Shireroth

"Before" or "Romance of the Three Duchies"
Chapter Nine: Speaking for the Dead
Chapter Nine Soundtrack: ...where my friends are dead and gone

Sxirothe funerals were strange affairs to an Audente. There was no flowery language, no blessings, no rosy-eyed idolization of the dead. No exhortations or praise could move the steely mind of Mors, no blessings change the destination when Semisa's Gate loomed before the departed. Instead, there was talk, and honesty. All the friends and loved ones of the one who had passed got together, told their stories, recounted all of what their lost ones were: the good, the bad, things that had been forgotten, things that would remain forever. And then the corpse was salted with explosives and ushered from the realm of men in style, so that no two cells remained together, no relic of what once was stayed to distract the soul from its new existence.

This last rite we could not perform for Cloud and Once. We couldn't even afford them a simple dignified affair sitting around a roaring fire. We honored their memories on the move, while putting as much distance as possible between ourselves and Cerce. We didn't know if the Fish King had survived Once's blazing sacrifice, or whether the demons and their dark city had been vanquished completely by Quercia's mad cataclysm, but we didn't want to stay around and find out. No, we rushed a hard march back to Crestfallen and civilization, the Landssword at Pupil's side, Red even more silent than usual. But as we marched, we remembered the tecnomaezj and the Elw.

"When my father died," Rain told us, "all the family friends abandoned us. He'd made lots of enemies, and we had no money left, and there were all sorts of nobles who had grudges of one sort or another against him. The lot of them sent people out to kill me. All the family's servants, all of our champions, decided to desert and join the winning team. All except Cloud. He wasn't the closest of all the family retainers to me. He'd tutored me in some of the sciences when I was young, and he was the tecnomaezj who performed the ceremony to give me my name - not Rain, my real name. And at the ceremony, he said some old line about how he would protect me, and treat me as his own son. And no one ever expected it to be more than words - it wasn't supposed to be any more than words - but through it all, he was my only friend. He could have been somebody. He could have stayed in Riverrun City with the rest of the tecnomaezji and become an Arx-Tecnomaezj or a great inventor or a scholar. Gods know he had the mind for it. Instead, he risked everything to protect me, even as I abandoned my family and fled my pursuers into the hopeless wastes. He followed me into hell itself, and he died for it. There's no way I can ever repay him, there's no way any of us can ever know what it was like to be someone like Cloud. He was smart, he was wise, he was loyal, he kept his word to the end. Wherever all of this leads us, whatever path I find, Cloud's memory will be with me to the end."

"I remember," said Pupil, "when we passed through east Modan-Lach, that time we were hunting Count Treverenhaji. It was Red, Once, and I, and we'd lost his trail, and we were in a gods-awful mood and ready to smite anything that moved. Then we saw a campfire, out in the black of the night, and we thought - what luck! We snuck up, ready for the slaughter, and all it was was this old man and this young boy. The kid was cowering, but the old man stood up straight. He told me, 'I am Keloudi Ly'Tecnomaezj, and by the gods I serve, I charge you to let us pass.' We knew it was bad luck to kill a tecnomaezj, and he seemed to have a certain power about him, something that stayed our hands. So we started talking, and it came out that the boy was a tracker, and that the old man knew medicine and lore. They were running from something, they never wanted to tell us what, and we respected that. So the boy tracked Treverenhaji for us, and all the while, the tecnomaezj sat back and watched. He didn't approve; we could tell the last place he wanted to be was with a bunch of mercenaries. He deserved better, and even more so, he thought you deserved better, Rain. But he took what fate gave him and ran with it. Each one of us would have been dead five times over if it wasn't for Cloud and his herbs and medicines. Did he complain? Sure he did! Did he threaten to leave us? A thousand times! But in the end, he didn't leave, not even when we came up with an insane plan to break into Cerce and get ourselves killed. And in the end, it was he who died. Him and Once. If he'd lasted another week, we'd have sold the Landssword to Rennard, we'd be rich as the Duke of Goldenmoon, and he could have had the nice manor with a huge library in Riverrun City that he'd always been suited for. But Mors can be a bitch, and now he's gone from us. So here's to Cloud Ly'Tecnomaezj - you deserved better."

