Soul's Reckoning (Broken Well Trilogy) (25 page)

There
, said Bel,
I obey my god. And if you’re somehow suggesting you would not do the same, why not cede that you have no loyalty and give in right now? As for how this relates to my supposed
following
, a strong sense of purpose means a strong sense of self. Do not seek to make me believe that knowing one’s place in the world is indicative of weakness.

You are skilled, it seems, at remembering things the way you want to. Do you not recall your other thoughts that day, considering the Throneship? The fact that you like being special, but not the burden it arrives with .
 
.
 
. how you rush towards your goals to get them over and done with .
 
.
 
. how the Throneship does not appeal because it would be a lasting responsibility .
 
.
 
. are those the marks of a true leader?

Bel did not like how comprehensively Losara was becoming privy to his past, even to thoughts he’d had at the time. He needed to turn this back on his counterpart’s head.

Perhaps you chose to become a ruler
, he said,
but you have never been a strong one, never had conviction, never liked to see yourself win. Here .
 
.
 
.

Past-Losara stood with Tyrellan on the parapets of Holdwith, looking north over a field strewn with Kainordan corpses. The shadowmander ran back and forth sniffing at the dead, leaping to capture the crows that shared its interest. Losara sighed, his void-like eyes haunted and haunting at the same time.

Look at you. You have won this bout, yet are you gladdened?

‘How terrible,’ said Losara, ‘that we must exchange such violence.’

Could it be
, said Bel,
that you cannot accept success because a part of you knows it isn’t right? Look at this .
 
.
 
.

Battu, Tyrellan, Lalenda and Losara sat in Skygrip’s dining hall, while Grimra swirled over plates of delicacies. Losara reached for an anemone and put it in his mouth.

You know they are poison
,
yet you eat them anyway.

‘I’m so glad you like them,’ Battu said.

Losara swallowed. ‘Ah, but I am being rude. Would you like them passed to you?’

‘Oh, no,’ waved Battu, sitting back in his chair and patting his stomach. ‘I am .
 
.
 
. quite full. Please, if you are enjoying them, have more.’

You don’t understand your own motivations
,
as you sit there letting Battu think he’s won, when really you’re about to turn the tables on him. You think to yourself,
‘Why this charade? What do I hope to gain?’

I remember.

Do you want to know why, Losara?

Tell me.

Because THE BLAZES WITH BATTU. Because I, the missing part of you, would relish the expression on his face when he realises his plan has failed, and
he
is the one who’s actually been tricked. It should have been fulfilling to fool such an opponent, but you are incapable of appreciating it, so instead you sit there going blank. You have no passion, no heart for your work.

You are calling me weak because I don’t enjoy pain? Here .
 
.
 
.

The academy hall at Holdwith. Losara placed a hand on a lightfist’s head as he channelled. She gave a small sigh, and died in his lap.

I killed again and again to build the shadowmander. I did not like to but I did it anyway, because I know what’s at stake for my people.
That is strength, Bel, which goes beyond your childish need for personal satisfaction. It takes compassion, which you once rather laughably accused me of lacking, to really consider the effects of one’s actions. You have no compassion, you know it only as a word. You do not know guilt .
 
.
 
.

In a clearing in Drel Forest, Bel lay unconscious while around him were the mounded dead – huggers and soldiers who had been in his troop.

.
 
.
 
. although you imagined you did, after your comrades were slain in Drel. But that was something else – your worry over the weaver’s influence, your failure to achieve clean victory and thus return to celebration, your fear at losing control, the discovery of the fact that you enjoy killing so much .
 
.
 
. guilt is about accountability to others, yet all these concerns are about yourself. I, however, know that I am accountable for my actions. And I’ve become, if not comfortable, at least accepting of who I am.

The ruined village of Valdurn, just after Bel and his party had fought the Mireforms .
 
.
 
. Losara’s disguise had been dropped and he was reaching towards Bel, attempting to snatch the Stone.

I was not the one who sought Evenings Mild
, said Losara.
And here I try to take it from you, so that we may never find ourselves floating inside it having this argument. I was not afraid to remain who I was. It was
you
who wanted this,
you
who could not live without it.

I was following instructions from Arkus!

And in the end .
 
.
 
.

Elessa rode through the battle, levitating behind her a furious Bel, who was trying to kick in the heads of the enemies they passed.

.
 
.
 
. you did not even make the decision to enter. You had to be forced.

Bel felt himself losing the thread, wasn’t even sure what they were talking about any more.

You really believe yourself on the side of right?
he snapped.
Look at your land, covered by a Cloud of unnatural occurrence – that’s not the way the world was made!

Do you consider it wrong to live in a house that someone has built? Do you think things constructed are not part of the world?

I take a dim view of a land rife with barbarism .
 
.
 
.

A younger Losara leaned against Skygrip’s entry arch as a struggling Vortharg was brought to Grimra to be devoured.

.
 
.
 
. ruled by tyrants .
 
.
 
.

Battu grew angry with his student, and sent little Losara crashing to the floor.

And look .
 
.
 
.

A young Arabodedas man tried not to cry as he was led from his hut by conscriptors, forced to join the final charge.

Outside Holdwith, Grimra circled a pile of dead lightfists in a pit not yet closed over, and dived down to take a large bite.

Assidax ran her tongue over pointed fangs, as she directed her army of ghouls and skeletons across the plains at the Shining Mines.

