The Imbued Lockblade (Sol's Harvest Book 2)

by M. D. Presley

  Chapter 11

  Blotmonad 9, 567

  Marta froze as panic took hold. Time had softened the man from her memory, Mitchell’s hair receded while his jowls and middle expanded. He still beamed the same genial smile as he approached, hailing Marta by her real name without a care who heard. As he did, the panic fanned to outright terror. Her first impulse was to run, the second to slaughter. Marta instead stood dumbly until he reached her, the man nattering away the whole way. Her mind rebelled, refusing to even register his words, her torpor only breaking when he extended his hands.

  Hers balled into fists.

  Too soft to properly defend himself, Mitchell froze in place at her cocked back fist. Only then did she realize he reached to embrace her. He still considered her a comrade while her mind registered enemy. Marta’s arms dropped back to her sides as both stared stupidly.

  Luca gazed at her former tutor a moment before grabbing his hand and pumping it several times. “Mr. Mitchell, can it be true? Marta’s told me so much about you, I feel we’re already friends. But I have you at a disadvantage. Luca Dengo.”

  Some part of Marta begrudged Luca the false surname when her identity was utterly exposed, but his next lie took her aback altogether. “You’ll have to forgive Marta’s surprise. No one’s called her Childress since the wedding. This is our daughter, Kelly, and our servant, Isla. And while I do wish we could become better acquainted, I’m afraid we must take our leave.”

  Mitchell’s face fought between cordiality and confusion until eventually the confusion won out. “Go? Go where? Didn’t you just arrive?”

  “Yes…” Luca drew out the word as his mind whirled. “We don’t want the dark to catch us. I have heard there’s a glassman out and about in these woods. Nasty brutes, them. Made all the nastier in the night.”

  “Then all the better to remain among friends.” Mitchell eyed the four fugitives again. “Unless it’s something else you’d like to avoid.”

  Luca slid so close to Mitchell Marta could barely catch his words. “You speak true. There are many we’d like to avoid. Those that fought for the Covenant in particular. Men like those surrounding us now.”

  Mitchell’s confusion disappeared as his eyes darted to Marta’s slouch hat. “Oh, you poor thing. I heard rumors, but hoped they were that alone.”

  “Then you understand why we must depart,” Marta hissed. “Without further attention.”

  The hard edge to her voice dispersed the remainder of Mitchell’s lingering smile. Sorrow took its place, and Marta considered smashing his skull as he took her right hand in both of his.

  “Whatever your straights, you are among friends here. Please, speak to the herald before you go. If I alone cannot convince you to stay with us, at least give him the chance.”

  Marta plucked her hand free from his as gently as she could. “Impossible. We’ve already wasted too much time, so I ask that you let us depart.”

  “And I would refuse you if I could. If I cannot appeal to your trust, then I must lean upon your reason. I assure you, you will draw more attention by departing so suddenly than by meeting with the herald. It is customary for him to look over those in his flock, after all.”

  Glancing around, she recognized Mitchell’s point. The four of them had already drawn more stares in the open than was wise. She accented with a nod, Mitchell leading them off to the marquee tent.

  Along the way, Luca and Mitchell conversed like old friends and seemed locked in an unsaid competition as to who could out-gab the other. Although never as skilled as either of her siblings, Marta’s Cildra upbringing honed this feigned friendliness, but after the years of disuse, it had withered away. Yet she could still recognize the skill in others, Luca and Mitchell both wielding it expertly as each spoke endlessly without saying much at all. It was all perfunctory preamble though, Marta knew, the five entering the massive tent and awaiting the leader of this Weaver revival.

  Finally, the man Mitchell assured her would not judge her strode inside, a worn copy of the Biba Sacara secure in left hand. A silver Whisperer pin glinted on his lapel, and Marta reflexively girded her Mind.

  “Herald Benjamin Mowery,” he announced in a booming voice and expansive Lacus accent. “And these are friends of yours, Evan?”

  “An old pupil and her family,” Mitchell answered. “They seek sanctuary, but fear reprisals for…” his eyes again sought out Marta’s hidden brand, “what they were forced to do during the war.”