"The first time I met Cloud," said Quercia, "was when he was trying to convince the lot of you to kill me. He never stopped trying to get me dead, and he never forgave me for being a user. So. Um. When I was younger, tecnomaezji killed my teacher and my friend. And I never forgave them. So I can't tell you guys it was all flowers and puppy dogs between Cloud and me. But you know, he was the one who came up with the plan. The one to have me sleep with Once, charge up my magic, and make a mess out of Cerce. And that was what kept us all from ending up dead. In the end, we all lived, 'cept Once and him. That's life sometimes. But point is, he helped me. He gave me the idea, knowing that I'd use it to gain magic beyond what any user's had since the So Saran days, and he helped me anyway. Must've been hard for him. So I guess what I'm saying is, he was the best of a bad lot. Here's to Cloud Ly'Tecnomaezj - he hated me less than he loved all of you guys."

"When I ended up with you guys," I said, "Cloud was the one who got me on my feet. He gave me my Praeta lessons, and used his Audente to clarify things I didn't understand. Lost on a dark continent I knew nothing about, it was Cloud who showed me the way, who helped me fit in with all of you. The things he knew! I never had a question about Sxiro he couldn't answer! His head must have been like the Great Library in Airosamente; every book on a whole continent must have ended up there eventually. I don't know what he went through before I met him, with Rain and Rain's noble father, but his love for Rain was obvious. His love for all of you, really. He was just too old and stiff to tell you. I'll remember him as the guy who was always at the front of every battle, shooting people with his strange tecnomaezj contraption, too old to fight with a sword but mowing enemies down all the same. So here's to Cloud - everything I see in Sxiro, I saw through his eyes first."

"Here's to Cloud," said Red. "He was one of us."

"And Once," I said. "I remember the first time I talked to him. He told me he used to live in Audentior. Then Cloud told me that it was all lies. And then, months later, Pupil told me, that it was all true, but in other worlds and other lifetimes. I wish I hadn't dismissed him so quickly, I wish I'd treated him as more than just a weird kind of comic relief. Maybe it wouldn't have meant anything. But maybe, if I'd asked him about Audentior, maybe he would have remembered something. Maybe we could have helped him."

"He was so strange," said Rain. "But Mors, how he fought! He fought like he'd been doing it for centuries, which I guess he had. Everything else had been taken away from him but that. It was the one way he showed us what he really was, the only sign of all those wonders that must have sat inside that huge hairy head of his. And then, at the end, when he had his only glimpse of sanity, well, he used it to save us all. He gave his life so we could keep living."

"And with style!" added Quercia. "Man, that thing about never begging for mercy? I was shaking. Well, mostly with fear and because of the magic wind suction spell, but also because that was such a great line. I wish I could have met him back when he was sane. He must have been awesome."

"It was in Goldenmoon City," said Pupil "that the goddess Semisa charged me to find and protect the man she called her lost one, the one she'd cursed thousands of years ago to eternal memory. At the time, I remember wondering how she could have been so cruel. Surely one or two lifetimes of misery and insanity would be enough to prove the point that you should never ask a boon of the gods without giving it a good think first? But hundreds of lifetimes just seemed pointless cruelty. Over these past few years, working with Once, fighting beside him, I kept wondering. Was Semisa just showing the sort of mercilessness only a god can appreciate? Or did she have her reasons? And then, Quercia. Suddenly, it all made sense. All those millennia of suffering were charging him with magic power, ready for this moment. It was our destiny to destroy the hell-city of Cerce, and for twenty thousand years, Semisa had been preparing Once for his part. Preparation through immortal suffering.

"But then, it didn't work, didn't it? It wasn't Once's suffering or his destiny that vanquished the Fish King and his city. Quercia drained his magic, reaped the full power of his millennia of madness, and in the end, it wasn't enough. There was no destiny in what happened in Cerce yesterday. It wasn't Once's madness that saved us, but his moment of sanity. It wasn't Semisa's immortal cosmic plan, but the plan Once dreamed up on the spur of the moment. It wasn't all those years of Once's near-immortality that did it, but his death. And it wasn't the grand destinies woven by the gods, but Once's free choice. So that was Once. The gods tortured him for naught; it was his simple humanity that saved us.

"I don't know if the curse is lifted now. Maybe it is. Maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe, even as we speak, some baby is crying in its cradle, crying because it misses us, crying for twenty millennia of friends and mothers and fathers and lovers who will never come. Maybe one day someone will ask the child its name, and it will say, sadly: 'I was Once, once."

"Here's to Once," said Red. "We only really saw his true face once, but once was enough."

Our tears wet the lands of Dolor, and then flowed into the swamps of Caverden, and by the time we trudged onto the Crestfall hills, the sharp edges of grief had dulled, and Cloud and Once were wistful memories and not gaping holes. We were all quiet, those last few days of the trek back to Crestfall. We had seen too much: Lodermotsrik, where the fates converged; Cerce, where hell herniated onto Earth, and tastes of a world of divine powers, whose actions were only barely comprehensible.

