Peculiar Soul

Saf is a country forged in struggle. It is a product of countless exigencies and torments pressing upon it from all borders. Our conflicts with the Bulu and the Ardans have done more to shape our nation than any twist of theological debate held in Khem’s hallowed halls. Therefore it is in times of war that we see the greatest potential for growth.

We conceive of nations as solid, resilient creatures, but they only seem so because we compare them to the changeable nature of our own selves. Indeed, when we are reforged as different men daily by the crucible of war, it is difficult to notice the mark of ten years upon a nation.

But as a nation or a man, we must take the change into ourselves wholeheartedly. If we do not, and we indulge in the lure of a self that exists only in our memories, then we risk being crushed by the tides of an uncaring world. Nostalgia is a luxury; to cater to its whims is to declare war on change itself - and there is no power yet that has emerged victorious from that battle.

- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687

They rose early the next morning, bidding farewell to the abandoned village and continuing along the coastal road. Marcus had not been entirely misleading in his comment about the weather; it was by no means a warm day, but the coastal wind blew warmer than the chill, dry interior air. Combined with the constant presence of the sea beside them, it made for a pleasant enough trip.

It was almost enough to distract Michael from an anxiety that had built within him while he sat, sleepless, watching the stars turn over their camp. He had imagined the coming fight, the confrontation with Luc and Ardalt. What they might do, and what he might do in response. Who he would be at the end. He saw several answers to that question in his midnight thoughts, most of them frightening. It left him with an acid, itching burn in his chest that had persisted even as they walked through the relative idyll of south Ghar.

Richter had handed out simple meals of bread, fruit and hard cheese that morning. Michael tried his utmost to savor his, knowing that it would take some luck to keep their supplies stocked with the former two items while in the field. The thought chased a smile to his lips. He imagined what Helene would say if she heard him talking fondly of a bruised winter apple and stale bread.

“You’re doing it again,” Sobriquet noted. “Smiling for no reason.”

Michael snorted. “I’m thinking about how life changes,” he said. “I could say the same about you, there’s a definite bounce in your step.”

“It’s nice here,” she said defensively. “Quiet. It’s the first time in months that I haven’t been surrounded by people that scream their importance out into the world, tottering around under their secrets and plots. I’ve had a headache of one sort or another ever since we set out after Luc - until now.”

Michael gave her a questioning look, tapping a finger against his chest; she laughed. “I’m used to you,” she said. “Besides, I already know all your secrets.”

“All of them?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a bit presumptuous of you.”

“All of the important ones.” She nudged him sideways with her hip. “But yes, my opinion of Ghar is rising dramatically now that we’re outside of Gharon. All of the intrigue and peril can stay up there. There’s barely anyone around here, and none of them are doing more than minding their business. It’s - incredibly refreshing.”

Michael blinked, looking around. “There are people here?” he asked. “I thought it was entirely deserted.”

“Farmers,” Sobriquet shrugged. “Like I said, people minding their own business. It’s not as though this place needs the great Empire of Ghar in order to be habitable; a man growing a bit of food and raising chickens can survive just as well no matter what state the government’s in.” She chuckled. “Perhaps better, as nobody is bothering him for taxes.”

“It all does tend to fall apart when a massive foreign army lands on your shores,” Michael pointed out.

She nodded. “It does at that. But for these past few centuries Mendian has been a sufficient deterrent to keep those sorts at bay, so Ghar has been - this. A little paradise, or at least a land unmolested by the trappings of civilization.” She grimaced and turned to the north. “For those people who managed to avoid the famine Marcus spoke of, at least. Or the inevitable bandits, or sickness-”

“Civilization does have its appeal,” Michael said dryly. “I can’t imagine you surviving well on turnips and mutton for the rest of your days.”

“Absolutely not, I don’t want to live here. It would be horrid and dangerous, and incredibly dull.” She shrugged. “But you can’t deny that it’s a pleasant contrast-” She paused, her head coming up to focus on the horizon. Her eyes narrowed, then closed. “Damn it. I had to go extolling the virtues of a quiet, peaceful land.”

Michael looked at her. “You see something?” he asked. The itching anxiety, momentarily forgotten, made itself known once more.

She nodded irritably. “It’s got Luc’s particular rank scent all over it, too. Institute meddling. A small group, most of a day’s walk from here. We could probably reach them today, if we leaned on Zabala hard enough.”

