The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  There was a gasp from the officers. The men seemed to think better of it, but even Commander Olinse was unable to keep his opinions in line. “The outposts, Lord Chancellor?” he asked, giving voice to all the concerns behind him.

  “Will be abandoned,” Ipid finished for him. The soldiers barely caught their gasps and mumbles of dissent. As it was, they looked from one to another in disbelief. Bairn had already drawn all the men in from the outposts that served to guard the Kingdoms from Sylian raiders. Ipid had known that he would. It was why he had waited to reclaim the city – why do a job yourself when you can get someone better suited to do it for you? Ipid knew that even that must have been difficult for these men to swallow. Protecting the Kingdoms from the Sylians was what most of them had built their reputations on, and unlike the knights in the other room, most of them had actually fought and killed the savages. They knew that two hundred men would be stretched to do anything more than hold the city should the Sylians drive north with any kind of force. Ipid knew it as well, but he also knew what the Darthur would do if he did not deliver the soldiers he’d promised. Better to be stabbed in the palm than the chest, as they say.

  “Any other questions?” he yelled and stared at the men in a way that conveyed the danger they courted should they decide to accept the offer. None did. “Then I must attend to the traitors in the other room. Know that any dissent will be punished quickly and with great finality.” He glanced meaningfully at the bodies behind him then at the old man sputtering his last breaths on the floor before. “You, I am giving another chance, but do not make me regret it.”

  Ipid turned on a heel, stepped over the bodies and returned to the Directorate Hall. Behind him, he heard mumbles fall to silence as Commander Olinse’ voice rose in command. One task down, Ipid told himself. Now for the harder one.

  He strode through the hall, Eia at his side, Darthur entourage in tow. Already, the knights had cleared most of the bodies, streaks of red running across the floor marking each man’s journey to the pile at the far end of the room. Near that pile, a knight crouched. Another standing over him patted his back while watching to see what eyes may be witnessing. The boy stood as Ipid watched, wiping a line of bile from his chin, looking lost in his armor and helm. He did not begrudge the boy his sickness. Certainly, he wished he could do the very same thing.

  A cry of pain called his attention to the other side of the room and briefly interrupted his stride. His eyes went to a line of knights holding wads of cloth to faces, arms, or legs with bloody hands. At their front, the surgeon stitched the leg of a man who bit on a folded strap of leather and squeezed the hand of his comrade. He bellowed as the surgeon stitched, writhing but for the men holding him to the ground. The surgeon shook his head as he worked and cursed under his breath. The other men in the line watched like boys waiting their turn to be bent over their father’s knee, looking increasingly green, though none of their injuries appeared to rival that of the man on the ground.

  By my order, Ipid thought as he resumed his walk. The dead, the injured, the distraught. They were his responsibility. This was his making. He made himself look, forced himself to see the faces of the dead, to look at the men whose lives had been ruined, to watch the eyes of the boys he had made into killers. You did this! he cursed himself. They are boys. Boys like Dasen. They will live with this for the rest of their lives. And it is all because of you. Bile rising, head spinning, arm throbbing, Ipid forced himself to take it all in then push it away. You are hard, he ordered. You did what had to be done. Now own it. The blame is yours, but that does not mean you are guilty.

  A hand on his arm interrupted his dark deliberations. He looked down and found Eia walking close beside him – too close. She smiled sympathetically as if sensing his every emotion – which she probably was. He forced himself to nod to her and double his resolution.

  “Make way,” he called to the knights before him.

