Aching God

by Mike Shel

  Alas, I cannot trust further details to the posts, given the uncertain times in which we live. Let me close by informing you that this is no half-clever effort to ensnare you in our often dicey affairs without cause: your daughter’s well-being is implicated in these matters.

  I am your obedient servant,

  Pallas Rae, L.S.L.

  Frowning, Lady Hannah leaned forward in her chair. “Trouble?”

  “Trouble,” he echoed, re-reading the last few lines. “She says Agnes is ‘implicated in these matters.’” Auric looked up from the letter and handed it to the baroness, who scanned its cramped contents.

  “So little information, the tease about your daughter…how can this be anything but a ploy to drag you back into the League’s intrigues?”

  “Pallas Rae is a serious woman,” Auric answered, “and no player of games.”

  “Still…”

  “The League is awash in showboats and intriguers. Rae isn’t one of them. She’s expert in matters touching on the Queen’s Court, long may she reign.”

  “Long may she reign,” echoed Hannah. After a pause, she added, “Can you fathom what it might be? Why would the Syraeic League want you back? And what does she mean, ‘late’ the Third Lictor?”

  “Rae speaks of my consulting on something of import. Perhaps it’s nothing more than that.” A rumble of nausea grew in his gut and he felt a sudden catch in his throat as images from the nightmare came rushing back. “Or perhaps it concerns the Djao,” he whispered. In the silence that hung between them, Auric stared at the desk’s rich grain and the baroness looked away, corralling a stray strand of hair at her brow. She knew enough of Auric’s last foray into the Barrowlands to surmise its impact on him.

  “Have you had recent contact with Agnes?”

  “No, no. I shared some concerns about the risks she takes in a letter I wrote six months ago. She sent me a fuming response that might as well have had teeth, accusing me of condescension and of having no confidence in her skills. I apologized in three subsequent letters, but she hasn’t responded. Her letter closed with angry words about her mother and my complicity…”

  Marta’s suicide was more than four years past, but the wound was still fresh for Auric. Their children, Agnes and Tomas, had both joined the Syraeic League, encouraged in no small part by Auric’s bedtime tales of adventure. When Tomas was killed raiding some old Busker king’s tomb in Bannerbraeke, Marta was inconsolable. She hung herself a month later, while Auric was withdrawn into his own grief.

  Arlan arrived with the cider, serving it unobtrusively before leaving without a sound. Hannah smiled as he left the room and spoke as the door closed. “What will you do?”

  Another pause. He took a sip of the sweet beverage before answering her.

  “Head out for Boudun. Nothing else to be done. If the matter concerns Agnes I must help however I can.” He rose from his seat, Lady Hannah following suit, her cider untouched. “Your note mentioned speaking to me on another matter?”

  She shook her head. “Ah, a local question, nothing that can’t keep until you return. Let me send Belech with you. The highway to Boudun isn’t safe for solitary travelers.”

  Auric smiled, touched by her concern. “I’ll be riding Glutton,” he responded. “That great beast frightens both squirrels and petty bandits, when viewed from the right angle at least.”

  “Nonetheless, Belech’s coming with you. And an extra mount from my stables as a precaution against unforeseen complications.”

  Auric saw there was no arguing the first. The look on Hannah’s face spoke plainly of her determination.

  “My lady, it’s a two-day ride across flat country on a highway, much of it paved. An extra mount is more trouble than it’s worth. I thank you for Belech’s company, though I’m sure I’ll have greater need for his songs than his mace.”

  Lady Hannah nodded. “Very well, Sir Auric,” she said. She strode around the desk and brushed something from his shoulder, a gentle, intimate gesture that filled him with a pleasant warmth. “I’ll see to it Belech is ready to leave within the hour.”

  Auric bowed but felt the warmth receding, again aware of a gnawing anxiety growing in his gut. Given the worrisome stories coming from the direction of the Queen’s Court, he felt no pleasure at the prospect of entering the capital, let alone walking the Citadel’s halls again. And his father’s words from the dream seemed to assail him. You stink of piss, boy! Three years of untroubled sleep, disturbed by this nightmare the very morning a summons to Boudun and the Citadel arrived? Was it a hateful premonition?

