Caine's Law

by Matthew Stover

  “I’m an angel.”

  I guess we’re past the whole filthy human stuff, because they’re all too polite to laugh in my face.

  “Technically, I’m the theophanic fetch of a man who’ll be born a little more than a year from now, in the Quiet Land. When he grows up, he’s gonna be … well, involved … in the destruction of the Covenant. That’s how I know all this shit. He’s gonna make a deal with one of the gods to try and limit the damage. That god created me a couple of months ago, local time. He created me specifically to come here and see you, and tell you this.”

  “And why did this god not simply appear to me himself in a blare of celestial trumpets and a pillar of fire reaching to the stars themselves?”

  “What part of limit the damage do you not understand? The god trusts me to do shit back here because I—well, him, the guy I look like—we have a couple of useful traits. You must have noticed my Shell.”

  His eyes narrow warily. “It’s … unusual.”

  “Black, right? The only Flow that goes into or out of me is black. Remind you of anybody?”

  He takes his time answering. Finally, all I get out of him is, “Yes. I knew him.”

  “Your Dominates and Charms and all the rest, I don’t need Control Disciplines to break them. Not really. Read my mind. Try. Truthsense, divination, magickal detection, none of that shit works on me when I don’t want it to. Not anymore.”

  “The Godslaughterer was thus,” the Ravenlock admits. “But you are no Jereth.”

  “Believe it.” I shrug at him. “I’m here because we know what you did. The whole story: the dil T’llan, the Butcher’s Fist, and the Sword of Man.”

  “What you know is not remotely the whole story.”

  “Okay. But there’s a part of the story I know that you don’t. There’s a fix. A little tricky, but you can do it.”

  “Fix the Covenant? Save Pirichanthe?”

  “No. That’s time-bound, and can’t be changed. What we can do, though, is make it break the way we want it to, you follow? Like I said before: limit the damage.”

  “And how do you and your god suggest this be accomplished?”

  “Bind a different Power. Pirichanthe is … kind of a blunt instrument, right? If Pirichanthe could have done what you needed it to do, the First Folk would still rule the planet. Instead, what’s left of you is hiding out here in the woods.”

  “What sort of different power?”

  “Back in the Quiet Land, there was a guy named Alexander Pope who wrote, ‘An honest man is the noblest work of God.’ And there was another guy a hundred years later, by the name of Robert Ingersoll, who had a better idea. He wrote, ‘An honest god is the noblest work of man.’ ”

  He stares in frank disbelief. “You want me to create a god?”

  “All I need is a place for it to live. And I need it to be able to open or close the dillin. That’s all.”

  “Do you have any conception of the magnitude of what you’re asking?”

  “And there’s one more problem. It can’t actually happen until fifty years from now.”

  “This is completely preposterous.”

  “I wouldn’t believe it either, except for one thing.”

  “Which is?”

  I shrug. “The god you’ll make it for? He’s the one I made the deal with.”

  The scene assembles itself from smoke, dust, and stars. Deep in an aspen grove, embers of a campfire banked with earth. A lean- to built of hide and bones bleached pale by the crescent moon. A shelter, round like a tepee, except with vertical walls six or seven feet high—I disremember what it’s called. Not wigwam. Dad would know. Hell, he probably built this one.

  Pacing a wide, slow circle around the little camp, Angvasse keeps watch.

  Jesus. No wonder she drinks. How uptight do you have to be before you can’t relax even in your dreams?

  I close my eyes. When I open them again, I’m sitting beside the fire. “Angvasse.”

  Blue witchfire limns a girl-shaped shadow that moves warily toward me. “How did you get here?”

  “I’m not here. Neither are you, really. We need to talk.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Outside your head.”

  She stops. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re asleep.”

  “This is a dream?”

  “An altered state of consciousness. The First Folk call it the Meld.”

  “This is being done to me? By elves?”

  “Done with you. Nothing will happen to you here that you don’t consent to.” My wave takes in the camp and the trees and the night around. “This is all just, like, a frame of reference. I’m still in Mithondion. With the Ravenlock. He wants to meet you. He wants to talk with us. Together.”

