“Go get dressed,” Jasnah said. “The city leaders will want to see our Herald.”
Taln’s expression darkened. “We need to talk,” he said, not moving.
“Later,” Jasnah promised.
Taln sighed, then nodded, going off to put on the fine cloak and shirt she had appropriated for him from Meridas’s stock. Despite tailoring, they didn’t quite fit, but the rich colors—mixed with Taln’s Shardblade—made for a passably impressive presentation.
The city was only a short distance away. They had camped the army far enough outside its borders to not be too threatening, but close enough that it would be visible from the wall. Since entering the highlands, the landscape had flattened out, and villages were more rare. Yet, the mines to the north—the prime locations of despotism—made certain that caravans passed this way fairly often. So, although the towns were less frequent, they tended to be larger. And even more suspicious, if that were possible.
Unlike the villages to the south, this city had a wall. The fortification was coated with enough cromstone to make it look almost like a natural growth, and it was topped by a line of suspicious guards. Evening was quickly approaching, and if the impending highstorm hadn’t darkened the sky, the setting sun would have. It was still possible to make out faces in the dim light, however, and theirs were expressions of rough determination. The message given by soldiers, closed gates, and black walls was clear: this was not a city ruled by an outside tyrant, and nor would it soon be taken.
Kemnar led Jasnah, Taln, Meridas, Lhan, and their honor guard of twenty soldiers to the front gates. Meridas still looked annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to ride at the head of the group. Jasnah allowed herself a smile. During the last week, the center of power within their force had changed yet again. The newcomers came to see a Herald, not an unknown nobleman. Before, she had allowed Meridas to command because he represented the best hope for Alethkar. By the same reasoning, she now required Meridas to let Taln take at least a figurehead role at the fore of the army. Ostensibly, Meridas was still the top nobleman in the group—but everyone knew that deities ranked aristocrats.
“Where is the Herald?” one of the wall-top soldiers called down. No one made any moves to open the gates.
Taln stepped forward and faced them, holding his Shardblade point-down at his side. Jasnah wished—not for the first time—that she had been able to persuade him to wear Kemnar’s Shardplate. Standing between Kemnar and Meridas in their Plate, even Taln’s rich cloth seemed wan.
She knew what they were thinking atop that wall. This? This is the supposed Herald Talenel? This soldier with the height and muscles of a normal man? An indistinctive face and simple bearing? Where is the aura of power, the glowing eyes, the towering height and booming voice?
“Why have you come to Galevan?” the guard called down.
“My man has explained our desires already,” Taln yelled back. “Open your gates so we may trade with your merchants.”
There was a pause. Finally, the man called down again. “We’ve changed our minds,” he said. “We don’t want your trade, nor do we need you stealing our soldiers when we have few enough to defend ourselves. Be on your way, False Herald. We’ve seen your kind often enough.” A second later, the man continued, as if in afterthought, “And don’t think to threaten the siege of our city. We’ve counted your numbers. Eight hundred troops can hardly think to threaten a walled city—especially when those troops are as poorly equipped as yours.”
Beside her, Meridas’s expression darkened, as if an insult against the troops was also one against him. Jasnah just sighed to herself. It wasn’t the first city they’d been turned away from. For every person who seemed willing to accept Taln’s claims, there were the more rational thousand who saw through him. Apparently, the tempestuous Riemak countryside was no stranger to men claiming Heraldship as a means of gathering fame and troops.
She turned to go. Taln remained where he was. “Choose from among yourselves your five greatest warriors,” he called up to them, “and send them down here.”
“We already told you,” the wall-top man said, “you will find no recruits here!”
“No recruiting,” Taln said, jamming his Shardblade into a nearby boulder. “Just a challenge. I will fight them all at once, and do so without a weapon. If they defeat me, you may have my Blade.”
Jasnah raised an eyebrow. This part was not expected—apparently, Taln had decided to improvise.
The guard laughed. “You expect me to trust your word?”
“How often does a town like yours get an opportunity to win itself a Shardblade,” Taln called back, “even if that opportunity is dubious?”