  They stepped aside to give him access to the men they guarded. There were only six of them left alive. Four of them were old men even worse equipped for battle than Ipid. The fifth was Lord Bairn’s middle son, a stocky boy in his early thirties with a block face to match his father’s. The lord himself was the last. He was of approximately the same height and build as Ipid but looked nothing like him. He was at least ten years Ipid’s senior, but still solidly built with broad shoulders, short burly arms, and a barrel chest. His head was almost perfectly square with a full head of short-cropped silver hair that joined almost seamlessly to the square beard that framed his jaw and mouth. Blood was sprayed across his cheek and nose, reaching in dots up to the line of his hair. He wore a uniform to match those of his officers, and like theirs, it was marred by red. Most prominent was an almost perfect handprint on his left lapel that streaked down to a pant leg that clung to him, red and glistening. His blue-grey eyes, so striking and severe, looked bewildered now, darting across the room in disbelief, landing again and again on the broken bodies of his other two son’s. His strong jaw, usually clenched in determination, hung slack. His arm remained back to restrain his remaining son, who seemed the only one in the group with any idea of what had happened. Or was it the other way around?

  For his part, Ipid had never spared much thought to Tares Bairn, had only met him a few times. The ancestral lord of the Kingdom of Dor, his family had been the last to concede to unification and the least pleased with its continuation. He had never served in the Parliament or Bureau, choosing instead to remain in Dorington as governor. Kavich had despised him, yet even he would admit that the man was singularly effective at keeping the Sylians in check, which had made him valuable in his own way. The fact that he was a horrible politician and that he disliked the Stullys almost as much as the Kavichs further meant that he was never much of a threat. That was until he saw his chance to reclaim the sovereignty he thought had been stolen from his grandfather eighty years before.

  Ipid spared him nothing now. He approached the governor and slapped him as hard as he could with the back of his hand. He had no doubt that it hurt him more than the governor. His arm felt like it would rip off, his knuckles felt like they were broken, and Bairn looked like he barely noticed despite the thin line of blood running from his nose and lip.

  His son lunging was the only thing that seemed to awaken the old man. He caught the boy and held him, eyes pleading with the surrounding guards as the lad growled and fought his way toward the Chancellor. The knights brought up their swords, the Darthur flanking Ipid bristled, Eia gasped, but Ipid did not flinch. In honesty, it was all he could manage to keep from crying for the throbbing in his arm. He walked away. “Hang them in the courtyard,” he ordered as he turned.

  “No,” Tares Bairn found his voice though it was much higher than Ipid remembered. “We . . . we must be judged by the Order. The . . . the valati must . . . .”

  “I am the Order!” Ipid proclaimed, turning back. “You will get the same mercy you gave to those you killed. The same mercy you gave those who sought to keep this country together. There is no Dor. There is no South. There are the Unified Kingdoms. Your line ends today.” He turned and found Commander Landon. The big man was grim but resolute. Blood was splattered across his face and armor, staining the sparkling steel, but it was not his own. “Find his wife, his daughters, his grandchildren. They hang before him. Make sure he watches them swing before you tie his noose.”

  Marshal Landon looked at Ipid in shock. Ipid thought he might lose his stomach there and then. “Sir?” he finally asked, nearly breathless.

  “You heard me! His line ends!”

  “Sir, the . . . the children, sir?”

  Ipid took a breath. The images of children swinging from a gallows played before his eyes. Small feet dangling. Innocent faces staring to the heavens. Little hands clasping. Bodies writhing. The Order take me, I can’t. “To the temple,” he gasped, barely able to say the words. “Give them to the Church, but their names will never be spoken. They will never hear the word Bairn.” Th
e order was meaningless. It would last only as long as he was in power – possibly a few more weeks – but it was a way to save the children and still torture their grandfather.

  Still horrified, Marshal Landon seemed to ease at that small concession. At the same moment, Lord Bairn seemed to grasp what had been ordered. “No!” he wailed. “Please, the Order save you, have mercy. I beg you.” He fell to his knees, hands raised to Ipid like a god. “Anything. You can have . . . .”

  “I already have everything!” Ipid shouted. “Look around. It is mine. You defied me, and now you will pay the price.” Ipid turned, ignoring the blubbering and wailing of the man behind him.

