Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1)

by Frances Smith

  "That is brutal," Jason said. "You were a child."

  "I loved my sister and my brother, and from my early days I loved to fight," Michael said. "It was not an onerous burden upon me."

  "You were a child," Jason repeated. "You were too young to understand what was being asked of you."

  "I am naive, perhaps, but I am not an idiot, Your Highness," Michael said. "I knew the stories, I knew what being Firstborn meant, and I was contented in my lot and my appointed destiny. I had a purpose, how many people can say the same at that age?"

  "No one should," Jason said. Children should not be raised to be saviours or warriors or slaves or lords or even good citizens. Children should be raised to be nothing more than adults, wise enough to set the courses of their own lives. He was not grateful for much about his own upbringing, but he was grateful that his life had not been set from the moment of his birth as it had been for Demodocus, Antiochus and Romana, each of whom had, in his opinion, been ruined in their own way by being born to the purple.

  "If you do not trust me enough to know what is good for me and what is bad, then surely someone ought to be making decisions for me in any event?" Michael said. He ran one hand through his hair. "Though I confess that I was never so good at the task appointed to me as I would have liked. My mother died, and I left little Felix unattended so that he could be kidnapped and murdered too. I sold myself into slavery so that Miranda would have no cause to worry about money, but now she has been kidnapped even if she knows it not, because I was not there to protect her. Highness, you are a priest are you not?"

  "Not exactly," Jason said, a little surprised by the sudden change of course. "But I have studied the higher mysteries."

  Michael nodded. "Is it the act that matters, or the intent behind it? If I sold myself into slavery because I wanted to be a slave, but at the same time used the proceeds of my sale to provide for my sister, does the selflessness of the act outweigh the selfishness of the intent?"

  "I do not know," Jason said after a moment. "I would have to consider it."

  "Do not concern yourself," Michael said. "The point I am asking you to understand, even if you do not agree, is that I cannot allow my sister to come to harm. She is the last of those I pledged to protect, and if I fail her I will never be able to meet my mother's eyes again. I cannot allow her to come to harm, any more than I could stand by and watch Amy hurt. Is there no one you would let the whole world burn to protect?"

  Jason thought about it. He thought about Sophoniba, who had taught him how to make love, about Dido, who mothered him incessantly whenever she could get her hands upon him; about Metrobia, Elissa, Jun and Hector and everybody at the House of Pleasures; about Shepherd Thersites who had introduced him to the Elder Gods, about all the people of the slums who had protected him in his flight. Would he save any of them, even all of them, if the cost would be the rest of the world entire?

  No, he would not. And he would not believe that that choice made him a bad person.

  "No," he said. "The world is too vast, and its population too numerous, for me to willingly to condemn them all out of feeling for any one person."

  Michael gave a half smile. "You care so much for all the people you do not know that for their sake you would condemn those that you do. I am both envious and repulsed."

  "Repulsed by empathy?"

  "Repulsed by the lack of loyalty your 'empathy' implies," Michael said. "For myself, it would not matter if one stranger's life or a hundred thousand stood in the balance, I would not sacrifice Miranda for their sake; nor Amy, nor Gideon or Tullia nor even you."

  "Even after what I said?" Jason said.

  Michael laughed. "If I disowned everyone who told me something I did not wish to hear I would have left Miranda to her fate. You would really turn your back on everyone you care for? Even Tullia?"

  That did make Jason pause. He owed Tullia a great deal, his life even. She had done far more to keep them alive between Eternal Pantheia and Davidheyr than he had. Did he have the right to ignore that, even for the greater good?

  Would she want him to ignore it?

  "Yes I would," Jason said. "Tullia would not want to live at the expense of others."

  "With respect, Highness, that is hardly the point," Michael said. "The question is not whether or not such a person must die, but whether you can stand to condemn them. I could not snuff the life from Amy's eyes though she begged me do it with tears in those selfsame eyes of hers. I would say I do not have the strength, but if that is strength I am not sure I want it."

