by Fiona Patton
Removing the helmet, he wiped the mist from his face with a grimace, smearing the painted symbol of the God-Wall on his cheek. He was a Warrior, a Champion, famed for his coolness in the face of the enemy and his prowess in battle.
But you couldn’t fight what you couldn’t see, and things you couldn’t see could make use of an enveloping fog to creep close enough to attack. And an attack was imminent, whatever the signs. He could feel it, just as Estavia could feel it. As he stared across the city, an errant breeze swept the fog aside for a single moment, and the God of Battles stood at his side, staring as he did, across the city, staring at the Wall gleaming with a brilliant, indigo light in the setting sun.
The nearness of Her presence bathed him in shimmering warmth, and he closed his eyes, feeling himself uplifted by the force of Her love.
A thread of prophecy carrying a woman’s golden voice whispered across his mind.
“The Wall will not stand.”
“He’ll crumble under the weight of it.”
His eyes snapped open. Who will crumble? he demanded.
The thread vanished. Standing in Gerek-Hisar’s central pavilion, Brax shook his head in a frustrated gesture. Around him, a group of militia delinkon waited respectfully for him to return his attention to their training and, moving to one side, he signaled for them to continue.
He’d had this third vision two days ago and, with Spar spending so much time in the seer’s shrine with Sable Company, he’d braved the rain, the fog—and his old teacher’s delighted laughter at this unprecedented second visit in as many days—to seek Ihsan out at the Bibliotheca.
After wiping his eyes on his sleeve, the priest of Ystazia had leaned back with an attempt at a more serious expression.
“Very little is know about Estavia’s first favorite,” he observed. “Beyond the myths, of course, which may have elevated his status beyond his actual deeds.”
Brax frowned. “How do you mean?”
“I mean he may not even have existed at all, but been created by the heroic deeds of many others brought together under a single name. Well, consider it,” he continued after noting Brax’s shocked expression. “The ultimate hero? Already a kaptin and a beloved Champion of Estavia before the stories about him even begin? How did he rise to such a status without notice? Where did he come from? When was he born? We know only that he helped to build Anavatan and that he defended the City of the Gods against its enemies for season after season until the stories about him just cease. No one knows how or when he died. Like the origin of the Gods themselves, Kaptin Haldin’s final days have been lost. Shrouded on purpose perhaps, or . . .” Ihsan raised an ink-stained finger in dramatic emphasis. “He might never have died because he might never have lived. Not as a single man at any rate.”
“But I’ve been having visions of his life,” Brax insisted. “Feeling what he felt and seeing what he saw.”
“What you’ve been told he felt and saw,” Ihsan corrected. “From what I understand, prophecy is more like a banquet of symbols rather than a single, physical loaf of bread, yes?”
As Brax’s stomach growled, he glared at his old teacher. “You’re just trying to distract me with the mention of food because you don’t know the answer to my questions,” he accused.
Ihsan just laughed. “Of course,” he admitted, then leaned forward. “As pleased as I am to have your company, Braxin-Delin, you need to speak to a seer, not a scholar. Go and see your Kaptin Liel if you need answers about prophecy. Or speak to your own kardos. I understand that Spar has excellent instincts regarding interpretation.”
“I’ve talked to Spar once already,” Brax admitted.
“And?”
“He thinks I see myself as Kaptin Haldin, the Protector of Anavatan.”
“That’s nothing new, is it?”
“No, but these visions are.”
“Then perhaps your understanding of what it means to be Kaptin Haldin has changed, and your visions are trying to—what’s the phrase seers use—navigate you into the right stream?”
“Then they should find me a boat instead of just throwing me at the water,” Brax groused, running a hand through his hair in annoyance. “And I don’t trust this voice that keeps warning me about the Wall either. I swore to Estavia that I would defend the Wall. If it’s in real danger, I need to know how to protect it, and if it’s a trick, I need to know how to avoid it. Panos of Amatus is an ally of Graize’s. Nothing good can come from her sending me warnings. It can only mean that she wants me heading into the wrong stream. I just don’t know what the right stream is.”
Pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose, Ihsan nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a confusing image, I agree,” he allowed. “The Wall is strongly made and ably defended. Perhaps, like Kaptin Haldin, the Wall is meant to symbolize something else, some particular protection that you feel is under threat.” He pointed at the painted ward on Brax’s wrist. “You draw its symbol on your body every morning, just one of the many things you love and swear to protect anew each day. Perhaps in this instance the Wall symbolizes that protection.” At Brax’s mystified expression, he sighed. “Perhaps you are the Wall, Ghazi-Delin,” he expanded.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Ihsan-Sayin,” Brax retorted. “She keeps saying the Wall will not stand.”
“Perhaps it’s not as ably defended as it might be. You do have a habit of trying to fight your battles alone. Add some sentries to your battlements. You’ll feel better.”
Brax frowned at him, but nodded. “Ask for help,” he said ruefully.”
“Exactly.”
“Spar’s already done that.”
“Very wise. Enlist the aid of others, and I think you’ll find the Wall ably protected once again.”
In the pavilion, Brax scratched at the dried ink on his wrist, then frowned as the familiar buzz of Hisar’s approach interrupted his thoughts. Rather than talk to the young God with a dozen curious delinkon watching, he called an end to their training, waiting until they gratefully dispersed into the tower keep before leaning against the pavilion’s vine-wrapped entrance. When Hisar materialized in front of him in His golden-seeming, Brax cocked his head to one side.
“How’s your new worshiper?” he asked in a conversational tone.
Hisar just shook His head at him, His hair slapping against His cheeks with the movement. “Not now. He’s coming,” He said without preamble. “We saw him, Spar and me. Graize is coming.”
“When?” he asked, keeping his voice as carefully neutral as possible.
“Soon.”
“Be warned and be ready,” Brax murmured.
“Are you ready?”
He wiped a new line of mist from his face with a grimace. “I will be.”
The young God leaned against the opposite side of the entranceway, mirroring Brax’s stance with eerie precision. “You said you’d give me a chance to talk to Graize,” He reminded him. “You promised.”
“I remember. Have You?”
“Not yet. I will. Soon, but not yet. It isn’t time yet.” His expression frustrated, Hisar ran a hand through His hair in a gesture that Brax recognized immediately. “Everything’s always . . . what was it you said, absolutely and maybe?”
“Hurry up and wait,” Brax agreed.
“And now and later.” Hisar finished in a petulant tone. “I feel all itchy and tense, like there’s a storm coming. I wish Graize would just arrive already. I hate waiting.”
“Maybe it is just a storm coming,” Brax suggested. “Another storm,” he amended, glancing back at the wispy lines of fog crisscrossing the floor of the pavilion.
“I don’t think so,” Hisar replied tersely. “It feels more like a storm on the inside. But there will be another storm on the outside soon,” He added. “The northern fleet’s coming, too. I’ve seen it and I’ll bet Incasa has, too. They’re headed for the strait.”
Brax nodded. “They’ll attack Gerek-Hisar first,” he noted.
“Yo
u think so?”
“It’s what I’d do, establish a secure base on the Northern Trisect that keeps us from using the sea chain, then cross the unprotected Halic and attack Anavatan from behind the temple walls. That’s where we’re the most vulnerable.”
Hisar chewed at His upper lip in a very physical gesture of concern. “My temple site’s right beside the sea chain’s Western Trisect bollard,” He noted. “And it’s vulnerable, too. I don’t want them there. They’ll . . . break things.”
Brax made himself smile reassuringly. “Don’t fret. We have six Gods and a fleet of our own, remember? They’ll never get that far. Besides . . .” Even though he knew he couldn’t see past the watchtower’s high walls, he still glanced in the direction of the strait. “If they were that close, the alarm would have sounded already. We have time.”
“Not much time.”
