Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  ‘Have you finished insulting people of faith? Because I am proud of following the sacred scrolls to the letter. Why bother calling into question the result of debate between people wiser than us, who were there at the time?’

  ‘Conal, you are such a fool,’ Stella snapped. ‘Was Kannwar wiser than you?’

  Fool he might be, but by the trapped look on the priest’s face, he could see where this was going. Robal settled back to watch the fun.

  ‘Of course he wasn’t. How can anyone cursed by the Most High be called wise?’

  ‘Come now. What does “Kannwar” mean, according to the Domaz Skreud?’

  ‘You know as well as I. “Guardian of knowledge”. It was just a name.’

  ‘Doesn’t the scroll tell us Kannwar was surpassingly knowledgeable in the Fuirfad, the Way of Fire?’

  ‘Yes,’ Conal answered sullenly.

  ‘So, Kannwar was wise, and he was there at the time. Or will you dispute that as well? No? Then why not at least consider his words?’

  ‘What I want an answer to,’ Heredrew said suddenly, ‘is why it was wrong of Kannwar to oppose the Most High when, it is clear from this document, he honestly believed the Most High to be misguided.’

  Unabashed, Conal replied. ‘Because by definition the Most High cannot ever be wrong. Simple.’

  ‘Oh? So the Most High has always been right? What of this claim that the Most High was argued by his children into not retiring from the world? Was the Most High wrong in electing to retire in the first place, or wrong to be persuaded not to retire? How could he be both?’

  ‘I don’t accept that document,’ the priest said, tugging at his collar. ‘Besides, the Most High is above right and wrong.’

  ‘No more than any of us,’ Stella said. ‘Let’s assume for a moment that Kannwar’s document reflects the truth on this issue. The Most High wanted to retire from the world. What’s wrong with that? The people wanted him to stay. Nothing wrong with that either. He listened to their cry and changed his mind out of compassion. Isn’t that a good thing? So where is the fault?’

  ‘Fault lies with those who attribute immutability to their god,’ Heredrew growled.

  Robal stared at the man. The northerner spoke as though the outcome of their debate really mattered to him.

  ‘Everything he has said to humans has come through the sieve of our own understanding, which is culturally prescribed,’ the tall man went on. ‘So the supposedly sacred words in the Domaz Skreud merely represent one person’s view, through a particular sieve imposed on him by his culture.’

  ‘Stop babbling,’ Robal interrupted. ‘I didn’t travel through the desert to listen to scholar’s argot. My first sergeant always said that if you can’t say it plain, you don’t understand it.’

  Conal coughed. Robal turned in the direction of the sound; the look the priest gave him was designed to anger him. Everyone else here understands what is being said, it told him. He turned away from the man’s gaze, only to catch a much fiercer glance from Heredrew.

  ‘Very well,’ Heredrew said in a frosty voice. He picked up the copy of the Domaz Skreud and waved it at the guardsman. ‘These are not the Most High’s words. They are the words the writer remembers. He remembers particular words because he is alert to them, in turn because of his upbringing. Language is necessary for effective communication of complex issues, but it is not sufficient to create meaning perfectly. There is always bias and misunderstanding and confusion. It’s not the Most High’s fault: no doubt what he actually said was what he meant. But this,’ he rustled the scroll, and Moralye made a small noise of protest, ‘is what the First Men decided was important. I’m saying that, after reading Kannwar’s account, it seems to me their choices were based on making themselves appear righteous and Kannwar evil. And, before you ask, yes, Kannwar did exactly the same thing. Were I—were he to write this now, he might say something different.’

  ‘Right,’ Robal said. This made sense, but did it help? ‘What you’re saying is that we can never know what really happened.’

  ‘Not unless the Most High sat down at this table and told us,’ Heredrew said. ‘And even then we would debate the meaning of every word he said.’

  Stella drew in a breath. ‘Then it really would be crowded in here,’ she said.

