Blood of War

by Remi Michaud

  It left the question then of who would become this new land's first king.

  This territory was sparsely populated at the time. Most of the native inhabitants were bands of brigands hiding in the great, dense forests. Some few were traders who had established a caravan route between Kashya and Madesh and had managed to amass enough wealth to provide their own protection from the bandits. These traders had their own posts and estates along this caravan route—heavily guarded of course—and both sides agreed that perhaps one of those would suffice. After all, the territory did not need a strong king; it would behoove both powers, in fact, if the king were weak, soft, amenable to their suggestions.

  In the end, they had decided on a young man who seemed to fit the bill exactly. He smiled obsequiously at them, nodded his head vapidly at anything they said, and asked no questions. They proclaimed him to be king in a ceremony cobbled together for the occasion and left feeling rather proud of themselves.

  That man was Threimes I, and it would not take long for the delegates from both Madesh and Kashya to realize their error. Threimes turned out to be a canny ruler, expertly playing one great power off the other and within a few years under his sure command, the budding kingdom of Threimes rapidly became a viable, self-sufficient kingdom in its own right.

  “I thought Threimes wrested the land from the Kashyans and Madesh, pulling it out from under them in daring raids and expertly executed attacks,” Jurel said cutting Andrus off in mid-sentence.

  “Yes, that is how it is generally taught.” Andrus adjusted his spectacles and gave Jurel a look filled with derision. “Romantic notions, foolish legends grown from a few grains of truth and fed to the children to instill a sense of loyalty and patriotism toward a kingdom with such a brave and heroic past. That is all those stories are.”

  “So it's all fake?”

  “Embellished would be a more accurate description. In a way, he did pull it out from under them with daring raids and attacks. It was just done in a political theater rather than a battlefield.”

  Jurel gazed out his window at the land, noting that the mid summer sun had yellowed the grasses. It had been a dry, hot summer. There had been enough rain to avoid a full blown drought but for the past few weeks the heat had been intense. Thankfully, there were heavy spells woven into the bricks of the Abbey; the temperature inside remained moderate all year round.

  Behind him, he heard the thump of Andrus's heavy tome closing. “Now Jurel, we turn to the subject of arcanum.”

  And Jurel groaned.

  * * *

  Jurel sat staring dolefully into his hands. Andrus paced the Kashyan rug, hands clasped behind his back. With a stormy expression, he muttered to himself. Which was just fine in Jurel's book. He did not particularly feel like listening to another musty lecture delved from the depths of the moldy tome.

  The reason for Andrus's current state was, of course, obvious. Jurel had again failed to reach his source. With Andrus's guidance he had managed to avoid the pitfalls his own mind threw at him, which had been a relief, but as was usual, he was stopped just short of the shining beacon in his mind by some form of invisible barrier.

  He had no idea what that barrier might be though Andrus had suggested it was some sort of mental block that Jurel could get past with enough concentration and commitment. To Jurel it felt as solid as stone.

  As usual Jurel had pounded at it, picked at it, tried to find a way around it, and as usual it remained impassible. What had not been usual was the voice that had interrupted Jurel in his efforts to break through the barrier. During the heights of his efforts, the voice had whispered in his ear, “Not this way. Not for you.”

  His concentration had snapped and he had found himself exchanging a dazed look with Andrus across the table.

  Jurel had recognized the voice. He did not know if he should enlighten Andrus.

  So he sat staring at his hands, while Andrus paced.

  And why would Gaorla speak to him anyway? Why would He present Jurel with the shining beacon in his mind only to keep it out of reach, only to inform Jurel he would not gain access to his supposed birthright that way? For that matter, Jurel had not known there was more than one way. Which should he follow? What were the other ways?

  Wracking his brain for answers did no good; there were too many questions vying for attention. What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to do it? How will he know? Will it become apparent in time or must he fumble along blindly? How was he supposed to embrace his future, become who he was supposed to be when the past rested so heavily on his soul? And why did the past remain so central to his thoughts? He thought he had learned to accept his lot when he had realized who he was.

