Dawn of Swords

CHAPTER 25

Bardiya felt his god’s presence long before he arrived. It was an itch that spread inward from his extremities, settling in his chest, making his heart thrum quickly with anticipation. His knees began to quake as he sat cross-legged on the hot desert sand. He opened his eyes, which had been closed for untold hours while he honored the memory of his dearly departed parents, and stared at the black monument before him.

The Black Spire was a magnificent natural creation, a twenty-foot-high slab of sparkling onyx, granite, and clay that had broken through the thin earthen crust when the world was first created, rising into the desert sky like the giant finger of a deity pointing the way toward salvation. The Dezren elves called it Ker-dia, which meant “the light of night” in their peculiar native tongue. Bardiya’s father had told him the Black Spire was the first landmark they’d come across after Ashhur gave life to his First Families, when Ezekai and his fellow Wardens led Bessus, Damaspia, and the litany of wailing babes to the land that would become their home. Bessus thought the Spire, a beacon that swallowed moonlight and cast it out tenfold, was a gift from Ashhur, a lighthouse in the middle of a tranquil yet hazardous sea of sand, and he’d dubbed this land Ker in its honor.

The endless stretch of rolling dunes around the Black Spire, miles from the nearest vegetation or water source, became a secluded holy place. It was also the final resting site for all Kerrians; their bodies were buried beneath the shifting sands, and the light emanating from the Spire guided their souls to the gateway of the golden afterlife.

An ache of sadness overcame Bardiya as he thought once more of the corpses buried here. It did not escape him that Bessus and Damaspia Gorgoros, along with the rest of their brethren who had been slaughtered by Stonewood elves, were the first individuals in all of Ashhur’s Paradise to expire before their time. Never before had anyone lost their lives due to a fit of rage or perished from sickness or an animal attack-though Lamarto Dusoros, one of Bardiya’s childhood friends, had come close once, when a hunt went badly and he found himself on the wrong end of a hyena’s claws. Bardiya remembered the blood spilled that day, the screams as Lamarto lay writhing in the tall grasses of western Ker, crying out for his god, his mother begging the healers to come quickly.

And yet the healers had arrived, and after Warden Ezekai channeled Ashhur’s power, it was as if Lamarto had never fallen beneath the beast’s attack. But no Wardens or healers had been there when Ethir brought his elves to destroy Bardiya’s parents.

Bardiya placed his hands on the sand before him, sifting it, feeling its tiny granules as they rubbed against his flesh. They were under there, two supposed immortals whose bodies were now rotting, becoming one with the land that had created them. Yet he could feel no sorrier for them than any of the others who had died that day-Zulon, Tunitta, Hermano, Cruckus, and Drieson, good men and women, all so young, so full of life. They would never breathe the air again, nor run with the horses across the plains, nor hunt, nor splash in the river, nor help raise the side of a cabin-and that fact hurt Bardiya more than anything.

He touched his shoulder, where Ethir’s sword had tried to halve him, and felt the soreness beneath his fingers. The wound was stitched and scabbed over, hidden beneath a thick layer of healing mud. He had refused the healers’ magic, insisting that the gash should heal on its own. Had it been wiped from his body, he feared he might one day forget it had ever been there, and if he forgot that, then what of the rest of his memories? Forgetting was something he could not do, would not do, and he allowed that horrible day to linger in his mind even as the shimmering loveliness of his god’s looming presence washed over him.

Heavy footsteps pounded the sand. Bardiya glanced to the east and saw Ashhur’s towering figure span a dune’s crest, though somehow he looked shorter than usual. The god was dressed simply, in a plain white robe and a pair of sandals. The last time Bardiya had seen him, his hair had been long, almost down to the middle of his back, but now both his hair and his beard were trimmed and neat. His stride was purposeful, each step seeming almost rigid or angry, making Ashhur appear much unlike the whimsical and peace-loving deity he had known all his life.

Bardiya’s heart clenched with fear.

Ashhur didn’t once look at him directly, even when the god stopped before the Spire, his chin tilting back so that he could gaze on its gleaming apex. A hand did fall to his shoulder, however-his injured one, at that-and Bardiya breathed a sigh of relief. He felt Ashhur’s calming energy flow through him, just as constant and reassuring as it had ever been. Ashhur began whispering to the spire. Bardiya bowed his head and prayed along with him.

