He opened his eyes to regard the figure standing opposite. “Hello Barkus.”
Barkus slumped down in front of the fire, raising his hands to the flames. His muscle thick arms were bare as he wore only a cotton vest and trews, his feet shorn of boots and his hair matted with sea water. His only weapon was his axe, strapped across his back with leather thongs. “Faith!” he grunted. “Haven’t been this cold since the Martishe.”
“Must’ve been a hard swim.”
“Right enough. We were three miles out before I realised you’d gulled me, brother. The ship's captain took some hard persuading before he'd sail his boat back to shore.” He shook his head, droplets flying from his long hair. “Sailing off to the Far West with Sister Sherin. As if you’d pass up a chance to sacrifice yourself.”
Vaelin watched Barkus’s hands, saw how they were free of any tremble although it was cold enough to make his breath steam.
“That was the deal, right?” Barkus went on. “We get to live and they get you?”
“And Prince Malcius is returned to the Realm.”
Barkus frowned. “He’s alive?”
“I was sparing with the truth in getting you all out of the city without any fuss.”
The large brother grunted again. “How long till they come for you?”
“First light.”
“Time enough to rest up then.” He unslung his axe from his back, setting it down close by. “How many do you think they’ll send?”
Vaelin shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
“Against the two of us they better send a whole regiment.” He looked up at Vaelin, puzzled. “Where’s your sword, brother?”
“I gave it to Governor Aruan.”
“Not the brightest idea you’ve had. How do you intend to fight?”
“I don’t. In accordance with the king’s word I will surrender myself to Alpiran custody.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“I don’t think so. According to the Fifth Book of the Cumbraelin god I still have many more people to kill.”
“Pah!” Barkus spat into the fire. “Prophecies are bullshit. Superstition for god-worshippers. You took their Hope, they’ll kill you right enough. Just a question of how long they take over it.” He met Vaelin’s eyes. “I can’t stand by and watch them take you, brother.”
“Then leave.”
“You know I can’t do that either. Don’t you think I lost enough brothers already? Nortah, Frentis, Dentos - ”
“Enough!” Vaelin’s voice was sharp, cutting through the night.
Barkus drew back in alarm and bemusement. “Brother, I…”
“Just stop.” Vaelin studied the face of the man in front of him with all the scrutiny he could muster, searching for some crack in the mask, some flicker of lost composure. But it was perfect, impervious and infuriating. He fought to master the anger, knowing it would kill him. “You’ve waited so long for this, why not show me your true face? Here at the end, what difference does it make?”
Barkus grimaced in a flawless display of embarrassed concern. “Vaelin, are you quite well?”
“Captain Antesh told me something before he left. Would you like to hear it?”
Barkus spread his hands uncertainly. “If you wish.”
“It seems Antesh isn’t his real name. Hardly surprising, I’m sure many of the Cumbraelins we hired felt the need to use a false name, either through fear of a criminal past or shame at accepting our coin. What was surprising is that we’ve both heard his other name before.”
Still no slip in the mask. Still nothing beyond the concern of a true brother.
“Bren Antesh was once greatly in thrall to his god,” Vaelin told him. “So great was his devotion it drove him to kill, to gather others who also thirsted to honour their god with the blood of heretics. In time he led them to the Martishe where most of them died at our hands, leading him to question his belief, to abandon his god, accepting the king’s gold and giving it to the families of his fallen men, then seeking death in a foreign war, all the time trying to forget the name he had won in the Martishe: Black Arrow. Bren Antesh was once named Black Arrow. And he assures me he was never in possession of any letters of free passage from his Fief Lord, nor were any of his men.”
Barkus remained still, all expression now vanished.
“You remember the letters, brother?” Vaelin asked. “The letters you found on the body of the archer I killed. The letters that set us to war with Cumbrael.”
It was only a slight change in the angle of his head, a small shift in the set of his shoulders, a new curve to his lips, but suddenly Barkus was gone, like smoke in the wind. When he spoke Vaelin was unsurprised to hear a familiar voice, the voice of two dead men. “Do you really think you’re going to serve a Queen of Fire, brother?”
