The False Martyr (12 page)

Running from the
creatures, even escaping from the city had been easy. There, he had
only needed to trace one or two connections to create the outcomes
he needed, and there had been countless threads to pull to make
those changes: A crumbling brick brings down a section of the
catacombs. A frightened horse creates the perfect distraction in a
busy intersection. A guard twists his ankle on a rock. His fellow
helps him, leaving a gate unguarded. Lius had been able to see the
outcome he wanted and trace it directly to himself, had only needed
to understand the smallest possible section of the possibilities
that stretched out forever.

The swampy wilderness
outside the city was another matter altogether. Here, alone, wet,
tired, hungry, and hunted, there were almost no changes he could
make, and those available led to outcomes that were small, distant,
and uncertain. People were easy to influence, and the multiplied
effects of their changing choices could alter the world around them
in ways that were immediate and real. But the wind, the trees, the
animals were nearly impossible to influence and the implications of
any changes were slow and indistinct. This was the Order in its
purest form, an all-powerful clock of great, grinding wheels that
cared nothing for anything done by so small a grain of sand.
Considering all the things he could possibly do at that moment –
throw rocks, break sticks, climb trees, run, walk, jump, yell, cry,
sleep – Lius could not see any of them altering the movement of
those great gears in the slightest, at least not within the scope
of the connections that he could trace, the span of time that could
possibly save him from his hunger, his thirst, his exhaustion, or
the things that followed.

Lius traced the threads to
those things, could see them as a jumble of chaos a few short
connections away. He imagined them as another horde of the things
that had followed him through the Hall of Understanding, but there
was no way to know exactly. He could see them only for the way they
affected the Tapestry around them, created chaos, distorted the
patterns, made it almost impossible to predict what would be
present when they had passed. The only thing that Lius could be
certain of was that they were close, they were following him, and
there was no way for him to stop them.

Opening his eyes, Lius
looked out at the tangle of trees and vines around him. The trees
were tall and gnarled, twisted and weathered. Their leaves formed a
canopy that almost completely blocked the sun. Vines connected
them, long pearl strands shared by clusters of crones. Moss hung
from them, the uncombed grey hair of beggars. The ground was
barren, washed out, and rough. The plants that grew were stunted,
designed to live off floods but transplanted in a desert. Lius
looked at the waterlines on the trees. He was lucky this was not
the rainy season, that the floods had not started, that this was
not a swamp in reality. Still, he wondered how long it had been
since there had been enough rain to flood the Vasuki River Delta.
In the interminable droughts, were these wetlands ever actually
wet?

Lius considered using his
new powers to find the answer. He could see and understand the
clues around him, could trace the life of the plant before him,
follow its strand to see when it had last been underwater. Then he
remembered where he was and what was about to happen. He closed his
eyes and followed the connections instead to the chaos. It was
closer now, the number of connections fewer, the possibilities to
change it diminished, and not a one of those possibilities bought
him more than a few more hours.

But there was something
else there too, something past the creatures, something new that he
had not seen in days. There were people. He knew them by the
possibilities flowing from them, tiny threads that could be pulled
to change the patterns around them. Lius had not seen those
connections since he left the city and had never seen them so
isolated, had almost missed them outside of the context he knew.
The creatures stood between them, but people meant possibilities he
could change, outcomes he could control, and, most importantly, a
chance to survive. There was no choice. He ran toward them, toward
them and the chaos that stood between.

#

Lius no longer needed to
follow the strands of the Order to see what was following him. His
eyes, sharp despite all the reading, were adequate to the task. The
creatures were slinking through the trees, black shapes like the
ones that had killed the Xi Valati only four nights ago – it seemed
like weeks. So much had happened since then that Lius could barely
remember that night. He thought back on it like a dream, doubted
still that any of it had been real until he felt the weight of the
box tugging at his shoulders from the pack he had stolen to carry
it.

Removing the pack, he
tucked it and the book it held into a crevice beneath a tree root
then covered it with leaves and dirt. If necessary, it could wait
there for centuries. The box was perfectly sealed against the
forces of nature and impenetrable to any but those who could read
the Order. Lius had learned how to open it almost immediately but
had been afforded almost no opportunity to actually read it, no
opportunity to do anything other than flip the pages and stare upon
the tight, uniform script of their savior.

Remaining hidden behind
the tree, Lius reached out to the Tapestry, looking again for the
small band of people that might be his salvation. They were nearby,
but their actions were distinct from those of the creatures –
neither band realized that the other existed. But more than that,
something was not right about those people. It appeared that they
surrounded something that was not human.
Or was it?
Who or whatever it was,
looked like a hole in the Tapestry. Lius could not read the
possibilities that surrounded it, could not predict what it would
do, or find a way to change it, yet it had strong control over the
actions of those around it, resembling, in that way, not only a
person, but a very influential one. Lius had never seen anything
like it, could not imagine what it was or how it worked, but it
appeared to acting as a stabilizing force, taking even the chaos
created by the creatures so near and setting it right, restoring
the pattern as if set parallel to them for that very purpose. It
clearly had a role within the Order, a purpose that not even Lius
could see or change. And he could only hope that purpose included
saving his scrawny neck.

Taking a deep breath, Lius
studied the changes he could make, the outcomes they would produce,
but that thing in the middle made it impossible to predict what
would happen. Every time he considered the strings leading to those
people, looked at how changes might impact them, they became lost
to that hole in their middle. And the primary purpose of that hole
appeared to be to avoid the creatures. That left Lius with only one
option. He had to bring the creatures to them.

