The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  And then something moved at the corner of his eye.

  He turned. His feet left the ground. The air rippled around him, flinging him helplessly into the air. Annis stood beside him, a hand up and two fingers extended.

  “Ambient light can be gathered and bent in a single location,” he said in a soft monotone. “A skilled wizard can sculpt this to his liking, creating an illusionary image. Remember this.”

  Annis flicked those two fingers. And like dust from his coat, Dreadaeleon went flying. He tumbled shrieking through the air before he collided with a nearby building. He rolled down its wall, onto the cloth canopy of its awning, and split through it. He was scrambling to his feet almost as soon as he hit the stones.

  His body was in agony that went deeper than his two impacts. He had expended too much of himself in that last expulsion of fire, he knew, poured too much of himself into the spell. He felt feverish, his body an oven in which the rest of him was cooking.

  But he couldn’t worry about that now. He couldn’t worry about anything but Annis as the Lector came walking, calmly as he pleased, toward Dreadaeleon.

  The boy roared once more. He thrust two fingers out. The lightning raced along his arm, gathered at his fingertips in an orb of electricity. Another word and it flew, an azure bolt arcing across the sky and streaking unerringly toward Annis.

  And then, suddenly, it veered. It twisted and struck something just above the Lector’s head.

  Dreadaeleon shrieked in frustration, throwing one more bolt, then another, all to the same effect. When his temper died enough to let him see clearly, he was gasping for air and his knees were trembling. And the Lector kept coming, a single finger raised above his head.

  There something dull and metallic shone. A featureless metal cylinder, suspended by magic above the Lector’s head. It crackled with latent electricity.

  “Lightning is powerful, but obeys certain laws,” Annis said, still just as calm as before. “It will always seek out metallic targets unless it is controlled with discipline and practice. Remember this.”

  Dreadaeleon had no time to retort. He was already running. He couldn’t be cornered, couldn’t be trapped. He needed room to move.

  He found it as he skidded to a stop in the square. He turned to Annis and breathed deeply and called his power to mind. The air in his lungs felt sharp and rasping. The spell was dangerous, interfering with his bodily function, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t.

  He expelled his breath. It turned to a cloud of white frost before him. He reached within it, shaping the shards of ice and stacking them atop each other into several dagger-sized icicles. He thrust his hand into the cloud, sending each shard shrieking out of the cloud and toward Annis.

  The Lector met each one with a wave of his hand. Fire blossomed from his palm, roaring to life for just as long as it took to melt each icicle and turn the ensuing water to steam that hung around him in a halo.

  “Frost comes from moisture in the breath,” he said. “It can be condensed and turned to ice. When it is melted, it does not disappear, merely changes. The energy spent can be energy conserved.”

  He drew in a breath. The steam rushed into the Lector’s mouth. An instant later it emerged as another cloud of frost, bigger than Dreadaeleon’s had been. And what formed inside was no dagger, but a large boulder of ice.

  “Remember this.”

  The last words Dreadaeleon remembered before the icy rock flew out of the cloud. The words that still rang in his ears as he struggled to find the power to block it—force to repel it, fire to melt it. The words that echoed in his bones as the ice struck him in the chest and shattered and knocked him to the ground.

  He lay there, barely breathing, barely thinking, let alone moving. His shit was reluctant to return to him, it seemed; why would it when he just kept getting it beaten out of him?

  He heard the sounds distantly, as though from beneath a great deal of water. Many boots approaching—Venarium agents who had been lying in wait, no doubt. Obviously there so Annis could have the glory.

  You stupid ass, he told himself. Is it not obvious they were afraid of losing more to you? He was protecting them.

  He had the wit to curse himself, at least. So he couldn’t be entirely dead. Now if only he could move.

  But his limbs, frozen and numb, would not respond. And he lay there in place as many shadows fell over him. And he lay unmoving as Annis stood just over his head and looked down, disdainfully.

