Heretic's Faith

by Randall N Bills

  “Though many Clans denigrate Clan Ghost Bear for what it is becoming, it has come closer to achieving the Founder’s vision than any other. The Bears rule a combined state, which is the most stable and powerful of any of the occupation zones, and rivals even the Great Houses. Yet they, too, have failed to reach the true, full vision the Founder put forth so many centuries ago.”

  Though in his peripheral vision he could sense the abbess and her accompanying acolytes locked into immobility at the unfolding display, the world fell away as he used the moment to finally flay away any last objections and open the khan’s eyes. Though doing so in front of the abbess was a calculated risk, he believed the very public airing of this dirty secret, which the Clans tried so hard to ignore, might be the final leverage needed to move the khan into a new direction.

  “And when you fail?” he continued, voice growing husky at such a long speech for a voice unaccustomed to much speaking. “When you are born and bred across centuries, when an entire society is based upon a single goal and you fail . . . all the Clans must eventually come to grips with this single imperative. “

  “The . . . Founder . . . failed.” He spoke each word as though they were death blows delivered by a particle projector cannon.

  “Does it mean the Clans have no role to play in the future? Neg. We Nova Cats, better than any Clan, know the future is malleable and you must flow with the currents or be devoured, as proven by the broken carcasses of fallen Clans.

  “Yet the Clans must face this failure and learn to deal with it. The Ghost Bears are doing it. Clan Sea Fox, perhaps the only other Clan to match us for the ease with which they move with the currents, is also making the transition to this new reality. The other Clans can and will deal with it in their own ways as well, or they will perish, rotted and destroyed from within. New philosophies akin to the Warden-Crusader debates will arise. New sects will emerge. And new ways of dealing with the genetics program.”

  He paused to provide the appropriate emphasis for his next words.

  “A program that, like the Founder, failed.”

  Once again, silence. Though this time Khan Ajax’s eyes did not quite bulge, he still seemed frantic, like an animal forced back on its haunches and on the verge of fleeing for safety.

  “There is no safety in our current state,” he spoke, causing Ajax to jerk as though the old man drew the words from his mind. He hated using such deceptive tactics with his khan—years of observations allowed him to make an excellent guess as to his khan’s thoughts—but as the abbess said, there was a time for decisive actions. And this was one.

  “The Dragon has been weakened and, though it will grow strong again, it cannot be the ally it once was for us. An ally we must have if we are to survive into the future. We must look for allies elsewhere. Allies where we least expect.”

  Though Ajax’s eyes did not wander, they twitched momentarily towards the abbess.

  “We must find a new path for our Clan. A new way of protection.” The old man read his khan like a piece of rice paper, tested the air for the right moment, and forged into the minutiae Ajax avoided with distaste.

  “The abbess’ Order has been attempting to create a new Budojin Neophyte, through extreme new training measures. Neophytes that, in addition to being expert warriors, can under special circumstances think outside of human parameters. That can make deductions and leaps of logic outside regular human experience. That can see what others cannot. Is this not what we Nova Cats strive for as well? To see what others cannot? Visions? Quiaff?”

  “Aff,” the old man forged on, answering his own question, determined to simply bowl over any final objections. “And yet they, too, have ultimately failed in their mission. Though they believe their training to be on the right track, it is the blood of those they train that fails. Our scientists have the capability to produce new blood. And from a combination of this new training and new blood, a new type of warrior will emerge. One that can serve both the Nova Cats and the Order.”

  “A new phenotype,” Khan Drummond finally responded quietly, resignation singing in his voice. “A new caste.”

  “Perhaps more a new subcaste,” the old man responded, trying to mollify. “But aff, my Khan. A way to move forward. A new way. The only way.”

  Ajax bowed his head momentarily before meeting the old man’s eyes with a hint of his former fiery denial. “And this blood. This first blood?”

  For once this night the old man felt on the defensive, as the culmination of what might be his life’s work—a culmination of which he was not even aware until presented with the abbess’ horrible plans—tunneled down to this single moment in time.

  They both knew what was proposed. They had both read the endless bytes of information presented by the Order. The computer modeling and years of research showed those within Clan Nova Cat who demonstrated more talent for visions than any others, those who contained the genetic makeup the Order felt was necessary to begin such training. To survive such training. In effect, these individuals were showing latent talent. Talent simply waiting for the proper training to bloom into . . . something new.

  A mystic caste.

  And of all the people within Clan Nova Cat, the modeling showed a single person to perfectly fit the genetic mold, to contain more latent potential than any other.

  Him.

  Silence stretched until the universe seemed to bleed from the strain of nothingness. The khan’s eyes hammered into his own. You will force me to say it, won’t you, my Khan? So shaken, his thoughts fell to the vulgarity of his youth in the use of contractions. Finally giving in, knowing his khan felt pushed to the brink and must push back, he parted dry-as-dust lips and spoke the words.

  “The blood must come from me.”

  The khan nodded, as though accepting an offered prize. They knew each other well enough for the khan to realize the pain such an admission must cost. For so many years he’d denied his blood. But to find his blood was what might save his Clan from oblivion . . . the bitter irony made him want to weep.

