently, he asked, “What do you want? Why are you here?”
“You brought me here. I wanted you to come back to us.”
A dry, sharp laugh burst from him like an arrow and he turned away. He could not bear to look upon that angel's face anymore. “Isn't it better this way? I'm a monster and you know it. This way you don't have to see me.”
“No. Jurel, I want you. We all want you back. We need you.”
“Why? Isn't there enough bloodshed in the world already?” he snapped.
She surged to her feet so swiftly that he recoiled, bouncing his head off the bole behind him. Her fists rested on her hips like an angry mother. Her eyes flashed, almost purple now with barely pent rage. Gods, but he loved those eyes.
“Jurel Histane! You know better than that. Or do you? Have we been wrong? Have you learned nothing? There are people who need you, who are counting on you. Would you disappoint them?”
“Disappoint them, or cause their blood to be spilled. Let's see, on one hand we have disappointment and maybe some anger, maybe even—heavens forbid—a sense of betrayal. But they're alive. On the other hand, there's blood, suffering, death, orphans, widows.” He smirked. “Tough choice. Let me think about it.”
Her eyes widened and her lips pinched.
“Look, Tana. I don't know what you want from me. You want me to try but trying brings heartache. For a little while there I really thought that I wasn't trapped in this nightmare. I really thought that things could be different. But then I lead over a thousand men blundering into a slaughter. I know now everyone I would want to get close to can expect that from me.
“I can't do it. I love you, Tana. Every time I look at you it feels like someone's stabbing me. Maybe it's selfish and childish but I can't face it.”
She sank to her knees, trembling. “You think I don't understand? Is that it? Of course I do, you big oaf. You're a God, Jurel. A bloody immortal, all powerful God. Gods do things that we mere mortals cannot begin to understand, even if that means that some of us have to die. It's not our place to question you. It's our place to do as we're told! Hells and damnation, we've taken vows to that effect!”
She thought that would sway him? He thought she knew him better than that.
“And I'm telling you to go. Leave me alone. I'll have no part in any more suffering. I'll have no part in this ridiculous war.”
They glared at each other, a silent battle of wills.
“Do you think the prelacy will just give up? Do you think they'll walk away when they find out you've abandoned us? They'll come for us, Jurel. They'll come for us as they never have before. They'll stamp us out. We need you.”
Try as he might, he could not think of a reasonable response.
“Can't we go back to the way things were before?” She leaned forward hopefully, placing a tentative hand on his forearm. “Can't we put this behind us and try again?”
“You know we can't.”
Each stared sadly into the other's eyes, each unable to avert their eyes as though they were linked by a chain, both knowing they had reached the impasse, the insurmountable hurdle, the bottomless, unbridgeable chasm. He drank her in greedily, guiltily, like an addict. In time, her eyes softened, taking on a light of pleading. It was like an avalanche to him. He had to get away before it buried him under its boiling hot ice.
“I think you should go, Metana,” he said looking away, breaking the chain. If he thought back, if he sifted through his life's memories, he would have found that nothing was harder than uttering those words.
She closed in then. Her expression hardened to stone and with it, he withered, fell further and further in on himself, felt a gathering of darkness in his core.
She rose to her feet. “We need you, Jurel. All of us.” Her voice held an edge that cut him.
“I can't help you, Metana. Good bye.”
He closed his eyes and pulled together the ragged threads of his concentration.
“No. Wait Jurel. Don't-”
When he opened them again, she was gone.
* * *
He awakened some time later. He had no idea how much time—he had not even known he slept. Sourly, he raised himself and stretched. He did not feel the slightest bit refreshed and there was a kink in his back courtesy of a knot in the lilac tree.
His meeting with Metana had left him empty and cold. He stared at the ground, lost in his thoughts, lost in his inky hole of self-pity. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of his head, he was contemptuous of himself but he stomped that feeling away. He had enough to drag him down.
There was one more place he had to go. He was reluctant. He did not want to. He knew that if he went, it would be the final door closing on his past. But he had started his journey. He had to go. While there was even the slightest glimmer of a chance at his old life, he had to try. While there was even the barest chance the he could escape the monster within, he had to try.