  “Venarie is a limited resource,” he said. “It comes from within the body. Discipline is its strength, emotion its anathema. A wizard in the throes of rage is a wizard burning too quickly. Remember this.”

  “Why?” Dreadaeleon croaked. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I wanted to kill you. When Lector Shinka brought word of your atrocities, I wanted to incinerate you and leave nothing left. She talked me down, made me realize that there was still protocol to be followed, still laws that we are beholden to.

  “This is how I remind myself of the difference between us, Dreadaeleon. It is law that makes the Venarium strong. It is law that makes a wizard strong. It is law that makes me a wizard.”

  He stared, flatly, into Dreadaeleon’s eyes.

  “And you merely a little boy who likes watching things burn.”

  Annis spared a brief glance for the Venarium who had surrounded him. “Return him to Tower Resolute. Prepare him to be Harvested in no more than five days’ time. You needn’t worry with shackles or Charnel Hounds.”

  He turned his back to Dreadaeleon. The sound of his boots echoed in the boy’s ears as he walked away.

  “He is no threat to anyone.”

  ACT THREE

  THE GRAVE OF GODS

  THIRTY

  HIS WORD

  The One Thousand and Seventy-Sixth Year

  Rhuul Khaas

  When I stand upon the highest tower, on a night that is cold and clear, I can just barely see them.

  Torches. At the very edge of my domain, I see them approaching from the west. They almost look like fireflies from here, tiny little things that I could crush between two fingers before wiping their remains off on my robes.

  Two weeks ago I could barely see them. They looked less like fireflies and more like the stars one sees after shutting one’s eyes.

  Two months ago I had only just heard of them. They were the excited babble of a local fool; we locked him away, lest he upset the people.

  Five years ago they did not exist.

  An army, they call themselves. Not merely an army, but the army. A union of mortals, under the watchful eyes of heaven, marching from their abodes with the intent to depose those faithful shepherds who watched over them for so many thankless centuries.

  Five years is nothing to beings like us. A mere blink of the eye. Yet in the moment between my eyes’ closing and opening, they struck.

  I am told that Avictus has fled his citadel, the mortal armies pursuing him north into the mountains. I am told that Vashamond has been cut to pieces in his own courtyard. I am told that Ulbecetonth and all her children have been cast into a dark place to rot for eternity.

  And now I am told that they are coming for me.

  The House of the Vanquishers, some call them. As though we are fit to be vanquished. As though we are some cruel oppressors, grinding our charges beneath our heels. As though we are slaveholders, tyrants, demons to be cast down to fit whatever grotesque narrative they weave about us.

  Do these mortals, I wonder, speak of the sacrifices we have made? Do they speak of all the sleepless years I toiled to cure their diseases? Do they speak of the heartbreak I underwent, watching them suffer so that I might understand them better? Do they speak of the law I have brought, that mortal need no longer view his neighbor as meat to be consumed?

  Of course not. The wretches. The swine.

  They look upon the diseases I have cured and scream, “Unnatural!” They look upon the knowledge I obtained from dead flesh and scr
eam, “Butcher!” They look upon the law I have brought and scream, “Tyrant!”

  All my work. All the blood and suffering. All of it, invalidated, branded as crime, worth nothing. Just with a few words.

  I will not lie, it does enrage me. Rage is the burden of the learned, those who demonstrate reason to the primitive and are met with dull stares and slack jaws. And yet, for all this fury, I cannot help but feel pain.

  Pain at their betrayal. Pain at their ignorance. Pain at their shallow beliefs.

  They claim that the gods have commanded them to rise up against us. They claim that heaven is watching them with interest. They claim that once this is over, they will raise their swords to the skies and be met with a vast and radiant light.

  They do not know that they will see only emptiness and silence.

  For if the gods were listening, why would I exist? If the gods were kind, why would they have sent me to fix their problems? If the gods cared, why is it I that have spent so long curing their sick, healing their wounded, finding their lost, correcting their mistakes?

