“Such is the way my brother has chosen to discipline his children,” Ashhur said softly. “It is not my responsibility to stop him, as I have told you.”
Pulling at his hair, Jacob kicked Uther’s corpse and began to pace. Roland felt ill at ease. His master seemed unstable, ready to snap—sorrowful one moment, raging the next. He had never seen Jacob act in such a way. It scared him almost more than the ritual performed by Uther.
Finally, it seemed Jacob could stay silent no longer.
“They are people,” he said. “They aren’t toys! They aren’t playthings for you and Karak to divvy up like children. You act as if you care for my sorrow. You tell me to love the one lost. What of the delta? What of those people? Their families will wail. Their children will scream. You will sit idly by and watch death befall hundreds, if not thousands, and for what? In order to not interfere? To prove that your way is better in this sick little game you two brothers play? What will it take, Ashhur? What will it take to convince you that Karak will not stop until your people are crushed, and the nation of Neldar spans all the way from the east to the west?”
Coming to the end of his rant, Jacob stood there, arms shaking, body trembling, as his god stared into his eyes in silence. If Jacob was afraid, he did not show it. At last, Ashhur looked away, his gaze turning skyward. Jacob noticed the gesture, and his face reddened.
“Do not look to her for answers, my Lord.”
“I must,” the deity whispered. His head lowered, and he looked so uncertain that Roland thought the world itself might begin to crumble. “I bid you good evening, Jacob Eveningstar. You have given me much to think over. I will tell you of my decision come morning.”
Without another word, Ashhur strode up to Jacob, held him at arm’s length for a moment, and then bent down and touched Uther Crestwell’s corpse. It caught flame just as Brienna’s had, burning away into the night, leaving behind little sign that the man ever existed. After that was finished, he turned and silently loped back to the Sanctuary, stepping over the wall in the process. When he disappeared through the great door, it closed behind him. An unnatural silence fell over the land. It was so complete that even the insects seemed to have ceased their nightly song.
“Master,” Roland said, his voice shaking, “what’s going to happen?”
“He’ll come around,” Jacob replied, not turning to look at him. “No matter what he says, he will not stand idly by watching the slaughter of innocents.”
“And…and if he doesn’t?” asked Roland.
Jacob glared at him.
“He will,” said the First Man. “The future of this land depends on it.”
Jacob offered one last glance to the spot where Brienna’s body had been, and he began to walk away. Roland called after him, but Jacob did not respond.
When he was gone, Roland stood alone, shivering despite the warmth of the evening. His mind was a jumble of contradictions, as everything he had witnessed over the last few months came to a head in his thoughts. When the torches began to burn out, one by one, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, expecting to see Jacob but finding Azariah instead. The Warden seemed exhausted, and his eyes were deep wells of concern. He handed forth a jug, which Roland took and sipped from. His stomach began to cramp as the wine reached his belly, but he ignored it. When he finished, he handed the jug back, feeling very, very tired.
“What happened, Roland?” Azariah asked. “Where is Jacob? Is he well?”
Roland opened his mouth, closed it. He thought of the look on Jacob’s face as he stared down Ashhur, unafraid, unrelenting. He shook his head, looked to Celestia’s star, which seemed to have dimmed in the nighttime sky.
“I don’t know.”
CHAPTER
35
There were people everywhere, a bustle of activity that rivaled the chaos Patrick had witnessed the one and only time he’d visited the Temple of the Flesh with Rachida. Ah, Rachida. He hadn’t seen her since she’d departed with her husband for the southern islands. He would do anything to spend just one more moment with her, alone, naked, ravenous.…
“Patrick!” Deacon shouted. “Patrick, stop daydreaming! We need to get these people to safety.”
He sighed and tried to straighten his deformed spine so he could see over the gaggle of people—the very old, the women, and the children—standing in front of him. He caught a fleeting glance of Deacon, who was manning the other side of the temple threshold beneath the sweltering late afternoon sun, his cheeks flushed as he handed out pillows, blankets, and sacks of food to those who were heading inside.
“I’m not daydreaming,” he shouted back.
“Well, your line is growing. I don’t want people to skip your line for mine. Our supplies are divided equally. So hurry up!”
Patrick grunted, forced himself to look presentable, and handed a bundle of goods to a young woman wearing a drab gray dress. She looked haggard, with two small children clinging to her sides, and when Patrick smiled his hideous, uneven smile, he could tell she was trying her best not to appear revolted.
“Name?” he asked.
“Matilda Brownstone,” she replied.
He jotted her name on the massive roll of parchment that sat on the desk beside him and ushered her along.
“Thank you, kind sir,” she said, and then curtseyed and walked through the temple gates. Another woman with another group of children stepped up in line, and Patrick repeated the process again.
It was going to be a long day, made all the longer because the plan he was helping facilitate was so shockingly stupid.
