Jorey Kalliam and the main army were tracking north in Birancour, moving toward the apparent new stronghold of Callon Cane in Sara-sur-Mar in hopes that by killing or capturing the man, he could find out where Cithrin, the dragon, and the shadowy leaders of the Timzinae conspiracy had fled after Porte Oliva.
The farms throughout the empire were coming near to harvest, but the work of the newly enslaved Timzinae from Sarakal and Elassae had not been as useful as the same work by experienced and free farmers. It might have been because the slaves were reluctant to work for the kingdom that had broken their homes and had their children hostage in the prisons of Camnipol, or it might have been that they didn’t have any experience working farms. Likely, it was something of both. Whatever the causes, the harvest would be thinner than Geder had anticipated. Not starving thin, and so better than the year before, but not as good as he had hoped. Dar Cinlama and the other searchers in the empty places of the world had either found nothing—Korl Essian’s forces in the north of Lyoneia and Cinlama himself—or had stopped sending reports—Emmun Siu in Borja and Bulger Shoal in Herez.
More troubling than any of it was the silence from Kaltfel. It had once been the heart of Asterilhold, and the first city to fall under the sway of the empire when that kingdom fell. It was closer to Camnipol than Estinport or Kavinpol, connected directly by dragon’s roads. It had practically been an Antean city even when it had been under King Lechan’s rule. And of Basrahip and the apostate there, no news at all had come.
“If it were mine to do,” Canl Daskellin said, “I’d look at drawing in.”
The garden was cool around them. A fountain chuckled and muttered, sheeting water down the bodies of twelve of the thirteen races worked in dragon’s jade. Only the Timzinae were not numbered among them, and Geder assumed it meant the statues were even older than the false race. Or that the sculptor had understood that the Timzinae were not, in fact, human as the other races were. Either way, he liked the fountain. The trees around them still sported their summer green, their leaves wide and lush and blocking all but the smallest dapples of sunlight. It would not be many more weeks before the green began to retreat and the yellow and red of autumn took its place.
The seasons were turning again, and the war was not over. Geder felt the pressure of it like a hand laid at the back of his neck.
“Drawing in,” he said. “And what would that look like?”
“Abandon Inentai, for one,” Daskellin said. “It’s rubbing up against Borja and the Keshet. It’s already bleeding us more than it gives back. Split the forces there between Suddapal and Nus, at least for the winter. If it falls to the raiders, we can take it back in the spring.”
Cyr Emming snorted and shook his head. “It controls the dragon’s road between Sarakal and Elassae,” he said. “Let Inentai go, and not only do you have a mountain range keeping your forces in Nus and Suddapal apart, but you’ve got a toehold for an enemy to strike north or south at will.”
“Well, Porte Oliva, then,” Daskellin said. “It’s the farthest there is. Cithrin’s not there. Her bank’s not there. We have other ports in the south. We don’t gain very much by having it, and even sending messages to it is hard now. Once the pass at Bellin closes for the winter, it’ll be even worse.”
“They won’t fall,” Geder said.
“My lord?” Daskellin said.
“They have temples in them. All of them do. And as long as they have temples, they won’t fall. Basrahip said so, and he’s been right about everything up to now. I say we trust him. Keep to the plans we have. They’ve gotten us this far. The danger now is that we break faith. As long as we don’t do that, everything’s going to be fine.”
Emming nodded, and a moment later, Daskellin did as well.
“It’ll be fine,” Geder said.
Basrahip returned in the middle of the night, and without fanfare. Geder woke in the morning and went through his daily rituals of bathing and dressing himself to the point that the body servants wouldn’t see him naked, then putting up with their ministrations. He went to break the night’s fast at the table in the royal quarters. Aster and Basrahip were both sitting already, slabs of beef and bowls of peppers and honey before them, drinking tea and talking.
