The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  Dasen joined Teth, standing above where she sat at the bow with the expanse of Wildern on Orm spread across the plains before them. The sun was sliding toward the horizon. The mosquitos, flies, and gnats were celebrating the reprieve from its oppressive heat in frenetic swarms. The river shimmered beneath them. The wheat fields on the opposite bank rippled golden in the breeze. And past it, as Teth had suggested, smoke rose from the sun-drenched city. In fact, smoke rose from almost every building, small white streamers cast from cooking fires and channeled to chimneys, but two columns stood out from those tiny wisps. Slate-grey and black, they rose from an area past the first buildings, darker, thicker, and far more ominous than wispy cooking fires. Somehow, Dasen knew that these were the fires of war, were the fires of buildings burning, of homes destroyed, of death. He could not tell from that distance what districts had burnt, but the docks, warehouses, and shanty structures that were visible along the northern outskirts appeared to be untouched.

  His eyes rose, searching for familiar landmarks. Should I be able to see the Chancellor’s Palace from here? The spires of the Parliament? The great dome of the temple? He was not sure, but he knew that the city looked different. Then he realized what was missing and everything else fell into place. The Monument to Unification. The single great tower – the tallest in the Kingdoms – surrounded by sixteen shorter towers was missing. Dasen had approached the city by river a number of times and remembered seeing the central tower and the peaks of its scions. He traced from that gap to where he should see the shining bronze spires of the parliament building, where the white block towers of the Chancellor’s Palace should hide the city behind, where the great golden dome of the temple should be reflecting the sun like a beacon, where the old wall should peek out above the building that surrounded it.

  “They’re gone,” he whispered.

  Teth looked up at him, her expression clouding, and Dasen feared that she would fall back into tears. He held his breath dreading the sound of her sobs, but she just took a great, deep breath and pointed out across the river away from the city to the west. “They’re already here,” she said in defeat. She stood, looked at Dasen for a long moment, eyes studying him, then ran a hand down his arm until it found his hand. She squeezed it once and walked silently back to the cabin, climbed down the stairs, and disappeared into the hold.

  Dasen followed her with his eyes, wondering what it had meant. It was the first time he had touched her without her screaming, but it was, if anything, more heartbreaking than all the previous refusals combined.

  Eventually, his eyes turned back to the city and rose to where Teth had pointed. He had to look almost directly into the sun to see, but Teth was right. Another cloud of smoke stood above the horizon, rising in hundreds of tiny columns from an array of tents, laid out across the fields in the thousands. The invaders, he realized. Legs turning to water, Dasen took Teth’s place on the bow, leaning against the railing, staring at the water, wondering when they would ever escape.

  #

  The sun was just beginning to light the few puffy clouds along the eastern horizon when Dasen untied the boat and set it floating slowly toward the city in the distance. He had wanted to go even earlier but did not have the confidence to steer the boat in the darkness and did not want to end up crashing into a dock, pylon, or barge. He realized that he had not seen a single other boat in all their time on the river, and though he had spent an entire evening watching, there did not appear to be any activity in the city – no ferries passed, the docks were abandoned, the bridges did not carry a single horse, cart, or man. Other than the smoke rising from the chimneys, it looked as if the city were lifeless, leaving Dasen to wonder if the invaders had massacred the people here the same way they had in Thoren.

  “We’ll just float on by,” he said absently as the first buildings, tumbledown inns with boat slips, appeared beside them. He watched the empty docks, the closed up warehouses, the shuttered inns without seeing any signs of life. It was still early on the river, but the Wildern docks were famous for their bustle, for the continuous stream of boats going in and out, for the flow of goods, and jingle of coins. Seeing them abandoned was like watching a ghost, and Dasen shivered. “We’ll just keep floating until with get to Gorin. From there, we can cross into Liandria. It will take a week, but we have enough food, especially if I can catch some fish.”

  A sigh was Teth’s only response. She sat on the bow, legs hanging over the front of the boat, nearly hugging the spindle she straddled. Dasen was at the back, holding the rudder to keep them in the center of the river, as far as possible from each bank, but the city was so quiet that even whispers seemed to carry the weight of shouts.

  Hoping to pass as a river man and his son bringing in a cargo to trade. They did nothing to speed their progress or draw attention. They wanted to seem as shocked as anyone would be at drawing in on a city under threat of invasion. It was not a guise they had to work to maintain. Dasen was clothed in a big, oiled-felt boatman’s hat that he had found in a trunk of clothes under the bed. Its great brim shielded his entire face, and his other clothes were sufficiently ragged to give the appearance of a river man. Teth did not wear a hat, but her short, mangled hair and ragged clothes were such that no one would believe her a girl if she told them.

  Eventually, the docks and warehouses gave way to the brick blocks that marked the Financial District on their right and the River Market on the left. The stalls of the market were universally closed. Blank boards would have greeted any shopper who happened to venture out. Staring at the rising sun, Dasen quickly calculated. It was Rest Day, the busiest day for the market, and though still early, the merchants should have been opening their shops, stocking their shelves, arranging their wares in preparation for the shoppers who would soon fill the market to near immobility. At the same time, it did not appear that any of the buildings on either side of the river had been touched by the invaders. The docks were almost completely empty of boats, but they still stood. The warehouses were tightly closed, but no fire had touched them, no looters had ransacked them. The market was lifeless, but there were no dead among the stalls, no bodies collecting flies as the stalls would customers. There was not a brick out of place, no signs of fire, no rubble, or bodies. The domes of the cities other two temples stood above their districts as they always had.

