The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire

by Collings, Michaelbrent

  Then, with that, he disappeared through a door behind the altar.

  Sword sat where she was for a long time. Not sure what to do. Not sure if she even believed what Brother Scieran had said about the door being unlocked. She remembered the first night of her test to become a Blessed One; remembered Armor telling her that if she had left her room she would have been killed.

  Surely something like that had to be happening here. Didn't it?

  She went to the front door of the cathedral. Opened it. It swung wide on well-kept hinges that moved without sound. As soon as it was open the sensations of a village rebuilding itself flooded her senses. Sounds of hammering, of voices raised in commands to "move this" and "raise that" and "just a little to the right so I can… yes, like that!" The taste of dust in her mouth, kicked up by dozens of feet working – and, she realized after hearing Brother Scieran's description of the time restrictions they had – working as fast as they could. The sun beating on her, as it would be beating on the workers. The smell of dust and sweat and people working together in a combination of grief and determination.

  She moved into the world beyond the cathedral. Stepped forth without realizing she had done so.

  She did not fall. No one struck her down. This was not a test.

  Different than what was done to me at the palace.

  The realization made her uncomfortable. What could it mean, that these people – these outlaws – would not strike her down, when the Emperor – the good Emperor, whose kindness had saved her from the kennels – had been willing to do so.

  And what of the kennels? Why would someone let those exist? Why would a good ruler let boys and girls of so few Turns kill one another for sport?

  That had been Brother Scieran's question, and she tried to banish it from her mind.

  It kept coming back.

  She wandered among the ruins of the town. Some of the people working – most of them – ignored her. Busy with tasks, unaware of the wanderer among them. A few of them noticed her, and most who did made the sign of the Gods and spat on the ground.

  She felt like protesting. Like saying, "No, I didn't know!"

  But I did know. I was killing a criminal.

  He was a criminal. He had to die.

  (did he?)

  The voice that spoke doubt was small, so small she could barely hear it.

  But it was there.

  She came upon a little girl. She looked like she had barely seven Turns. Perhaps fewer. She was struggling to lift a large board, a broken piece of wood that was nearly as big as she was. It was clearly an impossible task, but the little girl just as clearly refused to give up. She bent over again to lift it. Failed. Again. Failed. Again.

  Sword lifted the other end.

  "Thank ye," said the little girl. "I'd've done died wi'out help."

  "You're welcome," said Sword.

  "'Course, that no be true," said the girl. "I didn't die when the soldiers come, so I reckon I don't die now. Less'n they come again, eh?"

  She said it matter-of-factly, and Sword began to tremble. She recognized in this little girl the fatalistic attitude she herself had worn when a Dog: the realization that death could come at any time, the need to accept it or go mad.

  This girl is no Dog, yet her entire life is a kennel.

  (would a good emperor permit this?)

  She helped the girl move three more pieces of wood. Then a woman Sword guessed must be the girl's mother came and took the girl away, leaving nothing but backward glances and a trio of boards that had been moved to prove their exchange had ever happened.

  It all felt like a dream. A nightmare.

  She went back to the cathedral.

  She sat with head in hands. For hours. She heard motion nearby a few times, perhaps Brother Scieran, but did not look up. Someone put down something that clanked and she smelled bread. She did not look up.

  Someone took the thing away with another clank. The bread smell dissipated.

  A hand fell on her shoulder. She looked up. Her eyes ached from staring at her feet for so long.

  Brother Scieran sat beside her. "You're not convinced, I know," he said. "And that's all right. But I've more to show, and I think you doubt enough that you'll be willing to come, at least."

  She stood without words. Went with him to an air-car that waited just outside the village. It was night, but the villagers still worked by the light of glo-globes that had been placed here and there along the rough roads of their once-home.

  Sword saw the little girl, who waved at her.

  Sword waved back. And felt like a liar as she did so. A wolf among the sheep.

  She got on the air-car.

