Seto nudged his horse forward from his troops. He wore a breastplate of swamp dragon scales and the scabbard of his subtly curved sword was covered with beautifully clear and bright Tanarian glass, lacquered to protect it against breakage. It all looked very formidable and lordly, but in that moment, it also looked terribly alien.
"That is not why we are here," Seto said. "We offer this bread to bolster your strength. To maintain the health of your children. We have no wish to hurt you. Don't you understand? We need you! Only in unity can we stand against—"
A dazzling white bolt shot from Adaine's right hand, whistling toward Seto's throat. Dante had been waiting for a strike—he'd already bitten the inside of his lower lip—and loosed a dark counter. It flew toward Seto like a bird on the wing. The commander, seeing only the incoming spear of light, stiffened his posture and lifted his head high. But he didn't move, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop what was coming.
The two forces slammed into each other two feet from his face. Sparks dashed against his cheeks and the brow of his steel helmet.
Adaine laughed. "Do you see? Even now, they walk among you! If they want so badly to help you, why do they cover their faces? Eh? To conceal the shame of who they really are? Or so they can laugh in secret as you swallow their poison? The only question I have for the shadow-worshippers is whether they are more arrogant, or more cruel!"
The blond man shook his axe and began another speech, but it was drowned out by a distributed roar of taunts, insults, and general wordless anger.
"I'm well-versed in the language of angry mobs," Blays said. "And what I think they're saying right now is 'It's time for you to run before we find out exactly how many shreds a man's body can be torn into.'"
Dante glanced into the tree-spotted field behind them. "If we leave now, everything we've established over the last few days will fall apart."
"Counterargument: if we stick around, we're going to have to kill a whole bunch of them, which isn't likely to do wonders for our popularity, either."
Adaine had turned his back to them to address the crowd, but the masses hardly needed the encouragement. The mob divided itself in half, one bunch heading toward Seto and the bread wagon, and the other half tromping toward Dante and Blays.
Dante grimaced. "We're only making it worse for the Tanarians. Time for a tactical retreat." Keeping the nether in hand, he backed away through the grass.
"Look at them go!" Adaine pointed after them. "Exposed, they run! Like criminals! Like rats!"
Some of the mob bent to pick up rocks and throw them at Dante and Blays. For now the stones thudded short, but they'd soon need to turn and run to avoid getting bashed to death. At the bread wagon, Seto ordered his men away from it, abandoning it to the angry throngs of Mallish. Men scrambled up into the bed of the wagon, stomping on loaves and hurling them down to the others, who ripped them apart and threw them into the dirt.
"People of Mallon!"
The voice that rang out from behind them was elderly, but it bore the arresting quality of authority. People paused in the act of picking up bread, straightening to peer up the road.
Gladdic walked toward them in his worn gray robe. Dante didn't see any ether in his hand, but he seemed to be surrounded by an aura of light.
Gladdic stopped, standing across from the waiting people. "The man who has persuaded you to these acts would make you fear to feed yourself with bread. But the only thing he feeds you is lies."
Adaine strolled forward, shaking his head and smiling sadly. "Ordon Gladdic. Have you come to us to defend your dear friends the nethermongers? What corrupt force tainted you in the swamps to bring you to side with the enemies over your own people?"
"There, I was waylaid by the harshest force of them all, Adaine: the truth."
"Is this an admission? You're one of them now?"
"I am not," Gladdic said. "I still hold Taim to be first among the Celeset, and the ether to be a power of purity and goodness, the heavens' proof that there are higher ideals to strive for, and that perfection can and should be pursued even by mortals. Yet I have also come to learn that the nether is not something to be feared."
"Then you should shed that robe right now, you disgusting heretic. The nether is death and death alone."
"No. The nether is death—but it is also rebirth, and growth. Look at the grass and trees in these fields; look at the grain in the bread that feeds you. The ether teaches the seeds what form they are to pursue. Yet it is the nether that provides them the nourishment to allow them to fulfill that form."
