The Last Mortal Bond

by Brian Staveley

  “It’s how they hunt you.”

  The Csestriim nodded. “They wouldn’t find many of my kind if they never left the Dead Heart. To do that, they need to go out, to blend in, or in Long Fist’s case, to return.”

  “Then why take the detour in the first place? Meshkent wants to destroy Annur, but the Ishien don’t care about Annur. They don’t care about anything except the extermination of your race.”

  “Your thinking is too linear,” Kiel said. “Not every scheme leads directly to its goal.”

  Kaden’s thinking felt anything but linear. His mind tumbled end over end, tossed like a stick in a turbulent stream. With an effort, he slowed that stream, tried to find an eddy where he could rest, take stock.

  “The gates,” Kaden said after a long pause. “Meshkent knew that to defeat Annur, he’d need to fight on more than one front, and to do that, he needed access to the gates.”

  “Indeed,” Kiel replied. “Even with the full might of the Urghul behind him, Long Fist is unable to force his way past il Tornja and the Army of the North. He is winning because he’s fighting on the other fronts. The pirates and rebellions, the proliferation of banditry and violence down in the Waist—it is a more subtle war than the one being waged in the north, but it is war all the same.”

  “And it is destroying us,” Kaden breathed.

  He felt, suddenly, like one of the raptors in the imperial mews. The birds were kept hooded when they weren’t flying, and with a flick of his mind, he could imagine one of the creatures chafing against the constraints of the hood, eager to be free of the leather, believing that the hood was the whole prison. And then, to have the hood pulled off, to see that it had been the least of the constraints, to find the thick jesses wrapping the talons, to comprehend the bars of the cage, and beyond those bars, the implacable walls, and to find, nowhere in the deep rustle and gloom of the awful, man-made mews, any sign of the sky.

  All this time, Kaden had known they were failing. He just hadn’t seen how badly.

  “And there may be another reason,” Kiel went on, oblivious to Kaden’s silence. “If Meshkent suspects that a Csestriim sits at the heart of Annurian power, he will have been wise to ally himself with the Hunters of Csestriim.”

  “Could he?” Kaden asked. “Could he know that?”

  Meshkent was a god, after all. It suddenly seemed possible that he knew everything.

  Kiel said nothing for a long time. He didn’t move. Finally he met Kaden’s eyes. “I cannot say. The gods are not omniscient, but what they know … or how they know it … is beyond me.”

  Inside the darkness of his own mind, Kaden studied the cold caverns of the Dead Heart, tried to imagine a god cloaked in a man’s flesh walking those chill halls, eating the same soft white fish year after year, living among men whose minds were broken by the rituals they set themselves.

  “And he likes it,” Kaden said softly.

  Kiel raised his brows.

  “Meshkent,” Kaden went on. “Long Fist. Bloody Horm. Whatever he calls himself, he might have joined the Ishien in order to use the gates, to get at the Csestriim, but he also likes it there. The Dead Heart—it is a temple to suffering.”

  The Csestriim nodded slowly. “So it is.”

  Kaden watched the historian for a moment, then looked out past the ironglass at the city of Annur stretched out below. The crescent moon, sharp as a blade, was buried in the rooftops to the west. The night was dark, and about to get darker.

  “I have to go there,” he said quietly. A part of him quailed at the words, but he found the fear, crushed it out. “I have to go back to the Dead Heart.”

  Kiel studied him. “You hope to find him. Meshkent.”

  “I need to,” Kaden said. “I can’t win against il Tornja. We brought Adare here hoping she might tell us his weaknesses, maybe even help us kill him.…” He shook his head wearily. “And now we know we can’t trust her, that she’s lying to us. For all we know, she’s here to do il Tornja’s work, whatever that is. At every step, he has outmaneuvered us. We destroyed the empire, and it didn’t even matter. Not in the real fight.”

  “Don’t be too certain,” Kiel said. “If il Tornja had the strength of a unified Annur behind him, he might have destroyed Meshkent already. If you didn’t control the Dawn Palace, he could have already come for Triste. For Ciena.”

