by Sam Sykes
Asper pulled free from the cloth a silver pendant: a Phoenix, sacred symbol of Talanas.
“Don’t answer that,” Asper said. “I think everyone expects the same thing: The clouds part, the heavens open up, and something happens, right? Fire rains from the sky, a divine light reaches down, maybe a big bearded guy looks down and smiles on you. Something like that.”
Asper delicately wrapped the chain of the pendant around her wrist, holding the pendant tightly in the palm of her right hand. She studied it, looking over its dull and tarnished metal, noting the jagged tear where one of its wings had been broken off.
“I think I always expected that, too,” she said. “It took me a long time to realize that the gods never send fire or light or anything like that.” She wrapped her fingers around the pendant and closed her eyes. “You pray hard enough … the gods send someone like me.”
Her hand snapped out. Something inside her quivered with anticipation. She pressed the pendant to Careus’s brow as though it were a branding iron. He let out a shuddering breath. Behind her, Haethen let out a cry.
“What are you—”
Asper did not hear her. Asper could not hear her over the sound of her own voice. She began to chant in an old tongue, a tongue she had pored over in dusty texts in lonely libraries on dark nights when her sole company was a dark whisper. The same dark whisper that spoke to her now.
Fraud, Amoch-Tethr whispered.
She spoke louder, raising her voice to fill the room and send the lights of the candles quivering and the beads of sweat trembling upon Careus’s flesh.
You cannot save them, he hissed.
She let her voice rise until her chant was a thing unto itself, a living creature tearing itself out of her throat, reaching out to shake the windows and send the shadows creeping as the candlelight quivered.
And still, it was not enough to silence him.
You know how this will end.
Asper shut her eyes tighter, raised her voice louder. She pressed the symbol of Talanas against Careus’s collarbone. Beneath her hand, the man twitched, then jolted. His mouth craned open in a scream as she pressed the symbol closer against him.
“What’s happening?” Haethen demanded. “What are you doing to him? STOP!”
She said other things, Asper knew. And she knew that only because she could feel Haethen’s hands around her, trying to pull her off. But she steeled herself, leaned into Careus, pressed the holy symbol more violently against him until the jagged edge of its broken wing cut his flesh.
Her chant, the old Talanic tongue, was little more than a scream now, a formless howl into which she poured everything, every breath and every sound and every last bit of her strength.
And when it was done and Haethen pulled her away, she all but collapsed to the floor.
“I knew it,” the Karnerian woman whispered. “I knew I should have listened to the medics. Imperial business should be taken care of by Imperials, but I thought …” She shook her head. “You were supposed to be the best healer in the city.”
“I am,” Asper replied, voice hoarse. She looked up at Haethen through heavy-lidded eyes. “I thought you said you believed.”
“I believe in gods,” Haethen said. “But I know that four hundred men are relying on me to see our mission through to completion. We needed Careus and all you did was …”
“Foescribe.”
A voice, ragged with pain and exhaustion, but not enough to weaken its depth. The two women looked up to the cot to see a body rising on trembling legs, standing sweat-soaked and twitching, looking as though it could barely stand.
But he did.
Speaker Careus stood.
His breath came slow, deep, pained. But with each inhale, the color returned to his flesh. The dark lines of his veins slowly faded. And though his face was long with weariness and his body quaked, he stood, hale and whole and alive.
“Careus.”
Haethen rose and approached him slowly, as though wary of what had brought him back. Or perhaps just leery of the fact that he was totally nude, Asper thought. It didn’t matter now. She had done what she had come to.
“How did …” She looked from the speaker to Asper as the priestess rose to her feet. “What did you do? What magic—”
“No.”
It hurt to speak, let alone to shout, but Asper found the strength to do so, to force fire into her voice and iron into her scowl.
“No magic. No scripture. No prayers.” She stiffened, rising high. “Heaven does not speak through words. I know that now. It speaks through actions, it speaks through miracles.” She narrowed her eyes. “It speaks through me.”
