“But I will tell you this,” he continued. “I rode Sultana across the Merging, and I kept a careful reckoning of the time. I don’t know why I bothered, but…” he trailed off with a shrug. Something in his face or his voice belied the statement, but Danner stayed silent. “I passed enough hours, waking and sleeping, to fill at least twenty years of a man’s life, and when I emerged I found that no more than ten had gone by here. Not only that, but I only aged those ten years, for all that I lived twice that.”
He stopped, allowing the silence to work into their bones as the dreadful fact he’d just told them slowly strove toward realization. Danner saw what his uncle had said a few moments before his father did.
“You were in Hell for twenty years?” Danner asked, awestruck. “But you still don’t look more than ten years older than my father.” Belatedly, Danner realized was practically repeating what his uncle had already pointed out.
“And you’re only half that in reality,” Hoil said softly, perhaps humbled by his brother’s experience. “And Sultana? I always liked her.”
“Who’s Sultana again?” Danner asked quickly, before his uncle could reply.
“My old mount and Selti’s dam,” Birch said. “She was a dakkan, and her scales were pearly white. Her other form was a white horse such as you’ve never seen.”
“Horses usually aren’t really white, they’re gray,” Danner objected, nearly biting off his tongue when he realized how impudent he’d been.
“Sultana was white,” Birch said simply, then dropped the subject. By his demeanor, he fully expected Danner to drop it as well.
“As I said before, Sultana stayed with me more than half my time there,” Birch continued, answering Hoil. His voice betrayed a hint of emotion as he spoke. “She fought by my side for nearly twelve years in that pit before she fell, and she did so saving my life. We had just fought through a pack of hellhounds; she was in her equine form, and one of them had burned a gash into the back of her right side, from her tail almost to the saddle.
“I was on my way to heal her when she knocked me with her head and threw me to the ground. A heartbeat later a childris spear split the air where my head had been and impaled the poor girl. The throw was hard enough that it went all the way through to the other side.”
Danner could tell by the note in his uncle’s voice that the paladin was seeing the entire scenario again. Viewing once more, with his Hell-filled eyes, the horrible images in his memory. Morbidly, Danner wondered if he would view that exact same image if he were to look into Birch’s eyes while his uncle was thinking of it. He shivered at the thought.
“There were four of them, more than enough to cause problems even if Sultana hadn’t been injured and I exhausted,” Birch said, his voice hardening. “But I fought, and so did she. Every moment of that fight she was in agony, and I could scarcely afford the time to stop and heal her. When the last of the childris fell, I looked back and saw that Sultana had fallen and was beyond my power to heal. I had no way to help her, so I concealed her body and protected it as was in my power, then I left her behind and continued deeper into the pit, toward the very heart. I almost couldn’t bring myself to kill her, not there, but I had to end her suffering. More hellhounds came before I could burn or bury her, so I led them away and dared not risk going back.
“It wasn’t until I was returning to this world and stopped to pay homage to my fallen mount that I discovered she had been pregnant,” Birch said softly. “I don’t know how she hid it from me, or how he managed it, but somehow Selti cut himself out of her womb and waited by her corpse. There was another baby I found still within her carcass, stillborn. I burned Sultana and the stillborn, then carried Selti away with me. For all it took me thirteen-odd years to reach the heart of Hell, it took me only eight months to reach the Merging again.”
Danner immediately knew something was wrong.
“That doesn’t add up, Uncle Birch,” he said, his brow furrowed in thought. “You just said it took you thirteen years to get in, but you said before you counted at least a full twenty. Where’s the other six years?”
“Sometime after I left Sultana,” Birch said slowly, almost as if he didn’t rightly know the answer himself, “I reached the heart, and I stayed there for those years.”
“Doing what?” Danner asked incredulously, though considerably awed.
Birch remained silent and shook his head. His expression said clearly that he actually didn’t know the answer to Danner’s question.
