A memory of war and sola.., p.21
A Memory of War and Solace, page 21
“And what is the truth,” I asked finally. “I know you will tell me. You want my help, yes? You need me, now that Eelie and Tanith are lost to you.”
He sighed. “I only ever wanted to bring healing and set the world right. There is something fundamentally wrong with the world. You must have felt it. It needn’t be that way. We can repair things. We can make things right, not just for—not just for Eelie and you. For everyone. For every nyssa in the world. We can make you all whole.”
“Make… us whole,” I repeated. I didn’t understand.
His voice took on an absence, as if he were suddenly far away. “What was it like, when you first knew what you were? How did it feel, to understand that you could never fit into the framework of this world? Were you confused? Were you lost? Did you grieve for the girl that might have been?”
“I was never a girl,” I said fiercely. “I might have looked like one to some. But I never was.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, that’s right. That’s the truth you accept.” He turned now to face me. “What if there was another truth waiting for you? Harder to find; more painful. But when you found it—when you dug it out from the depths of yourself with your fingers torn and bloodied—you knew at once that it was more true than what you knew?”
“Maita je teminénen,” I temporized, quoting Mallier. “Truth is absolute. It either is or is not. It does not have degrees.” My leg flared, interrupting my thoughts, making it difficult to concentrate. I still didn’t quite understand, but I was starting to feel a certain unease at his words. A vague shape was forming in my mind, a pattern that I knew I didn’t like, though I couldn’t see it yet.
“They call it breaking when your powers manifest, yes? Your powers lash out in destruction and rage and violence, and your mind flees. Does that sound like something that we should accept? Something that is meant to be? Don’t you see, Arin? They call it ‘breaking’ in Reft and they’re right about that, at least. The nyssén are broken!”
I flinched back from his sudden vehemence and the implications of his words. “And… you mean to… heal us.” The pieces were slowly coming together. His drive to make the nyssén “whole.” His need for someone strong in Mind Magic. And his sparking of the greatest war the continent had seen since the Mad King’s armies ravaged the land, to rage across Torfall. Tens of thousands of soldiers brought together just beyond the walls of Sind to slaughter each other in violence and misery. All that pain roiling the air, within reach of a powerful nyssa.
“You can’t,” I whispered in horror.
“We can heal them all, together, Arin. You and me, together. We can change all the nyssén: Make them men and women as they should have been, healed of mind and body. No longer this… this ‘in-between.’ All of—all of you.”
I nodded slowly. I thought I understood it all now. But there was a last piece missing. Something still itched at my mind. It all made a horrifying kind of sense from one point of view. All that I lacked was the why.
I looked Savat in the eyes and pulled on the power that raged outside—drew it into myself. And I lashed out with it and dove into his mind.
…Eelie knows…they helped me build my real army…
The room was dark but for the fire that flickered in the corner. Eyes caught and reflected the glowing embers. There were no lamps to light the room, only the meager glow of the flames.
Eelie stood in the center of the room, their white-blond hair shimmering and tinged by the orange light. My mind spun and I felt the memory of pain—fire burning my body from my knee into my heart. Their face flashed in animal rage and was still once more. I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I couldn’t remember why I was here. Then I noticed him standing beside me.
Savat.
I focused on him instead, turning with some difficulty away from Eelie. He was dressed in a dark coat over pale lavender, and the enameled hawk pin on his lapel glittered in the firelight. He watched Eelie speak; watched them hold the eyes of all those gathered. I saw a smile on his face, a smile of appreciation and pride and… something else.
We stood in the shadowed corner opposite the fire, watching them capture the minds of the three nyssén. The eyes darted towards his corner and at each other now and then, suspicious. But they stayed. They listened.
I let my awareness shift, no longer holding myself back; letting go of my anger and pain, and I saw the room through his eyes now. Saw the eyes and the glow of embers reflected in Eelie’s silver hair.
They gave the details as we had planned, leading them along the path until the cause was the obvious choice. Delicately nudging here, diverting there, until there could be no reasonable dissent.
Eelie had their attention now; they were magnificent. These new ones didn’t trust yet, not completely. I was still keenly aware that they worried over my presence, my influence.
But they listened. They watched and now and then, they nodded. They didn’t trust fully yet, but they would follow.
…I had my anchor. Now…further back…
I stood over a table, intricately carved into a model of the continent. Mountains rose in rough peaks and rivers gleamed in a rippling mosaic of blue glass. I knew where I needed to draw the armies, and so I started there. Dozens of delicate ceramic troop markers were arrayed around Sind, black and gray circles flying miniature flags.
I stroked my short beard for a moment, thinking. Then I began working backwards, moving pieces here and there, bringing armies apart from battles that played out in my mind. I saw each move and each counter.
The Bluecaps would rally there. The Winter Corps would hold the Sisters Road here. Defeat by defeat, I wound the little world back in time, relieving the pressure that Torfall would bring against my armies. The black markers radiated outward now to take positions won in victories to come.
