by Ben Peek
Instead, he turned his gaze to the broken spike of the cathedral, to the people who moved in its crown, and through the broken buildings beneath it.
He saw a small group on top, but could not make out who they were. They were gathered around one person – a body, perhaps – and though a part of Bueralan’s mind whispered to him, he could not clearly identify it. The bird began to descend and, on the streets around the cathedral, he saw small groups of Leerans on the ground, captured and unarmed.
He saw the god-touched, then. They lay at the edge of the city, their bodies staked to the ground and their heads severed and rolled away from the remains.
Aelyn landed not far from them, dirt whipping up around them as she did. As the shape of the bird disappeared and the wind’s embrace left Bueralan, a bearded man approached Aelyn. With a glance first at Bueralan and the horses to see if they were okay, she gave Bueralan a nod and began to walk towards the man. In response, the two greys stamped their hooves, pleased to be on solid ground. That left Bueralan with the god-touched bodies. At the sight of them, he pressed his hand against his side, at the blood-dried cloth, at the wound that did not heal the way he had known it to do so recently, and did not heal in the way it had known it to once do, either.
Leaving the greys, Bueralan walked down the line of severed heads and named them. It gave him no pleasure to do so, but he wanted to know who was there, and who was not.
Aela Ren was not there.
But Kaze was there. Joqan, Ai Sela, and all the others who had stood with the Innocent.
‘Well, if isn’t the Baron of Kein,’ a voice said from behind him. ‘You missed the fighting.’
He turned: the Captain of the First Queen’s Guard, Lehana, stood two steps in front of him. She had taken off her black-and-red armour and wore a sweat-stained heavy black shirt and black leather pants. Her bastard sword sat on her hip and her right hand rested on its hilt casually, more for perch than for threat. Very briefly, Bueralan thought the sight of her meant that the First Queen was alive. But on the arm of her shirt was a red-and-black insignia, an empty globe over it, and he knew that she was not.
‘I was never much of a baron,’ he said and offered her a hand. ‘How should I refer to you now, Captain?’
‘Lehana will be fine.’ She shook his hand and gave him a crooked smile. ‘I’m a lieutenant at the moment.’
‘There can be only one Captain of Refuge.’
‘He would say there were many before him.’
‘It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?’ Bueralan said. ‘Where is Heast?’
‘In the cathedral. The fighting is almost done here and they’re debating what to do with the body of the new god.’ She nodded over the edge, where the sounds of battle still could be heard. ‘The Lord of Faaisha assures us the fighting will be done by morning. The Captain is keen to leave Ranan shortly afterwards.’
Se’Saera was dead? A part of him didn’t believe it. It was as if a soft, nagging voice in his head said to him that it was a lie.
‘Since you’re here,’ Bueralan said, changing the topic. ‘Am I right to assume that the Queen survived Cynama?’
‘She died in Vaeasa,’ Lehana said simply as the two of them left the bodies and walked down the road. ‘The loss of her Voice broke something in her, I think. Whatever held her illness at bay could no longer do so.’
The two passed soldiers from Refuge, the Brotherhood and the Saan, each tending to their wounded, or pulling the dead into a long line to be identified. It looked like the aftermath of every battle Bueralan had ever seen and he found it both familiar and sad. He would never forget how hollow it felt to find a friend dead after you had won. As if to further remind him of the point, he saw Kal Essa at the end of the line, before the stairs began. He stood over a body, tears streaking down his face, unashamed.
‘How bad were your losses?’ Bueralan asked quietly as they walked up the stairs.
‘Heavy,’ she admitted. ‘We lost one hundred and four in Refuge. The Brotherhood – I don’t know what their original number was, but about eighty are still standing. Together we might scrape a hundred and fifty to hold a line, now. The Saan might reach a hundred. I heard that they were five hundred strong when they left Yeflam. But for all that, it could have been worse. It could have been all of us.’
