Silence of the Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  The field was a loose patchwork of red and black and yellow and blue, a weave with no pattern to it. There was no order and nowhere to hide. Ren was unarmored, largely weaponless, and standing among soldiers who bore not just mail but shields as well. Even the horses were clad in metal. And the soldiers in red bore spears that were easily twice his height. Ren held only a dagger, so he fled when the soldiers approached, taking a crooked path through the field, eyes trained on the crowd and searching for the ransoms. Everyone else was wearing blue or red or yellow or black. Only the ransoms wore their linens, so it was no surprise when Ren caught sight of them. Five soot-stained tunics fled toward a garden of statues. He guessed the place held cover, from the archers above and the cavalry too.

  Ren sped toward the statues, calling out to his fellow ransoms, shouting their names. His voice was loud, overeager, and he immediately regretted his enthusiasm. He’d wanted to find his companions, but he’d only drawn attention to himself. Instead of finding Tye or Adin, he found soldiers, well armed and well armored. A pair of fighting men chased after him. I ought to be able to outpace a man wearing bronze, he told himself, but the soldiers pursued him with frightening speed, moving as if they themselves wore no armor. The men darted between the statues, their agility as surprising as it was unsettling.

  One approached from the front while the other edged around to Ren’s side, drawing his attention in two directions. A blade kissed Ren’s thigh, but missed doing any real damage. Ren crouched low and tumbled to avoid a second attack. He rolled past a tall statue, and the soldiers followed, pivoting, coming around for another attack. Ren drew the barbed horn he’d cut from the eld. He could not fight with his father’s dagger. It was too short to wield against swords, but the horn was long and as sturdy as iron, its barbs as deadly as any spear. He raised it just in time to arrest the next blow. The red sword might have cleaved Ren in two had he not blocked the attack. Still, the sound of the blade striking the bone made an unexpected din, a kind of ringing, like the chiming of a bell in some tall and distant cathedral, and to make matters worse the sword caught on one of the horn’s curling tusks, momentarily binding the blade to one of the barbs. Ren tussled with the soldier, the sword grinding against the horn. The fighting man was stronger than Ren and better trained. He dug his heels into the stony path and threw his weight against the eld horn, hurling Ren back toward the granite pedestal of a tall statue. Ren’s head hit the stone and his vision went white.

  He lost sight of the battle as a sudden darkness closed in around him. He was lost. Alone.

  Then voices rent the silence, men talking.

  Ren’s eyes blinked open.

  He was no longer wedged against a pedestal, and the statues were gone. Living and breathing men, women, and children stood in their place. There were at least a dozen of them, and they regarded him with a warm familiarity. One offered Ren what seemed like the heartfelt grin of a friend he’d not seen in some time, or perhaps it was the glint of recognition found in the eyes of a distant relative he’d only just met after years of separation.

  His head parted with the granite pedestal and the vision shattered. The dream was gone, and he had no time to contemplate it. Ren stood face-to-face with the sweat-soaked grimace of his attacker, their noses just inches apart. The stink of the man was horrendous, as was the grinding of his teeth. Worse yet, the soldier was slowly pressing on the horn, forcing the crooked barbs into the soft flesh of Ren’s forehead and cheek. Soon the points would dig deeper, and in a moment, more would prick his skin. Ren twisted his body left and right, shuffled his feet, and tried to push back against the blade, but the soldier was simply too strong, the blade too heavy. Ren had only his desperation, the sheer desire to live. With a cry, he pushed down on the horn, threw his head forward, and struck the bridge of his attacker’s nose. A terrible crunch rang out and the soldier fell backward, stumbling momentarily as a great gush of blood flooded down his chin.

  “You little bastard. I’m going to stick this blade so far up your ass it’ll cut your tongue in two,” he said, and Ren did not doubt the truth of his words. The man had freed his sword from the eld horn. He raised it up, his lips parting to reveal an eager grin, blood dribbling from his upper lip. He swept the blade downward, a killing blow, but halfway through the act his whole body went limp as a sword sprung from his chest. The blade was red, but the color was not born of the man’s blood, though there was plenty of that. The iron was sealed in paint. The weapon belonged to the red army, but the one who held it did not. Tye, drenched in sweat, gripped the sword in her still-trembling hands.

