Bad Faith

by Jon Hollins

  “Liberation,” Will said contemplatively. “Perhaps.” He shook his head. “Of a sort.”

  And then … wait. Balur blinked, shook his head. Because while Will stood by the fire, Will also came walking up the hill. And there were two Wills. And they both looked like sacks of purple shit. Both of them stretched their mouths in humorless smiles. Then the Will that had been standing by the fire flickered out of existence.

  “Barph can’t see through my illusions,” the new Will said. “He can’t penetrate them.” The Will that had been by the fire came back, and the Will that had walked up the hill faded from sight. “This is a demonstration,” Will said, because apparently stating the obvious was a thing he did now.

  “Pissing illusions,” Balur groused.

  “Wait.” Cois leaned forward. “Which one is the real you?”

  “Neither,” said Will. Except it was a third Will, standing way off to the left. The Will beside the fire flickered away.

  This was the sort of shit that made Balur’s head hurt. He wanted to hit something. Preferably Will.

  “Quick question,” Lette asked. “Have I ever fucked an illusion of you? Because … Well, I may have to kill the real you, and I’d like to know.”

  Will smiled again, and there was something genuine to it, finally. He seemed to come back from wherever he had been and focus. “I am always real with you,” Will told Lette. “Always.”

  Cois shook hir head. “And people say Balur and I are gross.”

  “What have any of these parlor tricks got to do with smiting our enemy and rending his heart?” asked Pettrax. Balur didn’t like much about Pettrax, but he did like the idea of making this discussion as short as possible.

  “This,” said Will.

  And Pettrax disappeared.

  “No!” Quirk shouted, and Afrit said, “Gods, Will,” in horror because Will had just annihilated a dragon in front of them. He had just—

  “What?” said Pettrax’s voice from the middle of nowhere. And gods piss on Will and his stupid trickery.

  “You’re invisible,” said Will.

  “I am?”

  “I can’t see you,” Cois added helpfully.

  “Are your eyes closed?” Pettrax checked.

  Lette started shaking her head.

  “You’re invisible.” There was a little more volume to Will’s voice than seemed natural to Balur.

  “Well, that’s great,” Pettrax said. “Is my enemy dead too?”

  Another advantage of being larger than your average barn, Balur thought, is that it is making it very hard for you to sound petty.

  “In our last encounter with Barph,” Will went on—the real one, Balur thought, as long as he had been following this game of three-Will monte correctly—“you dragons almost took Barph down.”

  Pettrax became visible just in time for everyone to see the dragon’s smug expression.

  “If Barph had had less warning of your attack,” Will went on, “you could have done significantly more damage.” He turned away from Pettrax, looked down at Essoa. “I propose to hide you. To let you get close. To let you unleash your full potential for violence.”

  “You can do that?” The shock in Cois’s voice made Balur look at hir.

  Will didn’t appear to notice. “Yes.”

  Balur caught Cois’s eye. “What?” zhe said. “That’s a lot of dragons to hide. That’s a lot of power.”

  “Yes,” Will said again.

  “Can you put the Hallows back?” Afrit asked.

  “No,” Will said.

  Afrit didn’t seem to like that answer, but didn’t push it.

  “But what,” Quirk asked, “does any of that have to do with Essoa?”

  Balur was surprised that Quirk didn’t get that. They’d done this a lot now. “We are going to be liberating them, and having them as allies in our fight,” he said. “And then Will is going to convince them that his prick is being bigger than Barph’s so they should be worshipping him instead. And his head is getting bigger, and he is getting creepier.”

  “So this is more of the same,” Pettrax growled. “More slow attrition. More wasting time.”

  “But if it’s what you’ve done before,” Quirk persisted, “then what does that have to do with hiding you from Barph? He’s only ever shown up once before.”

  “Essoa is bait,” Will said.

  He did not say it loudly. It was little more than a whisper really. But they all heard it very clearly.

  Balur felt his muscles go tight.

  “What?” Lette asked. She looked at Will, then looked down at her home.

