No Return

by Zachary Jernigan

  As the world turned, Knoori rose on its side, a confused mass of sharptoothed mountains, high plains and parched barrens. Cities spotted the continent, a hundred magefire lamps revealing their shapes. Here, Tansot, a five-pointed star of purple radiance. Here, Seous, a blue snake lying alongside River Anets. The sun edged out from behind the world’s swollen belly, unhurriedly extinguishing these fires. For a few seconds Lake Ten turned into a reflecting pool. The pine hills of Nos Ulom became a blanket of jadestones, the deserts of Toma molten gold.

  The world was blindingly beautiful.

  Adrash could not bear to look any longer. He closed his eyes against the radiance, let the tumblers fall in his mind, and unlocked his soul, allowing the world’s prayers to flood in.

  The first to announce itself: A wordless cry from an imbecilic mind.

  The nameless woman called from the unmapped valley in the Aspa Mountains—a place shielded by such deep magic that even Adrash had to concentrate in order to see it from orbit.

  He heard the woman’s appeal with such clarity because it was old and familiar to him, but he had little sympathy for the people living along the shore of the ensorcelled lake. The majority of mankind lived in far worse conditions, though most had more variety. The old woman had stumbled onto one of the world’s great secrets and used it to sire a race of idiots. While highly nourishing to bone and muscle tissue, once ingested elder skin acted on the human body like a slow poison, causing prenatal damage and retardation of the brain.

  The people of the valley were useless. Adrash ignored their clumsy, aimless prayers, though they were loud. Due to the proximity of so many elders and their ancient buried magics, the valley acted as a focusing lens.

  In a lukewarm way, it bothered Adrash to see so much power put to so little. There were times when he wished someone would discover the valley’s secret. The resource would be hoarded and abused, of course, but it would be an interesting development. If it fell into the hands of the Stoli government, Adrash could expect a great deal more traffic in orbit. Dozens—and in time, hundreds, even thousands—of outbound mages would rise from the surface of Jeroun, high on reconstituted elder blood, eager to make names for themselves.

  They would come with gifts and weapons, open hands and fingers tipped with magefire. Arcing lightning from one to another as they flew toward the moon, ready to challenge their god or simply beseech him to show compassion.

  They would all die, burned to cinders by the light of Adrash’s eyes, crushed to dust in his arms. His palms itched thinking about it. He tightened his fists, remembering the way a man’s blood burst from his body in the void. For a brief moment he even felt the rekindled flame of his youth, a time when he had impulsively aligned himself with this or that leader, capriciously giving vent to his lust for warfare.

  No, he had never been a charitable god—not a father or an easer of pain. It would be enjoyable, punishing those who came calling at his door. Nonetheless, he shook the vision of violence from his eyes. Useless conjecture, and ultimately an undesirable development. Best if he never had to look a man in the face again. He let his thoughts drift away from the nameless valley, searching for more encouraging, or at least interesting, voices.

  Men prayed to him for rain atop the broad, slightly tilted tops of the Aroonan mesas, clasped hands permanently dyed red with the blood of sacrificed bandi roosters. They cried openly for rain, which had not come in strength for three years. Their women, who neither prayed nor begged after years of burying their children, spat at this display of weakness.

  In a seedy flat above a basket shop in Jompa, a prostitute prayed for fifty cril, otherwise he would be dead by morning. He had gambling debts. Adrash knew also that the man had jaleri eggs lining his urethra and would be dead by month’s end.

  On the southeastern shore of Nens Abasin, a young acolyte of The Unending Luck cast her line and prayed for an old, sick fish. She had no desire to incur the soul debt for taking a new life. The order forbade her from throwing back a catch, yet her luck had been so abysmal lately that she would not hesitate to do so. Breaking the rule would undoubtedly mean more bad luck in the long run, thus reinforcing the cycle, but the girl did not care. She could not see how it mattered. Luck touched some and shunned others altogether.