Adaine, mocking just a minute ago, took on a thoughtful scowl, pacing in a semicircle around the older man. "You realize this is completely opposed to your faith. To my faith. To the faith of every Mallish man and woman here."
"I do."
"Our faith states that the nether is corruption. Decay. Death. The opposite of ether. The darkness that would extinguish the light."
"That is the simple way to see it: for everyone welcomes the light, and fears to walk in darkness, just as everyone welcomes life, and fears to walk in the shadow of death. But since the day when Arawn's Mill fell and cracked, there has been no escape from death. The world changed, and with that change came the nether. For the purpose of the nether is not to corrupt and kill us. No: it is the means through which our fallen world can regenerate itself from the decay and death that must inevitably come to every person and thing that comes to exist."
"So reject death! Reject imperfection and entropy and destruction! Deny the shadows and love the light that gives us the higher forms and the power to preserve them!"
"When I examine the world, it seems to me that these are the laws the gods have set for us. If the laws are to be changed, it is not men who can change them, but the lords of the Celeset."
Adaine turned his back to Gladdic and tilted his head until he appeared to be staring straight into the sun. "That is precisely what the Arawnites believe: that Taim's order of light cracked and tumbled down, and was replaced by the way of shadows. This means the shadows now have precedent over the light. Primacy! Don't you understand the implications of your little revelation?"
"The only implication I see is that we have been wrong about some matters—and that those who wield or even worship the nether are not our enemies due to that fact alone."
"Ah, you're getting pretty close to it there! Maybe even closer than you want to. Because if you accept that Taim's original rule has been thrown down by the way of Arawn, then you place Arawn at the head of the Celeset! You worship him! So why have you come here? To tell me that everything I believe is wrong, and that the Arawnites were right all along? Gladdic, just how mad have you become?"
All of the crowd had wandered away from the now-forgotten wagons to form a wide circle around the two speakers, as if they weren't exchanging rhetorical jabs and logical hooks, but were physically boxing. With Adaine's latest flurry, they exhaled a collective "Ooh," like Gladdic's nose had just been flattened.
Gladdic hunched his shoulders and tucked his chin, thinking. "I am no Arawnite, for I do not feel it in my soul. In full fact, I do not know if there is a word for what I have become. Yet I know that even with all I have come to accept—so much that would be called heresy—there remains a rightful place for Taim at the head of the Celeset. For Taim granted us the measures, through which we can understand the world he and the others crafted for us. More than this, he is the lord of the ether. What can be grander than that?"
"But the ether has been replaced. So must your worship."
"Not so. For there is no need to worship life, its cycle, and our death; all of that will happen whether we approve of it or not. The ether, as ruled by Taim, gives us ideals. It gives us purpose. A higher form to strive for, much as small seeds strive for the forms of wheat and trees."
"How nice of the ether! But under your scheme, it is still subservient, Gladdic. It was replaced. That means it was flawed, it wasn't right. The nether replaced it. The nether is still
here. Therefore, the nether is right—and therefore it rules both us and the ether. This is what you believe!"
The audience uttered another communal sound: a disappointed murmur aimed at Gladdic.
Gladdic assumed his thinking posture once more. "Perhaps what is not right is us. The ether failed not because it was flawed, but because we are. The ether for the gods, who are without a single flaw: the nether for us, who have no end of them. So why would we worship the substance of humanity, as the Arawnites do? Why would we not continue to worship the substance of the divine?"
Adaine broke into laughter. "You've just walked into your own trap! By your own terms, the ether is for the gods, not for us. All that is left for us is the nether. The shadows. The darkness."
Gladdic bent his head. "I do not know the answers to every question, Adaine. I only know what I have seen. And I no longer believe the nether to be evil."