  “We managed a delay,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “Nothing more. Il Tornja knew about Long Fist, knew the Urghul chieftain was also the god. Meshkent isn’t the only one fighting the war on several fronts, and worse, he might not even be aware of the danger he is in. He thinks he’s fighting for Annur, but il Tornja doesn’t care about Annur. All of this,” Kaden gestured to the city, to the dark fields slumbering beyond, “is just a set of stones to be played, to be sacrificed if necessary.”

  “Ran il Tornja is quick,” Kiel said, “and bright. But Meshkent is a god. He has played his own stones well.”

  “But he’s playing the wrong game. He’s trying to control the board, to wrest back control of Vash and Eridroa, to reinstate his own bloody worship. Il Tornja doesn’t care about the board. His victory hangs on the capture of just two stones: Triste and Long Fist. I can’t help Triste any more than I have. She is as safe as I can make her, and more, she is here, inside the Spear, where she needs to be. There’s nothing else I can do for her, but I can warn Long Fist. I can try to bring him here, too.”

  “To the Spear.”

  Kaden nodded. “Where else?”

  Kiel watched him for a while, or seemed to watch him. Kaden had the impression that the Csestriim was actually looking past him or through him, at some truth more crucial and abstract.

  “Long Fist is not like Triste,” he said finally.

  “They’re both gods,” Kaden replied.

  “No,” Kiel replied, shaking his head. “Triste as you know her is a young woman with a goddess trapped inside her mind. Meshkent is not trapped. He wears Long Fist as you would wear a monk’s robe. He is in control, fully in control.”

  “That’s why I need to talk to him. He can help.…”

  “Why would he help?”

  Kaden blinked. “Il Tornja is trying to kill Ciena, trying to kill him. We are trying to stop il Tornja. That puts all of us on the same side. At least as far as this fight goes, that makes us allies.”

  “You assume the god believes he needs an ally. You assume that he wants one. Do not forget, Kaden, that Meshkent came to this earth, took on this human flesh, to destroy Annur, to tear down everything your progenitors worked so hard to build.”

  “According to Adare, it was il Tornja who built Annur. The Malkeenians were just … puppets.”

  “And it is generally the puppets who pay the heaviest price. Meshkent may not know about il Tornja’s involvement in your empire. And if he does know, he may not care. You are no longer Emperor, but you are still First Speaker of Annur, of the Annurian Republic. He has every reason to kill you. This notion of an alliance is a shield of glass. It will cut you when it shatters.”

  Kaden shook his head slowly. “You’re wrong. My shield is not the alliance. It is my uselessness.”

  Kiel regarded him silently, waiting.

  “I have failed here in Annur,” Kaden went on, voice level as he faced the ugly fact. “The republic is a shambles. I could hardly have done more to help Meshkent if I had set out to support him from the very beginning.”

  “He may eliminate you nonetheless. He may kill you to simplify the battle, for no other reason.”

  “And if he kills me,” Kaden asked quietly, “is that such a great loss to our cause? I have none of your understanding of history. None of Gabril’s knifework. None of Kegellen’s unnumbered underground army.”

  “You have Intarra’s eyes.”

  “So does Adare, and she’s the one sitting on the throne.” Kaden smiled. The expression felt strange on his face. “I can go to Meshkent, I can die, if necessary, because I do not matter here.”

  Kiel
spread his hands. “If you want someone who truly does not matter, send a servant. Send a slave.”

  “No,” Kaden said, shaking his head slowly. “A slave cannot travel the necessary paths.”

  The Csestriim studied him with those empty eyes. “The kenta.”

  Kaden nodded silently.

  “The Ishien control the gates,” Kiel observed. “All of them. When you step through onto the island they will kill you before you say three words.”

  “Then I’ll have to say what needs saying in two.”

  14

  “There are two problems with recalling il Tornja to the city,” Adare said, shaking her head. “First, if we bring him here, there won’t be anyone to fight the Urghul.”

