Drawn Blades (15 page)

If your work happens in the dark and in silence you must have some means other than speech for communicating. While it was rare for Blades to work together, it wasn’t wholly unheard of, and we’d had to learn a very rudimentary sort of squeeze code for such occasions. The vocabulary was tiny, fifty words or so. Come, go, right, left, guard, etc. Siri’s hand was making the code for “watch” and “trap” and “false” in a loop, though she didn’t seem to be paying any attention to it.

“Take all the time you need.” I reached over and put a hand on her forearm. “This can’t be easy.” I gave her a comforting squeeze that said, “Yes, watch.”

“I’d be lying if I said it was,” said Siri. Her hand signaled “yes” twice, when she said “I” and “lying.” She continued, “Not all of it, of course. Nor even most, but some . . .” Siri’s hand made no further motions, and I took that to mean she’d told me what she needed to—that I couldn’t trust all of what she had to say.

“I understand,” I said. “The biggest lesson I’ve learned since the fall of the temple is that there is no black and white in the world.
Everything
comes in mixed grays.”

“Like smoke,” said Siri.

What did I just miss?
Triss asked.
I could tell the two of you were having more than one conversation, but couldn’t follow the details.

I’ll tell you later. The important thing is that Siri has warned me that we can’t fully trust her. Can you let Ssithra know what’s up without giving anything away to Kyrissa?

No. It’ll have to wait for later.

All right. It’s not like Faran’s going to trust a word she says anyway.

Siri sighed. “I guess that’s as good a place as any to begin. It started with smoke.”

“The Fire That Burns Underground,” I said.

She nodded. “Exactly, though Namara called him the Smoldering Flame. It was a bit over a year after you killed Ashvik that the goddess summoned me to her island. I was surprised, of course. Personal summons were always rare, and virtually unheard of for someone as young as I was at the time.”

The goddess usually preferred to give assignments through her shadow council, or occasionally by way of the First Blade or the high priest. Summoning a Blade bare months after her investiture such as Siri was at that time was almost as unheard of as my own decision to go out to the sacred island and beg the goddess to assign Ashvik’s death to me.

“When she rose from the waters and spoke to me . . .” Siri trailed off and I could see a mix of awe and sorrow and longing in her eyes.

I looked down because I couldn’t bear the pain her expression woke in my heart. “I’ve been there. I know what it means to have the goddess hold your soul in her hand.”

Check in with Ssithra,
I sent.
This is a topic that has to hurt her and Faran.

Triss came back after a moment.
She says that they will be fine, but some of that feels like bravado.

A long painful silence had opened up so I prompted Siri with, “Smoke?”

Siri started. “Yes, sorry. Namara told me that she had been watching my training and how I had done with my first few assignments, that she needed someone with my magical skills and
flexibility
of mind to assay a mission. I went to place my forehead on the ground at her feet as I promised that, whatever she wanted of me, it would be done. But she caught my chin with a fingertip and stopped me. She said that she didn’t know if what she was asking
could
be done—that she needed me to slay smoke, but that smoke could not die. Her words troubled me.”

Siri stood and walked to the fireplace, putting her hands on the mantel and leaning down to stare into the flames. Kyrissa looked worriedly up at her partner. After a few moments, Siri turned around and leaned back against the mantel. The smoke from the fire wisped back and forth across her calves, blending with the twisting patterns of her grays.

“I have never possessed the certainty that you do, Aral. I believed in Namara with every fiber of my being. But, justice . . . I cannot always see the true path. I can kill with the very best of them, but sometimes I waver in my understanding of what’s right. To know that Namara could be uncertain about something, too—that shook me in a way that I don’t think would have touched you, or Kelos, or Alinthide. The goddess saw that, and I knew that she had. It made me ashamed.”

“It shouldn’t.” I got out of my chair and crossed to put a hand on her shoulder. “One of the most important things I’ve learned since the fall of the temple is that certainty is a trap. Believing you’re right is one thing.” I started to pace. “The very idea of belief carries within it the seeds of doubt. But
knowing
you’re right . . .”

