Path of Revenge

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  Robal snorted. ‘I’ve heard that argument spoken at funerals. But what does it matter to a dead man how long he is remembered? Death, priest, is the end. Present company excepted, of course,’ he said hastily.

  ‘Why except me?’ Stella said, eyebrows raised. ‘My problem is not that I return from death, but that I cannot seem to die. And don’t think I haven’t tried.’

  ‘Oh.’ Robal was clearly taken aback by this news.

  ‘Is death the end?’ Conal said, warming to the subject. This discussion was like those he had shared with other trainee priests. ‘You might just as well ask whether birth was the beginning. There is no answer from behind the blank walls either side of us. But the scrolls talk of worlds beyond the walls of time. Many of those who lived in Dona Mihst before the time of the Destroyer did not die, but were translated to be with the Most High.’

  ‘I’d heard that the words in question were added to later versions of the Domaz Skreud,’ Stella said. ‘The idea of translation was not found in the earliest writings of the First Men.’

  Conal felt his eyes widening. He should not be surprised she knew this, yet she had caught him off guard again. ‘Ah, yes, some do say that. I’ve not seen the scrolls first-hand, not that the originals exist now, anyway; short of journeying to Dhauria, it is not a judgment I could make. Still, death must surely bring more than oblivion.’

  ‘No more than the day is a brief awakening between two nights of sleep.’ Robal was proving an able debater, possessing a keener mind than Conal had suspected. ‘We look for stories that it is otherwise: wishful thinking promoted by old women at the bedsides of their husbands and children. I have looked into the faces of dying men and watched the light of life go out. It is like a flame extinguished. There is no candle lit anew somewhere else. It frightens me.’

  ‘But with some people the soul eventually dies, leaving the shell alive but uninhabited. Isn’t there evidence of this among the living?’ Conal used his neighbour as an example, describing how she had withdrawn into herself, becoming a drooling wreck looked after by her husband. ‘If the soul can die and leave the body, cannot the body die and leave the soul?’

  Stella nodded. ‘A good argument, priest.’

  The guardsman cleared his throat. ‘What evidence do you have to justify your belief in a soul? Son, I’ve seen men suffer head wounds in battle. Damage to the brain always affects what you would call the soul. Good men change into something else. They become irritable, violent, sometimes murderous. If the soul is separate from the body, how can that happen?’

  An image of old Thessana flashed through Conal’s mind. One of the most acclaimed Halite scholars, he had collapsed in his room one day after complaining of a headache. The stroke wiped away all traces of the wise, urbane scholar, an exemplar to them all, leaving a man who died cursing and raving, his mind gone. In fairness he told Robal and Stella the story, eliciting nods from both.

  ‘And we’ve all seen a more recent example of someone suffering a head wound,’ Stella said. ‘Though the damage could hardly have made him a worse person.’

  ‘But if we truly believed death was not the end,’ Robal pressed, ‘we would not fight so hard to stay alive. I say we know what death really means, but we try to avoid the knowledge. I am content to sleep at the end of a day well spent, and so shall I be content to die at the conclusion of a life of value.’

  ‘Really?’ Stella asked him, her face softening.

  The guardsman swallowed. ‘No,’ he said thickly. ‘But it gives me comfort if I don’t think about it too deeply.’

  ‘How else do you comfort yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘Mind tricks. I tell myself that fearing death is futile. If I am alive, death is held at bay. If I am dead, I can no longer fear it. Why worry about what I cannot change?’ He grimaced. ‘Doesn’t stop me worrying.’

  ‘No offence intended, Stella,’ Conal ventured, prompted by a voice in his head, ‘but given that you are immortal, how can you really understand the debate?’

  Robal turned his head sharply, and Stella frowned for a moment. The guardsman made ready to speak, but she forestalled him.

  ‘Don’t make the mistake of confusing the gift of immortality conferred on the living with the hope of the soul’s continuance after death,’ she said, an edge of warning in her voice. ‘Just because I am hard to kill doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of dying.’

  Conal acknowledged the point with a nod.