  “Are you sure you concentrated?”

  Jolted from his thoughts, Jurel snapped his attention to Andrus. The man stood facing Jurel, glaring down at him as though preparing to dole out disciplinary measures.

  “You were there Andrus. You saw.”

  “Yes but I thought I felt you waver at the crux. Then there was that voice. I think perhaps it was a subconscious hesitation on your part.” His pacing began again. “You need to concentrate Jurel. You must want this. If there is even the slightest doubt in your commitment, you will fail. As you have done so far.”

  Suddenly, this bloody bird-man was too much for Jurel to countenance. Rage fired through him, blazing its way forth in a flash burning the questions to cinders. He surged to his feet, slamming his fists on the table. Andrus jolted in surprise.

  “How dare you?” Jurel hissed. “How dare you? I'm not trying hard enough for you? Is that what you think? You bloody buffoon, I've done nothing but try. I've listened to your bloody dusty lectures, I've completed your pointless assignments, I've journeyed through my own mind, almost losing myself in the process. I've done everything you've asked, and it's still not enough for you?”

  Rallying himself, Andrus returned Jurel's gaze with one of haughty superiority. “I'll have you know that in my years I have taught hundreds of students and all of them have shown more progress in a week than you have in months. My teaching techniques are above reproach and I am offended that you-”

  Again, Jurel's fists came down on his table. This time a ragged crack ran along the surface of the lustrous wood.

  “You pompous bastard. You bloody pompous bastard.” But no other words could work their way past his choking rage.

  Andrus took this as a victory. He smiled primly. “You see? You have no cogent argument. You are blocking yourself. You are not performing as I have taught you. I bring as evidence your own mind balking each time you are about to touch your source.”

  “Oh really?” His voice went quiet, silky, laden with portent. “Are you by chance referring to the voice we heard this last time?”

  Andrus, uncertain of Jurel's sudden change of voice, muttered, “Well yes, that's part of it.”

  “That was my father, you bloody dolt! That was your almighty bloody Gaorla that spoke to me!”

  Andrus blanched. “But, that's not-”

  “Possible? Is that what you were going to say? It's not possible that Gaorla would communicate with me? I'm supposed to be his son. You say that you have taught hundreds successfully but how many of them have been the son of a god?”

  “Well, I—I'm sure I don't-”

  “No. No you don't. You think it might be possible that your teaching techniques, as effective as I'm certain they are, are inadequate here?”

  “No...yes—I don't know-”

  “No. No you don't.”

  Jurel glared at him with such force that Andrus's teeth clicked as his mouth shut.

  “I think, Andrus, that we are done here. Leave.”

  “But, Jurel, you need to learn. You-”

  “I said leave,” Jurel pointed to the door while pinning Andrus with his glare. “It has become obvious that you have nothing left to teach me so don't bother returning. I'll not see you again.”

  Andrus gaped. “Are you...?”

  Ju
rel said nothing. He simply kept glaring flatly. He would have no more of this intolerable pomposity.

  “I am sorry that you see it that way young man,” Andrus said after a silence. His own mien was one of haughty righteousness. “I shall be going now.”

  True to his words, he tucked his tome under his arm and stalked from the room like an offended feline.

  When the door shut with perhaps more force than was necessary, Jurel sank into his chair and buried his face in his hands. Not only Andrus had fled, but Jurel's rage too, and now he regretted his words. Andrus was arrogant and boring but he had not truly deserved such a reaction. It had only been Jurel's frustration at his own failure. But it was done now. The words could not be unsaid. He supposed he owed Andrus an apology but he truculently refused to consider it seriously.

  Gods, what a mess.

  In time, he pulled himself together and stood. He felt pent here in his room, caged. He had a powerful urge to move and stretch his legs. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do; he just needed to be out of his room.