“No.”
“It’s not our problem anyway,” Hisar stated, His voice matching Brax’s exactly in pitch and timber. “As you said before, Graize is our problem. He always has been.” Stepping out into the rain, the young God turned. “Be warned and be ready,” He said. “They’re both coming.” Changing fluidly to Its dragonfly-seeming, It shot into the air, the metallic spray of light shimmering off Its wings swallowed up by the fog almost at once.
Brax watched It go with a frown, then headed for the tower keep in search of his troop. If the northern fleet really were coming that soon, they needed to be in place on the aqueduct before they got drawn into the defense of Gerek-Hisar because, as Hisar had said, Graize was their problem. He always had been.
To the north, a streak of lightning lit up the sky as Graize and his party left the thin cattle track that wound along beneath the aqueduct to join with the main trade road. A single ox-drawn cart splashed its way past, its driver so deeply huddled in cloak and hat that they remained unnoticed. In the distance they could just see the signal fire atop Gerek-Hisar glowing faintly through the fog.
A rumble of thunder sounded overhead, and Hares pushed his hood back, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “From what I remember of this Trisect’s topography, I’d estimate we were no more than a mile away from the North-Cattle gate,” he stated, then glanced over at Graize. “Now what?”
Graize closed his eyes, feeling the present rush past his prophecy with all the strength of a swollen river. “The baby-seer and his guard dog will expect me to slink over the wall nearest the aqueduct like a rat entering a storage bin,” he mused, more to himself than to Hares. “It’s what they would have done in the past; sly little lifters hiding in the shadows, waiting for the sharp-eyed garrison guards to pass them by.” He tipped his head up to scrutinize the sky with a thoughtful expression. “And it’s what I might have done in the past as well,” he allowed. “But we aren’t sly little lifters anymore and we don’t hide in the shadows; we hide in plain view,” he continued, gesturing at the Anavatanon style clothing they’d all donned. He glanced over at the Skirosian mapmaker. “We wait,” he stated.
“For?”
“For a flock of brown birds to sweep down the strait and fill the road.”
“With?”
“Frightened farmers and herders running for the safety of the North-Cattle gate.”
“Ah.” Hares nodded his understanding. “And we run along in their midst?”
“Yes.”
“Soon?” Yal asked plaintively. “Before we drown on land?”
From within the confines of her own hood, Panos nodded. “Soon,” she answered for Graize. “The Volinski fleet is near.” She reached out to catch a raindrop on one fingertip. “It won’t be long.” She glanced at Graize. “The fog remains heavy,” she noted.
He met her gaze with a blank expression of his own. “Yes.”
“It will grow even heavier before it clears,” she continued. “Like soup. As long as it remains heavy in the pot and not in the bowl, all will be well. The bowl needs to maintain some clarity inside its own mind as it gets closer to the pot that birthed it.”
He shrugged. “Outside, inside, inside-out,” he answered in his familiar singsong voice. “It doesn’t matter, the game is begun, the shine isn’t soup, and the pot has a crack in it.”
“The die is cast, then?”
“The die was cast years ago.”
“Can we get closer to the city without being discovered?” Hares asked in an impatient voice.
Graize nodded. “The fog will cover our movements and shield our identities. We can get all the way to the north wall.”
“Then let’s do it,” Danjel said, stepping onto the road at once. “We need to be in place when the time comes.” She glanced up at the sky in disgust. “The wall should grant some small cover from the rain. I hope.”
One by one, they followed her. Graize held back for a moment as a faint sense of impatience and anticipation fluttered past his thoughts. He studied them, but then, as nothing more than the echo of a bird’s wings made itself known, he turned onto the road also, ignoring the lines of fog which swirled about his feet and puddled at the edge of his thoughts. Soup, he thought, was always better in the bowl than out, however heavy it might be.
