Cassian wiped the pooling blood from his lip again, “Warmaster, that’s just something for you to worry about. Honestly, I’m not sure I care what you do anymore. I’m exhausted with all of you. You want to take Spenecia? You want to set Alson on fire? Have fun. It’s yours.”
Thessany glanced to Cassian, “You’re leaving?”
Grimacing suddenly from pain in his side, “I’m leaving. You and the rest of them can sleep at night thinking you have it all settled as long as we have bigger tanks. Then when some country girl in rag clothes starts ranting visions claiming to be the Salt Mystic coming back and you’re surrounded by fanatics looking to erase you from the Record, remember how you busted my lip and called me a clown and wished the Old Man was here.”
“You’re going to the Augur.”
“That’s right. We don’t just need more firepower. We need answers. Blowhards like you always forget little details that come back and bite you in the end. That’s why I’m the Marshal and you’re the guy sniveling in a corner like a little girl.”
Thessany frowned, wiped sweat from his forehead, “How many more of these things did you let out?”
Cassian shook his head, “Wentic will be there too. I know him. It’s the first place he’ll go. Maybe he and I will just kill each other there and save all of you the trouble.”
“I’m my own man, Talgo. If we do this, I make it happen on my own, no puppet strings or dancing for you or your weirdo family. What about your boy? I’m not responsible for your boy.”
Talgo hesitated, pondering. The Interrogator glanced up at him seeking direction. When Talgo failed to acknowledge him, the lunatic looked back at Thessany as if he were a piece of steaming steak, then stepped into a corner quietly though never again breaking his stare or his horrible smile.
“Yeah.” Cassian stared intently at the deck as if he’d been asked a question of much importance, “Yeah. Someone has to be responsible.”
Thessany pointed at Cassian accusingly, “Fantine’ll watch him; but you put him on the battlefield. Not me.”
“Someone has to be responsible…”
Thessany straightened himself and centerlined his shirt, dusted off his pants leg, “That’s right. I’ll do my duty; and I’ll win Spenecia. But if something happens to him, it’s on you. Just want that clear. It’s on you.”
It was awkward and calm for a moment while Cassian nodded thoughtfully and stared downward. After some time, he turned his eyes back to Thessany showing them to be bloodshot and perhaps watering. “You know…he was born for it; and he’ll flourish. You probably agree; but I guess…” Cassian spoke slowly, evaluating every word as if it were to be engraved and therefore needed to be of substance. “…I guess, if I were to be the new Warmaster, the question that would be whispering in my ear…is whose side will he really be on?”
It was then, the War Recorder stepped into the room followed quickly by Admiral Phryne and Oblave. Another small fellow was with them, one dressed like Rhodomontane and who wore about his left eye a device with which to record something. The lunatic Interrogator watched them silently, calmer now and breathing less intently. Thessany at once brushed off his pants leg again and tried to slick back his hair, for he recognized what was about to happen.
“It’s about time, right?” His voice wasn’t convincingly assured as he’d maybe hoped; and Thessany was still catching his breath from the adrenalin of his tussle with Cassian and from seeing the horrid Interrogator. Phyrne’s expression was of urgency as if there wasn’t time for this, as if she needed to be elsewhere. Oblave coughed and wiped his forearm against his mouth, perhaps a little excited to be present for such a thing.
“Let’s get moving, Cassian. I have a fleet underway.” Phryne placed herself in position opposite the grinning Interrogator and framing the Recorder, Thessany and Cassian. She frowned with distaste at the Interrogator in the corner, watching them. The little fellow with the eye-camera started circling slowly, though cautiously avoiding the Interrogator. They were each settling into a ceremony, hallowed and honored for centuries and of great importance, though Thessany was probably not anyone’s ideal for the person at its center.
Cassian nodded reluctantly and motioned to the Interrogator but addressed the cameraman, “Keep him out of your shot.”
Then he looked at Thessany as if he were a firing squad, “Twister Corps Commander Meridian Thessany, defender of Tanith, do you seek to be Warmaster?” The tone and wording were of ritual, familiar to those present.
With a calming smirk, settling himself for the moment, “No, I do not.”
Cassian nodded again, “Good. It is to be required of you then. May your Record be selfless. Meridian Thessany, defender of Tanith, do you fear dying in the causes you will uphold as Warmaster?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good. Then you will be prudent. May your Record embody wisdom. Meridian Thessany, defender of Tanith, will you show mercy and brotherhood to your enemies should they run from you or lie in defeat?”
“No. I will not.”
“Good. Then our children will not fear the shadows. May your Record bring terror. Meridian Thessany, stand solemn.” Cassian took a step towards him, fishing from a thigh pocket a small vial of a clear liquid that shimmered inside its glass. Phryne and Oblave softly gripped Thessany’s wrists, which he offered willingly, understanding this part of the script for assignment of Warmaster. Each of them had studied this in school and knew it well, though it had changed somewhat from its early origins.