Vaelin’s heart plummeted like a stone. He had been nurturing a withered hope that he might be wrong, that Antesh had been lying and his brother was still the noble warrior sailing away with the morning tide. Now it was gone and there was just the two of them, alone on the beach with death coming swiftly. “I’m told there are other prophecies,” he replied.
“Prophecies?” The thing that had been Barkus grated a harsh, ugly laugh. “You know so little. All of you, scribbling down your fumbling attempts at wisdom, calling it scripture when it’s just the rantings of the mad and the power-hungry.”
“The Test of the Wild. Is that when you took him?”
The thing wearing Barkus’s face grinned. “He wanted to live so badly. Finding Jennis was a gift of life but his sense of brotherhood was so strong he couldn’t bring himself to do what was necessary.”
“He found Jennis’s body frozen, with no cloak.”
The thing laughed again, harsh, grating, enjoying its cruelty. “His body and his soul. Jennis was still alive, half dead with cold, but still breathing, whispering pleas for Barkus to save him. Of course there was nothing he could do, and he was so very hungry. Hunger does strange things to a man, reminds him he is just an animal, an animal that needs to feed, and flesh is just flesh. The temptation sickened him, the hunger driving him beyond the edge of madness, and so he wandered out into the snow and lay down to die.”
Hentes Mustor, One Eye, the carpenter who burned Ahm Lin’s house, all once close to death. “Death is your gateway.”
“They call to us, across the hateful void, the plaintive call of a soul near death, like a lost lamb drawing a wolf. Not all can be taken, only those with the seed of malice and the gift of power.”
“Barkus had no malice.”
Another venomous cackle. “If there’s a man without malice in his heart I’ve yet to meet him. Barkus had hidden his so deep he barely knew it was there, festering like a maggot in his soul, waiting to be fed, waiting for me. It was his father you see, the father who had sent him away, who hated and envied his gift. He saw the wondrous things the boy could do with metal and hungered for the power. It is the way of things for those of us with gifts. Wouldn’t you agree, brother?”
“Were you always him? Every word spoken since, every deed, every kindness. I can’t believe it was all you.”
The thing shrugged. “Believe what you wish. They come close to death, we take them, from that moment they are ours. We know what they know, makes it so easy to maintain the mask.”
The blood-song whispered, a faint but jarring note. “You’re lying. Hentes Mustor was not fully within your command, was he? That’s why you killed him before he could tell me the lies you whispered to him in the voice of his god. And when you came for Aspect Elera you had three men under your yolk yet they attacked separately, no doubt your business with Aspect Corlin at the house of the Fourth Order taxed your abilities. I don’t think you can fully control more than one mind at once, and I’ll wager your grip can be broken.”
The thing inclined Barkus’s head. “Battle Sight is a powerful gift indeed. Soon you’ll be close to death and one of us will come to claim it. Lyrna loves you, Malcius trusts you. Who
better to guide them through the difficult years ahead? What malice lurks in your breast I wonder? Your Master Sollis perhaps? Janus and his endless schemes? Or is it the Order? After all, they sent you here to draw me out and in doing so robbed you of the woman you love. Tell me there is no malice there, brother.”
“If it’s my song you want why have you sought my death twice now? Sending hirelings into the Urlish to kill me during the Test of the Run, sending Sister Henna to my room the night of the Aspect Massacre.”
“What use have we for hirelings? And Henna’s mission was conceived in haste, so troublesome to find you at the House of the Fifth Order that night of all nights, before we knew what power you could offer us. She sends her regards, by the way. So sorry she couldn’t be here.”
He searched for some guidance from the blood-song but found only silence. This thing was not lying. “If not you, then who?” His voice faded as it came to him, borne on a despairing chord from the blood-song: Brother Harlick’s fear in the Fallen City. Have you come to kill me? “The Seventh Order,” he murmured aloud.
“Did you really think they were just a bunch of harmless mystics labouring in service to your absurd faith? They have their own plans, their own agents. Do not delude yourself that they would hesitate to seek your death should you prove an obstacle.”