I shook my head. “When you
know
you’re right you develop a special sort of blindness. That can be okay if you
are
right, but if you aren’t . . .”

“It’s funny that you should put it that way. The goddess said something similar. She told me that it was my very uncertainty that fitted me for the mission ahead, that you couldn’t fight smoke if you didn’t see all the shades of gray.”

“You’re making it sound like the goddess actually approved of . . . of . . . moral ambiguity,” interjected Faran. “That can’t be right! The priests always told us that Namara could see the way of justice in any situation, that her sight was always clear.”

Faran sounded genuinely shocked and more than a little outraged. And, I felt . . . I felt like someone had taken my past and scrambled all the pieces when I wasn’t looking. My whole life had been built atop the belief that the goddess never wavered and always knew what was right. That was my bedrock.

Siri nodded at Faran. “It bothered me, too. I would never have dreamed of questioning the goddess out loud. I tried to not even
think
what you just said, but I couldn’t help myself for the same reason I couldn’t help having doubts. Of course, the goddess heard my thoughts.”

“And?” I asked. My voice sounded far away to my ears and I could taste brass.

My pacing had taken me around behind the chair I’d vacated a few moments earlier—putting it between Siri and me. Now I caught hold of the back, squeezing hard enough to make the joints creak. I didn’t know what I wanted Namara’s response to have been, but I knew that I had to hear it.

“And the goddess chuckled,” said Siri. “Then she spoke into my mind,
‘Priests say many things about the gods. Some they say because they are true. Some they say because we tell them to say them. Some they say because they tell themselves they
must
be true.’

“I told her that I didn’t understand, and she chuckled again.
‘Daughter, we are not so different, you and I. Sometimes you worry that you will make the wrong choices. So do I. Sometimes there is no clear way. But you believe in me and trust me to guide
you
to the right path. And I believe in justice and trust that belief to guide
me
to the right path.’
”

Triss hopped up into my chair so that his head was level with Siri’s. “You’re truly claiming that the goddess didn’t always know the right?” To me he sent,
Maybe this is the lie she warned you about?
His projected words sounded even more confused than his spoken voice had.

I don’t think so, Triss. Siri isn’t giving me any signals, and this
feels
like the truth, Namara help me. . . .

Siri nodded again. “That’s what she told me.”

“Why?” I whispered, though I wasn’t at all certain what I was asking for, or even who I was asking it of.

“I think it’s because she knew that I needed to hear it. I had seen how certain you were, and Kelos, and . . . well, so many of the others. But I didn’t have that certainty, and I was having a major crisis of the heart because of it. The goddess wanted me to understand that it was all right to doubt yourself, that doing so didn’t make you somehow less than those who never wavered. I believe that she wanted me to understand that doubt itself could be a tool for seeking the truth.

“
‘Doubt,’
she told me,
‘is exactly why I have chosen you, my daughter. I am sending you to face one of the most powerful of the buried gods. He is the lord of smoke, a master of deception and misdirection. From the moment you cross the wall of the Sylvain you won’t be able to trust anything you see or hear or smell. The habits of a doubting mind will be your greatest ally, certainty a trap that will get you killed.’

“‘Then what do I hold on to?’ I asked.

“
‘Justice,’
replied the goddess.
‘True justice. I am the least certain of goddesses. Much that my kind has done is . . . open to question. It is quite possible that you would all be better off if we had simply abandoned this world after your creation. I am absolutely certain of one thing only, and that is that might does not make right. The strong must not be allowed to prey on the weak with impunity. Someone must be prepared to call the mighty to account. In this case, that someone is you.’

“‘But I don’t know if I can do this!’ I wailed. ‘Why not send Kelos, or Illiana, or even Aral?’