  It never ceased to amaze him how beautiful the Abbey was. His door on the fourth floor, the highest in the Abbey except for the tower that soared from the center, spilled out into a long corridor. The floor was granite but had a wide runner of intricate design which muffled sound. Along the wall midway between doors—of which there were hundreds spaced evenly on both sides of the corridor—were niches in which stood marble pedestals. On each pedestal was a sculpture of a beautifully rendered animal, icon, or bust. Each was lit by a ball of heatless yellow luminescence, an arcane form of lighting that was generously used throughout the Abbey.

  Andrus had told Jurel of many of the spells that were woven into the very structure of the Abbey. There were defensive spells—one of which was a spell designed to make the Abbey difficult to locate or remember by outsiders; one of the ways they had managed to keep their presence here a secret for so long—spells to moderate climate, spells to ease the heart and calm the mind, and spells to power these lights, among many others.

  The ceiling was arched; intricately carved quartz buttresses rose at intervals and met at the cusp high above his head. The lighting was only just able to graze the highest point of the vaulted ceiling. Between the buttresses, red stone whose identity Jurel did not know glimmered like fine wine.

  He made no noise as he wandered, the heavy carpet beneath his feet absorbing all sound; he was like a wraith haunting these ancient halls. At intervals, he stopped to admire a sculpture that caught his eye but his interest waned when, passing a line of what had to be representations of the gods, he spied one standing tall, clad in black armor that had fanciful gilding, gauntleted hands resting on the pommel of a massive sword. Shuddering, he turned away from it and hurried down the corridor.

  Wandering farther, choosing turnings at random, he soon found himself in what appeared to be a little used section of the Abbey. Though still cleaned on a regular basis, this corridor felt dimmer, grayer, as though without human habitation, the soul of the Abbey was thinner here.

  His ears pricked at the sound of voices drifted from around a corner ahead. He paid only enough attention to make sure he would avoid the speakers. He wanted to be alone; he had no desire to deal with grovelers or fawners. This had become a problem since his arrival. Salosian brothers and sisters, acolytes, novices, soldiers, servants: whenever he passed, they bowed and begged for his blessing. No, not begged. Prayed. At first, it had been amusing, if embarrassing. As time went on and more and more people prostrated themselves at his feet, it become a minor annoyance, then a major frustration, and it seemed that no matter how many times he begged or commanded people not to do that, they did anyway.

  He was about to rush past the corridor junction from which he heard the voices emanating, but was stopped dead by a few stray words. He sidled up to the corner to listen, pushing away the sense of guilt at the intrusion.

  “I do not trust this situation,” a voice muttered, one that he knew well. After all, the man had tutored him every day for months.

  “Yes but Kurin has Goromand's ear,” said a second voice, this one unfamiliar. “What can we do about it?”

  There was a heavy silence followed by a sigh. “We need to prove that he is not who Kurin claims.”

  “And how would we accomplish that, pray tell? Remember what he did at Threimes.”

  “We're already half way there. His power is like ours, only he remains blocked. I cannot imagine how a god could be blocked from his own power. There are several others who agree with me.

  “The boy is certainly gifted, I'll grant you that. In time, with proper training, he could be the most gifted brother in the order. But divine? Bah! He says that Gaorla Himself revealed his true identity. I think the boy is delusional. Or perhaps Kurin convinced him to lie.

  “No, I've had plenty of time to assess him. There are many words I could use to describe him and divine does not make my list.”

  “Oh?” The second voice said with a definite tinge of amusement. “And what words would you use?”

  There was a birdlike chuckle. Jurel could almost see him adjusting his spectacles. “Fractious, impatient, stubborn, undisciplined. I tell you the Abbot is too lenient on the boy. He should have been enrolled as a novice by now and given a proper course load. If I had not been burdened with such an onerous list of limitations, I would have had him unblocked weeks ago. As it is...”

  “As it is, we have a boy with massive potential who is being mistaken for the god of war. I understand. We still don't know what we can do about it.”

  “Well...”

  But Jurel could not listen to anymore. He spun on his heel and silently hurried back the way he had come.

  His mind was spinning. Could it be? Could he be no more than a powerful priest? There was evidence to the contrary; despite what Andrus said, Jurel knew he had spoken to Gaorla. And Valsa for that matter. But Andrus had a point: if Jurel was indeed a god, how was it that he could not touch his power?

