Wearied, worn and broken, they struggled towards the mayor’s office. None of them seemed capable of speech and it wasn’t like Janus ever knew what the right words were, anyway. Sometimes it wasn’t about words but about simply being there, simply carrying others when they couldn’t stand up themselves. Quite literally, in Viktor’s case.
He didn’t know what lay in wait for them, or what the day’s events would mean. All Janus knew – all he had ever known – was to keep going, one day after another. As he paused on the stone steps to take once last look out at the square, so blindingly white like freshly fallen snow, pure and untouched, he wondered how he could change, if change was ever really possible. Like imprints in the frozen ground, he wanted to leave marks behind. An imprint of himself, if only so he could look behind and say that they belonged to him. That he bore something that was distinctively Janus, and only Janus, not the mark of another.
Up until now he had merely been a vessel for the hand of others. In some ways it was all he knew how to be. For it was easier to act out the will of others than to bear the brunt of the responsibility when the blame could be passed on elsewhere. Cowardice was all it had been. But it was hard to choose a path without signposts; not when Janus had only ever been looking behind him. Turning towards a future he had never entertained was like looking into the blinding sunshine. He was struck by the glare.
“Janus?” said Kilai, pausing at the door to Sandson’s office. “Are you coming?”
With one last lingering look, Janus turned and walked inside.
*
“I do so appreciate that you’ve dumped all of this on my doorstep.”
Kilai fixed Sandson with a glare. “I’m sure it must be so terribly hard for you to sit at your desk all day and do – what is it you do, exactly?”
Sandson smiled a slippery smile. “You know as well as everyone, Shaikuro-wei, that wars are not always won by firing guns everywhere. Would you like me to turn you out now and you can deal with this situation as you would prefer?”
She crossed her arms. “I reckon we would have a better chance,” she snapped, even though she knew that was not true at all. Viktor was still lolled across Sandson’s couch as a medic inspected him, forcing open an eyelid to peer at his blank pupils, checking his temperature and pulse. Samker looked completely worn out, wrapped in a blanket in a heap in the corner, and try as she might, she just couldn’t kill the guilt gnawing at her gut, that she had been the one to bring him into this. Riftspawn were floating around Sandson’s office, one slipping into his desk lamp and turning it on and off again intermittently.
A knock at the door startled them all. Shaking his head minutely, Sandson pushed himself up from his desk and went to the door where an attendant stood in robes. “Shai,” he murmured softly, “Major Riki is here to see you.”
Fear crashed over her, leaching the warmth from her bones. She willed Sandson to turn so she might see his expression but he did not. Instead he simply nodded, said something to his attendant she could not hear, and then slipped out the door. When she glanced around the rest of her party were too distracted to notice so Kilai padded to the door on her own, nudging it open ever so slightly so that she could slip through.
Creeping along the wall until she came to the corner, she paused when she heard voices rising in anger. They were spoken in the sweeping syllables of Sonlin, harder for her to pick up on even though she was mostly comfortable in the language. Stealing a glance past the wall, she glimpsed a tall woman in a fitted indigo coat decorated with medals, long flame red hair streaming down her back. This would have to be Major Riki, the renowned second in command to General Nevi, the woman in charge of the forces in the city. Her eyes were on Sandson, whose back was turned to Kilai.
“… I’ll have you strung up by your bootstraps if I find you had a hand in this Sandson. Mayor or no I’ll do it myself if I find you treasonous. Your title is nothing but a self-made fantasy, do not forget that.”
“Perhaps you might like to have this conversation elsewhere, Riki-all.”
His use of Myrish honorifics were not lost on either party, Riki bristling. “Do you think they care for you here now? Do you think they forget you are as foreign as me on this soil?” She scoffed. “You think yourself the noble shining hero, don’t you? Not like us cruel oppressors.”
“Have I ever said anything of the like?”
Kilai could not read Sandson’s tone, flat and devoid of emotion.
“You may sculpt the narrative as you like but it doesn’t change that you’re nothing but a peasant playing a king. They will cast you out as soon as they grow tired with this little game of yours.”
“Is that not the way we do things on the continent? I thought innovation was to be celebrated, no? Otherwise I’m sure General Nevi would be here instead of sending you in her place.”
Riki snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”
The tension seemed to have dissipated, a beat of silence cooling the heat of their conversation. Sandson broke it. “Why are you here, Riki-all? Did you need someone to yell at? Someone to blame for this? Is Nevi getting that desperate?”
She scowled at him. “I am told you know all that happens in this city. I wish to find this boy before he destroys everything we have built here.”
“I keep my ear to the ground, yes, but I am not so arrogant as to say I know everything.”
“Why do I feel like you lie?”
“I am told I have a dishonest face.”
Kilai ducked back behind the wall when Riki’s one-eyed gaze wandered, a hand over her beating heart. Her eye patch made her even more disconcerting.
There would be no end to the Sonlin Empire’s hunt for Viktor. Not after he had revealed the extent of his power. Of his ability to tear down their legacy of torment and oppression. She moved closer again when their voices quieted, trying to pick up their words, but was distracted by Rook appearing at the door.
