“Why are you hiding?” Lu asked.
Kalec’s brows sank. “What are you talking about?”
Lu smiled. He’d struck a nerve. Delicious. “You need not answer. I have tasted your guilt. Does it sear beneath the surface, an ever-present ally, like a personal forge within you? Does it soften with every swing of your hammer, or does each blow serve only to harden your heart?”
Kalec’s cheeks puffed out like red creampuffs. “I have nothing to be guilty for.” His voice rose with each additional word. “Is this why you’ve come? To chastise me for my decisions?”
Lu couldn’t help himself, but which point to tackle… His insecurities? His doubts? His lies? He knew the answer. He would strike where he always did. At his convictions.
“One day that heart will break,” Lu said. “A final swing will find the cracks that run beneath your sad delusions. It will shatter them, unleashing the truths you refuse to face. Can you list them? I’d like to hear them.”
Kalec sprang from the log. He grabbed Lu’s throat and lifted him from his chair. “I have no delusions,” Kalec snarled. His lips curled to reveal his teeth.
Hanging a foot from the ground, Lu giggled. “No?” he said derisively. The vise at his throat had cut off his air, but that had never stopped him before. “Then I shall list them for you.” He lifted his hands and ticked off a count on his fingers. “You are not like your father,” he began. “Atherahn does not need you. You could not save it if you tried. This home is better than the one you had before. You do not-”
Lu blinked as pain and brownish-gray sparkles danced in his vision. Kalec’s fist came away bloody. Lu giggled and continued his list. “This fist will silence Lu. You do not miss your family. Your family does not suffer for your absence. Your-” The fist came again, this time harder. Lu licked his lips and flared his nostrils. Blood and snot flew from his nose.
“Ha!” Lu laughed. “‘He has forced my hand.’ Now that one is a classic; my most favorite delusion. No. No! My second favorite delusion! I can’t tell you my favorite. A Lu must have his secrets.”
The fist struck a third time. “Fine,” Lu squealed. “I take it back, I take it back! You are special. No one said otherwise! It was Not Lu. He said it!”
“You know nothing,” Kalec shouted. He brought both hands to Lu’s throat and pushed him down into the garden chair, the hands tightening. “You know nothing,” the Young Smith repeated.
“Yes,” Lu gasped with what little breath he had. “Now you’re getting it. That is a fine delusion!”
The Young Smith looked suddenly horrified. He pulled his hands away then picked up his oaken seat and lobbed it. The log hit the smithy and the doors rocked against their hinges.
Lu cackled and licked his lips. Spitting blood into the grass, he watched the Young Smith seethe.
“Five hundred years and I cannot forget,” Kalec shouted.
“Perhaps you are not supposed to,” Lu said, but the Smith did not seem to hear.
“Why did he do this to us?” Kalec stared blindly into the soil. His proud shoulders drooped. “He was the Smith, for the Mother’s sake! A paragon of our kind. Why would he do this to his children?”
Lu wiped his face with a sleeve then straightened his hat. He pushed conviction as far as the mind could take, and no further. This man was on the point of breaking, but it would do no good to push him any further. Lu’s aspect had already been sated and the man might be needed in the future. The pantheon had been badly wounded and godkind like Kalec were rare. If it had hopes of recovering, it would need those with his natural ability. Too many fight their nature and too many more believe their nature to be their destiny. Kalec did neither. He refused the title, but never his passion.
“Your father was selfish.”
Kalec’s eyes found him. “What do you know of my father?”
Lu ignored his question. “Like a fool, you condemn yourself for his crimes. You are not responsible, but if you want to fix his mistakes, there are many ways to do so.”
Kalec listened silently.
“Your sister still fights against the Butcher’s Cult. You could join her.”
“I… I cannot.”
“Oh, stop it,” Lu snorted. “Delusions have their uses, but eventually they become tiresome. You cannot hide forever. It is now that she needs you more than ever. Can you abandon her? Is that not the reason for your guilt?”
Kalec shook his head. “Atep will be fine. She has always taken care of herself.”
“And if this time she fails, will you be able to accept that you did nothing?”
Kalec paused, the decision warring in the lines of his face. “What must I do?” he asked. His downturned chin and tear-filled eyes held only a fraction of the desperation locked in his voice. “What can I do?”
Lu shrugged. “I do not know, Kalec Rin, but I would start by accepting your title.”
“But it is a mark of failure and shame.”
“Then make it something else.”
For several minutes, the Young Smith was silent. His eyes wandered Lu’s face, beseeching and sad. What he saw, Lu could not tell, but finally Kalec lifted his chin and nodded. “I will,” he said. “I will.”
Lu smiled. Conviction was an easy foe.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Rain had patted the soil to the earth, but it was no less dead. He could feel the dark waters that had spoiled these fields, and that was no metaphor. He knew the poison’s source, another well, always a well, but must not it be?
The well was a perfect source; the only source, because all must come from the earth. In a well, the waters must pool and condense, for they cannot fester if plagued by movement, that vile source which requires change, which requires understanding. The stagnant pool does not need to change. It is content with its poison. Its hatred need not be tested, for each wind sends ripples that can collide only with themselves. The ideas reverberate, unchallenged. They solidify. They are certain; there is no other way, this is all there is, nothing else is as important.