  “Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Help me pull this god-awful blade out of him.”

  Shocked that he was still alive, Ren stared at the sword for a moment. Then he went over to Tye, put two hands on the red-leather grip, and gave it a tug. It took their combined strength to pull the sword free, and even then the two of them toppled backward and hit the ground.

  Head resting uncomfortably against the cobblestones, that vision of the statues flashed once more through his thoughts. He saw the stone figures moving about, looking as if they were alive. I’m losing it, he thought, having visions of statues walking the earth. Surely that blow had knocked him senseless. His head ached and there was an odd buzzing in his ears. I must’ve really knocked myself out, thought Ren. He knew no other explanation for what he’d seen and heard.

  “I suppose we’re even now,” Tye said, her smile brighter than it ought to be.

  Ren guessed they were even. He’d come to Solus to save her and she’d returned the favor. “Where’re the others?”

  “Behind me. We tried to stick together when the whole thing went to shit, but I think we lost Carr. Adin!” she cried, and the boy appeared. He was holding Curst with one hand and a stolen sword with the other. Ren was the only one without a weapon, so he nabbed the fallen soldier’s blade and slung the eld horn over his shoulder and into his makeshift sack.

  “Adin, I thought I’d lost you,” said Ren. He slapped the Feren boy on the shoulder. “Where’s Carr and Kollen?”

  “With the kingsguard, not far,” he said. “We should find them, it’s not—”

  “Safe,” said Ren. “I know. Let’s go.”

  “We’re already doing that,” said Adin.

  “Where’re the Harkans?” Tye asked. “I saw them just a moment ago.”

  “Did we lose them?” asked Ren.

  “Lose them?” asked Adin, his voice turning contemplative, eyes glancing at the distant streets. “Maybe we should lose them,” he said. “Forget the kingsguard. Let’s grab some beggars’ cloaks and slip out of here. You did it once, Ren. You escaped the city, and the two of us made our way into Solus.”

  “He’s right,” Tye echoed. “We should slip out of here. There may be hundreds in the guard, but there are thousands of soldiers in the city, maybe tens of thousands.”

  Ren nodded his understanding, but something held him back—some urge within him would not allow him to leave his father’s men. “No,” he said. “I can’t. It’s—”

  A red blade struck Adin’s shoulder, parting the flesh, blood saturating the air. Ren half-arrested the sword with his own, stopping the edge before it cut Adin in two. Still, the boy dropped to his knees, eyes rolling backward, vomit escaping his lips. Worse yet, the sword of his attacker was wedged between Ren’s blade and Adin’s skin. The soldier put his foot to Adin’s back and pulled hard on the iron.

  Adin uttered an almost inhuman moan.

  Quick to act, Ren struck the man on the jaw. He hit him with as much strength as he could summon, but the blow did little to distract the soldier. Ren, however, was awash in distractions. Adin whimpered and blood emptied from his chest. Somewhere, Curst screamed. Ren prayed the boy didn’t run. They’d never find him in all this chaos. Tye simply cursed.

  The soldier gave his sword a second tug, freeing it for another strike. He was too late. Ren drove his blade straight into the man’s gut. He pierced the skin
just below the soldier’s shirt of mail and drove the sword upward until it would go no further. The blow was fatal, but the soldier in red did not seem to realize it. The pain must have frozen out his senses. He was lost, disoriented. He let go of his sword and stumbled backward, collapsing awkwardly to the ground and heaving one last breath before falling still.

  Ren watched it out of the corner of his eye while he knelt beside Adin to inspect the wound. He pressed his hands to the cut, but the blood welled up between his slender fingers.

  “Bandages!” Ren kept one hand on the wound and used the other to rip a piece of cloth from his already-torn tunic. Tye offered a wad of cloth ripped from her sleeve. As Ren pressed it to the cut, Curst came running out from the gap between the statues. Apparently, he’d been hiding, but he screamed when he saw the wound.

  “Do anything,” Ren said, “crumple yourself into a ball, but do not cry out.” They’d already drawn the attention of the soldiers once. If more arrived, they’d be finished. “Give me something else, more cloth.” Ren put out his hand and Tye produced a second wad of linen, but Ren needed more bandages. He saw more blood than he thought a body could hold.