  Lady Hannah guided him out to the foyer, where Arlan met them and opened the great door for his departure. The sun’s rays shone down on the well-kept lawns of Dyrekeep and late summer birdsong danced in the air, as if to reassure him.

  “Safe journey, Sir Auric,” she said, touching two fingers to forehead and mouth in a salute to the goddess Belu. “Bring yourself back unharmed. Daurhim and its baroness still have need of you.”

  The double meaning wasn’t lost on Auric as he walked back to his home. He was a fool to have ended their affair. Perhaps when he returned he would seek to rekindle the relationship. With the outside world in disarray, he should embrace happiness wherever he could find it. Yes, he liked that phrase: embrace happiness. Upon his return, he would.

  But another rush of anxiety washed over him, and it seemed his dead father would have the final word:

  So certain you’ll return, boy?

  2

  Travelers

  Hanouer gathered what Auric needed for the journey while Pala filled one of his saddlebags with food and drink for two men. Auric considered leaving behind his long-disused armor and sword, entertaining an irrational notion that not bringing the gear might somehow eliminate any possible need of them. He dismissed this superstitious nonsense and belted on the sheathed blade, stowing the leather cuirass with his other belongings for the trip. Glutton accepted the burdens with a single snorted protest. Margaret trotted at Auric’s side as the final preparations were made, looking more hangdog than usual and emitting a few sullen whines.

  “I’m sorry, you’re not coming, Margaret,” he said in a soft voice, smiling down at her. “Moping won’t change that. Hanouer and Pala will spoil you while I’m gone. The city’s no place for a country hound like you.”

  She wagged her shaggy tail, continuing to follow him.

  Auric was struck by how natural it felt to have a blade at his side again. The sword had hung over his mantel for three full years, unnecessary in peaceful Daurhim, but its presence now felt comfortable, correct. He had shaken off the unease brought on by the nightmare and the sudden demand for his attendance at the Citadel in Boudun. Part of him, he recognized with a bit of surprise, was ready for a change of scenery, if only for a short while.

  Auric had to send Margaret back three times before he reached Dyrekeep. Pala finally tempted her with some roasted pork that would have been his dinner that night.

  “Try not to let the place burn to the ground,” Auric called with a smile and a wave as he finally rode off to meet Belech.

  “You said nothing of the larder…or sleeping in the master bedroom!” Hanouer called back.

  Belech wore a little boy’s grin when Auric arrived, bursting with apparent enthusiasm for the journey. The big man wore rough riding clothes with his belongings bundled behind him, mounted atop a muscular, dirty white specimen the old soldier called Lugo. Hanging from the saddle was Belech’s wicked flanged mace, the weapon Auric had heard the man wax rhapsodic about when deep in his cups.

  The baroness saw the two of them off. Auric noted her efforts to mask her concern. It was impossible for him to ignore how much this moment echoed the many farewells Marta had given him when leaving for some dubious endeavor for the Syraeic League. But unlike long lost Marta, Hannah Dyre gave a last wave and returned to her manor home while
they still had the small castle in their sights, well before the two men disappeared over the horizon.

  Lugo matched Glutton’s slower pace with reluctance. Lady Hannah left Auric with the task of explaining the details of the journey to Belech, which he did as they reached the outskirts of Daurhim and joined the highway heading east to Boudun. Belech nodded as he listened, then touched two fingers to forehead and lips, every bit the baroness’s man, down to his devotion to Belu.

  “I’ll pray for your daughter’s welfare, and that the Syraeic League’s need of you is simply discharged.” He patted Lugo’s flank. The stallion shook its great head with pleasure.

  Auric steered their conversation to the man’s years in the queen’s northern armies, a topic sure to keep him going for hours. Belech regaled him with tales of the campaigns to put down the nomad tribes, emboldened by the decades-long disruption of order across Hanifax and its empire. Belech was a natural-born dramatist, punctuating his retellings with theatrical gestures, vividly detailing every twist and turn of the dozens of battles he had survived as a member of the Pearly Regiment.