Danner opened his mouth to ask another question, but his father held up a warning hand.
“That’s enough for one night, boy,” Hoil said. “It’s getting late, and I’d speak with my brother alone.” He paused, then gestured toward the common room. “You can bed in one of the side rooms if you’d like, rather than taking the walk to your home. There’ll be time enough for questions.”
Danner nodded silently, knowing better than to protest.
“I’ll go speak with Maran for a while, then I’ll find a bed here,” Danner said. “Good night, dad.”
“Good night, boy,” Hoil replied, placing his hand on Danner’s shoulder.
“Rest well, Danner,” Birch said softly. “May the angels keep watch over you this night.”
Danner blinked, then said uncertainly, “And you, Uncle Birch.”
Chapter 4
If you never stop to question your own faith, how will you respond or react when someone questions it for you? In this, I have never agreed with my instructors.
- Birch de’Valderat,
“Memoirs” (1013 AM)
- 1 -
Birch looked at the door for a moment after Danner was gone.
“He’s a good boy,” Hoil said softly. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s too good, for all his faults.” He barked a laugh. “Odd thing for a father to wonder, isn’t it?”
“I can only guess,” Birch said, his voice noncommittal. “What does he do? Not work for you, certainly.”
“Bah, the boy’s too intelligent to be held back like that,” Hoil said, waving his hand in dismissal. He then told Birch of Danner’s employment, as well as his more clandestine means of obtaining wealth. “If he didn’t take after his old man so much, I’d have made a show of pushing him away for good to encourage him in some honest pursuit. Truth is, I just can’t feel ashamed of him, whether he decides to become the king of thieves or the king of a city, whatever the difference may be.”
“He has the look of his mother about him,” Birch said softly. “I imagine that helps.”
“Aye,” Hoil assented. He paused, then added, “Speaking of looks, I notice you lost that goatee you had. Cut your hair a bit, too. I like it. You were too pretty before.”
“A lot changed,” Birch said quietly.
There was a gentle silence between the two brothers, neither quite sure what to say to the other. Hoil burned with a curiosity as great as his relief that his brother was alive and well. Birch simply had no idea where to start in reuniting himself with his past.
Birch had returned from his ordeal a little more than a year ago, and had spent nearly half that time recovering from his injuries, both physical and psychological. When he was fully recovered, he’d spent the next several months trying to piece together the tattered pieces of his memory, which had been ripped asunder during his outbound journey.
He still remembered his past, from his early childhood rowing across Demar Lake all the way into his adult life as a paladin. His memories continued through the overwhelming compulsion of the Calling and right up until he’d reached the innermost regions of Hell. The six-year gap Danner had pointed out was completely gone from Birch’s memory, and the eight months afterward were nothing but scattered shards of never-ending landscapes and unbearable agony.
His last memory before waking in a paladin-run infirmary in Nocka was his defiant challenge to Mephistopheles, the King of Hell. Then six months of nightmares and half-remembered periods of wakefulness. When he’d at last regaine
d full consciousness, Birch’s memories began again with blessed clarity.
“When did you get back?” Hoil said after the awkward silence had continued for too long. “From…” he paused. “When did you get back?” he repeated.
Birch glanced up at his brother, careful not to lock eyes with him.
“About a year ago,” he answered. Anticipating Hoil’s next question, Birch said, “I spent a good six months recovering, then several more trying to piece things together and make a coherent report to the Prismatic Council. Once they were satisfied I had told them everything,” Birch could not keep a note of irritation from his voice, “they allowed me to leave to revisit family and loved ones.”
“How generous of them,” Hoil murmured.
“Quite,” Birch said wryly. “I think this interlude is as much for their benefit as my own. The Prismatic Council is at a loss concerning what to do with me and trying desperately to hide that fact. They have assured me they want to see to my every need and openly have been very solicitous towards me.”