  “A Barphian stronghold,” Will said. “A source of power for our enemy. One he will have to protect. It is too much for him to lose.”

  “Lose?” Quirk’s voice rose.

  “He will come to defend it,” Will said.

  “From what?” Balur asked. Though it galled him, Balur knew he couldn’t quite reach the bass depths of Pettrax’s growl, but he thought he did well enough.

  Pettrax leaned down, and his face split in a vast, jagged smile. “From me.”

  “Then it is time for me to be killing another dragon,” Balur said. Because this … No, this would not stand.

  “No,” said Will, and the sheer physical force of his word held both would-be combatants in place. “The dragons must be hidden. The dragons must not be seen, so they can hurt Barph when he comes.”

  “So what is attacking Essoa, Will?” Lette asked.

  “We are.” The bastard didn’t even blink. He didn’t even look away in shame. “We attack. We kill. Barph comes. The dragons attack. They kill Barph.”

  “Wait—” said Quirk, who finally sounded as if she was on the same page as Balur.

  “We are attacking Essoa?” Balur checked, still feeling the rage burning in the back of his throat.

  “Yes,” Will said. He looked around at them. “Is this hard for you to understand? Am I being too complicated?”

  He appeared to be genuinely concerned, and that just stoked the fuel in Barph’s gut higher. That Will should worry about that, and not about the thousands of lives he was willing to so casually snuff out …

  “We are killing the people who are living there?” he managed to get out.

  “Balur …” Lette could see the warning signs.

  “Until Barph shows up, yes,” said Will. “Would it help if I drew pictures?”

  “I am going to be tearing off your balls and beating you to death with them now,” Balur said. “I am imagining they are very small, so it may be taking a while, but I am feeling patient.”

  Will blinked. “What?” he said, as Balur approached. “It’s killing people, Balur. You like killing people.”

  “These are being the weak,” Balur said. “These are being the unprotected. The innocent. Ending these lives is not proving strength. It is not offering a life red of tooth and claw. These deaths are pointless, ugly. These are the acts of a coward, afraid to test his strength.”

  Will blinked. He didn’t seem to be overly concerned that Balur had him by the throat and had lifted him off the ground. He dangled unconcerned. He wasn’t even red in the face. “You once burned convents to the ground to distract a force following you through Vinter. Why are you concerned about these people? What are they to you?”

  And there was a long and complicated answer to that, but in the end Balur was more concerned with another question. “Why aren’t they something to you, Will?”

  “My neck is more powerful than your hand, Balur,” said Will. “Please put me down.”

  And he had such a reasonable unconcerned fucking tone. Balur slammed his spare fist into Will’s face.

  “Fuck!” he roared, because it was like punching a mountain, and he thought perhaps he had broken his hand. He dropped Will, nursed it between his thighs.

  “They are meaningful,” Will said, landing lightly on his feet. “They are the means by which I shall save all the rest of Avarra, Balur. They are the sheep that must be
slaughtered so their meat can buy grain for the other animals. Some blood must spill.”

  “And we shall kill Barph,” Pettrax said. He sounded very satisfied. “The dragons shall be doing the deed.”

  “That’s the plan,” said Will.

  “I like this plan,” Pettrax told everyone as if that settled things.

  Balur turned to look at Lette, still wringing his sore hand. “That is being your home,” he said to her. Because of all of them she could still get through to Will. “You are being fine with him beating on it like iron in the forge?”

  And Lette clearly was not. Her face was twisted up as she stared back and forth between Will and Balur.

  “I’m sorry, Lette.” And Will genuinely did look sorry. “It’s Barph’s greatest stronghold in the north. It’s the only place that makes sense.”

  “It is not making sense,” Balur bellowed. “Fighting Barph is making sense. Because he is being a prick of the greatest magnitude. But now in this fight, you have been becoming a prick of the same girth. And so now I am needing to fight you.”

  Will spread his arms. “You’re welcome to,” he said. Like a prick.

