Dawn of Swords

CHAPTER 34

Roland emerged from the portal at full gallop, his body still intact, stomach churning, head spinning. One moment he was on the outskirts of Drake, the next he was barreling over the grassy hills on the other side of the Corinth River. The sensation was indescribable, as though his mind had been pulled from the rest of his body and was rushing after it to catch up. He felt sick, and he collapsed into his horse’s neck, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried not to lose consciousness.

The feeling eventually passed, and he repositioned himself in his saddle. His mouth was dry, and he realized he had no water with him. He looked ahead and saw his companions’ horses in the distance, growing farther away by the second. The pace Jacob kept was breathtaking, and given Azariah’s immense size, he feared the Warden’s stallion might collapse from exhaustion and perish right then and there. Roland ground his heels into his own horse’s side, urging it to go faster. They rode on through the night and into the morning, retaining their breakneck pace. The sun slowly moved higher in the sky as they hurtled across the land, the welcome heat and constant breeze gradually drying the clothes on Roland’s back. He was thankful to be free of the cold, but the steady warmth held none of the relief he had hoped it would.

“Our horses cannot withstand much more,” Azariah said as they paused for a brief break at a stream so their mounts might drink. “What is it we race against, Jacob?”

“No more questions,” Jacob said, drinking a bit of the water himself. “I’m tired of them. It is Ashhur’s turn to answer.”

They prodded him, but he said nothing else. After a break that was not nearly long enough, they resumed riding. The pain in Roland’s back made him want to cry, and the dead look in Jacob’s eyes somehow made everything worse.

It was just past midday when they crossed the dusty Gods’ Road. They saw few people as they rode-only some Kerrian farmers in the distance and one hunting party, lying in wait in the tall flatland grasses. Even the wildlife seemed to stay away, with nary a deer, antelope, or wolf crossing their path. When they passed through the sliver of desert sand that marked the border of Safeway, the sun had already begun its descent. More and more people came into sight, tending the fields or milling about aimlessly. Roland couldn’t tell if they were surprised by the sudden appearance of four wildly galloping horses, for they were nothing but blurs as he rushed past them.

By the time they reached the Cavern of Solitude, it was nightfall. The moon appeared in the north, the thinnest shard away from being full. Roland heard a loud crack, and he glanced behind him. Azariah’s horse had finally collapsed, shuddering. Azariah tumbled from the saddle, rolling away, his long body a whirl of arms and legs.

Jacob didn’t stop for him, so neither did Roland. They kept riding hard until they were within sight of the Sanctuary.

A crowd was gathered in the vast open space before the short stone wall surrounding the edifice. The people were on their knees as they took in the words of their god. Ashhur sat on the wall, his great size making it look like a child’s construction. His hands gesticulated wildly as his mouth moved, no doubt offering his children another parable of kindness, forgiveness, and love. Under the light of the newly risen moon and the dozens of torches that burned around the assembly, the white robe he wore shimmered as if it were made of diamonds.

Jacob halted his horse on the edge of the gathering. The mare shook her head and snorted loudly, her legs trembling. The one beside him, carrying Uther Crestwell’s corpse, fell to its knees, then toppled over onto its side. Not wanting to suffer the same fate as Azariah, Roland quickly dismounted. He pressed his hand against his horse’s side, feeling its heart race beneath its ribcage. Its eyes rolled into the back of its head, and its legs folded as it crumpled into the grass. Roland looked around, hoping to see some water and food to give the poor animal. Given how severely it had been pressed, Roland feared it wouldn’t live through the night.

Jacob showed no such concern. He lifted his eyes from Brienna’s fallen horse, stared over the heads of the kneeling congregation, and met Ashhur’s gaze. The sermon had stopped upon their arrival, and every man, woman, and child in attendance turned to face him. Ashhur remained still, one arm resting on his monstrous knee while his other hand stroked his trimmed beard.

“I am glad that you have returned, Jacob. A message came today. Your former pupil was named king, though Isabel was short on details in her letter, so I do not know how the contest was won. I am sure you are most proud nonetheless.”

“You and I must talk,” Jacob said, ignoring the god’s greeting. “Send these people away.”

Ashhur tilted his head back. “I am in the middle of a lesson, Jacob,” the deity replied. He spread his arms out wide, gesturing to the congregation. “Or do you find yourself more important than the rest of these people? I will hear whatever you learned in the north when I am finished.”