He sat under his lilac tree tasting the wind as it howled past, feeling it comb his hair, ruffle his tattered clothing. The grasses were sere, piebald patches. His thoughts were dark. He grabbed hold of his courage as if it were a tangible thing, reined it in.
With a sour chuckle, he concentrated and his tattered, wind-blown, sandblasted clothing shimmered, changed, became a black silk shirt covered in a pattern of golden swirls over black linen breeches covered in the same pattern. His ragged boots, the ones Kurin had given him all those months ago in a different life, a past life, back in a small shop in a small town, the soft ones that had shone like polished iron when he had first donned them and now were scuffed and torn almost beyond recognition, became brightly polished again, and butter soft. He rose to his feet and strapped his sword to his new leather belt, not caring when one of the barbs in the hilt caught his hand, drawing a line of blood. He stood for a moment, surveying his place, his sanctuary and his prison.
He concentrated. He disappeared.
Chapter 28
At the edge of a clearing, Metana gazed at the wild rose bush that twined and tangled its way up and around some lilacs. Though the lilacs were out of season, still there remained a few boughs that stubbornly resisted, and held on. Deep red mingled with bright purple in a sort of botanic jewelry. A sweet scent filled the air, a perfume that was as delicate and lovely as the flowers themselves. The kind of perfume that a wealthy gentleman would pay more than a peasant family earned in a year to acquire to woo his chosen lady.
The sun, somewhere far to the west but occluded by the quilt of intertwined branches, illuminated the forest with ephemeral shades of gold and green, created sparks of the motes of dust that hung lazily in the air. The air was warm and soft as it can only be in the waning days of summer after the brutal heat breaks but before the full chill of autumn manages to get a grip. It was a dreamlike scene that spread before her, a
spot that bards and mummers spoke of in their stories and acted out in their plays. A perfect idyllic place where, in stories, young couples came to nestle, to trade tokens, to smile and laugh, to make love. That part of the story usually happened right before the tragedy.
She sat and she gazed at the roses that mingled with the lilacs. A solitary tear left a trail on her cheek. She did not feel it.
Big oaf.
She thought it, but there was no strength in it, no force. There was not enough heat left in her for that. There was only an empty place, a place where once there had been light and laughter and, yes, love. She had taken medical courses at the Abbey. It was a requirement for all acolytes to have at least a working knowledge of anatomy and physiology, no matter which god they would ultimately choose as their patron. Old Master Yalman, her teacher, spoke into her thoughts:
...this can happen in the case of a patient who has had a limb amputated. The patient may be fooled into thinking for years after the amputation that the limb remains fixed in place. He may complain of an itch that cannot be relieved, or an ache, dull or sharp, that will not alleviate...
Is this then what a mental amputation felt like? This aching emptiness? This itch that could not, would not, be scratched, that threatened to drive her mad? She chuckled—though if anyone heard, they would have called it a pained grunt as if she had stubbed her toe. But it was a chuckle. Not so long ago, she had entirely thrown her heart at Jurel. Why? Because big oaf though he was, he was a good man with a good heart. Or so she had thought. She had never expected him—could never have believed—that he would abandon them to the wolves.
“Hanging on by a thread,” her father used to say. And, “You can't win for losing.”
She had sighed in exasperation when he used to say things like that. Too grim, too pessimistic. His idioms never fit in with her view of the world. Perhaps she should reconsider. Perhaps she would sit down and write him and apologize for all the times she had shown him the sharp side of her tongue. She seemed to recall that he had been different at one time. Before her mother had died in that terrible accident. She seemed to recall that he used to smile at everything, that he had had such a carefree laugh, a laugh that even in her earliest childhood, long before naivete gave way to wisdom, she understood was full, unreserved, complete. Of course when her mother had gotten trampled by the herd, when they had gathered up all they could find of her and buried her, his laughter had ceased. She did not recall him ever truly smiling after that. Or if he did, it was tainted; it never reached his eyes. And then his grim idioms had come. Gods that was a long time ago.