The Godless (41 page)

“It was monstrous.”

“Yes.” He reached for the warped hilt of the sword, lifting it from between them. “And I live with that, just as I live with sights much worse. Now, if you will forgive me.” He handed her the sword, hilt first. “I need to find a place where the dead will be unable to locate me. Where I can be quiet, before I leave.”

“My house?” The words surprised her, shocked her, and she thought to take them back the moment they emerged. Instead, she added, “You're welcome to stay there.”

“Me, you and the elderly woman who was buried beneath your kitchen.” He smiled as he said the words. “But I would appreciate it, thank you.”

As they began walking, Ayae thought of the old woman's grandson from whom she had bought the house. He had been born in Mireea, born in a different house that his mother had sold after the death of his father, a house she had used to buy the one he was now selling. “The grandson spread her ashes around the house,” she said. “He said that she had loved the house in the last half of her life more than anything else—but I don't think that he ever thought her spirit would be actually there. Rather, it was symbolic.”

“It has never been symbolic,” Zaifyr said. “In literature, the Wanderer was said to take the souls of the dead, to guide them to a place of peace, a place of rebirth. His priests would recite the story of him and a farmer. In it, the latter is honest and giving and known as a man who honors both the living and the dead of his family. He does it to such a point that he talks to the dead at night, every night, though they never answer him.

“One day, the Wanderer arrives at his farm, appearing as an old beggar, looking for dinner. He is given a place at the table and, after all have gone to bed, the farmer tells the god that he feels blessed, that because of this, he is happy to share with those less fortunate than himself. He says that it is his family that makes him feel this way. That he can feel his father and mother about him all the time, just as he can feel his son and daughter. He tells the god that he honors the living and the dead equally because of this.

“In response, the Wanderer tells him that it is true, that his family is around him, but that it is nothing to be proud of. Against the farmer's anger, he explains that the presence of his ancestors means that they are lost, that they are suffering, and that they watch him out of envy and hate.

“The farmer is distraught by this thought, but he doesn't believe it. He argues with the god, but even though he appears as an old, homeless man, there is something undeniable about the words he speaks. That night, the farmer kills himself. It's an extreme response, but the story is a parable and all the parables of the gods had violent extremes.

“At any rate, after the farmer dies, he knows that the Wanderer is right. He can see his parents and their parents and he can sense their hate and envy. He begins to weep and it is then that the god appears, no longer in the form of an old man but as a shadow, a specter more detailed than any around him, as if the souls of all the dead dwell within his form. He tells the farmer that it was his fault what had happened. He says that because he loved his family so strongly, so deeply, so obsessively, they could not leave him.

“From there, the story drifts into the moral, the lesson that the priests would impart, which was that you must accept death, that it is a natural part of existence. The story is all but forgotten now, and so is the truth it speaks, the truth of a world without the God of Death—and it is a truth that will be on show in the following week, when the fighting begins.”

“That's why you will leave,” she said. “Your brother agreed with that. He is worried about you.”

“He is right to be,” Zaifyr admitted. “My days of warfare are long gone.”

“How did you live with it when you did take part?”

“Take part?” He smiled half a smile, a cynic's smile. “I did not take part: I made war. I made it and I believed in it. I could rationalize a terrible thing and claim it as normal when I was younger. I suppose that part of it is that it is difficult to see what I see and feel every day and to always think of it as abnormal. But it is no longer that time, for which I am grateful. I do not wish to watch men and women die, just as I do not want for them to come to me afterward, searching for answers I do not have.”

Then they had arrived at her quiet home, a dark square among other silent, dark blocks. For a while they had talked, and then parted for the night, the house silent until Ayae pushed herself out of bed and dressed slowly. She pulled the hard leather armor on over her clothes, wincing as it rubbed against her injured shoulder.

Before she and Zaifyr had left to come to her house, the day after Steel had escaped and the floor of the city had erupted, Lady Wagan had delivered her speech. Dressed in somber greens and whites, with the Captain of the Spine at her side, she stood in front of the Western Gate. It had not been a long speech: she begun by telling them all that she would be honest and forthright. “This will not be a short war, though the battle before us will be,” she said to the crowd before her. “You have seen the size of the force approaching us. You have no doubt asked what is it that we can do against them. You ask, not just how can we survive, but how can we triumph? We cannot do either if we are conventional. We cannot engage the Leeran force in the way they wish us to do. Neither I, nor the man beside me, plan to do so. Trust both of us on this, trust that Mireea is a wealthy nation, and trust that what we leave behind we can rebuild once our debts are settled.”

Ayae's hand lingered on her door frame as she stepped onto the narrow back veranda that looked over her small, empty garden plots. Zaifyr sat at a table to her right, a still figure next to a glass jug of juice trailing lines of moisture. A plate with cut sandwiches was also there. “Just simple food,” he said, as she eased herself into the chair opposite, thanking him. As she poured herself a drink, he added, “Heast has sent for me. The same messenger informed me that you have been requested to attend Lady Wagan.”

“When?”

He shrugged. “I said you would be there once you were awake.”

“You could have woken me. It's probably important.”

“It is always important,” he said dryly. “Tell me, can you hear anything unusual?”

She could not and said so.

“I could, earlier. We will hear it again, I am sure, but it is only the sound of the Leeran Army cutting down trees. They want to talk to us about this, I imagine.”

She wanted to rise, to head to the Keep, but instead she remained seated. “The other day, before the Leerans attacked,” she said slowly, picking her words. “Captain Heast told me that he could end this war before it began if he had the powers of Fo, Bau, or you.”

“I do not know about the others.” Zaifyr ran his hand through his hair, shaking the silver and copper charms throughout. “Maybe Fo could.”

“You could, couldn't you?”

“No.”

