The Killing Light

by Myke Cole

  And now Onas’s rage and shock melted away, to be replaced by a grief so keen that it stole Heloise’s resolve. As he turned to her, he said, “I loved you. Is that so little?”

  At last you speak true. Any sympathy Heloise had felt for Onas drowned in the rising sickness in her stomach. “I never asked for it.”

  She remembered Clodio’s words in the roundhouse, before she’d known devils were real. When the thought of driving a war-machine or leading an army would have seemed poor jests. Love is good, and those who love are good.

  No, Clodio, she thought, you were wrong. How can this be good?

  Onas took a step toward Heloise, and three knives sprouted in the earth just in front of his feet. “Don’t,” Xilyka said, appearing on the cart’s edge.

  And at last, Onas’s face melted into tears, and he turned away, walking back toward his band’s wagons. The Sindi followed in his wake, Giorgi throwing an arm around the boy’s shoulders as they went.

  Sir Steven trotted to her side. “That … that did not go well.”

  “No, it did not,” Heloise said.

  Heloise looked for Barnard, but he was gone, disappeared back into the knot of villagers. In the distance she could see the Sindi checking their horses’ traces, chipping frost from the wheels of their wagons. Some of the drovers were already greasing the axles with the blocks of hardened animal fat they kept for the purpose, even though no order had been given to depart.

  8

  HOW WE LOVE WHEN WE ARE FREE

  Mahesh fixed his kingdom as a shadow of the Emperor’s glory, dark unto light. Where the people of the sunlit world toiled in the fields, the devils lay in repose. Where the people broke animals to the plow, the devils slaughtered all. Where the people set a table, the devils would have none. Where the people joined, husband to wife, the devils lay like with like, in defiance of the order of the world.

  —Writ. Lea. III. 2.

  Just thirty Imperials had survived the devils’ assault. They were mostly levy, with a single knight and one squadron of uhlans. Tone and his two fellow Pilgrims were all that remained of their chapter. All were hard-bitten types, scarred, silent, and steel-eyed. They camped beside the columns, far enough away that they would not be seen, and even then Sir Steven ordered a canvas wall to be erected.

  “It is best,” the First Sword said to Heloise, “if your people do not see them.” He stationed a picket of red-caparisoned archers around them, in case Barnard or any of the villagers or Traveling People decided to finish what Onas had started, or in case Tone tried to escape.

  Sir Steven erected a series of canvas walls for Heloise as well, so that the wind might keep off her, but she stood resolutely outside it. The wind bit at her, but she wanted to bear witness as the Sindi and Brock bands flicked the reins and started their wagons rolling, cutting fresh trail to the east. The Hapti alone remained behind.

  “I should stop them,” Heloise said. “We need them.”

  Xilyka shook her head. “Let them go, Heloise. You do not want the faithless at your side in a fight. They will do more harm than good.”

  But the words did nothing to cure the sadness and fear curdling in Heloise’s gut, the certainty that she’d made a horrible mistake. “I’ve traded two bands of the Traveling People for a handful of Imperials who hate me.”

  Xilyka shrugged. “It’s a fair trade.”

  “I cannot believe they will risk travel at night.”

  “The Traveling People are not found when they don’t want to be. Night or day, makes no difference. They’re going.”

  “They aren’t the only ones.” It was Poch Drover, approaching at the head of a knot of villagers. Many were from the villages that had joined after Lyse, near-strangers whose names she did not know. But there were others she did. Danad and Ingomer. Sarah Herber. People who she’d grown up with. Helga stood at the front of what looked like all the people of Seal’s Rock. They had bundled together what supplies they had gleaned from the countryside, or had looted from the corpses on the battlefield while Heloise had parleyed with Tone.

  “I stayed with you when Sald took his leave,” Poch said. “I was shamed by what your mother said, but now I wish I’d had the courage to go with him. More shamed it took a heretic to show me what’s what. But we’ve seen the way now, and it’s not with you.”

  Heloise’s stomach dropped. “You will follow this boy you call a ‘heretic’?”

