“Heh. I'm sure.”
“Is it the conversion?”
Oh Light. He had been dreading this talk since learning about the origin of the 'blessed'. Before that, he'd purposefully not asked about it, and had tried to ignore the differences between what he saw and what he felt when he slept with Rallant. Skin texture, nail length, teeth... He'd never asked him to take the pendant off, and Rallant had never offered.
Now the words hung between them, and Linciard didn't know how to answer.
He saw the walls come up in Rallant's eyes, eclipsing their warmth. “It couldn't have been my warning,” he murmured, “because you haven't run.”
“I can't. I have a duty. Look, I warned the captain, but if— If he's a—“
“If he's a what, Erolan?”
Swallowing a dangerous word, Linciard said, “I don't see why the White Flame would be against him if he's one of the blessed. Because he is, right?”
A wry smile creased Rallant's mouth, and he reached out to run fingers along Linciard's cheek, over his ear and through his hair, to caress idly at his nape. Linciard shivered but didn't pull away. “Dear, sweet, credulous man,” the senvraka murmured. “You think we don't have our own internal wars, our own treacheries?”
“I wouldn't know.”
“There are always those who go astray. Deserting bodythieves, berserk rovagi, dissident controllers and ruengriin...mad sarisigi. We deal with them the same way any organization deals with its traitors. And with the humans they gather around them.” Something brittle formed within his smile. Regret? Remembrance? “You don't want to be free, Erolan?”
The trace of nails on his nape was soothing. His thoughts came slow like syrup under the weight of Rallant's eyes. “I don't know what that is,” he mumbled. “I'm just a soldier. A peasant. I do what I'm told.”
A faint sigh, and Rallant moved closer, his voice even lower, his breath stirring against Linciard's lips. “You've always bowed to a master, mm? Will you bow to me? I can protect you.”
His eyes were golden oceans, filled with light. “I...”
“And in turn, you will protect me.”
“What...”
“Yes or no. There's not much time.”
“Hoi!” someone said sharply, somewhere beyond the bounds of the dream. Linciard heard his lover hiss, saw the golden gaze turn away, and felt sick at heart. Bereft.
Then the needles pierced his neck and all was glory, the fire singing in his veins, the radiance washing through him in such staggering waves that he could not see, feel, think. He was nothing and nowhere, just a fleck of ash on the great hot tide.
“What'd you do to the lieutenant, you cocksucker?” someone shrieked nearby. Someone else gave a low, threatening rumble, and then there was the sound of metal on flesh, and shouting—more voices—and the rasp of a blade drawn, a clash of steel, curses, jostling—
“Erolan!” came Rallant's voice, cold and clear like a knife through fog, and Linciard surged to his feet automatically, feeling his master's enemies like a wrongness in the world...
Fist met face—he didn't know whose. Someone else moved in—enemy!—and got an elbow to the throat, went down choking. In the all-consuming light, he saw his master move like a dancing flame, not as bright but casting no shadow as he drove his sword-hilt into a shorter enemy's brow.
A booming sound nearby, distorted like in water. A ripple in the light. A new voice: “By the Throne, what mess is this?”
“Colonel. Messenger,” said his master, “my apologies. An insurrection. These men— Well, look at them. Jernizen, outlanders. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.“
“Round them up!”
Many booted feet. Small blazes all around. Linciard halted, his sense of the enemies fading and with them his active purpose. The ground rolled slowly beneath him. Or was it his head losing track of his feet?
Somewhere far away and distant, there was an itch. A probe of thought. It got nowhere.
“This is the second-in-command?” said a voice. He wasn't sure whose, but it was closer. Disdainful. “My mentalist says he can't get in.”
“My apologies. I've been told that thralls' minds are...difficult.”
“Release him.”
“It doesn't work that way, colonel. His system needs to clear itself, and that takes time.”
“I told you to have this place and its officers ready for us, Rallant.”
“I'm sorry, sir.”
An aggrieved sigh. “Fortunately Tanvolthene has dealt with the mages, else they might have warned the captain. If that had happened, Rallant...”