  All I have done for the mortals…

  And it is not my name they chant.

  Oerboros recommends we flee. Kyrael agrees with him. I have assured them that this will not happen. Mortals are lambs. They may bite, but it is out of fear and not malice. They require guiding hands and strong discipline.

  The mortal armies may come. They may knock at my very door. They may scream as many obscenities as they like. But they will learn, just as all have learned. They will learn that the heavens do not open up. They will learn that the gods do not watch.

  They will learn that whenever they cry out in the dark, the only one listening is me.

  From the annals of His Lament

  The Sorrow of Khoth-Kapira

  He Who Saw the World Crumble

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE ROAD OF THE DEAD

  Master Sekhlen is the one who trained us. He’s the one who found me. He told us our destiny and what we have to…”

  Lenk hummed, only half-listening to Shuro as she spoke. His ears were trained on the jungle, his eyes scanning the depths of its foliage.

  “… not to say that it’s all duty. That’s a lot of it, but it’s to be expected, right? When you can do something no one else can, you have to do it. But we make time for…”

  The Forbidden East had proven entirely deserving of its name in their sojourn through its dense underbrush. Creeping vines, swarming insects, prowling gaambols were all common sights. And while they had yet to encounter one of the pointy-eared fiends, evidence of shictish presence was everywhere.

  “… like this one time, Cheloe—one of the newer initiates—actually said to Sekhlen, ‘How was I supposed to know the sword was sharp?’ I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so…”

  Danger lurked behind every tree trunk and within every canopy. And every noise from every shadow could be something ready to kill them. Hence it was simply good planning to do everything in pairs, watching each other’s back: sleeping, eating, traveling…

  “… I guess this must sound strange, but sometimes the monastery feels more like a family than my actual…”

  Even bathing.

  It hadn’t been Lenk’s idea, of course. That is, bathing had seemed like a good idea—there were bugs to scrape off, wounds to clean, that sort of thing. And when they happened upon a pool left by one of the Lyre’s trickling tributaries, it had seemed almost like a divine command, as though the gods themselves were telling him that he smelled like shit.

  He had been happy to stand watch and let Shuro take the first bath.

  Or he would have been happy, at least. Had Shuro not insisted he get in.

  And then followed, herself.

  While there were a few reasons this made Lenk terribly uncomfortable, the foremost one was the fact that it was hard to hear what might be out there in the jungle as Shuro continued to go on about the monastery, her fellow initiates, this Sekhlen fellow…

  Granted, nothing had come out at them yet. No shicts or gaambols leaping out of the foliage to rip them apart. But Lenk couldn’t help but be nervous. Standing as he was in the pool, his clothes in a heap on the rocky edge, he was aware of just how much of him was present to be ripped.

  And so he watched the surrounding foliage. He watched the water tumble through the rocks down a slope to gather in the small basin that formed the waist-high pool. He watched every twitching branch and rustling bush and everything but the water. He forgot bathing entirely.

  “Hey!”

  That is, until he felt someone splash cold water on his bare back.

  He whirled without thinking and, at first, saw her smile. He saw lips that could smile so easily, despite the blood that had painted her face in past days, and eyes that looked softer than he knew a person’s eyes could be after seeing what she had seen. What they both had seen.

  “Are you even listening to me?” she asked.

  He was now. He couldn’t pay attention to anything but her.

  She stood, naked and unafraid, in the pool, hands on hips that he hadn’t noticed before. Her hair hung in damp silver strands, draped over her shoulders and down to her breasts. Her body was lean, corded with the muscle that came from a strictly regimented lifestyle and yet possessed of slopes that he only now saw. Her skin was pale, unscarred, and it looked so terribly soft. He hadn’t noticed this, either, when she had held her sword.

  Once a man or a woman picked up a weapon, they ceased to be. Their hopes and their fears were no longer important, nor even relevant. All that they were, all that anyone cared about, was in the edge of their blade. People only thought they wielded weapons. But it was they who were wielded. Lenk had never looked past the sword in Shuro’s hands.