  “All sins are washed away when one truly seeks the will of Sol. As I’m sure anyone does who seeks out our company,” Mowery added as an afterthought. Such talk of sins, washing, and the will of Sol were familiar Weaver refrains, but Marta did not trust them. Too many Weavers conveniently overlooked those same refrains during the Grand War against the Renders they deemed sinners.

  “Some sins do not wash off,” she shot back. “And we remain stained, Body, Mind, and Soul.”

  The statement took the man aback, Marta doubting if any ever contradicted him. Already Mowery’s hand reached to open his holy book when Mitchell’s words arrested him.

  “She fought among Bumgarden’s Furies.”

  Mitchell chose the less offensive name for the Traitors Brigade, but hearing it aloud still stung. Marta expected hard hatred from the herald, but the compassion in Mowery’s eyes caught her flat-footed, as did the man’s plaintive voice.

  “My dear child, I’m sorry about the horrors that have assailed you. My heart aches for what you had to endure.”

  Assaulted by this sudden sympathy, Marta wished instead for the outright revulsion, which she at least had practice in dealing with. Her face must have shown her surprise when Mowery added, “No one brands the willing. Please, stay with us as long as you need. You will find no enemies here.”

  “Except for the Covenant Sons we were told to seek out here,” Luca interjected. Marta shot him a look at his blunt admission then caught Mowery flinch out of the corner of her eye.

  “Impossible. We, of course, have former Sons among us. All are given succor who seek it, but they must renounce old alliances if they are to remain among us.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Luca countered. “I can only tell you what we were told in turn.”

  “Which is why we must depart immediately,” Marta added.

  Mowery steepled his fingers. “This is troubling and will be seen to. I would ask that you allow us to ferret out any such instigators, but would understand, considering your condition, why you would not feel safe here. If you must depart, I will not stop you. In fact, I will supply you with whatever foods we can spare.”

  The offer of additional supplies was too good to be true, so Marta dismissed it as she latched onto the offer of freedom. Mowery seemed flustered as she rose, finally finding his words as she passed him for the exit.

  “Stay through the sermon. Stay then and then stay on.”

  He added his hand to her shoulder in what was surely meant to be a reassuring gesture. Marta considered tearing it off, perhaps even the arm at the elbow, when Mitchell finally broke the spell.

  “Night would be best, after all. If you decide to leave us. But I assure you, you won’t.”

  ***

  The Weaver revival reeked of more sweat than Marta remembered. Learning in any form encouraged during her Cildra training, she had attended one before. But her father, though publicly adhering to the Weaver way as any “true” Eastern son, did not care for such interactions with the common folk. As such, it was her Shaper instructor, Cyrus Livermore, who took Marta to witness a Weaver revival during her stay at Sable Hill. Compared to this gathering, it was a stately affair, with none of the swaying and shouting resounding here. With such a glut of gatherers, the press of flesh was stifling, and Marta wanted more than anything to retreat to the cool air outside. The marquee tent was so tightly packed it vibrated with the exhalations of all the attendants. Each one easily gave up his or her individuality in increments, and after the first hour of hymns, Marta was
sure they would all obey whatever Herald Mowery had to say. The particularly rousing rendition of The Sun Rises in the East irked her the most.

  True to his word, Mowery gave them free rein of the mess tent, and Marta stuffed her haversack full of any foodstuffs she could find. Mitchell just smirked at her, saying she would gladly return them all later. Marta ignored his teasing as she claimed a tin of hardtack she suspected was left over from the war.

  She did not remember Mitchell as a particularly religious man, but he swayed in unison with the rest of the crowd. The sway and songs were infectious, subtle as a Whisperer’s suggestion, so Marta made it a point to remain motionless. Luca and Isabelle joined the sway, if not the songs, but Marta took pride in the fact that Caddie did not. A half-dozen songs passed before Marta realized her hand was intertwined with the girl’s, her thumb tracing her former woven ring.