Inside the cathedral, a pair of soldiers greeted Lehana. Behind them, beams of wood, broken stone and other debris filled the room, and Bueralan could not see the dais or pews. The first of the soldiers, a muscular woman with short black hair and dark black skin, whom Lehana called Oya, wore the same heavy black clothing. On her shoulder was Refuge’s insignia. ‘Eidan and another went upstairs,’ she said. ‘He didn’t share her name.’
‘Did you ask?’
‘Aelyn,’ Bueralan said, before the soldier could reply. ‘Aelyn Meah.’
The second, an olive-skinned woman with grey hair, and who wore dirty, mismatched leather, laughed. ‘I told you.’
‘Shut up, Qiyala.’
The soldier laughed harder. ‘And you wonder why I outrank you.’
Lehana laughed, but offered them only a wave before she led Bueralan past the debris and to the stairs on the damaged side of the cathedral. The stairs were not all made from wood now: some were made from stone and bled into the broken steps. The stone had the appearance of being drawn from the broken wall that lay around him and, as he climbed towards the top of the building, Bueralan found that he could stare out into the night sky and down into Ranan clearly.
In the broken crown of the cathedral, Bueralan and Lehana saw Aelyn and the bearded man who had met her outside. He looked familiar, and it was not until he turned to him and nodded that Bueralan realized he had been the builder he had seen a year ago in Ranan: the man who had made the city from the ruins of the one that had been stripped by the Leerans. He had grown a beard since then, to hide a series of scars on his face, and he moved slowly, as if he was injured. But what surprised him most was the sight of Aelyn Meah reaching out gently, as if to comfort him, to reassure herself that he was there.
Beyond the two, Bueralan found Heast and a young witch in sweaty, dirty clothes. She was introduced to him as Anemone, but he had already guessed who she was.
They stood beside the body of Aela Ren.
For a moment, Bueralan was not sure he believed what he saw. Ren was heavily burned, and there were wounds across his face and stomach, but the scars that had so heavily defined the Innocent could still be seen.
‘Who killed him?’ he asked.
‘Samuel Orlan’s apprentice.’ Heast offered him a faint smile that did not reach his blue eyes. ‘I guess the apprentices of cartographers do make careers in war.’
‘More is the pity,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
He was surprised to find that he actually felt a certain amount of sadness at the sight of Aela Ren. He had not felt that earlier when he had seen the god-touched. Troubled by it, he turned away from the body, away from Heast, Anemone and Lehana, and to the young, brown-skinned girl he had seen on the Spine of Ger, a lifetime ago.
She stood stiffly, favouring her left leg, a bandage wrapped around her left shoulder, blood soaking through it. Beside her stood Zaifyr, who looked, or so Bueralan thought, as if he would fall over at any minute, but surprisingly he was still alive. Next to him stood a man in a cloak of green feathers, and an old woman who held a staff, on which a large white raven perched.
They stood around Se’Saera.
We are victorious. The god’s voice appeared in his head, the faint scratch of a voice he had heard since arriving clear to him now. With a frown, he walked towards her kneeling body. Today, my loyal Faithful, we have vanquished those who would stand against us. We have stood against those who would say that we do not deserve our fate. They would have chosen to keep the world in its godless state. They would have let the emptiness inside their souls define the world.
Her beautiful white face was broken. In the fractures, he thought he c
ould see movement, like an ocean, a darkness that pulled at his mind, threatening to sweep him away.
But we have denied them, Se’Saera continued. They have brought against us the strongest that they have, but it has not been enough. Look at the heads that Aela Ren and his kin hold for you. We will not forget the names of these people. The captains and the immortals who came against us. We shall remember Aned Heast and Kal Essa, we shall remember Ayae and Jae’le, Eidan and Tinh Tu. Without them, there are no more who can stand against us. No more who can force us to keep this dying world as if it were our responsibility. We can remake now. Our sun can be brought to one orb. Our ocean cleaned of poison. Your faith makes a new world possible.
