The Godless (15 page)

Slowly, he crept forward, a cold dread settling into him. The center of Kakar was dominated by a huge fire reminiscent of the one that they had created for their families that he barely registered the sight of the horses, big, heavy roans covered in leather and snorting white with riders in leather and cloaks of red and gold. Soldiers, a part of him whispered; but another saw only the bodies on the fire, the bodies of his friends. There were soldiers there as well; their victory had not come lightly.

If he could have turned and left then, stalked the soldiers back to their city or run in and attacked to die with those who were his family, Zaifyr never knew. As he rose, he heard behind him a faint crunch of snow, a footstep, and he turned in time to see a dark-haired man without the red cloak leap at him. Caught off guard, he swayed, but the man had the better of him until Zaifyr slammed his head forward, crushing the man's nose, a blow he returned by jamming his knee into Zaifyr's groin. Slamming his head forward again, he pushed the man back, punching him as he rose to feel a knife touch lightly against his throat.

Words were said. Words he did not understand.

But the intention was clear, and hours after he had been tied, after he had been thrown into the back of the wagon that had belonged to the merchant, days after he spent a week next to eight bodies wrapped in red cloaks, months after he was kept in a dungeon and years after being kept on display as a savage, a man in charms who did not appear to age, thirteen years before Jae'le walked into the marble palace of the Emperor Kee to claim him, Zaifyr wished that he had not understood enough to surrender.

For thirteen years, he wished that the prophecy of Meihir had been true, and he had died at the age of twenty-nine.

 

10.

 

Ayae managed to be alone for but a moment: at the edge of the tower wall, her hand pressed against the door that led into the dimly lit hallway that flowed on to stone stairs deep in the Keep, and she took a breath to center herself. She was more frustrated than angry, but there was no denying that it was the second emotion that urged her to act irresponsibly, to lash out. As her breath expelled, she tried to put both emotions from her mind as she pushed open the door, her low escaping breath blowing into Reila on the other side.

“The Lady Wagan,” the small woman said without pause, “would like to meet you.”

Ayae nodded.

As they walked, Reila asked about Ayae's health—physically first, then mentally, focusing on the latter she thought. Ayae attempted to keep the frustration she felt from being with Fo and Bau out of her voice, but noticed the more she talked, the more a small frown creased Reila's aging face. She did not speak again until after Reila opened the door to Lady Wagan's office.

What struck Ayae immediately was the confidence and intelligence of the large woman sitting before her. She had seen her before, of course: before the Lord Wagan returned blind and mad from Leera, the Lady had been seen in the markets, meeting merchants, holding conversations with those who had made her city the power it was. Limited as Ayae's sight of the Lady of the Spine had been, she had not been shocked Lady Wagan placed a mercenary in a gibbet for his crimes before dismissing his entire company. She had seen that in the Lady's eyes.

“You have met our Keepers,” Lady Wagan said, indicating to a chair in front of her. “A delightful pair, are they not?”

“I was charmed,” she replied evenly.

A short laugh escaped Lady Wagan. “Did they murder small animals in front of you?” She pointed to another chair. “Sit, Reila.”

The other nodded, easing into the chair as the Lady turned her attention back to Ayae. “I want you to know that if I'd had it my way, I would not have you keep company with those two men. But while I may run the Spine, I do not have it my way with those two. The ties that run between Mireea and Yeflam are deep and sordid and I have to remain civil to them, especially now. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“You don't like it, do you?”

Ayae hesitated, then said, “No.”

“I don't like it either.” Lady Wagan's gaze did not leave her. “Captain Heast tells me that the attacks on our outlying villages have stopped, that the last village they found was attacked over two weeks ago. In part, he says, the attacks have stopped because of our evacuations, but it is also his belief that with the wet season ending, a lull is being allowed to develop before the main attack begins. He suggests a month before we hear again of raids, but I think it will be half that—and I find myself in the curious position of deciding what to do with those two men in the tower.”

“You want me to spy on them?” she said.

“We already spy on them.” The light flickered across the wall behind Lady Wagan, shadows spiking sharply. “What I want to know is how to stop them, if I need to do so.”

“They won't trust just anybody,” Reila added quietly. “They do not see themselves as being human any more.”

“I have heard that before.”

“You're Mireean, Ayae, no matter what anyone says,” Lady Wagan said, simply. “You may not like it some days. I certainly do not like it some days. I long to be somewhere else. Somewhere without war, without responsibility, but I am not. Neither are you. We are both Mireean. I have no doubt someone has said cruel words to you, but it will not be long until a kindness is said.”

She sighed. “I don't know how to stop them.”

“But you may. The more you learn about yourself, the more you will learn about them.”

Silence threaded between the three women, a long, difficult silence as the implications of what Muriel Wagan asked became clearer to Ayae. She wanted the cartographer's apprentice not just to spend time with the two Keepers, but to put aside the regaining of her life. She would not be able to return to help with the rebuilding of the new shop, would not be able to continue with her studies. She was being asked to take part in politics, to put herself in danger, when all she wanted was to step back from what had—in her mind—already pulled her too far into that world.

“You're asking a lot,” she said, finally.

“I know.” Lady Wagan's gaze never left Ayae. “But there are vital things at stake, young lady. It is not just your home, but all our homes that will be lost if we don't work to save them from the Leerans and the Keepers. That last is to be kept between us, but it is important that you understand clearly that we are caught between two forces here. As Leera draws closer and closer, internal politics in Yeflam will force the Enclave to set aside its neutrality. People will die. Mireean people will die, just as Leeran people will. This is a very real problem that we have and while I do not wish to make you spend time with these two men, it is only you that they have allowed into their world, only to you that this opportunity has been presented. Don't you agree?”