  Adrash felt the briefest moment of communion. He wished he could answer the girl’s prayer. If he were closer to the world’s surface, perhaps he would asphyxiate an old fish and let it lap upon the shore at her feet. He had once, if rarely, enjoyed this kind of intervention.

  In the cold mines under the Old City of Ghys, nearly a mile below the searing sand of the Tomen Desert, a Demni mage prayed her alchemy had been correct. She could not remember if the spell was heart before liver, and what effect the wrong order would produce.

  It was not heart before liver, Adrash knew. The smell of the infusion would attract diamond spiders. The mage would soon have a great deal to worry about, and for a moment Adrash was tempted to watch the ensuing battle.

  Instead, he focused elsewhere. His mind touched here and there, lingering on the personal entreaties, passing over the formulaic prayers and liturgies. Prayers to other gods—those shadowy figures Adrash had once caused to live and then destroyed, and whose memory somehow managed to linger in the souls of men—he ignored. They were of the same quality as those directed to him.

  Words damning him he saved for last. They were the most amusing. He had no expectation that this time he would find what he was looking for. A singular voice might never be found. The world might be destroyed tomorrow, should he find his patience at an end. Or the world might go on forever while he spiraled into new realms of madness.

  The spheres spun at his back, waiting.

  PART ONE

  VEDAS TEZUL

  THE 13th OF THE MONTH OF SOLDIERS, 12499 MD

  THE CITY OF GOLNA, NATION OF DARETH HLUM

  Vedas watched the square through a crack in the stockroom door.

  The pulse pounded in his throat and temples, causing his vision to shudder slightly. He felt calm despite this, assured by the familiar sensation. As the street scene grew lighter, its weathered doorways and stonework angles more defined before him, he settled into the comfortable hum of readiness.

  The black fabric of his suit hugged his powerful frame like a second skin.

  He stood in the traditional waiting stance of the lo fighter, feet shoulder-width apart, hands resting lightly atop his staff, which came to just below his chin. Back straight, knees slightly bent. A man could stand in this posture for many hours, minutely shifting his weight from foot to foot, meditating on the subtle tense and release of muscle.

  Behind him, sixteen children were trying and failing to contain their nervousness. They were a quiet group. Nonetheless, Vedas heard and recognized every movement behind him. After eight hours cramped together, he had come to identify each youth’s breathing and nervous habits. They scratched themselves, sniffled, sighed. They fingered the black sashes tied around their upper arms, needlessly adjusting the material that marked them as official recruits to the Thirteenth Order of Black Suits.

  The acrid smell of vomit was everywhere. Someone always threw up, first time out.

  At least, Vedas reasoned, he had not been forced to knock the weak-stomached girl, Julit Umeda, unconscious. She had covered her mouth and leaned back, causing the sick to run down her red shirtfront. The only sound had been a few drops of fluid hitting the floor. Vedas reminded himself to reward her afterwards. New recruits did not typically think that quickly, especially after standing for so long.

  He watched the square. The abbey master, Abse, had assured him the meeting would occur within an hour of dawn. Vedas closed his eyes for a moment and projected well-being to his superior, to his brothers and sisters. He imagined them walking straight-backed and proud, staff ends clicking on the paving stones, muscles shifting under smooth black fabric of their elder-cloth suits.

  It will be a good day , he told himself.

&n
bsp; He turned from the doorway and regarded the recruits. Those who could shuffled back against their neighbors. Vedas had memorized their faces and names the night before, noting which he thought would hold up well. He was heartened to see he had been wrong about a few of them, and right about those he had appraised highly. As usual, the youngest proved the most resilient, though not always the most patient.

  In the dim light of the stockroom, their faces were washed out and grim, smudged with dirt, painted to look like fierce animals or demons. Not a real whisker among them. Surely, they had spent time in front of mirrors, pumping themselves up. A few had purchased—or more likely stolen—black woolen shirts and trousers for the occasion. One boy even wore a homemade mask to complete the look.

  A brief vision of Vedas’s own first battle as a recruit flashed before him. He had been a little more experienced, though not much.

