by Welcome Cole
“I bloody well mean it, now. I don’t want a crowd of hysterics outside the council chambers later.”
“Understood, Cap’n Lucifeus. I ain’t gonna say a word to nobody, not even the missus.”
Lucifeus heartily slapped the man’s abundant arm. “Good man. Now see Essie home.”
Hoot grunted and nodded, then helped the witch gather her things.
As they walked toward the brig’s exit, Lucifeus seized Mal around the shoulders and said into his ear, “I have a feeling it’s going to be a longer day than we expected, Brother.”
“Aye,” Mal said without humor, “And it’s likely to be an even longer night.”
V
THE EYES OF THE FAITHFUL
MAWBY LAY ON HIS BELLY IN THE TALL GRASS, PEERING UNDER THE DRIPLINE OF THE GREAT TREE.
The runner crouched before a modest campfire a few yards from his partner’s grave. His back was to Mawby and he stirred something in a pot that smelled suspiciously like leeks and potatoes.
Mawby looked back over his shoulder at the rolling plains, squinting against the unremitting wind. The dying sun was throwing up its last stand in a fog of red haze. He’d been riding back and forth in the plains for hours, trying to make a decision. Even now, watching from the shadows at the edge of the great tree, he wasn’t sure just what the hell he was doing.
The runner paused at his cooking. Then he peered back over his shoulder and said, “You going to peep at me all night?”
Mawby dropped his head to the grass and slugged the dirt. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. How could the man have possibly heard him coming? He’d been as silent as a snail, he was certain of it.
Pride defeated, he pushed himself to his feet. Moments later, he led the warhorse back into the camp. He hobbled the horse behind the tree next to the Baeldon’s, then steadied himself before walking over to the campfire. He stopped directly across the flames from Wenzil.
Standing there like that, he felt strangely embarrassed, like he’d shown up for duty without his britches. He knew there wasn’t much he could say to alleviate it, so he settled for, “Smells good.”
The Baeldon lifted a spoonful of broth and drew in a deep whiff. “We can only pray,” he said with a wink, “I left the meat out. Reckoned you’d be back.”
“How’d you know I was out there? Wouldn’t even have heard myself coming.”
“Told you about my gift, as I recall.” Wenzil carefully stirred the stew. “Seems it’s stronger with you. I just knew you were there, nothing more to it. You shouldn’t over-think it. Some things you just gotta accept on faith, yea?”
Bracing his ribs, Mawby tried not to show how much it hurt as he squatted down across the fire from the mountain. He thought back to earlier that day, to the moment of the shared amulets. He couldn’t seem to put it out of his mind.
As he studied the dancing flames, he whispered, “Vision. The insight to recognize the brethren behind the mask, the wisdom to embrace him, the tongue to persuade him.”
Wenzil stopped stirring and peered across the fire at him. “You have a damned good memory.”
Mawby picked up a long twig and poked the end in the fire. “Ay’a, suppose I do. Been considering the words all afternoon. Them and my own.”
“And?”
“And… hell if I know what to make of them.”
“Is that right?”
Mawby held up the burning twig. He studied the flame dancing worriedly at the tip. “No,” he said, as the tiny flame slowly died, “No, I reckon that’s exactly not right. Truth is I know precisely what to make of them. Just not sure I’ve the stomach for it.” He tossed the stick into the fire.
Wenzil stirred the stew. “Yea,” he said with an odd grin, “I absolutely understand.”
Mawby stared into the fire for a few seconds as bleak images of the past months battled their way across his mind. Finally, he slipped the pack off his shoulder, saying, “I need a smoke.”
A moment’s rummaging produced his long pipe and a starving pouch of tobacco. He quickly packed the bowl, then propped the pipe in his teeth. “Not much left, I’m afraid,” he said, shaking the packet at Wenzil, “Still, you’re more than welcome to it.”
Wenzil lifted another ladle of soup for an assessment. “Nay, reckon I’ll pass, thanks all the same,” he said between blows on the spoon, “Never developed a taste for smoking.”
“No tobacco?” Mawby shook his head. “With the gods as my witness, that is one worrisome character flaw.”
“Character flaw?”
“Damn right! No tobacco? Not sure I can work my way around that one. And just when I was starting to grow some respect for you.”
