by Ty Johnston
Bayne nodded. “He has.”
“You saw?”
“I witnessed.”
“What did you see?”
“Your god,” Bayne said, “when he was still in mortal form. He was but a youth, barely more than a score of summers.”
“Yes,” Pedrague said. “That was how it was.”
“Verkanus executed him, envious of the boy’s growing power.”
The priest knelt on one knee and lowered his head, the staff still alight above him. “It is to my shame I was not present, that I could not save He who walked among us.”
Bayne walked forward, each step measured as to not raise false suspicions.
The priest did not look up. His head remaining facing the blooded earth of the battlefield.
Bayne halted in front of the kneeling figure and raised a hand, gripping it into a shaking fist. But then the hand opened, and he placed it with gentleness upon the priest’s head.
“It is time to rise,” the warrior said. “I will find the emperor and I will slay him, freeing your world of his corruption. You have your god’s magic, and once I am finished with Verkanus, you can discover what I wish to know.”
Pedrague looked up, his eyes misted. “Ashal is all powerful, but I am but a weak man. I do not know if I can do as you want.”
Bayne nodded once more. “At least you are being truthful with me. That is more than Verkanus gave. Stand, and hunt with me.”
Pedrague arose, and the two went into the pit to find the emperor, but the evil man had long fled.
That was the extent of Bayne’s memories of that night. He had soon parted with the mage-priest, the warrior realizing he could not be accepted by the Trodans, not after he had spilled the blood of so many of their kin. Long years would pass, many filled with blood and fire and steel. Bayne traveled across lands of many climes and peoples, through other battles and wars, always on the trail of Verkanus, his own name becoming a legend along with that of the emperor. Through it all, the Trodans believed the emperor to be dead, killed, the body missing during that final battle. Bayne had always known otherwise. Verkanus no more raised his head, but he left traces which the warrior could follow.
Bayne had walked.
Then he had climbed.
“I remember.”
“Then it must be plain I have no answers for you,” Verkanus said from his stone seat.
Bayne turned toward the emperor. “Your magic must be able to reveal something.”
Verkanus barked a laugh, holding up his hands in a pose of surrender. “Believe me, during the spare moments I have had between avoiding Trodan regiments, I have spun more than a few spells in an attempt to learn of you, Bayne kul Kanon. All attempts were futile.”
“You lie,” Bayne said.
“No,” Pedrague answered for the king. “He speaks the truth. But don’t believe for a moment he did so for your benefit. He wanted to know who you are, Bayne, in hopes of finding some manner to defeat you.”
“Is this true?” the big man asked.
Verkanus nodded. “I see no reason to lie. You have caught up with me. I suppose we will duel now, I with my magics, you with your sword.”
“There will be no duel this day,” spoke he of the shifting face.
The others glanced to the man.
“We three agreed to a truce for our gathering,” the man continued. “Our temporary accord also includes Bayne.”
“I did not agree to such,” Verkanus said.
“You do not need to.” Glaring eyes peered out from the changing faces as if they could bore into the mage-king’s soul. “It is my word and my will. Or else our truce will end here and now.”
The emperor lowered his gaze.
Bayne stepped closer to the seated triangle and rounded upon the unnamed man. “For what purpose was this truce?”
“We had much to discuss,” Pedrague said.
Bayne glanced to the priest, then back to the other man. “What sort of discussion is this, three men meeting atop this mountain? Verkanus and Pedrague I know to be men of magic. Are you a wizard, too?”
The man’s features altered again, several times in a matter of seconds. The faces that looked out were once more familiar to Bayne, but from an earlier time before he came to the mountain, from a time before he even remembered existing.
“You?” Bayne spoke out. “You were the boy who jumped from the cliff’s edge? The youth hanging from the tree? You are Verkanus’s son? The living god?”
The man answered, “I was all those things. No more.”
Bayne turned to face Pedrague. “This man is your god?”
“He was,” the priest said, bowing his head low. “He is.”