  Traffic on the highway was remarkably sparse for late summer, given that it served as a major overland artery from Boudun to Aulkirk and Kilkirk in the north. The first day they passed only two caravans and five small groups of travelers from the capital. Auric felt no need to strike up conversations with passersby, and Belech followed his lead, suppressing his own genial nature and offering no more than polite nods to those headed westward. Eating in their saddles and stopping only briefly to water their mounts, the two covered twenty-five miles the first uneventful day, more than half the distance to Boudun. They avoided the roadside taverns, taking advantage of the fine summer night, and made camp in a copse of trees not far off the highway, doubtless used countless times before by travelers. They warmed themselves under the stars with a small campfire, and when Auric woke the next morning he found himself thanking the gods for a sound sleep, until Belech made a query over breakfast.

  “Forgive me for prying, my lord,” he began tentatively, stirring the embers of their fire with a stick while he gnawed on a piece of buttered bread. “But who is Lenda?”

  Was, thought Auric. He considered pushing the question aside, but decided the man, as absent of malice as any he had ever met, deserved more.

  “First, I’d prefer if you’d call me Auric. No more of this ‘my lord’ business.”

  Belech, looking solemn, nodded.

  “Lenda Hathspry. She was the daughter of a widowed herbalist in Leatham. Her mother passed on her wisdom to her daughter, but when she died, that brave girl sailed across the Blue Straits to Boudun rather than take over her mother’s shop. She presented herself at the grand hall of the Syraeic League, the Citadel, offering her services to the resident alchemists. Only fifteen years old. The alchemists worked her like a mule for months, until a young League swordsman took her under his wing. He taught her how to use a blade, though she was such a natural she was soon dancing circles around him with her rapier.”

  “You were the swordsman,” offered Belech.

  “Aye. I was about seven years her senior, a full agent of the League for half of that. A little cocky, but serving as mentor to Lenda cured me of most of my recklessness. Watching the way she leapt at danger was sobering. I became more cautious and thoughtful in my own actions. At that time, I was courting the woman who would become my wife. Seeing Lenda come close to death on a dozen occasions gave me a new appreciation for the worry my own risk taking engendered in the people who cared for me. Being a field agent of the League is a chancy proposition at the best of times, but one needn’t be completely foolhardy.”

  Belech nodded. Auric tossed a half-eaten crust of bread into the glowing embers and watched it blacken before continuing.

  “Lenda was quick, agile. She had feline reflexes. And the way she used that rapier—Marcator’s oath!—you’d think you were witnessing a performance of the queen’s ballet. Next to her I looked like some primitive swinging a club.”

  “The use of a club—or mace,” Belech said with mock injury, “can be a thing of beauty as well, Sir Auric.”

  “Of course, you’re right, Belech,” Auric smiled. “And drop the ‘Sir’ as well. Believe me when I say there’s far less to that title than you think.”

  “Granted, friend. Plain Auric it is.” The big man stood up and started gathering their belongings. Auric, meanwhile, doused their fire and saddled the horses. When they were mounted and again on their way, Belech sang a comic song, The Greedy Pikeman. It told the tale of a soldier who packed a burlap bag so full of loot after sacking a city that the fabric tore. Bits of his precious wealth trickled out of the tear in the burlap one by one until he reached his home, the bag empty. Auric tried to let Belech’s rich voice wipe away the sadness he felt after speaking of Lenda. But tendrils of the nightmare tickled at his thoughts, filling him with a dreadful certainty that it was to be a malignant passenger on his journey.

  The first five miles of their morning trek were through grassy flatlands before more clusters of trees began to appear. Soon the road entered a southern stretch of the Forest of Merrick. Further north the forest had become notorious as a hideaway for outlaws and army deserters. To Auric’s knowledge, that lawless plague hadn’t yet reached this far south, but it paid to stay alert. The highway’s pavement was still in fair shape, but the forest was slowly encroaching on the man-made path, much of it covered with a mat of leaves fallen last autumn, muffling the horses’ tread. The kingdom’s fine roads were once envied around the Cradle Sea, but the work of the Highway Wardens had become as sporadic and haphazard as many other functions of government with the inexorable dissolution of authority.