The Baeldon laughed at that. “Respect’s overrated. Just another mortal failing that sets a man up for a fall.”
“Well said,” Mawby said as he pulled another twig from the fire and lit his pipe. Leaning back on his elbow, he sent a series of smoke rings to their death in the flames. His side immediately screeched its displeasure at with the act.
“What’s it like?”
Mawby braced his side with his hand and drew a steadying breath as the throbbing in his chest gradually subsided. “Feels like I got kicked in the chest by a draft horse.”
“No, I mean the horns. What’s it feel like?”
“Oh,” Mawby said, looking at him, “Didn’t see that coming.”
“I mean no offense. It’s just… hell, I don’t reckon I’ll ever have another chance to ask a Vaemyn directly. It’s a hard question to slip out between sword strikes.”
Mawby laughed at that, but the pain quickly smothered the humor. “No offense taken,” he grunted as he held his wound, “I’m just not sure how to explain it. I expect it’s something like trying to explain blue to a blind man.”
“Yea, that makes sense.” Wenzil ladled some of the steaming soup into a metal crock. “I’d be hard pressed to explain my own kind of sight, truth be told. Only two close friends outside the Order even know I have it. Baeldons don’t take well to what they can’t explain, yea? We’re people born of rock. We demand dependability and consistency. Notions of magic and Birthsight only inspire suspicion.”
Mawby set his pipe against a gnarled root. The knife wound didn’t seem to like his smoking. “Don’t know it’ll make sense,” he said honestly, “Closest description I can think of is that it’s like seeing what you hear.”
Wenzil walked over and handed Mawby a bowl as big as a Vaemysh cooking pot. Mawby had to accept it with both hands. “Thanks,” he said, though he didn’t think the word was big enough for such a meal.
“Taer-cael,” Wenzil said as he ladled up a second bowl, “It means sight of the earth, yea? So, it’s like the vibrations make an image in your mind? They come up through your horns?”
The aroma of spiced leeks, field spuds, and wild sage wafted seductively, but the stew was far too hot to eat. And considering the cauldron-sized bowl he’d been handed, Mawby doubted it’d cool enough by midnight. “Smells good enough for Calina herself,” he said.
“Well, the leeks are a bit past prime this late in the season, but the midseason sweet tubers are young and ripe. Reckon it’s better than grass.”
“Truth, that. I’m appreciative for the hot meal.”
Wenzil lifted a metal plate from the grass beside him. It was covered in something that looked like tiny sticks and twigs. He took a couple fingers full and crinkled them into his own bowl of soup. Then he looked over at Mawby and held the plate out. “Trail crunchers?”
“Trail crunchers?” Mawby repeated, “Don’t think I’m familiar with that. What is it, some kind of herb?”
“Herb?” Wenzil said with a laugh, “Ain’t no herb. It’s grasshoppers, of course. What else would it be?”
Mawby thought about it, and suffered an immediate pang of repulsion. “Grasshoppers? Are you joking?”
Wenzil was clearly surprised by Mawby’s reaction. “Nay, I just roasted them. They’re delicious in stew. Does it violate your
eating ethic? Against meat, I mean?”
“No,” Mawby said, waving the plate away, “More like it violates my ethic against puking.”
Laughing, Wenzil put the plate back in the grass. “Suit yourself. Reckon you can’t teach a man to love Calina’s joys.”
Mawby watched the man take a spoonful of trail cruncher loaded soup, and had to force back a shudder.
“Taer-cael is like a second sight,” he said in an effort to train his attention away from the man across the fire feasting on insects, “It’s like when you hear the voice of a friend in another room and their face appears in your mind. The taer-cael is similar, except vibrations, not memory, form the image. And it’s significantly clearer.”
Wenzil sat back on crossed legs. “I see,” he said as he held his bowl level, “Not much different than the Little Sight. Except mine’s more like a voice than an image. Like someone whispering just behind me.”
Mawby tried to sit in a similar repose, but the slap of pain down his back disinclined him. Instead, he pulled the bowl through the grass and let it rest beside him on the ground. He decided courtesy pretty much demanded he try the soup sooner than later, hot or not, lingering image of a man eating bugs or not. So he stirred it, took up a spoon and blew on it. Much to his surprise, it tasted even better than it smelled. Once again, he was forced to face his own surprise and bigotry. Cooking was an art, and he’d never considered that a race like the Baeldons might have any talent for it.