  "Not even to save the world?" Jason said.

  "What profit a man to save the whole world if he lose his soul in doing, Your Highness?" Michael asked.

  Jason couldn't quite make his mind up whether that was the most monstrously selfish thing he'd ever heard or the voice of a wiser man than he was. While, looking at it with sense, it was far better to do something viscerally wrong for the greater good, he had to admit that one was likely to be much happier by taking Michael's view and standing upon high principles of personal loyalty. Certainly he would never have to live with the consequences of his deeds. Life might be much shorter, but it might be more comfortable.

  "You know, I envy you your moral certainties," Jason said.

  Michael laughed. "And I envy you your fellow feeling, Your Highness, that you can view as people those you do not know and never will."

  "It is not so hard to do," Jason said.

  "For you perhaps, Your Highness," Michael said. "For me, it is much harder." He rose smoothly to his feet. "We should return to Filia Tullia before she begins to fear that I have done you violence."

  Considering that Jason had been worried about, if not death then at least extreme violence, he did not deem it appropriate to laugh. Pushing himself upright on his shepherd's crook, he followed back over the grassy field the way he and Michael had come. Gideon, Amy and Tullia all sat around that evening's campfire, but Michael's absence meant that no sweet aroma of a tasty meal floated through the air. Dinner would be a little late tonight it seemed. Jason's stomach mourned.

  Tullia did look a little worried, her eyes were wide and she brightened visibly as he sat down obviously unharmed. Amy, on the other hand, looked rather smug.

  "He forgave you didn't he?" she said.

  "In a manner of speaking," Jason, who had yet to be entirely convinced that he required forgiveness for anything, murmured noncommittally.

  Amy nodded as she turned her attention to Tullia. "And he's not been hurt either, just like I said he wouldn't be. Do I know my boy or what?"

  "Truly, your knowledge of your old dear friend is awe inspiring," said Tullia.

  Amy glared, her green eye seeming to burn and her blue eye to freeze. "Are all servants permitted such insolent tongues?"

  "Only the indispensible ones," Tullia replied.

  Michael had trouble sleeping that night, thinking about his conversation with His Highness, and on what that conversation had done for Michael's opinion of him. More and more he found himself questioning Lady Silwa's purpose in sending him to join their company. A great mind, to be sure, but not a physical man or a natural warrior. Not a natural priest either, to Michael's conception of one. His morals were... not loose, but lax. Too much so, in Michael's mind, to stand between the common man and his gods. A priest should be pure of spirit.

  Yet his magic worked well enough, so obviously the gods did not disdain him. And, if he remembered his stories correctly, Turo's younger siblings had always been a little looser in their morality than Turo himself: lying with one another and all out of wedlock, for a start. For that matter, the Eldest One had been a rum fellow as well; it appeared that almighty Turo was the only upright personage among them.

  Michael stared up at the stars. They had not changed as much as everything else when the company had crossed out of Corona into Deucalia. The familiar constellations were a little too far to the west, but they were still there: the Ship of Simon, the Bull from the Sea, the Swor
d of Raphael; all the stars that he remembered from his childhood, when he and Felix and Amy had sat outside at night under those same stars and that same moon. Whether because Amy had had another fight with her father, because Felix was upset over something somebody had said, because Michael had been torn a new one for fighting again or just because they did not want to go home yet, they would sit on the beach, sometimes all night, locked in embrace, each drawing solace from the presence of the others.

  Much like she gave him solace now, lying on the ground snoring next to him. Just her being there gave him comfort.

  Thank you, God, and thank you, Lady Silwa, too. A more precious gift I could not have been given.

  Gideon appeared, looming over Michael's face, blocking out the stars. He whispered. "Can't sleep?"

  Michael shook his head.

  Gideon nodded, and gestured him to follow. Michael pushed himself to his feet, his hand coming away with a light dusting of mud and dew, and followed in Gideon's wake some forty paces away from the camp and the others. In the darkness, the trees of the forest of Eena were transfigured into things of menace, a host of monsters eager to cross the intervening distance between them and their prey.