  “To what end?”

  “He needs to figure out if what we’re asking him to do is even possible.”

  “What?”

  “He says that without the Butcher’s Fist and the Sword of Man, it can’t be done.”

  “The Accursèd Blade and the Hand of Peace—”

  “Whatever.”

  “—are in Purthin’s Ford. What will be Purthin’s Ford. In that place you call the dil T’llan.”

  “He says they’re not. He’s says they can’t be. Creating the Covenant of Pirichanthe unmade them both.”

  “Yet they exist. The Blade, at least. Did you not tell him?”

  “I told him everything.”

  A flicker of worry rumples her forehead. “Everything? Including—”

  “He needs to know.”

  “Aren’t you afraid that giving him knowledge of what is to come might change the future?”

  “I’m afraid we won’t change the future. All I could tell him is how things will go if we fail here.” I spread my hands. “He found it pretty persuasive.”

  She considers this with a sober nod. “Yet if the Hand and the Blade are destroyed—”

  “Not destroyed. Unmade. Or, like, un-Bound.”

  “There’s a distinction?”

  “He seems to think so.” I beckon. “Come over here and close your eyes.”

  She does. I close mine too. “Okay, open them again.”

  When we do, the Ravenlock is with us.

  He floats in the darkness, shining with power brighter than the moon. Huh—reminds me of how Kris used to talk about the lios alfar. His arms extend before him, fingers questing, eyes closed, on his face transcendent serenity. The light from his body pulses like a living thing and gathers itself upon Angvasse’s brow into a halo of grace.

  He’s reading her. Whatever he finds, I hope he likes it.

  She turns to him with grave dignity. “I give you greeting, good fey. I am honored by your presence. Are you to be addressed as Your Majesty?”

  His eyes open, the light fades, and he settles silently to earth. “Your Ladyship may address me as Ravenlock.”

  She may? Son of a bitch.

  “Your Majesty does me too much honor.”

  “On the contrary. May I call you Angvasse?”

  What the hell is going on here?

  She inclines her head fractionally. “Of course, Ravenlock. I am glad of this meeting, though I would have chosen to meet under less dire circumstance, had such a choice been offered. Please excuse the state of my garments, and please take no offense from my standing in your presence.”

  “You are well-spoken, for a Khryllian.”

  “Your Majesty is very kind to say so. You’ve had experience with the Order of Khryl?”

  Jesus Christ. Get a fucking room.

  “I’ve had experience of Khryl,” he says softly. “I knew him well, and was proud to name him friend.”

  Okay, now that’s interesting.

  Angvasse stops, blinking. A frown gathers on her forehead. “Again, I apologize for my inattention, but I thought I heard you say you knew Our Lord of Battle?”

  “I know your Lord of Battle only by His reputation—which among the First Folk is sa
dly unsavory, as one might imagine. But I did know Khryl, and admired him. You resemble him a great deal, did you know that?”

  “I—” She sways, just a little. “May I sit?”

  “Of course.” He gestures, and out of the night coalesce three comfortable-looking armchairs, already arranged around the campfire. The Ravenlock takes the big one, and we settle in and the chairs are as comfortable as they look and if I think about this too much I’ll probably fall right through the seat.

  “What Khryl was, and what he is thought to have been, are not the same,” the Ravenlock says. “The political ambitions of the Lipkan Empire required a Lord of Battle, to be the obedient son and handboy of Dal’kannith Wargod, and so thus He has been worshipped, and so thus He has become. In life, Khryl hated Dal’kannith with a loathing that beggars my powers of description; war was the opposite of everything Khryl valued. The opposite of everything he stood for.”

  Angvasse looks like her whole life just collapsed around her ears. “But—if Khryl was no Lord of Battle and never hoped to be … what was He?”

  “He was a hero, child,” the Ravenlock says gently. Almost regretfully. “Very like yourself.”