For several minutes, they ate in silence. Before long, he realized he’d eaten half the bowl.
He pushed the remains of his meal out before him and leaned back to watch the modest fire dancing to the pressure of the wind. The low canopy of the great tree took most of the vim out of it compared to out in the open plains, so that it was more of a nervous breeze here than a gale.
He realized he was beginning to feel strangely uncomfortable, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe explaining his taer-cael only made their differences appear that much bigger and more obvious. In turn, it made their treason look equally darker. The nagging sense of doubt and self-reproach was back. If his people caught him here dining with the enemy, they’d hang him on the spot.
He probably ought to leave.
Probably.
He lowered the spoon back to the bowl and tried to reel in some calm.
“For such a big Vaemyn you don’t eat much.”
Mawby looked over at Wenzil, who, even sitting, towered over the fire.
Wenzil waved a spoon at Mawby’s bowl. “You getting enough there? Don’t be shy.”
“Are you kidding? That bowl’s big enough to feed a whole squad. I’m impressed I made it as far as I did. The pain’s not leaving much room for an appetite, I reckon.”
He pressed a hand against his wounded chest and eased himself back up onto an elbow. When the pain subsided enough to let him draw air again, he stuck the pipe back in his mouth. As he lit another twig in the coals, he said, “Does your expertise in healing blossom from your other skill? Your sight, I mean? This damned knife wound is recovering a hell of a lot better than it has a right to.”
“Nay, just had a good teacher. Another good teacher.”
Mawby nodded. “Well, I appreciate your help. Tending to it and all, I mean.”
“Didn’t do it for you,” Wenzil said. He seemed to falter at that. For a moment, he sat there staring into the flames. Then he looked at Mawby and said, “Know I mean no offense by that. I just meant… it is what it is. My actions are driven by a higher purpose.”
Squinting as he lit his pipe, Mawby said, “None taken. I get it.”
“I fixed you up because it’s what I do. I had no desire to take you with me, but I had no stomach to kill you, either. I’m a runner, not a regular grunt. I have a soul to answer to.”
“Well put.”
“Anyway, I told you I had a sense about you. When I saw your pendant, the earth opened under me. Saw the truth on the spot. Knew right then our paths crossed for a reason.”
“Perhaps,” Mawby said, “Then again, I reckon, given enough time and creativity, we could find a reason for everything that happens to us, jh’ven?”
“Nay, that’s bullshit, and I think you know it.”
Mawby bit down on his pipe stem, but said nothing.
“We’re not a common weed among my people,” Wenzil said as he studied the fire, “Lamys te’Faht is an exclusive and limited order. Every year another family line dies out and we lose another member. We don’t replenish, we don’t replace. Hell, I can count the number of members younger than thirty on one finger. It’s a precious duty we serve, a duty as rare as diamonds in a swamp.”
Mawby nodded, but said nothing.
The Baeldon grabbed another branch and dropped it on the fire. A world of sparks burst free, racing giddily to their maker in the canopy above.
“Truth be told, I find it as unsettling as you do, Mawby,” Wenzil said after a bit, “This surely ain’t a position I’d ever dreamed of finding my ass sitting in, either.”
As the fire took command of the wood, as the runner’s deep eyes emerged fully into the light, Mawby realized the man was anxiously awaiting a response. He wanted an affirmation from Mawby, some kind of signal that he agreed with the mountain, that he was ready to ally. And in that moment, Mawby realized the man was telling the truth, or at least telling what he thought was the truth. There was no malevolence about him, no purposeful deceit.
So, he braced his ribs and pushed himself again into a sitting position. Once the pain backed away, he carefully relit his pipe.
“All right, Wenzil,” he said on a stream of smoke, “If the Order exists in both our two cultures, it seems reasonable to surmise the other races have their own sects as well.” He jabbed his pipe stem toward the north and swept it southwestward saying, “That means the Parhronii and the Mendophs, too, right?”
“I reckon that would be a reasonable estimation.”