  ‘The agreed hour of study is past,’ the doorkeeper said quietly. ‘Two council members are waiting their turn to use this area. You are welcome to return tomorrow, should the representative of Clan Phidrie grant you continuance in our city.’

  Moralye thanked the man, then took the two scrolls and rolled them closed. ‘I will store this unusual work on my personal shelf,’ she said, indicating Kannwar’s supposed apology. ‘It will be available to you tomorrow, but in the interim I will ask our experts to examine it. Their preliminary conclusion will be available to assist you when next you return.’

  Stella felt a light hand on her shoulder and thought at first it was Ena; though when she turned and saw who beckoned her to his side, she realised she had not felt a hand at all.

  ‘I refuse to accept the reality of this,’ she said to him, quietly but nonetheless in anger. She had dissembled enough; she no longer cared if Ena reported their conversations to whatever authorities ran this city. ‘The last time your arm was on my shoulder it bled from a stump at your wrist. You were forcing me to carry you to safety. Many people died that day, and you were the cause.’

  ‘I wish to talk with you privately,’ he said, ignoring her words. ‘I could bespeak your mind, but frankly I am worried as to who might overhear us. It is time you learned what is happening, time to discuss with me what role you might play in it.’

  He glanced at Ena. As though expecting Stella to magic her away.

  ‘Oh? This will be another of those self-serving explanations after the fact, will it? Listen well. For seventy years you have been a hateful memory but also a faint hope. Now you are a reality, I am minded to put hope aside and allow hate full reign. If I carried a blade, I would put your immortality to the test right here on the street outside the Hall of Scrolls.’

  ‘So you will close your mind to knowledge in the same way as your foolish priest?’ The man flashed his own anger: it was like witnessing a furnace door swing open, then close again.

  He smiled, and it was as if his anger had never been. ‘I am staying not far from here, at the house of Byellatus of the Taradh Clan. I will meet you there one hour after sunrise tomorrow morning. Please come alone. I do not have anything to offer your companions. Before then, I pray you will say nothing to alarm them; but after we have spoken tomorrow I will withdraw all such requests. Then you may tell your friends what you wish about me.’

  Ahead, Robal had already turned once to see what delayed her. It would not do to linger.

  ‘You might reconsider expressing your wishes as orders,’ she hissed. ‘You are not the only monarch here today. If you wish to meet me tomorrow, it will be you who comes to see me, and not otherwise. The hour remains as you suggested, but the place of our meeting will be on the street outside my lodging-house. And now, no more. Be off. Spend the rest of your day anticipating the questions I will ask you and how you might defend yourself against them.’

  For the first time since she had met him, Heredrew looked discomposed. ‘But I don’t know where—’

  Stella did not catch the rest of his comment. She put her head down and scurried to where the others had halted, waiting for her, half-dragging a protesting Ena with her.

  Wisely, the Undying Man did not follow.

  She made it out of the square and into an alley before she was violently sick.

  CHAPTER 8

  FIRE AND WATER

  STELLA DID NOT HAVE an easy night. She could ask no one to wake her, and her worry that she might sleep through the agreed meeting time kept her from finding the deepness of slumber she needed to refresh herself.

  When it was clear no more sleep would come she eased herself out of her pallet, then put her head betwe
en her hands and rubbed her aching temples. It took her a few moments to realise that she ought not to have been able to do this; a glance at the other pallet showed Ena sleeping quietly. The fabric used to bond them together lay neatly folded on the girl’s coverlet.

  There was no doubt Ena had overheard the arrangement between Stella and Heredrew. Stella had wondered if the girl might say something to the man and woman who had come to see her late last night, presumably her parents; but, as far as she could make out, nothing had been mentioned about Heredrew. The outsiders had broken no laws, and that was the extent of the gatekeeper clan’s concern, it seemed.