“Then why have they not attacked me since?”
The thing shifted Barkus’s body in badly concealed unease. “They are biding their time, waiting for their chance.”
Another lie, confirmed by the blood-song. The wolf. The Seventh set its hirelings on me but the wolf killed them. Had they seen it as evidence of some Dark blessing, protection afforded by a power they feared? Questions. As ever, there were always more questions.
“Were you once a man?” he asked it. “Did you have a name?”
“Names mean much to the living but to those who’ve felt the depthless chill of the void they seem the conceit of children.”
“So you were alive once. You had a body of your own.”
“A body? Yes I had a body. Torn by the wilderness and wasted by hunger, pursued by hate at every turn. I had a body born of a raped mother they called a witch. We were driven out because her gift could turn the wind. The man who fathered me lied and said she had used the Dark to compel him to bed her. Lied that he refused to stay with her when the spell faded. Lied that she had used her gift to spoil the crops in revenge. With stones and rotting filth they drove us into the forest where we lived like animals until the hunger and the cold took her from me. But I lived on, more a beast than a boy, forgetting language and custom, forgetting everything but revenge. And in time I took it, in full measure.”
“‘He called forth the lightning,’” Vaelin quoted. “‘And the village burned. The people fled to the river but he swelled it with rain until the banks burst and carried them away. Still his vengeance was not sated and he brought down a blast of wind from the far north to encase them in ice.’”
The thing formed a smile, chilling in its complete lack of cruelty, a smile of fond remembrance. “I can still see his face, my father, frozen in the ice, staring up at me from the depths of the river. I pissed on it.”
“The Witch’s Bastard,” Vaelin whispered. “The story must be three centuries old.”
“Time is as much a delusion as your faith, brother. To look into the void is to see the vastness and smallness of everything at once, in an instant of terror and wonder.”
“What is it? This void you talk of?”
The thing’s smile became cruel once more. “Your faith calls it the Beyond.”
“You lie!” he spat, even though there was no sound from the blood-song. “The Beyond is a place of endless peace, complete wisdom, sublime unity with the everlasting souls of the Departed.”
The thing’s lips twitched for a moment and then it began to laugh, loud and hearty peals of amusement echoing across the beach and the sea. Vaelin felt his hand itch for the dagger in his boot as it continued to laugh, resisting the urge with difficulty. Not yet…
“Oh,” the thing shook its head, thumbing a tear from its eye. “You utter fool, brother.” He leaned forward, the face of what had been his brother a red mask in the firelight, hissing, “We are the Departed!”
He waited for the blood-song’s call but heard nothing beyond an icy silence. It was impossible, it was blasphemy but there was no lie in this thing’s words. “The Departed await us in the Beyond,” he recited, hating the desperation in his voice. “Souls enriched by the fullness and goodness of their lives, they offer wisdom and compassion…”
The Thing was laughing again, near helpless with mirth. “Wisdom and compassion. There is no more wisdom and compassion amongst the souls in the void than there is in a pack of jackals. We hunger and we feed, and death is our meat.”
Vaelin closed his eyes tight, resuming his recitation, the words tumbling rapidly from his lips. “What is death? Death is but a gateway to the Beyond and union with the Departed. It is both ending and beginning. Fear it and welcome it…”
“Death brings us fresh souls to command, more bodies to twist to our will, sate our lusts and serve his design…
“What is the body without the soul? Corrupted flesh, nothing more. Mark the passing of loved ones by giving their shell to the fire…”
“The body is everything. A soul without a body is a wasted, wretched echo of a life - ”
“I HEARD MY MOTHER’S VOICE!” He was on his feet, dagger in hand, crouched in a fighting stance, eyes now locked on the thing across the fire. “I heard my mother’s voice.”
The thing that had been Barkus got slowly to his feet, hefting the axe. “It happens sometimes, amongst the Gifted, they can hear us, hear the souls calling in the void. Brief echoes of pain and fear mostly. That’s how it all started, you know, your faith. Several centuries ago an unusally gifted Volarian heard a babble of voices from the void, among them the unmistakable voice of his own dead wife. He took it upon himself to spread the word, the great and wondrous news that there is life beyond this daily punishment of grief and toil. People listened, the word spread and so began your faith, all built on the lie that there is a reward in the next life for servile obedience in this one.”
