Blade of Tyshalle

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  "Then follows the rhyme that we all know:

  For want of the nail,

  The shoe was lost,

  For want of the shoe,

  The horse was lost,

  For want of the horse,

  The rider was lost,

  For want of the rider,

  The battle was lost,

  For want of the battle,

  The kingdom was lost.

  "His laziness was evil, then, unless—for the sake of argument—the stranger is not a courier of his own king, but a spy of the enemy; so that the kingdom which was lost is the enemy kingdom. Then, to have done a `good' job might have cost this blacksmith and his people all they have, perhaps even their lives.

  "The lesson here is this: The consequence of even the simplest action cannot be reliably predicted over any long term. One cannot control how events unfold, and whether any action is `good' or `evil' can only be judged in terms of its consequence—and even that judgment will alter, over time. An action initially judged to be `good' may later be found to have `evil' effects—which eventually may be seen, in fact, to be `good: Good and evil are, after all, only code words for outcomes we either favor, or of which we disapprove. We all must accept that anything we do, however `good' it seems at the time, might have consequences that will be too horrible to contemplate.

  "What then, is the answer? To do nothing? But even inaction has consequences. The essence of Cainism is this: The truly free man chooses his own goals and seeks his own ends, purely for the joy of the choice and the seeking."

  And this is the one that I can't get out of my head. I can lie here for hours and argue with my memory of that voice, but I go to sleep hearing it, and I hear it when I wake up, and I guess I'm not really registering it as meaning anymore.

  It's soaked in, somewhere. I've sucked it in through my pores, and I can't sweat it out. I stare at the ceiling for a day or two, counting the cracks in the stone by the unchanging glow from the Pit lamps.

  I will go to my grave with the vision of her bright eyes staring, washed clean by the spray from that waterfall at the headwaters of the Great Chambaygen, the blade of Kosall driven through her skull down into the stone beneath her head—I did the right thing, and it came out wrong, and I should have known better.

  But I didn't.

  I once murdered an old man—the Khulan G'thar—and saved maybe a million lives, when the Khulan Horde collapsed at Ceraeno. Later, I murdered another old man—Prince-Regent Toa-Phelathon—and turned a series of minor border skirmishes with Lipke into the First Succession War.

  And maybe that fucker down there in the Pit is right. Maybe there's no telling which way shit will break. If I listen hard enough, I can hear that voice: that small quiet whisper in the back of my head that keeps on insisting My will, or I won't. But the fucker in the Pit is dead wrong about it: it is Caine's voice.

  It's my voice.

  I keep thinking about the Assumption Day Festival. I keep thinking about how they're gonna wheel me over to the Cathedral of the Assumption in that tumbrel of theirs, then put me up on a pyre and burn me to death to amuse a few thousand Beloved Children.

  I am so tired of my life and death being somebody else's entertainment.

  And, that simply, my mind is made up.

  Up there at Khryl's Saddle, it took me too long to realize I should have killed myself. That's a mistake I won't make twice. Suicide isn't my trip—but there are other ways to die.

  I get the jitters, waiting. By the time the trusty comes again, swinging wide the door of my cell, shuffling in with lowered head to empty my brimming bedpans into his tumbrel, I have to cough the tremors out of my voice before I can speak to him.

  "Tell the sergeant—Habrak, is that his name?-you tell him Caine wants to see the Duke of Public Order."

  The trusty's eyes roll at me, wondering just how mad I am.

  "You tell him, that's all. Tell him to get a message to Toa-M'Jest that Caine wants to see him. The Duke will make it worth his while. And yours, too."

  The trusty's head bobs, once, and he wheels his tumbrel away down the hall.

  Fuck being helpless.

  There's nothing I can do from the inside of this goddamn cell. But get me out in the Pit, out there among the criminals, malcontents, and troublemakers, and I will show them something I can do.

  I will rip the head off their precious Assumption Day, and I will shit down its fucking neck.