“I know, sir.”
“Do keep it in mind. All right, you lot! Stick these idiots down in the cells and then get ready. We're having a surprise party for good old Captain Sarovy, and everyone is invited.”
“Sir!”
More feet—rushing feet, moving everywhere. Linciard swayed in his spot. He felt strange; untethered, light as a feather, yet held in place by the figure beside him. The center of his universe.
Warm fingers traced his cheek. Without words, without thought, he did as they bid.
*****
Sarovy tried to return without fanfare, only to find Messenger Cortine awaiting him outside the stables, blind face expectant. He briefly considered riding back out, but that was foolish. He had far more to fear than the priest.
Still, he felt uncommonly chagrined as he slid from Havoc's back. One of the specialists had come out to take the reins, but Sarovy lingered an extra moment to attend to his horse, old companions that they were. Since the incident at Old Crown, he had come out here more often to be among the quiet animals, to show his gratitude to Havoc for staying while his mind shattered.
The old horse snorted, and snagged his cloak with his teeth as if asking him to stay. But duty was duty, so Sarovy just patted the tawny neck and turned to trudge inside, bodyguards following.
“Captain, you have a visitor,” said the priest, falling in beside him. Sarovy gave a curt nod and hoped it wasn't a superior. He didn't know how long he had been gone, and had no good excuse for it.
Only as he stepped into the dimness of the entry hall did it occur to him to wonder why a specialist had manned the stables.
Then the doors closed behind him, and it was too late.
“Captain,” boomed a voice from the assembly hall. Colonel Wreth's. Sarovy looked back to see two exceptionally large White Flames drop the bar across the doors; they must have been waiting behind them. Their featureless helms tracked him as he gestured for his bodyguards to stay calm. Both men had dropped hands to their hilts, and while Garrenson relaxed, Serinel narrowed his eyes and did not.
“Colonel...my apologies, have you been waiting for me?” he said as he moved into the hall, scanning its ward-lit interior. The colonel and Messenger Cortine stood before the inactive portal-frame, the only occupants of the room's center; all others lurked along the walls, White Flame soldiers and Sarovy's own specialists. The bunkroom doors were open, with many strained faces peering out, but White Flames blocked those as well, and it was clear to him that his men were prisoners.
Against the far wall, beyond the colonel and priest, stood Lieutenants Linciard, Rallant and Vrallek—the first with his head bowed—and several white-robed mages, plus Scryer Mako and Magus Voorkei in chains.
Anger kindled within him, raw and bloody. He tried to fight it, for it would do his men no good, not when there was a chance that this was his reckoning and not theirs. Still it was all he could do to calm himself. To remember that these were his superiors, not his enemies.
Perhaps.
“I recommend you set your weapons aside,” said the colonel, gesturing, and several White Flames stepped out to beckon for their swords. There was no resisting, Sarovy knew, and so he undid his swordbelt without protest and willed his bodyguards to do the same.
One White Flame took the belts and helms, but the others moved in to pat the three of them down, and he heard Serinel curse as he was di
vested of a few hidden blades. Sarovy's own holdout blade was confiscated from his boot, then the White Flames retreated.
“Approach,” said the colonel. Sarovy did.
From arm's length, Colonel Wreth did not even fake a smile. His disdain—his outright contempt—was clear in every line of his weathered face, and though his voice stayed even, his eyes were like sharpened knives, eager to cut. “I have had troubling reports of your misbehavior, captain. Not only have you sheltered a witch, executed possible informants, acted without and against orders, resisted the blessing, and burned down an enemy stronghold with the majority of its records inside, but now I am hearing that you knowingly permitted some of your soldiers to make contact with the Shadow Cult.”
Sarovy slid a glance to Lieutenant Linciard, who had not raised his head. Lieutenant Rallant had a hand on his wrist: controlling him, no doubt. And one of the mages alongside them wore the eye-in-circle of a mentalist.
So they've breached his mind. Seen what I have allowed.
