“I’ve been thinking.”
He raised his eyebrow, wondering if she ever stopped. She seemed a tireless whirl of energy: of thinking, talking, moving – the girl was a boundless, burning ball of movement. “What about?” he asked.
“About you, you know. Ever since the cave,” She spoke under her breath now, to make sure no one else could hear them. “I have been wondering… I mean, you said your mother was a goddess, and that she wanted to kill you, and that she was evil. I am trying to understand what you said. Why did she want you; who was your father; why did she want to kill you?”
He sighed loudly.
“I only ask,” she pursued, “because I want to understand. If you are going to help me be good, then should I not know what motivates you, and who you are? I will tell you anything you want to know about me.”
“If I answer your questions, will you tell anyone else?”
“Of course not! It will be in strictest confidence.”
He glanced over his shoulder, scrunched his eyebrows low together, and then took the plunge. “Very well, but only to stop your questions. My mother, Strana, was a natural goddess who ruled the southern tip of Kelta. She was a mistress of seduction, and exercised power over mortal men’s minds, molding them into fawning slaves, so that always, she had everything she wanted. But at the beginning of the eleven hundredth year of Drian, as my old nurse told it to me, she grew anxious and restless. I think she knew that the god of Karaka was planning something, and she was jealous of her retaining her power. The more she dwelt on it, the more her contentment clouded, and she began muttering to herself; my nurse heard her words: ‘He will take my lands. He will take my men. I will be left with nothing at the end!’
“So my mother searched desperately for a deterrent against him, and eventually, she discovered a poor lord of Southern Kelta, who had nothing left to him but a bit of something called poison gold which, being mortal, he could not use.
“What is poison gold?”
“Be silent, and I will tell you. She wooed him and he married her. My poor, weak, selfish, lustful father. She took a bad man, and gave him worse than even he deserved. She, of course, knew the magic of the gold, though he did not. Be still, I will explain: the rules were that she must bear a child by him and, when both father and child perished, the poison’s unlimited power would pass to her. Power that would increase her own, and give her the ability to seduce even a high god. So she bore a son – to bear me, she marred her perpetual, vain, seductive virginity, and then she murdered the sad man, my father, who was her husband. But she could not kill me forthwith. She was forced to wait until I grew to maturity, for I must be able to wield the power before I could be its rightful successor. She raised me with all riches and pomp, ignoring my existence as often as possible and bestowing no love upon me.
“And so, in that time, my nurse discovered all she could of her mistress’s plan. You see, Strana had complete control over the hearts of men, but not of women. Women can resist her, and my nurse loved me enough to resist my mother’s charms. When the time came for the witch to kill me, my nurse intercepted her plot, and sent me out into the wild. She gave me into the care of a distant friend, faked my death, and then perished herself for her defiance, for my mother was greatly angered. Until I rescued Viol, my mother thought I was lost forever, and her plan foiled. Desperate to retain her magic, she must have kidnapped the young princess in another attempt to defy the god of Karaka.
“There,” he finished with a gust of finality in his tone, “does that satisfy your questions?”
The truth was so much worse than Lavendier had imagined that, for once, Garrity had silenced her. She only gave a small yes, then relapsed into quiet. Garrity had been walking with his fists clenched and his heart beating hard; but after telling her everything, and leaving her speechless and calm, his chest relaxed, and he suddenly felt lighter. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, remembering the patience of the old man who had taken him in: an angry, scared, restless young man without direction. His beloved nurse, his surrogate mother, had just been lost and he had never been more alone in his life, but the old man had given him direction and guidance, and he would do the same for Lavendier – if he could.
62
The Princess Feels Something Right
The next day Lavendier was carrying Jacian at the back of the caravan. They had many weeks ago constructed an upright sling out of scraps of fabric, which carried the prince on the bearer’s chest and distributed his weight across the back and shoulders. But he was no longer an infant, and whoever carried him had to be pack free and use their arms to hold him in front, where he sat straddle-legged, with his legs wrapped around their hips. Although carrying him slowed their progress, it let them keep on all day instead of making frequent stops, for his little legs did not have the endurance of their own.
Carrying him had been the job of the soldiers, but now that there were only two men, and all the other women were small and slight of build, Lavendier insisted on helping to bear the burden. Now, as she pushed forward, her shoulders sore and her legs crying out in protest, and developing a headache from his childish prattling, she suddenly saw Garrity tense at the head of their party. He motioned a stop, and they all froze, watching and listening intently.
There was no sound, but there was tension in the air.
Suddenly, with a roar like thunder, gorgans leapt from the trees. Asbult whipped out his bow and shot for all he was worth, and Garrity was like a whirlwind, slashing his sword and hurling his spear, retrieving it from one dead body, only to lunge it into another. Throw, slash, retrieve, again. But there were many, many gorgans.