Birch sighed. “But behind their veneer of helpfulness I sense discomfort, and I’m sure at least one of them devoutly wishes I hadn’t returned at all.”
“What?” Hoil said, jerking upright in his chair. “Are they mad? No one has ever returned.”
“Exactly.”
“But I would have thought they’d be overjoyed at the prospect,” Hoil said heatedly. “At last, one of the mighty soldiers of God returns triumphant from Hell. It’d be recruiter’s dream come true.”
Birch shook his head and decided to ignore the more blatant overtones of scorn in his brother’s voice. Privately, Birch shared some of these feelings, but he would dishonor himself and the Prism to voice them to someone else, even his brother.
“One might think that, yes,” Birch allowed, “but it is far easier for a man to deal with something he already knows. My presence, perhaps my very existence, is completely unprecedented, and the unknown tends to inspire fear more than it does hope.”
Birch raised his hands, one on either side of him to indicate a balancing scale.
“Before I appeared, their position and their surety of knowledge about the way the world works was unquestionable and went unchallenged. Now that a man has been to Hell and come back,” Birch raised one hand while dropping the other, “some aspects of that knowledge are no longer so sure, and there now exists the potential for everything they believe to be challenged. Their faith itself is on the line.”
“So?” Hoil said, shrugging. “If they’re supposed to be the premier paladins from each of the Facets, shouldn’t their faith be intrinsically unquestionable? For San’s sake, man, I thought the faith of every paladin was supposed to be unquestionable.”
“From without, perhaps,” Birch said, feeling a private stir of something deep within him. Something unsettling both in mind and spirit, though he couldn’t rightly feel what it was. “But it is a man’s questioning of his own faith which he most fears and which can be the most damaging. It’s far easier to wrap yourself in a cloak of self-righteousness and ignorance to ward off the doubts of someone else than it is to hide from the probing questions of your own soul that haunt you in the middle of your dreams.”
Hoil stared at his brother a long moment, his face unreadable.
“You’ve your own doubts then?” he asked shrewdly.
“What man doesn’t?”
“The purest of men,” Hoil said with obviously false piety.
“The most foolish of men,” Birch replied shortly, “but that’s neither here nor there.” He sighed and slumped slightly in his chair. “I didn’t come home to discuss religious faith, brother. Let us speak of old times, before the world intruded on our rough home.”
- 2 -
Danner woke the next morning to find his father and uncle already awake. At first he thought they’d foregone sleep altogether, but he discarded that idea almost immediately. No one stayed up all night and looked as refreshed as they did. Since Danner had permitted himself to sleep late, he knew the two men could have easily talked for some time, gone to sleep, and arisen the next morning well-rested before Danner had even opened his eyes.
Danner glanced at a small dwarven clock on the wall and saw that it was not yet midday.
“Good morning, boy,” his father said.
“Good morning, Danner,” Birch said a moment later.
Danner replied with one greeting to include both men, then took a chair at their table. Before he could ask, a plate of scrambled eggs – with cheese and bacon mixed in – and sausage was placed before him with a mug of water. Hoil’s kitchen knew Danner’s preferences for meals and cooked accordingly whenever he stopped by.
Danner’s sleep had been sporadic at best, and he’d been plagued by the haunting images he’d seen in his uncle’s eyes. Throughout the night, demons, devils, and creatures best left unnamed had tortured him relentlessly, demanding he tell his secrets. Paradoxically, it seemed to Danner that they were at the same time terrified of him and some ran away while others urged him to forget what he’d told them. Danner had no idea what it was he was supposed to remember, as was often the way with dreams.
His nightmares still fresh in his mind, Danner set down his water and faced his uncle.
“Yes, Danner?” Birch asked placidly before Danner could open his mouth.
“H…how did you…” Danner trailed off, then snapped his mouth shut. He glared at his uncle, then said crisply, “How was it that Hell came to be… I mean, how did you…” he floundered a moment under his uncle’s indirect stare. “Where did the Merging come from?” he managed at last.