“Where are they buried?” Ashhur asked softly, breaking a long silence.

“Right beneath me,” Bardiya answered without raising his head.

“And where are your brothers and sisters?”

“I sent them away yesterday. I wished to be alone. With my parents, I mean.”

He felt Ashhur nod. “I understand. I felt the pain of his loss the moment his heart ceased to beat…just as I feel the loss of all my children when they depart this realm. There was a piece of me in each of them, and when that piece is ripped away, it aches.”

“I know, Your Grace. So you have told me.”

Ashhur removed his hand from Bardiya’s shoulder.

“Stand up, my child,” he said. “Please, I wish to know what transpired on that day.”

Bardiya glanced at his god, bemused.

“You do not already know?” he asked.

Ashhur lowered his eyes. “I do not.”

Grunting and pushing off the sand with his knuckles, Bardiya stood. He faced his god, the reason for his existence, and noticed again that Ashhur’s once awe-inspiring size seemed to have lessened. Now Bardiya was less than a foot shorter than he, a realization that caused that familiar panic to establish itself again in the recesses of his brain. In time, if he kept growing the way he always had, he would dwarf the deity.

“I assumed you knew about everything that happened in our Paradise, Your Grace,” he said.

Ashhur shook his head. “I feel much, but the specifics of any situation are lost to me. It is part of the price we paid to descend, to walk the land, and to create with our hands instead of our thoughts.” He placed his hand over Bardiya’s bare chest. “Now my power lies within each of you. It was a sacrifice we chose to make.”

“I see. I did not know.”

Ashhur sighed. “Please, my child, I must know what transpired.”

Bardiya told him of Davishon’s unsuccessful attempt on his life in the forest and Ethir’s successful assassination in the mangold grove. The god gave him his rapt attention the entire time, nodding whenever Bardiya’s ramblings wandered into contemplation, and then waving his divine hand to get him back on track.

Ashhur was quiet for a while after he finished his story, fist gripping his chin in concentration.

“They lie,” he finally said, mouth drawn inward, making his lips pucker.

“They lie about what, Your Grace?” asked Bardiya.

“The gods had no part in this attack. Celestia would never allow it. She has instructed her children to stay out of the affairs of Humankind.”

Bardiya grunted, noticing the far-off look in his god’s eyes when he mentioned the goddess.

“Yes, but what of your brother?” he asked. “I ran across Patrick more than two months ago, while he was on his way to the delta. He spoke of Karak’s people threatening harm to the populace of Haven and that he had been sent there by Jacob Eveningstar to warn them to submit. Could the murder of my parents be part of a larger plot against our Paradise? In the absence of the eastern deity, could the people of Neldar be going against the wishes of their god and his pact with you?”

Ashhur shook his head.

“It is not possible. Karak has returned to them, I have felt it. Whatever happens in the delta, it has nothing to do with us. Jacob is a good man, honest and strong. Yet he is also empathetic, and you must remember that my brother and I created him together. He sent Patrick east because he is concerned about the well-being of the people there.”

“And where is the First Man now? Why did he not head to the delta himself if he was so worried?”

“Jacob had…other matters to attend to in the north.”

“Such as?”

“It does not concern you at the moment.”

“Your Grace, it is entirely my concern. My parents are dead. The first children of Paradise have perished before their time.”

Ashhur shook his head. “Not the first.”

Bardiya’s mouth snapped shut.

“Martin Harrow, the kingling,” Ashhur continued without any prodding. “He was the first to perish. In Haven, at that accursed temple they constructed.”

Bowing his head, Bardiya said, “I apologize, Your Grace. I did not know.”

A great sigh escaped the god’s lips, like an agitated breeze gusting across the desert sand, rousing it. His golden eyes stared at the bright and cloudless sky above.

“There is much you do not know, my child,” he said. “Just as there is much I do not know. I do not know why the elves slaughtered my children.”

He paused, and the silence was frightening.

“And I do not know what my brother is thinking at this moment.”

He sounded so defeated when he said this that Bardiya’s panic overrode his god’s calming influence.

“What are we to do?” he asked, noting the quiver in his own voice.

“We move on,” replied Ashhur. “And we make preparations in the event that something is amiss. Jacob has long suggested that I send the remaining two kinglings to Mordeina, saying that we must finally choose a king.…Finally, I have listened.”

“Why?”