She gestured toward a window, to some far-off place.
“I have come not at your behest, but at the command of a power higher than you could dream of. I have come to deliver you from darkness, and you, in your petty squabbles and the misery you sow, have been blind to it. A storm approaches, one that will raze the ruin you have made of this city and make into meat the people you claim to liberate.”
She regarded the Karnerians coolly.
“And I have come to stop it.”
Haethen stared at her not with the shock she expected, but with a cold scrutiny, as though she could narrow her eyes so thin as to slice through Asper’s words and flesh and see what lurked beneath.
Careus did not stare. Careus staggered forward on shaking legs. Careus loomed over her, staring down at her through eyes that had seen the slaughter of thousands and had never blinked.
And, slowly, dropped to a knee.
“Careus—” Haethen caught herself. “Speaker. It is highly improper to—”
“It came to me swiftly, Foescribe,” Careus replied, his voice black and ragged. “One moment I was standing, speaking, whispering. The next, I was …” He lowered his head, closed his eyes. “I have told myself that I am ready to die in Daeon’s name, all this time, to join the Eternal Army. But when it happened, when I fell … I saw only darkness.
“All that we have done for the Conqueror,” he whispered, “it has not been enough. He has brought us here, to this moment, to show us our true task.”
When Careus looked up at Asper, his eyes were as dark and foreboding as ever. Yet beneath all the sternness and iron of his stare lingered something bright, something Asper had not seen for a very long time.
“Tell me what we must do, prophet,” he said.
The sound of iron was in her ears. And the feel of a hundred eyes was upon her.
She did not turn around as the gates of Fortress Diplomacy slammed shut behind her. Nor did she turn around to see the dozens of soldiers upon its battlements.
Perhaps a priestess, humble and desperate, would want to see them looking at her with all their fear and all their awe.
But a prophet? A prophet did not need to look to know.
And so, without turning around, she turned and walked away, wearing their astonishment like a cape with no end.
It wasn’t until she had rounded the corner that she allowed herself to collapse against a wall. She barely felt the cold stone of the wall through the heat that was roiling through her.
Her left arm was searing with pain, bursting with so much heat she thought her sling would catch fire. Within the broken limb, she could feel it, even if she couldn’t see it. A red eye opened wide and stared at her. A wide smile opened and revealed black teeth. A voice of smoke and flame spoke inside her.
Amoch-Tethr.
Ah, you were cruel to remove us from that place, he purred inside her. I could all but taste their desperation. Their war goes poorly. Their dead grow each day. Fortunate you came along to feed them that lie, hm?
“Not a lie,” she whispered. “Not where it counts.”
Of course not. Your motives are just stainless, aren’t they? You’ll send them to die fighting that lizard you called a friend and praise your deaf gods for the blood spilled. Maybe they’ll erect a statue of you.
“Shut up,” she hissed. “Shut up.”
“No.”
All you need to do is listen.
“No!”
All you need to do … is let me help you.
“NO!”
“No what?”
She opened her eyes. A figure stood over her.
Hands on skinny hips, Scarecrow stared down at Asper with a quirked brow. Behind her, another figure—a squat man in soot-stained leather armor with a thick burlap cloth wrapped around his head—peered at her through a wooden visor.
“Thf fhck fh mfttfr whth hfr?” He muttered something unintelligible.
“Aw, lay off her,” Scarecrow grunted. She grinned down at Asper. “She’s probably havin’ a vision or some shit like that. She’s a prophet now. Or ain’t you heard?”
Asper clenched her teeth, forcing herself to ignore the pain and the voice inside her alike. She staggered to her feet, glaring at Scarecrow through weary eyes.
“How did you know that?”
“We were on a roof nearby,” Scarecrow said. “Heard you screamin’ through the damn windows. The Karnies looked impressed.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Plan went good, I’m bettin’.”