  Thronged by the Weaver believers, Marta’s mind harkened back to her scant religious studies. To the Cildra, that was all religion was: an education of public behavior to be manipulated to their private ends. Real belief was for the weak, and while Marta still firmly held that Cildra precept, as a child she always enjoyed the solemnity of the Render gatherings in their kirks, almost as much as the free-wheeling style of the Weavers. No one ever instructed the idiosyncratic Weavers what to believe directly, instead persuading them in sermons such as these.

  The singing finally died down and Mowery took the stage. His immediate appearance astonished Marta to a certain extent. Weaver revivals always consisted of two sermons, and upon further reflection, it did not wholly surprise her that Mowery would claim both spots; he plainly reveled in attention, which he demonstrated with his oratory.

  Despite their Blessed nature, Whisperers could only influence one individual at a time, a limitation Marta believed a blessing as she watched Mowery work. Politicians would kill for even half of his speaking skill. Each word he uttered seemed specifically tailored for each audience member individually, wrapping them up in his commanding tone and begging them to believe. Marta was thankful he could add no unnatural influence from his Blessed nature to the equation. Were that possible, she knew this man would rule the world.

  His Biba Sacara in hand, Mowery clung close to the scriptures, delivering all his pronouncements with an underpinning of authority. True, he flipped the pages, but Marta saw it was all for show: he knew the book like a lover’s limb, and though he pretended to read, she recognized that each word was indelibly etched upon his memory.

  With little preamble, he launched into the story of Ezria and the Giant, and immediately the crowd called out “root to fruit.” Unlike the stoic Renders, who considered themselves the stewards of Sol’s Breath on Ayr, the Weavers believed themselves to be Sol’s Tree of Life. To them it was a quickened thing composed of them all, some the stabilizing roots, others the unyielding trunk, the swaying branches, the living leaves, or finally the fruit that would go on to sprout other adherents. The Tree of Life was also used as a metaphor for a person’s life, shooting roots from a seed of faith planted in the Mind to a bright blossom that would eventually wither—hopefully after first producing a fruit.

  His manipulation of the crowd with his choice of story was so glaringly explicit that Marta nearly spat in disgust. It took little imagination to conjure why these Easterners identified with the devout Ezria as she heeded the call to battle for her beleaguered nation despite her father’s insistence she remain at home. Like the Eastern states, Ezria’s nation came under siege from an invading army, Ezria and these Easterners both rising up because they believed Sol would provide them their victory. As Mowery continued, the crowd grew louder, their Weaver calls of “root to fruit” increasing in fervor, and Marta waited for the sermon to reach its peak before slinking out the back.

  Then, to her surprise, Mowery shifted the story, skipping past Ezria’s victory and to her time as queen and leader of her people. Though it was the most poetic of the books in the Biba Sacara, The Laments of Ezria was seldom invoked in sermons, for obvious reasons.

  “And after ascending from shepherd to ruler of the greatest nation of her time, envy of all others and so beloved by Sol we seek to imitate it to this day, Ezria descended into melancholy. Because she realized the pointlessness of her position. Though she might raze her enemies and raise high mighty temples, she believed all her accomplishments would amount to nothing but dust in time. Like the simple shepherd she once was or even the gamboling lambs she first cared for, Ezria realized death was the greatest thief. Her Breath would be stripped from her, her essence lost in death as she entered Sol’s flow. Her Breath would remain immortal, her fragments twining together with others to live again in new bodies, perhaps bodies here in this humble tent tonight, but this would not be her, not anymore. Memories of her accomplishments, renowned legends passed on throughout the centuries, might remain among the living, but those memories that made her Ezria for a few short years would disappear as soon as her Breath separated in death. Ezria faced what every living thing has since Sol sacrificed Himself to give us life, and for this future loss, Ezria lamented day and night.

  “Now how was it this ruler, the greatest known, who conquered all she saw in Sol’s name, was crippled by despair? Because she knew no matter how high she climbed in life, she would fall in death, same as any peasant.”

  The crowd seemed as shocked as she, and Marta feared the herald might have finally pushed too far when suddenly he spoke with even more conviction.

  “Cling not to worldly victories or the trapping of the temporary. Climb high, yet only to fall far. Dig deep, yet only find the bones of others lower than you. No matter how we succeed or fail, our end remains the same. Scions and slaves, lords and louses, we all take nothing with us when we die. There is no fighting the flow, and all will return to it over and over and over until Sol is again whole.