The huge priest looked profoundly changed. His dark hair had a dusty look and his cheeks were sunken. Even his hands seemed thinner. His left cheek was marked by a deep bruise that began, almost black, at his cheekbone and flowed down grey and green and yellow almost to his chin. The smile he greeted Geder with was beatific.
“Prince Geder!” Basrahip said, rising to his feet. “I bring glorious news.”
“You’re back,” Geder said, aware as he did how inane the words seemed. Of course Basrahip was back. He knew he was back. But just because it was obvious didn’t keep it from seeming the most important thing happening.
“I am,” Basrahip said. “Sit, Prince Geder. Eat.”
“You didn’t send reports,” Geder said, doing as the priest said. “I was worried things were going badly. Thing didn’t go badly?”
“Reports,” Basrahip said, waving a dismissive hand. “Binding ink onto paper is the death of meaning. It pretends to be words, but it is a stone. A bit of wood. A thing without a soul. The work in Kaltfel is too glorious for such blasphemy.”
“I’ve had reports from other places,” Geder said. “All sorts of them. Some days it’s felt like I do nothing but read notes and letters from places where things are actually happening.”
Basrahip grinned and pointed a thumb at Geder as if he’d just agreed with the priest. “And I have come now with my living voice. There is the difference. In these other places, you have death. Killed words that are neither true nor false. It weakens you. Fills you with despair, yes?”
“Some days,” Geder said, trying to make a joke of it.
Basrahip took a plate, spooned peppers and meat onto it, and handed it to Geder. The familiarity and intimacy of it left Geder feeling as if they were just old friends—the kind that made a sort of family—rejoined after too long an absence. That he was the guiding hand of the empire and Basrahip his most trusted advisor fell away, and for a moment he was only Geder and the priest was just the man he knew he could trust.
“You should refuse these letters,” Basrahip said. “Bring the voices themselves to you. Hear them as you hear me. In this way all things are made real.”
“I’m not sure how well that works,” Geder said, taking a bite of the peppers. Their heat had nothing to do with temperature, and he drizzled a line of honey onto them as he spoke. “It’s a big empire. Having people bring all the news in person seems like it would slow things down pretty badly.”
“You are the man of wisdom in these things,” Basrahip said. “I only say that the hard words you have read have weighed you down. The words I bring may still be hard, but they will lift you. I have no greater proof than this.”
“Wait,” Geder said. “Hard words? Why are they hard? I thought you said they were glorious.”
“They are,” Basrahip said. “The city of Kaltfel is in chaos, Prince Geder. Through your will, the enemies of the goddess and the servants of lies have been brought forth where they can no longer hide. The apostate claims the city as his own, claims the temple as his own. I came to him myself—a man I have known from childhood—and I begged that he listen to her true voice. And do you know what he said?”
“He called Basrahip an apostate,” Aster said, the excitement in his voice bordering on joy. Apparently the prince had some insight into why that would be a good thing that Geder didn’t, because it sounded like a bad situation to him.
Basrahip must have seen something in Geder’s face, because he chuckled and leaned forward, his massive elbows resting on the table. “From the moment you and I met, back in the temple of the desert, you have known that we brought truth to a world built of lies, Prince Geder. And now the lord of lies has come. We have driven the servants of deceit from the shadows and they take to the stre
ets with their knives and their clubs. They have given up the treachery which was their only strength.”
“Knives and clubs?” Geder said. “What the hell is going on in Kaltfel?”
“The last stand of lies,” Basrahip said. “The first death throes of the enemy.”
“It’s because Kaltfel was the first place that we took,” Aster said. “It was the first city that had a temple built in it that wasn’t Antean to begin with.”
“But—” Geder began.
“Listen to me, Prince Geder. Listen to my voice. This is what we have always hoped for. This is the proof that all your work has not been in vain.”
Geder tried to chew a bite of honeyed peppers, tried to swallow. It was difficult. His throat seemed tighter than it should have been. When he spoke, his voice was smaller than he expected it to be, more tentative. “We wanted this?”
