The Godless (49 page)

But she did not speak. It was her first battle, her first war, even if the horror felt familiar.

“What about the talk of sickness in the city?” Essa asked. “I've had a few soldiers go to the hospital feeling ill, but I've yet to hear much.”

“That we are addressing now,” Lady Wagan said. “Reila?”

“There is a plague in the city.” The elderly woman's white robe, so similar to Bau's, was old and stained by blood and chemicals. “If anyone beneath you—or you yourself—begins to feel a pain in their bones, they need to come to the hospital immediately. There is a vaccine. Last night's outbreak need not happen again.”

Ayae had not heard of any outbreak. She glanced at Meina, and the mercenary captain gave a faint nod.

“Word of this cure will get out soon enough to ease the panic,” Reila continued. “However, it is a difficult subject for two reasons. The first is the origin of the cure. When people learn where it comes from—and people will learn, as they always do—there will be resistance to it. It will especially be resisted by the Mireeans under your command. They will view it as a witch's brew. A warlock's blood pact. It is not, but—”

“Where does it come from?” Meina asked.

“Zaifyr,” Ayae said, quietly. “From his blood.”

“Yes. You all met him once, though you perhaps did not fully understand who he was.” The Captain of Steel snorted and the healer smiled in response. “Perhaps you understood some, then. He was once a man named Qian, one of the men and women who created the Five Kingdoms. He was also the man, historians argue, who began the destruction of those kingdoms. It is in the remains of Kakar that his capital was based. Because of him, libraries were burned, histories were lost and wars swept our world as those he called brother and sister were hunted, unsuccessfully.

“His reaction to the disease that infects him is unique, a testimony to the power within him. If you watch the blood when it is outside the body—and to do that, you will need a little magic—you can literally watch his cells divide and recombine and alter themselves, rapidly breaking down the infection within him. I do not know if it is unique to him, or if all those cursed (forgive me, Ayae) are similar. All I know is that I have never seen anything like it. However, the making of a cure from it is relatively simple. Due to the nature of his blood when it comes into contact with the infection, it is readily available. For reasons I don't understand, the cells will cure nothing else within a man or woman, and react to nothing but this disease. For a lot of the people in Mireea, the idea of being injected with a serum that was made from the blood of a cursed man is going to be very difficult to accept.”

And for others, as well, Ayae noticed. While both Lady Wagan and Meina were unmoved, Kal Essa grunted unpleasantly and frowned. At the window, Caeli turned, mirroring the mercenary's facial expression, a rare break in her discipline.

“Which brings us to the second point: the man who created the disease in our city.” Lady Wagan lifted a folded letter up from beside her, held the white paper up for all to see. “Our two Keepers are responsible for this disease, one more than the other.”

“You have proof?” Meina asked.

“Enough to make a case in Yeflam, if—” she tilted the paper forward “—we do it right.”

“That is from—”

“The Traders Union. I wrote to them yesterday explaining our situation with the Keepers. Their reply came much quicker than I thought it would, almost as if they were expecting it.”

“What do they want?”

“The Keepers in chains.”

“And if not?”

“There is no ‘if not.' They will not promise us safety if we return with their bodies. They are saying that they do not have the political strength to defend us, with an army coming down the mountain after us, if we return with bodies.”

“They…” Ayae hesitated. Then, “Fo and Bau won't surrender themselves.”

“No,” Lady Wagan said, “but that is why we are going to send you to Yeflam with the bird and all our civilians. With that, we can force the Traders Union's hand, especially if you promise them that both the Keepers will be coming shortly.”

She made no reply.

“That task falls to Captain Meina and the Mireean Guard.” The other woman paused. “I want you all to know that I am not a fool. I know that they will not surrender. I know that blood will be spilled.”

“I should help.”

She shook her head. “This is not for you.”

“You're wrong.” Ayae took a deep breath. “I am not the Keepers, and I am not Zaifyr. I can do nothing that they can, but I can do more than most people can. On the Spine I know I move faster than anyone else. I know I am as strong as the strongest person there. I wish I could do more, but I can do something. I can stand there against them, and tell them of their law, and if they break it, then I will break it with them.”

“You can lead our people to safety.”

“And when I got there, what would I do? I cannot barter with the Traders Union. If you think Illaan's father will help me, you are wrong. He will not welcome me once he hears that Illaan is dead.”

“I would not ask this of you, Ayae.”

“You need me,” she said slowly. “You cannot send Meina to them alone. They will resist and if I am not there—”

“They may kill you all,” Lady Wagan said.

“That will let you into Yeflam.” She was aware that all eyes were on her. “They will be forced to hold a trial if I die. You know that as well as I do.”

Lady Wagan frowned. “This is not the way, Ayae.”

“It is.”

“Child, you do not—”

“I am not a child.” She did not like her words, did not want to say them; but they were right, they were what was needed. “If I was a child before Orlan's shop caught on fire, then I stopped being so on that day. This is my home,” she said, “and I will not ask others to make sacrifices for it in my place.”

 

4.

 

It was not a child that Zaifyr saw, but rather a young man—a soldier who emerged from the edge of the Spine, his haunt marked by the wounds that had killed him. He was the only one so marked. The man's face was distorted by the pitch that had been poured over him which ruined the dimensions of his face, leaving a misshapen lump. His face looked like a mask, an apt description for the being that lurked behind it.

Ger is dead.
The soldier spoke with a girl's voice, a child's voice.
My father—

Your father?

He was one of many who were reluctant.

They were all reluctant. What is your name?

I have none. I simply am.

He smiled in response.

You are one of the pretenders
, she said.
It is fitting that I speak to you today, I believe. It is as fate promised.

There is no fate.

There is a strand. A single strand. It is the faintest truth, one I can barely understand or comprehend.

