The Betrayed (34 page)

Armin had to return home.

Hopefully, he would learn about Feorans, about the Movement, the sudden appearance of this new god. He would learn why an atheist noble had turned into the most fervent protagonist of a savage, young religion.

He hopped into his carriage. Inessa sat reading a book by the light of a small lamp. He kissed her. They started their way back to the rented mansion. Some time later, the carriage lurched and stopped.

Armin peered outside. “Why have we stopped?” he asked Gustav, his bodyguard. The man was not seated behind the team of horses. He stood by the carriage, a short sword in his hand.

“Everything is fine. Stay inside, investigator.”

Shouting. Clangs of metal. Armin felt his blood chill. Inessa drew her poniards and dashed outside without a word. Armin ran after her.

Gustav was dancing, his sword flashing, fighting two men further up the street. Dark figures were running toward the coach.

“Inside, Investigator!” another voice shouted. Two more secret agents the council had appointed him came out of their hiding, brandishing swords and knives. One of them pushed him back toward the carriage.

Armin watched the horrible battle evolve. Inessa threw one of her knives. A man went down, clutching his face. Another brute came at her. She glided past him, burying the second poniard in his neck.

A crossbow bolt slammed into the carriage near him, chipping paint. He winced and went down into a protective huddle, knowing full well that his symbolic act couldn’t stop the thick quarrels.

People shrieked as they died, mostly the assailants. He saw one of Gustav’s comrades stumble, pierced by one of those deadly bolts. Then, Inessa fell down, and his world shattered.

He ran toward her, oblivious of the swords flashing about him. He did not care. He did not care. He collapsed at her side, knowing with cold, heart-piercing certainty that she was dead. Her eyes were open and glazed over. The shaft of the bolt jutted from her chest; it had gone straight through her heart.

Footsteps. Shouts. The assailants were running away. Further down the street, a squad of city guards appeared, racing up toward the ambush. Gustav leaned against a wall, nursing a gash in his arm. Another council-appointed bodyguard dragged the body of his dead friend toward them. Bodies littered the cobblestones. Blood, black and slick, shimmered in the yellow lamplight. Madness.

“Investigator, we must take you to safety,” Gustav spoke, his voice laced with pain.

Armin held his tears back. Now was not the time to mourn. He touched his wife’s face, parting with her one last time. Gently, he closed her eyes.

“Investigator, please,” another face mouthed at him.

“I can walk,” Armin snapped, shrugging off the arm that helped him up to his feet. Inessa was dead.

Gustav was back on the carriage, along with a pair of city guards. The other bodyguard was waving at him frantically, urging him to rush. Armin had no reason to rush. They had killed his wife.

What would he tell Doris and Galina? That she had been his bodyguard for so many years, without so much as a scratch, and that she had died in a foreign city to a foreign arrow? It was supposed to be just another investigation, a battle fought with intellect.

The dazed Sirtai climbed into the carriage. As it sped away, he allowed his tears to run free in the dim light of Inessa’s small lamp.

CHAPTER 31

A
yrton had expected an almost ecstatic thrill to envelop him once he stepped into Jaruka, the holiest of the holy cities, the seat of all the houses of the gods, the place where the destiny of mankind had been shaped.

Instead, he felt empty, almost depressed.

The city was recuperating from the Autumn Festival. It was officially autumn now. Days were getting shorter and colder. Rain came almost every day, drizzles, sleet, tiny storms, almost a portent of things to come.

Walking down the busy, chaotic streets, Ayrton could not shrug off the uneasy feeling of being in another Talmath, another place doomed to spiral into depths of despair. Refugees were everywhere, keeping the locals from being completely immersed in their blissful ignorance.

Despite the war and madness, pilgrims came, people from Eracia and Caytor and even Parus, to pray or beg for favors. Outside the city, the largest single force of Outsiders he had yet seen was assembled, a meager ten thousand supposed to stall the Caytorean war engine while he labored toward the City of Gods. If it weren’t so sad, he would have burst out laughing.

There was nothing more pathetic than seeing doomed people delude themselves. The wise and the cowardly had already fled, including most of his comrades, soldiers of the Cause. Stories said that when the infidels charged the holiest of cities, many of the Outsiders would be there to raze and burn and rape. Well, when a man could so easily shed his former life without ever looking back, he could do it again, even more readily.

Ayrton still could not grasp what his place in this ugly scheme of things was. Why him? He had been an evil man. Was this a part of his eternal punishment?

He had been separated from the rest of the convoy last night. His only companions were patriarchs and matriarchs and dozens of brothers and sisters, people he had never seen before in his life. Yet, they seemed to share some secret he was not part of, some great joke at his expense. He felt like a goat led to the slaughter.

Last night, just before he’d gone to sleep, Matriarch Alda had come to him, red-eyed. She had told him her goddess had not spoken to her to since that day in the little hamlet. Her power was weakening. There was very little time.

Now, they were leading him before the heads of the houses, the arch-patriarchs and arch-matriarchs, the people who played with the lives of nations. He felt merely annoyed.

The Grand Monastery in Jaruka dwarfed the one huge monument he had known. It was colossal, awe-inspiring, meant to humble a man before he dared enter. Combat priests stood in thick, ceremonial rows, making sure no simple man passed through. Inside, Ayrton craned his neck to see the heads of the titanic statues of the major gods and goddesses, but they were lost in the gloom of the vault. There was no sound, except the soft clicks of soles on flagstones and the beating of wings of birds nesting in the balconies above.

