“Letting you out of your prison cell during the days and evenings…” Syenna was so far nonplussed by the captain’s arguments. “How is that nefariously diabolical?”
“He didn’t just let me out of my cell. He lent me these clothes so I might move about the town without upsetting anybody,” Aren said insistently. He was dressed in a clean tunic with a fitted leather vest. “Then he rather adamantly insisted I wear this … this … thing, this…”
He gestured toward the scabbard at his hip.
“The blade of the Avatar?” Syenna urged.
“Yes, thank you … This blade of the Avatar on my hip every time I leave the barracks.” Aren huffed. “That Trevan would allow a prisoner as dangerous as me to walk about the city without an escort in my view, is recklessly irresponsible. To allow me to do so armed, I believe is evidence of some serious mental deficiency.”
“So, tell me how you proved him wrong.” Syenna said as she reached into her small leaf basket for another dumpling. “Tell me which farmer you murdered in his bed or what blind beggar you have robbed here in Opalis on behalf of the great Obsidian Cause.”
“None of them!” Aren railed.
“None of them?” Syenna smiled.
“Because … Because…” Aren struggled to speak the words. “Because I … I care about them.”
“You?” Syenna looked at him skeptically. “Oh please!”
“I know! It’s terrible!” Aren said. He pointed toward a clean little shop on the west side of the street and then beckoned her to follow him toward it. “Here, for instance.”
Syenna looked up at the sign over the front of the shop. “The Brothers Tassilo and Toschlog?”
“That’s right. Tassilo is a flax merchant originally from Port Crucible while Toschlog was a tailor originally trained in Aerie. Each of them came to Opalis on business—one from the east and one from the southwest—and by absolute coincidence arrived in Opalis on exactly the same day. Both of them walked into a shop called Petersons Linens, one hoping to sell flax to manufacture cloth, and the other one hoping to buy cloth to manufacture clothes. And it turned out, to their absolute amazement, that the shop was run by twin sisters, one named Alice and the other named Alex. Well, one convenience led to another, and in time each of the men married one of the sisters, and they all decided to rename the shop. As you see, it is something of a private joke.”
“Really?” Syenna said. She looked into the warmly lit storefront nearly twenty feet away. Within, she saw a tall, thin man with curly dark hair who was fitting a new coat on one of the legion warriors of the city. Near him, a lithe woman with long ginger hair was refolding linens and setting them back on the shelf. “That’s a charming story, but I don’t see what it has to do with your being miserable.”
“Well, it’s not all charming,” Aren said as he, too, gazed into the shop. “Tassilo occasionally gets very jealous of his wife, who enjoys working with customers in the shop, and Toschlog has never been able to figure out a way to reliably tell one sister from the other. And the truth is that Alice has trouble defending herself in loud arguments, while her sister can hold her own. So when Tassilo occasionally confronts his wife with his jealous fears, it is often Alex who switches places with Alice to endure the argument, which is exactly the kind of confusion Toschlog dreads the most.”
“I see you know these people very well,” Syenna observed.
“That’s the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“I have never met these people!” Aren complained. “I walked into their shop two days ago. I asked Alex Toschlog about a new pair of trousers. She asked me to return later when her husband returned. That’s all that was said, and that’s the only time I’ve been in the shop. And now, every time I walk past, I wonder if Alice is all right, whether Tassilo has found a way to express his love to his wife, and whether Toschlog has figured out a way to know which wife is which. I care about these people. I know these people, and they have absolutely no idea who I am.”
Syenna’s eyes narrowed. “And me? What do you know about me?”
“Nothing! That’s one of the most frustrating things about all this,” Aren griped. “It’s like I’ll walk up to compete strangers, know all about them in an instant, and yet with you, who has been practically standing next to me since I picked up this cursed, oversize cheese knife, it won’t tell me a thing about you. It’s like the curse is some sort of game, and the sword wants to torment me by not telling me the rules. I’ve certainly thought about just tossing the thing as hard as I can into the nearest trash heap and walking away, but the thought always comes to me that it would have beaten me if I did—and I just cannot let this thing win.”
Syenna tried to keep a smile from her face.
“Sure, laugh at my problems; but it isn’t just with Tassilo and Toschlog,” Aren remonstrated. He began walking northward along Muse Way, indicating the different shops and stalls along the way. “Over there … That huge, bald man with biceps the size of my thighs? That’s Ozen the armorer. He makes the most amazing greaves, but he also makes a point of visiting his mother every fortnight and still regrets not asking the Weber girl to dance with him at the spring dance ten years ago. And dance? How about Felicia, the girl over there, selling the meat skewers at her father’s cart? She used to love to dance until a horse was spooked in the marketplace and trampled her legs. It was painful for her to learn to stand again, and now she walks with an awkward gait, but still she dances in her room where no one can see, just so she can feel the music again.”
“So, what is your problem?” Syenna demanded. “These are people—good people—living their lives as best they know how. Why should their joy make you miserable?”
“Can’t you understand?” Aren pleaded. “I know what’s coming!”
“What do you know?” Syenna demanded. “What is coming?”