  10

  Deliann could tell something important was about to happen from the way the Donjon guards were turning up the lamps.

  He folded his arms behind his head and watched as a little group of them went from lamp to lamp around the tic-tac-toe square of the overhead catwalks. One of the group had a pole with a little Y -hand on the end; he'd catch the lamp chain in the Y and use the pole to push the lamp over to where another guard could grab it by the big brass handles that were welded in a ring around each lamp's barrel. A third guard would use a snuffer the size of a helmet to douse the flame, then he'd use his knife, inserted flatwise through the grey arm-thick hawser that served as a wick, to pull the wick farther out through the green-scaled brass lamp mouth, to make it burn higher and cast more light.

  His fever had surged lately, and he rode its waves, drowsing and waking and drowsing again through dreams of deserts and ovens, summer noons and slow-twisting flame, and he fancied in a vaguely amused way that each time they relit one of the big brass lamps, the Donjon guards were turning up the heat inside his head.

  For a time he lay on his back, staring up at the lamps, reflecting upon fire: light and heat, safety and destruction. He'd always had a gift for flame; it was the core of his magickal skill. He could do things with fire that an ordinary mortal could barely imagine. He thought now that perhaps fire was the central metaphor of his existence—like fire itself, he had been a perfectly faithful servant, but once set free of his master's control, he'd burned down the world

  He never did learn what the something important was; by the time the balcony and catwalks filled with crossbow-armed guards and the sergeant roared for the prisoners to rise at the entry of His Grace Toa-M'Jest, Duke of Public Order—and had the guards shoot one prisoner who appeared prepared to insult His Grace by remaining seated—Deliann was fast asleep upon the stone, his recumbent form screened from view by the close knot of Cainists that t'Passe had gathered around him.

  Deliann never saw the Duke; he was dreaming of fire.

  11

  Majesty comes through the door of my cell like a fox with hounds baying inside his head. He shifts inside his clothes like something's crawling on his skin, and he licks sweat from his upper lip. These past few years have been hard on him: He's gained a lot of weight, but his cheeks sag anyway and the flesh under his eyes is dark. His hairline has retreated somewhere north of the White Desert. A couple Eyes of God officers flank him.

  "Caine, I have come here out of respect for the fact that you once saved my life," he says, the second finger of his right hand scratching the corner of his mouth. "But we are not friends, and you can expect no consideration from me. When you turned against Our Lord Ma'elKoth, you sacrificed our friendship as well."

  The finger-scratch at the corner of his mouth is part of the Quiet Cant, the gestural code of the Warrengang he once ran. This gesture means Hostiles present. Play along. Using the second finger means two—he's say ing both of these Eyes of God officers are spies, and he has to play nice in front of them.

  From his sweats and jitters, it's not too much of a stretch to figure that he's in the early stages of HRVP—which means this bit about the officers being against him might be nothing but a paranoid fantasy. On the other hand, Toa-Sytell used to run the Eyes; it's also not too much of a stretch to assume that he'd have informers among the officer corps.

  "Fuck friendship," I tell him. A slight motion brings together the tips of my left thumb and forefinger against the blanket that covers my legs: I read you. "I want to make a deal."

&
nbsp; "There is no deal you can make which will save your life," he replies, scratching the other corner of his mouth with his left thumb: the signal for truth. "You will die on Assumption Day, as planned."

  Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, I'm looking forward to it; the prospect of having years and years to pick through the wreckage of my life is not a cheerful one.

  But I will choose my death.

  I will not have my death chosen for me.

  "I can tell you lots of things," I offer. "I can tell you why people are killing each other all over this city, and why it's gonna get a lot worse. I can tell you what you can do about it."

  Now that thumb that had just scratched his mouth taps the same spot twice: Truth?

  I just stare at him. Let him fucking wonder.

  "And what do you want for this information?"

  I take a deep breath and lace my fingers together on the pretext of cracking my knuckles. "I want to go out the same way I came in: right past the Pit." My thumbs are touching each other for the words I want to go, then separated for out the same way I came, together for in, separate right past, together the Pit.