  Gideon spoke again, not whispering this time but still speaking quietly, "The night weighs upon you?"

  "I thank you, Gideon, for speaking on my side this morning against the inclinations of your temperament. But now that we are alone: is His Highness correct? Am I being so stubborn the Empire will fall because of it."

  "I sincerely hope not, or I have wasted my life," Gideon said. "I cannot see the future, I do not know what will result from our present course, but I do not believe that killing Miranda is the way to save the Empire. Jason may be right, it would retard the danger for a time, but so long as Quirian lives the Empire will be under a shadow. I mean to end that shadow, not the innocent he uses as his weapons. Is this all that troubles you?"

  "It is what troubles me most, Gideon," Michael said. "What if Octavia was telling the truth, and Miranda has joined with him?"

  "You yourself told me that she must have been fed lies," Gideon said. "Are you now so doubtful of your sister's character?"

  "Do not all doubts come easier in the dark?" Michael asked.

  "To be sure," Gideon said. "But you cannot lead men forwards if you are constantly looking back. Make your decision, make your peace with it and go on. If it turns out you made the wrong choice then learn from that, but keep going either way. As things stand, you've done all right as leader so far."

  "I have faced no great crisis or challenge," Michael said. "Anyone can captain a ship in calm seas."

  "Not quite everyone, I think," Gideon replied. He sighed. "You know, you are not the first man I have hoped might be... able to do me service. That I thought might do great things for the Empire. That I put to the test, as I have tested you.

  "Lysimachus Castra, and Leonatus Dorieus. Good soldiers, personally courageous, skilled fighters, dedicated and, I thought, devoted. I took them under my wing, into my confidence, I tested them for the potential to access spirit magic, as I did you. I tested them in command, as I am testing you. I hoped that one of them might follow me in my post."

  "You are a long way from need of an heir yet," Michael said.

  Gideon smiled. "I am forty three years old. I may live another forty years or I may die in battle tomorrow. If that does happen, then the line of First Swords will be broken again as it was before I assumed the office and the total sum of my life's accomplishments will be precisely nought. I must find a successor while I still have time. Twice I thought that I found one, and twice my chosen heir betrayed me: Lysimachus to Quirian, and Leonatus to the Novar Church. I hope that I have chosen better in you."

  "That is my hope also Gideon, although..." Michael's feet shifted uncomfortably. "I would never betray you, but, as to the other: be your heir? I am-"

  "Not a servant," Gideon said with a shake of his head. "Never just an ordinary servant. I would not place my faith in an ordinary servant. And I do place my faith in you. The question is can I trust you not to shatter it a third time? I should like to be proven right about someone."

  Michael came to a rough approximation of attention. "On my honour, my lord Gideon, I swear that I'll not fail you. It would be poor repayment for all you have done for me if I disappointed you in your fondest hopes." And he would do it. In spite of all the flaws with which Turo had shackled him, he would ascend to meet Gideon's expectations. With Amy's help, and Gideon's and Tullia's and Wyrrin's and even Jason's he would rise out of the mire of his sins and shine the brightest star in Gideon's firmament. Indeed, such was the good influence of his friends and comrades on him that he felt the rising out was already done; only the rising up remained. If he lived, he would do as Gideon asked of him.

  Gideon smiled. "I have known since Davidheyr that I could count on you. You are a good boy, and a better man than you think you are. A better man than I deserve."

  "You are a lord both nobly born and valiant," Michael said. "You deserve a champion of unsurpassed strength and with a blazing fire in his soul that cannot be quenched."

  "And I thank the Empress for sending me such," Gideon said. "But that is not what I deserve. The truth is Michael, I-"

  His words were silenced in a moment by the sound of His Highness screaming.

  At that moment Michael heard Amy bellow in anger, and as he looked towards the camp he could see lightning magic flashing in the darkness.