  “Balur.” Cois was trying to get between them. “Please. Don’t do this.”

  “You are being fine with this?” Because zhe was the one who had done this to him, had made him realize he cared about these things.

  “Of course I’m not,” zhe said. “It’s a monstrous plan. But he can beat you. I’m sorry, but he can.”

  “Of course he can be beating me,” Balur said. “I am not being a prick. I can be telling when I am outclassed. I am not going to be fighting him with fists. I am going to be fighting him where it is mattering to him. With his precious followers. I am going to be pointing out to them that that they are worshipping a limp cock of a man who is incapable of achieving anything meaningful.”

  Will laughed. Not loud, and not long. But enough. Enough to mean Balur would end him utterly if he could.

  “And Lette will be doing so too,” he said. “Their paladin will tell them the truth, if she is being worthy of the name.”

  And still Lette’s face was twisted up. “I …,” she said. “I never said I was worthy of that name.”

  Lette too? Lette who knew exactly what they would be destroying?

  “You will be letting him do this?” he asked her. And he tried to stop his voice from sounding broken, but he wasn’t sure he achieved it.

  “I’m not letting him do anything.” Lette managed to reach for some of her normal bite. “No one here is a child. No one here is asking for permission. He’s going to do it.” She thumbed at Will. “I’m just … I’m saying I see why. I’m saying I can see the logic of it.”

  “Just like that?” Balur pressed.

  “What? Are you asking if it hurts? Of course it fucking hurts, Balur. That’s my home. Or it was. Or it was the home of someone I was once. But it hurts that they’ve embraced Barph too. It hurts that I’ve been beaten around the head and neck all the way through Avarra by Barphian idiots. A lot of things hurt. But you keep on living. You survive. And that’s why we’re here. To make sure Avarra will survive. I want that. And if it takes Saleran blood, if it takes Essoa, then that’s what it takes.”

  “I’m sorry, Lette.” Will looked distracted again, chewing at his lip. “I didn’t … I forgot …”

  She shook her head. “I’m a big fucking girl. A lot like Balur, apparently.”

  Balur clenched his fists. He wanted to throttle Will some more, but his hand still hurt. “I will stop this,” he said instead. “I will stop you.” And the gods knew he was no orator, but even a child could see how heinous this plan was.

  Cois took his hand. “We will stop you.”

  Will spread his hands. “You’re welcome to try.”

  People were already gathering for the nightly sermon. The Analesians had set up a loud raucous group in the center of things. Some women were dancing in the center of a ring of them. Men were handing out bottles of liquor to them.

  The dragons were at the back of proceedings too, or in the air above, sending sheets of flame back and forth. Balur wasn’t sure if Will had asked them to do it for effect, but he wouldn’t put it past the prick.

  He wasn’t sure where Will was. Or whether, if he saw Will, it really would be him or just some illusion the idiot had summoned. He didn’t care. Real or not, Will had a stupid plan. And he would stop it.

  Not everyone had arrived, but, looking out at the sea of faces, Balur figured it was enough.

  He stepped up onto the boards.

  “Balur!”

  He turned and looked, and … Gods, he found a chance to smile. Lette was there.

  “You are seeing sense finally,” he said.

  But apparently she wasn’t. “Don’t do this,” she said.

  He tried to take a moment. He tasted the air. The anticipation of the crowd did nothing to calm him.

  “Be going away, Lette,” he told her, “before I am doing something I am regretting later.”

  “He will destroy you.”

  Balur sneered. “He is welcome to be trying. I have been killing bigger things than him.”

  “Not … not like that, you big idiot. He will turn them against you. I swear it. You’re already on thin ice. You know how they feel about Cois and the other gods.”

  “And you are being okay with that?”

  “Of course I’m not. I’m not okay with so many things. I’m not okay with you doing this. I’m not okay with what you’ll do when this crowd gets ugly.”

  “They will see sense.”

  She shook her head. “It’s too far gone, Balur.”

  And that sounded a lot like defeat. Balur looked at her. “I have not given up. I am getting up there. What will you do?”