“‘I don’t know if you can do it either, but I know that Aral could not. Nor Illiana. Nor even Kelos. None of them have the doubt for it. Aral is like the arrow shot straight at the heart; you are the night falcon sent to bring down game in the dark.
You
are my choice for this job, Siri. If any of my Blades can do this thing, you are the one.’”

Siri threw up hands. “What could I say to that? So, I took the sacred dagger Namara offered me and went out to put a god who cannot die back into the grave.”

A
sword may cut smoke, but it can never slay it. Steel cannot kill that which is already dead, and smoke is nothing more than the ghost of fire’s victims,” Siri said. “I could see no way to kill a buried god.

“But I had been assigned to do just that . . . and damn me if I didn’t succeed. But that’s a story you’ve heard more times than I’m sure you’d care to count. So, let me skip ahead to the aftermath.”

She turned to look at Faran. “You were prevented from completing your training, so you haven’t had the experience of the goddess giving you the dagger we call Namara’s eye.”

Faran shrugged. “No, but I’ve seen them and I never figured there was all that much to it. Take the eye, kill the target, use it to pin a list of the target’s crimes to their chest. Seems simple enough.”

“Yes and no. The goddess sealed each eye to the soul of the Blade she assigned the task, and consecrated it to the death of the target. It was nothing like the kind of power she invested in our swords, but there
was
god-magic involved and it did tie each dagger irrevocably to the wielder. Which is where things started to go wrong. When I pinned Namara’s list of the fallen god’s crimes to his chest, I set steel to the heart of smoke, steel tied to my very soul.

“At first, there were no ill effects. I put the god back in his tomb with my knife in his heart. Then I returned to the temple where Namara made me First Blade, replacing Aral.”

Siri looked at me with a question in her eyes, but I just shrugged. “It never bothered me, Siri. I might have slain a king, but you killed a legend. Besides, Namara wished it. Despite anything the goddess might have told you at the time about her own lack of clarity, I had never had the slightest doubt that every choice she made was the right one.”

“And now?” Siri asked me.

“I don’t know. If you had told me this story before the fall of the temple, and I had believed you . . . it probably would have broken me. Since then, I’ve had to make a lot of difficult choices. I held the life of the Son of Heaven in my hands, and I walked away without taking it. I set out to kill Thauvik, knowing it might start a war that would kill more people than his death might save. I believe that I did the right thing both times, but I don’t
know
it. The idea that Namara didn’t
know
either . . . I’m not sure whether I find that terrifying or reassuring at this point.”

Siri smiled. “You
have
changed, Aral. More than I would have believed possible.”

I smiled a sad sort of smile. “My entire world was founded in the rock of Namara’s temple. When she died, my world shattered and I shattered with it. The Aral you knew died that day. The new Aral . . . Hell, I don’t even wear the same face as the old version.”

“I wondered about that. I heard that you had changed your face, but I didn’t fully believe it until I saw you through my smoke avatar. It’s a stunning bit of magic, and I wouldn’t have believed it was possible if I hadn’t seen the results. I’d love to learn it sometime, if it can be taught.”

“It’s called the bonewright and I wouldn’t recommend the process. It involves reshaping the bones of your face while you’re wide-awake, and doing so without any sort of numbing. I wouldn’t have attempted it if my need had been one shred less dire. It very nearly killed me.”

“But it worked,” said Siri.

“Yes, and I think I could manage it again now, having done so once. But I would have to be
very
desperate to try it.”

You would also have to convince me,
sent Triss.
That would be . . . difficult, if not impossible.

“If we live through this, I would like you to teach it to me,” said Siri.

I nodded. “As you wish.” Namara might be gone, but Siri would ever and always be First Blade. I owed her whatever she asked of me.

Faran leaned forward. “Speaking of living through this, could we get back to the part where you were explaining exactly what ‘this’ is?”