‘You hear her, don’t you?’ Zaifyr said, as he turned to Bueralan. ‘Her lips move, but you are the only one who hears.’
‘She is giving a speech to her Faithful,’ he said. ‘She believes that Aela Ren and others are holding up your heads.’
The other man did not look surprised. ‘She is trapped within another fate,’ he said. ‘It is the fate I saw. The one where she wins today.’
‘And we die?’ It was Aelyn who spoke, who came up behind Bueralan, with Eidan, Heast, Anemone and Lehana. ‘Is that what happens?’
‘We don’t all die,’ Bueralan said.
‘No,’ Zaifyr agreed. ‘Not all. But enough.’
We are victorious, Se’Saera said, again. Today, my loyal Faithful, we have vanquished those who would stand against us. We have stood against those who would say that we do not deserve our fate. They would have chosen to keep the world in its godless—
‘She is repeating herself,’ he said. ‘As if she is caught in a moment of time.’
‘She is dying like her parents,’ the old woman, Tinh Tu, said. ‘In bits and pieces. The divinity will escape her, as it has the others.’
‘We should take precautions still,’ Eidan said. ‘At least so that the Faithful cannot move her and create a shrine.’
‘That will happen, no matter what,’ the green-cloaked man – Jae’le, Bueralan assumed – said with a touch a cynicism. ‘It will be two or three generations before the Faithful are no more.’
Bueralan turned, ignoring their voices, ignoring Se’Saera, and walked back to Aela Ren’s body. He did not know why. After all that the man had done, after all the pain and suffering he had caused, Bueralan did not know why the sight of him dead bothered him. A monster had died. He had never believed that the Innocent would be redeemed. Even Ren himself had known that death was the only end for him.
After a moment, Ayae came up to stand beside him. ‘You doing all right?’ she asked.
‘Not really.’ He glanced at the girl. ‘You know about Orlan?’
‘They found him and a woman earlier. There are so many dead I don’t know who to cry for first.’ She looked down at Aela Ren. ‘Was he a friend—?’
‘No,’ Bueralan said. He nodded at the fallen sword, near the body. ‘You should take it. It’ll be balanced for you.’
‘I don’t think I want that.’
‘If not you, it’ll go to some treasure hunter, some swordsman wanting to make a name.’ He gave a slight, matter-of-fact shrug. Before he left, he said, ‘People won’t believe he’s dead until they see it on someone.’
The evacuation of Ranan went on well into the hot day, past the morning’s sun and its humidity, past the first heavy shower during midday’s sun, and the second, and into the afternoon’s, when the rain began to fall again, but constantly. The evacuation was done professionally, the soldiers and the prisoners in the outer parts of the city removed first, the horses that waited outside collected, and then those who had been on the upraised centre of the city. Until he left, Bueralan heard Se’Saera’s voice, repeating her victory speech, her claim that she could make the world whole.
Outside Ranan, he stood apart from the others, stood beside the two greys. With the two horses, he watched the rain wash the streets clean.
Once the evacuation was complete, Aelyn and Eidan walked down to the edge of Ranan. The combined forces watched silently as the former Keeper of the Divine took the hand of the man next to her. The ground shuddered at their touch and, as if in connection to that, the sky turned dark and the rain began to intensify. With a massive groan, the ground began to tear itself apart and the head that held the cathedral aloft began to rise. Bit by bit, a giant began to pull itself from the ground, its hands revealed as roads broke and houses crumbled. As it did, a figure began to emerge from the thick, storming sky, as well. This one did so in streaks of lightning and with the rain defining its hands and torso. It pulled itself from the clouds in a mirror of the giant’s action below it. Bueralan thought that it looked as if two creatures from two different worlds were splitting open the fabric of reality to reach each other. When they did, when their heads were of such a height that they were side by side, but reversed, they reached out to each other, to touch the other through the barriers of their worlds. In doing so, they split each other apart: the storm took the earth, the earth the storm, and the bodies of the giants broke apart and became a single vortex that twisted together.