  “He can’t lead us worse than you,” Poch said. “You have played the Palantine for too long. We’re as glad as you are that Samson has been returned, but that don’t mean we should take Tone into our bosom. If your place is with the Order, then ours is on the road.”

  Samson spat into the dirty snow. “You break faith with Heloise now? When the devils are among us?”

  “We never made faith with her.” Poch reddened. “The village went mad, and we had no choice but to come along. But all choices are equally bad now, so we will make the one in our hearts.”

  “And what will you do when the devils find you?” Samson seethed.

  “The devils are there.” Poch pointed north, in the direction of the capital. “We’re not going there.”

  “Do you remember what Onas said when the Sindi band joined the fight at Lyse?” Xilyka asked. “You should. You were there.”

  “That doesn’t…” Poch stammered.

  “He said,” Xilyka spoke over him, “that the Traveling People were through running. He said there was a new way now. And he was right. Running just delays the reckoning.”

  Poch stabbed an angry finger at the Sindi and Brock wagons, creaking their way slowly through the thick snow and into the darkness beyond. “Then what in the Shadow of the Throne are those Traveling People doing?”

  Xilyka spat. “Those are not Traveling People. Those are villagers on wheels.”

  “Well, if they’re villagers, then we’re in good company.” Poch spun on his heel.

  Samson took a step toward Poch, but Heloise raised her shield to stop him. “Let them go. I don’t want a single person with me who doesn’t want to be.”

  But as she said the words, she watched the line behind Poch. In the gathering dark, she had missed how very long it was. She watched it snake out, twenty people, forty, sixty, more.

  The last of the renegades marched out of the camp and into the trail left by the Sindi and Brock wagons. Heloise surveyed the remnant of the people with her. They were much fewer now.

  Barnard stood beside her, silent, watching them go.

  “Do you want to go with them?” Heloise asked. “You can, I won’t stop you.”

  Barnard’s voice was raw. “You are a Palantine. Whatever you decide is right.”

  “And now I am a Palantine with half my army gone.”

  “The Emperor tests us, your eminence. When he went alone among the devils, when all his saints and his knights had fallen away, he too doubted. The Writ tells us that he cursed the old gods who had abandoned him.”

  “I’m sorry, Barnard. I know how this hurts you, but the fight has changed.”

  “You’ve done right, Heloise,” Samson said. “Look at all you’ve done already. If you will not remember the Writ, remember what you said to us at Lyse. You told us that freedom is an impossible mountain that we are already climbing. It was impossible that we should survive a wizard, that we should face a devil and live, that we should ambush the Order and escape, that we should travel with the Sindi, that we should take Lyse. It was impossible that we should defeat the Order when they came for us. We did all of those things, Heloise. And we will do more. Without Poch and his mumbling ingrates. Without the Sindi and the Brock.”

  “It is the Emperor’s will,” Barnard said, and Heloise knew he wasn’t referring to Samson’s speech.

  “Maybe,” Samson said, “but it is also our will, and that has proved to be a force to be reckoned with.”

  Barnard shook his head and left, wandering back toward the remains of the army. Heloise watched him go, her father
’s words keeping the despair at bay.

  She turned to him. “Thank you, Father.”

  Samson’s smile was so sudden and so grateful that Heloise felt a pang of guilt. Had it been so long since she’d given him a kind word?

  “I am … I am so glad you are back with us,” she began.

  “When they first took me”—he cuffed away a tear—“I will admit that I lost hope, but then I remembered that I had you to come back to, and that kept me on. I prayed to the Emperor to bring us back together, and He answered me. I have made another prayer, that He will give us back our lives as they were in Lutet, when we were at peace.”

  “Lutet … Our lives seem so … long ago,” Heloise said.

  “We are still living our lives, my sweet girl. It is just … different now, is all.”

  “It’s less.”

  “Life is not a thing that is more or less, Heloise. It is just a thing that is. That is what we mean when we speak of the Emperor’s will, what the Kipti mean when they talk of their Great Wheel.”

