The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  The last of the men seemed the least affected by what had happened in the city. Burle Tyne, the captain of the Wildern City Watch seemed barely to have seen the fires that had afflicted his fellows. His blue tunic was unstained. The chain armor below held its polish. He showed no sign of injury, but his eyes showed his wounds. They were distant, skittish, and lost. Maybe worse than having been caught in the destruction wrought by the te-am ‘eiruh and their creatures had been seeing it and knowing that it was only a matter of time before it came for you.

  “Where is your leader?” Arin asked these battered men. “Is he too much a coward to face what his pride has wrought?”

  Ipid began to translate, but before he could finish, First Advisor Bellon interrupted, “He’s dead!” His voice was ragged, barely rose above a rasp but held defiance still. “They’re all dead. We are all that is left. I am the most senior advisor remaining.”

  Ipid felt his heart sink. He clasped the table before him to keep himself from falling. The Chancellor, every member of his Bureau, dead. He could not fathom it. They had been some of his best friends, closest associates, fiercest enemies, most bitter and revered rivals, and now they were gone. He could not even accept it as real.

  And Arin smiled. He beamed like a wolf finding the shepherd asleep on a moonless night. “So you have come to accept our terms?”

  “Yes, by the Order,” Hector Bellon cursed then doubled as coughs took him. The Di Valati placed a hand on his back but withdrew it at his own coughs resumed. When the fit ended, Lord Bellon returned his attention to Arin. “You’ve won. Tell me where to sign, take whatever you want, give our nation to this traitor. We have no ability to fight you. You have made that abundantly clear, so just take what you want and go.”

  Ipid translated to murmurs of approval from the te-ashute. When he was finished, Arin brought his fists to the table and leaned forward into the face of Hector Bellon. “Your name on a paper has no meaning to me. In the morning, K’amach-tur Ipid and fifty warriors will enter your city. K’amach-tur Ipid will be given anything and everything he needs. He, and he alone, will ensure that our terms are met. You will not question him. You will not resist him. You will not impede him, or not a brick will remain of this city. Do you understand?”

  The last remaining bureau member looked at Ipid, hatred burning in his eyes, as he translated, stumbling over the words as he forced his tongue to say them. “I understand,” he responded through grating teeth when he finished.

  “Then it is done.” Arin smiled, speaking the Imperial tongue. “Remember, you brought this upon yourself. You knew what we could do. You knew what would happen, but your pride was worth more to you than the lives of your people. Remember this lesson or it will be repeated until you cannot ever forget.” Arin paused and stared at each of the men before him. Finally, in Darthur, he finished, “Be prepared to receive K’amach-tur Ipid and our men in the morning. We will be watching.”

  And with that, Arin turned and strode from the tent. Ipid completed his translation and followed in a fog. What has Arin done to me? was all he could think.

  Chapter 17

  The 21st Day of Summer

  Dasen woke propped against the stairs, sitting where he had landed. He rubbed his gummy eyes and came stiffly forward. His stomach rumbled, head throbbed, muscles ached. His back and neck were a line of knots from sleeping against the steps. His legs and arms felt stiff and weak. His clothes were cold and damp. It was all far too reminiscent of every morning since he’d been joined.

  At his side, he heard Teth’s soft breaths. She was asleep, curled into a ball as if diminished even in sleep. She seemed so small and frail there, so fragile. He still could not imagine what could have happened to so defeat her. She had done so much, had faced all the horrors a horrible world could create, had stared death in the face time and again. So what could have happened that could bring her to this? And why did his presence seem to make it worse? Why couldn’t she tell him, find comfort in him? He searched for answers, mind returning again and again to the same one, but he could not, would not, believe it. The creatures, he thought, certainly their presence seemed to have started it all, but she had recovered, had been herself long enough to escape. No, it was him. Somehow, he had started it. And the way she had looked at him. Did she blame him? Had he done something? Was it all his fault?

  He felt his own eyes turn misty, his chest tighten, and breath quicken. “I love you, Teth,” he said to the sleeping shape. Teth shivered. Her clothes and hair were still matted with water. Dasen found a blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled it over her. He wanted to touch her, to brush her hair back and ease himself onto the bed next to her, but then he remembered that look, remembered how she’d screamed when he touched her. He pulled his hand back and turned to the stairs.

  A moment later, he had pushed the hatch aside and was climbing into the light of the early morn. He looked up, blinking against the sun, and watched the sky for shapes. He found them, but they were birds, their dark bodies outlined against the puffy clouds drifting through the pale-blue sky. With no threats in sight, Dasen pushed the hatch back and tottered around the deck on stiff legs.

  The boat was stuck. Even from the hatch he could see the sandbar that held them. The front of the boat was consumed by a stretch of tall grass standing in the center of the wide river. To the sides was prairie. A few sparse trees appeared near some bluffs on the western horizon, but the view was otherwise of grass. Staring back up the river, he found no signs of the Weavers’ commune or the fire that had ended it. There was no smoke rising, no sign of charred grass, no creatures or carnage. Dasen supposed the rain had taken care of the fire and the creatures, that they were safe, for now.