For a minute, the maelstrom roared as the two were destroyed and reformed, until, in a slowly building silence, the two giants became one, and the Crypt of Se’Saera was revealed.
It took the form of a sexless giant who sat on the ground. It sat on crossed legs, its arms folded together in its lap, and its head lowered, as if in meditation. Yet, for all that its rocky body was sexless, it was awash with storms and winds, each of them allowing for the impression of sex to be granted. As Bueralan watched, the giant went from male to female, to combinations of both, and none, the weather trapped within the space of the body forced into a localized ecology that would act as a barrier to any who tried to search the inside of the giant for the body of the last god.
Epilogue
Postscript to Histories, Year 1029
This book was delivered to Leviathan’s End two months after the Battle of Ranan. It was given to the Captain of Jao by an anonymous courier on the docks of Tnegt in Zoatia. The Captain says only that the bearer was a plain, average man, no different from a thousand other couriers he has seen throughout his life.
The book is bound in leather and printed on the fine paper I have used for all the recent volumes of my Histories. The typeset is the same, as well. Yet it was not printed on the press I keep in the hold of this ship, and neither, despite the clear use of my voice, is it written by me.
If this book is a hoax, it is an elaborate one. If it is not, if it is a true account of a history that has not taken place, then the questions about its authorship, printing, and arrival here are ones for which I have no answer.
—Onaedo, Year 1025
1.
Beneath the morning’s sun, Zaifyr walked through torn grass and broken stone until his legs began to hurt. Gently, he eased himself onto a piece of the Spine of Ger to rest.
Being dead, he had discovered over the last three weeks, left a man weak. A long walk made his legs tremble and his body sweat. He could not lift a sword for long. He fell asleep in the saddle. He did not remember being so weak when he awoke in the crooked tower a thousand years ago, but he did not remember much of those first years. In contrast, the three weeks since he had woken in Ranan were clear to him. He had found a new world and he was keen to experience it all, even if that meant days of building his strength back up.
The full extent of the world’s changes had not been fully apparent in Ranan. In the cathedral, Zaifyr had struggled with his weakness and with ensuring that he was not overwhelmed by the dead around him. The latter was no different from any battlefield, but even through that, he had been able to notice the changes in his family. It was as if they had been given a renewed focus, a purpose that had been lacking in the last hundred years. They had also embraced Ayae. She returned it, if awkwardly, and uncomfortably at times, but he had not understood the extent of that embrace until after Ranan, until after the six of t
hem rode to the Plateau.
The trip was made at the request of Aned Heast, who had asked, not of him, or Ayae, but Jae’le, to return an old cloth-wrapped sword to the shamans for him.
Zaifyr had never liked the Plateau. He could see the ancient dead trapped in the ground, and hear their voices, full of anger and threats, each time he walked across it. But he could not see them when he entered the Plateau. At first, Zaifyr thought it was because he had closed down his senses in Ranan, but curious now, he opened himself to all of the dead. He expected his senses to be assaulted by the old, trapped haunts, and those who lingered in cold and hunger, but instead, he saw only a pair of women, walking ahead of him. They were old women – sisters, he knew immediately – but they did not stop for him. Instead, they continued in the direction they were originally walking, until they disappeared.
Zaifyr did not speak a word of what he saw, afraid that talking about it might make it untrue, until he met the shaman. The old white man had a ruddy complexion beneath shaggy white hair. He wore an old brown robe and a faded blue scarf and it was the latter that revealed him to them after he appeared on the flat, empty grasslands. He was on foot and alone, but did not hesitate as he approached the six of them.
After he took the sword from Jae’le, he turned to Zaifyr.
‘May I ask you a question, ancient one?’ After he nodded, the shaman asked, ‘For the last week, we have watched the dead disappear. Do you know where they go?’