Fazel, undead but not yet burnt, just shy of the border on the shadow side, sent magic into a thrashing blade he had captured, extracting information against both their wills.

Heron, in the throne room, begged Battu for release, and he laughed at her.

What are these things
, said Losara,
of which you have no personal knowledge, and no shared memory with me?

Bel wasn’t sure – they had simply come when required.

Do you use the shadowdream against me? A dangerous game to play, Blade Bel.

Would you like to go further back, perhaps? See how Fenvarrow has attacked Kainordas for a thousand years?

Only if we can also see how Kainordas has attacked Fenvarrow. You want to use the dream – let’s use it, then.

A flotilla of barges brimming with blades and lightfists worked its way down the Dragon’s Sorrow. They passed the Hinter Swamplands and entered the Dimglades Delta, where the going became ponderous, and soldiers leaned on poles to poke the vessels through the shallow mire. At the edge of the Delta was a town populated by pixies and goblins, from which shouts rang out as the approach was spotted. Barges nudged the banks and soldiers poured into the town, quickly and vastly outnumbering its denizens.

Never rebuilt
, said Losara.

Recompense, I imagine, for some other atrocity.

And recompense for some other, and some other, and some other, way back into the folds of forever. You lecture me on right and wrong, Bel? You really think Kainordas is good and Fenvarrow evil?

Elessa sat in a tavern room somewhere, alone and disconsolate, looking in the mirror and trying not to touch her own face.

You condemn our use of undead, yet when it suits your own purpose, apparently there’s no issue.

Battu and Fahren were walking over a bridge of light in the Morningbridge Peaks.

You showed me Battu the tyrant – but you seem to forget that he was cast out, rejected by the Dark Gods for his nefarious and self-serving ways. Yet you took him in and made him one of your own.

And who’s this?
replied Bel, as a spectral weaver bird flitted onto the bridge.
Could it be someone cast out from our
side, someone your
lot
took in?

Why, yes – the difference being that we took the weavers without a great need to.

Because you share their love of evil acts.

Because we accepted them for what they are, even though they were created by our greatest enemy.

At least Arkus can admit when he’s made a mistake.

Then they were back in the barracks, again with Brahl and Fahren, who were now talking about what to do regarding Thedd Naphur.

Brahl licked his lips. ‘I could arrange for something to .
 
.
 
. befall him,’ he said.

Murder, Bel, of the rightful heir to the Throne – something you were a party to considering.

We didn’t do it.

Only because you found another way. And you, personally, I now recall, were all for it.

We could ill afford one such as Thedd.

Why do you think Fenvarrow’s ‘tyrants’ are chosen for their strength? At least we are open about our process.

We were operating under unusual circumstances.

During which you broke every moral you profess to defend. Look at this .
 
.
 
.

Fahren, in his tent, stared down in horror at the prostrate Querrus, whose eyes were empty, a trickle of spittle oozing from his mouth.

‘Forgive me,’ murmured Fahren. He waved a hand over Querrus, who stiffened for a moment, then fell still. Fahren reached down to close his eyes, then opened the ground beneath to swallow him up.

Bel could not believe what he was seeing. Fahren had said Querrus had been sent off on some errand!

That did not happen. It is some trick, some lie.

We are close enough now that you would sense if I was lying. And while we’re taking a look at Fahren, let us glimpse one possible future .
 
.
 
.

The battle raged across the Grass Ocean, just as it had been doing when Bel had left it – except that he saw himself still there, fighting wave upon wave of attackers. Meanwhile Losara and his mages were gaining ground, Kainordans falling in their hundreds, the tide turning vastly against them. Fahren blasted a Graka from the air and spun, desperately seeking Bel. Bel, lost in his frenzy, did not notice Fahren approaching. They were surrounded by the enemy, closing on them like a giant fist. The light was losing.

This is not how it happened.

But if it was
, said Losara,
then what would Fahren do, I wonder?

Fahren saw Losara looming, his shadow growing larger up the funnel of a hurricane that blasted aside lightfists like leaves.

‘Blade Bel!’ he called, but Bel did not turn, merely howled as he put his sword through another foe. Fahren paused, tears in his eyes – then he shot a light bolt into Bel’s neck. Bel was flung flat on his face and Losara reeled, the hurricane unspooling as both of them died together.

You see
, said Losara.
Even your greatest advocate could potentially betray you.

He had no other choice
, said Bel dully.

Perhaps if your leaders had implemented conscription
,
your army would not have been overwhelmed.

We have NOT been overwhelmed
.
This is but conjecture.

It is an outcome that Fahren has considered. Do not fool yourself – if it came to this, he would kill you if it meant killing me also. Better to return to balance than be defeated.

Would Fahren, as good as any grandfather, really do such a thing? But then he was also the Throne, and as such had to make difficult decisions.

Perhaps I would not blame him
, said Bel, though he was thankful the theory had not been tested.

This is not about blame. It is about you supposing to know the difference between good and evil, and attributing them in a broad sweep to entire lands, when in fact they are hard enough to discover in individuals, and certainly have little to do with the conflict between us.

What do you call this, then?

Lalenda rose from hiding to fly out and attack Jaya in the stream.

How can you profess not to know evil, and yet love one such as her?

Losara watched his little pixie, her face a mask of rage, as she struggled to slash at Jaya.

She is not evil
, he said sadly.
She is driven to hate by love, for she fears the light will take me away.