“Predictable,” Brother William translated. “Your style contains nothing but pieces of others. Nothing of yourself. Nothing unique. But maybe your friend can save you. What do you say, young Messah? Is your sword more than just show?”
Adam joined his friend within the chamber, limping with his weapon drawn.
“Wait,” Adnihilo hissed. He couldn’t bear the shame. What was all that training for if I still can’t stand up for myself?
The pastor’s son seemed to read his mind. “This isn’t about pride,” he said. “I didn’t want to have to hold this sword again, but Magdalynn needs treatment, so I’m fighting whether you like it or not.”
Damn it, cried the witch’s son. He didn’t like it, but couldn’t argue, so he did all he felt he could to do. He charge ahead, desperate and reckless, his practice forgotten in a fit of angst. The abbot scowled and danced around his brass-capped staff. He was like a leaf in the wind, seemingly blown aside by the very strikes meant to cleave him in half. Even as Adam caught up and joined the attack, they could not hope to land a blow. They could hardly keep from tangling one another, the way the abbot spun and circled. One was always left in front of the other. It enraged the half-blood. He was tired of chasing, tired of running, tired of others getting in his way—taking his life from him. If Cain had just let him become a sacrifice, he would have been strong enough to fight off the pale knight. If Adam was not so naïve, he would have had the bravery to save the sunset girl. If not for Ba’al, he’d still be training with Eyebrows. He’d be stronger by the time he’d found the monastery—strong enough to defeat the abbot or anyone else.
So consumed, Adnihilo shoved his companion aside to get at his opponent, and in the same moment, the abbot retaliated—a long, blunt, brass-capped thrust. It took the half-blood off his feet and into the air, and he crashed again on the hard stone floor.
The abbot spat a word echoed by Brother William. “Traitor,” they named him with their tongues and their faces black in disgust. There was a clang, the drop of the abbot’s staff as he advanced on the half-blood with the wrath of one personally offended. Adnihilo clambered in terror, but Adam did not recognize the danger. He positioned himself behind the grimacing master and tried for a stab in the back. The abbot spun, bypassed the blade, and with an open palm, collapsed the Messah’s chest and sent him reeling—back flat against the wall.
“Where is your courage?” William translated the Gautaman’s words. “Where is your faith? You are so afraid that you let doubt rule you. Will you continue to hesitate until it is too late?”
Adnihilo was up before the monk had finished. He would not listen to any more of his sanctimonious nonsense. What did he know about the half-blood or the pastor’s son? Nothing, it was just hot air to make him careless, and it had worked. Kill the boy, he thought. Eyebrows was always calm as the eye of a storm, and so Adnihilo would be now.
It became clear to him, their advantageous position, that they might in single time strike in front and behind the abbot so arrogant as to leave himself exposed, dancing in the way that Gautaman boxers danced, with punching and kicking and chanting. As Adam rose and limped back into the fight, the half-blood closed, quiet as the Devil. Inch by inch they encroached. The opportune moment was at hand, yet their opponent continued his dance, gathering wind and expelling it, flexing the sinews under his skin till they showed thick as writhing worms.
Like wolves, the Brothers of Babylon struck at once; and at once, they were repelled. Adnihilo’s sabre bounced off the abbot’s bare flesh, and Adam’s sword bent unable to penetrate the man as he cocked an arm, rechambered at his hip, then slammed the Messah’s gut with the force of a canon. At once, the half-blood recognized the strike as one requiring a root, ponderous as it was powerful. There’d be a split second before his opponent could move—his last opportunity. But could he do it? A thousand memories of being caught the very moment he’d thought he’d landed a hit on Eyebrows played back in an instant. Armed or not, his arm would go taught, and he’d see the world from the perspective of a hammer—feel it too, the wind crushed from his lungs like all the weight of a punch dropped from a roof onto his diaphragm. Then Eyebrows would loose his barking laughter. But could he do it? There was not time for such questions in the split second that Adnihilo let his sabre fall in the midst of recoil and dropped into a low, open guard. He watched a whirling of arms and a coiling of legs, a hand shoot like an arrow, stop just short of his heart, change course, then snatch at the air. After that came a blast of thunder, a smoking black pipe, and the bishop smirking till he saw the abbot peel the slug from his palm.