  But Stella was sure Ena ought not to be allowing her to slip away unbonded. This was a decision on the girl’s part that might well get her in trouble. Stella debated whether she should wake the girl and ask her if this was wise, but she decided to accept the offer of trust.

  And to abuse it. No one in Dhauria would sanction Stella meeting with the Destroyer.

  She discarded her shift and donned her tunic and breeches. A glance outside showed stars and street lanterns, the rain-free sky suggesting she did not need to borrow Robal’s overcoat.

  She frowned at herself. Come on, girl. You are just delaying the moment.

  Wiping her hands on her breeches, she padded quietly through the door and into the other room. What might most kindly be described as a manly fug assailed her. And, yes, Sauxa lay on his back, mouth open, forcing various irregular and unpleasant noises through his gnarled throat.

  The pallets filled the room, and Stella found a way between them only with difficulty. There was nothing blameworthy about rising early to watch the dawn, but questions would be asked about the breaking of her bond, so she tried to be careful. Even so, she barked her shin on Robal’s pallet, the nearest to the door, and waited for his growl. It didn’t come.

  Outside, the air was surprisingly cold. Stella worked the fingers of her right hand, always stiff in the morning, and took a breath of the cool air. It had a different quality than anywhere else she’d been. Oddly, it reminded her of home—of Loulea, the small Firanese village where she and Leith had been born. Crispness, with the slightly moist flavour of wet-climate vegetation. Odd, that. For all its beneficent setting, Dhauria lay in the midst of a desert, after all.

  Turn around and walk about fifty paces up the street, said a voice in her mind. His voice.

  Curse you. I will have an agreement from you to stay out of my head.

  Laughter, both inside her head and audible to her ears. You will have to erase many memories, then.

  I do not wish to converse this way, she insisted, halting her slow walk uphill.

  Good. Neither do I. It is too dangerous.

  Dangerous? No one can overhear us! I meant it is unpleasant.

  No, Stella, it is dangerous. You and I are not the only ones who employ this method of communication, though the others are presently far away. Please, you have come this far; just twenty more paces?

  ‘Far enough,’ Heredrew said a few moments later.

  She found him leaning against a metal rail built to guard against people falling from the street into the lower city. His long face, so reminiscent of Phemanderac’s features—though arranged far more handsomely, of course—broke into a smile as she approached.

  ‘You’re early,’ she said. ‘Very early. And in the wrong place.’

  ‘As are you. It took me some time to wake you, I confess, and even then you stayed abed for longer than I hoped. Events move apace. And I thought the girl with you might choose to betray our conversation. So I make no apology for waking you.’

  ‘You woke me? You inhabit my dreams?’ she asked, disgusted.

  ‘Barely. But enough to wake you from them.’

  ‘What is so important that you’d invade someone’s sleeping mind?’

  ‘The view from here is spectacular,’ he said, ignoring the question. ‘And will become more so as the dawn takes hold. This truly is a beautiful place.’

  ‘Not as beautiful as the place you sunk below the waves,’ Stella snapped. Anything to unsettle him, she thought. I have only one weapon.

  ‘True,’ he said, and she was unsure whether he answered her words or her thought.

  ‘What do you have to say to me?’

  ‘Just this. Many things are happening in the world, and you are ignorant of them all. I wanted to speak to you privately to offer you information and a choice.’

  ‘I don’t like being called ignorant.’ The words sounded petulant even as she said them.

  ‘Who does? I’ve admitted my own ignorance; how easy do you think it was for me to recognise this, let alone tell you?’

  ‘The choice?’ Stella pressed. She knew she was being manipulated, but what could she do? She did not have to act on anything he said. He could not force her…The truth was, she had no idea what he could and couldn’t do.

  ‘Walk away now and never think of me again. It would be the healthiest thing for you to do, in truth. With effort, together we could sever the blood-link between us, though I can do nothing about the blood itself. Then go and live your life as best you can. If you choose to do this, promise me one thing.’

  ‘How can I promise when I have yet to hear the alternative?’