  He reached into the fold of his hood for the sound-isolation spell, held up the vial so that the recruits knew what to expect, and broke the seal. One boy cursed softly as the pressure in the room suddenly changed. They pinched their noses and popped their eardrums.

  When Vedas spoke, his voice sounded as if it came from a great distance away.

  “The moment is almost upon us. You’ve done a good job of waiting.” A brief flash of white as he smiled. His skin was only a shade lighter than the suit he wore. “I’m proud of you. It seems I’ve chosen well.

  “Remember the signal.” He held up two fingers, one finger, and then his fist alone. “At that instant I will open the door and we will charge. Follow me closely. I will lead you to the enemy’s back. Locate unsuited enemies. Double up on them if you can and don’t play by the rules. Aim for the genitals and the eyes. In close quarters, remember to use your elbows and the weight of your feet. Most importantly, remember to keep focused on your target. Don’t get distracted by anything else. Make me proud.”

  Vedas dropped the spell just before it abated. The pressure lifted. He met the eye of each recruit before stretching the hood over his shaved head. The children regarded the tall, wide-shouldered shadow before them, gazes lingering on the two small horns on his temples. Slowly, he caused the hood to crawl over his face until only his eyes were visible.

  He saw momentary fear in the recruits’ stares. They shuffled against one another. Most likely, few of them had seen a fully shrouded Black Suit up close, and only half-believed the claims that a man could wear cloth made from the skin of an elder and let it become a part of him, an extension of his will.

  Now you know, Vedas thought. He nodded and turned back to the door. He disliked the drama the moment had required, but had grown accustomed to it. Perhaps it was even necessary, as Abse claimed, a brief spell of near-religious awe to steel the mind for what was to come. You become a symbol, the abbey master had once said. More than a man—a figure worth following into battle.

  And indeed, the children had become jittery behind Vedas. The fear had not abated, but nerves would see them through.

  He watched the square. Before long, from the east he heard the sound of staffs clicking on paving stones: His brothers and sisters—the Followers of Man. Softer but growing in intensity, from the west he heard the answering rat-a-tat of dueling sticks clacked together: Rivals—the Followers of Adrash, the One True God.

  The recruits would not have to wait much longer.

  ‡

  In 12472, just before Vedas’s seventh birthday, his parents had relocated from Knos Min in order to assume a diplomatic post in Golna, almost two thousand miles from the only place he had ever known. At first frightened by the city, Vedas soon came to think of it as home. Knosi were well regarded in the east, and he was treated with respect. A natural athleticism endeared him to his peers.

  His parents discouraged sectarianism, in fact had never subscribed to a faith, but they could not prevent their son from allying himself with the other children of Smithtown, the vast majority of whom had been raised Anadrashi. In his tenth year, Vedas was recruited by the Black Suits of the Eighth Order and began taking part in legally sanctioned street battles. His parents disapproved, but traditional Knosi culture considered a ten-year-old boy an adult, free to make his own decisions.

  In Vedas’s twelfth year, Knos Min raised the tariffs on Hlumi tobacco products. Relations between the countries took a sudden downturn, and the eastern nation began expelling Knosi nobles and political figures from its borders. Vedas’s parents, on a brief sabbatical on the northern coast, were forced to leave without their adolescent son. For a brief time, Vedas lived in the homes of various friends, and then he lived on the street.

  Word reached him of his parents’ death in the Month of Royalty, 12478, almost a year after their departure. By this time, he had become messenger and errand boy to Saatreth, the abbey master of the Seventh Order of Black Suits.

  Messenger, errand boy, and plaything.

  The Seventh had successfully kept their history of pederasty a secret from the city’s other twenty orders for over three centuries. Upon discovery of their transgression in the spring of the following year, Abse volunteered the Thirteenth to right the wrong. They removed the recruits, killed the men who had once been their faith-kin, and left the abbey a charred pile of rubble.