We were still a day's march from Crestfallen when we saw somebody: our first friendly soul since we had left the Downs weeks before, unless you count the poor slaves in Cerce. Two donkeys pulled the wagon on which he sat, which was filled with what looked like his whole life. Furniture, seed bags, bullion, documents. Judging from the way Red appraised him, I guessed that in leaner times, we might have turned bandit at such a prize. But we had the Landssword; we had the luxury of scruples. So we approached him openly, with shouts to show our good intentions.

The man was a wealthy farmer fleeing Crestfallen, and he came bearing news. Goldenmoon had invaded, only a week or so after we left. They had Crestfallen under their control, and were heading due south across the Downs to Riverrun City.

In six centuries of on-again off-again feuding, Musica had always been the prize and the buffer. In the few genuine scuffles between the two giants of Riverrun and Goldenmoon, the winner had never had the confidence to risk everything on a full invasion. Now, it seemed, that had changed. Na'Ami Mercaja, brother of Duke Ju'Uliave himself, was at the head of the entire host of the East, their goal no less than the Hill of Destiny on which the God-Emperor would be revealed.

Then we got the second shock of the day. In the endless meadows and forests of the north, we had completely lost track of time. It was the last day of Ifnin. There was only one Sxirothe week - fourteen days - until the date the prophet had given for the revelation of the God-Emperor. Among other things, that meant only fourteen days until the Landssword we had taken so much trouble to gain lost its value and became nothing more than a magically-endowed chunk of metal.

We wished good luck to the refugee farmer, and in exchange for our apparently baffling decision not to rob and murder us, he warned us off of Crestfallen. The city, he said, was swarming with Goldenmoonmen. They were all looking for the Landssword. Some spy of Ju'Uliave's had determined that it would change hands in the city.

"All right," said Red, when the farmer was gone. "I've had enough of these Mercaja bastards. If we can make it into Cerce and tell the tale, then we can get this Landssword to Rennard, where it belongs."

"That's going to be a tough sell," said Pupil. "I know my way around the court of Goldenmoon, and here's what I think is going on. Ju'Uliave thinks the God-Emperor title is a booby prize. He's Duke of Goldenmoon, and as far as he cares the rest of Sxiro is a bunch of provincial yokels who can be left to rot in their own filth. But he can't let anyone else get it, or they'll unify Sxiro against him and make his life miserable. That's why he sent off his brother. He wants to make Na'Ami God-Emperor, and then let unified Sxiro be a Goldenmoon puppet state. So what they're going to try to do is take over the Hill of Destiny from the Riverrunners. They'll put security around it so that Na'Ami's the only person allowed in on the prophecied day. If they can steal the Landssword from us, they'll use that; if not, they'll give him a fake Landssword. He'll declare himself God-Emperor, and everyone who believes the prophecy will have to accept it."

"So we get the sword to Rennard before then," said Rain.

"Easier said than done," said Pupil. "We're at least a week from Riverrun City, and by the time we get there, it'll probably be swarming with Goldenmoonmen. It'd be a miracle if we could even rendezvous with Rennard and his men. And then Rennard faces the not insignificant task of defending the Hill of Destiny from the Goldenmoonmen until the hour arrives when he's supposed to stand on it."

"I say we raid Crestfallen," said Rain. "Get some horses. They won't be of much help in the Downs, but once we get to the open plains, they'll save us half a week."

We all considered the idea, and after a few minutes, consideration became planning. By the time the planning was done, we were within site of the village.

Crestfallen had changed completely since we last saw it. It was now swarming with infantry, and above the tents streamed the banner of Goldenmoon, a gold crescent upon a green field. There were horses aplenty, but they all seemed to belong to the military.

"Oh," said Pupil, "how I wish Once was here. He'd know what to do. And by 'do', I mean he'd barge in, smash a few companies of Goldenmoonmen with his axe, and grab some horses."

"Yeah," said Quercia, "he was awesome like that."

"Unlike demons," said Pupil, "Goldenmoonmen do sleep. If we wait until night, this will be much easier."

Red grumbled, saying we were low on time already, but we camped out in the brush above Crestfallen and agreed to wait for night. As the sun set, we watched the position of the Goldenmoon guards. Pupil didn't have any particular inside knowledge here, so we decided we'd wait until a little before midnight. Then Quercia would pull her invisibility trick, we'd sneak in, and take five horses: one for each of us. If anything went wrong, we'd let Quercia make a diversion, then run.