  Wind and Cloud were there, and no sooner had she and Brother Scieran entered the cabin than Cloud raised his hand. The air-car thrust forward as though shoved by a giant hand. Soon it was moving faster than any air-car Sword had ever ridden in.

  "Cloud's Gift," said Brother Scieran. "He controls the clouds. He can shape storms, call down lightning and channel it into deadly strikes. He's using his Gift to push us at what is basically the edge of a small, contained hurricane." He turned to Wind. "Wind controls air. She can manipulate it, make it hard as steel, move it to and fro. She can create a shield, a sword, all of it bound to her and as real – though invisible – as the swords you wield."

  "But… I thought all Blessed Ones either served the Empire or died," said Sword.

  "As they do," said Brother Scieran. "But these are not Blessed Ones. The ones who fight against the Empire call themselves the Cursed Ones. Our little joke, you see," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  "How did they avoid being pressed into service?" said Sword. She wasn't in the mood for joking.

  "Wind and Cloud almost were. When their Gifts manifested themselves – they were much younger even than you – the Chancellor sent in troops to take them. They weren't even aware of what they had done, didn't even know they were the reason their entire village was destroyed. But they escaped." The priest grew somber. "They hid, and saw their entire family slaughtered. Mother, father, siblings. We found them. Neither has spoken a word since we found them."

  Sword looked at the twins. They didn't look at her. Not like they were avoiding her gaze, but like she was beneath notice. "If they haven't spoken, how do you know their stories?"

  Brother Scieran laughed, his humor returning in a burst. "We rebels are a low, uneducated people, but some of us do read and write, you know."

  Sword's cheeks burned.

  "Where are we going?" she said.

  "You believe your Emperor is a good man. That the Chancellor is his righteous right-hand man. And though you've seen enough today to shake that a bit, you now simply don't know what to believe. But I need you to believe. To believe us. And help us. To become," he said, that ready smile playing across his lips, "one of the rebellion's Cursed Ones."

  "Never," she said. But was dismayed to realize that she had said it automatically, and that it lacked conviction.

  Brother Scieran didn't reply. Just looked out one of the windows.

  She joined him, wondering where they were going.

  They were over a chasm: one of the great gaps that separated the five States from one another. Each State was atop a separate mountain, and it looked like they were crossing from the State of Faith over to Center. To the State where the Capitol and its outlying cities lay.

  She thought at first they would go to the Capitol, but the air-car veered north, pushed by Cloud's invisible storm. It landed at the outskirts of a city that Sword had never visited personally, though she knew it from her studies. It was called Vritof, and it held a large number of nobles as well as a small Army base.

  When they landed, the twins donned brown cloaks, the kind of things worn by unsworn disciples in the church. Brother Scieran didn't change, obviously marked as a member of the Order of Chain by his outfit and his (very bent) sickle.

  He gave Sword a robe as well. She put it on. Then he surprised her. H
e opened a small locker built into the cabin wall and pulled out her katana and wakizashi. Held them out to her.

  She looked at them suspiciously.

  "Gods' gifts, girl, you accept everything the Emperor tells you at face value, but you won't take your own sword from my hand?" He grimaced. Made as if to put the swords back. "Fine. You don't want them, I'm sure –"

  "Wait!" She held out her hand. He gave her the weapons and she put them on under her robe. The robe was in the way of her fastest draw, but with her Gift she knew she could still cut down anything that stood in her way.

  Except, perhaps, for these "Cursed Ones." She eyed Wind and Cloud.

  Is this why he lets me have my weapons? Not because he trusts me, but because he wants to see what I will do?

  (No.)

  The small voice was getting louder. She didn't know what to think about that. She didn't like that she was starting to believe these people. Because that would mean….

  Gods, that would mean everything I believed was a lie.

  And everything I did was…

  (Say it. Admit it.)

  … murder.