I have failed my men.
He lifted his chin, determined not to be bitter. Perhaps this was for the best. He was a monster, a mistake, and he had fumbled his way through this captaincy with little grace and no guidance. His men would be better off in another's hands—someone worthy of them.
“Yes,” he said, “I attempted to open a dialogue with the Shadow Cult. Yes, I permitted several of my men to have dealings with them, though they were surveilled by others. I wished to understand my enemy, to anticipate it, and—if possible—to remove it without violence. We have seen over these past few days what horrors the Shadow Cult is capable of, sir. If I had been able to convince them to leave rather than fight—“
Colonel Wreth sneered. “It is not your place to make deals, captain. Greater men than you have been brought down by their dalliance with the cult—or do you not remember our dear Crown Prince? He was removed from his post for just this kind of heresy. I had thought you better than that.”
“So had I, sir.”
“Then why? What could turn you from an Imperial loyalist to a seditious fool?”
Sarovy felt the itch at the back of his skull that heralded a mentalist's eye, but he did not resist. He was tired of hiding. “I am not seditious, sir. I would not go against the Empire. But I have come to believe that we are wrong in our actions. Wrong in our reasons. Wrong in our entire faith, sir. We are being used, and—“
He saw the blow before it came but did not move, and though the colonel's mailed fist rocked his head to the side and carved furrows in his cheek, nothing hurt. Behind him, his bodyguards hissed, and he made a show of straightening slowly, of facing forward without protest, so that they would not be moved to protect him.
Wreth's features strained with rage, his eyes flickering beneath their illusion—hazel to orange and back again—but though he raised his hand to threaten another strike, he did not follow through. “Wrong in our faith, are we?”
“Yes sir. I have seen our Light, and it is cruel.”
Teeth like broken glass gleamed between Wreth's lips. “Cruel. Yes, cruel. What would you have it be, fool? Forgiving? Weak and mild? Our 'cruel' Light is all that holds our Empire together! Before the Phoenix arose to lead us, we were no more than squabbling tribes, petty kingdoms perpetually at each other's throats. Even now, your people wrestle with the Riddish, the Averognans and Drixi strain at their harnesses, and all of us fight the wretches that bite at our borders. You think we can remain in one piece by being kind?”
Sarovy narrowed his eyes. He did not need to be told about the bad blood between Trivestes and Riddian or the conflicts with the Garnet Mountain Territory. But he had not made peace with his wife through cruelty, and if she truly had not shunned him all these years... If she truly thought he was dead, and his letters had never been sent...
“You crush us down,” he said in a low voice. “You constrict us with conditioning, bind us to armies. Force marriages to break up tribes. Convert the willing and the resisting. You— I do not know what you want from us, why you would do this to us. This is not rulership, this is...” He trailed off, at a loss.
“This is the word of your god,” said Messenger Cortine.
Sarovy cast him a sidelong look. He had expected the priest to be more vocal before this, but Cortine seemed to defer to the colonel in this matter. Perhaps Wreth was higher in whatever secret hierarchy these people had. His face, as usual, was placid, but there was a slight down-turn to his lips.
“Is it?” said Sarovy. “I thought he wished redemption for us. I do not feel redeemed.”
“You are a miserable, self-absorbed heretic,” Colonel Wreth snarled, “and a tool in the hand of the greatest of all traitors, that bastard Enkhaelen. Like him, you were granted all the favor of the Light, and like him, you have squandered it. You have bent your knee to the Darkness and believed what you saw in its depths.”
Sarovy recalled his vision: the star in chains, imprisoned deep below the Palace. Then a shiver ran through his mind—the mentalist groping at the memory, trying to catch it, analyze it—and he forced himself to think of the Dark maw that had opened beneath him, and the tunnels under the Shadowland. Forced himself to feel that terror and revulsion again.
The mentalist's grip failed.
“I saw nothing in the Dark,” he said softly. “Nothing in the Shadow but blood and wreckage. I have not turned from the Light: I have faced it, and it is not what I want it to be.”