There is a misunderstanding, the belief that the waters are separate from that which defiles. The world does not understand that the water is the defiler. That it is the poison, because it has been left alone, and could only turn inward for blame.
Until one day, when a pebble falls into the well, and now, the pebble is the poison. It is the focus of the water’s hatred. And the water attacks. It thinks the pebble deserves it, for the pebble has upset the balance of a poisoned pool. And so, the poison erupts and the water is loosed into the world.
Every mouth expects the water to be refreshing; to heal the spirit and balm thirst. But the expectation is unreasonable, because the water is the poison and the well is the source. It can be no other thing, poison is all it is. Poison is all it knows. And when the world finds the pool other than it believed, it has the audacity to judge him. It has the gall to tell him how he should be. But where was the world when he festered in his pool?
Why, it was there all along, throwing pebbles.
The headaches had vanished, but the Well had not returned to normal. The change had been gradual, but now Jem noticed it. It was introspective. Poetic. It had never wanted before. It had never desired. But now it did, and Jem did not know what it coveted. And that terrified him. At first, he had believed the changes nothing more than distracted thought, but they were different than thinking. They were too focused. Time felt different and awkward. An hour could pass in a minute. A minute could drag to an hour.
It was not until these trances had grown infrequent that he had noticed them. Not until their absence had left him wanting. Had left the Well wanting. But what does it want?
Jem thought he might know. He thought maybe, that it wanted him to kill Taehrn. If so, it was a needless addition to all the motives he already had. Jem intended to kill Taehrn; it was only a matter of time and opportunity. He could stop Taehrn’s heart while he slept. Break the legs of Taehrn’s horse and make certain Taehrn died in the fall.
He could cause lightning to strike Taehrn’s tent and see to it that Taehrn burned. With the power of the Well, it wasn’t killing Taehrn that made Jem worry. It was getting away with it that slowed Jem’s hand.
Perhaps Jem was simply paranoid, but he did not doubt there was a standing order for his death should Taehrn die. After all, Taehrn had to understand that a man willing to kill his father for a deaconship would be more than willing to kill his ‘friends’ should someone offer better terms.
Trin’s identity made things difficult. If not for Trin, Jem would kill Taehrn, for at any time he could walk away, run to some small village on the Horn or in Gable, and they would never find him. But Trin had a family and a life and he wasn’t willing to leave without her. She was the only person that could help him become a better person and he could not risk their friendship or his chance at redemption.
Trin drew a gasp between sobs. It had not rained today, there was no soil, and her tears patted not earth, but stone. They washed the smooth floors of a lifeless chamber. She had wept for three hours and that depression disturbed him. He was not embarrassed to have witnessed the display. He did not feel guilty, as for once, he was not the cause for this other’s pain. But he did feel bad. Because he had nothing to say that might soothe her. This had never happened before. She had been calm and seemingly happy since Lane. She had not even wept for her father’s death, at least not in Jem’s presence. That somber fear he had sensed from her, that fear which he knew lurked beneath her surface at all times, had remained exactly where Jem wanted his own fear to be, underneath it all, hidden away, and unaffecting of the usual happiness Trin expressed, and Jem wanted.
She hadn’t spoken tonight and he’d had nothing to say in return. He had no father he loved and could not sympathize with her pain. Jem had stopped loving Indaht years ago, when he had realized the mistake he’d made. Certainly, Jem had felt his father’s death, but not in the way Trin grieved now.
His guilt bothered him, but not the absence of the man his father had become. He had felt that kind of love for his father in the past, but that person had been taken from Jem, despoiled by a deranged sense of loyalty to a Legion that could not return the sentiment.
Truly, the last three years had been a sacrifice. Jem’s altar had been a stage, upon which he had pretended to love the man who had caused much of his pain. The same man who had given him his scars, the man who had thought of the whip as a hobby, to be mixed with drink and denial.
Of course, that hadn’t always been true. At one point, Jem had loved his father, but the slow revelation that his father was too far gone, too far corrupted by the Legion and his love for it instead of Jem, had taken that love away. Once free of the Legion, Jem had thought his father would change, but he had not. Even without the deaconship, he had still been the Deacon Indaht Trask.
Indaht had always told Jem to carry himself with pride, but in the years after Liv, he had never done so himself. He would tell his stories of Gable, and the heroism of pulling down of the Tyrant of Ternobahl. But stories of glory and heroism meant nothing to a child who had never seen those traits in the teller, who had only seen the opposite. Where once those stories had seemed fond memories for Jem’s father, after Liv they had become reminders of how Indaht had failed the Legion, and with each telling, Indaht had fallen deeper into his denial and despair. It made sense then, that Indaht would have turned to Taehrn and the others in his final months… that Indaht would have been looking for a way to redeem himself.
“Jem.”
He heard the voice, weak and flushed, but pretended not to. He waited, there on his cot, his eyes closed and his back to her. He had nothing to say, because like his father, he did not understand heroism, and did not know that even the smallest act of kindness could make all the difference needed. Even if that act was a sharing of pain.