  She gestured to the ruined map below, as though it were possible to descry the movement of horsemen hundreds of miles away in the cinder and soft ash left behind when the tiny false forests of the Thousand Lakes burned. The council had abandoned the entire chamber after Adare’s demonstration. She could hardly blame them. The place reeked of oil and char, half the lamps were shattered, shards of glass still littered the table, the catwalks, the chairs. Servants had come to clean it almost immediately, summoned by some unheard command. Adare had sent them away. She would see the map restored when she had restored Annur itself. In the meantime, the ruined hall provided a space where she could meet with Kaden and Kiel without interference from the rest of the council.

  “There are other generals in the world,” Kaden pointed out. “Warriors other than il Tornja who might fight the Urghul.”

  Adare looked up from the map to study her brother. He stood just a few feet away, almost close enough to touch, but everything about him—his posture, his gaze, that perfectly empty face—whispered of distance. There was no warmth to him. No human movement. Adare might have been watching him through a long lens while he stood alone on a far, far peak. Whatever rapprochement she had imagined or hoped might arise between them had vanished. The simple fact that he had insisted on bringing Kiel, the Csestriim, was evidence enough of that. Adare swallowed, unsure if the bitter taste on the back of her tongue was doubt or regret, then shook her head.

  “There are no generals like il Tornja. The Urghul would have overrun us months ago if anyone else had been in command. They would have destroyed us in the very first battle.”

  “Annur was still divided then. We’ve healed that rift.…”

  “Have we?” Adare arched an eyebrow. “The council might be willing to let me perch atop the throne, but it seems pretty clear, based on that last meeting, that perching is about the extent of my imperial powers.”

  “The point is,” Kaden said, “that with our armies allied, we have greater resources to fight the Urghul. You can recall il Tornja without scuttling the northern campaign.”

  “You can recall him,” Kiel said, voice soft as a leather sole scuffing stone. “He will not come.”

  Adare nodded curtly. “That was my second point.”

  She let the silence stretch as she considered the historian, trying to read him. She had expected someone like il Tornja—strong, confident, insouciant—but of course, that was all an act, a mask her general wore to make him appear human. There was no reason that Kiel should have chosen the same one.

  According to Kaden, Kiel was older than the kenarang, older by thousands of years, although what such a difference meant among the Csestriim, she didn’t care to guess. He certainly looked older. Partly it was the historian’s manner—unlike il Tornja, Kiel moved and spoke deliberately, almost cautiously, and Adare associated such caution with age. Kiel had also been a prisoner for a very long time, and the marks remained—a nose and jaw broken over and over, a limp, hands shattered then poorly healed, fingers twisted as twigs. If il Tornja seemed too young and cocksure to be Csestriim, Kiel appeared too bent, too broken.

  There was, however, something about his eyes, something old and impossibly distant that she remembered from that tower in Andt-Kyl. Like il Tornja, he tried to mask it, but for whatever reason, he hadn’t been quite so successful, and there were times, as now, moments when he seemed to look right past her, through her, as though she were just a tiny point in some pattern so unfathomably vast she could never hope to understand it.

  “He knows that I am here,” Kiel continued after a moment.

  Adare nodded. “He told me as much before I left. Said that you would tell me lies about him. He can’t know that I’d side with you.”

  In truth, she wasn’t sure that she intended to side with Kaden and the other Csestriim. The thought of il Tornja bending finally to Annurian justice was honey-sweet, but the brute facts of the matter remained: il Tornja held back the Urghul, and whatever Kaden had been about to say on the docks the day before—something about il Tornja and Long Fist, about the kenarang’s insistence on seeing the chieftain destroyed—he hadn’t said it. Just when Adare thought she saw a path, an open door, a chance at a connection, Kaden had folded back into himself like a paper fan clicking quietly shut.

  “You’re not telling me something,” she said, careful to keep her voice level, firm.

  Kaden raised his brows a fraction.

  “I suspect,” he replied, “that we are all holding something back. As you said before: you don’t trust me.”