“No,” Ashal said. “I lay no claims to godhood.”
Verkanus jumped to his feet, causing Bayne to reach up and place a hand on his sword. “You fool!” the king screamed in the god’s face. “You were worshipped as divinity! You had thousands before you, worshipping you, willing to lay down their lives for you, but you turned your back on all of it!”
Ashal’s face finally settled into one set of features, those of his former self as a young man, simple but handsome with a dark head of hair. He motioned for Bayne to lower his arm.
“You were my father in that life, Verkanus,” the god said, “but remind yourself that is no longer so. Your jealousies are beyond touching me now. Please, sit, and we will continue.”
The emperor’s brow was furrowed and wet, his eyes wide and red, his chest heaving, but after another glare at his former offspring, he managed to calm himself, his breathing returning to normal, and he sat once more.
“Good,” Ashal said. He turned to Bayne. “You must forgive my former birth father. He has never grown to love the fact his son was chosen and not himself.”
“Chosen?”
“To be a god,” Pedrague cut in.
“No.” Ashal gave a sharp glance to the priest, a glance which softened almost immediately. “In my former life, I was the first true mage, a wielder of magic who did not have to resort to rituals and sacrifices.”
Bayne shook his head and closed his eyes briefly. “This is confusing. And I do not see what it has to do with me.”
“It has much to do with you,” Ashal said.
The warrior stared down at the man. “Are you a god?”
“There are no gods,” Verkanus said.
“Of course there’s a god,” Pedrague said.
Ashal grinned. “Perhaps there is a god. But if so, I am not one.”
Bayne grimaced, confusion roiling around in his head. A god who wasn’t a god, who had been a man but was hung from a tree. Yet here he was seemingly alive and well sitting atop this mountain. None of it made sense.
“It makes sense from our point of view,” Ashal said, waving a hand at the other two.
“Now you are looking into my mind,” Bayne said.
“My apologies.” Ashal grinned. “It was an accident, a mere reading of your surface thoughts. I will limit myself from doing so again.”
“Good,” Bayne said. God or not, undying or not, Bayne would not long tolerate another reading his very thoughts and turning them back upon him.
The god-who-was-not-a-god grinned all the wider, but said nothing.
“You have still not told me why you three are here,” Bayne said. “Nor have you explained what I have to do with all this.”
Verkanus snickered. “We were waiting to see if you were going to try and kill me.”
“Try?” Bayne asked, his hands at his sides tensing into fists.
Pedrague held up a hand to belay any assault by the warrior. “Verkanus is teasing you. Our purpose for being here is a complex one.”
“Explain,” Bayne said.
“We have gathered to seek a balance,” Ashal said, “a balance between good and evil and … a nonpartisan viewpoint.”
“I do not understand,” the warrior said.
“Of course you don’t, you dolt!” Verkanus nearly shouted. �
�You’re an oaf with more brains than brawn!”
Bayne raised a fist before the emperor. “Remember that you have broken a pact with me. By rights I should at the least pummel you senseless. If your insults continue, I’ll let my sword do my talking.”
Verkanus eased back on his seat and folded his arms, his lips a cruel smile.
“Bayne,” Ashal said, his voice comforting but also seeking the big man’s attention.
The warrior lowered his fist and stared at the god.
“Verkanus is immortal,” Ashal explained. “He cannot be killed. So please, ignore his posturing, as violence upon him will accomplish little.”
“Besides, there’s our truce,” the king said with spite.
Bayne rounded on Verkanus once more. “I agreed to no truce, nor would I have.”
The king snarled. Bayne snarled right back.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Pedrague pointed out. “We were speaking of a balance.”
Bayne pulled back from thrashing the emperor and tuned his attention to the others.
“Yes,” Ashal said. “The last few score years have been tumultuous ones for this world, in no small part due to the actions of Verkanus here.”
The emperor’s dark grin grew wider.