Vaelin fought to master his confusion, tried to stop himself willing the blood-song to speak, to give the lie to this thing’s words. Wood cracked in the fire, the surf beat against the shore in a ceaseless rumble and Barkus regarded him with the cool, dispassionate gaze of a stranger.
“What design?” Vaelin demanded. “You spoke of his design? Who is he?”
“You’ll meet him soon enough.” The thing that had been Barkus clasped the haft of the axe with both hands, taking a firm grip, holding it up for the edge of the blade to catch the moonlight. “I made this for you, brother, or rather I allowed Barkus to make it. He always hungered for the hammer and the anvil so, although he resisted manfully until I took away his reluctance. Beautiful isn’t it? I’ve killed so many times with so many different weapons, but I must say this is the finest. With this I can bring you to the brink of death as easily as if I were wielding a surgeon’s knife. You’ll bleed, you’ll fade and your soul with reach out to the void. He’ll be waiting for you there.” The smile the thing offered was grim now, almost regretful. “You really shouldn’t have given up your sword, brother.”
“If I hadn’t you wouldn’t have been so willing to talk.”
The thing’s smile vanished. “Talking’s over.”
He leapt over the fire, axe drawn back, teeth bared in a hateful snarl. Something large and black met him in mid-air, fastening its jaws on his arm, rending and tearing as they crashed together onto the fire, thrashing, scattering flame. Vaelin saw the hateful axe rise and fall once, then twice, heard the enraged howl of a slave-dog as the blade bit home, then the thing that had been Barkus was rising from the dregs of the fire, hair and clothes aflame, his left arm hanging ruined and useless, nearly severed by Scratch’s bite. But the right arm was still
whole, and he still held the axe.
“Asked the Governor to set him loose at nightfall,” Vaelin told him.
The thing roared in pain and rage, the axe arching round in a silver blur. Vaelin ducked under the blade, lancing out with the dagger, piercing the thing’s chest, seeking the heart. It roared again, swinging the axe with inhuman speed. Vaelin left the dagger embedded in its chest and caught hold the haft of the axe as it swung round, backhanded a savage blow to the thing’s face and follwed with a kick to the groin. It barely staggered and delivered a stinging head-butt, sending Vaelin reeling across the sand, falling onto his back.
“Something I didn’t tell you about Barkus, brother!” the thing said, leaping closer, axe raised. “When you trained together, I always made him hold back.”
Vaelin rolled to the side as the axe bit down on the sand, twisted to send a kick into the thing’s temple, surging to his feet as it shook off the pain and swung again, the blade meeting only air as Vaelin dived over the arc of the swing, ducked in close to snatch the dagger from its chest, stabbed again then stepped back to let the axe swing within an inch of his face.
The thing that had been Barkus stared at him, shocked, still, smoke rising from his burns, his ruined arm bleeding onto the sand. He dropped the axe and his good hand went to the rapidly spreading stain on his shirt. He stared at the thick slick of blood covering his palm for a second then slowly sank to his knees.
Vaelin moved past him and retrieved the axe from the sand, fighting revulsion at the feel of it in his hands. Is this why I always hated it so? Because this was its final purpose?
“Nicely done, brother.” The thing that had been Barkus showed blood stained teeth in a grin of absolute malice. “Perhaps the next time you kill me, I’ll be wearing the face of someone you love even more.”
The axe was light, unnaturally so, making only the faintest whisper as he brought it up and round, slicing through skin and bone as easily as it did the air. The head of what had been his brother rolled on the sand and was still.
He tossed the axe aside and pulled Scratch from the dying remnants of the fire. Heaping sand onto the smouldering burns, tearing his shirt to press rags against the deep cuts in his side. The slave dog whimpered, tongue lapping weakly at Vaelin’s hand. “I’m sorry, daft dog.” He found his vision blurred by tears and his voice caught by sobs. “I’m sorry.”