This brought pause. Finally, after some debate from those on top, a rope ladder was thrown over the side of the wall, and five spear-wielding men descended and approached Taln, suspicious of a trap.
Within thirty heartbeats, all five lay on the ground, groaning to themselves. The guards atop the wall were silent.
Taln whipped his Blade from its boulder sheath and pointed it at the guards. “You think I need an army to take your city?” he demanded in a loud voice. “Stone and wood are no obstacle to a Blade, and I have two other Shardbearers at my command. You think we couldn’t brush past your fortifications like a storm through a paper glyphward? You think we three alone couldn’t slaughter your entire defensive force? I come not for my good, but for yours! Death comes one year from the day of my Return. Barely six months remain. Forbid me or accept me, I care not, but know this. You are warned!”
Silence. Then, finally, the gates clunked and crept open. Jasnah shot a triumphant, self-congratulatory smile at Meridas. The nobleman had watched Taln’s exchange with eager eyes, hoping—she knew—that the madman would overextend himself and fall with a spearhead in his gut. Now, Meridas suffered her subtle mockery with dignity. He had complained against Jasnah’s insistence that their force become the ‘Herald’s Army,’ but he had not disobeyed her. He knew a good opportunity when he saw one. Despite his deceptively mundane appearance, Taln had a . . . momentum about him. Where he strode, rumors sprouted, and where he fought, respect was gained.
The city only had one inn, and it was here that Jasnah implemented the second part of her well-tested plan: she put Taln on display. She gained him a conference with the city leaders—a group of three merchants who controlled the water in the summer, the shelter during storms, and the walls at all times. She made certain that Taln’s discussion with them happened in the common room with open stormshutters and plenty of curious ears.
Taln explained his purpose, telling them of the Return and the other nonsense his mind had contrived. However, since he absolutely believed what he said, his words carried weight despite their ridiculous nature. That honesty, mixed with the display at the gates, was sure to make Galevan one of their more successful city visits. Jasnah smiled to herself as she tallied up expected recruits. Smaller cities than this had yielded tensets of men. They could probably expect a good fifty soldiers from Galevan itself, and the rumors its people spread would bring even more from outlying communities.
She must have appeared too gleeful, for once the conference was finished—the merchants returning to their homes for the night—Taln sought her out to have his ‘talk.’ He came to her room—one of three gifted by the innkeeper to his prestigious guests—completely unconcerned with etiquette or decency. He barely even paused to knock before he entered.
Jasnah yelped quietly as he opened the door, jumping up to throw a cloak over her nightgown. Taln shut the door behind him, his face distracted. Only then did he noticed Jasnah’s disheveled blush, and he paused, hand still on the doorknob.
“Have you no sense of propriety?” She demanded, flustered as she seated herself back on the stool beside her dressing mirror, pulling her cloak closed at the top to hide the exposed flesh beneath. “Bursting into a woman’s rooms at night, far past modest hours?”
Taln stood for a moment, as if stunned by something comple
tely unexpected. Then he blushed deeply and looked away. “I . . . apologize,” he said. “It has been a very long time since I have had to consider such things.”
Jasnah snorted. “For an immortal deity, you certainly can be remarkably dense sometimes, Taln.”
He smiled wanly, but didn’t make any moves to leave, so she settled herself on the stool as if she were in her audience chamber back in the palace. Behind her, the room’s stormshutters rattled from wind and rain. The highstorm had finally hit. Back in the camp, the regular men were about to spend a very damp evening.
“If you don’t consider ‘such things,’” Jasnah noted, “then I assume this is not a social call?”
Taln nodded, not bothering to take a seat. “You’re using me,” he said. “I don’t like it.”
Characteristically blunt. “And how, exactly, is it that I am using you?” she asked.
Taln raised an eyebrow. “Don’t play at your games, Jasnah. I’ve noticed how Meridas holds back and lets me speak. I realize how you place me at the forefront when we visit these towns, how you encourage me to speak of my purpose and my mission. I know how you send newcomers to gawk at me during training, how you encourage visitors and townspeople to spread the word of the ‘Herald’s Army.’”