“With the execution of my former self a little more than two decades ago,” Ashal went on, “the events of this world reached a turning point. The future is being weighed, and the path it will take is being decided.”
Bayne waved a hand over the triangle of seated men. “By you three?”
“Not all of us,” Ashal said.
The warrior glanced to the god. “You mentioned a balance between good and evil. It’s obvious Verkanus represents the evils forces. Does that mean Pedrague represents the good?”
“No,” Pedrague said. “I am here merely to provide a mortal viewpoint, and as a recorder of events. I have no direct say in this matter.”
“I represent the side of good in this debate,” Ashal said, pointing a finger at Bayne. “You are our neutral party, the one who holds the future in balance.”
“Me?” Bayne took a step back in astonishment. “I have nothing to do with this world. For all I know, I am not from these lands.”
“Exactly,” Ashal pointed out. “You are a true neutral party, the balancing factor. You have no biases in helping to decide the prospects for this world.”
Pedrague stood and motioned toward the stone seat he had vacated. “Please, Bayne kul Kanon, join your rightful place.”
The warrior glanced at the flat rock. “I prefer to stand.”
Verkanus cackled.
Ashal hissed, quieting the king. “What do you find amusing?” the god asked of the emperor.
“Him,” Verkanus said, nodding toward Bayne. “He’s too obstinate to be involved with this. Why trust him with our decisions? Besides, he’s a slayer of men, a killer. Why should such a man be considered impartial?”
“I have been wondering the same,” Bayne said, for once ignoring the emperor’s slights as he pointed to Verkanus and then Ashal. “I am no immortal, unlike you two, and I have whetted my sword on many a man’s entrails. Some would consider my actions less than good.”
“But you are immortal,” Pedrague said. “Did you not know this?”
“Immortal?” Bayne said. “I heal swiftly, but I am not immortal.”
“You are,” Ashal said. “It’s another reason you were chosen for our gathering.”
“Chosen?” Bayne said. Revelation upon revelation was twisting the big man’s thoughts in upon themselves. How deep did all this go? He had believed himself simply a powerful man, a warrior born, in pursuit of Verkanus and answers. Now, it was nearly more than he could comprehend.
“I chose you,” Ashal said. “When Verkanus performed the ritual that would summon forth a demon, it was I in the mass of Trodans who hurled forth a dart to disrupt the spell. It was I who brought disorder to his magic and produced you from the heavens.”
“Why?” Bayne asked.
Ashal shrugged. “A balance was needed. Evil had been dominating the world for some time, and would have continued to do so unless measures were taken. You are the result of those measures. You are the balancer.”
Verkanus sneered again and spat onto the ground in the center of the three stone seats.
Bayne rocked back on his heels and ran a hand along his bald dome in order to give himself moments to think. He was immortal. But how? And he still did not know from whence he came.
As if reading the warrior’s mind once more, Ashal pointed to the emperor and said, “Verkanus became immortal when he discovered ancient scrolls of the Zarroc, a race which annihilated itself many millennia ago.”
“And you?” Bayne asked of the god-who-was-not-a-god.
Ashal smiled. “I am … unique. Let us say it was my fortune to be born with special talents. Unlike Verkanus here, my mortal form can be destroyed, but I continue to survive in a spiritual body until I decide otherwise. When I wish, I can incorporate myself into a physical form.”
Bayne blinked. A thousand questions ran through his mind, but what was there to say? This was all beyond the warrior’s reckoning. His existence, relatively brief for even mortals, had not taught him the ways of gods. Men worshipped, and until this day Bayne had had little belief. The world had moved, men lived and died, nations rose and fell, but Bayne had before seen little evidence gods truly existed, let alone walked the same soil as of men. To learn he was somehow connected with these divinities did little to ease Bayne’s mind. He was just a man, though possibly an exceptional one. His experience had told him nothing of how to behave in the vicinity of gods, let alone how to act if he himself were a god of some sort.