  “You will never wear a Bloodname,” Ajax spoke, his words steel-hard to instantly cut away all objections.

  Though never holding such aspirations, and with no real claim to a Bloodname—no claim to a matrilineal line to one of the original eight hundred Bloodname—he was Clansman enough for such words to burn. Yet he found hope in knowing his khan was finally accepting the necessity of a new reality.

  “And no mystic will ever wear a Bloodname,” Ajax continued, slashing into the old man’s already wounded psyche.

  “No!” he responded, actually rising halfway out of his chair in protest. “Please do not do this. You have read the material. You know what they will be forced to endure in their training. What they will endure all their lives. What we will ask of them. Do not deny this to them as well. They will be Clan warriors!”

  Ajax stood, as though he were an avatar representing the entire Clan, voice emphatic and face the stone of determination. “It is time for my own decisiveness. You talk about new ways, as though it is such a simple thing to cast aside the traditions of centuries. Then this, too, will be cast aside. If your blood is so precious, then it will be used in every mystic sibko . . . as genemother. You have no right to a Bloodname and, through you, no mystic will ever have that right. If this mystic caste is so needed, if the visions you speak of must have outlet, as the Nova Cat khans before me, then so be it. I accept. But all mystics will know their place.

  “You have denied your blood. But you say it is through your blood we can find salvation. Then a thousand years from now, the blood you denied will fill the galaxy and your soul shall know a thousand-thousand lives . . . and deaths. So . . . be . . . it.

  “Do I have your rede, Oathmaster?”

  The silence once more boomed, as his heart thudded in his chest until it threatened to crack open, spewing a torrent of blood across the chamber. His chamber. His blood. His calling.

  A hundred-year lifetime. A lifetime drawing to a c
lose, and the opening of a horrific future. Do I consign generations to my blood and the pain they must endure?

  He thought of the door through which he’d come to make this abhorrent but unavoidable commitment. Despite the heaviness of the responsibility he carried, the old man almost smiled. Hubris. The door depicted hubris, both personal and universal. The irony was not lost on him.

  There really was no choice. There never was. Despite this calling of his blood, he’d spent too long becoming one with his Clan. He was a Nova Cat, and nothing and no one would stand in the way of the Clan. As much as a new way was needed, some ways could not change.

  All for the Clan.

  He nodded, accepting the pain of a future that would shortly kill him, sealing the future of the Clan. “I, Minoru Nova Cat, once known as Minoru Kurita, do accept this rede.”

  “Seyla,” they both said in unison.

  31

  Felldowns, Frankalia

  Addicks, Prefecture III

  The Republic of the Sphere

  30 December 3136

  “You have not found him, quiaff?” Kisho spoke softly from a sitting position.

  The tall, black-skinned Spirit Cat stared hard at Kisho before slowly responding. “Aff. Galaxy Co . . . my . . . our . . . forces,” he stumbled, unused to the rapid change of circumstances, “have scoured every inch of the region within five kilometers. It is as though nothing ever existed here.”

  The sound of activity around Kisho continued to swell: numerous booted feet scraping stone, pant legs whispering of ballistic cloth; heavy cough of internal combustion engines of the two vehicles that managed to make it this far into the Felldowns; servos whining and the heavy tread of ’Mech feet that almost swayed them with their impact, bouncing stones and threatening to send another avalanche down the collapsed path, burying his Wendigo once and for all—how appropriate.

  To bury the past.

  The hot sun scalded, burning with carelessness. An itch that grew with each moment squirmed across his skin and scalp, until he thought he might go mad from the sensation.

  Blood. Kev’s blood. Dried and caking. Baking. Into me.

  How appropriate. Kisho slowly closed and reopened his eyes, red flecks of dead life cracking off his eyelids and floating down, speckling the ground with dried blood-tears. A mantle seemed to coalesce around him and settle on his shoulders—a mantle of blood. Through Kev’s blood he could also feel Hisa and Tanaka’s rivers of life smearing and clotting across his skin as well, soaking in.

  The understanding was soaking in.

  Kisho slowly swiveled thousand-year-old eyes to the warrior, only to find a struggle in muscle, eyes, and cant of head. “What is your name?”

  “Star Captain Franks.”

  “You doubt my telling of events. You wonder if I have assassinated your leader.” Not questions. Statements.

  The other man gaped for a moment. Then closed his mouth, swallowed several times with eyes that squirmed to retreat, then responded. “I have not spoken it.”

  “Of course you have. Just not with your lips.”

  The other man furrowed his forehead, as though trying to understand that statement.

  “And I have killed him.”

  The other man jerked at his words, jumping back slightly, then dropping into a fighting stance, surprise and shock warring with animal fury. “What?!”

  Kisho’s eyes pounded into the Star captain until the other man relaxed into a loose crouch, then finally stood aright again. His fluttering eyelids were the last trace of his frozen flight. “I do not know who has killed him”—though I can now begin to guess; how could I have been so stupid?—“but death walks behind me, like a parent to a child, a specter to a warrior. All who come near me suffer. I did not pull the trigger, but I brought death to Galaxy Commander Rosse as surely as though I placed his head in the assassin’s sights.”