Roland watched as Jacob’s expression shifted from desperate to enraged in the span of a second. The First Man’s cheeks flushed and his throat tensed. Brienna’s corpse was still draped over his lap, and he grabbed her hair, pulling up her head so that her vacant eyes stared at his god. Ashhur’s mouth twisted into a frown, and a collective gasp emanated from the gathering. Jacob held his pose, presenting his macabre message to his god even as his horse shuddered beneath him.

“Is this important enough?” the First Man seethed.

“Children,” said Ashhur, his eyes fixed on Brienna’s dead stare. “I ask that you return to your homes. Prayers are done for the evening. We will reconvene tomorrow morning.”

They did just that, fifty or more people shuffling away from the wall, casting curious and mystified glances behind them. As Roland scanned the crowd, he realized that none of them had a clue as to what had happened, what was to come. Not long ago, he had been like them: ignorant of loss, of fear, of premature death. He was that naïve child no longer, although deep down he longed to be.

Ashhur’s head steward, Clegman Treadwell, stayed behind for a moment, gazing at Jacob with uncertainty. Ashhur nodded to the man, but then he left through the narrow gap in the wall, heading up the gravel-strewn walk, and disappearing inside the Sanctuary. The great door seemed to sigh in relief when it closed.

They were alone now-Roland, Jacob, Ashhur, three horses, and two corpses. Jacob swung down from his steed, which lowered its head and began nibbling the grass, Brienna’s lifeless body still draped over it. Roland looked behind him, seeking out Azariah, but the Warden was nowhere in sight.

Ashhur stood from the wall. He loped across the grass, touching each horse in turn, ending with Roland’s. He stroked the beast’s snout with one hand, and its shuddering ceased. From inside his robe he produced a skin filled with water and handed it to Roland, which he guzzled down. Then Ashhur lifted Brienna’s corpse off the newly revitalized horse’s back, carried it to the center of the small clearing, and placed it on the ground. Kneeling over her, he gently straightened her limbs, brushed her hair, and closed her eyes. When he was done, she looked like she was simply sleeping.

“May you live eternally in the shadow of your goddess,” Ashhur said. The compassion in his booming voice was genuine, and he seemed hurt. His eyes lifted to the heavens, to Celestia’s shining star above. “Please accept your child with love and gentleness,” he said, “and let her live on forever in your bosom.”

Jacob knelt beside Ashhur, all of the anger completely washed from his face. The deity looked over at him, the kindness in his eyes enough to melt a mountain of ice.

“I am sorry for your loss,” he said.

A tear rolled down the First Man’s cheek.

“It should not have been this way,” he said, a hitch in his words.

Ashhur nodded to him.

“The merchant was right, my Lord,” Jacob continued, stunning Roland with his ability to maintain his composure given his evident shock and sorrow. “Your brother’s people had a small army massed in the northern deadlands. They’d been tormenting the people of Drake, kidnapping the townspeople only to murder them in sacrificial rituals. We searched the Tinderlands, and stumbled on Karak’s forces as they were attempting to raise creatures from a different world. We were spotted and chased. Roland and I hid in a cave while…while Bree and Azariah went to warn the townspeople. They were followed, and…and…and Bree was killed when the camp was attacked.”

Jacob was clearly descending into a pit of sorrow, but he soldiered on nonetheless.

“Turock Escheton has begun teaching others in the ways of magic, did you know that? A whole group of spellcasters, all up there in the north.” He laughed, but it was a humorless sound, and his tears flowed freely now. “They crushed the army, but it was too late to save Bree. She’s…gone.…”

Jacob leaned forward, crying into his palms. Ashhur placed a massive, consoling hand on his back.

“Again, I am sorry, my son,” he said. “Such a horrible turn of events. If there’s anything I could do.…”

Jacob’s head snapped up with a start, and he stared in desperation at his deity.

“But there is,” he said, the words sputtering from his lips. “You can give her back to me.”

Ashhur frowned. “That I cannot do.”

“You are a god, my Lord. You hold the power of life in the palm of your hand.”

“I do not, my child. You are mistaken.”

“No!” Jacob screamed, his hands balled into fists. “I watched you create a thousand young men and women from jars of clay! I watched them form from the earth, life coming where there had been none before. How is this any more impossible? Grant Brienna the life she was supposed to have, the life she was already living before it was ripped from her!”

Ashhur glanced at Jacob for a long moment, then sighed. He placed two fingers on Brienna’s cold forehead before rising to his feet. The god backed up, looking down on his most trusted servant. He seemed beyond sad at that point. In fact, Roland thought he appeared ready to break down himself.

