A Sellsword's Mercy

by Jacob Peppers

  Adina hurried down the hallways toward the meeting room. Two Akalians stood on either side of the door, and if they felt any surprise or confusion at a woman practically sprinting toward them in the middle of the night, the black cloth wrapped around their faces concealed it. “I need to get inside,” she said, pausing to pant for breath.

  Without a word, one of the Akalians disappeared inside and reappeared a moment later, swinging the door wide so that she could enter. The Speaker sat in the same chair in which he had hours before, his face uncovered.

  “Princess Adina,” he said. There was a note of exhaustion in his voice and dark, purple circles under his eyes. Whatever power his bond with the Virtue of Will gave the man, it was clear that exercising it took a toll on him. “I had not thought to see you again until tomorrow.”

  “Sorry, but I was looking for Aaron.”

  The Speaker frowned. “General Envelar left a few hours ago—I had thought he went to rest. I’m sure he’s in his room, for experiencing the power of the Virtue of Will is, I’m afraid, an exhausting prospect not just for me but for he—or she—who it is used upon. I myself, I must admit, had fallen asleep in my chair before—”

  “He’s not in his room,” Adina interrupted, aware that she was talking over the leader of the most-skilled—and most feared—warriors the world had to offer, but too concerned for Aaron to care. “I checked. And he didn’t…” She paused, stopping herself from saying that he hadn’t come to see her, as she’d thought he would. The Speaker might have saved her and the others, but that didn’t mean her relationship with Aaron was any of his business.

  Adina watched the Speaker’s expression grow troubled, mirroring the fear she felt in her own heart. “Did something happen?” she asked.

  The Speaker seemed in deep thought, and he started when she spoke. “Forgive me, what did you say?”

  Adina took a step further into the room, her fear making her bold and more than a little angry. “Aaron didn’t leave with me and the others. When I left, you were both still in here doing…well, whatever it was you were doing. Now, I can’t seem to find him, so I’m asking you—did something happen?”

  The Speaker frowned. “Aaron Envelar is a powerful man—not even he understands the true strength he commands. I had expected such a joining of the bond to be…difficult. But conquering one’s fears is never easy and—”

  “What did you do?” Adina demanded, her jaw clenching.

  The Akalian shook his head slowly, seemingly lost in thought. “It is not what I did, Princess, but what Aaron Envelar did.”

  “And just what was that?” she managed, her patience a frayed, pitiful thing.

  “He banished me,” the Speaker said, as if he still didn’t quite believe it. “Never before have I experienced such a…rejection as I did at his hands when exercising the power of my bond. In truth, I had not even known such was possible. General Envelar somehow took over the vision—my vision—and made it his own, throwing me out of it, the way an innkeeper might expel a customer behind on his payments.”

  He shook his head in wonder that such a thing could happen, but Adina cared nothing for the man’s surprise, only for Aaron and finding out where he was. “So what was the vision about then?”

  “I…don’t know,” the Speaker said, and he held a hand up to forestall Adina before she could speak. “That is to say that, before Aaron banished me from it, the vision was much the same as those you and the others experienced. Of course, the message was different, as it had to be. What he might have seen or felt afterward…” He shook his head slowly. “I do not know, but he seemed greatly troubled at the vision’s end and, during it, I was forced to restrain him lest he hurt himself. He called out your name, this much I know, but after he woke he said little before departing. Only said something about being a monster and—”

  “Wait a minute,” Adina interrupted, her heart racing in her chest, “he said he was a monster?” She’d heard the sellsword say such before, when his bond with the Virtue of Compassion caused him to go into one of his uncontrollable rages, and she had thought—had hoped—that those days were behind him.

  “Yes,” the Akalian said, obviously concerned. He rose from the chair in which he’d been sitting. “I think, perhaps, I will help you find him, if you will have me.”