Mawby fingered the thin lump beneath his shirt where his pendant hung. “My branch of the order exists to watch our leaders from the inside, to be on guard for the rise of another foul tide.”
“Yea,” Wenzil whispered, “The vanguard against the return of the demons.”
“And yours?” Mawby said, “Your role is to look for the rest of us. To find all of us.”
“Or to find one of you.”
That statement took Mawby by surprise. “One?”
“It’s nearly too grim to speak of,” Wenzil said softly, “The rise of Prae, the attack on Chance, the prodes, us... I think it’s happening, ain’t it? Mayhaps these here are the end of times.”
“The end of times?” Mawby whispered, “If I believed that I wouldn’t do anything. I’d go find some decent wine, some good tobacco, and a woman, and I’d roll the last days away in a soft bed. No, I have to think it’s the beginning of times. I need hope, not despair.”
“Hope’s a deep well,” Wenzil said, “Sometimes there’s water at the bottom, sometimes there just ain’t.”
“Anyway,” Mawby said when he’d prepared himself well enough to lay the truth out before the Baeldon, “I’m afraid it’s worse than you know.”
“How do you mean?”
Mawby drew a deep breath, summoned what courage he had left, then kicked down the final barrier to his treason. “There’s no easy way to say this except to just say it,” he said as carefully as he could manage, “The demons are here. Prae’s already summoned them. Nine wyrlaerds walk the earth with us.”
For several beats, Wenzil said nothing. Mawby began to wonder if the man had even heard him when the mountain finally whispered, “What did you just say?”
“Well, only eight of the bastards now, I expect,” Mawby corrected, “One was destroyed a week or so ago back at the mage’s house.”
“Calina’s tits! You know this? You know this for certain?”
Mawby nodded at the runner’s pack. “You suppose there’s any wine in t
here?”
“Wine?” Wenzil said, grinning, “Of course, I have wine. Do I look like some kind of primitive or what?”
“Get it out. I think you’ll be needing it before I’m done.”
As the mountain dug through his saddlebags, Mawby again thought back on the past months. There was too much to tell: Divinic Demons, the Parhronii rogue, the presence of hacks, the Blood Caeyl. He had no idea where to begin.
Then he thought about Pa’ana and Maeryc and Koonta’ar, and all the others who’d died, and all those innocents in the future who were going to die or be enslaved. And in the darkness of those thoughts, he found light, found the strength to say what he needed to say. That was where he’d start, with his first suspicions, with the murder of one of his own.
As he accepted the fat wine skin, he wondered if there was enough wine in the world to pad the Baeldon against the pounding he was about to take.
∞
Kaelif lurked in the midnight shadows, settling as still and silent as the dead boulders and ancient trees surrounding them. The night seemed darker than it should, or maybe it was just his mood. The narrow dirt road was fifty paces through the forest, directly ahead of them, following the steep, rocky bank of the Snake River. Unfettered by the trees, the river was a milky ribbon, reflecting back the anemic moonlight as it flowed quietly beneath the stars. It seemed the only source of earthly light in this otherwise soulless night.
He knelt in silence behind a wide boulder, relying almost completely on his taer-cael to scout his environment. The forest had been as quiet as a fellow conspirator since they took position. Only a breeze and the whispering flow of the river just beyond the road compromised the silence.
This forest, called the Wyr Fields, ran for a hundred miles square around them. Dense with towering redwood trees, most hundreds of years old and with trunks wide enough to build a house in, every inch of this grand forest was littered with gigantic boulders like the one they now knelt behind.
Legends told of a terrible rift in the earth that appeared tens of thousands of years ago, the result of an epic earthquake that tore open the early heart of these ancient forestlands. The rift was a gorge spanning a mile wide. It was so deep, it opened a portal to the Wyr, a portal that allowed legions of demon soldiers to bring their chaos and mayhem into this mortal plane. Calina ultimately sent her angelic warriors to slay the morbid army, and sealed the rift by teasing a distant mountain into erupting. The resulting storm of boulders and lava filled the breach and sealed the unholy chasm. But once started, the eruption wasn’t easily dissuaded. By the time the goddess finally silenced the mouth of the mountain, the entire region was covered in these huge rocks. In time, these grand old trees grew back in around the boulders.