“I cannot do what it is you ask,” Ashhur said. “You must understand, Jacob, I do this because I love you. If I granted your request, you would hate me. What I can give you would be a shell and nothing more. You would never forgive me for it.”

“If you deny me,” Jacob said, his words halted, broken, “that is what I will never forgive. Bring her back. Now.”

Ashhur let out a sigh that seemed to come from the very deepest part of him.

“Because I love you,” he said. “Remember that when you see what you have demanded of your god.”

He snapped his fingers, and the air shimmered. Roland watched in awe and horror, as Brienna’s chest rose and fell. She sat up sharply, as if pulled by a string, and her eyes opened, staring straight ahead. For a moment, Roland felt overjoyed, but that joy ended when he saw black, rotting gunk trickle from her slightly parted lips, when he noticed that her eyes were still glossed over and milky from death.

It seemed as though Jacob didn’t, however. His expression was one of mad glee, and tears of joy poured down his cheeks as he wrapped his arms around Brienna’s body, holding her close, sobbing into her neck. Brienna didn’t respond, not even when he whispered how much he loved her into her ear. She simply stared straight ahead, unmoving, and Roland’s heart broke.

Ashhur frowned at the display.

“When my brother and I created life,” he said, “we did so at great cost. A piece of our immortality went into each and every one of you, just as a piece of Celestia went into each of her creations. The power it required to accomplish such a feat was enormous, and when we finished, we found ourselves to be much lesser than what we’d been when we soared through the heavens. It is strength that we will one day regain, but that is a slow process, one that will not reach its fruition for millennia. Such is the price of creation, but both Karak and I paid that price willingly. Neither of us can give you what you want.”

“You gave her back to me,” Jacob sobbed, as if he hadn’t heard a word the god had said. “You gave her back.”

“I did not, my child,” said Ashhur. “Brienna is not alive. I have animated the shell, but what was contained within that shell has moved on. You hold a puppet, nothing more. Her essence has returned to the goddess and is once more a part of Celestia’s heavenly host.”

Jacob kissed Brienna’s cheek, then looked at Ashhur.

“Then summon it back,” he said. “Pull her soul down, or ask Celestia if you must.”

“I cannot,” the god said, his lips forming a tight line of despair. “And even if I could, I still would not. Jacob, this life, this world, is only a beginning. And since it is a beginning, it must also have an end. How many times have you yourself lectured on this? Life is a cycle, a wheel, a gift. You act as if the reversal of death were no greater than the creation of life. But look at what my children do with their own imperfect, frail bodies, with lives as long as the flame of a candle. They create life together, yet can any one of them face death and make it tremble? The time for eternity is coming, but it is not here. It is not now. I will not break the greatest of laws, not even to ease your sorrow. Is this not what you have told me the people of my Paradise must learn to accept? Is this not what you have insisted my children are unprepared to face? No, Jacob. You are the First Man. You are the greatest. And you of all should know the limits of life and death.”

“But you are immortal,” Jacob whispered. “You made me immortal. Does our very nature not contradict your limits?”

“No,” Ashhur replied with a shake of his head. “In my present form, even I can perish. The only eternity that exists will not be found in this mortal realm. We are all beings with a beginning,” he snapped his fingers once more, and Brienna’s body went limp in Jacob’s arms, “and an end.”

“No!” Jacob shouted, hysterically trying to keep her corpse upright. “You bastard! Bring her back! Bring her back!”

In a movement much too quick for a being his size, Ashhur grabbed Jacob, pulled him away from the corpse, and then touched Brienna’s forehead again. He muttered a few words, and her body lit aflame, the fire devouring her remains in mere seconds, until all that remained was a clump of ash lying in the grass, holding her form for a short second before Ashhur blew on the pile, scattering the ashes to the wind.

“NO!” Jacob screamed once more, reaching for the billowing ash, trying to pluck it from the air.

Roland collapsed to his knees and then let out another sob. The finality of it all struck him dumb, left him feeling like he’d been stabbed in the gut. And, oh, how much worse Jacob appeared.

“Your love for her and her memory must never end,” Ashhur said. “But I will not watch you debase yourself as you cling to a rotting corpse. The flesh is dead. The soul lives on.”

Roland knew by the look of dismay on the god’s face that it was perhaps the most difficult thing he had ever done.