  “Fine,” she said, already restless to be moving, to be searching for him. “Aaron has felt this way before, thought that the only way he could protect me and the others was to get as far away from us as possible. We’ll have to go into the woods to check—”

  “There is no need,” the Speaker said, “for I know that General Envelar has not ventured into the woods and away from the protective perimeter my brothers have established. I would have heard news, had he done so.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Without question, Princess,” the Speaker said, “for my brothers believe in the importance of Aaron Envelar in the coming battle as much as I do—or nearly so.”

  Adina hissed. “Where then? The barracks isn’t that big. If Aaron has reverted to believing that he’s a monster, he’ll want to get as far away from me and the others as he can.”

  The Speaker frowned, considering. Then, finally, his eyes went wide. “Oh gods, let it not be so,” he breathed.

  “What?” Adina said, her stomach fluttering with apprehension. “What is it?”

  “Perhaps it is as you fear, Princess, and General Envelar has sought to put as much distance between himself and you and your companions as possible. But the circumstances allow him little enough movement and, such a man, without the ability to flee in fear of the monster he believes himself to be, might choose another course.”

  “What course?”

  “He might choose to prove to himself that he is not a monster, after all. Gods,” he breathed, this in little more than a whisper. “He is not ready.”

  “Not ready for what?” Adina demanded.

  “Follow me,” the Speaker said, heading for the door at a jog. “Perhaps, there is still time.”

  ***

  “Why did you bring her here?” Adina demanded, her fear making her angry as she and the Speaker walked through the barrack’s hallway. “You know she tried to kill Aaron before, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” the Speaker said, “I know, but though Tianya was misguided, her intentions were good—I would not wish anyone such a death as Kevlane would visit upon her, should she be captured. And even if mercy was not enough to compel me to help her, surely practicality would have been, for Kevlane covets the Seven, and should he bond with even one more, he would be all but unstoppable.” He stopped in front of a door and nodded to her. “She is within.”

  Adina pushed her way inside the room, not bothering to knock, for if what the Speaker had told her was true, Tianya would not have answered in any case. The door swung open, and she felt a great sense of relief flood through her when she saw Aaron knelt beside the woman’s bed. Her relief was short-lived, however, for she saw that the sellsword’s eyes were closed—as were Tianya’s—and he was not moving.

  “Aaron?”

  He did not answer, and Adina hurried to the bed. As she drew closer, she saw that he clasped one of Tianya’s too-thin hands in a white-knuckled grip. “Aaron?” Suddenly the sellsword let out an angry hiss. Adina knew that sound, had heard him make it before. He was in pain.

  As she watched him, a line of blood began to trickle from his nose. That decided her, and Adina rushed forward, meaning to jerk the sellsword away from the wasted form in the bed and whatever pain he’d subjected himself to. She’d only just grabbed his shoulders—shocked at how hot they felt to the touch even through the thick shirt he wore—when the Speaker stepped into the room.

  “Do not,” he said, in a voice that was at once commanding and full of fear.

  Adina froze, though whether by her own will or that of the Speaker’s bond forced upon her, she could not have said for sure. She turned to him, her lips twisting into a snarl. “Why not? Can�
��t you see that whatever it is, whatever he’s doing, it’s hurting him?” As if to illustrate her point, the sellsword let out a low, almost imperceptible moan, and his breathing sped up until he was nearly panting. “Damnit, what’s happening to him?”

  The Speaker shook his head slowly. “Aaron Envelar has entered into the woman’s madness, Princess. He is in her world now, her mind, and there is no way of knowing what horrors he faces within it.”

  “Well,” Adina snapped, studying the sellsword, troubled at the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he sucked in shallow, desperate breaths, “then get him out of it. Surely, there must be a way to—”

  “No,” the Speaker said. “There is not. Believe me, Princess, I beg you. Aaron’s being is now a part of Tianya’s mind, and should you sever the connection…” He shook his head slowly, and Adina’s heart skipped a beat in her chest.

  “He’d be lost,” she said in shock. “Lost in her mind.”