  “It is less,” Heloise said. “Look at me, Father. I am less. I have lost my eye, my hand, my teeth. There is no Sigir, no mama, no Basina. Now, there is no Leahlabel.”

  “Those are different things, Heloise.”

  “They are not. They are all … parts of me. Parts that keep getting … cut away.”

  Samson wiped his eyes again. “There was a time, you know, when I thought I could protect you. I would have seen you safe and happy, with a fine husband and children of your own. But that was not the Emperor’s will. His will was that you should surpass me, and be a woman grown before your time, and lead an army. And now, there is nothing I can do to keep you safe. I cannot spare you the horror of war, and I cannot give you the comfort that will see you through it. I may be a factor who knows his letters, but I am no sage. I keep … scrambling my fool brains for a way to help you, for a way to get you out of that Throne-cursed machine and back home where you belong. But there is … nothing. What kind of a father am I now? I cannot rear you. I cannot teach you. All I can do is follow you, and help you win … whatever it is you decide you want.”

  The need to give him what he wanted, to climb out of the machine and into his arms, was so great that it nearly overwhelmed the terror that gripped her at the thought of leaving the machine, the anxiety that if she embraced her father, she would be Heloise again, not the armored saint she needed to be.

  Nearly, but not enough. You have him back. Tell him you love him. Tell him right now. She looked at him, feeling the words building behind her lips.

  Samson looked up. “Perhaps there is one thing I can do for you.”

  The words twisted in her mouth, came out as “What do you mean?”

  Samson gestured at the canvas wall behind him. She could hear the crackle of a fire and the soft bubble of water, see the steam wafting over the top. “Hot water,” her father said, “and privacy. Come out of the machine, just for a moment, and wash.”

  All thought of love and family vanished. The world outside the machine was too close, the sky too vast. The devils could be anywhere, or more assassins. Maybe Onas or Poch had left someone behind and … Heloise could feel sweat breaking out on her neck and forehead despite the cold. Her heart raced.

  Samson touched her foot through the machine’s frame. “Heloise, please. Just for a moment. I can call some of the wives to assist you if you like.”

  “I … can’t.” She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

  “Of course you can.” He reached up to undo the buckle around her thigh. “Let me help you.”

  No, Heloise thought, but her throat had closed. Her muscles felt liked fresh-forged iron thrust into water. Sacred Throne, he is going to take me out and there’s nothing I can do … She watched her father work the buckle as if she were floating outside her own body, powerless to do anything other than observe.

  And suddenly Xilyka appeared, seizing Samson’s wrist gently, but firmly. “I’ll see to her, Master Factor.”

  Samson stared at the Hapti girl. “She’s my daughter.”

  “Just so,” Xilyka agreed, “but I’m sure you’ll agree that she’s a bit old now to be undressed by a man, even her own kin.”

  “I’m not going to undress her, I just want to take her out of the—”

  “All the same, best to let a lady see to it.”

  Samson sputtered, but Xilyka ignored her, leading Heloise behind the canvas sheet wall. A small wooden tub had been placed there, filled with steaming water from an iron cauldron that had been returned to a small fire burning in a clearing in the snow.

  “It’s all right,” Xilyka said.

  “You don’t understand.” Heloise’s voice shook so hard that she had to bite off each word. “I. Can’t. Come. Out. I. Just. Can’t.”

  “Heloise, listen to me. You don’t have to come out now, but I am sworn to protect you from dangers, even yourself. If you never leave the machine, it will kill you as surely as an assassin’s blade. You must get clean. Loosen the straps, don’t take them off. I will see to the rest.”

  “What are you going to…” She could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks, going cold in the chill air before they reached her chin.

  “Heloise.” Xilyka clambered onto the machine’s knee, touched Heloise’s cheek. “I am your friend. It’s all right. You can trust me.”

  Heloise leaned into Xilyka’s hand, warm and soft. It wasn’t just that it was beautiful Xilyka who had fought for her. It was that it was a person. Another person, and not her father, touching her. “Thank you.”