“Not…” She realized her mistake, stumbled with it. “If you could—if there was no past.”

“There is never no history.” His smile was faint. “But I understand what you are asking. In Mireea you are emotionally connected: it is your home, your life. Your future was in it, in all ways, and you haven't left that yet. But last night you rightly spoke to me about the horrors I have done—and yes, I could end this war. But it would be done violently, awfully, with thousands of deaths. I am one of the first, Ayae. There are few who could stand against me. But after—after I would have to live with it, and I live with so much, already.

“It is an experience that Fo and Bau have never encountered. They have never seen the destruction that can be caused by a man or woman, by a “god” who believes he or she has a moral superiority over another. But they will, soon enough. If the Leeran Army has come for Ger, for the power of the gods, it will move onto Yeflam after this, it will follow the refugee train of Mireea, and it will lay siege to a nation where men and women believe they will, one day, be gods. And on that day you will see the awful things your peers can do, and you will be thankful that neither I nor my brothers or sisters rose up to defend your home.”

 

3.

 

His words lingered, following her along the cobbled streets and past the activity on the Spine, beneath the arch of the gate to the Spine's Keep. If the content of Zaifyr's words surprised her, the effect they had on her did not: part of the reason for her guilt this morning was that she did not shrink from him after he had admitted to the horrors that she knew he had committed. She knew that he was, by turns, arrogant, cynical, and fatalistic, but yet …

Yet
, she thought,
yet he is a human
.

Would she think the same if she ever met Aela Ren, the man who had the temerity to call himself the Innocent?

Beyond the gate of the Spine's Keep, she experienced a surprise. Where before the gardens had been cleared, the ground reduced to dirt, she now found the Keep's staff digging with shovel and hoe. It was not half a dozen, or even a dozen who did this, but rather the entire staff, from maids, to cooks, to guards, each stripped down to simple clothes and creating neat, orderly lines for which they would take one of the hundreds of small, potted plants behind them. The plants themselves were succulents, an array of greens and reds and purples, each as hardy as the next, and each being lifted and passed by Lady Wagan, who stood in the middle of it, while behind her sat the blind Lord Wagan.

To Ayae's knowledge, this was the first she—or anyone outside the Keep—had seen of the Lord since his return, with reason.

Before he rode into Leera, Lord Wagan had been a tall, distinctively featured man who had gained a degree of gravitas about his face as he aged that had not been reflected in his intellect. Generally, the inhabitants of Mireea viewed Lord Elan Wagan as an attractive accessory to his politically minded wife, her trophy in a world where, on either side of Ger's Spine, women were more often than not there to be seen, not heard. Lord Wagan, after fifteen years of marriage, was not as silent as the youngest and newest of those wives and was generally considered to be a capable horseman and superb host. He was even aware of the place he occupied in the city, taking a great pride in his ability as a host and its importance in a city built on trade. But of all that, there was no longer any indication: Lord Elan was a shrunken man in his wheelchair, his long frame and bones held together by the brown-and-white robe he wore and the white cloth that was bound over his torn eye sockets. His hair, still full, looked as if it threatened to overpower his face, the skin below having sunk into his cheekbones and following with the rest of his body in presenting a diminished appearance.

As Ayae approached Lady Wagan, it was also clear to her that her husband was unaware of where he was. Both he and his chair were surrounded by a faint odor of opiates and when he moved, slowly, it was as if parts of him were reacting to commands conveyed five to ten minutes beforehand.

“Lady Wagan,” she said, stepping through the rows of tiny potted plants. “You asked to see me?”

The Lady of the Spine bent down, lifting a plant that was predominantly red, but with swirls of black running through it. “Yes, though I was given the impression that I would be lucky if I did. Some men are best disabused of their power, quickly.” She smiled and passed the plant to a guard. “The pot is a little broken, Gerard, so be careful with it. With any luck, we will be done before the day is finished—before any of the fighting begins.”

Before she could stop herself, Ayae said, “But why?”

“Why plant?”

“Yes.”

“Is it not obvious?” Lady Wagan indicated the already half-filled garden before her. “No? The truth is, I have always liked my gardens. I have taken great pride in them, though they are not the finest in any land and the time I devote to them makes me an easy target of mockery for those who are my detractors. But still. It fills me with joy. It is life, creation, nurturing. A garden is not similar to childbirth, or even being a parent—something I can attest to, I assure you, but there is a pleasurable work in it. It does not have the darkness or the intellectual terror that being a parent can, especially in this world we find ourselves in. It is about growth. About life. And that is why we are planting—and planting a world that is difficult to kill, a world that will live in anything, even debris.”

The look on Ayae's face caused the other woman to chuckle. “Look around. Are they not happy because of it?”

She admitted that they were and, with that, Ayae realized, the Lady of the Spine was also sending a second message, one coded through to the people around her, through the large amount of staff that worked the field.

“I do have things I wish to discuss with you, but not here.” She turned to the Mireean Guard who stood behind Lord Wagan, a tall, young woman whose startling blue eyes gazed at the work in front of her flatly. “Caeli, bring him in within the hour, please. The drugs will have begun to wear off by then.”

The guard made no reply, but Wagan had already stepped through the line of pots before her, and called out to those working. She offered her apologies and left the guard she had spoken to in charge of the pot arrangement, before turning and motioning for Ayae to follow her up to the entrance of the Keep.

Neither spoke until they had begun to walk down the long hall, toward the unused throne room. Then, quietly, Lady Wagan said, “He is gone. The man I loved, that is. He has been gone since they tore his eyes out, since whatever happened to him in Leera. When not drugged, he remembers what they did, and screams.” Ayae remained silent. “Some days, I have the deepest sympathy for him. On others, I resent him for it,” she went on. “They are the only emotions I have, now—love and arousal are gone. Do you know that feeling?”