  “Like …” Her eyes are wide and they start to glisten with tears. “I? A hero … like Khryl? I am only a mortal woman—”

  “At the end, he too was only a mortal man. He surrendered deity when he began what men now call the Deomachy.”

  I sit forward. “Khryl began the Deomachy? That’s not how we learn it in the Monasteries.”

  “Because thus was his will,” the Ravenlock says. “He surrendered his name with his immortality, as did his twin.”

  “Twin …? Wait a second—are you trying to tell me—”

  “Jantho and Jereth are, in a tongue so ancient not even the First Folk still speak it, words for dawn and dusk.”

  “Dawn and dusk …” I hear myself mutter. “Light and dark.”

  “Yes. Also beginning and end.”

  “Jantho—Khryl—began the Deomachy …”

  “Because the other gods would have destroyed all existence with their infantile squabbling. Khryl was always the protector of humanity—he it was who, in human tales of the time, stole fire from the sun, and taught men its secrets.”

  “And Jantho—Khryl—founded the Monasteries?”

  “After his maiming and the loss of his brother, he hoped that he might teach men to turn to each other, instead of to gods.”

  “His maiming … the Butcher’s Fist …”

  “Thus he earned his epithet Ironhand, for of such was forged its replacement.”

  “Holy shit. And all this time, we never suspected …”

  “As he intended. The enchantment to conceal the truth of Pirichanthe was to conceal the truth of Khryl and his brother as well.”

  “And Jereth—?”

  The Ravenlock’s eyes go distant. “Before he chose mortality, Jereth was called only ‘the Dark Man.’ If he ever had a name, I do not know it; no human being would willingly speak it, for fear of drawing his gaze.”

  “What, like a god of death?”

  “A god of murder. The god of massacre. Of every kind of killing, and the black despair that attends both victim and villain. The bitterest enemy of Khryl’s light and hope.”

  “Twins. Opposites.” Dad would recognize the trope instantly: Osiris and Set. No, wait—Nissyen and Evnissyen. “Why would a god of murder give up immortality to fight beside his worst enemy?”

  “He never said.” The Ravenlock shakes his head just barely enough that I can see it. “When I spoke of it to Jantho, he would say only that dark knows love even as does light, and love’s power springs as much from despair as from hope.”

  Angvasse’s eyes have gone dark as the sky. “And His loving brother maimed Him forever.”

  “It was the price of Pirichanthe. And he devoted the rest of his mortal days to the service of what he believed was the best hope for humanity. He gave up eternity to help men who would never know him. Who would, he hoped, someday come to curse his name.”

  “Curse him …”

  “And then to make of his name a thing of derision. Contempt and scorn, and finally only an empty, obscure jest.”

  “I cannot imagine … and you claim my heart resembles … You do not understand. He might have chosen scorn, as you say. But I deserve it. You—you have no … I am so desperately unworthy …”

  Her voice fails and she turns away, and the horse-witch is there, at her shoulder, sitting on her heels in Angvasse’s shadow like a Fantasy conjured by the night and the stars, and her voice is too soft to be heard across the fire but in the ember-glow I can read her lips.

  Hero is a word. You are more than a word. Don’t be afraid.

  Be who you are.

  I blink, blink again, and frown at her. “What the hell are you doing here? When did you get here? How did you get here?”

  She gives me the witch-eye, cold as frozen milk. “I go where my work takes me.”

  I’ll have to take that for an answer. I know better than to argue with the witch-eye.

  “Greeting to you,” the Ravenlock says softly, coaxingly, like he’s calming a spooked horse. “And well-met.”

  “Thanks. Likewise.”

  “How are you called in this time?”

  “The horse-witch. I don’t mind.”

  “I have not seen you since the Binding, I think. Some five hundred years.”

  The Binding …? Wait—five hundred years?

  She shrugs. “I don’t like forests.”

  “As well I recall,” he says, and they go on and make chitchat for a while during which I entirely lose the thread of their conversation, because I really can’t get my fucking mind around it.

  Eventually I can’t hold it in. “You were there? You?”

