Peculiar Soul

The raven and the mockingbird spoke one morning. The night before there had been a meeting of the forest. The raven and the mockingbird stood opposite each other, as did the hound and the wolf, as did the tortoise and the boar. Man came to the circle and stood opposite an empty space, however. The mockingbird asked the raven why that was.

The raven replied that men carried their opposites within them, that they hunted glimpses of each other from pools of still water. Man stood apart from the rest because he knew the empty space was not empty at all - only waiting for the water to calm.

- Pre-Gharic Ardan manuscript, vellum, c. 500 PE

“Just look at it,” Vernon murmured, staring out the window. “So peaceful, so beautiful.”

Michael looked. “It’s a field,” he said. “A nice field, granted, but a field nevertheless.”

“Exactly,” Vernon said, gesturing to the expanse of wheat. It was broad, with a gentle rise that lifted up away from them. The season was just starting to change the green field to gold, and the thin stalks rippled in the wind. “No shell-bursts. No fires. No soldiers raiding it a week shy of the proper harvest to top up their stores. Just good, green, unspoiled land.”

A somewhat-sardonic remark had come to mind; Michael left it unsaid. Vernon was quiet, but the landscape had him on the verge of tears. Nor was he the only one - Charles and Sobriquet watched it pass with a twist of painful nostalgia - and anger.

“I hope they enjoy the taste of peace,” Charles muttered. “It was dearly-bought, and not with their coin.”

Sobriquet shot him a warning look. “You’re not wrong, but keep your voice down,” she said. “I’m trying to limit my veiling. Someone out there is watching for blind spots, I can feel it. It’s - prickly.” She frowned. “And they’ve been rather persistent since this morning.”

“Amira said the Ardans would likely be waiting for us at Sau,” Michael noted. “Do you think it’s Sofia?”

Charles smiled and punched him on the shoulder. “Look at you, talking about ‘the Ardans,’” he said. “And no, there’s no chance they’d risk sending her into Esrou - I imagine they were displeased to hear she had risked herself at the front, for that matter, so they’ll have her on a short leash now.”

“She’ll love that,” Sobriquet murmured, a slight smile creeping onto her face. “Charles is right; she’ll be in the safest place they can think of. Saleh can’t have missed her involvement, and I’d wager he’s got a picked marksman watching for her to show her face once more.”

Michael felt a little chill of adrenaline. “It seems a bit at-odds with what he was saying about struggle and confrontation,” he said. “To just assassinate someone seems somehow out-of-character for him.”

“It’d be struggle enough getting her in the crosshairs,” Sobriquet snorted. “But I doubt he’s going to get his chance. I’ll be surprised if they let her out of Ardalt again without supervision.” She looked at Michael. “I doubt that will keep her from trying to come after you by other means, though. Not after Siad.”

Vincent’s fire burned low in his belly as Michael nodded, feeling ill. He had the feeling Sobriquet was more correct than she knew; with Vincent dead and Vera compromised, Sofia would be left with only Isolde to lean on - hot-tempered Isolde, who had loved Vincent dearly. Michael did not expect the pair of them to forget or forgive, even if he hadn’t been the one to take Vincent’s life.

“You’re probably right,” Michael sighed. “But as Amira would say, we’ll receive the tests as we’re meant to receive them. Nothing I can do will alter Sofia’s course now. We should at least have a measure of protection while we’re in Mendian.” His brow furrowed. “She wouldn’t attack us in Mendian, would she?”

“Never say never,” Sobriquet said. “But I doubt the Ardans would support a plan that involved provoking Mendian so openly. They’ll suffer enough after we arrive that they shouldn’t be eager for a second taste of the Star’s wrath so quickly.”

Her words stirred an uneasy feeling in Michael’s stomach. It was easy to forget amid the tumult of their journey that reaching their goal meant another attack like the one he had witnessed in Leik, this time against Ardan soldiers. Thousands would die, most likely, and they would die as a fairly direct result of Michael’s own actions.

The thought refused to depart. He looked out the window at the passing fields, the unblemished bounty of farmland. At safe, happy travelers on good roads, at villagers that did not dread foreign soldiers coming in the night.

Was this what they were buying for Daressa, with these deaths? Or would it only be war of a different sort, as the partisans began the bloody work of evicting two wounded armies from their land? Esrou had seized their chance for an armistice relatively early in the War, before generations of fighting dug the trenches too deeply to shift. Perhaps Daressa was already dead, as Sobriquet had said before, its remnants no longer enough to fill the hole it had left in the land.

But in the end it wasn’t really Daressa that moved Michael inexorably toward Mendian. He pushed up his sleeve and turned his hand, watching the scarred skin of his forearm stretch, the web of stiff tissue cutting off suddenly where the smooth skin of the stranger’s hand began.

A motion out of the corner of his eye drew his sight upward, though he kept his head still; Luc had raised his head from his quiet seat in the corner to watch Michael. His eyes strayed to the incongruous hand and stuck there until Michael smiled and turned his head. Luc flushed and looked out the window.

“Definitely someone watching,” Sobriquet muttered, shifting uncomfortably. “We’re drawing closer to them.”

