The Betrayed

by Igor Ljubuncic

  Davar had never been much of a believer in his former life. Most rich families in Caytor paid only token service to the houses, mainly with coin and never with deeds. The patriarchs were a useful distraction for the poor and the common, but the powerful and the wealthy did not need deities on their side. They made their own rules.

  Now, Davar knew why he had been chosen. His lifestyle had very closely resembled the creed of Feor. He had drunk and whored and lied as much as he could, and he had liked it. Feor told his followers to embrace their instincts, to succumb to their needs and urges, and to enjoy them. Feor was a god of passion. Just like Davar had been a man of passion.

  Feor was the natural choice for mankind. He was the god who loved man’s nature and did not try to smother it like the false gods did. Men were born to loot, rape, and murder. They loved it; they enjoyed it. There was no sin in pleasure.

  Men with hammers were attacking shrines, trying to bring them down. Houses were being burned down methodically, emptied of any valuables that could be found. Jaruka was dying and, with it, the old faith.

  Davar had to admit his troops were becoming more and more efficient at ransacking large cities. Unfortunately, there were no more cities left. But there was no knowing where next their godly work might take them. Parus was a nation of ardent followers of the false gods. They needed be taught a harsh lesson.

  Davar recalled the terrible dilemma he had faced when news of the Parusite invasion into the Territories had reached him.

  In the south, a new threat had emerged. King Vlad had chosen to defy Feor and try his ugly luck against the true god. Davar had begged his god to let him crush the Parusites, but Feor had been adamant. The only thing that really mattered was the city. West, he had to go west.

  After his victory, Davar intended to reclaim the lost lands. He was not really sure what to do yet, but he knew he would devise a wicked plan soon. Feor would inspire him.

  He could move his forces against Parus or strike back at Mista. Whatever his course of action, Adam’s forces in Caytor had to wait. He had not yet received any message from his Pum’be assassin. But the dwarf must have succeeded. Pum’be never failed.

  It was later that day that one of his other officers, Zealous Martin, came up with an idea how to murder the infidels quickly and efficiently. By nightfall, half of Jaruka were lying dead or dying, silent moans from their slashed throats filling the night.

  CHAPTER 40

  Mali could have sworn she had returned to a different world.

  She had expected Adam to continue his legacy of terror and leave Roalas a city of ghosts. Instead, Roalas was bustling with life and commerce. Except for the pocked curtain walls and an odd burned-down building, one would be hard-pressed to guess a siege had just ended.

  It was hard to believe what he’d done. But like anything else he had attempted, it made people love him and adore him even more. He possessed some uncanny ability to reach out to the hearts of simple men and stir deep and primal emotions that burned in their souls.

  Mali had quietly slipped back into the ranks, pretending nothing had happened. Then, she had gone out into Roalas, trying to see for herself the creation of her supposed subordinate.

  Adam had long ceased to report to her. He treated the entire army as his own, paid no heed to the plans and missions devised by other colonels, as though he were the only one. He plain and simple ignored them, steering his war machine by a scheme only he knew.

  The Eracian army had been split, with a symbolic part of it still loyal to its old officers and the majority converted to this morbid semianarchy that Adam ruled. No one seemed to notice. It was an almost too natural process. People had simply drifted to his side, while still wearing Eracian colors, drawn by the simple, raw truth of his creed.

  Every day that passed thinned her ranks further. Adam’s life force sucked on her troops, luring them into his web. She realized she would have to sever her contact with Adam before the Southern Army disappeared from the maps, in name and allegiance, if not in numbers and presence.

  The most sensible thing she could do was take the few regiments she still commanded and return to Eracia, or at least remain lodged in the northeastern Territories, waiting for a word from the monarch. By all accounts, her ruler did not seem interested in the holy land. His eyes were turned to the northern reaches of Caytor and the negotiations that might stem from his menacing presence at the border, the first real leverage the Eracians had gained in generations. It was a dream of fragile peace, molded by a man of war.

  Despite the logic, she could not do it. Not yet. She felt a part of this madness. A part of her made her stay and participate, another puppet in Adam’s show.

  And then, there was the colossal issue of his legacy. He was the father of the thing growing inside her belly. He was this alien, harsh, unloving creature who had planted his evil seed in her womb, the man who had dashed her career, her hopes. She wanted him dead, wanted his creation dead, but she could not bring herself to lift a sword or utter the command to one of her assassins.

  To make everything worse, the Parusites had joined the war. The Territories were being carved up into fat, juicy slices, and they did not want to be left out. They had taken the south of the holy land from the Feorans. Rumors had it they were now marching into Caytor, against Adam, with twice the troops he had. While his forces were tired from a long series of battles, the Parusites were fresh, unscathed.

  It would be another bloody campaign. Worst of all, she had no idea what Adam would do.

  Instead of attacking the Caytoreans in the Territories from behind, he had turned into their homeland, clashing head-on with the stubborn defenders of their cities. And he had managed to defeat them. He had succeeded where the finest commanders had failed, one after another, generation after generation. His gamble had proven legendary. No one really knew why the Caytorean forces around Talmath and Poereni had not turned and gone after him. It would have been the most logical thing to do, head back for home and defend their villages, just as Adam’s move had been the most ridiculous move in the history of warfare, exposing all of his flanks to the enemy, hurling himself into the heart of danger.