  A camp stool beside the tub had been piled with old red surcoats. Xilyka ripped two strips off of one and dunked one in the hot water. She climbed back onto the machine’s knee and scrubbed at Heloise’s foot. The touch of hot water was wonderful. Xilyka alternated the wet cloth with the dry one, wiping away the water before it could go cold. Heloise winced at the dry cloth’s touch, looked down, saw the red welts there. “Bedsores.”

  “I will clean you this way until you are ready to come out.”

  Xilyka’s touch, the chance to be alone with someone, to just be herself, was so overwhelming that Heloise wept, great hiccuping sobs that wracked her whole body. For her mother, for Sigir, for the return of her father, for Barnard, even for Onas and Poch and those who had turned on her. She was so tired of fighting. “I will never be ready.”

  “The Wheel turns,” Xilyka said. “You will see.”

  She worked her way up Heloise’s legs, lifting her shift to expose them. Wiping wet, then dry, returning to the tub to soak the rag in fresh water before starting again. Heloise’s relief and sadness began to change as Xilyka worked her way toward her cleft and her belly, sliding into the same melting, floating sensation she’d felt on the night she’d kissed Basina. She looked down at Xilyka, watching her black curls cascading over her shoulders as she worked, brass rings clacking together. Heloise admired the fading light sliding off the muscles in her shoulders and neck, the shadows pooling in the hollow of her throat. She was so different from Basina—dark where Basina was light, mischievous where Basina was frank, and most of all, free, where Basina walked the same path as all villager women—husband, family, the soft prison of home and hearth.

  The Hapti girl looked up, and Heloise’s breath caught. She had thought it was safe to kiss Basina, to tell her that she loved her as she truly did, and she had been repaid in lashing thorns, a headlong dash through the woods in the dark. That was when all this truly began. The fighting and the Order and the devils. She knew it wasn’t true even as she thought it, but that was the way with some ideas. They planted in your mind, and nothing you did could unseat them. She wanted to give in to Xilyka’s touch, to let herself feel what she felt, without shame, without fear, but she remembered Basina’s hands coming up, the look of shock and anger on her face. You said you loved me. Not like friends. Like a girl loves a boy.

  Xilyka stood, running her hands up under the shift and over Heloise’s breasts. Sh
e pressed her forehead against the metal visor and looked into Heloise’s eyes through the slits.

  Heloise’s head was stuffed with clouds, her stomach floating up into her throat. When she did speak, it was nonsense that came out. “I am not beautiful.”

  Xilyka laughed, a soft, warm sound that reminded Heloise of the hollow wooden chimes Deuteria hung outside her door. She reached under the gorget and ran her thumb over the scars that lifted the corner of Heloise’s mouth, that puckered around the place where her eye had once been. “This face has been ravaged, I will not lie, but it is Heloise’s face. This body has lost teeth and an eye and a hand. But it is Heloise’s body and Heloise lives inside it, just as you live inside this machine. I do not look at the machine when I want to see you, and I do not look at your body when I want to see you, either. You are Heloise, and Heloise is so beautiful that she shines like winter stars.

  “Do not doubt your beauty, Heloise. That is why Onas left. Because he loved you, and you would not have him.”

  “How did you know?”

  Xilyka laughed. “I may not be a Mother yet, but that doesn’t mean I am a fool. It is always this way with men. They seek to own a woman, and when they cannot, they go mad.”

  Heloise thought about that for a moment. “Clodio said love was this and love was that, and he wasn’t wrong, but he left things out. Love is rage, too, and madness.”

  “Love is like the Wheel—it turns as it will, and rolls over everything. If we are lucky, we ride the spokes as they rise, and if we are unlucky, we are crushed beneath the rim as it falls.”

  Now, Heloise thought, we are talking of love. Now is the time.

  She was elated and sick with terror at the same moment. Her stomach felt as small as a pebble, her head as big as a boulder. “I … I loved someone,” she began, “and I never told her. I mean, I whispered it once. But I never really told her. Not when she could listen … not when it mattered.” There, I said “her”; if she will hate me, she will do it now.