  Adin shivered, his body convulsing as Ren cinched the fabric around the cut.

  “Is it bad?” Adin asked, his voice weak, face pale, lips turning to blue. Ren was not certain if he was joking or merely hallucinating. It was worse than bad, worse than any wound Ren had seen.

  “It’s just a little nip, nothing to worry about,” Ren lied. He feared the wound was mortal or soon would be if Adin did not receive better attention.

  “That’s good. I’ll be all right,” said Adin, who was possibly delirious, most likely in shock. “I told you we should have run.” He was still muttering, talking about hiding, stealing cloaks, and making their way out of the city. Ren didn’t listen. Adin could not be moved. He needed a physician and only the kingsguard had one of those, or at least they did have one when Ren rode with them all those weeks ago. The man had bound a wound on the king’s arm, tending to some injury he’d incurred during his hunt. Ren prayed the physician yet lived and traveled with the kingsguard. Without his attention, Adin was a dead man.

  That much must’ve been clear to all of them. Curst wept openly. He kneeled at Adin’s side, tears streaming down his face. Ren feared the child’s crying would draw more soldiers, and it did, but this time it caught the attention of the men in black, not red. One after another the black shields surrounded the ransoms. They must have all fled into the garden, but had only now caught up with Ren. Gneuss plowed through the bunch. “I told you to stay—” The words sat idle on his lips when he caught sight of Adin’s wound.

  “Physician!” Gneuss called out. He gripped Ren’s shoulder. “We’ll do what we can. Now keep close to me, all of you.”

  “Why, what’s happening?” asked Ren.

  In the distance, the soldiers in red gathered at the edge of the garden. Curiously, none chose to enter it.

  “What’re they doing?” asked Tye.

  Ren understood, “They’re going to—”

  “Surround us?” asked Gneuss. “They’ve already done that.”

  “What then?” asked Tye. She looked to Ren and Gneuss too.

  Both were silent.

  It was the soldiers in red who gave the answer. Jars of clay arched through the sky, striking the edges of the field, bursting into flames as they struck the ground. One by one the fires sparked to life, encircling the field of statues.

  “They’re trapping us here,” Ren said, the ring of fire moving closer.

  “Hell,” said Tye, “they’re going to roast us.”

  I’ll die like my father, thought Ren, burned by Mithra’s Flame. His hand left Adin’s chest. There was no point in saving him, no point in saving any of them. With each explosion, the fires rose higher, feeding off one another, growing taller and hotter, the ring of flame encircling them.

  4

  A man cloaked in a robe of pale-red linen barred Sarra’s exit from the Empyreal Domain. Behind him, smoke filled the sky, billowing upward from the Statuary Garden of Den. The clash of swords had ceased, but the fires had intensified. The battle had entered some new phase, but the man in red just stood there, silent, as a cadre of well-armed soldiers, men with tall spears, gathered about him. A cowl hid the upper half of the cloaked man’s face and a veil wrapped his nose and mouth. Only the man’s eyes were visible, but they were enough to unnerve Sarra. They did not blink, nor did they move from side to side. Rather, they bored into her as if the man were probing her soul and plucking out her secrets while he was at it.

  “I am Mered Saad,” he said. Through the veil, his voice sounded odd, distant—as if no one had spoken at all, as if the words had simply materialized out of the air.

  This is the man who held Ott, the torturer who commanded Amen Saad to hold my son captive. The veiled man was about to get a terrible a surprise.

  “Where is Amen?” he asked quietly, patiently. “Where is my nephew? I am here to witness his ascension to the high seat. Is he not Ray? Did he not enter the Empyreal Domain with you as his guide?” Despite the fires that raged in the distance, Mered was utterly calm.

  His cool will be gone in a moment, thought Sarra. Too bad that damn veil masks his face. I’d like to see some bit of it when he learns the truth.

  “Amen’s dead.” She saw no need for obfuscation. A little might not have hurt, but it was too late for that. Sarra was tired, exhausted, her limbs still aching from her confrontation with Amen, and she wanted desperately to give Mered the bad news.