Jacob’s expression slowly changed. It was like watching a broken thing gradually rebuild itself, only with jagged edges and everything not quite in its proper place. His eyes, which had shimmered with life and knowledge, now glared at his deity with a dark rage that left Roland terrified.

“The soul may live on,” Jacob said. “But the men responsible live as well. You must act.”

“What do you mean?”

He went to the horse that had collapsed, the one holding the mad priest’s corpse. He violently grabbed Uther’s head and lifted it, showing the distorted, burned, and broken face to Ashhur.

“Do you know who this is?” he asked, his voice dripping with disdain. “Uther Crestwell. Placed in charge of the men who have been tormenting the children of Drake-your children-for months.” He threw the dead man to the ground and lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “We watched their citizens butchered by the son of Karak’s Highest. Will you sit back and deny your brother’s hand in this?”

“Uther shamed his family. He left Neldar on his own. Whatever force he commanded up north, he did so independent of my brother’s knowledge.”

“Do you really believe that?” Jacob asked, aghast.

“I do.”

“Why? How? Look above you, my Lord. The moon will be full in two days. When your brother marches into the delta, do you think he is going to do so innocently? Do you think the people there will grovel at his feet and beg for mercy? His army already killed more than forty of them three months ago. Are you willing to let even more perish?”

“Such is the way my brother has chosen to discipline his children,” Ashhur said softly. “It is not my responsibility to stop him, as I have told you.”

Pulling at his hair, Jacob kicked Uther’s corpse and began to pace. Roland felt ill at ease. His master seemed unstable, ready to snap-sorrowful one moment, raging the next. He had never seen Jacob act in such a way. It scared him almost more than the ritual performed by Uther.

Finally, it seemed Jacob could stay silent no longer.

“They are people,” he said. “They aren’t toys! They aren’t playthings for you and Karak to divvy up like children. You act as if you care for my sorrow. You tell me to love the one lost. What of the delta? What of those people? Their families will wail. Their children will scream. You will sit idly by and watch death befall hundreds, if not thousands, and for what? In order to not interfere? To prove that your way is better in this sick little game you two brothers play? What will it take, Ashhur? What will it take to convince you that Karak will not stop until your people are crushed, and the nation of Neldar spans all the way from the east to the west?”

Coming to the end of his rant, Jacob stood there, arms shaking, body trembling, as his god stared into his eyes in silence. If Jacob was afraid, he did not show it. At last, Ashhur looked away, his gaze turning skyward. Jacob noticed the gesture, and his face reddened.

“Do not look to her for answers, my Lord.”

“I must,” the deity whispered. His head lowered, and he looked so uncertain that Roland thought the world itself might begin to crumble. “I bid you good evening, Jacob Eveningstar. You have given me much to think over. I will tell you of my decision come morning.”

Without another word, Ashhur strode up to Jacob, held him at arm’s length for a moment, and then bent down and touched Uther Crestwell’s corpse. It caught flame just as Brienna’s had, burning away into the night, leaving behind little sign that the man ever existed. After that was finished, he turned and silently loped back to the Sanctuary, stepping over the wall in the process. When he disappeared through the great door, it closed behind him. An unnatural silence fell over the land. It was so complete that even the insects seemed to have ceased their nightly song.

“Master,” Roland said, his voice shaking, “what’s going to happen?”

“He’ll come around,” Jacob replied, not turning to look at him. “No matter what he says, he will not stand idly by watching the slaughter of innocents.”

“And…and if he doesn’t?” asked Roland.

Jacob glared at him.

“He will,” said the First Man. “The future of this land depends on it.”

Jacob offered one last glance to the spot where Brienna’s body had been, and he began to walk away. Roland called after him, but Jacob did not respond.

When he was gone, Roland stood alone, shivering despite the warmth of the evening. His mind was a jumble of contradictions, as everything he had witnessed over the last few months came to a head in his thoughts. When the torches began to burn out, one by one, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, expecting to see Jacob but finding Azariah instead. The Warden seemed exhausted, and his eyes were deep wells of concern. He handed forth a jug, which Roland took and sipped from. His stomach began to cramp as the wine reached his belly, but he ignored it. When he finished, he handed the jug back, feeling very, very tired.

“What happened, Roland?” Azariah asked. “Where is Jacob? Is he well?”

Roland opened his mouth, closed it. He thought of the look on Jacob’s face as he stared down Ashhur, unafraid, unrelenting. He shook his head, looked to Celestia’s star, which seemed to have dimmed in the nighttime sky.

“I don’t know.”