He stood for a long while, the abbot, staring at the shallow wound, his lips down turned. He spoke in Gautaman, but Brother William was too shocked to translate. It didn’t matter. Watching the Gautaman’s face, Adnihilo knew exactly what he was saying, how he felt, for the witch’s son felt the same way—robbed of his fate by unwelcome machinations, never to know the outcome, what could have been. But then something unexpected happened. The abbot burst into laughter, so genuine it frightened them, even Brother William, so much the pale monk went white and fled.
A voice called from the end of the hall. “Kyogen,” it said. The abbot turned and faced the real source of the pale monk’s fear, not laughter but an enigma.
There appeared an archway at the end of the chamber where no archway had been before. And on the threshold stood a man, bone thin and golden, naked but for a tawny loin cloth. His eyes were crescents, his face soft, his hair a black, oily bun, and his ear lobes so long they touched his shoulders. He spoke first in Gautaman, then in Messaii as the abbot gathered Adam and Magdalynn onto his shoulders.
“Your friends will be taken to the infirmary,” the stranger explained, turning toward the mysterious passage. “Come, for what you seek resides within.”
Wordlessly, Ba’al and Adnihilo followed the man into the thirty-sixth chamber. Inside the barren room, a single candle burned, throwing shadows on every corner in the shape of the petrified wheel which stood free at the center. It smelled of sandalwood yet seemed of stone and old yellowed bones, its spokes bound by golden thews—below it, a scaffold of lustrous black stone. There, the stranger sat, cross legged on the scaffold’s edge, the candle before him. His eyes did not move as the two guests entered, nor as he addressed them. A story—a question—a riddle.
“Of Gautama’s disciples, there was once a young monk who had attained enlightenment. When this was announced, the monk’s fellow were much impressed. They flocked to him. ‘Is it true that you are enlightened?’ they asked. ‘It is,’ the monk said. They asked him, ‘what does it feel like?’” The stranger paused and asked his own question. “What do you think the young monk said?”
He spoke to Adnihilo, but the half-blood didn’t know what to say, so it was Ba’al who answered. Yet the bishop did not sound himself. “I’ve come a long way to find you, Mara. I don’t appreciate being greeted with riddles.”
“Yet one has been asked and waits to be answered.”
“I don’t know,” confessed Adnihilo, “I’ve never heard that story before.”
The stranger smiled. His eyes remained crescents. “‘as miserable as ever,’ said the enlightened Kyogen.”
A sudden fear gripped the half-blood. “Who are you,” he gasped, and it was as if his breath blew out the light.
The candle died. The stranger spoke in darkness, “There is no ‘I.’ Such a thing does not exist. There is no Mara, just as there is no ‘you,’ truly.”
“Is that how you excuse your cowardice?” asked Ba’al in a voice which was not Ba’al’s. “The war is not over, you know. There is still time. You could join us again. The King would forgive your trespasses.”
“The only trespasses are against this race of men. They are mortal and fragile, and subject to the suffering of life and death.”
“All beings are subject, Mara. The legate is dead, as are Veles and Merihem. Dagon is lost.”
“These are not mys
teries,” said the stranger.
“Then you know of the passage in the west and the great seal that the legate placed upon it. It cannot be broken, and no other path is known. I came hoping you’d remember our kinship and the battles we fought together. I hoped you might know how to bring down the Walls, or that you’d found a way around them.”
The Walls of Barzakh, Adnihilo realized. The black tower, the Bridge of Babylon. He thought of what little lore Cain had taught him of that place—that the gods rested there, dead or sleeping or awake and imprisoned. It sent chills down his spine that behind him the bishop could speak of such things he should not know. It made him wonder who they were speaking to. He recalled the statue at the monastery’s gate. The name escaped his mouth, “Gautama?”
The stranger answered. “What you seek is not here, for those in Qi Shi have abandoned such desires. But if your purpose must be for the cycle to continue, there are tales of a lost tribe surviving to the northeast. And if he yet lives, and if his city still stands, you might seek King Solomon. But beware. There is a mad dog loosed in the Tsaazaar, a black beast, and He has come as was prophesized.”