“The first wave of your power has washed over the world,” Basrahip said. “It has brought purity with it, and those to whom purity is a poison have writhed in pain to see it come.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Geder said. “I mean, there has certainly been resistance, even though we didn’t start any of it. It was always them attacking us. We never set out to attack anybody. They always hit first.”
“Because they feared your power and hers,” Basrahip said. “Because in it, they saw their coming death, and they knew that this day—this day—would come. The rise of the apostate of Kaltfel is the call to end the age of dragons. He leads the forces of lies, and his defeat will begin the spread of her peace over the world.”
“So he isn’t defeated?” Geder said. “Kaltfel’s in riot, and the apostate is still alive.”
“Yes,” Basrahip said. “And when his power breaks, her peace will flow from Kaltfel and fill the world.”
“And Cithrin and Callon Cane. The Timzinae. And the dragon. How do they fit in with this?”
“There are many servants of the lie. Cut this one down, this one who was in the grace of the goddess and fell from it, and all the rest will come unraveled. This is the battle we have prayed for. That we have worked so long to call forth. And now it is come, and the hour of your victory with it. You are about to win everything.”
The hour of my victory, Geder thought, and a tightness he hadn’t known he carried released in his back. He felt his shoulders rise like someone had taken a weight off of them. He hadn’t realized how much the news of unrest from around the empire had been bothering him until Basrahip came to put it all in its right place. Of course there were troubles. Of course there was fighting and strife. And he had known, because Basrahip had told him, that the enemies of the goddess weren’t going to give themselves up easily. It was only in looking at maps and reading the reports of battles lost or only half won that he’d lost his way. Basrahip had told him the truth. No cities with a temple to the goddess had been lost, and now none would be. He took a bite of the beef and closed his eyes, enjoying the taste of the animal’s blood and imagining a map with light pouring out from Kaltfel and spreading to the corners of the page. And all of it would be done before Aster took the throne.
It wasn’t that there was hope. It was better than hope. It was certainty.
He needed to tell Daskellin about it. Looking back, he could see that the baron had been growing concerned. Probably that was part of why Geder had let himself be worried too. Now that it was clear there was no cause for concern, he had a gift he could share.
“All right,” Geder said. “Tell me what we need to do.”
“We must destroy the apostate,” Basrahip said. “The culling blades we carried made a strong start—very strong. But they carry a terrible weight, even when worn by the righteous. Many of those corrupted by the apostate fell before us, but not the man himself. Of my brothers who rode at my side, only three remain. The time for waiting has passed. We must take your swords and your bows and return to the capital of lies in force. When the corruption is purged, Kaltfel will shine like a beacon, and all who love truth will rise up as one.”
“All right,” Geder said, and then, “That may be tricky. We’ve already sent all the soldiers we could spare to Inentai or else Birancour. I could send word to Jorey and have him bring the army, but that would mean going back through the pass at Bellin or else marching through Northcoast. Thanks to Canl, things with Northcoast are fine, but I can’t think King Tracian would feel comfortable about having our army march through his lands, even just as guests of the crown.”
“We cannot wait,” Basrahip said. “Bring what men remain. Pardon your prisoners and arm them and call them forth in her name. Abandon the plows in their fields and the sheep in their pastures. There is no work under the sky more glorious than this.”
“Yes, well,” Geder said. “I may need some help convincing people of that.”
“I am your righteous servant, Prince Geder. As she is the righteous servant of humanity and enemy of all those who would beguile you. This was the work I was brought into the world to complete. I will not fail you now.”
Aster, grinning, pounded his palms on the table. His eyes were bright, and Geder felt the joy in the boy’s eyes echoed in himself. The end was coming. The last battle that would finally, finally, set the world right and make all the loss and fear and sacrifice have meaning. Then Cithrin would understand what she’d done to him.
Then she would come back.