Asper reached into her sling and removed her pendant. Scarecrow’s hand shot out and snatched it from her. She turned the trinket over, revealing a small vial attached to the back with wire, a thick needle sticking out of it. She glanced over it, totally drained but for a few droplets of bright blue liquid.
“I hope this is empty because you stuck him with it,” she grunted, “and not because you drank it.”
“Wfsn’t fhsy pfhsfnfng hfm,” the shrouded man said.
“Yeah, it wasn’t easy sneakin’ the poison into his tea,” Scarecrow said. “Damn place was crawlin’ with scalps. And the couthi said he needs to take the whole thing to be cured.”
“He took it all,” Asper said. “I was there.”
“And no one saw you slip it to him?”
“As you say, I was screaming,” Asper replied. “The Foescribe … I think she might have suspected something.”
“If she does, she ain’t suspectin’ the right thing,” Scarecrow said. She pried the vial off the pendant and tossed the trinket back to Asper. “Far as I can tell, whole plan went off like a rich man in a whorehouse.” She glanced to her shrouded companion. “Hey, Sandal.”
“Thft’s nft mh nhmf.”
“I ain’t care.” She tossed him the vial. “Take this back to the boss. And make sure you ain’t seen.”
“Whftfvhr,” the man grunted, tucking the vial into his armor. “Lfkh yfh frh thf hpfthmf hf stfhlth.”
He stalked off, disappearing around a corner.
“Who’s this boss you’re speaking of?” Asper asked.
“Ain’t important.”
“We just poisoned a man,” Asper replied, glaring at Scarecrow. “He looked into my eyes like he believed everything I was saying.”
“Means you’re better at lyin’ than you thought.”
“It means everything we’re doing is important. If we’re going to do this, I need to know—”
Scarecrow’s hand shot out, clapped over Asper’s mouth. She sneered, revealing yellow teeth, many of them missing.
“Ain’t. Important.” She released Asper, turning to stalk away. “You got few enough friends in this city to go shittin’ on the ones’ll help you. Boss wants to meet you, he’ll meet you. Not before. Besides, I were you? I’d be worryin’ ’bout bigger things.”
She loosed a black chuckle as she turned and walked away.
“You done good with the Karnies. Now let’s see if you can trick the Sainites half as well.”
EIGHT
WHERE WE BURY OURSELVES
Poison, maybe?
Kataria idly scratched an itch on her belly. She sniffed, staring at the sunlight shafting through the fronds of the tree overhead.
Shekune wants to poison the entire city of Cier’Djaal, right? She wouldn’t ever expect someone to poison her. One sip of water from a tainted cup and bwong! She’s dead, the shicts don’t attack, the humans don’t retaliate, no one dies.
She chuckled to herself.
Yeah, it’s just that easy. All you have to do is find where she’s heading through hundreds of miles of desert, sneak through her thousands of warriors without being seen, poison what you hope is her cup, wait until you hope she drinks from it and …
She sighed.
She doesn’t drink from it. She slaughters Cier’Djaal. Humans retaliate. Everyone dies.
She shut her eyes.
Okay, so more straightforward. You call her to a duel. Make this quick. Her pride won’t let her turn it down. You just track her down, again, through hundreds of miles of desert and … She clicked her tongue. She kicks the shit out of you, force-feeds you your own tongue, slaughters Cier’Djaal, humans retaliate, everyone dies.
A hot breeze picked up, sending the fronds of the tree swaying. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the beam of sun that came shooting through.
Okay, so what else is there? Trigger a yiji stampede on her? Drive her into a tulwar ambush? Hit … hit her with a rock? A big rock?
One by one, she ran through the options. One by one, she ran through the scenarios.
She sees the yiji stampede coming a mile away, goes to its source, then kills you. She kills the tulwar, like she’s killed all the other tulwar, then kills you. She finds you trying to lift a big rock, watches you hurl it, like, a foot, then kills you, then laughs at you because what the fuck kind of plan was that?