“And?” Jasnah asked. “You have a problem with these things? I thought you wanted to warn the land of its danger. Are you not pleased with the attention you are receiving, and the control you have been granted?”
“By Kevahin, Jasnah!” Taln snapped. “This land isn’t your court, to be flirted and manipulated. We’re not dealing with balls and squabblings over ranks! These are people, Jasnah, not political prizes. Good people, who’ve lived hard lives, and now you’re enlisting them to march to their deaths. You don’t care about my cause—you still think I’m insane! You just want an army you can bring back to show off to your traitorous king of a brother.”
Jasnah stiffened at the attack. “I don’t see what it matters to you,” she said coldly. “You get what you desire—a population warned of the Return. I get what I need—soldiers to aid my homeland in its defense. Where is the argument?”
Taln leaned down, looking her in the eyes. “One thing politicians never seem to understand is that intention matters. It matters to these people, it matters to the Almighty, and it matters to me. I will not gather this army under false pretenses. Better they remain here, warned, than they come with me and die in Alethkar, leaving their families undefended.” He stood, his expression dark. “I will not be your puppet any longer. I had hoped we could discuss this, but I should have realized better. You and I can never ‘discuss’ anything.” He turned, reaching for the doorknob.
“I’ll take you to the Holy City,” Jasnah said.
Taln froze. Outside, the tempestuous highstorm raged, but in her room there was only silence.
“We’ll go there,” Jasnah said. “The entire army. Despite the diversion and the wasted time, we’ll go—just like you want. No broken oaths, no abandoned soldiers.”
Taln stood, hand gripping the knob. Finally, he turned. “Must everything be a deal to you, woman?”
“Yes,” Jasnah said quietly.
Taln stood, staring at her with dark eyes.
“Oh, sit down, Taln,” she said with exasperation. “I can barely think with you looming over me like that.”
He sighed, letting go of the knob. He didn’t bother to find a stool, he simply settled himself on the ground, leaning with his back against the door.
“It is a good offer, Taln,” she said. “If your brethren are actually there, gathered in Jorevan as you claim, then we can deliver them an army trained and ready. These last few months won’t have been wasted at all. If they aren’t there, then you’ll have to reassess your goals. You can hardly face the Stormshades without an army or a center of operations. But, with Alethkar stable and free of invaders—and with my promises of aid—you can go about your preparations without further hindrance. Either way, you are better off than if you decided to leave us now and start over in another kingdom.”
Taln sighed again. He sat for a moment, as if listening to the rain strike stone outside. Finally, he spoke. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I am who I say that I am?”
“Because I’ve seen proof to the contrary,” Jasnah said. “The Sign refusing to work. You have flawless—if accented—use of the Aleth tongue despite a supposed thousand years in abscentia. You display an inability to give any display of power, divine or otherwise.”
Taln shook his head. “Those aren’t your reasons, Jasnah. You may see them as validations, but they aren’t the core of your doubt.”
“Oh?” Jasnah asked. “And what is?”
“Your disbelief in the Almighty,” Taln replied simply.
Jasnah paused. She hadn’t expected him to be right. “I’ll admit,” she said, “that my skepticism of his existence doesn’t exactly encourage me to believe in his divine servants.”
“What happened?” Taln asked. “What happened that could make you so determined not to believe?”
“Why do people always ask that?” Jasnah demanded. “They act as if there were some catastrophic event in my life that made me reject God, as if I were turning my back on a distasteful bowl of soup. It’s not like that, Taln. Nothing ‘happened’ to me. Why do the other people believe in the Almighty, other than that they’ve been taught to do so since they were children? What ‘happened’ to them?”
“Surely there must be reasons,” Taln said.