  Majesty squints at me narrowly while he parses the interaction of signal with word: I want to go in the Pit. His eyes bulge like overboiled eggs. "Are you insane?"

  He recovers swiftly and gives me the I read you while he smoothly works his reaction into our little vaudeville. "You are the Enemy of God, Caine. It'd take an order from His Radiance himself to set you free. I can't believe you would ask such a thing."

  I pretend to scratch my chin with my left hand, while I make the truth sign. "Maybe you oughta go ask him, then. You got a monster shitstorm spinning up, Majesty, and I'm the only one who can smell it."

  "Toa-M'Jest," he corrects me absently, and glances from one Eye officer to the other like he can't figure out what to do. They both stand at a relaxed parade rest, pretending they're not paying attention. "How am I supposed to bring this crap before the Patriarch?" he asks, rubbing his hands together nervously. "You insult me, to even make the suggestion."

  His thumbs brush each other on the words insult me.

  Okay, I get the picture.

  "That's it?" I say, blinking disbelief at him. "That's what saving your worthless ungrateful butt buys me? `Kiss off, see you in your next life?' When did you turn into such a suckass?"

  "Mind your tone," he says frostily. "You are speaking to a Duke of the Empire—"

  "Duke of the Empire, horseshit. I'm speaking to a fucking ass-bandit. How'd you get Toa-Sytell's shit stains off your nose? With your tongue?" He turns red. "Caine—" he begins, but I'm all over this.

  "I can guess how you got into the Cabinet. You think if I give that zombie-faced cocksmoke a rimmer every night, he'll make me a Duke, too? You ever have to play Guess What the Patriarch Had for Dinner?"

  The Eyes of God guys make noises like they're strangling, and they start toward me, but Majesty beats them to it. He leaps forward and gathers my stained tunic in both fists, yanking me up off the cot. "Say what you want about me," he snarls in my face, "but never insult the Patriarch. Never, you understand? It is only by his leave that I could give you this cell-otherwise you'd be in the Pit. Is that what you want?" He gives me a pretty violent shake, then another. "Is it?"

  "Your hospitality can suck shit out of my ass—nah, sorry, don't want to ruin your appetite before Vespers, huh?"

  He throws me back onto the cot hard enough to bounce my head against the wall and shoot stars across my vision. "You have an unusual way of persuading a friend to do you a favor," he says coldly. "I think I have done you one too many already."

  He turns to one of the Eyes. "Tell the sergeant of the guard that I will pay for this man's cell no longer. They can throw him in the Pit with the rest of the scum."

  "Hey—" I say uncertainly, "hey, c'mon, Majesty, I was only kidding—"

  "My name is Toa-M'Jest," he says, "not that you'll have occasion to use it again. I'll see you on Assumption Day, Caine." He does a pretty fair military about-face and stalks out of the cell.

  "Hey, come on," I call after him pleadingly as the Eyes follow him out. "Can't you take a fucking joke?"

  They lock the cell door and swing the bar into place.

  It's good to have friends.

  12

  The roar of the flames on Commons' Beach, in the Warrens, around Alien Games, and on the deck of the riverbarge all converged into the purifying blaze of a village high in the God's Teeth and fused itself with the voice of a mob, of an army, of all the prisoners in the Pit suddenly starting to yell at once, and Deliann discovered that he was awake.

  He rubbed at his face, trying to clear eyes that did not focus well; his skin was hot to his touch. The prisoners around him were standing, shouting, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. "What's happening?" he asked thickly of no one in particular. "Why is everyone shouting?"

  T'Passe looked down when he spoke, and she squatted beside him so that she could be heard above the shouting. "You might want to see this," she said, waving one hand toward the balcony around the Pit while with the other she took his arm to help him up.