Hoil stared sharply at his son, but stayed silent. Birch stared at the center of Danner’s chest, and for a moment the young man felt that the paladin was staring directly into his soul. Danner was suddenly uncomfortably aware that he had not, thus far, led what one could call a virtuous life, the occasional “good deed” aside.
“It was about a thousand years ago,” Birch said in slow, measured tones, turning his gaze absently towards the ceiling. “The two moons, Sin and San, fully aligned themselves into the Devil’s Horns for the first time in history, which supposedly augmented the powers of Hell. The lunar alignment had been foretold at the end of the Age of Lords, and historians now mark the day of the prophecy as the last day of that age. Exactly six years, six months, and six days later, as foretold, the moons aligned and, I suppose you could say, all Hell broke loose.”
Danner sat, his attention rapt upon his uncle. He heard a faint scratching noise below his seat, and he absently cut a piece of his sausage and handed it down to whatever dog had come begging.
“Oceans boiled, earthquakes devastated the ground, and the sky blackened,” Birch continued. “The casualties were staggering, and from the best estimates over a half-million humans and demi-humans were killed when those titanic forces ripped through the world. In the lull that followed, many who survived wished devoutly that they had not.”
The scratching below Danner repeated itself, and he dutifully dropped another piece of sausage. The dog, or whatever it was – Danner still hadn’t looked away from his uncle – fell silent.
“Somehow Hell had aligned itself with a portion of the mortal plane in the place we now call the Merging. Countless minions of evil poured across the plains where Nocka now stands, slaughtering everything in sight.” Birch’s voice was impassive, giving no indication that he was disturbed by the story he was relating. Danner wondered what his uncle was really thinking.
“The wholesale slaughter of mortals was held in check only by the presence of the paladins. Our brotherhood had only come into existence a scant century before and was still a fledgling group, but it was they – in God’s name – who led the assaults that eventually drove Hell’s minions back across the Merging, and they who maintained the defenses until the Barrier could be erected.”
Danner sat silently after his uncle fell silent, and it was only after a moment that he realized Birch woul
d say no more on the matter. Danner glanced down as the scratching noise came again, and he was surprised to see that it was his uncle’s drann, Selti, who had been so silently begging for food. Danner obligingly lopped another inch off of his sausage and tossed it down to the creature, who crooned a delighted thanks. The drann grabbed the morsel in his glistening teeth and scurried away. Selti jumped and clamored up Birch’s shoulders, then delicately took the meat in his forepaws and proceeded to tear it to pieces.
Birch glanced over his shoulder and frowned. He reached one hand back to try and take the sausage away, but Selti chattered at him and leapt into the air. In a few swift beats of his wings, the drann reached the wooden rafters of the room and glided to a halt. He glared mischievously at Birch, then settled down to enjoy his food.
“I didn’t know he couldn’t have it,” Danner said, anticipating the need for a defense.
“It’s not your fault, Danner,” Birch replied calmly, “it’s his. He knows better, but he loves to push the limits when he knows he can get away with it. I allow him his little victories, and in return he plays it right when it’s important.”
“Is he really so intelligent?” Danner asked, wide-eyed. He knew he must sound like a child, but he couldn’t disguise his ardent curiosity about the creature.
“He thinks he’s more intelligent than he really is,” Birch said sourly, with a mock glare towards the rafters, “but yes, he is fairly intelligent, even for his kind. The handlers at the chapterhouse[17] in Nocka all commented on it and want to breed him when he’s older. Above that, he’s a bit of a strange one, but I’ve learned to get along with him, and we’ve got an unusually strong bond, I think.” Birch sighed. “I do sometimes wish he was as reliable as his dam, however.”
Danner was silent a moment, but his uncle’s explanation left him only hungry for more knowledge.
“How is it possible?” he asked, returning to the previous subject. “Hell overlapping our world, I mean. And why only in the one place?”
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 5