  Somehow, perversely, it had worked. The Caytoreans had stayed in the Territories and let him be. Unchallenged, he had moved into their land to find emptied barracks and token units facing him. And then, to make his gamble even more dramatic, he had taken Roalas in a matter of weeks, where most experts had expected the campaign to prolong into spring.

  And now, it was his city. Madness.

  CHAPTER 41

  Ayrton sat on a boulder, staring at the beautiful nature. He could understand how a mind, any mind, could get immersed and lost in this sublime tranquility.

  Elia sat by his side, caressing a bunny. The furry thing sat patiently, docile, content.

  “Both Simon and Damian loved you?” he asked again.

  “Yes. And I loved Simon. Damian could not accept that. So he killed me.”

  Ayrton arched his brows. “But you are alive.”

  “He thought he killed me. In the First Age, before…the First Sin, we were not aware of our own immortality, our own flaws. When time has no consequence for you, you live your life in the now, never caring for the past or the future. We didn’t know.”

  She let go of the bunny. It ran off into the tall grass. “Damian killed my body. I found myself floating in the emptiness of the Abyss, devoid of feeling, devoid of any knowledge of the world. But after the war ended, I was remade.

  “Then, I discovered that I was different from the other gods and goddesses. Many have perished in the war, their temples burned and their followers killed to the last, but their souls have been retrieved, forged into new bodies with the faith of new converts.”

  “What about you?”

  Elia stretched her hand. A sparrow landed on her palm. “Everyone thought Damian had killed me, gods and men alike. I was mourned and forgotten. My faith died with my body. But immortal souls cannot be killed.
After Damian was banished, his deed became undone.

  “I came back, but no one remembered me anymore. My followers had long died off, for the war stretched for many generations of human life. Even some of my kin had a difficult time remembering me.”

  The bird flew off in a flutter of wings. “I have become sort of an outcast. I am still immortal, but I have no power in this world anymore. The lives and deaths of men no longer affect me.”

  “What about Simon?” Ayrton asked.

  Her smile faded. “He forgot me, too. I don’t blame him. He thought I was lost. No one believed that gods or goddesses could be remade until after the war was over and they forced Damian’s followers to convert. So he found himself another love, a human girl.”

  She looked up at the sky. “I used to be the goddess of poetry and song. I have not written or sung ever since.”

  Ayrton felt really sorry for Elia. “Didn’t they try to…bring you back like the others?”

  “I don’t know. I believe they did try, but my death was not an act of faith, so it didn’t work. No one knew what murder was until Damian invented it. He invented so many terrible things. He took the mankind we had created and perverted it into something horrible, sinister, wicked, and utterly, utterly clever.”

  She stood up and began pacing, leading him toward a small lake of crystal-pure water.

  “After the war was over, the gods believed that things could go back to what they used to be a thousand years before. But the world was changed beyond recognition. Humans changed. The Second Age of Mankind had begun, the age of Damian’s men.

  “We were afraid. We could not learn fast enough to adjust to the changes. We found ourselves being ridiculed by the very thing we had created. People lied to us, led us astray. Our Special Children turned against us. Our champions became tyrants and demigods. Prophets used their knowledge of the future to twist events to their needs.”

  She sat by the pool and dipped her bare feet in the water. Ripples spread over the surface. “We were very weak after the war. We had very little power. We could only make small changes, affect insignificant events.

  “Fortunately, there were still some good men, people of virtue, who still believed in the grace of their creators. They feared and worshipped us. So we ordered them to cleanse the world of Special Children, to remove the seedlings of chaos and strife from among men.

  “It was a war that never got written down in the books. Our knights fell upon the world and purged it. They cleansed the lands of those evil, decadent, and unfaithful. When the horrible battle was over, there were very few people left in the world. But they were now under the stern yoke of believers. In our honor, they marked a holy land and built temples all over it so that people would never forget the world belonged to the gods.”

  “How did you win that war? You said you were weak.”

  Elia hesitated for a moment. “Some of the gods gave away their essence to create terrible weapons. We used them to…kill the enemy. Hundreds of thousands of souls.”

  “What happened after the war?”

  “The world was ours again. But we did not want it. We were disgusted and disappointed. Our dreams were shattered. We decided to abandon mankind for good.

  “We built ourselves our little valley of peace and perfection and shielded it with powers to prevent impure souls from entering. Only people who possessed the grace of the first man could pass through the barrier and survive. Like you. Unholy people perished trying.”

  She paused for a moment. “It was our parting gift to the few good souls that still remained. Whenever they needed a respite from the burdens of the ugly world, they could come to our valley to rest, to rejuvenate their hearts.”

  Ayrton scooped icy water into his palm.

  “After several centuries, by human reckoning, our anger faded somewhat. We thought the world was healed and tried to return to it. But we were still hesitant and afraid of what we might learn. It was Tanid who braved the feat.