“What always comes. What I always bring,” Aren said, his gaze shifting into the distance of his memory. “I have stepped over the bodies of a thousand people just like them. Every conquest, every siege, and every occupation. Their faces were there, and I never saw them. I knew that they had died, but I never gave any thought to what might have died with them. I never thought about their hopes for the next day that would never come, the children who they would never see grow into their own lives, or the comfort that they would never give or receive again. That’s why I am miserable. The city is too great a prize to be left alone. Whether it is the Obsidians or the Norgard or some other city-state, it does not matter. One day and soon, Opalis will be taken by someone like me, and these people will suffer.”
Syenna drew in a breath to speak but thought better of it.
“You see? I’ve hardly lifted a finger, and I’ve already made a ruin of your evening.” Aren shrugged and then allowed a wistful smile to play across his face. “Let me make it up to you. There is this woman who always sets her trade just a little farther down the street. She goes by the name of Marissa Coals, although her last name is actually different. She does the most amazing charcoal sketches of people’s faces. Her life has not been the easiest. I think you will like her.”
As Aren and Syenna moved down the curve of Muse Way, they could see that the evening crowd had pulled back from the side of the street, the sound of gruff shouts rising as they approached. Aren pushed his way to the front of the crowd, Syenna at his heels.
It was Marissa Coals. She was surrounded by a group of large, coarse men. They were generally filthy—caravan drivers by the looks of them, Aren thought—and quite obviously drunk. Normally these rowdies, as they were referred to in Opalis, kept to the taverns outside the walls where society and entertainment were generally more to their liking. But occasionally, a group of rowdies would find their way in through the gates. Usually, there was no trouble, as the townsfolk dealt with them with kindness and respect, and the rowdies most often responded in kind.
But now and then, things could go wrong.
“Has someon
e called for the Legion?” Syenna asked a bystander in the crowd.
“They have been sent for,” the man responded, concern and fear in his eyes. “But we don’t know how long before they arrive.…”
Marissa, tears streaming from her eyes, was being pushed back and forth among the six men. One of them was holding her money purse high above her head, taunting her.
“Come on, Syenna,” Aren said. “We need to break this up.”
“You promised the Legion commander,” Syenna growled at him. “No trouble!”
“I promised not to act against the city or its citizens,” Aren said, trying his sword. “This is for the city.”
Aren stepped forward, his sword swinging loosely in front of him. He called out to the men, using the voice that could reach soldiers in the heat of battle. “The fun is over, lads. Drop the bag. Walk away.”
Most of the rowdies stopped at the sound of his voice and took a step back from the weeping Marissa. The largest of them, however, still held the coin purse and turned slowly to face the approaching Aren.
“Drop the bag.” Aren continued to approach. “Walk away.”
The man had broad shoulders, a thick neck, and a sloping forehead. His nose was wide and appeared to have been broken at least twice.
Aren continue to advance, the sword in his hand. In his mind, he knew he was bluffing. As he got close, he was certain that the sword would tell him some deep secret about his opponent’s childhood, or that he had been unloved, that some trauma in his past had robbed him of his humanity and forced him to be a bully and a thief. Every time Aren had drawn this cursed sword, it had told him something about his enemy that had stayed his hand.
The man looked into Aren’s eyes.
Aren looked into the man’s soul.
All he saw was darkness.
This man is a thief.
This man is lazy.
This man is cruel.
This man will kill.
A vicious smile dawned on Aaron’s face.
This man had earned the edge of the blade in his hand.
The man saw the change in Aren’s face. In a flash, the brute turned and plunged headlong into the crowd, bowling a number of them over as he fled from the street between the buildings, Marissa’s purse still gripped in his hand.
Aren rushed after him. At once, he found himself running in desperate pursuit through the maze of narrow alleys between the closely situated buildings. The man ahead of him was fleeing with desperation, weaving between the homes and shops, trying to shake his pursuit. Frantic, he dropped the purse, but Aren managed to pick it up without missing a step.
The man turned again, his breathing becoming labored. Aren heard the sound and smiled to himself, for he was running his prey to ground and knew it was only a matter of time.
The man ducked into a narrow alleyway between two large buildings.
Aren followed him and was halfway to the end when something appeared that made him slide to a stop.
The end of the alleyway was filled with a strange bluish-purple light. Lightninglike tendrils reached across it from its edges.
Aren could see nothing beyond it. He took a step back.
The wall of roiling blue light suddenly rushed in his direction. Aren turned and started to run back down the alleyway, but the wall of light came toward him with a speed he could not have imagined. In a moment it swept over him.
And then it vanished, leaving the alleyway completely empty.
CHAPTER
19
Dispossessed
Aren was quite suddenly not where he had been.
He was still running, but his surroundings had changed in an instant. The dark alleyway had been replaced by a brilliantly lit hall of white marble, polished floors, and alabaster walls rising to an arched ceiling overhead. The wall of blue light that had overtaken him in the alley was now in front of him. It had washed over Aren and was rushing away from him down the hallway. Confused and disoriented, Aren tried to stop, but his boots slipped on the gleaming surface underfoot. He tried to recover, but it was too late. He lost his footing, stumbled, and then came crashing to a rolling and sliding stop in the middle of the hall.