  "Amy! Hold on!" Michael yelled as he began to run towards the camp, heedless of Gideon calling out behind him. Almighty Turo protect them. Please God keep them safe, he prayed. His legs pounded upon the soil as he ran to them, the starlight glinting off his swords as they rose and fell in his grasp.

  Michael heard an angry shout in front of him as a gladiator armed in the prolixine style - Michael's own style, with two swords and a pair of manicae for protection - erupted out of the darkness, swords swinging. Michael parried the first blow with both his swords, but the strength of his opponent bore him backwards.

  Such strength! Michael rarely felt the lesser man when it came to brute force, but though this gladiator was a stringy fellow the might he was bringing to bear was astonishing.

  There was another roar and another gladiator - he was a broadlander too - charged forward, flanking Michael. Michael leapt out of the way, and the two gladiators pursed him rapidly. Too rapidly. Michael was one of the fastest, strongest gladiators to walk the arena sands in Corona province, but the speed of these two foemen put him to shame. If he evaded their blows it was by the skin of his teeth, and once, twice, three times they nearly caught him, dealing him stinging cuts across his chest and the side of his neck. Fast and strong as well, their blows scoring his manicae as though Michael had worn slabs of meat to war instead of hard iron.

  So fast, so strong, Michael thought as he tried desperately to get away from these two relentless pursuers. He could not begin to think of counterattacking while they had him so severely outclassed, and they showed no signs of relenting their assault. How are there two gladiators so skilled whom I have not heard of?

  They dealt him another cut, slicing upwards from his side towards his shoulder. Michael winced from the stinging pain, staggering backwards. His first opponent raised his sword to split Michael's head in two.

  Abruptly, Gideon stood between Michael and his enemies, the light of the moon and stars illuminating the obsidian beauty of Piety as Gideon caught the downward stroke without flinching from the weight.

  The second man growled as he rounded on Gideon.

  Gideon spun with more grace than any dancer, evading the downward stroke of his first opponent while at the same parrying the assault of the second, counterattacking with a slashing stroke that opened the second gladiator's unprotected leg. The rebel howled in pain, and while his guard was down Michael drove forward to drive his spatha into the other man's gut.

  He saw the first gladiator's head roll across the ground a
nd looked around to see Gideon standing expressionlessly over the body as it crumpled to the earth.

  Michael retrieved his sword from the dead body. "I did not know there were too such gladiators in Corona."

  "I suspect that is because there weren't, until recently," Gideon said calmly. "I very much suspect these two men ate human hearts in order to increase their strength and speed. I told you of the practice if you recall."

  Michael felt very close to sick. "To think that the Coronim would stoop so low. We must return to the others."

  "Wait," Gideon said.

  "Why?"

  "Because I suspect that is what the enemy wants," Gideon said.

  "Michael Sebastian ban Ezekiel!" the Voice of Corona boomed out into the darkness. "Come out, that justice may be done upon you! Come out, or you may hear the last words of your dear comrades, dead from your callousness."

  "Don't do it, Michael," Amy yelled. "You have to-" she was abruptly cut off.

  Michael snarled, starting forward before he felt Gideon's hand upon his shoulder.

  "We cannot abandon them," Michael hissed.

  "I said nothing of the sort, but we must be sensible," Gideon said. "It is fair to assume that the Voice has more empowered warriors with him, not to mention his own spirit magic."

  "Have you any soulbark, Gideon?"

  Gideon hesitated. "There is no time for you to consume it and then wait for the effects to take root. We must make use of wits instead of strength."

  "Michael Sebastian ban Ezekiel!" bellowed the Voice. "Do not try my patience!"

  "What do we do?" Michael asked, his stomach freezing over with fear for his comrades in jeopardy.

  Gideon closed his eyes, his lips moving in silent prayer. "You shall answer the summons of the Voice. I must take Duty back from you." He took it out of Michael's unresisting hand before he continued. "Go to him, and try to keep him talking until I'm ready."