  “But to peer at this end too long is folly. To lament the will of Sol is a wastrel’s endeavor. Our days on Ayr are but His Breaths we attempt to clutch in our hands, yet we need not lament. For we are given these brief moments by Sol’s sacrifice, and we should take joy. Life itself is the gift Sol intended when He sacrificed himself for all of us. Each of us carries a bit of the divine within, and so there are only two sins. The first, not to recognize the gift. The second, to pass suffering on to others. Joy came with Sol’s sacrifice, but suffering came when Waer crashed to Ayr. She saw the true joy Sol bequeathed to his chosen, and so she sought to ruin it with suffering.

  “From the beginning, she was stained with envy and avarice, and so she sought to pass these sins on to man. She hurt, and so she hurt us in turn, knowing those she harmed would pass that blow on to the next, and on and on. All pain, all the suffering we feel, it comes from Waer. The Grand War, it was Waer’s invention.”

  At his invocation of the Grand War, Marta felt the air sucked away all around her. The sound brought her out of her reverie, only to realize she had been as enraptured as the rest of the orator’s audience. It was such an easy thing to cede all suffering, to abdicate all responsibility at the imaginary Waer’s feet, and for a moment, Marta nearly believed it true. But then she remembered the events sparking the Grand War, and the idea that some mythical being deserved the blame for human decisions made her sneer.

  “And there was no greater sin than the Grand War—father turning against son, brothers murdering brothers. We, Sol’s children, gladly passed suffering on to each other, and as we did, Waer laughed. For she knew what she wrought when Sol’s devout turned one upon the other. Make no mistake, the Grand War was her creation, but it was us that carried out her plot.”

  The crowd seemed truly horrified by his words, but to Marta’s surprise, they did not appear ready to take their anger out on the auger. They instead hung on his every word.

  “So I tell you all, deny Waer her prize. It was she that scarred us with the Grand War, but we here are no longer her playthings. We can renounce the violence she did us, that we passed on to our brothers a
nd sisters. We can instead embrace them as fellow travelers on Sol’s flow, no matter what side they fought on. Because, as you know, the second sin is to continue Waer’s plan, to pass misery on to your fellow man. The Covenant Sons, they still truck with Waer. They still seek to extend Waer’s original blow to mankind as they spread her suffering. So I say no more. I say, you and I, as brothers and sisters in the Tree of Life, renounce Waer and her Covenant Sons. I say we stand as brothers and sisters and cast her and her minions aside, lest we be stained Body, Mind, and Soul in our next incarnation in Sol’s flow!”

  Mowery’s timbre reached a fever pitch, the crowd hysterically calling out “root to fruit.”

  “So I ask,” Mowery pronounced with the authority of Sol, “are there any Covenant Sons sinners still in our midst? If so, will they come forward and receive absolution rather than Waer’s eternal stain upon their Soul.”

  To Marta, his play was plain, a patently obvious ploy to find the conspirator, who would wisely hide anonymously within his flock. Yet to her surprise, a man choked out a cry before stepping into the aisle.

  Spooling through her memory, Marta did not recall his likeness from her short foray through the Weaver revival, but Mowery hailed the man like an old friend and offered his hand to help him on stage. There, the man prostrated himself disgracefully before his master.

  “I have stained myself,” he cried. “I have given in to Waer’s sin and aided the Covenant Sons from among you.”

  The crowd gasped as one, Marta and Caddie alone in their immunity to the mob’s singular mind. Mowery too seemed above it all as he considered the prone man. To Marta, his path was clear, the herald legally obliged to turn the traitor over to the Home Guard. His position was not lost on the crowd as they watched the man with eyes that might have well been beholding a man trudging to the gallows.

  “Waer’s way demands your doom,” Mowery declared solemnly. “Yet I reject all her claims to me. As do you?”

  “Yes,” the man whispered, the pall over the crowd allowing Marta to hear him even from the back. Mowery gazed down on the penitent man. In the same manner he had rested his hand upon Marta’s shoulder, he somberly laid his upon the sinner.