When Deacon had suggested stowing those who could not defend themselves in the temple and reinforcing the gates to keep them safe, Patrick had freely expressed his opinion that it was a stupid strategy. Send them all farther south, he’d said, where there were several other small settlements. Or better yet, have them wait out whatever was to happen at the Gemcroft’s island estate—a scheme that Peytr himself had proposed. But Deacon would have none of it. He promised them all that the temple was the most secure structure for the women, children, and indigent, and that they would be hunted down and executed if they hid anywhere else. At least in there, he reasoned, the thick walls would give them a chance at escape through the sally port and into the Clubfoot Mountains should their defenders fall.
I refuse to be intimidated, Coldmine had said. If we send our loved ones away, we are admitting our fear that we might lose.
All of which completely ignored the fact that defeat was a probability, not a possibility. Every single man, woman, and child in the delta knew they clung to only the tiniest sliver of hope. Given how Deacon’s own wife had taken their children and fled to the shores of Pebble Island with Peytr and Rachida, Coldmine’s statement seemed rather hypocritical.
Patrick sighed. The longer he stayed in Haven, the more he realized how stubborn and pig-headed Deacon could be; he was a man who always thought he was right and wouldn’t listen to reason. Unfortunately, he was considered a hero in Haven, and his words were taken as gold. Even Moira, as strong and independent-minded a woman as he’d ever met, bent to Coldmine’s whims. Only Rachida and Corton Ender seemed to be able to think for themselves, but Rachida was gone and the old man had been raised a warrior. To him, talk was cheap. He did his talking with the pointy end of his sword, as he was fond of saying, and it was not his place to question those whose station in life was higher than his own.
To Patrick, that fact alone confirmed what Rachida had said about the uneven nature of life in the east. How could the people of Haven claim their freedom when they had been raised not to question their superiors? How could there be equality if the term superiors existed at all?
He shrugged those thoughts aside, focusing instead on the faces of all the women who passed through his station, making a mental note of their differing levels of attractiveness, and allowing his mind to wander when one or two of them accidentally brushed his hand with their own. Might any of them be the one to end the eve
r-loving torture of immortality from which he suffered? He laughed at himself. Here he was, a man from Paradise, ushering women and children into a temple designed for worshipping sexuality, all so they might wait for that night’s full moon, and the attack that had been threatened to follow thereafter. It didn’t seem real.
Finally, the last stragglers—an old woman and man who walked arm in arm, their hunched, uneven strides nearly matching—were escorted through the gates. Patrick looked over his list of names. Two hundred sixteen adults and two hundred eighty-seven children, and he still had nine sacks of foodstuffs sitting in the cart. He whistled, amazed at the amount of preparation that had been put into this endeavor. Given that each sack contained enough food to last a family of five for three days, Deacon had cultivated or purchased virtually three full years’ worth of food. It seemed an amazingly generous amount, especially considering that farming in swampland didn’t necessarily yield the most favorable crops. Although a great number of those who resided in the other townships around haven had came to them in search of safety, it was a good thing the many who resided in the far south of the delta had not decided to join in the fight. It would have been nice to have more men to fight by his side, but Ashhur only knew how Deacon would come up with the provisions to feed those who needed protection.
Two men gathered up his cart and Deacon’s and pushed them into the temple, most likely to be stored for emergency rations. The gates swung shut and a low thud could be heard as the people inside dropped the heavy wooden crossbar into place. Deacon strolled over to him, smiling broadly, though his good cheer seemed to be forced. He chuckled, as artificial a sound as Patrick had ever heard, and ran his fingers through his beard. They began walking back toward the forest’s edge, where their makeshift army awaited. Deacon threw an arm over his shoulder.
“Have I told you how glad I am you decided to stay?” he asked.
Patrick sighed. “Relentlessly.”
“And have I told you how sorry I was for the way I treated you that day at the estate?”
“Again, more often than you should.”
Deacon swallowed hard and glanced at him sideways, as if uncertain.
“It’s just that I am impressed with your resolve,” he said hesitantly. “Giving yourself so freely to others is truly a gift. You are a god among men, Patrick DuTaureau, no matter what your father thinks.”
Patrick stopped in his tracks, allowing Deacon’s arm to slip off him.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“If you don’t know,” said Deacon, “then I’d much rather act as though I’d said nothing.”
Patrick stood baffled. Deacon appeared to regret his words, but at the same time, he’d been the one to clumsily bring up the subject in the first place. His father? What did the Lord of Haven know about his father?
“Just speak, man,” he said, grunting in frustration. “You can’t say something like that and then fall silent.”
Deacon opened his mouth, shut it, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and then grimaced. Patrick rolled his head back.
“Forget it,” he said. “I’m getting some wine.”
“Wait.”
Patrick stopped and tapped his foot, gesturing for the man to get on with it.
“It’s just…I have heard stories. The Paradise has long been intriguing to those of us who grew up in Neldar. The song, the dance, the simplicity of existence. We hear of your freedom to do whatever you wish, whenever you wish it, living free of sickness and early death…none of us had any of that growing up. When Antar Hoonen arrived, he fed us all the tales we so desired. You must understand, we fled our land because we were either destitute or criminals. We downtrodden lived under constant fear of hanging or the executioner’s ax. So to hear him say how Ashhur forgave all sins so long as the sinner was truly repentant…how could I not be intrigued?”