  That was true enough. It was more than true. Adare hadn’t told her brother about Nira, about the noose of flame the leach kept around il Tornja’s neck, about the fact that she could order the kenarang dead with a word, a gesture. Trusting and sharing were all well and good, but she wasn’t about to go first.

  “There is only one way to build trust,” she said, holding Kaden’s gaze as she spread her hands. “If we’re going to do anything at all about il Tornja, about his stranglehold on military power, I need to know what he wants with Long Fist. You need to explain to me his … obsession with Meshkent. I can’t do anything, I can’t be an ally if you won’t tell me the truth.”

  “The truth,” Kaden repeated quietly.

  They faced each other, a pace apart, eyes locked. That single word—truth—felt like a blade in her hand, something hard and sharp to hold up between her and this brother she barely knew. Of course Kaden had his own invisible sword, his own truth to parry hers. She could almost hear them scraping, grating against each other, as though the stillness were battle, their mutual silence were screams, as though that one syllable could cut, kill.

  “If il Tornja destroys Meshkent,” Kaden said at last, “we die.”

  Adare narrowed her eyes. This acquiescence was too sudden, too absolute to trust.

  “Who dies?”

  “All of us.” Kaden glanced over at Kiel. Something seemed to pass between them, some unspoken agreement. Then he turned back to her and explained it all, explained in perfect detail just how Ran il Tornja, Adare’s general, the father of her child, was plotting to destroy the human world.

  * * *

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Adare said slowly, when Kaden had finally finished. “Let’s accept, for the moment, the premise that the young gods are the source of our feelings, our humanity. Let’s say I buy that their existence is what makes us who we are. Meshkent isn’t one of them. Why isn’t il Tornja obsessed with Kaveraa or Maat or Eira?”

  “He would be,” Kiel replied, “if they were here. Unfortunately for him, fortunately for your kind, the young gods have not worn flesh since they came down to side with you in the long war against my people. That was thousands of years ago.”

  “So how does killing Meshkent solve his problem? How does ridding the world of pain suddenly usher in a second golden age of the Csestriim?”

  The historian watched her a moment, gauging her question. Then his eyes went distant in that way that made her stomach clench. She glanced over at Kaden, partly to see whether he had anything to add to the conversation, mostly to look away from Kiel. To her dismay, Kaden’s eyes, too, were empty.

  “The theology,” Kiel said finally, “is nuanced.”

  Adare snorte
d. “In my experience, nuanced is a word people use when they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

  To her surprise, Kiel smiled. “I, too, have had that experience.” He shrugged. “Meshkent and Ciena are the progenitors of the younger gods.”

  She shook her head. “So what? Il Tornja murdered my father, but I’m still around. So is Kaden.”

  “And Valyn, too,” Kaden added quietly. “We can hope, at least.”

  “Of course,” she said, heat rising to her cheeks. “Of course we’re all pulling for Valyn, but the point is, the relevant point right now, is that killing Meshkent won’t do a thing to limit the power of his progeny.”

  “Your analogy is limited,” Kiel said. “Despite your burning eyes, the Malkeenians are not gods.”

  “And you’re claiming that the gods die when their parents die?”

  He shook his head. “As I said before, the theology is complex. My people studied the gods a long time, but those studies were, by their very nature, imperfect, incomplete. On many subjects touching the divine, we remain entirely ignorant. The corpus of knowledge is contingent. Uncertain.”

  “Wonderful,” Adare said.

  Kiel raised a hand, as though to stop her objection before it could begin. “One thing, however, is certain. The gods are more than us. Not just older and stronger, but different.” He paused, as though searching for words sturdy enough to bear the freight of his thought. “We are of the world—you and I, Csestriim and human. We live inside it as a man lives inside a house. When we die, the world remains.

  “The gods are different. They are the world. Their existence is built inextricably into the structure of reality.” He shook his head, reformulated. “They give reality its structure. This is what makes them gods. To return to the analogy of the house—a most imperfect analogy, but one that might serve—the gods are the foundation and floors, they are the windows admitting light, they are the walls.”