  Stella leaned towards him. ‘You really believe that to live forever would be a blessing, don’t you,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Conal had thought about this. ‘You have a duty to share your gift with the world. Think what an advantage we would have over the godless, the Bhrudwans and the losian, the rejected of the Most High who live in Faltha. With your blood, the First Men would live and the losian would die. They would not be able to assail us. The Koinobia could distribute your gift. You would be the hero of Faltha, the centre of the eighth scroll. Would that not be a vision worthy of achieving?’

  Stella’s glorious face had darkened to anger with his words, a terrible threat written there.

  ‘I spoke not to offend,’ Conal said, unsure what he had said to invite her anger.

  ‘Then you did not speak carefully enough, priest. Let me tell you something about immortality. We are some way short of this point in my story, but I see that unless you learn now you will not hear anything I say in future.

  ‘The Destroyer took me for his consort, yes, it is true. He drew me through the Blue Fire, a sorcerous device that transported me across the world in an instant. I was an unwilling captive, duped by Deorc, his representative in Instruere. I cannot describe the terror the Destroyer inspires. His voice is able to strip a person bare, cleaving mind from body, leaving one exposed to his scrutiny. He is an expert at using torture and pain, and the fear of pain, to achieve his ends. He breaks everyone he meets. Priest, the reason I am immortal is that I defied him. He could not break me any other way.’

  She closed her eyes, remembering. ‘When the armies of Faltha and Bhrudwo closed for the first time at The Gap, I was at his side. He sought to display me, to use me to undermine the confidence of the Falthan army. Instead of cowering before him as he wished, I spat in his face. I would do it again. He struck me with his fist, breaking my head—the scars remain—and doing me grievous injury. I lost consciousness and only regained it weeks later.

  ‘Immediately I felt different—I can barely remember what it was to feel as I did before he struck me. My skin burned and agonising pain ran through my veins. I was partially crippled all down one side. Eventually I learned that I had nearly died, and he had kept me alive only by infecting me with his own curse. I never asked him how he achieved it—I assume, I hope it was through the transfer of blood. He never referred to it again.

  ‘I doubt I could convince you of the effect of all the years of pain. Have you known anyone who has died of a wasting disease? That is what it was like for me. The pain has eased only gradually over the decades, though perhaps I have grown accustomed to it. I would not have thought it possible. Everything I do is done through a haze, a barrier of hurt, which separates me from the world. Everlasting pain, Conal: is that something you wish to experience? Or to share with Faltha?’

  The priest licked his lips. ‘Ask me again on my deathbed. Perhaps it will be more attractive then.’ An odd, disconnected part of him seemed pleased to hear she suffered. He flushed with embarrassment, as though she could read his thoughts.

  She continued. ‘I have had years to think about this. Dear Leith’s death made it all the more immediate. Don’t you think he knew? Yet he chose to reject the gift. These were his words the only time we discussed the matter: “Immortality is useful only if it continues a desirable state. I do not desire to prolong my life for the sort of price you pay daily.” I tell you honestly, the best thing of all would be for me not to have been born. Second-best would have been to die young, before events caught up with me. It fo
llows that the absolute worst outcome for me is to live with this pain and fear forever. I am…’ She broke. ‘I am no longer human.’

  Suddenly her body was taken by deep sobs, an anguish so intense Conal felt he was intruding on her nakedness. In an instant Robal had his arms around her. He flicked his eyes at Conal, indicating that he should take the donkey’s reins.

  ‘Death would be a release for me,’ she said, sobs still hiccoughing between her words. ‘I was terrified when the Maghdi Dasht took his knife to me, but I was so deeply glad I could finally lay down my many layers of pain and defeat.’ Her smile was a mask. ‘The priest rescued me; it seems the Most High has not finished with me yet. He knows I want…I just want to sleep. One night without pain. If I never wake up again, so much the better.’

  After that, there was nothing either man could say. Conal was not adept at social interaction, and he knew any offer of comfort, any attempt at empathy, would come across the wrong way somehow.

  Yet the idea of immortality would not let him go. Yes, there were limits, he could see that now. The idea of never-ending pain did not appeal to him, but neither did the idea of never-ending darkness. And the days of godly men being translated to be with the Most High forever had ended with the Destroyer’s rebellion, curse him. But perhaps a truly courageous man, one with a vision for Faltha, might overcome the limitations.

