Wartorn Obliteration

BRYCK (3)

"He was an innocent," Bryck said, cutting through the contesting voices.

He did not speak loudly, but this group still showed him deference. They quieted. They turned. They listened for what he had to say.

"They grabbed up some poor wretch," he continued. "And they declared him guilty of the crime. And they took him into the plaza and hacked his head off."

"But I heard him," Gelshiri said in that insistent adolescent tone. "I heard him say he was a part of the Broken Circle."

Tyber, leaning against the wall nearby where Bryck was sitting, shrugged. "The soldiers must've coerced him into saying it."

"How would they do that?" Ondak countered. "How do you compel someone condemned to death to do anything? What's left to threaten him with?"

"A less comfortable death," Tyber offered.

A valid point, Bryck noted silently.

"So..." one of the new recruits to the Circle said, somewhat timidly, "he wasn't, uh, one of us?"

"Definitely not," said Tyber.

"So he died," said the same recruit, a sinewy middle-yeared female named Scaullit, "for a crime, uh, that—"

"That he didn't commit," Tyber impatiently finished for her.

She lowered her eyes. "I was going to say, for a crime that... that Minst and I committed."

They were all gathered in the most spacious of the Circle's rooms, the full complement, including the four fresh faces, two of whom—Scaullit and Minst—had painted the sigil on the wall of the Registry during the night's darkest watches. Bryck hadn't entirely expected the brazen scheme to succeed, but the two eager new members of the Broken Circle had carried it off fearlessly, scaling their way stealthily up onto the Registry's roof, lowering themselves on ropes with buckets of paint in hand. They had been gloriously successful. The giant sigil was a thing of beauty.

They all fell into an uncomfortable silence. The plan had indeed succeeded. And some poor innocent had indeed paid the price.

Bryck could sense the others waiting for him to speak. It was a slow pressure, and he had gradually become aware that it was always present. This group relied on him. That amounted to more than the courtesy and respect they showed him; it meant he had to be the foundation for them, the voice of wisdom and reason. He was their leader.

"The innocent died," Bryck said. "But would anyone here rather it was one of you?"

"I'd rather it hadn't happened at all," Scaullit said softly. "Whoever he was, he was a fellow Callahan."

Bryck looked directly at her. "Then you wish you hadn't painted the sigil? That's what led to all the rest, after all. The activities of this Broken Circle will contribute to the miseries of the people of this city. We strike against the Felk, and they, unable to find any of us, make reprisals against ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with any of our operations. And yet, they are the very people we are fighting for. Didn't you realize all that, Scaullit? Hadn't any of you new people thought this through before you agreed to join us?" He looked around at the others. "Take the time. Right now. Think about it. Understand what it means to go against the Felk. Not just to yourselves, but to everyone else it will affect."

Bryck sat back. It was a performance of sorts. He had never acted in one of his own theatricals. While he had been quite skilled at creating words to fit into actors' mouths, he had never had any desire to speak them himself before an audience. Yet here he was, performing his part as the leader of the Broken Circle. He only hoped he was convincing in the role.

While he let the dramatic pause settle over the group, he furtively eyed Quentis sitting on a chair at the far side of the room. He hadn't forgotten the night she had visited him as he lay on his bunk, the night she had more or less offered herself to him. Bryck had relived the incident quite a number of times in his mind, redirecting the action, changing the words she said, changing the words he said. He had followed each altered scene to its conclusion, and though he was somewhat ashamed of himself for it, he had by now imagined in detail making love to Quentis more often than he would ever care to admit.

She gazed back now with her amber eyes. He could read nothing there, and it irked him. Did she still have feelings for him? Or had his one rejection spoiled everything? The puzzlement made a small agitation in his stomach.

Once, before he had married Aaysue, Bryck had enjoyed a reasonably libidinous young adulthood, one bolstered by the status and privilege of his noble bloodline and the wealth that accompanied it. In those long bygone days he had given little thought to specific matters of romance or carnal recreation. If one potential bed partner fell through, he glibly sought out the next. He couldn't recall ever seriously brooding over any individual female, no matter how alluring he might have found her at any given time. Not until he'd met Aaysue, in fact, had he given the possibility of love and true emotional depth any credence.

So why was it that now, when he was twice the age of that promiscuous lad, he should be experiencing such classically adolescent feelings as he was having toward Quentis?

Bryck blinked. He still had the full silent attention of the room, and he had been holding it until that silence had grown distinctly awkward.