  Somehow he had forgotten she was a woman.

  But she never had.

  She still stood there, naked and smiling as if there were absolutely nothing wrong with that. As if there weren’t things out there that wanted to kill them. She simply stood, unashamed, letting him stare at her.

  And he did so. He did until he looked down at his own body. At the wiry mass of muscle tightly packed beneath flesh dotted with scars and healed wounds, reminders of when he had been too slow or too clumsy, reminders of where he had failed the sword he held.

  Somehow he had forgotten he was a man.

  But she never had.

  “Hey.” Shuro’s hand was on his arm, warm despite the chill of the water, soft despite the calluses on her fingers. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I…” He muttered something else he couldn’t hear. He slowly shuffled in place, turning away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

  “To what?”

  “You know, to stare.”

  “At what?”

  He glanced back at her. “You’re naked.”

  “Yeah. And?” She shrugged. “If your eyes bothered me, I probably wouldn’t have taken my clothes off in front of you.” Her grin returned. “What’s it matter, anyway? We all bathe together where I’m from.”

  “Not where I’m from,” Lenk said.

  “Well,” she said, “we’re not there, are we?”

  She said it simply. Yet it hit him all the same.

  No, they were not where he was from. Granted, that had always been a nebulous thing; he hadn’t had a home since Steadbrook burned down. But he had found a sort of solace in the people he had left behind, one that he had hoped to take with him to Cier’Djaal. Now that city, that solace, those people, they were all gone.

  This jungle was not Cier’Djaal.

  These beasts were not his people.

  This woman was not…

  He closed his eyes. The next breath he took was cold. He almost didn’t feel it when her hand slid up his arm and onto his shoulder.

  “How is it this easy for you?” he asked without looking at her. “How do you just put down your sword like that?”

  “I just put it down,” Shuro said.

  “No, I mean—”r />
  “I know what you mean.” She reached up, touched his cheek, and drew his face toward her. “And the answer is still the same. I do my duty, what I was made to do, and then I stop. A blade ever honed. A storm ever brewing. I am a slave to no god, no king, no man.” She smiled softly. “And I am Shuro. I am a woman. I like rainy days, I save half the sweet cake I get after dinner for breakfast in the morning, and think pomegranates are a fruit you eat only if you like the taste of tarantula ass.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. “And it’s just that easy, is it?”

  “It’s not easy. It just is.” She rolled her shoulders. “I’ll show you, when we’re done.”

  “When we’re done?”

  “When Khoth-Kapira is stopped and everything’s finished, I’m going back to the monastery.” She looked at him earnestly. “I think you should come with me.”

  The answer came more as a reflex. “Thanks, but I’ve never been much for staying in one place.”

  “Well… you’ve never tried, have you?”

  He opened his mouth to retort, but found nothing to say. She was right; the life he’d had before wasn’t even a memory anymore. And since he had pulled his grandfather’s sword from Steadbrook’s ashes, he hadn’t stopped wandering, hadn’t stopped killing.

  Hadn’t he set out to stop in the first place?

  “If you don’t like it, then no one will stop you from leaving,” Shuro said. “And if you’ve got anywhere else to go…”

  She let the question linger. Her eyes finished it. Her intent stare was alive with curiosity where there had been only hardness before. The corner of her mouth quavered in a nervous smile.

  And Lenk couldn’t help but feel a grin of his own at the possibility, a grin that grew broader with each moment his eyes lingered on Shuro’s smile.

  A monastery might not be Cier’Djaal, but was that such a bad thing? When he departed he had thought only of the good he was giving up: the home he had never found, the wealth that would never be his, the peace he couldn’t seem to hold on to. Now, far removed from the city, he could see what else he was leaving behind: streets ruled by violence, people crushed beneath coin, a world where men ate men instead of bread.