by Ben Peek
‘Did that servant paint this?’
‘Well, no. No, I don’t think Ger’s servant is much of a painter. I mean, I only met him briefly, so he could be a painter. But. Well. You’re a painter. He isn’t a painter. He is a killer. And this leg is Ger’s leg. It is the bone of his leg, I mean. It had flesh on it before. How could anyone paint a scene on it, if they were not the owner of the leg? So, I figure, Ger painted it.’
Ayae turned back to the painting as he talked. She thought of how the Wanderer had appeared over Zaifyr in Asila. She thought about Lor Jix’s speech in Yeflam, of how he had been left to wait for the moment he would be called upon out of the black ocean. The gods had plans. That much, she knew, was true. They had seen what would happen when Se’Saera was born, and the painting before her was, like the others, a message left for the mortal men and women they had seen. The problem was that Ayae did not recognize herself in the image before her. Oh, it was her: from the brown of her skin, to the shape of her nose and the dark of her hair: it was all her. But the emotions in her eyes, the suggestion that she had turned away from what was happening around her in fear . . . that was not her.
‘Taane was my mistress,’ the old man said quietly. ‘Taane, the Goddess of Madness. She was a difficult god to serve. She wanted to be defined to the broken, the lost and the mad, and she did not care what she had to do to speak to them. She did not care what she had to do to me, to be more correct. I look at myself and I look at Aela and I think: that could be me if Taane was still alive. She never made any attempt to protect me. She simply made me do the things she wanted. Even doing this for Ger. All he wanted was for me to be in certain places in certain times, but Taane bound me to his command to stop me from wandering. It was after Linae died. She left me no choice but to obey his every command. His first words to me felt like four mouths, and all he said was that he was the warden and he wanted me to help keep guard on his jail until I could not. But. But. But. But, it was not what I thought. I thought it would be the wind and the rain and the earth and the fire, but it was not the elements that he kept in his chains. It was not he, it was . . . well, I should show you. I should. Come. Come.’
He beckoned to them and, without turning to see if they followed, walked to the back of the cave, to a tunnel that led beneath the splitting bones of a dead god.
4.
Aela Ren sent Samuel Orlan to meet the combined force of Mireea, Yeflam and the Saan.
The cartographer had mounted his grey without a word after the Innocent gave him the order. With a surprising sense of sadness, Bueralan watched the wide road swallow the old man in the late morning’s sun. The Orlan he had known a year ago, who had ridden into Leera with him and Dark, the Orlan who had betrayed him in Dirtwater, remained only in bits and pieces. The confident, famous man who gambled with the lives of his friends in Ranan could still be seen, but only through the damage that threatened now to consume him. In a fashion, he was like a weathered statue, where the sculptor’s original work could still be seen but was now defined by blemishes and age.
Bueralan could identify similar damage within himself, as well. After Ille, after Elar was murdered, he had taken Aned Heast’s job in Mireea because he thought it would be simple. An army to stop, a city to defend. In such a job, Bueralan could take a moment to breathe, could make simple choices, ones based on morals close to his own. Instead, Kae, Ruk, Liaya and Aerala had all died. Zean had died as well, but Bueralan had reached out for the stone that held his soul and taken it to Ooila when he should have broken it and left.
‘Do you know what he is doing?’ Joqan appeared on the other side of the thick, twisted tree trunk Bueralan leant against. He had a heavy axe over his back. ‘Aela, that is.’
The Innocent stood alone in the centre of the wide road ahead of them, his hands behind his back.
‘He is waiting,’ Bueralan said.
‘But do you know why?’
‘He wants to be easily seen.’
‘He has offered to duel their champion.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I heard him tell Orlan that.’