Did it tell you Ger would die?

He was always dying.

They all are.

Yes.
The broken head of the haunt tilted, the damaged eyes staring at him.
But in answer to the question, no, it did not tell me. I am incomplete. I cannot fully comprehend fate yet.

Like us all.

No, you are a fragment, a fallen piece of fate and power. You are what you are. You have grown as far as you will. You will never be complete.

And you will?

Yes.

Around him, the killing ground began to smooth. The huge blocks of cement that formed the Spine morphed into the crumbling peaks of the Eakar Mountains. When it had finished, the barren, windswept soil of the valley emerged. There, from the ground, a sphere of dirt began to rise, as if the poisoned ground gave birth. Men and women—memories, not haunts—flickered into being as they emerged: white-skinned, they fell to the ground in homage before the sphere. In their faces, the young and old, Zaifyr could not see sickness or the toll that the toxic land had taken of them; instead, he saw a fatigue hidden behind a fevered belief, a need to rest that was pushed aside by magic as they began to rip open the sphere with their hands.

This is my birth
,
she said.
I was not born of woman, like you. I was not born flesh, like you. I was made from the very being of the divine.

You were born in poisoned dirt.

I lay in the soil Linae made for me. She constructed me, saw the need for me as fate told her. In my birth she must have seen her death, but did she see the prison that you were confined in as well? It was derelict to the men and women who found me, of no interest to them. But—

A crooked tower came into view, which Zaifyr knew intimately.

On the tiled roof of it, however, sat a brown mountain eagle. The claws of the bird—of Jae'le—made faint scratching noises when it landed and when the eagle took flight.

But the man you call your brother. He was interested.

Zaifyr was unsurprised.

He followed the men and women who came for me, my Faithful. He followed them for each year that it took to bring me home.

The landscape changed: the Spine returned to its truthful structure and a large wagon passed through its gates. Pulled by a pair of heavily muscled oxen, it was heavily laden, a thick, discolored canvas cover pulled over its cart. The driver was one of the older men from the Eakar Mountains, while those who had stood with him ringed the cart on horses. The fatigue he had seen earlier was now etched even deeper into their features. In the back of the wagon—through the opening of the canvas—sat a crumbling sphere of dirt, the poisonous casing barely visible.

In its cracked crown lay a child.

Still quite young—too young, Zaifyr thought, when compared to how those around her had aged—she was wrapped in a dirty cloth and slept soundly as the cart began its steep descent of the mount. A wild dog lurked behind, following from the edge of the Spine before it disappeared into the bush.

He never took control of the oxen, never thought to slow us. He but watched until we arrived in Leera, then returned to you.

Where, Zaifyr knew, the door to his prison was soon unlocked.

Interesting, but I never sensed you at all
, he said.
For a thousand years there was only the dead—

Who spoke of you.
The images faded, revealing the broken killing ground, the flags, and the stillness of it all.
I did not have a form for a long time and so I did not sense you, either. But I knew of you. I was told about you. It was not until much later that I realized you were not a haunt like them, that you were not their dead king who would not serve me.

A haunt serves nobody.

They do.
He sensed pleasure, a smile through the soldier's still lips, and frowned.
I do not yet know all of fate but I can feel its strand, as I said. Its length is one I can grasp, if not know. And I know that it affects not just me, but you and all the living and all the dead. The haunts on the mountains knew this. They knew I would give them life, give them birth, again and again.

You cannot.

It is my right.

No—

I can keep them dead, or I can let them live.
Her voice rose.
It is my will, my power—

Then why do your Faithful use blood to work their miracles? Why not just gift them what they ask for in prayer?

The movement was a shimmer, a slam into his chest, a burst of pain across the haunt he was in. The intent, he knew instinctively, was to drive him out of the haunt, to shock him with the power she wielded. In that, she was not entirely unsuccessful. For while he kept the body of the haunt, kept his control over her, he also felt an echo in his being, a reverberation that left him with the sensation of being hollow. He could explain it no better and took the second slam to experience it again, but when she made to hit him a third time, the arms of haunts emerged from the ground and wrapped around the legs of the soldier.

You are different
, he said to her, slowly.

I am the last God
, she said.
I am Fate. I am Divine. I am the Child. You may have power here but it is a feeble thing. You do not wish to stand against me.

Not if I have a choice.

And, suddenly, the anger and the power drained from the haunt of the soldier.
Yes, you have a choice
, she said softly.
At this instance, it is before you.

He shook his head.

Do you not believe me?

No, you are different. I imagine that my brother knew, as well. I wonder if he felt as if a part of him were drawn in, being consumed as if tiny mouths were trying to pierce his very being?

The laughter was a girl's laughter: musical, light and sinister through its innocence.

But I have no interest in the return of gods, especially if you do as you say, and keep the dead here.
His voice grew cold.
If you have done that, you are nothing but my enemy.

To that, there was no response.

In front of him, the haunt of the soldier began to dissolve. His head crumbled first, sinking into his chest, collapsing until the rest of his haunt began to do so, and the man stopped existing in any way that Zaifyr knew.

 

5.

 

Before they entered the Spine's Keep, began walking through the long, empty corridors and stepped onto the open bridge before the silent tower, Meina returned to the Spine.

She had said only that she wanted to gather others, offering little to Ayae in terms of advice or tactics. When the meeting had finished, the mercenary captain had nodded to Lady Wagan and stepped outside, waiting for her—the Lady's final words to Ayae had been a grasp of her hands, a whisper that she stay safe—and had fallen in beside Ayae as they descended the stairwell. If she had had words to speak it would have been there, but she had none and it was not until they reached the bottom that Ayae realized that while none of the doubts she felt were voiced by Meina, her quiet and straight mouth were not the contrast she first thought that they were.