Adaine drew back, furrowing his brow and pacing around Gladdic some more. "It's a funny thing. You spend countless words to convince me that oh no, you couldn't possibly be one of them. So how is it that everything you say winds up supporting their faith? Hearing you speak, what sane man wouldn't conclude that you're just a crypto-Arawnite here to undermine our faith and convert our people to the damnation of your dark lord?"
"For the hundredth time, I am no Arawnite. For there are grave mistakes in their beliefs as well."
"Oh? Perhaps you could name me one. The graver, the better!"
Gladdic's features condensed into a scowl. "What of the afterworld? Is that grave enough for you? For our conception of what the gods hold in store for us upon our deaths is much closer to the truth than what the Arawnites tell themselves."
Adaine sputtered, laughing. "Now you're claiming to have seen the afterworld!"
"I have not seen it. But they have." He lifted his left hand, palm up, toward Dante and Blays. During the impromptu debate, they'd been all but forgotten, but they now found themselves the attention of every set of eyes in the field. Gladdic nodded as if someone had asked him a question. "They have traveled to the lands beyond this one, where the dead seek their peace. Soon enough, I shall visit these lands for myself and return with their wisdom."
The other ordon grimaced, exposing his teeth. His jaws were working as if he had to literally chew over what had been told to him. "You have gone mad, Gladdic. The world beyond is for the dead alone."
"That is not so. There are those in this world who have discovered the means to travel to the beyond."
Adaine's voice softened. "If this is true, then what is it like there?"
Gladdic gestured toward Dante again. "I will let those who have seen it speak of it."
"It's not just one world," Dante said slowly. He didn't know if it was at all wise to be revealing this truth now, in front of a Mallish crowd, but he didn't see another way. "It's three, which you pass through in sequence. We've only seen the first two. In the first world, you don't even know you're dead. It's like a labyrinth for the mind. One that prepares you—that leads you to accept—that this world, the world you knew, is now behind you.
"Once it's prepared you, you pass into a world much like this one, except there's no real strife or hardship. Everything just sort of…is. I think it's a sort of second chance at life, a way for people to experience anything they might have felt cheated out of the first go around. And it just now occurs to me that, in its way, this is a subtle labyrinth of its own. A way to prepare you for the final plane.
"As I said, we haven't seen the third and final world. The living can't see it. But we were told by the dead themselves that when you pass into it, you become a part of everyone who's ever lived, and forget that you have ever been alive."
Everyone was watching him again. The field was utterly quiet except for the buzzing of insects.
"So Gladdic's right, then," Dante finished. "When it comes to what comes after, the truth is a lot closer to what you believe in Mallon than what we believe in Narashtovik."
Adaine gave a snort. "So on the matter of what comes after this life—perhaps the most fundamental tenet of all faith—you admit that we have hit the mark while you have badly missed it? And you think this is an argument in favor of the Arawnites' beliefs?"
"It is only to say that their faith has strayed as well," Gladdic said. "We now have the chance to reform ourselves to what is true. The closer we model our worship on what is handed down to us by the gods, the more divine we shall be: for as above, so below."
Gladdic kneeled, picking up a hunk of bread and examining it. "I have traveled far. I have seen both beauty and horror enough to break me. And I no longer fear the shadows."
He lifted the bread to his mouth and ate.
"Then you have revealed yourself." Adaine's voice was as wary as if he'd stumbled into a predator's den. "First, you will be judged here in this world. And then you will be judged in what comes after."
Dante tensed, calling the nether to his hands, but Adaine turned with a flourish and hastened back up the road in the company of a coterie of priests. The crowd spoke in whispers, glancing between the sorcerers. A few started to back away. As with so much of group behavior, this small act kicked off an avalanche; within a minute, nearly all of the mob was on its way back to the city.
A small fraction remained, however. And when the others were too far away to see, those who'd stayed hurried to the bread wagon, scooping up what little was left in it, along with those loaves that hadn't been ground into the dirt. Then, looking about themselves as if they'd committed a crime, they hurried away, too.