‘Aela first started offering the duels in Sooia.’ Joqan said. ‘It did not happen in our first battle. It came after. After we had seen what our war would look like. After our first battles. We knew we would become inured to the death that we caused, that what had so horrified us would one day stop doing so. When that happened, our doubts would leave us. Aela said that our horror would become an abstract one. The thought distressed us. After all, we had been the voices of our gods. We had been feared, yes, and we had raised our weapons when we had been asked, but we had been loved, also. People made pilgrimages to us in times of need. They sought us out so that they could ask a god for vengeance, for forgiveness, and for more. We had never been seen as murderers, not even those of us who had served the God of Death.’
‘So you decided to test those you fought against?’ Bueralan asked. ‘To decide what, exactly?’
‘The gods have buried our deaths somewhere in time,’ he said. ‘They are like jewels to be found in the sand. What if this was the sand? What if the gods had seen us here, and had seen what we would become? What if they had buried our deaths here, in the world without them?’
‘You didn’t think that you shouldn’t go to war?’ A hint of disgust entered his voice. ‘When it was so objectionable, after all?’
‘You have not stood in the world with the gods and heard their voices. You have not seen all that is around you defined by them. You have not felt that absence.’
‘I have worked for men and women who had as much power as you can have over another,’ Bueralan said. ‘They had been paid to listen to their ideologies and they paid me to enact it.’ He pushed away from the tree and, in doing so, pushed away from the other man’s conversation. ‘You make a choice,’ he said, at the edge of it. ‘After they’ve spoken, you make it, and you live it. No one else carries the burden for you.’
Ahead, riders were emerging from the sunken glare of the morning’s sun, shadows drawing up to the shadow of the Innocent. Without a word, Bueralan joined him.
The god-touched soldiers who stood on the sides of the roads, in the trees, or throughout the marshes were different to the man he stood beside. It had not been obvious to Bueralan: he had been guided by Samuel Orlan’s impression of them. For him, they were sad figures, tragic in a certain way, men and women who were victims of their gods’ actions. It echoed Orlan’s view of how the gods acted, but Bueralan saw something different now. He saw how the gods had freed each one of them of responsibility for their actions. In their service, they had become akin to actors who performed a part they had been taught. Their lines had been said, their thoughts organized and their motivations transcribed, and in doing that, they had no longer needed to make their own decisions. When the gods had died, they had handed the responsibility of themselves to Aela Ren, and he, in response, had crafted a horrific path for them to walk.
The approaching force stopped and four riders broke from the front and continued forwards. The morning’s sun left them as no more than shadows at first, but as they drew closer, each of the riders began to define him and herself. Orlan sat in the middle, while beside him, on the left, rode the Soldier, Xrie. He was the youngest of the Keepers of the Divine, a man born in the Saan who wore sashes of red through his armour. Bueralan wondered if he knew that he was one of only two surviving Keepers.
Next to Xrie rode a thickset warrior from the Saan. He was past middle age, but the armour he wore was well made, and well worn. When he halted his horse, Bueralan saw the faintest hint of resemblance to the Saan prince who had been brought to Ooila. Miat Dvir, the saboteur thought. The Lord of the Saan had left his home, ridden down the tunnels and crossed the ocean.
It was the last rider, the one who rode next to Orlan, who surprised Bueralan. White, grey-haired and wearing simple but solid armour, Lieutenant Mills rode in the position that Aned Heast would have held, had he been part of the force that crossed t
he Mountains of Ger. She was clearly the captain of the Mireean forces, but Bueralan had expected to find Heast here, had planned on the old mercenary being an active cog in the unfolding war. It had not occurred to him that he would not be. After Muriel Wagan had given him that position, Heast had rebuilt himself not as a soldier, but as a captain on the Spine of Ger, and Bueralan could not imagine him walking away from it. Yet, he was not dead. He knew that. Bueralan would have heard if Heast had died. The information would have found its way to him, whether he had been in Ooila, or in on a ship in the middle of an ocean.
‘Aela Ren,’ Xrie said, dipping his head in a slight greeting. Beside him, Orlan left the three and rode back to the god-touched soldiers. ‘You do not send a friend as a messenger.’
‘I send a man who will not lie for me,’ the Innocent said evenly. ‘I send a man who makes it very clear that to fight me is to die.’