"All right," said Quercia, when it came time for her to work her magic. "I've only got enough juice to cover two of you at once. Which of you want to be invisible?"

"I'm good at moving quietly, and I've always had a way with animals," said Rain. "I'll be one of them."

"We'll need a fighter, and Red's leg is still recovering. I'll be the other," I said.

The others nodded. "Right," said Quercia. "This spell makes you invisible for, oh, three or four hours. Two eesny-weensy little things. One, no fighting while you're invisible. You so much as draw a sword, the spell collapses. Two, no talking above a whisper. Any yells, screams, groans, or even normal conversation, the spell's broken. Now, I suggest you hold hands. Keeping track of an invisible friend is harder than you'd think, and the last thing you want to do is go about yelling each other's names and breaking the spell."

I took Rain's hand. It was warm and felt good. Quercia scrunched her forehead and waved her fingers. I didn't feel anything - nothing at all - but when I looked at Rain, he wasn't there anymore. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back invisibly. I looked at where my legs should be, and saw the ground through them. I barely restrained myself from calling out in surprise.

"You there?" I whispered.

"Still here," Rain whispered back.

Hand in hand, we descended the hillside into the Goldenmoon camp. If you've never walked while invisible - and I imagine most of my readers have not - you will have no idea how hard it is. Being able to see your feet, one in front of the other, is one of those little luxuries you never notice until it's gone. And each misstep risked an involuntary shout of surprise or pain that could break the whole enchantment. I desperately hoped we wouldn't have to do any running while invisible.

We walked right past the guard, only an arm's length from where he watched intently. Several decent-looking horses were tethered to a pole near the outskirts of the camp, where they stood and slept as if it were the most natural position in the world.

"Wake up," whispered Rain, and stroked one of the horses. It neighed in surprise, and there was a brief second when I was terrified we had been found out, but the camp seemed to remain asleep. I helped Rain untie the horses - a laborious job, considering the complexity of the Goldenmoon knots. Then we led them in the direction of our camp.

"Hmmm, what's this?" said a Goldenmoonman nearby, closer than we could have ever thought given that we hadn't seen or heard him approach. The moonlight marked him as an old, old man. I recognized him, even with my scant knowledge of all things Sxirothe, as a colleague of Cloud's: one of the tecnomaezji. He was holding a waterskin.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he said, and sprayed water all around. As the droplets touched us, the invisibility was broken, and Rain and I appeared, ropes in hand.

"WAKE UP!" shouted the old man, then ran. I considered pursuing, but no use now. Now was the time to run.

I got onto one of the horses, and Rain jumped onto another. Luckily, we were both decent riders, and holding the ropes of the other three horses between us, we galloped toward camp. A few minutes later, we heard the unmistakeable sound of hoofbeats following.

"We've got company!" I shouted to our friends waiting at the campsite. Red just nodded, as if he'd been expecting it all along.

Quercia stood in one of her more formidable positions, and began wiggling her fingers. Red hushed her. "Let me handle this one," he said. Quercia looked at him, quizzically. "I mean it," said Red, and our leader jumped on one of our horses, then drew his sword. I rode to join him, but Red motioned me back.

I think I've mentioned that Red was the best swordsman I've ever seen, probably the best in Sxiro, maybe the best in the world. I didn't know he was a master at fighting on horseback, but I probably should have predicted it. In any case, he outdid himself that day. It wasn't just his skill, though that was appalling enough. It was the rage that went into every stroke, the complete lack of mercy with which he pursued his retreating opponents and cut them down.

When he was done, five Goldenmoon horsemen lay dead, and Red was untouched.

"Fuck," said Quercia. "What was that about?"

"When I was captured by the demon fish," said Red, "they mentioned how they knew I was there. Seems Na'Ami wanted to make extra sure in case his expedition failed to kill us. His men sold our location to the demon fish in exchange for the Landssword."

"Fuck," said Quercia.

"That," said Red, "is why we're going to get this sword to Rennard E'lipov even if it kills us. I'm not letting the guy who killed Cloud and Once become God-Emperor. Let's go."

So, atop our shiny new horses, we road down the Crestfallen Road toward Riverrun. When we were satisfied that there was no further pursuit, we rode a bit off the road and set up camp.

Maybe it was the bond of invisibility we had briefly shared, maybe that spark when our hands touched, but that night I denied Quercia her dose of magic. I slept with Rain, and together we distracted ourselves from the long ride ahead, and from the prophecy that would all too soon decide the fate of Sxiro once and for all.