“It’s Viktor,” she said, eyes wide.
Torn between eavesdropping and her friends, Kilai nodded and with a sense of resignation re-entered Sandson’s office. Inside Janus and Samker were hovering a good distance from the man sitting on the couch, his head cradled in his hands.
“Where am I?”
Kilai shared a glance with Rook. Viktor’s voice was deeper than normal.
“Viktor –”
“Viktor is dead.”
Kilai took a reflexive step back when Viktor looked up. His eyes flashed green and then faded back to hazel but no recognition came with it. They swivelled from person to person, blank and cold. Something about the shape of his shoulders when he straightened up, the steep tilt of his chin when he lifted it, made him look an entirely different person. More man than the boy she thought him as.
“I know he’s still in there,” said Rook.
The man smirked, standing in one swift motion. Kilai took another step back and his eyes caught the movement. “Do I scare you, Kilai-wei?”
She sucked in a breath and planted her feet. “No. Not, in the way you mean.”
“Oh?”
“But I fear for my friend in there. I fear what will become of him.”
The man she had come to know as Viktor stepped forward, heedless of Janus’ revolver pointed in his face. “You need not worry any longer. Viktor is gone. There is only Vallnor now. And you should kneel before your prince.”
“No. I don’t think I will.”
She heard Rook’s sharp intake of breath before his eyes turned green again, raising a palm in their direction. In a flash Rook hurled one of her blades at him. He ducked out of the way but it still managed to slice him across the cheek, drops of crimson blood beading at the cut and spilling down his face. With a hiss he wiped at it, gaze turning to Rook. Already the cut was knitting back together. Seeing it happen like this made Kilai breathless.
“You think you can challenge me, Rook?”
Rook’s own gaze had turned sharper, each movement quick enough to make the eye uncom
fortable. “Would you like to find out, prince?”
He huffed a laugh, smirking. “As much as I would, I have places to be.” He sauntered towards the door, pausing between them. “I’m sure we will see one another soon, Weishei.” Then he stalked off.
Rook whirled. “Viktor, wait!” She moved as if to run after him but Janus grabbed her before Kilai could. “I need to go after him!” she snapped, yanking her arm out of Janus’ grasp.
“Stop,” commanded Kilai, surprised when the woman paused and turned around. “You can’t help him right now.” She had seen it, the change in expression that had come over his face.
“I need to try –”
“You need to let him find his own way.” It was something they all needed.
Rook bit her lip and looked away, fist clenching. “I don’t want to lose him.”
“Then believe he can fight this. He needs to figure this out himself, otherwise it has no meaning. If you keep being the one to pull him back, he’ll be completely dependant on that.”
“But I don’t mind,” Rook said softly.
Kilai placed a hand on her shoulder, feeling her jump beneath the touch. “Perhaps it is time we all went our separate ways.”
The look of betrayal on her face was enough to make her feel guilty. But more than anything, Kilai was weary. She had faced down monsters and armies and the death of her father and come out alive. But to survive was not to live. To live they each needed to find what they were looking for and chase it. They needed to find themselves, Kilai more than anyone. She was no longer playing the governor, nor was she in any position to play leader to their sorry crew. She needed time out to reconnect with who she was. Maybe find out what lay on the other side of that horizon line.
“We should talk,” she said, gathering her party around. “All of us. You too, Janus.”
Sometimes there were things that needed to be said, even if she didn’t want to be the one to say them.
*
Janus’ footsteps echoed on the stone floor as he entered the church. Stares drew to him but he forced himself to ignore the prickling sensation on his back. Let them stare. In the end he was just another hapless soul like the rest of them, looking to make sense of the black abyss of his existence. Janus was not a complicated man. He did not care for gossip, or pondering, or anything more complex than his own survival from one day to the next, and even then it was not always his first priority. Anything that would drown out the deluge of his memories. Some days that was as close to survival as he could manage.
An older man straightened his posture from where he had been stooped over his broom, sweeping the floor. He blinked between the thick folds of his eyes, lines on his brow deepening. “Do my eyes deceive me or have you come to me as a spirit?”
“Lot of them about.”
“Aye,” said Moran, passing him the broom and sinking onto the first wooden bench with a sharp intake of breath. “That there is. You know it’s a sign of the times when the dead come back to haunt us.”
Janus snorted, eyes drawn to the colourful glass windows, light streaming through them in jewel hued ribbons. A writhing tentacled creature broke from a black sea, wrapping around a ship broken in two. Another depicted two men – one in black surrounded by blue water and white stars – and the other in gold with a red sun at his back. Gods and prophets and demons. It had always been a bit much for him, even with all he had seen, for when the fantastical became reality he saw no reason to worship the ordinary. But there was something about this hallowed space that people flocked to in their hordes, desperate for shelter of the mind.
“You do not believe they are the dead risen again?”
Janus grimaced, reaching into his pocket only to stop himself at the last minute. “Hope not. I’m damned if that’s truth.”
Moran laughed, voice echoing in the cavernous space. “You’re not alone in that, I’m afraid.” Leaning back, his eyes caught the same glass pictorials that Janus gazed upon. “I fear the changes happening out there. Something is stirring. The holy book speaks of this time as the dark days before we’re all dragged to the depths of Var Kunir’s Locker.”