For a moment Ayae felt alone, more alone that she had felt since awakening in the hospital. She did not want this. She did not want to be drawn into conflicts, into political and physical fights. She had been content, happy with her life, and she wanted to restore that feeling, that sense of safety she had had since she had arrived in Mireea, that sense of having a purpose as her career as a cartographer's apprentice and illustrator grew. These things were important to her. She had lost too much in the fire of Orlan's shop. She had lost her sense of security, of safety. She had lost Illaan. Their relationship had not been the best, but even at its worst she had been … if not in love, then loved and cared for. She had seen too early in her life how the loss of all the things that defined an individual stripped them of their humanity, how it made them emotionally rough, and she did not want to become that. She wanted to restore her life. She wanted to fix what had been broken in the hours after the charm-laced man had pulled her out of the fire.

Even though she agreed with what Lady Wagan said, knew intellectually that she was in a rare position to help fight for her home, she resisted saying so. She had to think about herself. She had to get her life reorganized first, and, with the copper taste of resentment for what she began to believe was a mistake—even as the words emerged from her mouth—Ayae told the Lady Wagan that she did not agree.

 

11.

 

Once, Zaifyr had fasted for seventy-two days. It began as a whim drawn from self-reflection born of lonely travel. In the middle of the dense Gogair Forest, he stripped down, sat and waited. He estimated that he was over seventy years old, though he had not physically aged a day. Yet, he knew men and women who had died not from weapon or disease, but from age, an age he had watched creep over them from their birth until their spirits rose from their broken bodies. As the morning sun rose and fell, and then the midday sun, and the afternoon sun, he realized that it was the experience of exactly that which saw him stop, literally, his life until the gnawing hunger and exhaustion of boredom drove him to his feet, two and a half months later. He could die, he had watched gods die and knew that anything could, but his death would be a difficult one. Lack of food and water would simply not kill him. The immortality and power Jae'le had said was within him was slowly becoming something that he could rationalize in a post-god—

There was a knock at the door, soft but insistent.

Zaifyr lifted the brown bottle but found it empty and dry. Outside, the sky was dark but for the stars and the moon. The latter was no more than a thin, broken line. The knocking sounded again and he pushed himself up, shaking off the maudlin emotion that had come across him, the feeling of cobwebs that had fallen over his mind as he had watched the afternoon fade away with his memories. It was not the first time, though it was the first in some time and, as he reached the door, he hoped that it would be the last for a long time. There was a small, gray bearded man lit by a lantern in the doorway.

“I am Samuel Orlan,” the man said, extending his hand.

“I know who you are,” Zaifyr replied, accepting the hand. “Is your apprentice fine?”

“For the moment.” Orlan's gaze held his, the small man's blue eyes weathered and ancient. “I must thank you for helping her, though it will perhaps not be the last time you do so. May I come in?”

Zaifyr stepped back, allowing the cartographer to enter, his lamp illuminating the single bed, small pack and smoke- and ash-stained clothes that marked his room. Closing the door, he watched Orlan hang the lamp on the wall and, without a backward glance, turn around the chair by the window, facing it to the bed before sitting down.

“What am I to call you these days?” he asked, finally.

A small smile creased his lips. “Zaifyr.”

“An old name, that.”

“Better than others I have been known by,” he said. “But perhaps the old names are the best, wouldn't you say?”

Orlan's smile deepened. “You knew the Seventy-First, yes?”

He was talking about his ancestors, the other men and women who had shared his name over the centuries. “And another, much earlier. I don't know which one she was.”

“The Forty-Third,” Orlan replied easily. “But it was briefly, unlike the Seventy-First, who lived in Asila.”

“I was a different man, then.” Zaifyr perched on the edge of the bed. “Whatever memories you have, I wouldn't put much stock in them now.”

“I don't have memories of you,” Orlan said. “We share a name, but that is all, and I am glad for that. I doubt I could keep so many lives straight. I would be caught in them all the time and new experiences would pass me by. But, no, I know about you and the Seventy-First because I have studied history and read the books that have been written, either by ourselves or by others.”

Zaifyr refused to rise to the bait that, given the flood of his own memories, was a fair critique. “I don't read as much as I used to.”

“Or write, either. It has been a long time since
The Godless.
”

“I thought all copies had been destroyed?”

“It is hard to destroy everything,” the other man said, shrugging. “This is especially true of books written by a man who once said he was a god.”

“I don't believe that now.”

“Others do.”

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“Even when there is an army coming up this mountain in search of gods?”

“In search of the remains of gods,” Zaifyr corrected. “I talked to the Quor'lo. It was not much of a conversation, I grant you, but the force coming here appears to believe that a part of the gods still exist in the remains. Since you have read the book that I wrote, then you know my thoughts on the subject.”

“Can these gods be reborn like they want?”

“You know it's nonsense, Orlan.” Zaifyr pulled his feet onto the bed, crossing them beneath him. “Why are you here?”

“My apprentice…”

“Ayae?”

“Yes…” For a moment he hesitated, as if he knew he was crossing a boundary, and that his next words would change a part in him. “She is a very angry young woman right now.”

“I've helped her enough.”

“With the wrong people whispering in her ear, she could believe that
she
is a god.”

Zaifyr's fingers touched a charm beneath his wrist. “She would not be the first,” he said.

“No, she would not.”

Against the wall, the lamp sputtered, the fire rising for just a moment. “She seemed like a smart girl. I don't think she needs me to watch her.”

“Oh, that I will not disagree with,” Orlan said. “However, I would like to think that her introduction to whatever touch of god is inside her is not done by men who are borderline sociopaths who believe they are reborn gods, or by the priests who ride up this mountain in search of something to make into an idol.”

“Why not you?”