Mad God's Muse

by Matthew P Gilbert

  Ariano punched Maranath in the arm and gestured at Aiul, who was even now vanishing into the mob of combatants and smoke. “You senile fools are wasting time! He’s getting away!”

  Maranath raised a hand to her, begging patience, but continued talking to Maklin. “In fifty years, you couldn’t visit me once, and you’re bent out of shape that I am up to something without consulting you?”

  “Up to skullduggery!”

  Maranath shook his head, feeling his muscles relax. “No, old friend. I swear before Mei, it is not so. Will you trust me long enough to sort this mess? I promise you, you’ll know everything as soon as there is time.”

  Maklin scowled back at him, working his jaw as he considered.

  Ariano howled in dismay, “I can’t see him anymore!”

  Maklin stamped a foot on the ground in annoyance. “Fine! But as soon as this mess is cleared, you’re going to tell me everything, and if I don’t like it, we'll have some sorting of our own to do!”

  Maranath accepted Maklin's temporary surrender with a relieved sigh. “Good enough.”

  Logrus blinked and wiped tears from his eyes. The smoke was thick here, and yet here was where he had to be. Aiul was nearby. He could feel it.

  It was hard to tell one man from another, one thing from another, even. Figures darted back and forth in the haze, appearing, disappearing. Logrus almost struck a killing blow at what turned out to be a tree.

  When at last he found Aiul, it was by nearly tripping over him. Aiul was hunched down in a crouch and staring at the empty ground beneath him, mace across his knees, breathing in ragged gasps. He was alone in the smoke and chaos. It would seem he had won his battle, for the time being at least.

  Logrus settled beside him and crouched as well. “You’ve taught these fools a lesson, eh?”

  Aiul snorted, but said nothing. Perhaps he was wounded? Logrus took a closer look. All seemed well, but who could say for certain? They were both covered in blood.

  Logrus waited with him a while. It would be good if Aiul would be silent more often. Company was better than Logrus had expected, but the talk grew tiresome at times. “We must go,” he said at last. “Time is short.”

  Aiul shrugged. “Go, then.”

  “And you.”

  Aiul let his weapon drop to the ground. “No. I think I’ll just sit here for a while. It’s nice here.”

  Logrus half grunted, half chuckled. “Smoke, chaos, and carnage. Nice? You will die here.”

  Aiul looked up, his blood-streaked face oddly serene. “That’s the notion.”

  “We have work. Die later, when it is done.”

  Aiul voiced a grim chuckle. “Death is the end. All gone, like it never was. Why should I care about our ‘mission’? Why should I care about anything?”

  “Do we truly argue the meaning of life on a battlefield?”

  “Yes!” Aiul stood, eyes blazing, his face almost glowing with inner madness. “Where better? Life, death, struggle, surrender, it’s all here. Make sense of it for me, holy man!”

  This was ridiculous. Clearly, Elgar had sent these fools to allow them to escape. Delaying with philosophical debate was ludicrous, and yet this was how Knights of Flame behaved: as children.

  Children are predictable and easily led. “You want my thoughts?”

  Aiul opened his arms wide, his smile dripping sarcasm. “Oh, I await your wisdom, Great Teacher!”

  Logrus leapt to his feet and hammered a fist into Aiul’s sneering, waggling mouth. Aiul staggered and fell over on his ass.

  Logrus turned on his heel and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

  Aiul would follow.

  Ahmed stabbed at an Elgie with his right hand even as he reflexively blocked a blow aimed at the man to his left. His comrade turned cold blue eyes toward him and gave a quick nod of thanks, then turned back to his own nasty business. Ahmed couldn’t help but note the pale, angular face of his ally, the short bit of yellow hair protruding from his helmet. Nor could he help what he felt about it, the distinct sensation that he was fighting side by side with beasts.

  He ground his teeth in frustration. It was wrong, this feeling. It was an evil thing. His head knew it, and so did his heart, but his gut disagreed. Which to follow? A man might easily be torn in two from such struggles. How could such a thing even be? How could he know so clearly that his thoughts were wrong, and yet still think them?