Charles raised his head. “Should we be worried?” he asked.

“They’re not close.” Sobriquet frowned, closing her eyes; Michael saw the telltale shimmer of her soul hanging about her. “In fact, they’re entirely too distant. It doesn’t make sense, even with a group of auspices.”

“Unless it’s Sibyl after all,” Michael pointed out. “She can see over incredible distances.”

Sobriquet shook her head irritably. “Yes, but this observer is to the north. Esrou isn’t so friendly with Ardalt these days that they’d trust them to safeguard - oh.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “Oh?” he asked.

“She’s in the damn strait,” Sobriquet said, clenching her fist. “Has to be. Probably on the same ship that brought Waldeck’s group up to Siad. Even Saleh wouldn’t risk breaching Mendian’s guarantee of safe passage. She can sit on the boat and transmit over a wireless, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”

Michael leaned back in his seat. “So,” he said. “She can see us right now?”

“I doubt she can tell much more than I can, at this distance,” Sobriquet said. “But she likely knows we’re here. By the time we’re close to Sau it will be hard for me to hide our location. She won’t be able to see us, but she’ll be able to tell whoever she’s working with approximately how to find us - what train we’re on, when we’ve arrived. I see no reason we shouldn’t assume that they’ve prepared a trap at least as capable as the one we encountered in Siad.”

She looked at Michael. “Without Amira, that ambush would have killed all of us, starting with you.”

For a moment there was only the gentle rumbling of the train along its tracks and the rasp of the wind against the outside of the car. “So,” Charles said. “We should probably not let them do that.”

The wind clawed at Michael’s face, bringing tears to his eyes. He turned back to the others with a grimace; Charles gave him an encouraging nod. The artifex looked excited, his face animated as he gestured forward. “Toss your pack first, then twist to the left,” he shouted. “A baby could do it!”

“Be quick once you hear the brakes,” Sobriquet said. “The train will slow for the curve, but only for a minute or so. I’ve looked ahead down the track, and there’s not - there, go!”

Michael heard the high, metallic whine of the train’s brakes engage; the engine began to follow the tracks ponderously to the left. He took a breath, threw his pack from the right side of the train - and jumped.

He immediately regretted jumping. For a moment of panic Michael’s mind went blank; as gravity began to speed him down toward the rocky infill surrounding the tracks he called to Stanza. The world sighed into golden-edged clarity, the impact of his bag against the ground sending a shuddering wave across the grass. The panic had shifted into a species of focused concern, and Michael frowned as he adjusted his feet in midair.

His leading foot struck the rocks; the jolt of impact staggered him despite Stanza’s guiding hand. He let himself fall to the side, taking the secondary impact on his shoulder and rolling once before popping back up to his feet. Michael jogged down the slope and let the momentum bleed off, noting his pack tumbling to a stop some distance away - then released his grip on Stanza.

The thudding of his heart surged in his ears, and he felt short of breath. His legs wobbled as the wave of adrenaline crested and broke. A noise from further along drew his attention - Charles was rolling freely down the hill, his bracelets expanded to a mesh of thin metal that kept his body elevated over the worst of the impacts. Behind him, Sobriquet hit the ground with somewhat less grace. Michael saw Vernon jump from the train with a panicked yell.

There was a brief pause before Luc stumbled out of the train with Emil close on his heels, the two men falling a fair distance away from where Michael had landed. He watched them tumble for a moment, then shook his head and went to retrieve his pack. Charles was helping Sobriquet up when Michael rejoined them, the latter giving the former a sour look.

“You didn’t mention that your method was suited for an artifex,” she grumbled, swiping irritably at the grass and dust on her shirt. “Look at you, you’re not even dirty.”

Charles shrugged and nodded towards Michael. “He managed,” he said, grinning. “You going to let the lordling show you up like that?”

“When we get to Mendian I’m going to give you nightmares for a week,” she muttered. “Come on, let’s check on the others.”

They walked over to where Vernon had landed and helped the auditor to his feet. Vernon pushed off their hands and gestured wearily to Luc and Emil. “Go help them,” he coughed. “Emil’s hurt.”

Michael ran over to find Luc relatively unscathed, helping Emil sit upright. The older man’s leg was twisted unnaturally at mid-shin; he was pale-faced and sweating, pulsing with fear and anger. That last seemed directed at Luc - Emil glared at him with surprising venom.

“I won’t ask if you’re all right,” Sobriquet said, walking up to inspect Emil’s leg. “Anything else, or is this your only injury? Charles can splint it, if it’s just the leg, but we’ll have to set it first.”

Emil closed his eyes and nodded, tight-lipped. “Go on, then,” he grunted. Charles bent down and touched Emil’s leg, the bracelets flowing from his arm to form two wide bands above and below the break. The metal contracted, squeezing down.

Charles crooked a finger; the bands wrenched Emil’s leg back into shape. The carter gave a high, short scream of pain, then sagged back to rest of his elbows, breathing hard. “Ghar’s blood,” he wheezed. “Just shoot me next time.”

“Take a moment,” Sobriquet advised, standing up to look around.