Patrick shook his head. “Do they often execute those who swipe an apple from a farmer’s field? Because to be honest, that’s about the most major sin I witnessed while growing up. Antar is telling tales, alright, and tall ones at that.”
“According to Antar, there was at least one man in Paradise guilty of more than petty theft,” said Deacon, lowering his voice. “He told me the story of your parents.”
That got Patrick’s attention. “Go on,” he said, his lips curling inward.
“According to the story, your mother was so vain that when Ashhur granted his First Children the ability to craft a mate, she chose to make one who was nearly her twin, simply so she could look on her own image at nearly all times…”
He paused, and Patrick motioned for him to continue.
“Because of the vanity Isabel put into the vat of creation, the being she created—your father—emerged just as vain and conceited as she was. He wanted your mother for himself, to be with her night and day, and for no other man to come between them. When your sister Abigail was born, she looked just like your mother, and your father was pleased. But when Isabel became pregnant a second time, she was convinced she was to have a son. Rumors abound of your father’s anger and of how he supposedly took it out on those around him. Antar is convinced he feared you would come between him and his lover, no matter how mad, how nonsensical it was for him to feel that way. He didn’t want you to be born, and he told your mother so. Your mother refused.
“It was in her seventh month of pregnancy, when the stars said the child would be born soon, that your father dropped a vial of crim oil into her milk. How he got his hands on the drug, Antar didn’t know. All he did know was that your mother was ill for days afterward. She suffered from high fevers and night bleeds, and cried often for fear of losing the baby. Neither the Wardens nor those with Ashhur’s gift of healing could mend her. They didn’t know what was wrong. But Ashhur did. He traveled north on hearing the news of your mother’s illness, placed his hands on her stomach, and removed the poison from her system, saving you. But it was too late. The poison had altered your form, and you ended up being born…the way you are now.”
Patrick crossed his arms, refusing to look at Deacon as he let the story settle into his mind. When he stayed silent, Deacon continued.
“Ashhur confronted your father, told him he knew what had been done. Your father fell to his knees, groveling before the deity, begging for his life. Now, in Neldar perhaps the greatest sin one could commit is to murder—or attempt to murder—an unborn child. Yet Ashhur decreed that your father was truthful in his contrition and absolved him of all sins.”
Patrick lowered his head, looking at Deacon from beneath his distended brow.
“Is that it?”
Deacon shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“Interesting story.”
“Are you sorry I told you? Do you wish I had stayed silent?”
“No. And no.”
He sighed. “It is but a story, however horrible it may be. I would understand if you wished to depart now and confront your parents.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Well,” said Deacon, his cheeks growing redder by the second, his fingers nervously playing with the hem of his doublet. “I figured you might want to be…certain?”
At that, Patrick laughed. Hearty, true laughter that rattled his crooked spine.
“Are you trying to be rid of me?” he asked. “To be honest with you, Deacon, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it were true. To be even more honest, I couldn’t give two shits and a piss. None of that matters. What was done was done a long, long time ago, in a place where I never felt true belonging. Nessa has gone to live her fabulous life with her little renegade. She was my last remaining tie to Paradise other than my god. I belong here now, among these people, and I feel that truly. Besides, I’ve never liked my father much.” He winked. “I guess now I know why. Perhaps I still carry a few old, old memories from floating around in the womb, eh?”
He slapped Deacon on the back hard enough that the man began coughing, which brough
t on another fit of laughter.
“Come on, man, it was only a tap!” he exclaimed, and away he ambled across the wide, soggy field, heading for Corton and the soldiers who were waiting by the forest’s edge.
He had been honest in his reaction to the story and honest in the words he’d spoken to Deacon afterward. Strange as it seemed to his waking mind, he really didn’t care, no matter how disturbing the tale was or how true it rang. Richard DuTaureau could shove a goose egg up his own ass, and Isabel too. Patrick had come on people who viewed him as more than his deformities or his lineage. Here he had friends, even if his relationships with a few of them might be awkward, to say the least. What mattered was that his last name had no bearing on the impressions he made here. Something just seemed right in Haven, even with that atrocious temple rearing over everything. As far as Patrick could tell, living a life free of sickness, fear, and disagreement was not the best way to go. He offered a silent apology to Ashhur for thinking thus, but he’d never been happier than he was here. Perhaps humanity had been meant to battle through, to learn to live in harmony through strife, through hardship. It was the people of Haven who had taught him this, people he would die for if need be—which he had to admit wouldn’t be such a bad thing. After all, how many times had he moaned and groaned like a spoiled little child about his desire for a mortal life?
He joined Corton’s side and spent the next several hours laughing and drinking with the many men and few women who were around. Later, when the liquor was all but gone, Moira joined them, and she and two other men—Opal and Mertz, if he remembered their names correctly—assisted him in donning the mishmash of armor Corton had set aside for him. It was an arduous task given his strangely shaped body, but eventually the plates were fastened, the chainmail draped over his chest, the vambraces clasped to his forearms. He stood there, holding a half helm in his arm (his misshapen head made it impossible to wear a great helm; the bottom was loose because his cheeks and jaw were so thin compared to his bulbous cranium), and addressed the crowd that had gathered.
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