As Cassian lifted the vial above his head, Thessany glanced again to the Interrogator, “What about him? Somebody’s got to watch him while this happens.”
Ignoring him, Cassian continued raising the vial and with its soft aperture revealed it to be a small eye dropper. He touched his left hand to Thessany’s chin, guiding his head upwards and tilted back. Each of them stood silently while three drops apiece of the liquid went into each of Thessany’s eyes. It may have burned, or perhaps he was reacting to the Interrogator’s presence while he could no longer watch; but Thessany blinked harshly several times and shook his head like a dog trying to dry himself.
“I mean it, Phryne. Watch him.” As they each observed him, Thessany continued shaking his head and looking around, blinking. They knew his vision was enshrouding already and perhaps wonderered what the scene looked like.
Cassian replaced the vial in his pocket and stepped backwards, “Defender of Tanith, do you know what you are to see now?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just do what you have to, okay?”
Cassian smacked his face, drawing a sudden and vicious defensive posture from the Commander, “Follow it or we’re done here! If you can’t respect the history, you can’t respect the land. Follow it.”
“Don’t touch me again.” He was blinking again, occasionally widening his eyes as if to clear them.
Talgo acknowledged the cameraman, “Edit that out.”
Then back to Thessany, “Do you know what you are to see?”
It was clear at that point that Thessany was suddenly looking at something else, a scene and a world far removed from the arsenal Ship maintenance garage in which they stood. He surveyed the room as if it weren’t there and was scanning to an invisible horizon all about him something that was awful and of significance. He was quiet and no longer smug or confident. What he saw left him struck and humbled, perhaps like someone first sitting quietly in a very old and echoing cathedral. Thessany had looked slowly all about himself, wide-eyed and fearful of what it was he saw.
Softly, “I didn’t know it was this bad.”
More urgently and louder, “Do you know what you are to see?”
A long, awkward pause, “I see the dead. I see the rubble. I see what the last Warmaster did that I might be free.”
“Look then. And do likewise. Will you recite the General’s Blade?”
Thessany licked his lips, still awed by what he saw – and disgusted, “May need a little help with that.”
; Cassian clenched his teeth, “The loyalty of the people…”
Thessany turned again, perhaps disbelieving the horror of what he saw, or maybe anxious to absorb its worth before it faded, “The loyalty of the people is the sharpness of the general’s blade.”
He hesitated, thinking and still seeing things far away and long-since gone, “I will not dull this blade in open wars without end nor by incautious pouring of my nation’s blood. I will not seize it to turn against my overseers and take the homeland for myself, as if a man were not surrendering his soul for such desires. I uhhh…”
“I will fear the people…”
He nodded vacantly, “I will fear the people that I might not bring them pain worse than that from which I defend them and that I may know when to lay down what I have been given. And I will be vigilant towards those who rise against us to know why there must be a blade at all.”
Thessany barely waited long enough for Cassian to take his cue, “Say it, Talgo.”
A long pause, “You stand as Warmaster. Do your duty.”
When he’d finished, they each stood quietly while Thessany surveyed the phantom and vanished landscape before him. It was unlike Meridian Thessany to be without words; but he saw a world that stretched to the horizon with rotting dead and twisted machinery…and of still-living soldiers mangled and straining against the silence. The panoramic was known to have been taken following one of the last battles in the War of the Rupture when the great cemetery which had once belonged to this portion of the ritual was scorched and cratered. None born later could imagine such devastation and loss on this kind of scale without seeing it firsthand like this. That was of course the point.
At last, the new Warmaster began rubbing his eyes sharply and shaking his head again. The imagery was wearing off; and he was anxious that it do so.
“All right, gawkers. I said your poem; and I watched your eyeball thing. Get back to work; and let’s make something happen. I need to see division reports on these folks from Vendle and the Steel Horde, Oblave. Get me whatever you can find.”
He contorted his neck far to the left, then to the right in an attempt to crack it and relieve its soreness, and again rubbed his chin and lip where Cassian had drawn blood, “Phryne, you still here?”
“Yes, Warmaster.”
He smiled at the address, still not quiet seeing her but looking in her direction nonetheless, “You and I need to draw up how we’ll enter Spenecia. My twisters are gonna get close. You need to be ready for that. How about meeting me in the dome when I’m done here?”
She nodded as she turned to leave, always in a hurry, “Yes, Warmaster.”
With his eyesight still occluded, Thessany listened to the shuffling and footsteps as at least some of them left him. He turned again to face the corner where the terrible Interrogator had earlier huddled. He called to Cassian, suddenly uncertain if he was gone as well.
“Talgo, when are you leaving?”
There was no answer. Listening closely, Thessany leaned forward to reach for his right ankle. “How about you, freak? You still here, grinning like an idiot? I still can’t see…why don’t you do something? Take a little bite?”