Lius sprinted from behind
the tree. He used the Order to guide his steps, to see where roots
hid under leaves to trip him, where the lay of the land would speed
his steps, how the blow of the breeze and chatter of the squirrels
would mask the sounds of his steps, where the trees and bushes
would obscure him from the creatures. It gave him an advantage, but
advantages are only as good as your ability to capitalize on them,
and Lius had very little ability. He was in dreadful physical
condition, naturally clumsy, and already exhausted. Despite all his
powers over the Order, the creatures found him within
steps.

They were on him just as
fast, twenty hunters, strong and experienced and sure. Their clawed
feet gripped the ground. Their hands clasped trees and threw them
forward. Their gaping mouths gnawed at the air as if loosening,
stretching in preparation for the taste of his flesh. Lius’ stick
legs, even aided by every advantage the Order could offer, were of
no use – even the Order cannot make a mouse into an eagle. Finally,
Lius took the breath that might be his last, felt the claws
reaching for him, ready to snatch him back, and dove.

The ground came up to meet
him at an angle. He fell into it, anticipating the slope, and
rolled head over heels, summersault after summersault accelerating
down the slope, narrowly avoiding trees, stumps, rocks. He crashed
through a bush and nearly came uncurled as it pulled at him with
thorns and branches. A creature running out-of-control at his side
hit the rock that had been the alternative and planted face-first
into a tree, but far more followed, and Lius could only roll.
Battered, disoriented, nearly unconscious, he rolled toward the men
waiting at the bottom, hoping beyond hope that the thing at their
middle would order them to save him.

#

Something hit the ground
on the ridge above Jaret Rammeriz. He and the legionnaires that
surrounded him turned as one toward the disturbance, breaking their
jog and forming into a defensive position. Bows and swords were
drawn, muscles tensed, eyes scanned, ears perked. Yet Jaret could
almost feel relief wash over them.
It is
finally happening
, they all seemed to
say.
I knew this had been too easy. Now,
we finally have to earn it.
Though getting
him out of the Great Chamber had cost the lives of twenty precious
legionnaires – killed by Maelstrom-sent creatures or burnt by the
magic of Emperor Nabim’s Exile henchman – their escape from the
city
had
been too
easy, and that made the remaining legionnaires more nervous than if
they’d had to fight for every step. Any man with enough experience
to be a member of the Legion of the Rising Sun – Jaret’s personal
regiment and the most elite military unit in the San Chier Empire
if not the world – knew better than to trust anything
easy.

After he dove into the
canal to make his final escape – the only survivor of the band that
had freed him – the remaining legionnaires had taken Jaret to a
safe house in the docks district of the city where they had waited
three days. Emperor Nabim, desperate to recover the scapegoat that
he planned to blame for all the Empire’s woes, had ordered a search
of the city, but the soldiers never came to their door. The patrols
were tripled, but they never crossed their paths as they made their
way on the fourth night to the wall. The gates had been ordered
closed, but they climbed over at a place shrouded in darkness and
abandoned by the guards. The soldiers in the towns outside were
just as numerous, but the ones they encountered were drunk. They
died quickly and their bodies were easily stashed.

The whole thing had been
almost miraculous, but it had never been a choice. Jaret was not
even sure he was capable of making choices any longer. To prepare
him for trial after he had been shattered by weeks of torture, the
Emperor’s henchman had blocked Jaret’s emotions, created a barrier
in his mind to keep him from feeling anything. But that barrier
also made him the Order’s tool, blocked his freewill, took away any
ability he had to choose his own path. He did not understand it,
and the men who accompanied him clearly found it maddening, but he
had simply known how long they had to wait, had known the exact
time to go, the perfect time to reach the wall, the easiest section
to climb, the exact place to climb down, the drunken soldiers that
would have to die, the empty shed that would hide their bodies, the
path into and through the wastes. At any point, he could not have
described any aspect of his plans, could not have said what would
happen, but every time a decision appeared, he knew exactly the
path to take. It had been the Order’s will, not his, that had saved
them.

Now was another of those
times. “Bows!” he yelled without even knowing why. He watched the
ridge above them as a dozen legionnaires crowded in front of him
and brought their bows up. The remaining men pulled swords and
formed at the flanks of the archers, watching the hill above and
waiting for anything that might make it past their
brothers.

There was a yelp, a
crashing, and Jaret found the source of the disturbance. Something,
someone was rolling down the hill, crashing through the underbrush
at a fabulous speed, somehow avoiding every obstacle. All too
familiar figures pursued – cousins of the thing that had tortured
him, black hair a blur in the shadows, claws and teeth glinting in
the afternoon sun.

“
Wait,” Jaret found
himself calling though the very sight of the things made his
trapped emotions pound against the wall in his mind.

“
Creatures, lord
commander,” Lieutenant Caspar said from his side.

“
Wait,” Jaret growled
again. He watched the man roll down the hill – a blur of brown –
watched him bounce over a ridge and land and keep rolling though by
rights his neck should have snapped. He watched the creatures come
at the man, watched them trip and tumble and crash and rise and
follow. In seconds, those things would be on top of Jaret and his
men. In less time than that, they would take the rolling man. Yet,
something made him wait. There were perhaps twenty of the
creatures, a number equal to the legionnaires that accompanied him.
He knew what those creatures were capable of, knew that they were
evenly matched to the legionnaires, knew that he would lose men if
it came to close combat, knew that he could not afford to lose
those men, that he would need every one of them for the journey
they had planned. Still, he waited.