Siri laughed. “The surest sign you’re getting older is that the young grow impatient with your digressions and remembrances. A few weeks after Namara made me First Blade, I woke in the middle of the night with a coughing fit. I figured it was some aftereffect of all the smoke I’d breathed in during my fight with the buried god, but within the hour Namara summoned me to her island.

“‘I think that I have made a grave mistake, daughter.’

“‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

“‘I heard you coughing in the night.’

“‘It’s nothing.’

“‘
It
is the buried god. I should never have given you an eye for him. That tool was grossly insufficient to the task, and the nature of it is already causing its slow but inevitable failure to rebound on you. I will have to take steps to freeze the effects it is having on you.’

“‘I don’t understand.’

“‘Let me show you.’

“She touched a finger to my chest, and I found myself coughing again—coughing up pale smoke. Before—in the darkness of my room—I hadn’t been able to see that. Its wispy nature had prevented Kyrissa from noticing it either. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

“‘The Durkoth call the one that you have returned to the tomb the Fire That Burns Underground. Though his greatest power lies in smoke, it rises from the flames within. The smoldering fire of his body is consuming the blade that pins him in his tomb. The steel burns. Imbued as it is with my power, it burns slowly, but it
does
burn. Because it is sealed to your soul, that burning echoes back through you.’

“‘Will it kill me? Or . . . worse? How quickly will it work its magic?’ I was worried, of course. But losing my life in the service of the goddess was how I had always expected to die, and I was nowhere near as frightened as I should have been.

“‘Nothing so horrible, daughter. Now that I know what is happening, I will protect you from the effects. I do not think it would kill you, even if I did nothing. But it might . . . infect you with something of the god. Whether you would simply take on some of his nature and powers, or become a sort of avatar of the Smoldering Flame, I cannot say.

“‘I should have crafted a better remedy for him than I did. What a Blade’s sword can slay, it may also lay to rest. Your efforts demonstrated the first, but I did not think ahead to the second. I would have to forge a sword just for him, unbound to any wielder to properly blunt the effects of his power on the one who put him back in his tomb, but that is what I ought to have done.’

“The goddess touched me on the forehead and told me that she had taken care of the problem. Then she sent me back to my rooms to sleep. As the years went by, I mostly forgot about it. . . .” Siri trailed off.

“But then Namara died,” I said.

She nodded. “Then Namara died. I knew the temple had fallen before I ever heard the story or saw the ruins. I knew it in the instant that Namara’s fellows murdered her, because I felt it here.” Siri touched her chest. “I coughed up smoke for three days after the death of the goddess. When it finally ended I had the first wisps braiding themselves through my hair and Kyrissa’s wings had fledged. Not long after that I came south looking for answers and hoping for help.”

“How’d that work out for you?” Faran asked, her tone a shadow’s breadth shy of insolent.

I gave her a quelling look, but let it pass otherwise.

“You’ll have the chance to judge for yourselves,” replied Siri. “Tomorrow morning we ride for the castle of Ashkent Kelreven and his lady, Kayla Nel Kaledren—called Kayla Darkvelyn by the Sylvani. He is a high lord of the empire, and the only other living soul who has laid one of the buried gods unwilling in the tomb. She’s a duchess of the Kreyn and fifth in line for the Oaken Throne.”

“Kreyn?” I asked.

Siri nodded. “From within, the Sylvani Empire looks much less the monolith it does from without. In addition to the obvious exception of the Asavi, the First here are divided into many peoples. After the Sylvani, the greatest of those are the Tolar nomads, and the Kreyn who claim the mantle First of the First and that all the rest spring from their line.”

I gave Siri a sharp look. “I’m a bit surprised at how much respect you’re giving those titles, Siri. I didn’t think you held the nobility in any higher esteem than I do.”

Siri snorted and then grinned. “Ahh, now, there’s the old Aral. I’d begun to think you’d left him behind completely. But there he is, as angry at all the lords and ladies as if he was fresh minted in the service of justice. It’s not the
titles
that makes me respect Ash and Kayla—though those can come in mighty handy on this side of the wall—it’s what they’ve done that makes them exceptional. Or, did you miss the part where I said that Ash was a Mythkiller, too?”