Sometimes, I made a mistake and saw it only three moves later. I reset the board and tried again. Again and again the model played out the war that would reshape the world.
There were questions; unknowns, to be sure. But those could be wrapped in contingencies and fall-backs and redundancies, so that whichever way some of the more questionable battles went, the result would still play to my plans.
The door to my chamber opened, and Eelie came in. They wore their arrogance and prickliness as a defense as usual. It was an armor they wrapped themself in whenever they thought someone was looking. Even me.
“When do we start?” they asked. They leaned against the table, and the ceramic markers rattled.
“Please don’t do that,” I said. “And we start once I’ve figured out all the variables. When we know how it will play out.”
“Really? Is that how it works? So it was the plan to get Arin thrown out of Reft but to let them disappear into the world without a clue to their whereabouts?”
I grimaced. That hadn’t gone as well as I had hoped. Yes, Eelie had been right. Bringing them face to face with the man who had killed their family had triggered the child. They had spiraled into rage and despair in every way I had hoped.
But then they had declined my offer. Declined flatly and disappeared. In the two months since, I had exhausted every effort to find them and gotten nowhere.
“You were right,” I said. “Is that what you want me to say? You were right, they were never going to join us.”
“Thank you for saying it,” Eelie said, pleased.
…further back…
“My lord,” he said, bowing to me. He was gray now, gray and wrinkled and old. He had served my father and now he served me. I was determined to be a different sort of master.
“Demen, how many times have I said, ‘no bowing?’”
“Sorry mi’lord. My agents have found him.”
I sat upright in my chair. Finally.
“You’re sure it’s him this time?”
“Certain, mi’lord. There’s no doubt. We questioned him discreetly, while he was drunk. There was no chance for clever lies, and the man knew too much in too much detail. It is him.”
“Good. Make the deal as we planned. Pass on the instructions, the floor plans for the manor, the coin. You know what to do.”
“Very well mi’lord.” He hesitated. “Are you certain, sir, that you want to do this? Entangling yourself with such as he… it is… unseemly.”
“Make sure he understands that he is to be witnessed,” I said, ignoring his protest. “If he tries to abscond with the money or with the spoils without meeting the very letter of the bargain, he must know that he will not survive. If he does what he is told, then promise him triple value for anything he manages to steal.”
“Of course, mi’lord.”
Demen turned to leave.
“Demen, send Eelie in will you?”
His lips twisted in a grimace, but he bowed. “Yes mi’lord.”
A moment after the door closed behind him, it opened again and Eelie entered.
“We’ve found him,” I said, satisfied.
“Finally.” They slumped in a free chair.
“You’re sure you can do it?”
“This man—he is everything to them,” Eelie said. “Arin’s whole life circles him in endless spirals, and he occupies a space deep in their soul. They will never let him go from their mind until one of them is dead.”
“I don’t want Arin dead. I want them broken free of that place, so that they will join us.”
“They’re never going to join us, Tamar. They believe.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“They won’t work for you, and even if they did, they will never accept what you plan. They are too sure of themself by half.”
“You accepted it,” I pointed out. “Why do you think that is?”
Eelie turned away, their gaze going vague and distant. “Because I was already broken—broken and bleeding—when you found me. You didn’t need to sell me your vision. You didn’t need to convince me that your path was right. I already knew it for truth.”
…further back…
They stood out, even here. Even among so many others who were so broken. Not just physically. Yes, their white-blond hair was striking, almost silver. Yes, their features, even young as they were, were sharp and focused in a way that all the others around them couldn’t match. But they carried themself with a tension, a vibrancy that was almost violent and couldn’t be ignored. There was a discordant note of rage and self-loathing that undercut every gesture, every move, every breath.
They walked the halls of the mountain arm-in-arm with the Somiri child. I had listened and observed in the past few days. I knew the plump, dark-skinned one was a caravaner’s child, newly arrived. They were already fast friends with this pale creature. I had watched as this ghost of a child deftly manipulated the newcomer into a relationship, separating them from others, isolating them. Making them utterly dependent.
I wasn’t sure even they understood what they were doing, but I could see it, and I understood where it came from.
They were broken.
They had a desperate need for the unconditional love that they had once had. However it had been lost, they sought to replace it. This latest target of their affection was not the first, and likely would not be the last. I was certain they had played out this pattern over and over again, pushing and pushing until what they tried to shape into love collapsed under their frantic manipulation like overworked clay.
“This way, lord Savat, if you will.”
I nodded gracious thanks to the nyssa who guided me to the Council chambers. As we walked, I made a mental note to revisit this child, to continue to watch them while I was here. I could sense they wouldn’t last long under the oppressive rules of Reft. They would chafe. They would balk.
They would fall.
And I would be waiting to catch them.
…Further back…
The rain sheeted down around me. It didn’t touch me though. A servant stood behind, holding a parasol over my head to keep me dry—the world was not allowed to touch me. It was not allowed to leave any mark upon me.
No one was, anymore.