  Striding to the front of the boat, he looked down at the sandbar. The curve of the bow was dug into the mud, stuck tight, with the water flowing around on either side. They could not stay there, but he had no idea how to get them loose. There was a long pole lying across the deck. Could he use it to push them off? Then what? At the back of the boat, there was a slight platform with a canopy stretched above it to block the sun. The long handle of a great rudder waved back and forth with the flow of the river. Beside the rudder was a sleeping pallet, a stool, and a bucket.

  “Suppose I’ll have to steer,” he told himself out loud. He had taken a few trips down various rivers, in boats far larger and finer than this utilitarian longboat, but they all had pilots to steer. He had a basic understanding of how it worked but had certainly never done it. Time can either feed you are kill you, Dasen heard his father’s words, felt a pang, then pushed it away.

  His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had not eaten real food since before the battle outside Thoren. His entire body felt weak and empty. He needed to eat before he tried to do anything else, so he returned the depths of the hold.

  After confirming that Teth was still sleeping, he explored the hold. The food that Teth had stored on the shelves next to the stove was his first discovery. Half of a loaf of dark bread eased the rumbling in his stomach and restored some of his strength. He washed it down with several long swigs from a gallon jug of cider and felt it coursing through him. The rest seemed to consist of beans, vegetables, and nuts. He ate a handful of the last and wished that there were meat, cheese, butter, honey, or eggs, but if there were, he could not find them. Finally, his eyes came to rest on the bag of hard red beans and a single large pot sitting on the stout, little stove. With a sigh, he grabbed the pot and went back up the stairs to the deck.

  When he returned the pot was filled with water, and Teth was crying. The sound of her whimpers filled the hold. She had pulled herself into a ball beneath the blanket, face buried in her hands, hidden behind her shoulders. Dasen thought about turning back around and leaving. Certainly, he felt sorry for her, wanted to help and comfort her, but he had no idea how to do that. And that only made him feel miserable all the more.

  “Are you alright?” he whispered. He held his breath, but the only answer was a s
puttered moan. “Can you tell me what’s wrong? Can I help?” Another moan answered. Sobs and snuffles followed. Dasen gave up and started on a fire.

  With the help of some of the oil in a lamp hanging from the ceiling, the charcoal in the stove caught the sparks he threw. Dasen spent a moment relishing the heat of the fire despite the fact that the morning was already warm. He dumped half the water from the pot into a nearby bucket and placed what remained on the stove’s flat top. The beans felt good to his fingers as he scooped them from the bag, firm and smooth and sure. He dropped them into the water, watching them gather at the bottom. There was no salt or pepper that he could find, and he did not have the ambition to peel or chop vegetables, so he left it to the beans.

  Teth’s sobs had eased to ragged breaths and snuffles by the time he finished. He opened his mouth to say something but found no words and closed it. He reached his hand out to touch her then reconsidered. Finally, with a sigh, he climbed the stairs.

  It would be some time before the beans were cooked, but he could not stay in the hold and listen to Teth cry. Wondering what to do, he looked around the boat and river. His first thought was to free them from the sandbar, but they’d probably just end up on another when he went down to get the beans. He rolled his stiff shoulders and felt the salt caked to his shirt and skin. His hand ran through his matted hair. He suddenly remembered that he had spent days lying in a bed, had likely been in these same clothes the entire time.

  Dasen took his time bathing. He scrubbed his body and his clothes, using the sand from the river to rub away the salt, soot, and stink that the rain had not managed to purge. Reduced to his small clothes, he enjoyed the cool water, swimming around the boat in the gentle current then floating and staring at the sky. Finally, he tried to assess their position on the sandbar. As an experiment, he dug at the mud with his fingers. More rushed in to fill the gap as quickly as he pushed it away. Looking a last time at the boat and the bank, he climbed aboard. The sun was well over the horizon now and it quickly dried his skin. He pulled on the course woolen pants that he had been wearing when he woke in the Weaver compound. They were still dripping, as was his shirt. He left the shirt to dry and returned to the hold.

  The beans were boiling out of the pot. The broth, sizzling and bubbling, covered the top of the stove. The smell was terrible. Smoke rose from the stovetop in a column, making the air almost unbreathable. And Teth just laid on the bed in exactly the same position.

  “To the Maelstrom, Teth!” He ran to the pot and had the wherewithal to use a clump of nearby rags to lift it. “You couldn’t get up to save our lunch? Shit! It’s burning all over.” He found a long knife and used it to push the burnt mess from the stovetop into the bucket of water, one hand clenching his nose against the smell. “I mean, damn it all! You couldn’t get up long enough to take the pot off the stove? What if it had started a fire?” Dasen turned to look at his wife. He was as angry as he ever remembered being at her. And she had no response. She had not even moved that Dasen could see unless it was to curl into an even tighter ball. She did not even have the curtesy to cry out or yell or defend herself.