He pressed his lips together, thinking, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “We’ll camp close by, then investigate in the day. I want us to be rested before we make a move, and we can surprise them either way.”

“So reasonable,” Sobriquet said, wrinkling her nose in mock disgust. “But, fine. I’ll be able to snoop on them better once we’re close by, even without taking the trouble to manifest.”

“I speak from deep experience when I say that this is the most boring group of fighters I’ve ever seen,” Sobriquet sighed. “They’re - sitting. Doing nothing. It’s no wonder I didn’t spot them farther out, they’re barely awake over there.”

Zabala grunted. “Not doing nothing,” he said. “If they’re associated with the Ardan advance, they’ll be where they are for a reason. They’ll have a purpose - orders. And if they’re not doing anything now, it’s because the time to execute those orders hasn’t come yet. They’re waiting.”

“That would tend to corroborate Marcus’s claim that an advance is imminent,” Michael sighed. He looked up at the first wan traces of sunlight coloring the clouds; today would be overcast. “Shit. Do you know, I was still half-hoping that he was leading us on.”

“You should know better than that by now,” Charles muttered. “It’s always worse than you think.” He pushed his bracer forward to his hand, letting the metal flow up and over his fingers. “So? We going to go over and ask some questions? Crack some heads?”

Michael tapped a finger on his chin.

The place in question turned out to be a small farmstead. Not a decrepit ruin like the buildings they had passed, no - the property looked little different from any farm in Daressa or Ardalt, and put several that Michael had seen to shame. The fields were bare for winter, but had been cleaned of chaff and underbrush. The wall bordering it was stone, good stone, with much of it in mismatched quarried slabs that looked as though it had been stolen piecemeal from the ruin of some building.

The house itself was a mixed construction of stone and timber, with a solidly-mortared foundation and stout walls. Amid the greys and browns of winter, someone had taken the time to place evergreen sprigs along the windows - freshly cut, and hung artfully with string.

“They’re in the house?” Michael asked.

Sobriquet waggled her hand. “Below it. There’s a root cellar of some sort, or something that used to be one. Now it’s more like one of our safehouses, from back in Daressa.” She stared across the barren field for a long moment, then shook her head. “Feels strange to be on this side of things.”

“These aren’t freedom fighters,” Zabala noted. “They’re spies. Ardan saboteurs. If anything, we’re saving the Gharic people from subjugation.”

“Marcus might have a point or two of clarification on that matter,” Sobriquet muttered, standing up and rolling her neck. “You all ready?” She nodded at the quiet affirmations from the others, then turned back to the farmstead. “All right.”

A short time later, the door to the farmstead burst open. A man stumbled in, clad in an Ardan uniform, bleeding freely from a cut on his arm. The occupants of the house looked up, startled; there was a woman in the house’s main room, sweeping the floor, and a man caught midway through sharpening a field knife. He jumped up, knife in hand, and stared warily at the soldier.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

The Ardan soldier looked up, red-faced and sweating. “I’m bleeding out, is what I’m doing. I was told we had a station here, I need someone to patch me up. Where’s your anatomens?”

“Anatomens?” The man blinked, confused, letting the knife drop to his side. “We don’t have an anatomens, we’re - what are you doing here? It’s too early, the operation doesn’t begin for another two days.”

“The fuck it doesn’t,” the soldier spat. “Does it look like I’m sitting on my ass? The Mendiko caught on early, sent in a division to the staging area. We beat them back, but I got separated from my unit, turned around-” The man’s eyes fluttered, and he sagged against the wall.

The farmer took a tentative step forward, but the soldier’s eyes snapped back open; the man held up his hand. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just need - bandage, and point me back towards the beachhead.”

“The beachhead?” the farmer said, bewildered. “Is that where you came from? How did you wind up all the way back here, the beachhead is back-”

“Stop,” another man said, stepping out from a cellar door. He was dressed much the same as the farmer, but in clothing that still lay stiff and new on his frame. “Don’t say another word. That’s not an Ardan soldier.”

The soldier raised his head, looking at the newcomer; the dull pain faded from his eyes. “Beg your pardon,” he said. “But I’m Brand Richter, from the Fourteenth.”

“Fourteenth was disbanded in Daressa,” the man said, pulling a pistol from his coat and motioning for the farmer and his wife to step back. The two retreated nervously, edging their way out of his field of fire.

The Ardan soldier straightened up, his hand dropping from his injured arm. “Well, shit,” he said. “Sorry, boss. I guess I wasn’t that convincing.”