  “He left the city and ventured into the world of men.” She shook her head. “It was too late. Too much time passed from the last time a god had walked among men. People no longer recognized their creators.

  “Confused and hurt, Tanid came to a group of people and introduced himself. Instead of fearing him, those humans laughed at him. They scorned him, calling him a madman. No one believed him any longer. Tanid returned to the city and vowed never again to deal with the world of men, whatever happened. Most of the other gods followed his suit. It has been so ever since.”

  Ayrton nodded to himself. Tanid, the god of weather. The gods were petty children.

  “With time, most gods forgot who they were. Without a purpose to bind them, and time to urge them, they drifted away, becoming recluses. They mostly do the things they love, like fish or paint or tend to deer.”

  “Or carve in wood,” Ayrton added.

  “Others are just meditating, lost in their thoughts. Very few still bother to talk to one another.”

  “You seem not to have been affected like them,” he said.

  “Neither was Selena. I don’t know why.”

  Ayrton plucked a stem of grass and placed it between his teeth. The gods were no different than the men they so vehemently scorned. The majority were just empty-headed fools.

  Elia got up, leading him away again. Ayrton followed her. It was a sort of an unconscious ritual of hers that she repeated every few hours. She would follow an invisible trail that marked some sort of a private queendom, checking on little things.

  “How am I supposed to save them if they won’t even acknowledge their own existence?”

  Elia shrugged. “You must find a way.”

  Ayrton looked at her. “If the barrier collapses, the Caytoreans will be able to come here and kill your bodies. Aren’t you afraid to die…again?”

  She shook her head. “No. I have died already once and come back to a world that no longer remembers me. There’s more to life than just being alive.”

  “Is there anything that might make a difference?”

  Elia did not seem very optimistic. “Even his return did not seem to stir them up.”

  That vague reference again. “Him? Who is this…person that you talk about?”

  She looked at him as if the answer was the most obvious and logical thing possible. “Damian.”

  Ayrton blinked. “Damian managed to escape the Abyss? How?”

  “We don’t know. But we all felt it. Selena was terrified.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “Damian was always the one to think of something new, something the world had never witnessed before. He must have thought of some way to retain his presence in this world and bide his time until he could return.”

  A vengeful, clever god on the loose, against a bunch of pathetic, self-defeated juvenile deities. It sounded like a very bleak scenario. And he had to save the gods, save the world.

  Ayrton realized these gods could never defeat the evil they faced by themselves. They were too stupid to do that. Immortality was their greatest undoing. Unfettered by time, they felt no urgency to evolve. On the other hand, humans fought like rabid dogs for their scrap of knowledge and status in the short span of their lives. It was always the hungriest who made the best hunting tools.

  With rising dread, Ayrton realized that many things Elia had told him were probably a twisted, naive interpretation of a much grimmer, darker reality. Take the Special Children. They had massacred half the world to get rid of their foul, gifted offspring, only to be defeated by miracles of birth dozens of generations later. Hidden in the blood of commoners, the gift traveled from one soul to another until it manifested in an age when neither god nor man could do anything about it. The memory of the mad girl in Jaruka haunted him.

  There were monsters walking the world, Ayrton realized, and no one could tell them apart from ordinary humans. A few sorry souls served the houses of the gods, but what about those wizards and prophets who got born far from the influenc
e of the patriarchs and matriarchs?

  If he’d been a god, Ayrton thought in a moment of mad glee, he would have done it very differently. If he’d been a god, he realized, he would have made sure simple death of his followers would not have been enough to defeat him. He swallowed. If a common man like himself could think of such simple ruses, there was no reckoning what a god like Damian might conceive.

  “When did this happen?”

  She shrugged. “About a year ago, by human count. We felt a terrible blast of power. He tore a hole in the fabric of the Abyss and fled.”

  Ayrton stared at the valley locked in never-ending spring. He knew Damian would not have forgotten his kin throwing him into the Abyss. Time was meaningless in the Abyss, from what stories told. Damian was coming after the City of Gods, with no one the wiser to stop him.

  Ayrton felt time slipping between his fingers even as the perfect world around him stood still, frozen in a bubble of eternal beauty. He had to evacuate the city, take the gods and goddesses to safety. There was very little time left.

  And he didn’t have the slightest idea how to do it.

  CHAPTER 42

  Far from civilization, at the mercy of cruel nature, strange souls tended to band together. There were no secrets aboard a crowded ship.

  Out of loneliness, or maybe curiosity, Ewan came to see Armin often, a polite, humble, withdrawn boy with lots of questions. Ever an investigator, Armin dug for information, slowly peeling layers of secrecy off the boy’s soul.

  Their bonding was interrupted during the second week of their voyage. Ewan fell sick, to the great dismay and alarm of the superstitious crew. Disease aboard the ship was one of the greatest perils, save maybe fire and storms. The boy would drift about aimlessly, lost in some inner trance, impervious to the caress of the stinging sleet and howling wind, burning hot to the touch. The sight of him wandering around the deck, steam rising off his shoulders as snowflakes hissed, melting against his skin, made the stalwart and veteran crew of the Tenacious turn grim and dangerous.