  Dasen took a deep breath and scraped away the last of the beans. Turning to the pot, he found a big wooden spoon and tried to peer through the column of steam rising from it. He could tell without even seeing that they were burnt to the bottom with almost no liquid remaining to cover them. Cursing, he stirred and cast another look of frustration at Teth. The entire thing was a disaster, and she had not moved a muscle to stop it from happening. It was selfish. That was all he could think. She was so wrapped up in herself that she couldn’t even do this tiny thing. So caught up in herself, in whatever had happened, that she couldn’t even talk to him, couldn’t even let him touch her. It was wrong. It was selfish and stupid. He was her husband. She had a duty to. . . .

  He opened his mouth to voice his thoughts. Then he looked at her, curled and miserable, and his indignation leaked away. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “There’s some soup here. It’s kind of burnt, but you already knew that I can’t cook.” He waited for Teth to join in the deprecation with a barb of her own. A moan, followed by a single snuffled sob came from the bed, the exact opposite of what he had hoped to achieve.

  “Listen, Teth. I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have yelled. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been gone so long. I just . . . .” He thought better of his next words. “Nothing. It was my fault, but I think you should eat. I think it will help you feel better.”

  Her back was to him, curled round with her legs tucked to her chest, head resting on top of her knees, arms holding her legs like they might escape and wander away, whole body trembling with each shaking, mournful breath. “Teth,” he whispered barely audible over the ripple of water against the wood at their sides. “What is wrong? What did they do to you?” He took a deep breath. “I love you, Teth. I want to help, but I don’t know what to do. Please . . . .”

  A sob – a single, loud gush – interrupted him. “Stop!” she moaned without moving. She cried again, breath rising to pants that bordered on hyperventilation. “Just stop!”

  Dasen could only stare at her in shock, numb with the avalanche of horrors that played in his mind. By the Order, what could they have possibly done to bring her to this?

  “Leave me,” she called through her knees. “There’s nothing you can do. Just . . . just please, leave me alone.”

  Dasen stared at her. He could not believe what he was hearing. He could still remember how she had greeted him in that tower, how she had tackled him and kissed him until he was suffocating. He couldn’t understand what could have happened or why she could not share it with him. After everything they had been through, after everything they had done. And all of it together, side-by-side, hand-in-hand. It was him and her against the world. He had started to believe that as long as he had Teth, there was no obstacle that they could not overcome. Now, she wanted him gone?

  He swallowed the lump growing in his throat, grabbed a bowl from the shelf above and spooned the beans into it. “There are beans here if you want something to eat.” He turned to the stairs. “I’ll be on the deck if you need me.” He knew that his tone was sharp, but he couldn’t help it. All he wanted to do was help, and she told him to leave. Well, that was exactly what he would do.

  But the sounds that followed him from the hold were not those of relief. Though he had given her exactly what she wanted, Teth’s cries rose. She moaned and cried as if in real pain, as if she were dying. They were the last sounds Dasen heard as he emerged onto the deck and carried his bowl of beans to the back of the boat.

  #

  An hour later, the boat was free and floating down the river with the current. Getting it loose had been easier (and more painful) than Dasen had expected. After eating as much of the dreadful beans as he could manage, he had spent more time inspecting the sandbar and the current. Finally, he had hoisted the long pole, taken it to the back of the boat, and pushed. It had taken only a few pushes, straining for all he was worth, to pivot the back of the boat into the current. Once the river took hold, it jerked the boat around, sending him crashing back onto the deck with the pole cracking him square between the eyes.

  When he recovered enough to dispel the stars that were spinning around his head, they were free from the sandbar and floating backward down the river. Luckily, the river kept a leisurely pace, and there were no other obstacles to snag them or break the rudder before Dasen managed to plant the pole again and use it to swing the boat back around. This time, as he tried to bring the heavy pole out of the water, it slipped through his hands and nearly remained in the middle of the river behind them. Only at the last second was he able to wrap both arms around it and, falling back to the deck, wrest it from the mud.

  That was enough of the pole for him, so he laid it along the side of the deck and took up the pilots place at the rudder under the canopy at the back. He watched the river float by, trying to avoid the sandbars and grassy isl
ands that marked their progress. Steering proved to be relatively easy as long as he knew where he wanted to go. Good river pilots knew the water beneath them better than they knew the curves of their wives. They would know exactly where the sandbars were, how they might have changed, and how to detect new ones. Dasen had no thoughts that he had such abilities, so he focused on keeping them in the main channel and avoiding the obvious hazards. The height of the swollen river made that easy, and he was soon watching the grass to either side, following the path of an eagle that circled lazily over their heads, and looking for other boats, invaders, or creatures.

  Despite all those distractions, his mind went constantly back to Teth. He could not help but replay her words, could not help but see the face she had made, could not help seeing how she had retracted when he touched her. Then he thought also about how they had been before Thoren, how they had slept holding each other, kissed, held hands, talked, and joked. He wanted that Teth, needed her desperately, but that was not the person in the hold.

  Something terrible had happened at the Weavers’ compound. And he only wanted to help, wanted to bring back the girl he loved. But she could only push him away as she never had before. After everything they had been through . . . . His thoughts ran around and around, frustration growing to anger, falling into sorrow, and igniting again into frustration. The river flowed by, the sun passed overhead, and he found no answers, no solutions, no peace.

  Chapter 18

  The 22nd Day of Summer