Lavendier pulled Jacian from his sling and threw him to Cila, who set him on the ground and stood over him with a long knife, and Lavendier drew her sword in the same movement. She thrust out at a gorgan as it lunged toward Viol. She slashed its chest and then its throat. She assumed it fell dead, but after that moment, she lost track of cause and effect. She only remembered to stab, duck, whirl, and look every way she could, the movements trained into her by Merciec playing out like a battle song in her mind, and his voice chanted in her memory. Stab, slash, whirl, duck, step, stab. She did not know it, but she fought with the skill of a hardened warrior. Meeting her blade, the beasts fell about her like stalks of grain at harvest.
At last they were dead, but it was not until she had whirled about three times, anxious and primed and fearful, looking for more and expecting death at every turn, that she realized she had survived the conflict. There was nothing left to fight, and she was alive. She stood back, gasping, her sword point limp in the dust. Shivering and shaking, dreading what she might see, she looked for the others in her group. Behind her, Viol was wielding a bloody knife, and Cila as well. Only Adlena, who stooped over her little son with ashen face, had not fought in the fray.
“Why did you fight?” she cried in horror at her younger sisters.
“To save my life,” gasped Cila, who was on the verge of tears.
“Because you did,” said Viol at the same moment, gazing at Lavendier as if awestruck. “Where did you learn to fight like that? You moved like Merciec.”
She did not answer her. Her mind was full of the screams of battle, which she had not heard at the time. It felt like there had been a delay, like the action happened first, and the sound later. Screams, cries, Garrity yelling for her to look out, Asbult’s arrows whizzing over her head.
She felt like she was going to pass out. She wished she were the fainting type – before, she would have just pretended, but now… she simply stood still, dazed and numb.
Garrity came up to her and put his hand gently on her elbow.
“Come, princess.” He tried to nudge her to move, but she stayed rooted, her eyes glassy and confused.
He leaned in, trying to catch her glance. “Laven, we have to get away from here. We have to keep going.”
“I don’t want to,” she gasped.
“But we have to.
We cannot remain here.”
“I don’t want to.” She was breathing quickly, losing control, her eyes wide and wild. “I don’t want to ever again!”
He paused, familiar with battle shock. He gestured to the others to move on, then turned to her. “Don’t want to what?”
“Kill,” she said in a faint whisper.
He sighed heavily. “I know. I know, but, for now, come. You just need to walk.”
At last, she let herself be led.
* * *
The stars shimmered overhead, a little different than they would look from Drian, but still recognizable. Lavendier sat against a tree, cradling her knees, trying to wipe the cries of battle from her mind. No other battle had ever lingered with her like this. It was haunting her. It had taken a part of herself with it, and she was less than she had been before.
Garrity brought her dinner. He handed her a bowl of oats and sat down on a root pushing out of the ground.
“I can’t,” she insisted again, before he could say anything. “I won’t kill again.”
He nodded twice, slowly, biting his lip. “If you don’t,” he told her after a moment, “you will probably die. And fear for your life is a powerful motivator.”
“But it wasn’t!” she yelled suddenly, and then was startled by her own voice, and spoke in a hush. “It wasn’t, remember? I was willing to die before. Maybe I’ll just really die this time. You won’t always be there to save me. You wouldn’t have saved me today.”
“You’re talking about the cave?”
She nodded miserably.
“The cave was different,” he said with a firm shake of his head. “It’s different to decide you want to die than to have someone try to take it from you. For the first, you act on choice. But the second is instinct. And besides, what if someone tried to kill Viol or Jacian? Would you let them?”
His arguments were too many. Her mind swam and she could not keep up, but she understood enough of what he was trying to say. If they were attacked again, she would fight again, or else she would have to actively choose to die.
“Why do I care?” she pleaded suddenly. “They are gorgans – beasts. I do not even know if they possess intelligence.”
Garrity was weary in mind and soul, and this intense conversation exercised his mind in an unfamiliar way. He stretched out on the ground, staring above at where the dark shape of the tree was silhouetted against the starry expanse. “The first time I ever killed,” he told her, “it was a boar. I went hunting with my mother’s men in autumn, and the boar was our prey. He charged me with tusks bared, his hide shaggy and stiff, and his eyes wells of pure instinct. Nothing of a person in him, and I could see that. But later, after I had faced him down and had driven my spear through his heart, when I looked at those eyes again, they had lost something. Maybe it was not a soul, like yours or mine, but something was still gone. And it was my fault.”
She nodded shakily. “Yes, that is what I feel.”
“It is a good thing to feel,” he assured her. “It is right to feel that.”
63
Crafted from the Clay of Demons
Born into the world of humanity, on occasion, comes a man so diabolical that he seems crafted from the clay of demons. Yet what are demons but fallen gods? Is there anything created that was not once pure, holy, and right, that was not once full of potential, that had not the chance to rise to greatness? And yet, those created with the most ability to rise are they who fall farthest, and such was the fall of Farsooth, right-hand advisor to King Wrelle of Kelta.