  “Yes,” the Speaker agreed. “Should you separate the connection before it is finished, the Aaron Envelar you know would not return. His body would still live on, but without his mind to guide it, it would be little more than a sack of flesh.”

  “But why?” Adina demanded. “Why would he do this? He knows as well as I what Tianya is capable of, what she was willing to do to him. Why would he possibly risk his life for hers?”

  The Speaker winced. “Because I asked him to.”

  “You did what?” Adina screamed.

  The Akalian’s face was troubled, but he did not look away from where he studied the sellsword. “The war with the magi and his minions comes, Princess, and even with all of the Virtues gathered together, even with their combined might, victory is far from certain, for there are other magics in the world. Dark magics which the magi uses even now to raise an army against us the likes of which Telrear has never seen and will not see again, whatever comes.”

  “And?” Adina hissed. “Somehow that gives you the right to ask Aaron to risk his life for a woman who tried to kill him? And why couldn’t you do something yourself, like with the visions you showed me and the others?”

  The Speaker was shaking his head before she was finished. “The power of my Virtue is dependent upon a person’s will. Even if that will is a weak, frail thing, it might still be strengthened by the bond. But the woman you know as Tianya is too far gone for such measures, Princess, for she has almost fully succumbed to her madness, her grief, and in doing so has given up whatever will she once possessed.”

  “Almost fully,” Adina repeated, glancing back at Aaron and the wasted, frail thing in the bed. To her, it looked as if Tianya were moments away from death, and it was a wonder that a person in her condition could even draw breath into her lungs. “What happens when she does succumb completely?”

  The Speaker met her eyes. “Then she will die, Princess.”

  “And Aaron?” The Speaker did not answer her, only studied her silently, and Adina realized she didn’t need him to. She thought she knew the answer well enough—if Tianya died then so would Aaron. She took a slow, deep breath. She would do the sellsword no good, if she gave in to the panic that threatened to overwhelm her, so she forced herself to slow down, to think. “So what can we do?”

  The Speaker’s face twisted with frustration, but he clearly made his own effort to calm down. He shook his head. “We can only wait.”

  “And pray Aaron is strong enough,” Adina said, nodding and taking at least some comfort in that, for Aaron was the strongest man she had ever met.

  “Not only Aaron, I’m afraid,” the Speaker said. “You see,” he continued, noting her confused expression, “General Envelar is within the woman’s world, and though I do not doubt his courage or his resolve, he will be facing Tianya’s madness, her fears. And though others might lend their aid, in the end, we each must conquer our own demons.”

  “So there’s nothing we can do,” Adina said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “We can hope, princess,” the Speaker said, coming to stand beside her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “We can hope.”

  They lapsed into silence then, studying the two motionless figures as if their attention might somehow cause them to rouse. They remained still, however, the line of blood still winding its way from Aaron’s nose. Adina wanted to reach out, to wipe it away, but she was afraid to even so much as touch him now, afraid she might inadvertently break the connection between Aaron and the woman on the bed, leaving him trapped in her world, her mind. So instead she only stood, helpless, listening to the occasional, nearly inaudible moan or grunt of pain from the sellsword, her body tensing with each sound.

  ***

  The Speaker of the Akalians stood stoically, and had some other person been there to see it, they might have marveled at his calm as he watched the sellsword’s desperate battle. But they would have known nothing of the storm of emotion raging inside him. He marveled at the sellsword’s inner strength, wondered at the fact that he was here at all, for the man who had walked—almost fled—from the meeting room had been a man without hope or belief in himself; yet now the same man risked his life to save a woman who had caused him nothing but grief and pain. It was a wonderful, terrible thing to watch, yet it was his to witness, so he remained still, waiting for what would come next and knowing that the fate of Telrear hung in the balance.