  “Wait,” another voice called. It was Eia. Ipid turned to see her blocking the knights from their prisoners. She turned to Lord Bairn, lifted him somehow from the ground by his lapels and looked into his eyes. “Where is he?” At the same moment, Naidi came to her side, placing himself between her and the other prisoners. They shrank back from the black robed man with the black veil as if he were eternal damnation, more terrifying even than the death they already faced.

  “I . . . I don’t . . . “

  “Tell me,” Eia demanded. “Give him to us and you will be spared. You, your wife, your daughters, your son, your grandchildren. They will all be spared. Just tell us where he is.”

  Ipid gaped. He had authorized no such amnesty, and who was she talking about?

  The truth came so hard that he could not even feel the throb in his arm. They want . . . .

  “Dasen Ronigan,” Eia said low and deadly. “Tell us where he is.” She held the big man, brought his face to hers, then placed a hand on his head. She whispered words. His face went blank. His entire body went rigid. Ipid was frozen able only to watch as he felt his pain, his guilt, his fear, his anguish pulled away.

  Lord Bairn screamed. The deepest, most agonizing, all-encompassing scream that Ipid had ever heard. Yet it was not the scream of pain. It was the scream of the most complete and terrible loss a person could ever know. It was the sound that this man would make in a few hours as he watched his family swing from the gallows, when he knew that it was real, that he had caused their deaths, and that there was no longer any chance to spare them or bring them back. He screamed again then fell out of Eia’s hands to the floor in a ball, weeping and broken.

  “Tell me,” Eia whispered in his ear as he fell. “Give him to me and spare yourself that.”

  “I . . . I don’t know . . . .” the governor cried. “I don’t. . . .”

  “You may have him,” Eia told the knights as she walked away. They stared at her in horror and disbelief. Ipid was sure that he had the same expression.

  “Wait.” Ipid literally caught her as she walked past him. “You . . . you thought Dasen was here?”

  Eia staggered, leaned on him then sighed long and deep. “We did, but he is not.” She sighed again and seemed to soften. She put a hand on Ipid’s good arm for support. “I’m sorry. What I just did was very difficult, but . . . the Belab . . . thought Dasen might be hiding here under the protection of the governor. We had to know.”

  “But Dasen would never be part of this,” Ipid managed through his shock. “Not part of what that bastard did. He would never . . . would never allow it.”

  Eia looked at him with patronizing sympathy. “Of course not. It is only that Hilaal’s gift can change people, especially those who are untrained. As we’ve been trying to tell you, it is very difficult to take in the emotions of others. Without tremendous control, it can affect a person even after they’ve used the power, and if you have used that power to do . . . things . . . . Well, that is sometimes even worse.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Ipid was still in shock, still not fully understanding what had just happened.

  “Because you might not have done this at all.” Eia cocked her head and smiled. She rubbed his arm with her hand. “We know how you feel about your son. If you thought this might place him in danger, you wouldn’t have done what was needed. This was the only way.”

  Ipid knew that he should have been upset by that confession, but he was too numb. “He’s not here? You’re sure.”

  “I am now,” Eia sighed. “At least not that Lord Bairn knows. No one could keep a lie from me after what I did to him. Not Valatarian himself.”

  “What . . . what did you do?”

  Eia looked at him for a long time. “I took all the fear and pain and sorrow in the room and gave it to him in a single moment. That much emotion would overrun anyone. His mind could not possibly handle it. To lie after feeling that is . . . impossible.”

  Ipid gulped. “And if Dasen had been here?”

  “That is the reason we wanted Rynn with us,” Eia admitted. She ran her fingers up into her hood and through her hair then drove her palms into her eyes. “We thought that he might convince his friend to come with us peacefully. Certainly, we hoped that between him and you we might keep him . . . contained.” She sighed again. “I am sorry to say that is the reason I was late to help you. I was trying to find your son, was looking for where he might strike us, searching for a change in the emotions in the room that would indicate he was using his powers.”

  “I see,” Ipid said, feeling more lost than he had throughout this whole horrible day.

  “I need to lie down,” Eia said. “I assume there are chambers around here somewhere?”