“Who are you to make demands of our god?”
“I make none.”
“You cannot have what you want—“
“I know.”
Bafflement crossed Wreth's face, and Sarovy felt a moment's cold satisfaction. Here was a man who could not handle uncertainty, who could not fathom doubt. Who could not accept questions. Things either were, or they were not, and those that fell in between made no sense.
Then Wreth's expression twisted, and he braced himself to meet another fist.
Messenger Cortine caught the colonel's arm.
“Sir,” he said, “we have strayed from our task. It is not our place to punish the captain; only the judgment of the Light will suffice. Until then...” He turned his blank gaze on Sarovy, his smile almost apologetic. “The Palace does not allow access via portal during the Midwinter Rites. Your man Vyslin was the last we could put through. It will be five days before access returns, so during that time, you will be under my command.”
“Yours?” said Sarovy. “Not the colonel's?”
“Yes. After reviewing the memories of your men, we have decided that Blaze Company is no longer fit to serve the Imperial Armies. You will all be taken to the Palace for purification, and those of you who do not submit will be decommissioned. The men who fled your side were wise, captain. I am only sad that so few managed to escape your corruptive influence.”
He wanted to deny that, but he had allowed the foreigners to dally with the Shadow Cult, had allowed his men to be treated by the Trifold witch...
No. I did what was best for them. What was right.
“They are not to blame,” he said. “I am the one who—“
“It matters not, captain. You have tainted these men. Your fate is theirs.”
The rage came then, hot and fierce, and he lunged for the priest. Not enough that he had volunteered, that he had sacrificed his old life—that he had died! Not enough that he had done his best to steer Blaze Company through the rocks, that he had clung to his own faith as the world came down around him. No—now he would be punished for his confusion and the internal scuffles of his superiors? Now his men would die because they were his?
The colonel moved to block his way. White Flames strode in to grab him.
But it was the Messenger who stopped him.
One hand contacted his brow, one his throat, and all went molten. The world shook. His thoughts dissolved into the roiling light, the heat, the presence of his god in all its scathing glory. Cortine's blazing eyes held him transfixed, and beneath the
sudden shouting voices he caught the sound of metal hitting the ground. His gauntlets.
Then there was nothing but a babble of pleas and shrieks, the tormented exhalations of a thousand captive lives. Their faces burned in his vision, familiar from his fevered sketches. He felt his body jerk, contort, change—his spine unweaving, bones losing coherence—and wished he could weep, for in only moments he was nothing but that malleable clay struggling to mold itself into shape.
Only it was not clay. Delineated by the cruel radiance, he felt the building-blocks of his substance: compacted char and resin and dust, shards of pulverized teeth and bones, pigment and metal drawn from disintegrated garments, and a dense knot of hair of all colors. Every speck ready to be repurposed like the pieces of an endless puzzle, scattered and recombined with each new stolen life. An amalgamation of crematory leavings. A walking sepulchre of victims.
And within, a lattice of fiery lines that held both form and knowledge: a rough diagram of his own body. A wirework upon which to fix himself and be bound.
Naught else. No lungs, no fingers, no heart. Flashes of panoramic vision: no eyes but skin that sensed light and translated it until he could see through his own back, through his limbs, through every inch in a dizzying wave. A tremor of sound across that external layer, hard to focus on; the stink of fear in one direction and the hot-metal tang of the priest in another.
No back or front, top or bottom. All was one. Cortine's fingers dug into the material that had been his cheeks, and there were threads running out from under his narrow white sleeves, over his knuckles, piercing like needles of fire into Sarovy's fluxing flesh...
“Hush, hush,” murmured the priest as the threads invaded, superseding the lattice of magic that gave him his Sarovy-shape. “You have been locked into this single form for too long, deprived of your full might and memories as a long-standing servant of our Imperial Light. We would free you from your torment, your troublesome identity, but we are not certain what we would unleash. Thus we offer a gift: our dominance. You will no longer make choices. You will do as you are bid. And there will be no consequences.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 84