Commander Seto made his way toward Dante, Blays, and Gladdic, his hand holding lightly to the hilt of his sword. "What have I just seen? And what happens now?"
"I cannot say." Gladdic straightened his robe. "But for the moment, the mob has gone. I suggest you take the opportunity to do what work as you can."
That night, the city lay still—although for all they knew, it was the stillness of a monster lying in wait. In the morning, the Tanarians and their wagons made way for the fortifications. In time, the mob came there, too.
They were smaller in numbers. The ones there collected their bread as if nothing had happened the day before.
Dante departed to grow another batch of wheat, then rode back to help deal with any surprise attacks from the Golden Hammer. But the day's work concluded in peace. When they returned to the palace, they found that Corson was there waiting for them. The tower room he'd been shown to was guarded by two of the Odo Sein.
"Ordon Gladdic." Corson rose from the table as they entered. His face was pale and he seemed disheveled, as if he'd just been chased through the streets rather than sitting quietly in a well-guarded tower. "I've got news from the Golden Hammer."
Gladdic scowled. "When do they intend to strike?"
"I couldn't tell you that much. The more interesting question—or leastways, the only one I can answer for you—is which of them intend to strike? And the answer to that, dear ordon, is far fewer than the day before."
"If you are trying to be unintelligible, you have succeeded."
"I am only playing up my moment. I don't get many of them. You see, there's been a schism in the Golden Hammer. Adaine and the loyalists still want to hang the Tanarians like skinny wind chimes, but more than half of the priesthood is now willing to fight next to the Drakebane—on the condition, of course, that he leaves and makes various restitutions as soon as we've won."
"I doubt that we will do that."
"Leave?"
"Win."
Corson opened his mouth halfway, brows lowered, then shook his head. "Then let's pray this realignment among the loyalists proves you most wrong, sir."
Gladdic extended his arms as if to tent his fingers on the table. His eyes glinted with amusement when he saw he was missing half the hands he needed to do so. "How has this split come to pass?"
"Word of your dialogue with Adaine has spread far and wide across the city, that's how."
"This con
vinced them? Not so long ago, I would have executed any man who spoke as I did."
"I was also what you might call a little surprised by this. But there are still many here who respect you, do you understand that? They know you've seen some…strange things, in your travels. Now you've got questions. And that gives them pause."
"Men do not throw away the beliefs they carry in their deepest heart after hearing a single argument to the contrary. It is more likely that the Golden Hammer has discovered your deceit, and is feeding you false information to destroy us."
Corson chuckled. "If so, then they also staged a full-blown fight between Adaine and the moderates where Adaine near as got his face ripped off. The whole thing's made his followers more extreme than ever, so you will want to watch out for them. At the same time, they've shrunk to where they can't control the mob anymore. Not all of it, leastways."
"No, Corson. This is beyond the realm of belief. It is one thing to step forth and deliver words to soothe an angry mob. It is quite another to schism the faith with a few minutes of argument."
"Is this really that surprising?" Dante said. "You run yourselves hoarse preaching about the evils of nether, but half of your highest priests seem to be learning it in secret. Adaine's fellows didn't show much surprise when he used it to drop that tower on the crowd. Maybe you just finally said things people have been questioning in private for a long time."
Corson shrugged. "Could be. I've heard more than one rumor of the superiors dabbling in the darkness. And there are times when some of us meet to raise questions that can only be asked in the presence of darkness and wine. Either way, I can't say as I understand. But they already have a name for it, you know. They're calling it 'the Dialogue of Death and Bread.' There are calls for a convocation once the war is over."
"There are times I feel that all is an illusion," Gladdic said. "Right down to the earth beneath our feet. How else to explain how an edifice that seemed to be so sturdy could fall apart with a single push? We are feeble creatures, unable to grasp reality, or even to define it. That is why it so often tricks us: we never understood it to begin with."
The Spear of Stars Page 16