The cleric intoned his empty words over the grave. There was no reason for me to listen. I was beyond caring. It had been years since Father had spoken at all, and years more since he had spoken to me. Not since—well, those last words didn’t bear remembering.
I stood still and placid, pretending to listen, pretending to be somber and to mourn, because it was my duty. I was Viscount now.
Finally.
There was no one to check me; to hold me back from what needed to be done.
Demen stood beside me, his elegant cloak—purest white for mourning—shedding the rain well enough from his shoulders, but doing nothing for his head and face. His black hair was limp, his mustaches sodden.
“He loved you, you know,” Demen said in his gentle voice.
“He did,” I said. He hated me. He hated Mother for making me. It was easier to agree.
“I know he didn’t show it much. After your mother died—” Demen wiped his eyes futilely, “he never really knew how to show it. But he loved you. When the—when the stonework collapsed and he pushed you out to safety, he showed how much he loved you. He used to tell me, before the accident; he used to say how proud he was to have a son to carry on the legacy.”
Father did love his legacy.
Demen fell silent again. The cleric continued his pointless drone.
Father’s last words to me nearly surfaced again to roil my mind and stir my anger and shame. Always thus, when I was forced to think of Father. But I was well practiced at this by now. I could let them drag me down into the icy depths of the dark sea of my guilt. Sometimes I wallowed in them, when I felt I deserved the pain.
Today, though, I was feeling good. Feeling free for the first time in a very long time. I thought of a dark, ancient well, its stones crumbling, the well cap long since rotted away. I let the thoughts and feelings come one by one, and as they came I plucked them from my thoughts, releasing them to the pull of the earth and imagining them tumble down, down into the dark depths to disappear in the void and trouble me no more.
The shame and anger dissipated, lost to the mist that clung to the wet cemetery soil.
Well. The house was mine now. It was my legacy to shape; to fulfill it how I wished. Damn him and his history and his visions of the past.
There was a secret I knew. There was a truth deeper than his prattle of family and legacy and power. There was something broken at the core of the world. Something twisted. It shouldn’t be this way. Children shouldn’t suffer.
The Savat legacy had history, it had fame, it had pride. But it had money most of all. Centuries of money. Money would beget power and power would beget change. With enough leverage, enough power, the world would change.
The cleric finished his liturgy, and the somber mourners broke away into small clusters, commiserating. None of them approached me. I held an intangible barrier between me and the world.
I stared into the haze of rain and mist. “Come, Demen. We have work to do.”
…those last words…
I was walking through a fog. It shifted and swirled around me forming vague shadows. It made the world around me indistinct, impossible to navigate. There was no visible path.
I was on a wide lawn, its green barely discernible through the mist. A manor house broke through like a pale ghost in the distance. Four tall chimneys rose from the slate roof, and the fog spilled endlessly from their tops, draping the land in undefined shadow.
I walked forward in a daze, unable to focus. To my left was a regiment of tall shapes in rank and file, looming and threatening and shapeless. Smaller shapes in black moved between them like crows picking at the bone field after a battle.
I moved towards the house as if in a nightmare, unsure of what I would find, not wanting to see. A tension was rising in my shoulders and my stomach was tight with unnamed worry.
There was a feeling of time in the sky. I can’t say what exactly I felt, or how I knew, but it seemed like what I saw here had happened long ago, and like it was happening over and over forever.
I neared the manor and saw that it was wrapped in a low platform of paving stones that formed a kind of floor, though they were cracked as if from a hammer blow. The mist held back from these, afraid to trespass upon them. Tendrils spun delicate fingers from the wall of fog only to evaporate against the stones. A great ragged opening was torn into the house—a gaping maw of dark shadows, ready to devour an unwary intruder.
I stepped upon the paving stones, looking down at a smear of dried blood that stained two of the broken pavers. My stomach lurched at the memory. The bloodstain thrust like a spearpoint from the opening in the wall; a straight line of dark red starting a full pace from the doorway and radiating a foot outwards toward the mist behind me.
A voice ranted endlessly from inside that room, deep and terrible.
I hesitated, standing now on the threshold, I couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was fierce and angry. Full of rage and hate and odium. I didn’t want to enter. I didn’t want to understand the words.
I stared down at that line of blood. It was a stain on the house.
Without thought or intent, the mist swallowed me again, and the house was gone.
SEVENTEEN
I tried to reach back through the mist, but the memory was gone. I pushed past the fog. Further and further back. Deeper into his history I delved.
There was a kernel here, somewhere. A seed to explain the madness of his plan. There was some key I needed to find to unlock all the secrets. Some clue to help me to understand why something so inherently evil felt to him so much like a kindness that he would sacrifice so many lives to his plan.
The closer I got, the surer I was. I circled it now, stalking it like a cat. I was so close…
• • •
…a stain on the house…
I watched from the darkness of my room, crouched in fear and my gaze fixed on the door of their room across the gallery. I needed to see; couldn’t stand to hear. I covered my ears to block them out, but it was no use. I felt the anger and rage like a blow with each word.