  His surroundings passed by in a blur as the weight of what Andrus said pressed down on him. Perhaps Kurin had been wrong. Andrus, as he had said, had spent every day with Jurel for months. He had most definitely delved Jurel's mind more in the first week than Kurin had during all their time together traveling.

  Did Kurin's opinion count? Kurin was, after all, biased; he had been, by his own admission, searching for the God of War for decades. It had been his life's mission. He would certainly have pounced on any likely candidate to prove he had not wasted those years. Andrus, on the other hand, was a more objective observer. Upon meeting Jurel, he had neither inclination nor disinclination to believe that Jurel was the God of War. He simply had his observations to work with and apparently the conclusion to his observations was that Jurel was a pretender, or an unwitting puppet.

  But Jurel knew he had spoken to Gaorla. His father. The God of gods. Gaorla had confirmed that Jurel was the God of War.

  Upon further reflection, Jurel thought of something that shook him to his core: every time he had spoken to Gaorla, and even that once he had spoken to Valsa, he had been asleep. Had those meetings been simply the products of an overactive imagination? Could he have dreamed it all? A most disturbing idea came to him then: could those dreams have been planted?

  Arriving back at his room, he slammed the door and threw himself on his bed. The sun was low; his room pooled with shadows, edged by ruddy light that did little to alleviate the gloom which suited him just fine. As he lay there, staring into the night that was coalescing on his ceiling, the questions clamored:

  Who was he? How could he know? What should he do?

  Chapter 5

  The three men sat across the table from each other in Goromand's office, silent, each staring into his brandy with furrowed brows like fortune tellers. Between them, on the table, lay a scatter of parchment, some of the pages yellowed with age, with curled edges, and with ink in various stages of decay from somewhat legible to barely visible, while others
were crisp, clean, new sheets, a little worse for wear, but with bold black letters.

  The old pages, some of them predating the founding of Threimes were from their own archives, four levels below their chairs, some containing the words of prophecy, some containing obscure lore, all of it having to do, one way or another, with the young man Kurin had brought to them this past spring. The others: missives hastily scribbled by one or another of their agents that were spread to the four corners of the kingdom, and comprised the eyes and ears of the Salosian Order. Though some of these were months old, a few were from the last week, and two had arrived that very day.

  The network of spies was a good one as such things go, with agents in almost every village and town, almost every noble court, and almost every level of the kingdom's military hierarchy—not including the Soldiers of God; it had been tried on several occasions but it had so far proven impossible to hide an agent from the prelacy—but still information arrived too slowly. Oh there were brothers and sisters who wandered and, versed in arcanum, could Send and Scry, ensuring that the information they had garnered arrived promptly at Goromand's door, but too many of their agents were lay-folk, trusted commoners with no understanding—or in a few cases, knowledge—of arcanum, and that information often took weeks to arrive. Most disturbing when the information was of vital importance.

  Such was the case with the missive that, though seemingly just another sheet in the pile, had arrived that morning. It was why they were staring silently into their brandies. Just as the Salosians had an information network in place, so too did the king and the Grand Prelate. Agents from the three camps had butted heads often; several bodies had been found with slit throat in back alleys in the last few months. Getting information sometimes seemed a miracle; getting this information, well, it was a toss-up between miraculous and disastrous.

  It would seem, according to the writer, that the Soldiers of God had begun to muster. The garrisons at Sharong, Riverfang, and Oceanview were on the march. The Threimes garrison had already been recalled and, joined by a few outskirt detachments, had begun to overflow. There was an encampment outside the city walls to hold the new arrivals. All told, there seemed to be upwards of fifteen thousand Soldiers of God in or around the kingdom's capital with ten or fifteen thousand more expected to converge on the city within weeks. But that missive had been en route for weeks. Who knew what the prelacy had been up to since? And that did not include the Grayson garrison. The latest estimate from there, of somewhere between four and six thousand, may or may not have been accurate; that missive had arrived two months before.