  “I can send you back to Knos Min,” Abse told Vedas. “There are a few other boys orphaned by the debacle between our two countries. But that trouble has long since abated, and the recent succession of the dictator in Nos Ulom has resulted in an oddly peaceable country. Your passage across the continent would most likely be safe.”

  Vedas parsed the master’s language. “My parents are dead.”

  “Yes. I have heard.” Abse offered the somber, black-skinned boy a stiff smile. “Surely you have relatives?”

  “Yes,” Vedas answered. Of course he did, two uncles and an aunt, but he had no interest in leaving Dareth Hlum. He only half understood why the abbey of the Seventh had been destroyed. True, Saatreth had not been a father or a friend. He had hurt Vedas badly enough to leave scars for years to come. Nonetheless, it was the abbey that had provided shelter and given Vedas an identity.

  “Relatives are often a great comfort in times of change,” Abse continued. “On the other hand, I have heard that you are a talented young man.” He held up a finger. “I am not obfuscating my meaning. No one in this order desires the services Saatreth desired. By talented, I mean only that word has reached me of your martial prowess.”

  Vedas interpreted again. Fighting. Here was an area in which he excelled.

  “I want to keep fighting,” he told Abse. An awful thought occurred to him. “I killed a boy during practice. Is this why you’re making me go home? I didn’t mean to do it.”

  Abse pursed his lips. “I am not making you go home, boy. If you choose to stay in the order, you will undoubtedly kill someone again. Sectarian battle is dangerous. That is why it is so tightly regulated in Knos Min.” He paused, pale eyes fixed on Vedas, before speaking again. “If you want to continue fighting, you must stay here. You will be an acolyte for two years. If you pass martial training and your doctrine classes—no easy feat, I assure you—at that point you will be offered a suit. Understand, it is no small matter to be given such an opportunity. Suits are prohibitively costly to produce—more so every year. Most are acquired through the deaths of our brothers and sisters.”

  Vedas stared at the man whom he would come to know as master. The odd, fine-boned face that appeared only a few years older than Vedas’s own. The small frame sheathed in black. The light in the room changed as clouds moved outside, revealing the barely noticeable designs on the man’s suit. Vedas regarded the abbey master’s face again, and for a moment it seemed that fractures formed upon it. A mapwork of fine lines. Paper crumpled and ironed out.

  “Is this what you want?” Abse asked. “To stay here?”

  Vedas agreed without a moment’s hesitation.

  ‡

  The Black Suits entered the square first. Twenty men and women,
clothed head to foot in seamless black. Some had formed relief designs on the surface of their skin-tight suits. Others had thickened the malleable elder-cloth in strategic areas, creating body armor and helmets. A few had formed bonehard striking surfaces along the forearm or shin, spikes at knee and elbow. A lone brother had grown his suit’s horns into vicious prongs.

  Few chose, like Vedas, to retain the smooth, unadorned texture of the cloth, and fewer still masked their features completely.

  All skin tones were represented, for Vedas’s order culled recruits from each of Golna’s major ethnic neighborhoods. Diversity is a strength, Abse claimed, and so allowed the brothers and sisters a great deal of freedom. Plaited and matted hair grew from faces and sprouted from helmets. Tattoos curled around eyes. Plugs of bone pierced lips and brows.

  The men and women of the Thirteenth Order of Black Suits had little in common beyond the color of their suits, the hardness of their bodies, and the horns on their hooded heads. They had become brothers and sisters through physical pain. They prayed and fought for the downfall of Adrash together, proudly displaying the color of opposition.

  More than half their number preferred weapons other than the lo. These dropped their staffs upon entering the square and lifted hammers from their shoulders, unsheathed swords, twirled flails, and readied razored shields. The four who had formed weapons out of their suit material eschewed handheld weapons altogether.

  The Black Suits stopped in the center of the square, eyes locked on something Vedas could not yet see. Abse, a thin, diminutive figure holding two broadswords half as long as his body, took a step forward from the group and stamped his foot, as if anchoring himself to the spot.