And one by one, with a weary sigh, she ran through the outcomes.
She slaughters Cier’Djaal. Humans retaliate. Everyone dies.
Everyone dies. Everyone.
That word did not so much echo inside her head as it did embed. It jabbed itself into her skull like a knife, twisted itself around and around.
Everyone dies. Asper dies. Gariath dies. Kwar dies. Sai-Thuwan dies. Denaos dies … well, no, he’d probably survive somehow. Dreadaeleon dies. The thought twisted itself, tore something open inside her. Lenk dies.
If he’s not already dead.
Maybe he is. Maybe they all are. Maybe this is just how things go and you’re fucking stupid for even trying, you stupid piece of shit. Why are you even acting like you can do this? You abandoned Lenk, you let Thua die, you couldn’t even … you can’t …
She clenched her teeth, pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, tried to force hot tears back inside her eyes. Failed.
You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t.
Her heart raced inside her chest. Her breath came out in short, ragged gasps. Her skin split as she dug her nails into her forehead.
Her ears folded themselves over, pressed flat against her head. Everything went quiet. For a long time.
The wind shifted again. The shade returned to her. She opened her ears. Water lapped nearby. She let out a long breath.
Okay?
She nodded to herself.
“Yeah, okay.”
And she got up.
She brushed sand from her breeches, then trudged across the earth toward the edge of the oasis. One of a few hundred that dotted the desert, this one wasn’t so large as to be suitable enough to build a village on like the others were. This one was barely large enough to support a few trees and clusters of scrub grass.
But for their purposes, it would serve. Their yijis certainly didn’t seem to mind. The beasts looked up as Kataria retrieved her boots and bow from the shore, then returned to lazily lapping up mouthfuls of water.
They had been roaming the desert for a few days now. It had begun, in theory, as an attempt to track the movements of Shekune’s army across t
he desert. But shicts did not move like armies should, and as the days dragged on, it became clear that trying to track hunters who knew every side of every dune for four hundred miles was an idiot’s errand.
And so, their search had turned to mostly aimless wandering as Kataria had tried, and failed, to think of something better and Kwar had …
Kataria muttered a curse under her breath. She tugged her boots on, nearly falling over as she did so. She strung her bow over her shoulder, fixed her quiver to her belt, made a quick count of her arrows.
Ten. She turned over the number in her head, clicked her tongue. She looked up toward the crest of a nearby dune. Figure you’ll have to shoot her with … what? Maybe two to make her move? So that’s eight to hunt with tonight.
She sighed, started trudging toward the dune.
Or maybe I’ll need to use the knife today.
She rounded the dune and was greeted by a chill. They had—or rather, she had—built camp in the shade of the dune to protect from the sun. The fire had long since gone out, leaving cold ashes behind. The waterskin lay drained and empty nearby. The desert hare she had killed had gone cold over the fire, barely any of it eaten. The tent lay in a mess of canvas and sticks.
None of this seemed to bother Kwar.
The khoshict was exactly where she had been since last afternoon: the same spot in the same dirt that she had fallen in after another day of riding in numb silence, like any other day. She lay on her back, staring up at the sky through glassy eyes. Just a husk of skin and hair and cloth.
Kwar was gone. Kwar was left in tears drying on the sand, in screams emptied into the night, in long and mournful Howling that disappeared in the dawn. Of the woman Kataria had left Cier’Djaal with, there was nothing left.
“You going to get the fuck up today or what?”
Granted, Kataria wasn’t sure spewing curses at her would help that. But the days were becoming hotter and her ideas were becoming fewer.
And still, Kwar said nothing.
“Because you’ve been lying there for hours and nothing seems to be changing,” Kataria grunted, glancing around the camp. “Fire’s out, tent’s down, food’s not even eaten. Do you think you’re helping?” A snarl crept into her voice. “I’m out there trying to stop a massacre and you’re just—”