He rallied. "If any of you new people can't accept the consequences of what we do," he said before his point was lost, "then now is the time to quit."

Again he looked over the new faces. He and Tyber had recruited them, picking ones that appeared able-bodied, intelligent, and committed.

"I will not quit," said Scaullit, tone firm now.

"Neither will I," Minst said. He was a thick-limbed male, with a hunched posture, but was evidently nimble enough to have scaled the Registry with Scaullit.

"The Felk took my sons," said the third one of the recruits. She was named Cancallo. "Whisked them off into that army. I don't know if I'll ever see them again. But I'll fight the Felk until my boys are back with me."

Bryck looked to the fourth new member. The man's eyes were wide, white showing all around their soft color. This was the one who had beseeched him and Tyber most ardently when the two of them had roved Callah's streets a second time in costume and face paint, furtively displaying the Circle's symbol. Bryck, circulating through the crowds that gathered to watch Tyber's juggling, had rekindled that false rumor about an uprising against the Felk in the neighboring city of Windal. Bryck had murmured about its success, about how the people were slaughtering the Felk, retaking their home.

This man had most wanted to become a part of the Broken Circle. His name was Setix.

Bryck could see now that Setix was having a change of heart.

"I—I..." the man fumbled as all eyes turned toward him. He squirmed under the pressure. Perspiration shone on his wide forehead. "I don't know if—I'm not—I—"

A quiet and implacable dread closed over Bryck. This at least was one eventuality he had foreseen and prepared himself for. Which wasn't going to make it any easier to deal with.

Setix was standing at the edge of the group. He came forward now, involuntarily it seemed. His hands shook at his sides.

"Do you wish to quit?" Bryck asked, the question flat, barely inflected.

Setix offered that same beseeching look as he had when he had asked to join the Circle. His mouth worked soundlessly a moment, then the words started to spill. "This is very difficult. I don't want to show any disrespect. But I didn't count on all this. On someone being killed for actions we did. Next time it could be me doing the thing that would lead the Felk to take another innocent life. That would make me a murderer of my own people. That's not what I bargained for. I hate the Felk. I want them driven from this place, from my home. But I just can't... I just don't... it doesn't seem right that—"

He blundered on awhile after that, the fragments of sentences piling up, choking him, until he was making only whimpering sounds.

Bryck stood. He didn't want to stand. He wanted very much to remain sitting, to give the necessary order and then look away while it was carried out. But even his most ludicrous comedies had their moments of pathos, and he knew how this needed to be played.

He had discussed this particular eventuality with Tyber. Though the man was fairly aged, he was the strongest, in body and perhaps spirit, among this company. Bryck caught his eyes.

"Take him," he ordered.

It was swifter than he could have imagined it. Bryck himself had taken a life, that luckless Felk soldier he'd killed in that alleyway with a single murderous blow. Death could happen very quickly. He knew this. But to watch it occur. To be the spectator. To see the knife drawn and slammed into the body, knowing it was going to happen and still barely able to follow the movements. That was what sucked the air out of Bryck's lungs.

Setix gasped. His final instants of life were filled with surprise at what he could only just be starting to comprehend was happening to him. Then, when Tyber had wrenched loose his blade, the body dropped heavily to the floor. It bled and did not move.

"He was in a position to betray us," Bryck said. "Our identities, our location. We could not afford that."

He waited. No one had anything to add to that. No one in the room contradicted him. His assertion was logical. The truth of it was as plain and unpleasant as the corpse that lay at everyone's feet.

"It's my fault." Bile still burned his throat. "I should have chosen better."

Quentis put a hand to his arm. Bryck felt the warmth of it keenly, that peculiar human heat. But was it a caress or a neutral pat? He shook his head. He had just vomited, slipping outdoors to do so. Only Quentis had noticed. Setix's body was being disposed of. Bryck lingered near the doorway, shaded by the building's eaves.

"He was a danger. You were right." Quentis's tone was gentle.

Bryck spat into the dust. "Things are only going to get more dangerous. More violent. More murderous."

"We are all prepared for that," she said.

He looked into her eyes. Emotions roiled within him, out of the safe control in which he normally kept them. Setix's murder, necessity or not, had unsettled him at a fundamental level. It was actually more disturbing than when he'd personally killed that soldier. This time he had merely ordered it and stood there while his will was carried out.

"Do you understand that alone we can do nothing?" Bryck heard himself whisper.

Quentis blinked at him, a small furrow appearing between her brows.