Ashal smiled again. “Bayne kul Kanon, do not worry yourself over what you do or do not know. Knowledge can be overvalued at times, and logic alone will not always suffice. Trust your instincts, and learn to yield to faith.”
“Faith?” It was Verkanus who spoke, the bitterness in his voice dripping with toxin. “You preach faith to this slayer? Where was your faith when he was slaughtering Trodans by the thousands? Where was your faith when his mind was blank and he could not recall his own past?”
“Some men have to learn faith,” Ashal said. “Perhaps Bayne has.”
The emperor sneered and waved a hand toward the warrior. “Well, Bayne, what have you learned during your days?
For this, Bayne had an answer. He stood straighter, taller, as if proud of what he had to say. “I? I have learned that men are weak. They are assaulted on all sides by many distractions, and they fall prey to nearly all of them, never seeing beyond what lies directly before them. What have I learned? I have learned humanity has much possibility, but little diligence.”
Verkanus chuckled. “Much as I expected.”
“Possibility,” Pedrague repeated Bayne’s word, then added, “that implies faith. To see that very possibility implies faith that the possibility can become reality.”
Ashal nodded. “Very good.”
Pedrague blushed and lowered his head.
“Fools!” Verkanus shouted. “Battle and slaughter, years of tireless walking, then climbing, and that is all this idiot has learned?”
Now it was Bayne who sneered. “Then tell me, oh king, what has been missing from my education.”
“Power, you fool! Among all men, you are the strongest. Invincible, immortal. You could have taken it all, by your own hand, and ruled!”
“A familiar argument,” Pedrague pointed out.
“Yes,” Ashal agreed. “The very one made to me in a former lifetime.”
Verkanus fumed, his chest heaving and his lips parting slightly to draw in leaden breaths. “Surrounded by fools,” he muttered to himself, his eyes wandering away. “Always powerful, never gaining power. What use is immortality if one does not gain by it?”
The emperor turned toward Bayne. “You have reached not only the apex of this mountain, but the apex of your experience, and yet you�
��ve learned nothing.”
The warrior glanced from king to priest to god. “This mountain? Was it to be my teacher?”
Ashal nodded. “In many ways, yes. It was a manner of preparing you for this gathering.”
“The events that transpired,” Bayne said, staring at Ashal, “were they real or false?”
“Does it matter?” Ashal asked.
Bayne thought. The battle in the village had seemed real, as did the magic of the tavern, the women of the cave and the men of the road through Stagnation. It had all seemed real. If it had been lessons he was meant to learn, then Bayne supposed he had learned them. Real or not, they were real to him. That was what was of import.
Bayne nodded. “Real enough.”
“Fool!” Verkanus said. “Illusions all!”
“Created by you?” Bayne asked of the king. “Or you?” he turned upon the god.
Ashal remained silent.
Verkanus chuckled. “Your woman doesn’t even exist! You had believed once your dealings with me were finished, you would return along your path to find your precious Valdra. But she is not real!”
Bayne waited for the emperor’s evil laughter to die. “If it was you who created such illusions, then you are powerful enough to discover from where I came, and you have lied to me that you cannot answer my questions. You have broken our bargain more than once.”
Verkanus laughed again.
He was quieted as Bayne palmed the emperor’s face.
“Enough of this,” said Bayne.
The big warrior’s strong fingers wrapped around the skull and he squeezed. There was a shrill cry, followed by the cracking of bone as the emperor’s face imploded, then silence. Red jelly seeped between Bayne’s digits before he tossed Verkanus to one side.
“Let us see how you enjoy eternity without a head,” Bayne said.
The emperor’s faceless figure twitched and jiggled for several moments, then came to a standstill.
“Thus the balance has been reached,” Ashal said with a bow of his head.
A sudden intake of breath caused Bayne to glance up at Pedrague. The priest stood as if stone, his features stretched in horror. The warrior moved so that his large body shielded the image of Verkanus from the priest.