  Yazid seemed to speak to him from the grave. There is evil in you, as there is in all men. Why are you surprised?

  It was a sobering notion, an unpleasant one that nagged at him as he fought. And yet, perhaps it was a good thing after all. He could see evil. Was it such an odd thing that he could recognize it in himself as well, even an evil so common and banal? How many men must go through life blind to their own sins?

  One thing was certain: he must fight this evil with as much dedication as he would any other. He could not slay himself, but he could certainly see that he did no harm. And perhaps someday, he could find a way to purge himself of it.

  Things were not going as he had hoped. There were many Elgies, too many by far. There were scarcely twenty Nihlosians still standing, and three of his own had fallen. The Elgies, by design or fortune, had managed to flank them, and Sandilianus had called their forces into a tight, fighting circle. They were pressed from all sides, and the fighting was more difficult now. The cultists seemed less frightened now, less stupid. Perhaps that was simply because the worst of them had already been killed.

  What was left, then, was a few less than forty men against a hundred. As good as Ahmed knew his fighters to be, it looked grim. They were soldiers, not gods. For the second time since the sun had risen, Ahmed resolved himself to his death. It seemed to be a regular thing for him of late. Eventually, he was bound to be right. Yet it was also the second time that day that he was proved wrong on that matter.

  He felt the ground tremble beneath his feet and tried to work out what it could be. Surely these fools had no artillery? Even as he puzzled over this, he saw in the distance a massive, ancient oak stagger, then slowly keel over into the midst of the throng of enemies. It burst into flames before it hit the ground, and came hurtling horizontally through their ranks like some great flaming scythe, smashing dozens of them before settling barely twenty paces from his own position. Flaming Elgies ran in every direction, some on foot, others flying from the blow.

  The tree had cleared a wide path through their attackers. Ahmed struggled not to gape at what he saw there now. Four figures, three men and a woman, three old and one young, strode purposefully toward him through the chaos. Short, squat creatures no more than three feet tall surrounded their party, things that looked for all the world to be composed of rocks and pebbles dancing in the air, playing at the shapes of men. The rock soldiers heaved about them as the party advanced, using the very stones that composed them as weapons to smash Elgies aside who came too close.

  As the Elgies began to regroup, the old woman let out a piercing wail, her voice unearthly and strong, full of depth and harmonies that made the dirt beneath their feet dance in agitation. Elgies close to her clamped their hands over their ears, silently screaming as blood burst from their eyes, noses, and ears.

  Ilaweh is great! These are sorcerers!

  For the life of him, Ahmed was unable to decide if this was a good or a bad thing.

  Maranath realized the ground beneath another tree was terribly wet and muddied. It must have rained cats and dogs here, and recently. It was amazing, really, that the thing still stood at all. In fact, even as he observed the precariousness of the situation, the tree keeled over, crashing down amidst the throngs of idiots to a chorus of shrieks.

  It was more difficult to simply believe, though. The world seemed harder, reality more solid than the usual tapestry of lies. On a good day, 'real' was whatever he desired. He could twist the weave as he liked, limited only by his creative interpretation, the momentary choice of how he preferred to see things. But today? To
day, it was stiff and unwieldy, resisting his will. Such was, to be certain, at least partly the influence of the Eye, but Maranath had the nagging suspicion that there was something else at work.

  Not all those of great will applied it in the same way a Meite would. Some were insufferably provincial in their thinking, doggedly clinging to tradition, to rules that need not apply. What a terrible waste, to throw in with all of the useless fools of the world, the sheep and followers not strong enough of soul to recognize the world was their plaything.

  A pox upon them all!

  He could see them ahead, now, cowering behind steel. What was the point? While he had his doubts about some of the Nihlosians, surely the Southlanders all had the spirit to do more. It was always so with true warriors.

  Why, Mei, is everyone a simpleton?

  He shook his head in consternation, frustrated that he knew the answer, and yet had chosen to be part of the problem. People had to be taught, and he and his order had been woefully neglectful of that. Sadrik was fortunate. His young cousin? Oh, that was a tragedy, indeed.