‘He said that if you were defeated all your soldiers would leave this war.’ The Soldier did not bother with the challenge in Ren’s words. ‘Is this true?’
‘Yes.’
‘My soldiers will not do that if I am defeated.’
‘I have not asked them to do so.’
‘Then I accept.’
5.
Bueralan watched Xrie dismount with a practised ease, while behind him, his soldiers came up the road. The closer they drew, the easier it was for the saboteur to hear the excitement in their voices. He could understand it: the Soldier, the immortal who had been known as the Blade Prince of the Saan before he came to the Floating Cities of Yeflam, would soon fight the Innocent. Neither man had been defeated in battle and the soldiers behind Xrie were confident in their champion.
In his visits to Yeflam, Bueralan had heard soldiers and mercenaries speak of Xrie. They said that he was a fair man, and a man of skill and talent. No one could claim to have heard him raise his voice or lose his temper. As they formed up behind him now, on a road in Leera, that knowledge was contrasted with the man Xrie faced. Aela Ren was said to be filled with rage, was reported to have torn apart his opponents with his hands, feasted on the flesh and drunk the blood. The same soldiers who said that they had never heard Xrie raise his voice were the same men and women who insisted that the Innocent’s soldiers feared him more than anything else. It was why they did what they did in Sooia.
‘I met a man by the name of Jae’le recently,’ Xrie said, while he waited for his soldiers to assemble. ‘I am told you were once a friend of his.’
‘He did not say that to you.’ Along the road behind Aela Ren, his god-touched soldiers began to emerge. ‘But I know him,’ the Innocent continued, as Bueralan turned to join them. ‘What did he tell you about me?’
‘He said that you cannot die.’
‘Did Samuel not tell you the same thing?’
‘He did.’
Ren spread his scarred hands out, the palms empty. ‘Both are correct.’
‘All things die,’ Xrie said, his tone polite and respectful. ‘But Jae’le told me that if I wanted to defeat you, I should lie to you.’
‘Jae’le.’ The name was said with a real disappointment. ‘Is he with you? Bring him forth and let him tell his own lies.’
‘He is not here.’
The Innocent did not appear to be surprised. ‘He was once a man to be feared and respected,’ he said, instead. ‘It is sad to hear how he has fallen.’
‘I will not lie to you. It is not who I am.’
‘A wise choice. Lies create a false reality and you can be certain of nothing within it. I have always been surprised by the people who insist on lies. I cannot understand why they wrap their lives in the falseness that they create. They allow it to shape the reality that they share with their children and their friends and they let it breed real consequences that they call just.’
Xrie did not reply and, for a moment, the two stood before each other in silence.
‘Will you draw your sword?’ Xrie asked, finally.
‘In time,’ Aela Ren replied.
The Soldier took a step to his left, as if he had begun a dance, and began to walk around the Innocent.
He did so confidently, his hand on the hilt of his sword. The dyed red tips of his hair blended into the morning’s light and, as he circled the Innocent, he briefly appeared to wear a crown of fire.
Bueralan had heard the stories of the Blade Prince. It was one of the stories the Saan allowed to be told and retold beyond the borders of their land. In truth, warriors who travelled outside rarely spoke of what happened on the flat, dusty land where they lived. Theirs was an insular culture, built upon the concept of pure bloodlines, and for hundreds of years, the most that countries around the world heard of was an exile, maimed in a ritualistic fashion. The loss of a hand, mostly. Xrie Dvir changed that. He left the Saan because he wished to and, in the years that followed, the Saan left with him. Sketches of a tribal society emerged, one that caged its women in oral and written histories, and let their men roam free without the ability to write their name. When asked about their home, they had one story that they would tell, and only one.
It was the story of how the Blade Prince of the Saan fought to unite the tribes. It persisted long after he had arrived in Yeflam and become known as the Soldier. Yet, not one of them contained details of his family. No version of the story said that he had been a first son, a third, or even a fifth. He was simply a loyal son in a family who had never ruled. A son who changed that. At the age of fourteen, he went to a meeting of the Saan tribes and there he had presented himself and declared war on the other tribes. He was tested, it was said, with sixteen duels, one for each tribe. After he had defeated them all, he returned home, his declaration of war accepted.