“Jem, are you awake?”
He did not like seeing her this way. Trin was supposed to be stronger than him. She was supposed to teach him to be a stronger person. He was a festering pool, and on his own he could be nothing other than what he was.
But he wanted to be. He wanted to be better than his father. He wanted to help her, the way his father had never done for him. But how? There were no examples in his past that he might follow. He had once known compassion, but that feeling had been beaten out of him. A prisoner is not a man, but a slave, Indaht had said. And a man who helps a slave is no man at all. But those lashings had not ended with Jem’s compassion; they were innate in the man.
But Jem wanted to be better. Jem was not Indaht. He was not his father.
“I’m here, Trin.”
Her sobbing slowed and the room fell silent. She paused a moment, the only sound her heavy breathing. “Jem, are there any moments in your life you wish you could forge-” Trin was stopped by an awkward laugh, a choking guffaw. “Gods, of course you do… I’m sorry, Jem.”
For many moments he said nothing, and neither did she.
“I guess what I mean is,” she tried again, “does it ever get to the point where the good memories outweigh the bad?”
Jem hesitated. He did not want to share his pain, because he did not want to spread his poison. And yet, it was a chance to grow closer to her. And he needed a friend. It had been too long since he’d had a true friend; one who did not lie to him, or try to use him for petty deeds.
“They are both there,” he answered. “The good memories never stop the bad, but they can make it all worth it.”
“And what memories make it worth it for you?”
Jem considered the question, thinking only of his last real friend. “My childhood,” he said. “The garrison before Trask’s butchery.”
“You had a happy life then?”
“I had family. I had friends and cherished moments. Horseback riding, sword training. I did not love my letters at first, but my closest friend taught me to appreciate them.”
“Your closest friend?” Trin said. “Who was that?”
Cautious, Jem considered his words before speaking. Over years of practice, he had grown used to the lies, to the selective speech of distant titles and vague descriptions, but it was no guarantee she wouldn’t see the truth he hid. Jem considered telling her everything, and then thought better of it. What if, upon learning who Jem was, she scorned him? He couldn’t risk that.
Jem took a deep breath. “Believe it or not… it was Deacon Trask.”
Trin was silent. He could hear her slow breaths sounding in the dark.
“I know,” Jem said. “From the outside, it must seem stupid, but… I was young. I was his herald… and we spent a lot of time together.”
“But all the things he did…”
“Yeah,” Jem agreed. “He did them. But he wasn’t always that way. At least he didn’t seem to be. Maybe I just didn’t see it until it stared me in the face.”
“Didn’t you…” Trin’s voice was hesitant, tentative. “Have any other friends?”
Jem laughed. “Yes, I did, Trin. In fact, I was friends with most of those stationed at Liv, at least until I learned what they had done in Trask’s name. There weren’t a lot of us, and I knew most of them fairly well.”
“It must have been a shock.”
“What?”
“To learn that all of them would cover for Trask in the way they did, that they would actually follow those orders.”
“Yes and no,” Jem sighed. “They had all served Trask in the war. They were as loyal to him as he was to the Legion, so I was not surprised that they would listen to his commands.” And besides, Jem was one them. He was one of those people that had covered for Indaht.
“Was there no one who wouldn’t? No one who stood up to Trask?”
Jem considered a long while before speaking. There had been people who opposed his father, but none of them had been very adamant. They had decided it easier to simply accept the man’s persistent commands than to oppose them. Jem had tried himself, had even tried to convince the others around his father th
at what they were doing had not been right… but none had really listened. None, except Jem’s uncle.
“Yes,” Jem said. “The farrier at Liv, but he is gone now, too.”
“What happened to him?”
“The same thing as ever, Trin. The Legion killed him.”
“And he was not involved in Trask’s abuses?”
“No, but he died for it anyway.” It was true. Jem’s uncle had not been involved in the abuses, at least to the extent that he had not actively participated in them, but the farrier had known everything. All along – despite his urging that he would help Jem convince Indaht to stop; despite all the promises that he would send for help – all along, Jem’s uncle had sought only to keep his brother safe.
“And were you close to him?”
Jem said nothing for a moment. It was a question he had to think about before he could answer. He had liked his uncle, but it was difficult to admit the fact after what Jem had done to the man. The farrier had been a friend to Jem, but in the end, Jem had not been a friend to the farrier.
“We were,” Jem said. It was not exactly a lie. They had been close before Jem had betrayed him.
“I am sorry, Jem.” Trin gulped down a sob before exhaling. “Will you tell me what happened to him?”
Though it was dark and he knew she would not see it, Jem nodded. “Do you know how Trask earned his deaconship?”
“He killed the Tyrant of Ternobahl, ending the Gableman’s Riots. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Because there were two Trask’s at Liv,” Jem said. “Both of whom had served in the Gableman’s Riots, the deacon himself, and his older brother, a man who had served as a Legion farrier. Well, when Trask killed the tyrant, he was raised to deacon and given lands and titles all over the north, including of course, the mines at Liv and the foundries at Riften. But the other Trask was still just a blacksmith, so to support his aging brother, the deacon brought him on as the garrison’s farrier.”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 72