  And we’re riding into the core of the rot. Queen Geneviva, Imperatrix and monarch, long may she reign. The first forty years of her rule were a golden age, but those since…

  Auric’s thoughts were arrested by Belech, who reined in Lugo, listening. Auric halted Glutton and kept quiet, trusting his companion’s senses. “Something off the road, in the thickets to the north,” Belech whispered, reaching down for his mace.

  For a moment, nothing. Then Auric heard it too: a low, drawn-out moan, someone scraping in dirt and dried underbrush. Auric dismounted and drew his long blade, holding it horizontally before him, edge facing forward. A cry of pain and prayer startled both men and animals.

  “Great Mother Belu!”

  Belech was off Lugo and plowing into the brush before Auric could move. He whispered a curse and followed the big man into the thickets, old muscle memory taking over. Aid your comrades without hesitation.

  They came to a small clearing past bushes and trees. At its north edge sat a young woman beside a guttering campfire. She was dressed in tawny home-spun clothes, a satchel of belongings spilled out at her side. She was petite, with mousy brown hair cut severely short, her skin pale and smudged with dirt. She clutched a blood-stained knife in her left hand and with the right held onto a bloody shin, the pant leg torn. Near her lay a mass of matted fur, claws, and teeth, with more blood splashed across the ground.

  “How badly are you injured?” asked Belech as he knelt next to the woman, who gritted her teeth.

  “Not sure,” she grunted. “I thought their reputation was exaggerated. Thought I might make a friend with a strip of jerky…”

  Auric and Belech exchanged looks of bewilderment. After a brief inspection, Auric identified the dead creature as an euvorix, a burrowing mammal notorious for its territorial ferocity.

  “Alas, friend, as you’ve found, their reputation for aggression isn’t overstated.” Auric retrieved a strip of leather from Glutton and applied it as a tourniquet above the wound.

  “Were you clawed or bitten?”

  “Both, I think,” she said through another scowl of pain. “I held out the jerky and it charged me. I tripped over a tree root and it was on top of me. It happened
rather quickly.”

  Auric’s eyes darted about the surrounding underbrush. He pulled greenery from three different clumps of weedy growth. “The herbalists call it Bishop’s Blend,” he said, putting the weeds in her mouth. “Chew them and swallow the juices, then spit out the rest. It’ll slow the poison.”

  And thank Lenda Hathspry for passing on that knowledge to me.

  “Poison?” she queried, brow furrowing as she chewed the bitter plant matter.

  “How long ago were you bitten?” asked Belech, lifting her hand to examine the wound more closely.

  “I’m not sure,” she answered, sweat beading on her furrowed brow. “I’ve been in and out of things a bit since I managed to kill the poor beast.”

  Belech inspected the carcass more closely, putting a hand to its fleshy underbelly. “The animal’s not yet cold,” observed Belech, concern plain on his face. “Can’t have been too long ago.”

  At that moment, Auric spied the pale blue cloth with crimson stains the woman held in her hand to help staunch the flow of blood.

  “Is that a priestly cap?” Auric asked, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. “Are you a priest of Belu?”

  “I have that privilege.”

  “Gods!” exclaimed Belech. “Save us from your clergy!”

  Auric crouched down by the injured woman, fighting the urge to shout.

  “Then by the Six Floating Virgins, heal yourself!”

  The woman offered a lopsided smile, infectious and endearing despite the circumstances, and strangely familiar to Auric. “This I would have done, friend. However, I’ve taken a strict vow of expiation. I can’t employ the goddess’s healing on myself while a penitent.”

  “The beast’s venom is slow, but it’s deadly,” said Belech, his face grave. “You’ll die if you don’t use the Great Mother’s gifts.”