“Don’t get why we’re always talking about the bad guy. Got your sun king, haven’t you?”
Moran watched him sweep, the sound as gentle as the caress of the waves against the shore. “Humans always have a fascination with the dark, don’t you think? There’s more to hide there.” Their eyes met and Janus shivered. Ripping himself away from their locked gaze, he put more force into his sweeping, relishing the burn in his muscles.
“Where will you be going this time, Janus?”
He paused, resting his hands on the broom. The words could have been an echo of the distant past, tripping through the slipstream of time only to fall upon his ears years later. Earnest eyes, wide and eager. Pleading. Words that would never be said but conveyed nevertheless.
I am leaving, he had said. He should have heeded his own words.
Where will you go, Janus?
He hadn’t known the answer then and he sure in the Locker didn’t know the answer now. A faded signal hummed in the back of his mind, barely noticeable until he allowed the quiet to seep into his thoughts and remind him of the pact he had made. It did not frighten him as it perhaps should. Every kind of deal with demons Janus had already made. There was little of him left to give.
“Don’t know,” he gritted out. Returning to sweeping with a vengeance, he made it his mission to sweep and sweep until the floors shone in the candlelight flickering from the table at the front of the alter. They were all lit, meaning it must be the last day of the cycle. The darkness before the dawn. According to Zorashiran practice, a candle had to be lit on the first day of the week, two on the second, and so on until one reached the last day of the week – the impure day where Var Kunir’s forces were at their strongest – when all the holy candles had to be lit to stave off his darkness.
By the time Janus finished sweeping his back ached and he rolled his neck, bones clicking in the quiet. He placed the broom against the side of the bench and took a seat beside Guide Moran, the restlessness in him sated. For the time being.
“Did you find your answer?” said Moran finally, after a period of silence.
“Found something. Close enough.” Making a pact with a riftspawn was probably not what Moran meant but Janus wasn’t about to tell him that.
Moran hummed in the back of his throat. “However you reach your light, keep grasping for it. The darkness will happily devour you if you let it.”
“Think it would have taken me already if so.”
“Perhaps. But we welcome all here.”
“Even heathens like me?”
“Even lost souls like you.”
“Thought you’d given up on converting me, Guide.”
Moran shook his head as he stood, making his way to the table of candles. “I never give up.” One was flickering and he smothered it so he could relight it with a match. The gesture made Janus hungry for a cigarette. “I sense you do not either, despite what you like to tell me.”
“Given up on many things, Guide. If you knew the truth, don’t think you’d talk to me.”
“I’ve seen many a man under this hallowed roof. Some good, some struggling, some despicable. The past is a used candle,” he said, picking up the gilded holder with a thin layer of melted wax now solidified at the bottom. Scraping it out, he went to a cupboard and took out another pillar of wax, wedging it into the holder. “See, I can prepare for the future, but in the end, it is the present that is the real task. Each day you must reset. Relight the present anew.” Using a match he lit the new candle and placed the holder back into the line with the rest. “If I do not do this, I help to usher in Var Kunir’s darkness. Only by this daily ritual do I ward off his evil. Do you understand?”
Janus scratched his chin. “Don’t think you mean I should light candles every day.”
“No. I think you understand me well enough, Jan-cho.”
The endearment tugged at his broken edges. It did not feel earned.
“Every day you must put effort into self-improvement. It cannot be won through occasional offerings, when guilt extorts actions. It must be a continual commitment.”
“You assume I want to be good.”
Moran smiled softly, eyes still on his candles burning in the gloom of the church. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
But that wasn’t really it. Janus was still being selfish; he simply wanted direction. Guidance. A purpose to keep himself going. This wasn’t anything but a need to quell the violence in his heart. Apathy might have been the coward’s way out but that didn’t mean Janus knew how to be anything but. Besides, what would he give himself to? A riftspawn that had used his friend as nothing but a vessel to utilise for its own ends? It hardly seemed any more moral than being a mercenary.
“You would be surprised what faith could do for a man.”
Janus blinked, hairs rising on his arms. The light from the windows shone down on Moran, his robes shining dramatically like a Yormir painting. It was as if the man could read his mind and it left him unsettled.
“Find what stirs your heart. Fight for it.”
He snorted, as was his instinct. Mock the sincere. But it belied that more and more, he found himself clinging to what sincerity he could find. To Kilai’s honest words, to Viktor’s earnestness, and to Rook’s lofty ambitions. Each of them had set alight something in him; an extinguished flame lit once more. For he had found something he wanted to nurture rather than destroy and he had nothing left now but to chase after it. In the end, he might fall. But Janus had little left to lose.
“Thank you, Guide,” he said, standing up.
“You are leaving now.”
“Yes.”
Moran nodded, rising with him. Clasping Janus’ arm, he tapped at his temple with two fingers of his left hand. “Rill ja korshi. Rillan laishi.”
“Dusk fall. Dawn rise,” repeated Janus.
And with that he walked out of the church, footsteps echoing behind him.
The Reaping Season Page 40