  He fell asleep that night to the sound of the rain and the inner vision of the world’s secrets falling into his hands. All I need is time, was his last thought. Only time.

  The Central Plains of Faltha measured over three hundred leagues east to west from the Aleinus Gates to the Wodhaitic Sea, and two hundred leagues from the northern Remparer Mountains to the Veridian Borders in the south. In all that distance there were few places one could ascend to see the way the land lay. Robal led them to the summit of one such place, an unremarkable grass-covered mound surrounded on all sides by flat, featureless plains. The Steppes of Austrau, he called them, with something approaching reverence in his voice.

  Conal could see little to be reverent about. Leagues of brown grass lay all around, no sign of human habitation save the narrow path they had been using, the occasional small stony stream running south to north. The constant, annoying susurration of the wind. None of the beauty Robal spoke of so fondly was evident from the little hill.

  ‘The simoom, ulcers to his soul, is an ugly wind.’

  Conal tensed, then turned to identify the speaker, but no one was visible save Stella and Robal.

  ‘Kilfor, you rascal, you took ten years off my life,’ Robal said, striding forwards. He reached down into the grass and hauled up a thin, smiling man of middle age. This curious specimen wore a wide moustache below beetling eyebrows; his weatherbeaten skin looked as though it had been soaked in brine for years. He had a red kerchief around his neck, while a small brown skullcap—from under which projected a shock of spiky black hair—a silver-threaded waistcoat, ragged breeches and thick leather wrappings above hard-wearing boots completed the ensemble.

  ‘Happiness and luck to you, Robal, you crazy young maniac,’ the man said affectionately, cuffing the guardsman around the ears. ‘And these are your unfortunate friends?’ He turned to them and bowed extravagantly. ‘Welcome to Chardzou, the dyspeptic heart of Austrau. I apologise for your guide. You both must have done something very bad in a previous life to have ended up with this useless man. His head is full of dung, you know.’

  ‘Robal,’ Stella said out of the corner of her mouth, ‘you didn’t tell us you had arranged to meet a friend.’

  ‘Hah!’ the strange man said. ‘He didn’t know, that’s why. Not that he would have remembered. Too many years down in that walled town by the coast, ulcers rot its soul. Soft living makes you blind, Robal. You walked right into that inn last night, sat down, tossed off your beer and never saw me. I am highly offended, friend. You are not the boy I knew.’

  ‘I thought I could smell alcohol on you,’ Stella said primly. ‘You told us you would be in and out of the tavern as quickly as possible.’

  Robal spread his hands. ‘No self-respecting man from these parts would pass up the chance to cut the phlegm, begging your pardon.’ He peered at the stranger. ‘Kilfor, was that you under the wide-brimmed hat? The one who snored the whole time I was there?’

  The man nodded, a broad smile plastered over his gnarled face, and patted the hat, attached by a clip to his belt.

  ‘I am going deaf, if not blind,’ Robal went on. ‘Anyone in southern Austrau ought to recognise you from the sound of your snoring, since it is the only thing that outdoes the simoom. I have missed the place, I confess. Aspects of it, anyway.’

  ‘What is Chardzou?’ Stella asked, genuine puzzlement in her voice.

  ‘Ah now, Robal, will you not introduce me to this handsome young woman who, given her proximity to you, obviously lacks taste?’ Kilfor hitched up his belt and ran a hand across his forehead in an impossibly comical imitation of a man seeking favour.

  ‘No secrets?’ Robal asked Stella.

  ‘Well, maybe one. But you can introduce me accurately. Your…ah, friend may be more inclined to help if he knows whom he is helping.’

  ‘If you have a pretty face he will help you,’ said Robal. ‘Very well. Kilfor of Chardzou, be well met with Conal, one-time priest of the Halites but now on the run; and with Stella Pellwen, Queen of Faltha.’

  At the first name the man’s brows lowered; but when Stella was introduced they flew up in shock. His hand froze in the act of shaking hers, and he sank to his knees.

  ‘I…ah…pardon me, my queen, I…have been misled by your beauty.’ Conal watched as the man tried to recover his poise. ‘The last queen was an old woman, or at least so said Robal. You, now: no one could say that you were old.’