“Although I have created a paradise west of the Rigon, I fear that we will be woefully unprepared should another unexpected hardship come our way. If the elves truly wish us harm, for example. Like all children, my children require a leader, and there are some who feel I have been neglectful for waiting so long to give you one.”

“Do you mean the Wardens?”

“Yes.”

Bardiya shook his head. “Yet we have a ruler, Your Grace. We have you.”

Ashhur ran a hand through his hair, and his booming voice cracked.

“At one time I would have agreed with you. After all that has transpired since late summer, however, I am no longer certain.”

The doubt shown by an entity Bardiya had always believed infallible shook him to the core. He stumbled backward, his knees almost giving out. When another of his constant aches wracked his body, he leaned against the Black Spire to keep from falling. The surface, cool-almost cold-despite the day’s heat, fed his feelings of disorientation and disbelief.

“You are perfect,” he whispered.

Ashhur chuckled, and he sounded tired, so very tired.

“That, my child, I truly am not.”

Bardiya collapsed to his knees.

“Uncertainty is the way of the universe, Bardiya,” said Ashhur, concern showing in his eyes. “Nothing is forever, and none-not even I-can control the passage of time. Gods rise and fall, stars are born and die, life is given and taken away. Perfection is a concept, an ideal to be strived for that may never be achieved. That is what I have been trying to teach you, what I have been guiding you toward, so that when you reach Afram’s golden afterlife, you will be prepared for what lies beyond.”

Bardiya looked at first his god, then the Spire, and finally the desert sand into which his knees were sinking, beneath which his parents were now buried. He breathed in deeply, silencing the voice of his inner doubt, and willed his heart to slow its beat. He shut his senses off from the outside world and retreated inward, thinking of all the lessons he had been taught and hence taught to others, of the oneness he felt with the land, with his god, with nature itself. In that moment he understood that Ashhur was correct, that nothing was perfect. At least nothing physical was.

“But ideals,” he said, smiling, his panic receding. “In ideals we can find righteousness.”

“Yes, my child,” said Ashhur. “You are correct.”

Bardiya rose up, his knees cracking as he gradually stood.

“The ethics you have taught us-do you believe them?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Then all I ask of you is this, Your Grace: No matter what transpires, no matter what hardships may or may not befall Paradise, promise me that those ideals will not change. Promise me that violence will never permeate our hearts and minds, that love and forgiveness will always reign above all else, even if adherence to those ideals might be the end of all you’ve created.”

Ashhur grabbed his hand, and he noticed it was only slightly larger than his own. “I cannot promise that.”

Bardiya pulled away. “Why is that?”

“As I said, circumstances change. Should it come to a choice between watching my children die or fighting to save them, I will fight.”

“And will you do the same for those in Haven?”

“No. They are not my children.”

“But you would fight to save me? Or Patrick? Or Isabel?”

“Yes.”

“All life is sacred. You told me that once.”

“And so it is.”

Bardiya felt his confidence grow. “You may believe things will change, but I never will, Your Grace. Your teachings are law to me and my people. Peace and harmony will never be ripped from the hearts and minds in this land, even if our blood is spilled across the prairie and desert both. If it comes to a choice between fighting and dying, we will choose dying.”

Ashhur smiled a sad smile and shook his head.

“Let us hope it does not come to that.”

“Let us hope. Also, I recognize no authority but yours. We will bow to no king.”

“Even if I decree it?”

“Be that as it may…no.”

Without another word, Ashhur bent down, kissed his fingertips, and touched the sand beneath which Bessus was buried. The ground seemed to moan under his feet. The god offered Bardiya a final look-Was it disapproval or calculation? — before he turned and walked away, disappearing over the same dune from which he had appeared. The sunlight seemed to capture his image, leaving a blackened blur on the precipice long after the deity had departed.

Bardiya stood there, his only companions the Black Spire and the spirits of the dead, and stared toward the east, toward Safeway, toward Haven. He knew in his heart that all he’d told his god was true, but it didn’t matter. He had just stood before his deity and dared to pretend he knew more about his god’s teachings than the god himself did. He felt fear crawl up his spine, and he fought it down. This was a test, he told himself. A test of his faith. A test of his understanding. Ashhur’s apparent disappointment was only a way of forcing Bardiya to prove his faithfulness.

Because the other possibility, of fulfilling his vow and disobeying one of his god’s orders, was even more terrifying.