  It was a subject to be dealt with later. He had never bothered with students, but it was high time he started.

  You should have trained Aiul, and Elgar take Narelki’s objections.

  Ariano pulled at his sleeve, breaking him from his guilty ruminations. He turned toward her and was shocked by her expression. She was deathly pale, her eyes wide in what could only be described as fear.

  “What?” he shouted over the noise. “What is it?”

  Ariano pointed a gnarled finger ahead, her hand trembling. Maranath followed her gaze to the Southlander who stood twenty yards ahead, staring back at them with wide eyes.

  It’s him. He’s the source of the extra resistance. He had no idea how he knew. The information was simply in his mind, and he knew it to be true. But why would that upset Ariano so?

  As Maranath drew closer, he took stock of the Southlander, noting the way the man stood, the sense he projected of himself. The young man was powerfully built, though a bit more lithe than his brethren, perhaps yet to come into his full stature. His eyes seemed older though, and his face, surrounded by dreadlocks, was firm and full of conviction. Strong, this one. Strong as any Meite. He will be the leader.

  Maranath led his group toward the Southlanders, paying little heed to the occasional Elgie who rushed toward them. The fools inevitably burst into flames before getting too close, that or were chopped to bits by Maklin’s golems. Sadrik was indeed powerful, more than he knew, and he truly enjoyed battle. Now if no one coddled him overmuch, or conversely, killed him for being too cocky, he’d be one of the more powerful of their order some day.

  Thus preoccupied, Maranath didn’t recognize what Ariano was trying to point out until he was nigh on top of the Southlander. When it did penetrate his consciousness, it was all he could do not to cry out in shock.

  Another piece of the Eye hung about the man’s neck.

  Ahmed watched the quartet approach with a wary eye. They seemed frail, but it was illusion. He could feel their power radiating from them like heat. He tried to get a sense of them, to know the depths of their evil, but it was like trying to read a language he did not know.

  Chaos. Gray. White noise.

  That made no sense. He focused on the eldest man, clearly their leader, struggling to take measure of him. Who are you, old man?

  But he was no one, or rather, everyone, so many conflicting notions that it was impossible to sort out. Ahmed shuddered. He had only felt such things once before, when he and Yazid had visited a house for the sick. Ahmed had not understood at the time that the men were sick not of body but of mind.

  They had felt like this. Jumbled, contradictory thoughts, fractured world views, senseless arrangements of values and impulses. Gray. How could it be that all of these sorcerers were madmen, though?

  They were almost upon him now. The leader’s eyes widened in surprise that was quickly, almost ruthlessly suppressed, but not in time to hide it. The old man knew something! He must sense Ahmed probing him. He might even interpret it as an attack, and who could blame him?

  Ahmed shouted, “Are you friend or foe, sorcerer?”

  The sorcerer waved his hand, sending another fallen tree spinning through the ranks of swarming Elgies. “Which does it seem to you, Southlander?”

  “Both.”

  The old man’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “We should talk, then. But there are so many distractions.” Another Elgie ran past, screaming, and the old sorcerer nodded in his direction. “Difficult to parley with flaming idiots running about.”

  Ahmed gave him a curt nod and shouted across the lines to his second. “Sandilianus, this front is secure! End these Elgie dogs!”

  With their flank protected by the sorcerers, the beleaguered defenders became lions amongst hyenas. Sandilianus shouted the battle orders, and the fighting circle flattened and reshaped itself into a spearhead that he hurled at the enemy with devastating results. In short order, the only Elgies not dead or dying were in panicked flight.

  Ahmed kept a wary eye on the newcomers, all the same. The fact that they had briefly shared similar goals was most certainly not proof of their friendly intent. It was a good sign, then, to hear the leader of the sorcerers himself call for an end to the fight.

  “Hold!” he called out to one and all. “We would parley!”

  Ahmed nodded and gestured to his own men. With a collective sigh, both camps of combatants lowered weapons, shields, and themselves to the ground. Sandilianus took up a position at parade rest behind Ahmed, and tall, muscular Nihlosian man did the same behind the old sorcerer.