The tiny puff of a breath was what he’d needed; and when the Interrogator took it, Thessany followed the sound, withdrawing a knife from inside his boot and piercing it clean through the Interrogator’s windpipe to the wall behind him. No struggle. No hesitation. The horrible man just slid down like melting ice on a window, spewing blood and gurgling.
Thessany pulled the knife and ran its sides along his thigh to clean them, then leaned against his extended left hand onto the wall where the Interrogator had stood. It was beyond the wall of course, that which he saw as he steadied himself: the fields of the vision.
“I didn’t know it was this bad.”
22 THE BELL TOWER
Cristoffel and Misling were running, seeking shelter within a colonnade which was part of a narrow aisled marketplace and was now caked in white and blue dust that swirled and prominenced in the wake of their flight like vampire smoke. When they were hidden from view and breathless, Misling turned to see the haunting Red Witch bell tower, its twisted denizens still moving awkwardly and without purpose. From the distance, it was difficult to make out individuals within the tower, for there must have been more than thirty, nestled together and doubled around one another, stacked and laying and clutching, ramped in filth and urine. Four motionless men stood at its pinnacle, arched toward one another and holding the heavy black bell between them.
“’They’ll hear you breathing’” Misling whispered. Cristoffel turned to see his expression, trying to understand what he knew. His tone was different; and she could tell it was a quote.
His eyes left the mysterious tower and drifted across the rubblefield, with its rippling crater and flotsam of steel; and he knew what this meant. There were no rescuers, no machinery hauling wreckage away…no one at all apart from the tortured souls stacked upon one another. She patiently let him look for a short while, then tapped his arm and whispered.
“Are we done here?”
“What if he is one of them?” The Recorder pointed to the tower.
Cristoffel closed her eyes, perhaps having hoped he wouldn’t ask that question, “That’s even worse. What are you gonna do – shoot him? We need to go back. Or maybe I’ll put it this way: I’m going back. I did my part. You can’t say I didn’t.”
He looked at her, “Lennox Weshire is a weight upon you. Leave him.”
She rubbed her eyes, “Don’t go over there. Don’t.”
With that, Misling took steps toward the desolated plaza and toward the tower, his breath shallow and quick and the carbine shaking in his hands.
Hesitating, then following, “Keep your distance, okay?”
He locked eyes with her; and in a look showed his gratitude for coming with him. Then, gripping the carbine with whitening fingers, the Recorder advanced to the tower and ever slowly came to within a few paces of it. The two of them were at last close enough to see individual faces, some pale and stuck like plaster masks and others twisting and darting their eyes back and forth. Misling frowned with determination, looking for the old man’s familiar pink nose and laughing eyes.
Beside him at once was the little girl from the barley fields, pointing. She vanished away when he turned to look.
“What? What are you looking at?”
Misling only eyed the plaza immediately behind him to gauge her reality, whether someone had slipped around him. Seeing nothing, he turned again to the tower to see eyes upon him. Here and there, along its disgusting levels eyes were turned his way; and babbling whispers sounded. Standing this close, he could see how those on the tower were intertwined, contorted and interlocked in impossible complexity and forming a solid structure with no visible gaps. Its base was wide, sharing the weight of those on the upper levels across perhaps a third of them. Anyone would have been drained of strength with quaking and pained muscles following only a short time in such a formation, yet here they had been for possibly hours. It was a terror to see.
Misling was intent and focused, hunched over like a back-country tracker as he made his way around them, awkwardly gripping the carbine as if he feared dropping it. Cristoffel also surveyed the surrounding buildings and alleyways, sidewalks and corners, looking for those who might seek to watch or sneak. After uncomfortably noticing Misling was within arm’s reach of the tower, she grabbed a pinch of his shirt and tugged him back a step. He allowed it; but he failed to turn and look at her as the strangers’ faces upon the tower fully absorbed his mind. Then he stopped suddenly and went entirely pale, quaking.
“No. No. No. No.” The Recorder’s voice was broken, lifeless. He stopped, disheartened to an extent difficult to imagine or describe. Then he closed his eyes to steady himself.
Cristoffel touched his arm, the one opposite her carbine, and stepped closer to see what it was he saw. With a cluster of dirty faces in a mass, it was difficult to see
the one upsetting him. She sought an older man, with a kind face. Contorted and tortured as many there were, it may have been any number of them. She took another step towards Misling, perhaps setting herself to take from him the carbine and end this unnatural and vile thing that was happening to the Recorder’s sponsor…to spare him what was to come. Misling opened his eyes again; and she followed his stare.
“Selisa.” He spoke her name. With the suddenness and shock of a loud pop in a fire, the bright white eyes of a woman with filth and ash on her rough cheeks twisted to look at them. Her head was pressed into the chest and thighs of others upon the tower; and her expression was wild and disconnected, hallucinating.
Selisa spoke, her voice that of a horrible nightmare monster, “Have you come to ring the bell?”
Misling hesitated, unwilling to respond and lost in his despair, so Cristoffel answered – perhaps unwisely.
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