“We heard enough,” Michael said.

The man with the pistol looked around, eyes widening; the room was suddenly full. Sobriquet lowered her hand with a smirk; the others stepped forward from where they had been standing against the walls of the room. Richter brushed at his intact, clean sleeve, the appearance of his injury melting away along with Sobriquet’s veil.

But the man with the pistol looked at none of them; his eyes stuck on Michael as the blood drained slowly from his face.

“He recognizes me,” Michael noted. “He’ll be one of the Institute men. Zabala, Charles, can you go round up the others in the cellar?”

They ducked through the door the gunman had come through; Michael turned his attention to the man with the pistol. “I’d like you to put that pistol down. It’s not going to-”

The man bared his teeth, raising the gun to his own head in one swift motion-

“Don’t,” Michael said, his eyes widening, pulsing with dim flickers of gold. “Don’t do that. Ghar’s blood, you people are crazy.”

There was no response from the other man, who had frozen with his finger a hair’s breadth shy of the trigger. His face was locked in a determined grimace, save for his eyes - they were staring, panicked, helpless as Michael walked over to pluck the gun from his hand.

“I’m sorry about this,” Michael said. He took the weapon from the man’s unresisting fingers, turning to hand it to Richter. “I know it’s not comfortable - but I need you to help me save some lives.” He reinforced his words with a gentle brush from Spark - not the hard push that had stopped the man from ending his life, but a gentle suggestion that Michael was in earnest, and that the man’s orders might permit some discussion.

The man said nothing, immobile and staring. His fingers twitched - and he collapsed to the ground, a coarse guttural sound coming from his mouth. Blood spattered out with every exhalation; he took a rasping breath and did it again.

Laughter. Michael saw the rictus grin on the man’s face, heard the wet barks of amusement wracking him until the next breath failed to come. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth to pool on the wooden floor of the house.

“Damn it,” Michael spat, his heart racing - too hard. His chest felt warm, tight. “What was that?”

Lars walked over to prod the corpse with his boot, then shrugged. “Man really wanted to die,” he said. “Poison, maybe. I’ve heard of men with false teeth.”

“That sort of fieldcraft is rarely seen outside of bad s,” Zabala snorted, coming out of the door with another Institute man in tow; he passed the man to Stenger and dropped to his knee beside the body to inspect the dead man’s mouth. Zabala gave an amused shake of his head. “No such luck. It reminds me of your friend Carolus at the Assembly more than anything.”

“Can’t have been an auspex, or we wouldn’t have surprised him as we did,” Michael muttered. He looked at the man Zabala had brought up from the basement, then at Charles emerging with another man; this one was bound in shining coils of metal that clasped his arms tightly to his torso. He rose and turned to face the man Stenger was holding.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Michael asked. “Or will you mysteriously drop dead as well?”

The man sniffed; he was thin and sallow with a dark shadow of stubble on his chin; nevertheless his bearing was unmistakable; the set of his shoulders and the lift of his chin subtly off in Michael’s perception. “You can ask,” the man said. “But I won’t answer. And if you try to compel an answer, you won’t get it.”

“Ah,” Michael muttered disgustedly, drawing on Stanza and laying his hand on the man’s arm. “You-” He paused. He had expected to see the signs he was becoming ever-more-familiar with, the telltale damage left when a man’s mind was upended in service of another. What he found instead was - order. Cleanliness. The vast, manicured grounds of the Institute, where every blade of grass was pressed into its proper arrangement.

Yet behind those featureless walls-

Michael let his hand drop, the sound of wretched screaming still echoing in his ears; he looked at the man with wide eyes. He didn’t ask any of the questions that bubbled to his lips. There was nobody there to answer. Only directives, purpose and loyalty. Instead, he turned to Sobriquet.

“They’ve been - altered,” he said. “I should have seen it. That manner that some of them have, that similarity - it’s not training. They’ve been molded, shaped.” He didn’t need to guess who had done it; this wasn’t the crude push of a Shine. This man had been brought before Spark, and left as an entirely different person.

“Can you reverse it?” she asked.

Michael hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m not sure there’s enough of him left,” he said, remembering echoing, hoarse screams behind immaculate walls. “Or that what remains would be able to speak.”

“Ghar’s bones,” Charles spat. “Is everyone in Ardalt like this? It seems like we can’t come across a group of Ardans without finding that they’ve all been scrambled in the head.”