  She hesitated. “I’ll protect the crowd.”

  “From Will?”

  She clenched and unclenched her fists. He didn’t think he was the one she wanted to punch, though. “Will wants to save Avarra. The crowd lives in Avarra. Everything is subjugated to that now. That’s the sort of fight we’re in.”

  “What about the innocent in Essoa? What about the brood mothers who live there?”

  “There are no pissing brood mothers in Essoa, Balur. This isn’t the desert.”

  “No,” he agreed. “The desert makes you strong.”

  And with that he turned his back on her and mounted the stage.

  The crowd stared at him. The weight of their eyes fell on his shoulders. Thousands of them. It was a different sort of weight to the kind he normally bore. But piss on it, if Will could do this, then so could he.

  “You are knowing me,” he shouted to them. “I am Balur. I am an Analesian. I am tribe with you.” He could see people straining to hear his voice. And of course he had no magic to amplify it. And where was Quirk when you needed her? He had been sure her self-righteous bullshit would cause her to align with him on this.

  “God lover!” someone shouted. There was laughter from the circle of Analesians.

  “I am being tribe with you,” Balur shouted again. “Tribe. That is being an important word to Analesians. To me. Tribe is fighting for each other. Tribe is dying for each other. Tribe is living for each other. Tribes are not being individual people. People are dissolving into each other in tribe. Your kill is becoming my kill. My kill is becoming yours. Your defeat is becoming my defeat. My defeat is becoming yours.”

  Even the people who could hear him were looking confused now.

  “Tribe,” he said, “is not killing each other. Tribe is not wasting each other’s lives. To be doing that is to be killing yourself. And that is being stupid, is it not?”

  Will liked to ask questions that had obvious answers. People seemed to like that. And some people were shrugging in agreement, so that was something.

  “You’re no tribe of mine!” shouted another heckler.

  Balur licked the air, tasted his own uncertainty.

  “But where is our tribe ending?
” he asked, plowing on regardless. “Who is being our tribe in this fight? Who are we fighting for? Who are we killing, and who are we dying for?”

  Not even shrugs this time.

  “We are killing Barphists,” he said, and that, finally, a few people seemed able to get behind. “We are killing Gratt’s once-dead pricks.” There was a cheer. “We are killing them because they are threatening our tribe. They are threatening the world we are trying to save.”

  Even the people who couldn’t hear him seemed to be getting into the cheering. Balur felt a little more certain in his righteous bellowing.

  “What about Essoa?” he asked. “What about the women and children who are living in that city? They are not traveling with us. Some of them are worshipping Barph. They are not fighting with us. They are not dying with us.” He looked about. “Are they tribe?”

  The crowd lost their momentum.

  “Get off!” A clearly Analesian voice this time. “Go love a god!” Laughter again.

  “If they are not tribe,” Balur continued doggedly, “can we just be killing them? If they are not being with us, are they being against us? Is it okay to be killing women and children who have been forced to be living in fear? Is it okay to be killing those who are not knowing there is an alternative to their lives as they are being now?”

  Silence. Absolute silence.

  “Well,” he said, “that is depending on what sort of tribe we are being. Are we being here to fight for the weak? Are we being here to protect those who cannot be protecting themselves? Are we being here to save Avarra? Or are we being here for the self-aggrandizement of a man who has become a complete and utter prick?”

  He saw a field of puzzled looks. Gods hex them all. He took another breath.

  “What a lot of cryptic questions, Balur.”

  And there Will was striding out, his voice booming across the stage, smiling broadly. There was something savage in his eyes.

  “What,” Will went on, “could you be talking about?”

  He turned to the audience, cocked his head to one side. Balur could see the smiles rippling out.

  Balur opened his mouth. Savaging Will in front of these people might actually be fun.

  “Maybe I can add some light to the matter.” Will cut him off and drowned him out with his booming voice. “I think you all know where we are. In Salera. Looking down on Essoa. The stronghold of our enemy.”