  Robal couldn’t help laughing at his friend’s discomposure. ‘Good try, Kilfor, but your charm has failed you today.’

  Stella smiled, pulling the man to his feet. ‘Actually, he has done remarkably well. Much better, in fact, than someone else I know, who tried to seduce his queen when first they met.’

  ‘Seduce? Oh, that is rich!’ Kilfor laughed heartily, hands on hips. ‘Robal the playboy, unable to win the heart of a queen!’

  ‘And who said he failed?’ Stella said silkily. ‘Anyway, I am the previous queen; that is, I am Leith’s consort. There is no new queen as far as I am aware. I appear to have aged well, if your flattering reaction is anything to go by. Now, if the introductions are over, can we not go to this Chardzou, so I might have time to think what to do next in safety?’

  ‘She is too sharp for us country hicks,’ Robal said quietly to Kilfor as they made their way down the hill to their trap. ‘Best not to entangle yourself with her in a battle of words. I pitied her poor husband, actually.’

  ‘I heard that, guardsman.’ Stella’s voice drifted back from a few paces ahead.

  Behind them all, Conal smiled. It would take more than a few coarse jests to woo this woman. He would wait until the glib guardsman had made a complete fool of himself before making his own move. Whatever form that move finally took, he was now determined to win her heart.

  Risible, said the small white voice at the back of his head.

  Chardzou was a day’s journey southeast of the hill. Finally, the trap pulled up at a clearing in the pampas grass that might equally have been sited anywhere else within a fifty-league radius. There, forming a rough circle, stood a few dozen ramshackle canvas structures, each anchored to its own wagon. ‘Blows here like forty thousand northmen with indigestion,’ Kilfor said by way of explanation. ‘Anything you build gets blown over a few times a year. Might as well build something easily replaceable. Besides, we move about. Can’t live too long on one piece of land.’

  ‘I see,’ Stella said, though to Conal’s ear she sounded uncertain.

  ‘Kilfor, you crapulent boy!’

  Startled, the travellers turned towards the source of the screeched greeting. There was no one to be se
en outside the tents, though a partly shaded birdcage hanging from one of the wagons contained a large green-and-yellow parrot, busy ruffling its feathers. ‘Wipe your shoes before you come in!’ the bird croaked at them.

  Kilfor smiled, as did Robal. ‘Still haven’t got rid of the old bird?’ the guardsman said.

  ‘He’d get rid of his father before getting rid of the bird,’ said an old stooped man, emerging from the tent beside the cage.

  Robal rushed over to the man and gave him a hug. ‘Sauxa! So good to see you again!’ He paused to wipe a tear from his eye.

  ‘Do I have a foster-son or do I have a girl?’ The man kissed Robal on both cheeks. ‘It is good to see you again, Robal,’ he said gruffly, then released him. ‘Well, are you going to invite these children in, Kilfor, or shall we leave them outside to wither in the sun? Ulcers to your soul, what kind of host are you?’

  Once inside, the autumn heat of the steppes faded quickly, and the cool ale in the jug the old man passed around was welcomed by them all. Conal took a look around the tent: far from the simple furnishings the plain exterior had led him to expect, the inside was adorned with rugs, tapestries, hangings and threads of every exotic colour and hue. Incense burned in a small brazier, enveloping them in a sweet-edged smell. Following the example of their host, they all sat cross-legged on the mat. Conal found the position extremely uncomfortable, and started fidgeting almost immediately.

  Sauxa showed no obvious surprise when introduced to his guests. ‘We get all sorts here,’ he said dismissively, but Conal noticed him blow out a quick breath. For a time he avoided looking in the queen’s direction.

  ‘You will eat with us tonight,’ the old man said. ‘My son’s a good cook.’

  ‘We don’t want to be a burden,’ Robal said, evidently part of the courtesy.

  Of course we will eat here, Conal thought. Was their host going to turn them out?

  ‘No burden,’ Kilfor said, then lowered his voice. ‘The old man loves the noise his tongue makes. He’ll talk your legs off and make them walk on their own if you let him.’