  “When Amen approached the veil of Tolemy,” she said, “when he went and stood in the immortal light of our god emperor, the flame consumed him. He was not—” She wanted to say that he was not fit to survive the god’s light. He was a murderous pig who had tortured her only son and laid a dead priest at her doorstop. She wanted to spit every curse she could recall, but she traded her hatred for something that resembled Mered’s cool composure. “He was not chosen to be Ray.” She completed her sentence. “It was an unfortunate end, in my opinion, because I myself was eager to see Amen wear the Eye of the Sun upon his brow. Sadly, the task did not fall to him,” she said, her face revealing the faintest of grins.

  “You then,” asked Mered. A puff of air escaped his lips, rumpling the veil. “You are the First Ray of the Sun, the right hand of Tolemy the immortal, the intangible vessel of the sun? You,” he said, his tone turning the word into an accusation, or maybe even a question.

  Sarra ignored it.

  She had walked into the domain of the gods and lived.

  She was Ray, but he looked at Sarra as if her presence here, as if her being the First Ray of the Sun was not even a possibility. After all, Sarra was just a priestess. She was the highest and most holy, but behind all that she wasn’t much more than a peasant girl, the daughter of a bankrupt and disgraced Wyrren house. When Sarra first traveled to Harkana, when she was named Arko’s bride, she’d barely had enough royal blood to fill a thimble. Women had held the post, but no one of her breeding had ever sat in the Ray’s seat. The Anu clan controlled the Antechamber for two hundred years and their family was once the wealthiest in Solus. The house of Saad had since claimed that honor, so it was only natural that they should covet her seat. They felt entitled to it, and Mered, as the eldest of the clan, thought himself the beneficiary of that entitlement, or so she assumed.

  Sarra met his blank gaze, trying to peer back at the man, to see what lay beyond the veil. It was you all along—wasn’t it? You were the one pulling Amen’s strings, making him dance. In retrospect, it was a smart move. If Mered had walked into the Empyreal Domain, he would be the one lying dead on the floor of the emperor’s throne room, but he did not strike her as the sort of man who made such mistakes. Everything about him spoke of circumspection. He did not even show his face, and he hid behind Amen, putting the boy in harm’s way, making him fight for the Ray’s seat. Mered had taken no such chances.

&nbs
p; Sarra let a glimmer of triumph creep into her face. She raised her lip, trying on a bit of a smile. Her eyes widened. Yes, she was a woman, and yes, she was born of meager blood. And yes again, she had once been wed to the great king of Harkana—a thorn in Solus’s ass if there ever was one. The warm grin that was slowly unfolding across her lips revealed all of that, and it no doubt angered Mered. In all likelihood, it was driving him mad at that very moment.

  “These are my soldiers,” Mered said, indicating the fighting men. “You were indisposed, as was my nephew, when the Harkan kingsguard entered our city. They said it was the Ray himself who summoned them. However, as we both know, that man is dead and discredited, as are all of his edicts. When he died, Arko’s order was dismissed and the city guard took the Harkans for enemies. The yellow cloaks sought to remove this foreign army from our city, but the Harkan force was considerable, too large for the guard to overcome, or perhaps too fierce. They called on our humble citizens for aid. Along with the red army of House Saad, you see the yellow of House Entefe, and the azurite of House Ini.” Indeed, there were more armies hurrying to the fight. A clarion sounded in the distance, a drumbeat, announcing what she guessed was some maneuver.

  The flames rose in the distance.

  “You see that?” he asked. “That is the end of the Harkans. I’ve saved our fair city from the rough hand of Harkana, sparing the city guard and our citizens from whatever ravages these barbarians had planned.”

  “You’ve done all this?” Sarra asked. She questioned not his actions, but the extent of his authority. She was probing to see just how much power he’d seized. “You lead these armies. They follow your command?”

  “These are my men, my war,” said Mered. Clearly the man had no notion of modesty. “The need for action was immediate, so I took charge of not simply the city guard but the armies of the wellborn too. We’ve done well. We outmaneuvered the Harkans in the Plaza of Miracles. Then we trapped them in the statuary garden, where they will be burned alive—just like their king.”