The length of the war was never described, but its defining moment was. It was a battle in a village named Jajjar. For most people outside the Saan, it was the only name that they heard. It was spoken so freely that even Saan in positions of power – like the war scout Usa Dvir, who would not name a lake or a piece of land to outsiders – would say the village’s name without hesitation. It was in Jajjar that the Blade Prince of the Saan was trapped with one hundred enemy soldiers. He fought them for over a week and he fought them alone. He fought them after his swords had broken and he fought them with broken swords. He fought them until he was the last warrior to stand in the village.
It was the story every warrior from the Saan told to anyone who asked of their home.
It was the story that the soldiers of the Yeflam Guard repeated to anyone who asked about their captain.
In front of the Innocent, Xrie came to a stop. He was an arm’s length away. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
He waited.
He waited.
He waited.
His fingers shifted around the hilt of his sword and—
He fell, his chest ripped open, as if the armour and flesh had been no more than paper. He fell sideways, his hand slipping from his hilt, hinting at life, until it was clear that it was unable to break his fall.
‘Now,’ Aela Ren said, lowering his bloodstained sword. ‘You will all die.’
6.
The god-touched soldiers charged past Bueralan and the Innocent, but the saboteur remained where he was and stared at Xrie’s body.
‘I told that boy not to come here,’ Samuel Orlan said beside him. There was a sadness in his voice, one ringed by defeat. ‘I told him the Keepers were dead. I told him that Ren and his soldiers had killed them. I said that he should turn around, that he should take – that he should. . .’ His voice trailed off as the god-touched soldiers crashed into the combined forces of Mireea, Yeflam and the Saan. The line broke apart, smashed like a child’s toy. Voices could be heard, some of them raised an attempt to establish order, while others gave in to panic. ‘He should save his soldiers,’ Orlan finished. ‘That’s what I told him.’
The Innocent stepped over Xrie. As he did, he revealed the deep wound that had killed him. The wound delivered by a
blow so swift that Bueralan had not seen it. With a slow, ominous walk, Aela Ren made his way towards the battle.
‘Get away, Orlan,’ Bueralan said. ‘Find a place to be safe until this is done.’
‘There is no place to be safe,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you realized that yet?’
He had.
‘You haven’t. You’re going to go into that.’ The cartographer laughed harshly. ‘They can’t help us.’
‘I told you my plan was bad.’
Orlan called out, but Bueralan ignored him.
He ran off the road, into the green-lit world of Leera’s trees, skirting to his left in an attempt to beat around the main body of fighting to reach the back of Xrie’s force. There would be someone there – a mercenary captain, someone – whom he could convince to organize a retreat. Someone whom he could convince to find Heast.
Bueralan had planned on the Captain of the Spine being with Xrie. His plan, his only plan since leaving Ranan, was to find the old mercenary and give him what he knew about Se’Saera, about her city, and what Ren had said about Onaedo. Heast would have the contacts to reach out to Leviathan’s End, to hear what Onaedo had begun to do if, indeed, she was doing something. He was not convinced that Ren was right – stories about the ruler of Leviathan’s End reaching beyond her dead domain were rare – but Bueralan had little else in the way of options.
To his right, he heard the sharp clash of swords. It broke through the shouts that he heard, the screams that were coming from the road. It sounded again, drawing closer, and Bueralan paused on the back of a fallen log. The clashes of swords sounded again, and suddenly, like rabbits bursting out of the undergrowth, soldiers spilled out in front of him. They did not rush towards him, but rather stumbled and turned and headed deeper into the green-tinted world, towards the marshes and empty towns. Their flight scattered swamp crows into the air, their caws of protest piercing the screams, the shouts, the sound of swords, but fell silent when a tall figure burst out in pursuit: Ai Sela.