  Brother Scieran opened the door. The air-car hovered a few feet above the ground, and he dropped softly to the grass below. He landed with a sprightliness that belied his years, then turned back to look at the others. "Is anyone else coming?" he said.

  Wind and Cloud followed, then Sword. Brother Scieran was already marching away. "Wait!" she shouted. "What about the air-car?"

  "What?" He frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "We're just going to leave it here?" she said. "These things are expensive."

  "It's not unguarded," said Brother Scieran with a smile. "And even if it were taken, we stole it from the Imperial Army in the first place, so we can always just steal another."

  Another grin, and he was off.

  The old man set a punishing pace, and soon Sword felt pain arcing up and down her shins, felt her feet aching in her boots.

  Neither Wind nor Cloud complained, of course. And she was hardly going to be the first one to ask for a break. So she just kept walking.

  They made their way into the city proper. It was well past midnight, but Vritof was a big enough place that there were still people about. Revelers walking drunkenly after late-night parties, soldiers patrolling or simply heading back to the base in small groups, servants rushing about doing errands for exigent masters.

  They walked deeper. Past the large houses, the bright glo-globes of the middle of the city.

  Now the glo-globes were dimmer. Cheaper. Some of them were cracked, others flickered as though they were not enchanted, but simply held firebugs inside.

  Someone screamed.

  "Here we are," said Brother Scieran. Sword saw that his hands had fallen to his sickle and his whip. Saw also that Wind's silver mask – which she had hidden in the folds of her brown cloak – was now in place. Cloud had lightning dancing in his eyes.

  Brother Scieran took them up a block to where an alley emptied into the street. There were no glo-globes in the alley, and darkness reigned.

  Brother Scieran marched into the black space, heedless of any danger. So did the twins. And a moment later Sword followed.

  After going only a few rods, she nearly bumped into her three companions. They were hunched behind a massive pile of trash waiting for the next burning day. The pile smelled of rotted food and human offal, and she wondered what they were doing there.

  Then she saw.

  Four Army officers – their rank apparent by the gold braids on their shoulders and collars – had pinned a girl against the wall. The girl looked like she was around Sword's age, and she was terrified. She kept trying to turn her face away from the men, but each time she did so one of the officers would grab her chin and force her face to the front.

  The highest-ranking officer – a major, and old enough to be her father – leaned in. "You ran," he said. His voice was low, and slid like a snake through the night. "Don't you know the Edict gives us right to you?"

  The others laughed. The major continued. "Do you want us to kill your entire family?"

  The girl shook her head. "No," she whimpered. "No, please."

  The major slapped her, a brutal blow across her cheek that sent blood flowing out her mouth. "Then don't you dare run from me."

  Sword started to move around the trash, intending… what? She didn't know. But she couldn't watch this.

  The four men closed in on the girl, and there was no doubt what they had in mind. They let go of her, but she no longer ran, cowed by their threat.

  Sword felt a hand on her arm. It was Brother Scieran, drawing her back. "Let go of me," she snarled.

  "Wait," he said. "You need to see more."

  She gaped at him. "You're going to let this happen?"

  "No," he said. "But you need to see."

  He pulled her back, then he stepped around the trash. Took a few steps forward and then began stumbling as though drunk. "Whash thish?" he bellowed, careening off a wall.

  The officers started, surprised at the interruption. The major recovered first. "Get out of here, priest," he said dismissively. "What happens here does not concern you."

  "Godsh will it conshernsh me. Wait." And Brother Scieran blinked and weaved in a convincing portrayal of drunken confusion. "How come it doeshn't conshern me?" He gestured at the girl. "She doeshn't look like she wantsh to… wantsh to… be here." He belched.

  One of the other men, this one a captain, stepped to Brother Scieran. He slapped the old man. Not as hard as the major had slapped the girl, but hard enough. Brother Scieran rocked back, only barely managing to remain on his feet. "It doesn't matter what she wants, old man," spat the captain. "The Emperor's Edict gives us right to take any non-noble under eighteen Turns and do with them what we will. You should know that."