Farsooth was jubilant with joy as he departed northern Kelta, with an army at his back and a god on his side, he made his way southwest across Mestraff to Power’s palace. He rejoiced because a god had noticed him. A god had seen his potential for leadership and had promised to support him if he overthrew Wrelle. And so, without hesitation, he had overthrown him.
Farsooth had met a small squadron of gorgans sent up secretly from Karaka, and used them in the dark of night to assassinate the king and all of his supporters. Then he called the population of Kelta together and made promises to them in the same words that Power had used with him.
“We will rise to the head of all mankind!” he told them. “We will rule and conquer and control, and we will be more fortunate than anyone else! We will be blessed by the gods, for they have chosen to smile on us – we are the chosen, the beautiful, the perfect of humanity, and our power will sweep across the world and rule from the seat of the Emperor himself! Who is this puny king who has risen in Drian? What loyalty do we owe him? We owe ourselves! We are special, we are powerful, we are gods!”
He killed anyone who refused to sign up for the army, but most men did not refuse, for they were full of the darts of Resolve, the laughter of Terror, and the blood-thirst of Destruction. They wanted to be gods themselves.
Now Farsooth was going to meet with Power in person, and his heart trembled in excitement. When he reached the miry palace, he admired the way it lunged and bubbled up from the mud. He loved the way his mortal boots squelched in the ground. He smiled as the moisture of the air soaked deep into his bones, and he pushed onward. Discomfort was a small price to pay for ultimate dominance. With steely resolve, as his army waited outside, he followed the gorgans at the gate into the bowels of the palace.
The moment he entered the throne room, his knees collapsed beneath him and he fell before Power, and Power laughed at him.
Anger surged in Farsooth’s heart, battling with his fear. He had not ridden so far to be made a laughing stock: this was meant to be a meeting of equals!
Power laughed and laughed and said nothing, despising the human who groveled before him, and laughing to keep from killing him. But at last, the god sobered, diminished himself, and strode forward as Farsooth struggled to his feet.
“Stand up, mortal, and let us make our plans. Come discover what I intend for your people.”
* * *
The next week was a living nightmare; but Farsooth told himself it was a dream. He told himself until he believed it that receiving Power into his body, losing complete control of his own faculties, was true bliss. He told himself he would one day overthrow the hateful Power – and he did hate him with every fiber of his being – because Power was merely a means to an end. He told himself he was fortunate to be in Power’s confidence, and he was powerful himself for being able to stand in the god’s presence – on occasion. He saw Power plan his next moves, plot the downfall of Drian, and train the captains of Kelta, and he reveled in the honor of being involved.
“Why not possess all my men with the strength you have given me?” he asked Power one day, and trembled when the god reared above him in anger at being questioned.
“You have been given a rare gift, and you want to squander it? Few mortals have been possessed by me, and fewer have lived to tell the tale. Remember that – I can end your little existence at any moment, no matter where you are, with just a flick of my fingers!”
Farsooth was on his knees and incapable of lifting his head. “Yes,” he trembled, “Yes, oh god of Power, and I am eternally grateful for the favor you have shown to me. Thank you, you are powerful, thank you, you are powerful…” He repeated it over and over again.
Power smirked and drank in the praise, reminding himself that one day he would kill Farsooth, who was only a means to an end, and how satisfying that day would be.
Though the soldiers of Kelta were many, Power’s gorgans were depleted, and the god knew he needed an advantage against the mortals, so when Resolve offered to fill the larger gorgans with super human strength, and Death volunteered to make their parting from the world more difficult, Power grasped with idea with glee. The two gods combined their gifts and, to ensure victory over Drian, filled a hundred of the largest gorgans with tenacious endurance, sharp intelligence, and the ability to outlive a dual blow to their neck and stomach.
Power rejoiced in his new soldiers like they were new toys, and gave them to Farsooth to t
rain. “Teach them the intelligence of men,” he said. But a few of them he kept for himself and sent them out to search for the princesses, queen, and prince in Mestraff.
Passion was eager to claim the selfish Lavendier once again, and as she waited to hear word of her location, she poisoned her blade with the blood of gorgans, and prepared a pretty temptation to lead the princess back into her thrall.
64
Whether Conviction Is Necessary?
It was the morning after the gorgan attack and Garrity was sitting with Jacian, who was counting sticks. “What’s after fourteen?” the boy asked.
“Fifteen.”
“No. Fourteen.”
“Fifteen.”
The prince puffed out a harsh breath. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that fifteen goes after fourteen.” Garrity was polishing his blade.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Rub it with that stuff.”
“Why do you think?”
“Make it shiny?”
“Yes.”
“Where’d mommy go?”
“With your aunts to gather the nuts and berries we found.”
“Why?”
“Do you ever stop asking questions?”
“Can I eat the nuts and berries?”
“Some of them.”
“Does the enemy eat nuts and berries? Probably berries. If I was in charge of everything, I would eat only berries.”
Garrity smiled. “Count your sticks.”
Viol ran up and dropped a basket at Garrity’s feet. “Have anything else we can use for carrying? We found some eggs!”
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