A group of people stood at the footsteps of giants and waited for the procession.

Ayrton considered dropping to his knees.

Instead, they bowed to him. “Welcome,” one of them said.

“Please follow us,” another added.

They took him down a long, dimly lit corridor, then up a grand stairwell, down the length of another corridor, up again, always up. Time stretched. Finally, the gloom of the infinite passages was replaced by a bright, blinding glare. Squinting, he followed the priests outside, onto a giant balcony, high above Jaruka.

The balcony stood well over a hundred paces above the ground. People looked like ants, milling, pushing, oblivious to their puniness.

No one said anything. They waited for him to speak.

“What is the meaning of all this?” he ventured after a long time mulling over what he should say. Even so, his question sounded petty, irritating him.

One of the priests reached with an arm, slowly sweeping across the horizon. “The world our gods and goddess shaped is threatened by a force of unbelievers. The people you see below, they are all doomed. In just a few months, Jaruka will no longer exist. But there is still hope.”

“You may cut down a tree, but if the roots exist, it will live,” another intoned.

As a barren stump, a mockery,
Ayrton thought, but said nothing.

“As long as the gods and goddesses are with us, there is hope. The enemy may kill our people and burn our homes, but there will always be faith. People will find a new, more peaceful land to erect temples in the glory of our creators.

“But if our gods…are destroyed, the faith will wane with time, become a ghost. There will be no belief left, no hope. This world will wither and become something dark and sinister.”

Ayrton sighed. It already had.

“You are the only one who can save the world now.”

“I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“He must see! He must believe!” one of their lot persisted.

“Follow us, son,” someone said.

They led him away, this time, into a chamber, round, with walls covered in rusty sconces and foul-smelling torches burning. On the floor, seated on a mat of wool, was a girl, about ten years old, making funny noises to herself. She yammered, ululated softly, spoke so rapidly her tongue lashed out of her mouth.

Ayrton felt repulsed by the sight. “Who is she?”

A friendly hand touched his shoulder. “In the ages past, the gods and goddesses lived among men. And sometimes, they took a liking to some of the humans. Sometimes, the gods and goddesses made love to human flesh. From the union of this love came the…Special Children.”

The narrator paused, removed the hand, and began a slow stroll across the chamber. “But then, there was a great war. Some gods and goddesses were unmade as their followers were all killed and their temples all ruined. Afraid of what the future might bring, some of the deities gave away their beings to the Special Children so they could become leaders of men and help win the war.”

Ayrton felt they were not telling him everything, but he listened.

“Some of those children became champions of great wisdom and strength. The gods used them to defeat unearthly evils that were hatched into the world, defeat the forces that human swords and axes could not destroy.

“Other children became wizards and sorcerers and witches and used their skills to heal or render great fires and lightning. And some of those Special Children were gifted with insight into the rivers of time. They could unravel the everlasting thoughts of the gods and see into the future. They became prophets.

“But the human mind cannot cope with such enormity without consequences. Most prophets lost their human identity, becoming deranged souls. For most people, prophets are just hopeless madmen. On the other hand, whenever we hear a tale of a lost soul, we make sure it is brought here so it can serve the gods.”

Ayrton felt cold comprehension dawning. “That girl is a prophet?” A ragged doll, playing in a pool of its own feces?

“She foretold your arrival,” one of them said.

Ayrton shook his head. The world’s hope hinged on a crazy child and a former mass murderer. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, never waking up.

“She is a Special Child, have no doubt. Sometimes, the gift can skip entire generations, roll down a lineage for centuries, before sparking true and strong when least expected, but most needed.”

The Outsider rubbed his temples. His head was beginning to ache. The stink in the room was oppressive.

“After the great war, the gods were weak. They could no longer work miracles like they had before. The world that survived the war was no longer the humble, peaceful creation of theirs. The human soul had become corrupt, foul with greed and treachery. Belief was very weak. Appalled, shocked, exhausted, the gods retreated to their city and erected barriers to keep men from ever entering. They would only ever talk to their Special Children and pure souls, disdaining the rest of mankind.”

Ayrton listened, his blood curdled to ice. How could anyone be a believer after hearing all these tales? How could one face the crowds and lie so blatantly? Where were the kind, compassionate deities he heard of in prayers?

“But not all was lost. Some good humans would not let the world deteriorate to an obscenity. They established the houses of the gods and built temples all over the world, spreading faith by fire and sword. They purged the wicked and unfaithful.”

Ayrton reeled. He had vaguely known the tales of nomadic wars and great purges.

“And then, they marked the Territories, a pure land in honor of the gods, where people could find respite from the sins of the world. And they became the patriarchs and matriarchs of the nations, the pillars of morality for all to worship.”

Alda filled his vision. “One day, the gods will forgive us and return to us. One day, the world will be hale again, whole and pure. There will be no more wars, no more poverty, no more jealousy. We wait for that day.

“We must build more temples, make people believe. Only through the strength of faith will the gods be strong again. But now, everything is at stake. Everything. The gods are too weak to fight themselves. We must fight for them. But we cannot win the battle. Our only hope is to save our creators so we can begin again somewhere else.”

Ayrton had never wanted to commit suicide so readily.

“My goddess no longer speaks to me. She’s too weak. The barriers are crumbling. You must go to the city and warn the gods, rouse them, and take them away, far from destruction and death. If the barrier falls, every evil soul will be able to enter the city. If that happens, all will forever be lost.”

“It is up to you,” someone else said, “you and the Special Children. We have saved the world in our time. Now, it’s your turn.”