  The ancient fellow regarded him with a bemused look, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Was it fortune that brought you our way, or providence?”

  Ahmed inclined his head in disdain. “We are here by the grace of Ilaweh. We are at war with your people, but we could not let these dogs murder you in your sleep.”

  The old sorcerer held out a hand. Ahmed considered a moment, wary of a trap, then clasped it with his own and shook firmly. The man’s grip was surprisingly strong.

  “I am Maranath of House Aswan,” he declared. “My companions: Ariano of House Talus, Maklin of House Yorn, and young Sadrik of House Tasinal.”

  Ahmed nodded to each in turn. “I am Prelate Ahmed Justinius.” He gestured over his shoulder with his head. “My second, Centurion Sandilianus al Rashid.”

  Maranath nodded at them both. “We’ve met.”

  Ahmed raised an eyebrow in surprise and turned to Sandilianus for confirmation. Sandilianus answered with a single nod. “They are the very ones I spoke of. And the man behind him is Caelwen.”

  The old sorcerer winked. “And perhaps we need not be at war, eh?”

  Ahmed shook his head. “Who are you to even say such a thing?”

  “One quarter of the ruling council of Nihlos.”

  Sadrik cleared his throat and spoke quickly, as if he were rushing to complete his words before someone silenced him. “Unofficially, we’d be a third. My cousin, the Empress, is very partial to my advice.”

  Ariano looked up at the younger man and scowled. “Pity you only bothered putting a leash on her after she started a war!”

  Maranath shot them both icy looks over his shoulder, and they fell silent. He smiled apologetically at Ahmed. “You must forgive us. We are a passionate sect.”

  Ahmed shrugged. He saw nothing out of place. “I am hardly some dainty courtier. I am an advocate of solving disagreements with fists.”

  The old sorcerer chuckled softly as Sandilianus leaned toward Ahmed, his voice low so as not to carry beyond their immediate circle of conversation. “He speaks truth. It was this very man who sentenced me to death, and he and this woman released me.” He looked at them again, searching. “Where is the other? The dark-haired man?”

  Ariano rolled her eyes. “He means Prandil.”

  Maranath placed a calming hand against her back as he spoke to Sandilianus.
“Prandil is another Council member in our camp. He's within Nihlos, keeping a watchful eye on our young demoncat empress.”

  Sandilianus’s eyes grew wide. “The one who tried to kill you all?”

  “The very same.”

  “I am amazed you did not put her to death!”

  Maklin hacked and spat on the ground. “That’s what I told them, but no one listens to me. I might as well be a mushroom.”

  The young sorcerer giggled at this, but quickly fell silent at a glare from the elder.

  Caelwen took the brief pause in conversation to add, “My father is also a council member. I am certain he will trust my word on the matter.”

  Sandilianus muttered, “I have heard that tale before.”

  Caelwen bowed his head, chagrined. “So you have, to my shame. Neither I nor my father had a hand in what happened to your people. But I had a duty to stand by my empress once the die was cast.”

  “Aye, there is honor in that.”

  Caelwen looked Sandilianus in the eye. “Things are different now. There will be no repeat of Tasinalta's evil. I swear it to you.”

  Sandilianus held Caelwen's gaze a moment, then gave him a grudging nod. “I believe you. I have seen nothing to make me doubt your honor. Only your sense in pledging it.”

  Maranath waited a moment until he was certain the exchange was complete, then continued, “And there is another in our camp, as well, Narelki. Seven votes on the Council of Twelve. That’s who I am. You may as well call me Nihlos.”

  Ahmed studied the old man a moment, searching, grasping, but there was nothing but fog, gray mist. It seemed the old man was being truthful, but who could say? And if he were not? Did it matter? “Let us say we were no longer at war. What then?”

  The old man gave him a faint smile. “Well, I should say the first order of business would be to stop killing each other.”

  Ahmed laughed. “Truly, I can see you know the intricacies of war. Then what?”