“There are,” Jasnah said. “But it’s the entire concept—not just one or two facts, not just a bad experience—that disturbs me about Vorinism. The idea that morality is based on some external, all-powerful being makes me uncomfortable. The monks teach that all goodness comes from the Almighty. One of them actually told me that without the Almighty, there is no reason for goodness in men, for the Dwelling and eternal consequences provide the only equalizing pressure upon the souls of men. Don’t you see how insulting that is? They imply that there can be no inherent good in people, that we depend on fear of retribution to keep us doing what’s right. To them, anyone who doesn’t agree to their moral superiority is damned.”
“I see,” Taln said quietly.
“The Almighty provides an escape,” Jasnah continued. “A means of avoiding responsibility. If we do what he supposedly wants, then we don’t really have to worry about learning right and wrong for ourselves. By contriving for ourselves an external source of truth, we’re left to be carnal and wrong, as long as we’re ‘striving’ to Remake ourselves as the Arguments teach. It also allows the monks to have an absolute monopoly on morality. They get to decide what is good and what isn’t, since they speak for the Almighty. The rest of us have inferior, even defective, souls that are in need of their repair.”
“I . . . see,” Taln repeated thoughtfully.
Jasnah sat defiantly, preparing her counter-arguments. He would find that no matter what holes he tried to poke, she had plugs long-formulated. She’d had countless discussions with Ralmakha and other theologians, and none of them had been able to give any solid defense to her attacks on their religion.
“It must be hard to live, not believing in anything,” Taln said.
Jasnah raised an eyebrow at the unexpected path. “I don’t find it so hard.”
“Don’t you?” Taln asked, sounding genuinely inquisitive. “Your brother betrayed you, the other members of your family are all dead, and you have no god to rely on. What is there left for you?”
The words hurt more than she would ever give him the satisfaction of admitting. “I have Alethkar,” she finally replied. “And I will do anything to protect it, Taln. I’ll use these people, I’ll even exploit you. My kingdom is all I have left.”
“Intentions,” Taln mumbled. “That one, at least, has some merit.” He sighed. “We will go to the Holy City, and I will continue your charade. But, assuming you are right, and these people end up fighting for Alethkar, you will care for th
em. Give them homes inside your kingdom, and send for their families to join them. You will give them a better life than these harsh lands.”
“Of course,” Jasnah answered honestly.
Taln rose. Behind her, the winds had grown still—the highstorm had passed. Taln nodded once, looking oddly tired, then left. She walked to the door, watching his back as he traipsed down the stone hallway to the room he would share with Kemnar. There was nobility in belief—even delusional belief. That much she could admit, even admire, though she would never have it herself.
“Enjoy your tryst?”
Jasnah jumped in startlement. Meridas stood in the shadowed corridor that led to the common room, watching her unseen. He stepped into the light, glancing after Taln, smiling—no leering—slightly. “Tell me, Lady Kholin. What is it like, bedding a god?”
“You insult my honor,” she hissed.
“Oh, come now,” Meridas said. “You make such claims standing there, your cloak half-open, your undergown more flimsy than the wind, your hair mussed from your lovemaking? The entire camp knows how you look at him, and he at you. It must be terribly inconvenient not having any tents in which to plan your . . . diversions.”
Jasnah pulled her cloak tight, realizing just how much she was revealing, and blushed. She tried to think of a response. What did he mean ‘how you look at him’? She did nothing of the sort. Unfortunately, she realized how things must appear at the moment.
“We are people of . . . understanding, Jasnah,” Meridas said, strolling forward. “I care not what you do—I only care for the political union. But, do try to keep your relations with our dear Herald a bit more subtle. For the sake of propriety, I will have to claim you were a virgin on our wedding night.”
Jasnah thinned her eyes. He claimed he didn’t care, but she could tell that he was lying. He was jealous . . . very jealous. She could see the anger flash in his eyes when he mentioned Taln, a seething hatred that she finally understood. He assumed she was seeing Taln behind his back, and had assumed it for some time. Meridas was usually so good at hiding his emotions, but she could sense his jealousy even through his uncaring façade. And, for some reason—despite what she thought of Meridas—knowing of his jealousy made her feel a little bit more confident.
The Way of Kings Prime Page 66