“And this Kayla?”

“She’s the best mage I’ve ever met, bar none. Her absolute power is limited by the conditions the gods imposed on all of the First when they bound them to the earth of the empire. But she has more skill at spellcraft than I could hope to achieve if I lived ten thousand years.”

“One more question,” I said. “What did Kelos want your help for?”

“I was wondering when you were going to get to that,” replied Siri. “How much do you know about the godwar?”

“Which version? Kelos made sure that I didn’t take Heaven’s story at face value, but I didn’t care enough about the subject to learn more than the most basic take on Namara’s side of things. The First and their lore never interested me.”

“Does the name Sylvaras ring any bells?”

“First emperor of the Sylvain?” I hazarded.

“That, too. He was probably the most powerful sorcerer who ever lived. And, depending on who’s telling the story, either the greatest traitor in the history of the First or the savior of the world. Sometimes both.”

I held up a hand as a vague memory tickled the back of my brain. “Wait, something-something, died alongside the first Sovereign Emperor of Heaven in the final battle of the godwar-something?”

Faran interjected, “The Goodvelyn?”

“That’s it,” said Siri. “On our side of the wall, the story always has the buried gods threatening the very existence of the world if they don’t get their way and the Emperor of Heaven sacrificing his life to save the world and bind the Others. Sometimes it’s mentioned that a few of the Others helped out the true gods and died in the final battle. When they tell it that way among the First, Sylvaras is the leader of the traitors who bargained away the future of the First to end the war with Heaven. That one’s popular among the Durkoth, the Asavi, and Vesh’An, though the Sylvani don’t much like it.”

“I take it the Sylvani write the story another way?” I asked.

“They do. In their version it’s the Emperor of Heaven who threatened to end the world if he lost. And Sylvaras who sacrificed himself in order to break the power of the buried ones and save the world.”

“How did the Emperor of Heaven die, in that version?”

“His fellow gods offered him the choice of an honorable suicide or a dishonorable abdication and interment with the buried gods.”

“And this all has
what
to do with Kelos?” I prompted.

“In the version where Sylvaras is the hero, the true gods tried to bring him back from death so that he could join the ranks of Heaven and heal the rift with the First.”

“The lords of judgment never give up the dead,” I said flatly. “Once you’ve passed through the final gate you
must
go on to the wheel of rebirth. Everyone knows that.”

“I agree with you,” said Siri. “And the simple fact that Sylvaras never returned would seem proof absolute. But there’s a thread of the legend that says the gods made a key for the final gate in honor of Sylvaras’s sacrifice, a key that could only be used once, and only to resurrect a god.”

I could suddenly see where this was going and it left me with a horrible cold feeling in my gut. “And, Kelos believes in this key. He thinks that he can use it to bring Namara back and reset the clock on his treason.”

“That’s not exactly how he put it, but yes, that’s what it sounds like he wants to attempt.” She frowned. “There was a lot about the history of the key in what he told me that I’d never heard before. He knew things that the rest of the world has long since forgotten. Do you think he could actually do it?”

Aral, are you all right?
Triss asked me.

No.

“It can’t work,” I said aloud. I felt such a horror at the very idea of trying it that I couldn’t even begin to express it. “Not even if the key is real. Turning back the wheel of rebirth would upset the foundational order of the world. I feel it in my soul. I don’t know what we’d get if we tried it, but I don’t think it would be Namara.”

“That’s what I’ve always thought, but . . .” Siri trailed off and shook her head. “I could have killed Kelos, but I knew there were things he wasn’t telling me, critically important things. Where he believes the key is, for starters. Far more worrisome is the source of his information. Aral, I don’t know where all the things he talked about ultimately originated, but they came
through
the Son of Heaven. That bastard knows everything Kelos does. Maybe more.”