Michael moved to deny it, but paused. Instead, he shook his head. “Safe to say that Spark didn’t take chances with loyalty,” he said. “Thinking back on it, it was the first thing he ensured in everyone; even in me. He wanted people to love him. To be his. It makes sense that he’d instill the same sentiment in his field agents, given the chance.”

“Lunatic,” Sobriquet muttered. She looked at the two captive Institute agents for a long moment, then turned to Charles; she gave a quick jerk of her head.

Charles moved, metal flashed. In the next instant the Institute agents were slumping to the ground, clutching bleeding throats.

Michael opened his mouth, then closed it and turned to Sobriquet, looking at her. The feeling in his chest was stronger, painful. She looked back unapologetically.

“You said you couldn’t reverse it,” she said. “That there was nothing left to save. Did we kill anything but an enemy, just now?”

“No,” Michael admitted, rubbing at his sternum. “But I would have liked to talk about it first.”

“I’m aware,” Sobriquet sighed. “We know we’ve got two days, now, and plenty of work to fill that time.” She nodded at the Gharic couple, who were backed into a corner, staring at the bodies on their floor. “We should pursue the conversations that are more likely to be productive.”

She walked over to stand in front of the pair. The man moved protectively in front of his wife, glaring wordlessly down at Sobriquet.

“I am - Sera,” she said, extending her hand. Neither of them moved to take it; she let it drop after a moment. “I’m from Daressa. We fought for years against the Safid and the Ardans both. I know what it is to lose your home to invasion. I know what it is to ally with evil men, because they are the only hope you have to reclaim what was yours.”

“We know who you are,” the man said, not managing to disguise the quaver in his voice. “Sobriquet. And we know the evil men you’ve allied with. We may know them better than you.”

She gave them an unimpressed look. “It would be a more damning accusation if we hadn’t pulled Institute agents from your cellar a moment ago - twisted, warped creatures made in service of a madman.” She leaned closer. “I ally with whom I must, like anyone, and I don’t agree with everything Mendian does. They’re downright insufferable at times, in fact. But they remain men. You don’t know the first thing about these people, Lucius.”

The man blinked, his face growing pale. “How-”

“As you said,” she murmured. The room took on an unnerving aspect, its shadows deepening. “I am Sobriquet. You know the name, did you stop to think about what it means? Lucius.” She turned to the woman. “Flavia. And the three dead men on the floor were Eric, Udo and Lorenz. Eric was from Calmharbor, Udo from Stahm. And all three of them were laboring to bring death and destruction to Ghar that surpasses anything you’ve ever known.”

Lucius stared back at her, his arm still outstretched. “You can’t expect me to turn on Ghar because you know our names,” he rasped.

“I’m asking you to help me save Ghar,” Sobriquet shot back, plainly exasperated. “You know the Mendiko; I know Ardans. I’ve been knife-deep in them since I was little, and that was before the country was turned to its current brand of insanity. Your people will suffer under them, Lucius. Not the slow torment of hunger or deprivation, but the bloody terror of soldiers kicking down your door. For food, for Flavia - for the child in her belly.”

She looked up at the woman, who had gone equally pale. “Congratulations, by the way. She should grow up in a peaceful country. She should know loving parents and a safe home. I’ve seen the alternative, and you don’t want it.” Sobriquet’s eyes slid back to Lucius. “Tell us where the Ardans have landed. We’ll fight for that peace - and she won’t have to.”

“So she can live her life under a Mendiko boot?” Lucius snarled. “None of us think this will be clean. The price of life is death, and right now we have neither. We’ll gain both. Death for us, yes - but life for our children. For Ghar.”

Sobriquet looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she murmured, letting her grip on the room slip away. She took a step back. “And I don’t think you will, not until it’s too late. We can’t afford to wait that long. We need to know where the Ardans are landing.”

She took another step back and looked at Michael. “It won’t harm them if you ask, will it?”

Michael pressed his lips together, looking at the terrified couple. The burn in his chest intensified, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Sobriquet saw his disquiet and shook her head, stepping closer; the embrace of her veil settled around them.

“They’ll die, Michael,” she said. “Even if they survive the fighting, they’ll be marked as collaborators once the Ardans have control. People like that don’t live happy lives, nor long ones.”

His eyes strayed from her to the couple. Despite their refusal, they were plainly terrified; Michael could feel it pulsing from them, a cold echo to the flame scorching his chest. He focused on them, imagining in his mind’s eye the words he would say as he called upon Spark-

“-and fuck you too,” Clair snarled, spitting on the ground near Isolde’s feet; Vera only smiled and stepped back, spreading her hands.