Outside the unshuttered window, the perfect light of morning shone across the city, brightening the roofs and streets like a fire that never stopped burning. A flock of pigeons wheeled over the Division, falling as Geder watched into the wide canyon to pluck some food from the garbage dropped to its depths. Camnipol, the center of the empire, the center of Firstblood power in the world. And his now to lead and to perfect. In his imagination, Cithrin stood beside him, her sheer, pale dress pressed against her by the breeze, her pale hair and eyes glowing with the light of the flawless, lucid day. Her smile was angelic, her lips soft and wet and pale as snow. He took her hand in his.
I see now, she said.
I knew you would.
Forgive me?
“Always,” Geder said.
“Always what?” Aster asked, and Geder was back at the table, a blush rising up his neck.
“Nothing,” he said and took another forkful of the meat. “I was just… I got lost in my own mind for a moment. It happens all the time. Everyone does it. Do you want some more peppers?”
“I’m fine,” Aster said.
“Basrahip? Peppers?”
“I have no need of them,” the priest said. The bruise on his cheek was interesting, now that Geder looked at it. All through it were tiny patches of black, like spent blood.
“All right, then,” Geder said. “We’ll need to make a plan. I’ll call Emming and Daskellin. And… let me see. Palen Esteroth is in the city. He was in the court of Asterilhold for years before the conquest. He’ll be useful. I’ll have him brought in to consult with on the battle plan. I wish Dawson Kalliam hadn’t fallen under the Timzinae’s sway. He was the one that took Kaltfel last, after all, but never mind. We’ll find a way.”
“We will, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said though a wide and placid smile.
“And you said that some of your fellow priests, they… ah… they died?”
“Indeed. Gloriously and in her name.”
“Does that mean you’ll need to initiate new priests?”
“Yes, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said. “We shall need more. Many more.”
Clara
The wide, grassy plains outside Sara-su-Mar, the lush blue of its skies, and the passion of its lovers had made the backdrop of any number of small romances and ballads of youthful love. Clara had never made the journey herself, but the image of it that she held in her mind was perfect and complete. She could not say now whether her imaginings had been romantic fluff, or if violence had greyed it.
The defensive perimeter Jorey had made was clear, the army huddled behind its swords and spear
s as it took stock and planned. Where his patrols and scouts had gone, she did not know, nor could she ask.
Low clouds pressed down until the sky seemed no higher than the treetops, and the spitting rain soaked the road, her cloak, and the coat of her horse. It thickened the air. All along the roadside, tucked back in the cover of the trees, tents and rough cobbled-together shelters huddled. Men and women watched her pass, their faces bleak and empty. The children who sat at the roadside were too hungry to play. Their faces had taken on the grey of the land around them. They were the small people of the world. Trappers and fishers and hands on the farms so desperate that they could not postpone their business, even though there were armies on the road.
The battle that followed the ambush had lasted hours, pressing into the countryside before Jorey called their forces to regroup. The stink of churned earth and drowned fires clung to the landscape as if it had always been there, as if the devastation of war had bled back through history and poisoned all that had come before. That was not true, of course. Weeks before, this same low road had likely been cheerful and bright as any of the old songs. That it had always been so corrupted was an illusion. But it was a persuasive one.
Clara kept her cloak tight around her and her head down. She regretted now that she’d taken so fine a horse. The nut-brown gelding stood out among the half-starved nags and exhausted plow mules that shared the road with her. The question hadn’t even occurred to her. After all this time, some part of her was still the Baroness of Osterling Fells, whether she wished it or not.
A bend in the road, a grass-covered hillock to her left, and her own preoccupation hid the crossroads from her until it was too late. Five men in cloaks of undyed wool stood in the center of traffic. Their hems and boots were dark with mud, and hoods covered their heads. Their blades were in scabbards, and two held unstrung bows wrapped against the rain. One of them was speaking to a thin young man, bending toward him, interrogating. The young man’s head bobbed as he spoke, desperate for approval and rich with fear. An answering fear rose in Clara’s throat. The hooded man nodded, waved the young man on, then stepped in front of two girls traveling the same direction Clara was.