  “There should be.” Ipid tried to think through the buzz in his mind.

  “I will find them. Join me when you are finished here.” Eia squeezed his hand and walked away. Naidi joined her a few strides later, hobbling at her side. Ipid assumed that they spoke, though he could not be sure through the backs of their hoods. He watched them go then turned to Marshal Landon, who was standing dumbfounded nearby.

  “You have your orders, marshal,” Ipid snapped as he recovered his senses.

  “As you command, Lord Chancellor.” The marshal shot to attention. “Second cadre, secure the governor and his advisors. No one leaves this building until we have confirmation from Commander Olinse that the city is secure.” He turned to find more men to command.

  Ipid paid him no more mind. He strode to the other side of the table and fell into the large chair at its center. Staring out at the great room, at the bloodstains on the floor, the bodies piled to the side, the weeping, moaning prisoners being herded out the door, he felt for the first time like the tyrant he had been named.

  #

  Ipid could not take any more. He stumbled in the direction the knight had pointed, had insisted that the man not accompany him, hoping that he make it behind a door before the thread of control he maintained over his emotions snapped. The images of the Bairn family swinging form the gallows would not leave him no matter how he tried to push it away – women weeping and crying, Lord Bairn mumbling and whimpering like an idiot, his son screaming accusations and curses so that he had to be gagged, one of the old men singing an old patriotic song, all of them staring at him, all of them pleading, accusing, hating.

  He stumbled through a door not even caring if it was the correct one. His legs were numb. His entire body seemed to be rebelling against the evil its owner had perpetrated. He fell, caught himself with his injured arm. Pain lanced up through his shoulder to the base of his skull, replacing the throb that he had almost learned to ignore. Gasping, holding the injury, rolling to his back, he gave in.

  A ball, arms and legs tucked, head buried in hands and chest, he wept, blubbering like a child, like he had not done since he lost his wife. The faces of the dead played before his eyes, ghosts all of them, taunting him, teasing him, torturing him with their dead eyes, bloody faces, bloated bodies. He gasped for air, moaned, wailed as each of his victims had their turn.

  A hand was on him, a soft touch, a gentle caress. He barely noticed it for the ache that burned all else to ash. Lips were kissing him. He wept and pounded the ground. Tears poured from his eyes. His nose burned, chest hurt. The hands uncurled him from the ball. A body came
on top of him. Barely able to open his eyes, he found a bleary white ghost. Eia, he knew, but he could barely register her naked body. He reached his hands up to grab her, to hold her, to be comforted by her. She pushed them away, held them down and stared at him. He tried to turn his face away, tried to keep her from seeing the pain, the weakness that encompassed him.

  “I want your pain,” she whispered in his ear as she pinned him. “Give it to me. Let me feel it. Fill me with it.” She moved her hand to his arm, and squeezed the newly stitched cut. Anguish flooded him. Eia’s cries matched his.

  Chapter 59

  The 46th Day of Summer

  “Aren’t we breaking curfew?” Dasen asked as he climbed into the back of the wagon. The half-moon had set hours ago, leaving only the blanket of stars above to illuminate the night. There was no glow on the eastern horizon, no movement along the streets, no lights in the windows, no sounds. Even the rats must be sleeping.

  And Dasen had been awake for an hour, nearly nodding off time and again as Mrs. Tappers applied her pastes and powders, as she forced him into his most extravagant dress, as she pinned the wig in place. He had been allowed no breakfast and hushed to silence whenever he opened his mouth. Ostensibly, that was to allow Teth to keep sleeping, but he suspected that it was even more to keep the secret of his purpose. When the costume was ready, Mr. Tappers led him around the bodies scattered around the common room – not drunks, to his great surprise, but rather whole families, lying on blankets beneath the tables, under the bar, in the corners. Finally, they found the door. It was no surprise to see Valati Lareno and his wagons waiting, but it was still hours before anyone would be rousing to give them food.