  Until the river turned again past the market and the old wall came into view. It was shattered. The thickest wall Dasen had ever seen was nothing more than jumbled piles of broken rock. The mighty river towers that had stood ten paces out in the river on either side had been cast into the water, leaving only slabs of rock poking from the surface like ragged merlons. And beyond it was a wasteland of rubble and ash. Everything was gray or black, charred by the fires or covered by heaps of ash. It was all gone. Every edifice, administrative building, palace. The Temple. The university. The gardens. The monuments. They were ash and jumbled stone.

  “By the Order,” he whispered. And on the other side, the East Bridges District, the main commercial district where the wealthy kept their offices and ran their empires was a mirror of the Capital District. The invaders had destroyed the political and economic heart of the nation and left everything else untouched like children forced to watch their parents’ execution then mourn over their broken, lifeless bodies.

  “Dasen, watch out!” stirred him from his reverie just in time for him to see the ferry that had pulled out into the river in front of them. He had become so complacent, so used to seeing nothing but empty water, that he barely knew how to react to the existence of another vessel. He watched as the river carried them on a collision course with the wide, low ferry. Then, with some thought, he turned the tiller to angle them around behind as it crossed their path.

  Passing, they watched a dozen men with long poles push the ferry across the river, perpendicular to the current. Between them, on the ferry’s flat surface was an ornate coach surrounded in its entirety by large, brutish warriors holding mammoth horses
– the invaders. The ferry, designed to carry a dozen wagons and their teams, barely held the host of decidedly nervous warriors and even less certain horses. Dasen wished that he could somehow panic those horses, that he could create some kind of stampede that would result in the lot of them being thrown into the river to drown. He played with the idea, but it was nothing more than that, so he kept his head low, face hidden behind the rim of his hat as their boat passed behind.

  “What was that?” he asked when they were out of earshot. “And why didn’t they use the bridges?” He watched the last of the four great stone spans pass over their heads without a single support from the river below. He had once asked one of his father’s engineers how the bridges had been built. The man had given a long explanation about cantilevers, truss arches, distributed force, and compression support, which had all been his long-winded way of saying he had no idea.

  “The bridges are blocked,” Teth answered with a sigh. “And that was your father.”

  Dasen wanted to argue, to scream at her, but she had made the accusation with so little emotion, that Dasen could only follow her finger to the side of the coach where his father’s face was clearly illuminated in the coach’s side window. Gasping, Dasen felt his stomach churn as his sense of betrayal fought his desire to stand and wave.

  “He’s one of them,” Teth said. “Just another man who’s betrayed us.” But those words were too much even for the indifference she seemed to be attempting. She choked on them and buried her face in her sleeve as if that would hide the shaking of her shoulders. Dasen was too shocked, too far in denial to join her. No matter what he saw, he could not convince himself that his father was a traitor, that he had sold himself to the invaders and given up his country in return, so he just turned back to the river, to the untouched houses, markets, and docks that were now appearing on the other side of the devastated districts.

  Chapter 26

  The 24th Day of Summer

  The words of the oath were still ringing in Ipid’s ears as he strode down the granite steps away from the temple that served the south-eastern section of Wildern. Protect, serve, follow, he had barely heard the words as Valati Wallock recited them, as he repeated them back. Now, they echoed through his mind, drowning out the murmurs of the crowd, the bustling of the guards, the whinnying of the nervous horses.

  He looked out at the crowd with glassy eyes. They looked as stunned as he felt. They were certainly not cheering as they had when Kavich was sworn into his most recent term. No flowers were being thrown, no flags were waving. At least they’re not throwing rocks and burning effigies, he told himself. But for how long? Once the shock wore off, once the Darthur moved on, once their fear was forgotten and misery mounted, he would be at their mercy. It was exactly as Eia had said, his fate was decided. Succeed or fail, history would remember him the same way: traitor, tyrant, plunderer. The lone epithet he could add was failure. And his only chance to avoid the latter was to embrace the former.

  Remembering that, he forced his shoulders back, fixed his mouth into a scowl, made his eyes hard. Still, he was troubled. He had the Church to support his authority, the city watch to enforce it. In a few hours, the Chancellor’s Own would return and – by the Order’s blessing – provide a means to extend that authority across the country. He had all the power he needed to rule. And no way to translate it into the food and gold the Darthur demanded. He needed people to collect the food and gold, transport it, count it and confirm its delivery, and most of all, people to plan all the steps between. Right now, he was little more than a foreman shouting at an empty workroom. He could rant and roar and threaten until he was red, but until someone appeared to work the machines, his words were just adding to the echoes.