“We’re not your enemies,” she said, stepping closer. The glint in her eye was irresistible, compelling; the corners of Sibyl’s tent began to fade. “I hope I can convince you of that.”

Michael jerked backwards, his arm grabbing reflexively at his chest as the heat flared painfully - then subsided to a low, lingering sting.

“Michael?” Sobriquet asked, stepping closer; she laid her hand on his arm - and jerked it away as though burned, tottering back with tears in her eyes. She leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

Lars made to step closer, but she waved him off; Michael likewise straightened up with a grimace. He looked at Sobriquet. “You felt that?” he asked. “It was-”

“Clair,” she said.

He nodded slowly, letting his hand drop to his side. “I’ve felt strange all day,” he said. “A burning in the lungs, like I’ve overexerted myself.” He croaked out a small laugh. “I had almost forgotten what that’s like. But it wasn’t that.”

Michael took a slow breath; now that he was paying attention he could feel the texture to the burning - small points of flame dancing within him, with one still blazing brighter than the rest. “I’ve been dwelling on the question of how far is too far, where Luc is concerned. Antolin would say there is no such limit, I know. I had been drawing my lines, and you yours. I think this was Clair drawing hers.”

Sobriquet’s eyes widened. “But they’ll die,” she murmured, looking past Michael, her words not truly meant for him. “They all will.”

“There’s an argument to be made,” Michael agreed. “But these low souls within me keep some of themselves - perhaps more than I thought. I realized when Galen rejected me that they had all made that choice. To stay, and to keep their light here. I’ve been preparing myself to do whatever it takes to stop Luc. Trying to choose a shorter path.” He met Sobriquet’s eyes. “That’s not a path Clair will follow.”

“What does that mean?” Sobriquet asked angrily. “She’s bound to you. Within you. I can feel her when I’m near.”

Michael placed his hand on his chest again. “I felt the same burning,” he said. “The fire that consumed me when Galen chose the void, stronger with every moment that I considered using my soul on those two.” He found himself smiling, bittersweet; Michael shook his head. “I told Leire that she would have to change, or there would be no reconciliation between us. It seems I can change too, and that it has led me far from where I began.” He looked back up at Lucius and Flavia; the couple was watching them warily, beginning to fray under the constant strain of their fear.

“If I take their decision from them,” he said quietly, “then I will have no choice but to accept Clair’s, and destroy what she gave me.”

Sobriquet closed her eyes for a long moment; when she opened them again they sparkled with tears. “She was always stubborn,” she murmured. “To a fault.”

Michael nodded. “But not usually wrong,” he said, looking down at his hand. He splayed his fingers wide, then slowly curled them into a fist. “It’s odd what a soul does to you. It takes away pieces of you - pieces you don’t miss. Fatigue, blindness.” He let his hand drop, looking up. “Limits. And you don’t notice it changing you. Not without something stubborn to remind you.”

She closed her eyes again. “Luc isn’t going to hesitate,” Sobriquet said. “He’s not going to question what he does, and he’s going to get stronger every day. If we hold back, and it’s not enough to stop him-”

“There are only two outcomes,” Michael said. “Good men win, or evil men do. It doesn’t matter much if one tyrant falls and another takes his place.” He shook his head. “So we take a longer path, one that we can all walk, and trust that we’ll find our way there in the end.” He stepped closer to Sobriquet, putting his arms around her. “Look at them. You don’t want to do this to them either.”

“Of course not!” she retorted. “But now what? Ghar’s fucking - fuck this stupid shitty country, you can’t even curse properly here without it sounding stupid.” She rammed her head into his chest, hugging him tightly. “They’re going to die, Michael. They’re going to die and their daughter will grow up broken and shitty, a killer who could have been a thousand better things, and we could stop it, and now we can’t.” She grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “And it’s going to happen all over again.”

Michael held her close, letting his answer be the flame swelling in his chest; Clair’s gentle warmth spread around them both. As it died away he stepped back and motioned for Sobriquet to drop her veil. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Same course as before, except now we’ve got our timetable.”

Zabala jerked his head towards Lucius and Flavia. “And these two?”

“These two should find somewhere else to be,” Michael said. “Far from the war, when it comes.” He nodded to each of them in turn, then walked out the door of the beautiful farmhouse.