  It had been long years since he had felt the darkness so close, since he had questioned so strongly his own beliefs, his long established course. In that moment, the fight for the world took place not on a battlefield or at castle walls but in a small, unassuming room that still smelled of freshly-cut wood. Beneath his placid exterior, the Speaker of the Akalians raged at himself, berated himself as a fool for asking so much of the sellsword. He raged, he despaired, and for the first time in a very long time, the Speaker of the Akalians felt doubt, a doubt that threatened to make a mockery of all that he had thought he’d accomplished in his long years, one that, in a moment, might make ash of all his preparations, all his plotting and scheming.

  Yet in our moments of greatest despair, there is still hope.

  The Speaker turned to see the misty form of Aaron Caltriss, the world’s greatest king, standing beside him. The form did not shift or stir, only stood silently regarding the two figures by the bed. Studying the old king’s visage, the Speaker was reminded of his troubled words within the vision they shared with Aaron Envelar. The sellsword had not realized, even then, that it was his own despair, his own concern that had so affected the dead king. The Speaker had not thought such a thing possible himself, for a bearer of a Virtue to—intentionally or unintentionally—effect another of the Virtues so directly.

  There is hope, then? the Speaker asked in his mind.

  The misty apparition didn’t turn so much as there was a subtle shift in the smoky haze that constituted his form. One moment he was staring at the two figures by the bed and, in the next, he was studying the Speaker. There is always hope, Raenclest, the dead king said. While a man lives, there is hope and…sometimes… His mouth slowly turned into a small smile. Sometimes, even when he is dead. It had been long years since anyone—the Virtue included—had used the Speaker’s given name. It sounded strange to his ears, though not unpleasant. The man, Raenclest, was long dead, subsumed by the identity of the Speaker, of what he had needed to become. Still, there was something vaguely pleasant, reassuring about the sound of it, and he took the Virtue’s use of the name of the man he’d once been for what it was—a gift. It was as if he’d detected an aroma that, though he could not place it or remember the time at which he’d first smelled it, still harkened back to some joyful memory.

  Thank you, King, the Speaker thought, but I am that man no longer.

  But you are, the apparition said. You are what you have always been, yet you are more, too. That is one thing that Boyce never understood—a man cannot change completely, cannot be made into something new, for though he might change his clothes and his hair, even his body
and his thoughts, what comes is always built upon what was there in the beginning.

  It was always a slight source of discomfort to the Speaker when the Virtue spoke of the magi as if he were just a man, for the Speaker himself had spent his many years thinking of him almost as a force of nature, a terrible doom that must be stopped. But if that is true, King, then the magi would still be the man you once knew, the friend you once knew. The Lifeless, those poor souls upon which he visits his horrors, would still be men and women with hopes and dreams instead of unrecognizable monstrosities bent on death and destruction.

  There was a subtle shift and the Virtue’s face was only inches from his own, the dead king’s hand on the Speaker’s shoulder, a feather-light weight. But they are all the same men, Raenclest. We all are, and though you think that you must be more than you once were, though you fear that remembering might be a source of weakness, it is, in truth, your greatest strength, for it was the man, Raenclest, who committed to stopping Boyce and his abominations. It was Raenclest who took over the role of Speaker for the Akalians and convinced them of the coming danger.

  And the magi? the Speaker thought, not yet ready to concede the point. The Lifeless?

  You think them monsters, unrecognizable from the men and women they were, the Virtue said. You think Kevlane, in his folly, a monster, too, beyond hope of redemption, and you are right. But you are right for the wrong reasons. It is not Boyce’s dark soul that makes him irredeemable, not his cruelties and malicious intents, not our inability to recognize the man he once was within him, that make him beyond saving. Instead, it is his inability to recognize himself. He is lost, unable to find his way back to the man he once was, because he has forgotten who that man was—would not recognize him even should he walk past him in the street. Too long has he sustained himself on hate and revenge—hate for me and mine for abandoning him in our death, revenge on a world that he feels has wronged him. It has corrupted him, changed him, and the most terrible part of that change is that he does not even remember what he has lost.