“Then we better hurry,” said the voice that was not Ba’al’s, that was not human. “You’re sure you don’t want to join us? Gautama?”
“There is no Gautama, Centurion. There is no ‘I.’ There is only the darkness.”
Sixteenth Verse
For their first four day’s north on the Valley Road, Ogdon felt like a real knight. Never before had he experienced anything more wild than Pareo’s domestic fields and beasts of burden. So as the road reached far from view of Ward Aureus to run along the white river rush of the Serpent’s Tail, every instance of unfamiliar creatures, trees, even buildings swelled Ogdon’s soul with a sense of adventure. It filled him with fire hot enough to fight off the cold of the early winter, though no flame could ever burn hot enough to ease the pain of Leonhardt’s icy shoulder.
Not until the fifth morning, as they were closing in on the great lake so called the Serpent’s Head, did she speak to him. The captain had ordered them to undress their coats of arms, to hide all sign that they were holy knights. It was shameful, and Gildmane attempted no explanation, and wouldn’t have had Brandon Harpe not protested on the spot. At once, Sir Schirmer scolded his squire, yet Ogdon saw the skepticism in the paladin’s eye. Emboldened, Sylvertre joined the dissent. He spoke openly and at length, expounding upon the virtues of being seen according to rank and title, that doing so solidifies the country’s social strata, that for order to be maintained the lower caste must know that they are low and that it is the rulers who rule. He was impressed with himself, with how fluidly he could rattle off the new philosophy fashionable among the nobles yet seemingly unknown by the fighting classes. Jael had not been so impressed.
“Idiot,” she’d called him, then with permission from the captain, she explained the reasons for his command. There was treason in the northwest; Gildmane claimed a letter as evidence, a threat sent from Duskhall in reprisal for the execution of Harold Blackheart. As members of the Cross, they’d likely be hunted as soon as they came into view of the Serpent’s Head. “So go ahead if you want,” Leonhardt spat, her eyes wide like a woman possessed, “show your noble colors and make a pretty ornament on a Blackheart lynching tree, or you can shove that archaic horse shit right back up your ass!” The captain applauded her for that, laughing. The others were kinder, remaining silent and averting their eyes as Ogdon flushed.
He was happy that she had at least acknowledged him. It was all he had their first night pitching the tents and braving the wilderness. Thus far, there had been inns or taverns or even just a farm house stables the Cross could stay in. But on the high road climb overlooking the lake, the only shelter to be found were in the hills and forest: caves and abandoned lean-tos too dangerous to trust. For they were truly in the west, land where the wild was never fully beaten back, where the only hunters were great gray wolves and lumbering black bears, where in the furthest depths danced depraved pagans in their ritual worship of the Devil’s legion.
Ogdon imagined all this and more as he hammered pegs binding the thin ropes of his tent. They’d chosen the driest spot they could find, a high knoll overlooking the murky waters of the Serpent’s head, yet still every hammer fall spattered mud over his trousers and jerkin. He hated it, that Trey’s craven command had saved his surcoat. And the longer Sylvertre brooded, the more it seemed to him that the captain arranged for it to be so—that he chose to take the high road so his orders would actually serve a purpose, so that he could take advantage of their few two-man tents—take advantage of Jael. It infuriated Ogdon when he found out that the captain and Leonhardt would be sleeping under the same canvas while he would be relegated to staying alone in his own tent—a wall of woven cloth the only thing between him and the feral darkness. And so that evening, the deserted squire sat at the fire gnawing bits of blood sausage and unleavened bread, angry and afraid as he watched the sunset behind the trees across the green, bubbling lake.
Sleep came hard as the death-grip on Ogdon’s sword as he shivered and listened to the hellish blasts of bog gas and the chattering madness of mole crickets. They played incessant on their demon fiddles while in the distance wolves sang baleful tones to be droned by choirs of owls—every once in a while, a bloodcurdling scream—so that even his dreams teemed with unseen beasts. It was fitful sleep, what little Sylvertre got. By predawn he lay awake, cramped, and exhausted. Then, of a sudden, he thought he was dreaming again. Through the thin of his canvas walls, he saw the dim of light to the west.