  Lost in that thought, he arrived at his coach, climbed the first few steps, and turned to wave adroitly to the crowd. Their sullen, uncertain faces passed by him in a blur until the answer to all his problems appeared. He literally jumped out of the crowd and waved. Ipid nearly fell in his haste to point the man out to the watch. “That man,” he yelled, pointing desperately. “Have him brought to the coach. Make a way for him.”

  Stunned, Captain Tyne looked from Ipid to the crowd. Spotting the waving man, he yelled to his men to clear a way. The crowd accommodated. They moved away with looks of fear, curiosity, and revulsion then stayed back as the guards hustled the middle-aged man past them toward the self-proclaimed tyrant, who was suddenly smiling and waving like a child watching a parade.

  Having completely forgotten himself, Ipid met Jon Cubbington, his favorite manager, with open arms, almost hugged him as he stared at the man who was like a mirror of his former self. Ipid’s partners had often joked that Jon was such a good manager that he even looked like his employer. Certainly, he had been Ipid’s doppelganger before all this started. They were the same age, of a similar height, had the same round features, styles of dress, and receding hair lines. But that was before the Darthur had arrived, before he had lost thirty pounds to depravation, before the creases of pain and sorrow and worry had been etched into his face, before the light had faded from his eyes.

  “Jon, by the Order, it is good to see you,” he greeted. “I saw what happened to the offices, the house . . . the whole damned district. Then when the watch couldn’t find you. . . . Well, I feared the worst.”

  Jon looked nervous. He eyed the restless crowd then motioned toward the coach. “Can we talk inside?” he asked with his head bowed as if to hide.

  Ipid remembered himself and the lesson of Valati Wallock from the previous day. He suddenly admired Jon’s courage in coming forward and understood why so few others would. The soldiers were one thing. Compelled by their oaths, they were simply following orders. But for the private citizens, working for the tyrant would be seen as a choice, an opportunity to profit from the city’s misfortune. And when the invaders were gone, the mob would not bother with excuses or explanations.

  “It is good you turned yourself in,” Ipid yelled, forcing his smile into a frown. “Any longer and I may not have been able to forgive your insubordination. Now get inside.”

  Jon stumbled back. Ipid gestured again to the inside of the coach. “Get in!” he yelled then lowered his voice to a whisper. “A show for the crowd. We’ll talk inside.” That assurance seemed enough. Jon stepped into the coach.

  Ipid turned to follow. Eia caught him before he could make it through the door. She held out a hand to block his way. “You are the Chancellor. Chancellors give speeches. Get out there and say something.”

  Ipid gulped. How had he not thought of that before? Certainly Eia was correct, but he had never had to give speeches before. He had served in government, but his dealings had all been in back rooms or around negotiating tables. In as much as he was elected, they were votes that were decided before he even agreed to stand. He had never needed to convince a crowd or speak to the masses.

  But Eia showed no sympathy for his plight. “Go!” she ordered.

  He turned, stood on the coach’s top step, and looked out at the crowd. They looked back at him with shock, fear, and simmering hatred. The majority were men, and their faces were hard. Hands were clenched at their sides – fists already bared. Ipid wondered what he could ever say to stay their anger. “People of Wildern, citizens of these Unified Kingdoms,” he started, praying for inspiration. “I come here today, I wear this chain only with the heaviest of hearts.” He held up the heavy gold chain and saucer-sized medallion that very literally weighed on his neck and looked humbly toward the ground. “Chancellor Kavich was one of my dearest friends, my mentor, and my Chancellor. It was my only goal to serve him. . . . Ahh!” Something stabbed him in the leg, nearly sending him tumbling to the ground as he retracted. He looked behind him and saw a needle flash.

  “No!” Eia hissed. “You need them to obey you, not like you. Better to say nothing than that drivel. Be strong or fail.”

  Ipid rubbed the side of his leg and looked out over the crowd. Their grumbles grew, spread, an
d consolidated into dissent.

  “Murderer!” someone yelled. The crowd rippled as a man tried to fight his way through. “Murderer!” he yelled again. His fine clothes suggested that Ipid should know him, but he was covered with soot, face streaked black, dark suit a dusty gray. His face was distorted with a rage fueled by madness. A knife appeared in his hand, dirty and chipped so that it no longer even looked like metal. “You killed them. You murdered them all. The Chancellor, the Bureau . . . my wife . . . my children. You are a murderer! The Malestrom take you. Murderer!”

  The crowd parted around the man, equally afraid of him and the likely response to his words. Their eyes darted from the man to the Chancellor to the soldiers all around.

  Ipid knew he had only one choice. He took a deep breath, met the man’s wild eyes, and gestured, finger pointing out like a dagger of his own. “Kill him,” he said in Darthur.

  Three warriors broke from the line they’d formed around the coach and closed on the madman. The crowd collapsed before them, people crushing their neighbors to be out of their way. The man stumbled, realizing only then what he had done, and seeking now to escape. The lead warrior pulled a knife that might have counted as a short sword. His companions fanned out to enclose their, now desperate, target. Cause lost, the man dropped his knife and fell to his knees, hands rising to beg or pray. Ipid forced himself to watch as the warriors closed, showing all the concern of men sent to slaughter a pig for the spit.