  ‘True. Nevertheless, should you choose to walk away from me, promise you will give some thought to what you will say to me when we meet in the far future, the last two people alive, scouring the ruins of the world in search of anything salvageable.’

  ‘You make no sense,’ she said, but his words chilled her.

  ‘I am saying that the inevitable result of you walking away from me today will be your inadvertent service of another, to the destruction of the world.’

  ‘Hah. Your choice is already no choice, even before I have heard the other side of it. As you intended.’

  ‘As I intended,’ he acknowledged. ‘There is no point in trying to outthink you.’

  ‘Or outflatter me. The other choice, please?’

  ‘Choose to listen to me as I tell you about the conflict that has already begun to destroy the world. If you agree to listen, you will have no choice, I believe, but to involve yourself in my schemes. Not because of my persuasive power, or any other compulsion I could lay on you—and you know I could; I am sure you remember—but because of your own conscience. Therefore you face your choice now. Listen or walk away.’

  ‘I know one thing, Kannwar,’ she said, using that name in this place for the first time. ‘I know you will neither tell me all the truth nor give me a real choice. Should I defy you now, you will find some other way to compel me. I don’t know what you’ve been doing for the last seventy years, but if you’ve given our time together any thought at all you’ll have realised I defied you even when completely in your thrall. So, fair warning. If you compel me by any means, I will find a way to defy you and bring your schemes to nothing, just as I did in the Falthan War.’

  She shivered. The cold, she told herself.

  The man before her bristled. Nothing about him changed physically, but somehow she sensed the deep well of power within his illusory shell. A strength deep enough to drown her, should he choose.

  ‘I am not accustomed to being defied,’ he said.

  ‘It’s good for you,’ she replied, making her tone light. ‘Keeps you human, and that ought to be an ongoing concern for you. It is for me. I don’t want to turn into a self-obsessed empire builder. Opposition teaches you to negotiate, to give as well as take.’

  ‘But there are those who would take everything,’ he said. ‘Stella, I’m out of patience. Make your choice.’

  ‘I’ll hear you,’ she said, and knew as she uttered them that the words were fateful.

  ‘Then hear me. Two years and more ago a man came to Andratan as part of a delegation from Faltha. This delegation told officials from Malayu they were merchants seeking to solidify trade relationships. You have no idea how often I have heard similar stories from people desperate to find out if I am real, what
I am doing or whether I recovered from the last Falthan War. You would think spies would be a little more creative.’

  ‘You have recovered though,’ she said. ‘Though I did not need to travel to Andratan to be aware of your progress.’

  ‘You would have been welcomed,’ he replied. ‘No doubt you kept track of my progress in the same way I did yours, through the link between us. Had you known it, you could have read my mind with a little exertion of your own.’

  ‘Not something I have ever wanted to do,’ she said, but it was a lie, and she could see he knew it to be so.

  ‘So the supposed merchants were allowed access to Andratan, though I did not intend to speak to them myself. Such spies are always assessed for their susceptibility to being turned, and over the years many have been, while remaining totally unaware of it. There are two such living quiet lives in this very city.’

  ‘Is it any wonder I find you so unpleasant?’

  ‘I need the information,’ he said, allowing a little of his anger to show. ‘It turned out this delegation was from the newly risen Koinobia of Instruere, sent to gather information to enable them to assemble their scrolls. I admired their devotion to duty rather more than their good sense.

  ‘One of the men was not like the others. There was something about him that drew my attention. Something within him, much like you, in fact. A trace, an aroma, of the Most High. Most unexpected in a priest, trust me.’

  ‘No,’ said Stella, suddenly suspicious of where this story would lead. No.

  ‘Oh yes, taking religious orders is a most effective way to lock him out. I cast a compliance spell on the man and had him brought to my tower. I had barely begun the interrogation when the fellow broke his bonds, stood up and wandered over to the south window, towing three of my strongest guards behind him.’