  “I have been to interesting places,” the horse-witch says, “and seen—”

  “Exotic things, yeah, I know, but—hot staggering fuck! Were you ever gonna tell me?”

  “I didn’t think I had to.”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re worse than Angvasse! What in eight ways to ass-fuck would make you think you didn’t need to, y’know, mention in passing that you happened to be present at the Binding of the Covenant of motherfucking Pirichanthe?”

  She shrugs at me. “You were there too.”

  I sit there. For a long time. Just sit.

  It doesn’t help. There’s no way I’m gonna convince myself she’s just making that up.

  And the really fucking appalling thing is that I’m the only one appalled.

  I can give Angvasse a pass, I guess; she’s kind of going through something of her own right now. The Ravenlock just frowns at me, then says to the horse-witch, “I don’t see it.”

  “That’s because you think he’s a person.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry, did you not know this?” She looks like she really is sorry. She looks like it hurts her to upset me. “You said yourself how the god built you and the girl for this purpose.”

  “Well, yeah, but—I mean, you didn’t say anything about me not being a person. Not being human. I mean, you won’t. When I meet you.”

  She shrugs. “It may be that recalling how I’ve upset you tonight will make me avoid the subject, because I’m not good at tact. Or it may be that the you I will meet will actually be a human person. He’ll have to ask me then.”

  “Oh.” The Ravenlock stares at me, his voice gone small with awe. “I see it now—and I ken now why he cannot be read as men are read. He was the Weapon …”

  “I was the—wait, what weapon?”

  “I understand now,” the Ravenlock says slowly. “Many things begin to make sense. Black Flow—joined with Jereth, not part of him. Lunatic confidence. Inhuman self-possession. Single-minded ruthlessness. Without fear, without doubt. Without regret and without mercy.”

  “Yeah, okay, except I’ve got my share of self-doubt, and I get scared all the time. Shit, I’m scared right now�
��”

  “That’s because you still think you’re human,” the horse-witch says. “You’ll get over it.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  “And self-loathing is not self-doubt.”

  “Well, okay, self-loathing, then. What kind of weapon hates itself?”

  “A knife that thinks it’s a spade,” the Ravenlock replies gently.

  Angvasse looks thoughtful. “A sword that can’t understand why it’s such a poor plowshare.”

  Now I can’t even really fucking breathe.

  “There is what a thing is thought to be,” the Ravenlock says, “and there is what a thing is. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be bargained with. You can’t be diverted, or persuaded, or deceived. Your every gesture displays the elegance of pure destruction.”

  And again, all I can do is sit there.

  It still doesn’t help.

  Professional Tallman, my personal combat instructor at the Studio Conservatory, was mostly an idiot, but he knew a thing or two about swordplay, and he could throw down the kenjutsu like nobody I’ve ever seen. When we started on basic sword, he opened the class by asking us what, exactly, a sword is.

  Because, y’know, sure, you can use a sword to clear brush, but you’re better off with a scythe and an axe. And you can use it to loosen dirt, but a pick does it better. You can use it to cut fabric or rope, or even carve wood; you can use it for all kinds of shit, but none of those are what it’s for. None of those are what it is.

  The answer Tallman was looking for was “A sword is a tool for killing.”

  No matter what you try to make it do.

  “Very well then,” the Ravenlock says. He inclines his head toward the horse-witch. “Thank you for your insight. Will you be there when we arrive?”

  The horse-witch shrugs. “Ogrilloi make me nervous.”

  “Arrive?” I frown at him. “We’re going?”

  “The attempt will be made.”

  He fades into darkness, and Angvasse evaporates along with the forest and the campfire and as the stars go out, the last thing I see is the witch-eye, pale as the moon.

  Permission to be who you are.

  Standing by the figurehead of the Mithondion flagship, looking out upon the Ravenlock’s landfleet spreading across a fair chunk of the northern Boedecken, I can’t help reflecting for the thousandth or millionth time that the Living Palace should have been my first clue that this family doesn’t do anything small.