He pulled on his boots and woolen cloak and crawled out into the open with his sword bare. The rest were still aslumber, snoring softly in the silent air. True silence—there were no infernal crickets nor howling owls—only quiet and darkness, their fire killed by morning dew and mist floating up from the surface of the Serpent’s Head. And there to the west, a lone light, small and golden. A Swamp Ghast, thought Ogdon of his wet-nurse tales about will-o-the-wisps in the western bogs, and witches luring little girl children to cook in cauldrons, to drink their blood and wear their skin so they might stay young forever. But he was a man grown now, a sworn sword of the Saint’s Cross, not to be scared by a child’s tale. It’s just a fisherman with a lantern or…he settled on the next mundane explanation to mind, thought, bounty hunters, as if all the material world were kind and all the horrors supernatural. Then the reality set in. Ogdon’s knuckles went white around the hilt of his sword.
His first instinct was to rouse the others, but then he remembered Jael and the captain in their shared tent, and a bitterness rose up in him. He considered running instead, letting them be killed or captured by Lord Blackheart’s men—a savory revenge, yet it quickly turned sour, for what would become of him after even if he managed to escape? He could never return home. Could he even bear a shame so great?
He glanced at the light again—a small, singular thing—enough for a lone man to see only a short way. A lone man, he realized, and I have the upper hand. If I can kill him on my own, he thought maybe he could impress Jael, but can I? The squire looked where he knew his hands to be in the dark, his sword a gray shadow. Before joining the Cross, he’d practiced with a man-at-arms, but never had he fought in earnest. He knew what it was like to cut a pig carcass, but to cut a man. Only then did it strike him that that was the whole reason for their riding west, to aid the Watcher’s Eye, to kill pagan raiders and their women and their sons—and he was fretting over one man. Go, Sylvertre decided, down the knoll, furtively, murderously.
Into the thick of the mist of the sodden shore where the dull, bobbing light drifted steadily for the bank, Ogdon breathed heavily the acrid fumes wafting off the lake as he crept ever closer, the mud sucking his boots with every step. It made his heart race, the smacking sound resonating over the water, over the shadowed boat and into the stranger’s ears—he could see their vague shapes now, and prayed his feet might be masked by the belching of
swamp gas, or the screaming of owls, or the racket of frogs and far-off brackdragons. Then there was a thud among the noises of the lake, the sound of a boat shoring, and a tall, broad shadow cast upon the fog. Ogdon’s heart pumped harder, but his breaths grew smaller, the urge to cough filling his lungs like noxious fumes—yet he knew to do so would mean his doom. The shape of the stranger now moving toward him was too stout to be without armour, and he carried a lance that would outreach Sylvertre’s sword. In the mud, he’d be a sitting duck; an iron thrust would punch right through his maille. The thought caught in his chest and choked him, tearing his eyes and stinging his sinuses as a sonorous tone called out from the fog, “Oi, is somebody out there?”
He’d been spotted. The rush was too much. The squire plunged to his knees, hacking and coughing, his lungs struggling to siphon the poison air. “Stay back!” he hissed between mangled breaths, but the shadow kept coming until the glow of its lantern revealed the man.
“What in God’s name are you doing out here?” bellowed the barrel-chested stranger as he studied Sylvertre. He was not what Ogdon thought. He wore no armour, only thick woolen clothing the colors black and crimson, a lynching tree stitched on breast of his cloak. His eyes were small and dark, his hair the same, and his jaw was broad like his hands and his shoulders. And he bore not a lance, but an enormous, two-tined gig.
The squire staggered to his feet and held his sword out before him. “You’re one of Blackheart’s men. Are you here for the bounty?”
“Bounty?” The stranger held his lantern closer to Ogdon. “You don’t look like a poacher to me. That’s good southern steel you got. A smuggler, then?”
“I’m a squire of the Saint’s Cross,” he shot back, offended. “Ogdon Sylvertre, son of Lord Austen. I’m part of a detachment to aid the Watcher’s Eye. They require help fighting off the pagans.”
Salt, Sand, and Blood Page 23