High above, in the guise of a hunting hawk, Hisar struggled to keep Its own thoughts hidden. Graize wasn’t to notice It, not yet. Its immature lien buzzed anxiously as It watched until he disappeared around a bend. Soon, It told Itself sternly. As Brax had noted, the alarm hadn’t sounded yet; like Graize, Hisar had to wait for the alarm.
Running over Its plan for the hundredth time, It caught an updraft and followed behind Its abayos on silent wings, noting how much heavier the fog had become as Panos had noted, and how heavy it seemed to be becoming within Graize as she’d warned.
They reached the Northern Trisect’s stone wall by dusk. As the long, undulating notes of the Evening Invocation filtered out to them, Danjel glanced over at Graize, but when he returned her questioning expression with a stony look of his own, she continued to make camp with the others.
Night fell. Graize stood staring up at the cloudy sky for a long time, feeling the fog within his mind growing ever thicker. The lien he shared with Hisar burned low in his chest like a hearth full of banked coals. It had increased, bit by bit, the closer he came to Anavatan, but the sky remained clear of the Godling’s presence. Resisting the sudden, almost painful urge to press a hand against his chest, he shoved the sensation to the far recesses of his thoughts. He would not call to It, no matter how painful it became and no matter how clouded his mind became without It. Spinning about, he headed into the tent he shared with Danjel and Yal.
Beyond the northern wall, Anavatan’s Trisects settled into an uneasy sleep. At Incasa-Sarayi, the Prophecy God’s seer-priests maintained a constant seeking, ready to throw their considerable powers behind their God at a moment’s notice, while at Estavia-Sarayi, Sable Company stood ready to send their own God whatever power She required. The guards on the walls patrolled with increased vigilance, their spirits warmed by the presence of Estavia Herself, who stood poised at the headlands of Gol-Beyaz. Her twin swords spun in a constant circle above Her head, lighting up the shoreline with an eerie silver glow, but there was no sign of the enemy, physical or prophetic, throughout the long, stormy night.
The next morning, as the rain continued to drive against the city, Incasa arose from the depths to begin His orchestration of the defense of Anavatan. The vision of a tiny boat filled with prophecy formed in His palm and he set it gently in the waves, watching as the tide caught it up and carried it across the water.
On Estavia-Sarayi’s kitchen wharf, Chamberlain Tanay threw a waterproof cloak over Spar’s shoulders and then caught hold of Jaq’s collar, preventing the dog from following as the youth stepped into the small boat she’d managed to commission for him despite the weather.
As he took his place, he stared up at her, the misty-eyed gaze of a senior seer belying the youthfulness of his features.
“You’ll give Kemal and Yashar my message?” he asked,
his voice falling flat in the fog.
She nodded. “They’ll be in place by the time you need them. And so will I, Delin,” she added, “in case you need me.”
He ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed by the warm sensation her words invoked. As the first note of the Morning Invocations sounded from Havo-Sarayi, he turned his attention to the open water to see the God of Seasonal Storms rise silently from the waves, with skin, hair, and eyes echoing the stormy gray of the cloud-filled sky above. Their eyes met, Spar dipped his head stiffly in thanks, and the boat-master pushed off into the churning waters as Havo breathed onto the waves, causing a thin channel of calm to stretch out before them.
They followed it up the Halic, hugging the western shore until just before the aqueduct, then made the crossing to the Northern Trisect. As the last note of Havo’s Invocation faded and the first note of Oristo’s began, Spar stepped ashore.
One by one, new visions formed in the God of Prophecy’s palm, each one being set upon the waves in turn.
In the Hearth God’s temple, First Abayos-Priest Neclan breathed in the scent of baking bread as she and Oristo passed images of the supplies Anavatan required to withstand an attack by sea to each and every temple chamberlain and cami priest across the city.
In the Tannery Precinct, a youth left her share of a stolen loaf of bread to be divvied up by her crew, including Zeno, then headed out into the rain with a small piece of tile clutched in her fist.
Incasa watched these visions bob up and down in the waves like a line of tiny penteconters, then added new ones to their midst.