  The words ground out like tectonic plates shifting in their inexorable drive to create a world anew. Each word, delivered in dead tones, struck with an almost physical force, until Star Captain Franks took a slight step back.

  Kisho saw the superstition rise to the surface in Franks, saw his appraisal of the blood-smeared mess that sat before him, saw the aura of death and violence strip away the warrior’s anger and shock, until only one thing remained.

  Belief. Belief infused the man’s face.

  Bitterness poured a torrent of blackness into Kisho, but found no purchase. He was an empty, smoothbored husk. So quickly he believes. Believes in me. That I am something that has come to destroy him . . . or save him. Kisho had been crafted from decanting to believe, his every word and deed designed to instill such belief, but he had found only emptiness. And yet this warrior believes without knowing anything about me.

  Why?

  The word vibrated with such urgency, such need, it seemed a universe unto itself.

  Then, somehow, from the void at the bottom of the pit to which Kisho had descended, he sensed something from above. Something waiting. For him. His destiny resting on the simple ability to understand. Or . . .

  . . . to accept. Accept.

  The seedling within began to flourish.

  Twenty drum beats echoed across the bruised and broken landscape, now hidden by night’s black grip.

  Sitting in the same position for almost half a day, Kisho tensed muscles and then released to keep spasms at bay. The acrid smoke and heat of the blazing fire came in waves, as the night wind picked up and brought flashes of heat and cold in intermittent cycles. The small gathering of Nova Cat and Spirit Cat warriors looked as though they huddled around the light, keeping the nightmares from the day at bay.

  A slow turn of his head brought the small throng into plain, sharp view, their sweat-streaked faces, bloodied bandages, and combat clothing stark testament of the day’s events. Bone-deep regret seeped in at the missing warriors on both sides.

  No ceremonial leathers. No white robes or brass instruments for the Ritual of Battle. A slow smile lifted the corners of his lips imperceptibly. Not the ironic twist his face was so accustomed to wearing, but a softer, more knowing smile. A smile that spoke of internal acceptance . . . or at least the attempt.

  Why have a Ritual of Battle, when this battle is done? He glanced towards the makeshift drums and found an earnest Spirit Cat warrior, empty fuel drum and wrench in hand. The smile ghosted larger.

  You called them fallen, Kisho, yet they follow the forms with as much earnestness as any Nova Cat, regardless of how they might have drifted. Twenty drumbeats for the twenty original Clans created by The Founder. Even here, on this far-off world, decades separated from us, in the midst of their near annihilation at my own hand . . . and they make do with what they have—belief.

  In faith.

  Star Captain Franks detached from the main half circle of warriors and stepped forward, then knelt. As with the others, dirt and sweat still streaked his face with careless disregard, yet his eyes shone with fierceness, determination.

  “Mystic. You declared a Trial of Annihilation against Galaxy Commander Rosse and all those who would support him.”

  Only the voracious fire and the wheel of stars overhead initially gave notice to his words. Kisho waited some time before responding, carefully considering every answer he might give.

  “Aff.” Keep it simple.

  The other man nodded and straightened even further, as though preparing to ask a more difficult question and readying himself for the answer. “We supported our Galaxy commander, Mystic. Do we not fall under the rules of the Trial?”

  Another pause, as Kisho once more mulled over an answer. Yet, despite the importance of the situation, his mind was drawn into consideration of two other questions. Who killed Kev, Tanaka, and Hisa (the hurt had lessened a bit), and what is this new inner understanding?

  First, the murders. Who had access to all three of them? He scorched with shame over the obviousness of the connection linking Tanaka and Hisa: the ISF. Small detachments of ISF were ass
igned to each Dragon’s Fury unit, placing them in a position to murder Tanaka and then Hisa. Though it made no sense—the Nova Cats were there to forward the aims of the Fury and, ultimately, House Kurita—the memory of the Cats being caught in internal Combine machinations before stung deeply, felt all too real. For whatever reason, the ISF must have killed them, to pull away Nova Cat support from Warlord Tormark. To make her fail at resurrecting the Dieron Military District? The questions were never ending.

  But for Kev? How could the ISF possibly have followed them through such erratic jumps? How could they know the fighting would occur in these wastelands, far from any population centers?

  And the other overarching question; what was this strange, new understanding slowly infusing Kisho and what did it mean for the future?

  Smoke, along with the human stench of fear, blood, and sweat, and the dryness of the downs snagged his attention back to the moment. He met the unflinching gaze of Franks. The man’s entire carriage spoke of supreme acceptance. He was simply waiting to know what the mystic would have of him.

  As the endless stream of questions continued to batter for attention, nightmares fluttered for a moment. Images of an endless sword, of dragons and spirit cats eating nova cats, and slowly, softly, looking at Franks, he knew. Not with the hammer blows of his previous epiphanies, the strange visions that seemed to blanket out all sensations with their proclamations, but from a soft voice within.