  And so fast she couldn't even see where one ended and the other began, Brother Scieran's drunkenness disappeared and was replaced by cold calculation. "Aye," he said. "I do know that."

  The captain coughed. Blood spouted from his mouth and he looked down to see the priest's sickle in his gut.

  "The Emperor's… Edict," said the captain.

  "I serve the Gods, boy," said Brother Scieran. "Not the Chancellor or his puppet."

  The other three men turned to run. Wind and Cloud stepped out from behind the refuse, clearly intent on chasing them down. But before they got far there was a trio of sounds that Sword knew from recent experience: twhp-thwp-thwp. They happened in the space of a heartbeat, and in the space of that heartbeat the three remaining officers appeared to sprout feathers from their necks.

  Sword looked behind her and saw Arrow in the mouth of the alley. His bow was already back on his shoulder.

  So fast.

  She wondered if she could take him. Hoped it would never become necessary.

  When she turned back to Brother Scieran, he was standing in front of the girl. "What's your name, daughter?" he said.

  "Ermengild," she said.

  "Do you live near here?" he said. She nodded. "And my bet is you were out without your parents' knowledge." Another nod. "Go," he said. "Get home, fast. And don't go out alone again."

  "I… I won't," she said. She rushed away. Gone in the dark in moments.

  Wind and Cloud were rifling through the dead men's bodies. Each dead man had a leather purse – the major had two – that clinked heavily, and the twins hid them in their robes.

  "That goes to poor villages like Nasius – the one you were at today. We tried to get them to build their homes first, but they insisted on a cathedral." He smiled. "Good people. Faithful people. Certainly better people than this Empire deserves."

  He traced the sign of the Gods on each of the dead bodies. "You want them to go to Heaven?" said Sword.

  "No, I'm praying that they receive an honest judgment," said Brother Scieran. "I rather think that will send them straight to the Netherworlds."

  He turned to Arrow then. "You were supposed
to stay with the air-car," he said. There was no disguising the irritation in his voice.

  Arrow didn't seem at all cowed. "I wanted to come."

  "You wanted to see if our new friend ran," corrected Brother Scieran.

  Arrow didn't bother denying it. "One can hope." He looked at Sword. "I still can hope. Please do run." He fingered his rifle. "Please."

  She didn't know what to do. She had been rocked by her experiences at the village; rocked still more by what she had just seen.

  "How did you know?" she said.

  "Know what?" asked Brother Scieran. He had finished his rites and now he wiped his sickle clean on the robes of the major. Then he stood, pressing his fists into the small of his back.

  "That they'd be here," she said. "How did you know these men would attack this girl here?"

  Arrow laughed. Not a trace of mirth in it.

  Brother Scieran looked sad. It reminded her of the way Armor had looked a few times – times when she asked hard questions about the way the Empire did things.

  So much the same. But so different.

  "We didn't know they'd be here," he said.

  "But –"

  "But the Emperor's Edict gives the officers and nobles free reign over the children of this country. Do you think we have to walk far on any night to find something like this?" His temple bounced, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching. "No, girl, this happens every night, in every city. The only thing that saves us from extinction is that the officers don't often leave their bases – afraid of 'accidents' at the hands of the populace. And," he said with a bow, "afraid of us, of course."

  "If you don't do good and do what's right/ then Cursed Ones come in dark of night/ To steal your soul and steal your life/ and carve you up with a Cursed knife."

  Armor delivered the verses in a lilting tone. Not quite singing, but more than a simple recitation. Then he looked at Sword. "We think the Emperor had the verse written in an attempt to get people to fear us. Or turn us into a boogeyman rather than something real: you can't take something seriously if it's just a bedtime story. But whether they believe we're real or not, we've heard Imperial officers say it, and some believe – really believe – they're targets."