He should not be divulging this. Even as a playwright he had known not to reveal everything to the audience. Horrified, he felt his mouth moving, more words rasping out. "We can't go against the Felk. Our little group, stand against the full strength of the garrison? They have weapons and numbers and organization. And more so, they have the mental supremacy of having conquered this city. The people are beaten already. In order to rise against the Felk they have to feel they are worthy of the victory."

Quentis dropped her hand from his arm. He felt a small chill where her warmth had been.

"What are you saying?" she asked.

It was too late to retreat. Bryck had started this. Now he had to see it through. "Our only hope of victory against the Felk is to get the people of this city to rise up. Callah's civilian population vastly outnumbers the garrison. If everyone rose as one, the Felk would be crushed. As for what the Circle can do alone, it's negligible... except as an example to others. If they believe in us, they might believe in the uprising."

Quentis drew a long breath. Bryck watched her and admired the control she displayed. He realized that he had longed to confide in someone for some while, but he had denied himself. His war against the Felk, despite his having assumed leadership of the Broken Circle, still felt, more often than not, like a purely private endeavor. And he had felt the loneliness of that, even if he hadn't wanted to admit it.

"Fabrication," she said at last, with a soft note of wonder.

Bryck waited, wondering if anger would follow.

"If you create the falsehood and find ways to give it credibility..." Quentis went on, pondering aloud, "then you need only find others to believe in it as reality. And then it is real." Her amber eyes brightened. "So our goal is to make the people of Callah believe that the revolution is already under way. That they would be joining a movement already in full swing. It would be a kind of... of self-inducing momentum, wouldn't it?" She appeared quite taken with the notion.

Bryck nodded. "Yes. The Broken Circle represents hope. The last hope for freedom from the Felk these people will probably ever know."

She regarded him. Then she said solemnly, "Wherever you come from, Minstrel, and whoever you are, I am grateful for you."

It wouldn't have done to kiss her just then, not with the bilious taste of vomit still on his lips. But he wanted to, at that moment. Wanted very much to kiss this woman. Wanted all the warmth and passion that would come from that.

Instead, of course, he went back inside. One of the new recruits, Cancallo, the woman whose sons had been conscripted into the Felk army, was on her knees with a damp rag, scrubbing away Setix's bloodstains from the floor. The body itself was gone.

There was much talk all around the city about the great sigil on the north wall of the Registry. Many people had noted the significance of its placement, which Bryck found gratifying. It was meant to symbolize full defiance of the Felk, who had invaded this city from the north.

The huge black symbol was already being painted over, naturally. The Felk had commandeered a work crew of Callahans to do the job, but even that wasn't going to lessen the impact, Bryck judged.

There were other operations for the Circle to undertake. They couldn't relax their efforts now. He had been candid with Quentis earlier. Things were only going to grow more violent and dangerous.

And eventually, hopefully, these people of Callah would follow the Broken Circle's lead and rise united against the Felk.

It was well past curfew. Bryck was in his bunk, behind his screen of painted birds in flight. He hadn't eaten, unwilling to risk vomiting again. As with most nights, sleep wasn't coming easily. He had tried repeatedly to clear his mind, but such efforts only seemed to spur his thoughts faster. He knew the only thing to do was to wait for physical fatigue to overcome the mental agitation.

After some long while he felt the first threads of dreams poking through his tiring consciousness. These were odd nonsensical intrusions that vanished the instant he focused his mind on them. Some he recognized fleetingly as memories, mostly from his distant past, incidents from his boyhood distorted and reshuffled into strange episodes.

It was dark in the room, and there were others in here, already sleeping. It might be time for the Circle to find new, bigger lodgings. Or perhaps they could spread their numbers out to different locations.

Inevitably an erotic image of Quentis surfaced in his dwindling thoughts. It was a fantasy Bryck had visualized before, often enough apparently for his mind to mistake it for a memory. It played out familiarly, and he felt a vague pang of shame for the arousal he was experiencing.

But when he distantly heard the screen around his bunk being softly jostled and felt the warm hands searching under his blanket, Bryck responded as he would in the fantasy, drawing the visiting body onto the bunk and pressing himself eagerly against it.

Until a sudden alarming thought cut through him.

"Quentis?" he breathed, his heart pounding in the darkness. "It is you, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said. "It's me." And her mouth closed tightly over his.

As the fantasy became reality, the fabrication became a true memory; and when she left his bunk later that night, after the full satisfaction of the event, Bryck clutched that memory and did not let go.