2.

 

Zaifyr spent the night in her house. Despite the fact that Ayae had invited him—that in itself was a surprise to her—he was the first man besides Illaan to have spent the night in her home and when she awoke, she felt a strange sense of guilt that she could not justify. In the first, drifting moments of her consciousness she believed it was the chasteness of the night, the fact that he slept on the couch in the living room that was the cause for her feelings.

“What now?” he had asked her the night before, when they were finally left alone. “Would you like me to leave you alone? I would understand that.”

“I—” She winced as she moved her shoulder. “Did you really do what Fo said?”

He did not hesitate in his reply. “I gave form to all the dead in Asila. Not just the city by its name, but the entire kingdom. I had listened to them for far too long and I gave them their desire. I gave them food and warmth. If I had not stopped, I would have given all the dead such a grace.”

“It was monstrous.”

“Yes.” He reached for the warped hilt of the sword, lifting it from between them. “And I live with that, just as I live with sights much worse. Now, if you will forgive me.” He handed her the sword, hilt first. “I need to find a place where the dead will be unable to locate me. Where I can be quiet, before I leave.”

“My house?” The words surprised her, shocked her, and she thought to take them back the moment they emerged. Instead, she added, “You’re welcome to stay there.”

“Me, you and the elderly woman who was buried beneath your kitchen.” He smiled as he said the words. “But I would appreciate it, thank you.”

As they began walking, Ayae thought of the old woman’s grandson from whom she had bought the house. He had been born in Mireea, born in a different house that his mother had sold after the death of his father, a house she had used to buy the one he was now selling. “The grandson spread her ashes around the house,” she said. “He said that she had loved the house in the last half of her life more than anything else—but I don’t think that he ever thought her spirit would be actually there. Rather, it was symbolic.”

“It has never been symbolic,” Zaifyr said. “In literature, the Wanderer was said to take the souls of the dead, to guide them to a place of peace, a place of rebirth. His priests would recite the story of him and a farmer. In it, the latter is honest and giving and known as a man who honors both the living and the dead of his family. He does it to such a point that he talks to the dead at night, every night, though they never answer him.

“One day, the Wanderer arrives at his farm, appearing as an old beggar, looking for dinner. He is given a place at the table and, after all have gone to bed, the farmer tells the god that he feels blessed, that because of this, he is happy to share with those less fortunate than himself. He says that it is his family that makes him feel this way. That he can feel his father and mother about him all the time, just as he can feel his son and daughter. He tells the god that he honors the living and the dead equally because of this.

“In response, the Wanderer tells him that it is true, that his family is around him, but that it is nothing to be proud of. Against the farmer’s anger, he explains that the presence of his ancestors means that they are lost, that they are suffering, and that they watch him out of envy and hate.

“The farmer is distraught by this thought, but he doesn’t believe it. He argues with the god, but even though he appears as an old, homeless man, there is something undeniable about the words he speaks. That night, the farmer kills himself. It’s an extreme response, but the story is a parable and all the parables of the gods had violent extremes.

“At any rate, after the farmer dies, he knows that the Wanderer is right. He can see his parents and their parents and he can sense their hate and envy. He begins to weep and it is then that the god appears, no longer in the form of an old man but as a shadow, a specter more detailed than any around him, as if the souls of all the dead dwell within his form. He tells the farmer that it was his fault what had happened. He says that because he loved his family so strongly, so deeply, so obsessively, they could not leave him.

“From there, the story drifts into the moral, the lesson that the priests would impart, which was that you must accept death, that it is a natural part of existence. The story is all but forgotten now, and so is the truth it speaks, the truth of a world without the God of Death—and it is a truth that will be on show in the following week, when the fighting begins.”

“That’s why you will leave,” she said. “Your brother agreed with that. He is worried about you.”

“He is right to be,” Zaifyr admitted. “My days of warfare are long gone.”

“How did you live with it when you did take part?”

“Take part?” He smiled half a smile, a cynic’s smile. “I did not take part: I made war. I made it and I believed in it. I could rationalize a terrible thing and claim it as normal when I was younger. I suppose that part of it is that it is difficult to see what I see and feel every day and to always think of it as abnormal. But it is no longer that time, for which I am grateful. I do not wish to watch men and women die, just as I do not want for them to come to me afterward, searching for answers I do not have.”

Then they had arrived at her quiet home, a dark square among other silent, dark blocks. For a while they had talked, and then parted for the night, the house silent until Ayae pushed herself out of bed and dressed slowly. She pulled the hard leather armor on over her clothes, wincing as it rubbed against her injured shoulder.

Before she and Zaifyr had left to come to her house, the day after Steel had escaped and the floor of the city had erupted, Lady Wagan had delivered her speech. Dressed in somber greens and whites, with the Captain of the Spine at her side, she stood in front of the Western Gate. It had not been a long speech: she begun by telling them all that she would be honest and forthright. “This will not be a short war, though the battle before us will be,” she said to the crowd before her. “You have seen the size of the force approaching us. You have no doubt asked what is it that we can do against them. You ask, not just how can we survive, but how can we triumph? We cannot do either if we are conventional. We cannot engage the Leeran force in the way they wish us to do. Neither I, nor the man beside me, plan to do so. Trust both of us on this, trust that Mireea is a wealthy nation, and trust that what we leave behind we can rebuild once our debts are settled.”

Ayae’s hand lingered on her door frame as she stepped onto the narrow back veranda that looked over her small, empty garden plots. Zaifyr sat at a table to her right, a still figure next to a glass jug of juice trailing lines of moisture. A plate with cut sandwiches was also there. “Just simple food,” he said, as she eased herself into the chair opposite, thanking him. As she poured herself a drink, he added, “Heast has sent for me. The same messenger informed me that you have been requested to attend Lady Wagan.”

“When?”

He shrugged. “I said you would be there once you were awake.”

“You could have woken me. It’s probably important.”

“It is always important,” he said dryly. “Tell me, can you hear anything unusual?”

She could not and said so.

“I could, earlier. We will hear it again, I am sure, but it is only the sound of the Leeran Army cutting down trees. They want to talk to us about this, I imagine.”

She wanted to rise, to head to the Keep, but instead she remained seated. “The other day, before the Leerans attacked,” she said slowly, picking her words. “Captain Heast told me that he could end this war before it began if he had the powers of Fo, Bau, or you.”

“I do not know about the others.” Zaifyr ran his hand through his hair, shaking the silver and copper charms throughout. “Maybe Fo could.”

“You could, couldn’t you?”

“No.”

“Not…” She realized her mistake, stumbled with it. “If you could—if there was no past.”

“There is never no history.” His smile was faint. “But I understand what you are asking. In Mireea you are emotionally connected: it is your home, your life. Your future was in it, in all ways, and you haven’t left that yet. But last night you rightly spoke to me about the horrors I have done—and yes, I could end this war. But it would be done violently, awfully, with thousands of deaths. I am one of the first, Ayae. There are few who could stand against me. But after—after I would have to live with it, and I live with so much, already.

“It is an experience that Fo and Bau have never encountered. They have never seen the destruction that can be caused by a man or woman, by a “god” who believes he or she has a moral superiority over another. But they will, soon enough. If the Leeran Army has come for Ger, for the power of the gods, it will move onto Yeflam after this, it will follow the refugee train of Mireea, and it will lay siege to a nation where men and women believe they will, one day, be gods. And on that day you will see the awful things your peers can do, and you will be thankful that neither I nor my brothers or sisters rose up to defend your home.”