Painfully, he picked himself up and, per his training, looked around him. The wall of blue light had come to a stop at the end of the hall about thirty feet from where he stood. Aren watched it warily for a few moments. With some trepidation, he turned around, suspicious that it might chase him once more, but it remained where it had come to rest.
Aren slipped his sword back into his scabbard. The hall down which he had just run had two enormous doors set on either side. Beyond those, the hall opened up into a rotunda. At three equally spaced points around the circular room, statues stood against the walls, each one bowing slightly inward as though the overhead dome were supported on their backs and its apex were too low for them to stand. One of the statues was of muscular man, his hand raised in a defiant fist. The second was of a different man, this one with his hand raised palm open as though swearing an oath. The third was a remarkable woman, her hand placed over her heart. In the center of the room, on a raised pedestal, stood eight smaller statues that appeared to be facing outward in a ring, but each of these was covered in black cloth.
Aren stepped up to one of the draped figures. He reached a tentative hand upward toward the shroud.
“Aren Bennis.”
Aren had heard the voice. It was a deep tone, so quiet that he might have questioned hearing it if it had not penetrated his bones. It seemed to come from every direction at once.
“Welcome, Son of Ruin.”
The voice was somewhat louder now and undeniable. Aren stepped cautiously into the rotunda. Beyond the great central statue, he could see a curving hallway between two of the eight statues at the edges of the circular floor. To his left was another hallway, this one wider than the others, with great columns on either side. It was also considerably shorter, ending in polished bronze doors as wide as the hall was long and reaching to the full forty-foot height of the ceiling.
“Welcome, Son of Hope.”
The voice was coming from beyond the bronze doors. Aren stepped carefully down the square hall. The handles were set into the door nearly fifteen feet above his head. Aren considered them for a moment as he stood at the base of the double doors.
“Let us hear you.”
Titans, Aren thought. He had searched around the base of the citadel and, as Trevan had told him, there were no openings in the wall and no apparent way to gain their audience. It was obvious to him that one did not speak to the Titans until they wished to be spoken to. And now that time had come.
Aren pressed a hand against each of the doors and pushed.
The doors swung inward in silence and with surprising ease.
Three Titans sat upon their thrones opposite the door at the end of the great hall. They were colossal beings, dwarfing the captain as he entered, and looking down at him as he stepped into the room before them. Two of them were male in form, muscular and powerful, while the third was a female of exquisite beauty and perfection. Each of them was dressed in beautiful flowing robes, but it was the first of them who held in his hand a towering ornate staff. The filigree ornate carvings along the shaft appeared to move and change on their own. The head of the staff branched into three prongs between which eight spheres of different-colored light revolved around one another in constant motion. The base of the staff, pressed against the floor, pulsed with a bluish-purple light similar to that which encompassed Aren and brought him here.
Aren stood before them in silence. They had brought him here. Given the circumstances, he thought it wise to let them ask him questions before he ventured any of his own.
“Captain Aren Bennis.” It was the voice of the first of the Titans, the male to his left. “You have brought an artifact of the past.…”
“Of despair…” continued the second male Titan.
“Of promise,” finished the female Titan.
&n
bsp; “Why have you brought this destiny to Opalis?” asked the first Titan, the staff turning in his right hand.
Aren spoke to the faces looking down on him. His voice sounded small and insignificant in the expanse of the room. “To learn of the sword, its origins and powers.”
“That is why the loremaster of Etceter has brought you here,” said the female Titan. “That is why the shieldmaiden Syenna brought you here. It does not answer our question.”
Aren licked his dry lips, considering for a moment. “I did not choose to come here; I was forced to come here against my will.”
“You are a skilled warrior,” said the second Titan. “You are both cunning and resourceful. Had you wished it, you could have found some means of escape.”
“Even now,” said the female Titan, “during the time you have been in Opalis, you have been given your freedom during the day, and yet you remain in the city. You have not come to Opalis for the loremaster’s reasons, nor for the shieldmaiden’s reasons. Nor have you truly come against your will. Tell us, Aren Bennis; why have you come?”
Aren furrowed his brow. “Because I needed to know.”
“What did you need to know?” asked the first Titan.
“Why this blade chose someone like me,” Aren said in a voice barely above a whisper, as though he’d rather not have anyone in the room, including himself, hear the words.
“Answers come only to those who are capable of comprehending them,” said the second Titan. “Asking the question is not the same as understanding its underlying truth.”
“However, our need is desperate and requires your immediate enlightenment,” said the third Titan.
The first Titan nodded in agreement as he moved the towering staff into his massive left hand. “Then we are in agreement. Aren Bennis, if you would be so good as to show us this sword that troubles you so, I believe we can help you down the path of enlightenment.”
Aren drew in a breath and turned to look down on the scabbard at his side. He reached across his body to take the hilt of the ancient sword in his right hand. The blade rang slightly as it slipped from the scabbard.
The Sword of Midras Page 17