  Numbly, he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, though his legs ached fiercely to be taking his weight once more. Where t'Passe pointed, a pair of guards pumped the rocker arms on the winch, clanking the jointed pawls in and out of ratchet teeth to lower the stairbridge on its long chains. Prisoners pressed aside as its foot settled to the stone floor; at the stairtop stood a pair of grey-robed Donjon trusties, bearing a litter on which lay a dark-haired man. "That's Caine," t'Passe said. Her voice hummed with astonished reverence. "That's Caine. They're bringing him down."

  Deliann swayed, feverish; the moment oozed, gooey and labile, between the beats of his pulse. Stung, almost blinded, rapt with a shivering perception of being present at an event of unexplainably transcendent significance, as though he had fallen right out of his life and landed inside an epic that no one had read for a thousand years, he leaned on t'Passe's arm as the trusties turned and slowly bore the litter down the stairbridge.

  The man on the litter was dark of hair and swarthy of skin, of athletic build but no longer young: a scatter of grey marbled his ragged black beard. He lay still, eyes closed, limp as a corpse, and the grey cotton pants that covered his motionless legs were stained here and there with crusted blotches of brown and red. This could not be Caine, not truly: he looked so fragile.

  So human.

  The surge of the shouting took on an ugly edge.

  Deliann swung his head from side to side in blank denial; he could not speak, could barely think, his breath strangled by crushing déjà vu. He had seen this man before

  As though all the tales he'd heard of Caine had solidified somehow inside his head, so that he'd somehow known already that the Enemy of Ma'elKoth was only a slender dark-haired man in the grip of middle age, of completely unextraordinary appearance.

  But he hadn't .. .

  In his heart, had he ever troubled to examine it, he had carried the same icon of Caine as had everyone else who had listened to the legend but never seen the man: fists like steel gauntlets that can break stone with a single blow, shoulders an axe-handle wide, muscles like boulders, eyes like torches in a cave, the grin of a predator fed upon human blood

  How was it, then, that he could look at this man and feel that he somehow knew him?

  He breathed himself into mindview, searching for that current of black Flow of which Kierendal had spoken. At first he could see only scarlet swirls ghosting outward from the shouting prisoners: their mob-anger energy drifting toward the man upon the litter. The man on the litter, impossibly, seemed to have no Shell of his own—but those swirls of scarlet found something to latch on to around him, some shadowy pulse in the air, a vague darkening that deepened as though it fed upon the anger from below.

  The shadow didn't look like a Shell at all; instead of the almost gelatinous solidity that Deliann could usually see filling the ai
r around a living creature, this was smoke and ghost-shade, shifting and twisting, half imaginary, as though it were a trick of his fever-hazed eyes. With concentration, his disciplined mind could struggle through his haze to draw it gradually into focus . . . But as it came clear—swirls of opalescent grey and white within the black, like a semisubstantial gemstone—the Shells of the other prisoners, of the trusties and the guards and Deliann himself, all faded into only a vivid memory.

  Flow is Flow: all the colors and shapes of magick are finally one single force, even as all the shapes and colors of energy, from light to steel to the neutron-soup of a collapsar, are finally and fundamentally energy. But even as energy can have wildly differing properties according to its state, so, too, do the states of Flow. The limestone from which the Donjon was carved impedes and reflects the states of Flow used by human and primal thaumaturges, rendering them powerless; but that rock has a Flow of its own, its own note within the song of the Worldmind.

  This small dark broken man, it seemed, inhabited a Flow state of a different order than that of those around him.

  Deliann stared at the currents of black Flow that surrounded this man. He had heard of such things—had heard of men whose Shells showed black—but he had never seen one; and even as he stared, the small dark broken man stirred and spoke to the trusties who bore his litter. Halfway down the stairbridge, the trusties paused.

  The angry, ugly shouting welcome of the prisoners turned to jeers, hoots, and mocking singsong invitations: the baying of human hounds who believe they smell fear.

  Ca-aine! Hey, Ca-aine!

  Hungry, Caine? I got something to feedja!

  Lookit them pants—wet himself already.