Vernon walked up to join them. “Where are we?” he asked. “Short of Sau, I know, but how short?”

Sobriquet’s soul flexed around her for a moment. “Not too bad,” she said. “We should be able to reach the crossing to Mendian before morning if we walk through the night - and we should, since Sibyl will figure out what we did when she sees the blind spot diverge from the train. I’m veiling as much as I can, but there’s only so much I can do against her.”

“Through the night,” Michael muttered, looking down at Emil. Charles was drawing stiff bars of metal between the two bands, locking them firmly in place around his leg. “I don’t think we can keep that pace, not with Emil walking on a splint.”

Emil shook his head and spat into the dirt. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’ll follow the tracks to Sau. I don’t have anything they want. I can make my way to Arenga from there, catch a ship back to Daressa.”

Luc bit his lip. “You can’t,” he murmured.

“Emperor’s moldy cock, I can’t,” Emil snorted. “Don’t tell me what to do, you little shit. If you had jumped when you were supposed to-”

“You’re bleeding,” Luc said, his voice unsteady but clear. “Inside your leg. You feel fine now, but in a few hours the pressure will build to the point where it chokes off blood flow. You won’t make it to Sau, much less Arenga.”

Emil stared at him for a long moment. “You can see that?” he asked.

Luc grimaced; Michael felt his thoughts spinning in razor-edged flurries. Fear, pain, doubt - none of them diminished, but the storm quieted until they burned silently within him, still and separate.

“I’m - an anatomens,” Luc said. “The last man who bore this soul was evil.” His fingers came up, trembling as they plucked at the wrappings that hid his right hand. He unwound it slowly until the skin was bare. “But he was one of the best anatomentes in the world, and I’ve read - extensively from his library, yes?”

Michael’s mind showed him images of swollen, bloody flesh growing uncontrollably from Clair’s neck; he grit his teeth and swallowed against a suddenly-dry mouth. He wanted to ask him if he was sure, if he felt ready - if he had considered the consequences if he failed.

He held his tongue. They all knew. They had all seen Michael fail at the same task, and watched Clair die as a result. He could feel Emil’s fear as he decided, the trepidation as he looked Luc in the eye and gave a small, sharp nod.

Luc slid Emil’s trouser leg up as much as the brace would allow, his eyes fluttering closed as he touched Emil’s bruised flesh. Nobody moved. Emil’s eyes bulged, his jaw clenching against sudden pain - and then Luc withdrew his hand.

He opened his eyes, a rare smile on his face. “I was able to knit the bone,” he said. “I stopped the major bleeding as well. Your leg should be fine.”

“I suppose it wasn’t so hard after all,” Sobriquet murmured, looking up at him expressionlessly.

The smile faded from Luc’s face; before anyone could say anything Sobriquet shook her head. “Never mind,” she sighed. “We’re all tired, and we’ll be more so before we rest. Luc, thank you.” She reached out her hand to help him up.

Luc looked at it for a moment before taking it with his still-covered hand and letting her pull him upward. Sobriquet held his gaze for a second more, then turned to Emil.

“How do you feel?” she asked. “Can you stand?”

Emil groaned and took her offered hand, rising gingerly to his feet. He tested his leg, putting weight on it slowly; he winced, but stayed standing. “I’ll be fine,” he said, turning to Luc. “Thanks for the fix - but next time I’d rather you just jump faster.”

Luc shifted nervously and nodded, tugging the bandages back over his exposed hand.

“I would very much appreciate if we didn’t do that again,” Vernon said. “At any speed, ever.”

“We’ll receive the tests as we were meant to receive them,” Sobriquet said airily, bending down to shoulder her pack. “I’m beginning to grow rather fond of that phrase, actually. Is everyone ready? We should be off before too long. The entire point of this exercise was to steal a march on Sibyl’s cutthroats.”

She looked around and found no objections. “Then off we go,” she said. “Michael, if you please.”

Michael nodded and took the lead, walking through the grass until he came up against the treeline. He took a breath and reached out to Stanza once more, feeling it filter out into the trees and wrap around the bushes. A small frown crept over his face; the forest here was once-again different from the ones he had known further south. It brimmed with oak and elm, and several sorts of bramble clawing at anything brave enough to walk through. He sent his sight forward into the forest, peeking between the thorns to get a sense of the soil and humus, the spread of the roots and arc of the branches.

Sobriquet cleared her throat quietly; Michael turned with an apologetic shrug. “Just getting to know the forest,” he said. He turned back to the front and took another deep breath, letting it out slowly as he fixed Jeorg’s prior example in his mind. “Our path goes forth into the north.”

Trees creaked aside and bushes retracted, clearing a narrow aisle through the underbrush. He stepped onto it, extending the working forward and holding it open behind while the rest filed into the forest.

“I’ve been wondering,” Sobriquet said. “Is there any reason you don’t just reuse the same rhyme? It seems like it’d be quicker that way.”

Michael shrugged. “Jeorg always made a new one,” he said. “He talked a lot about being present where you were working, about the importance of being in the same space as what you were trying to change. He said it was hard to think outside of a room you were in - and I think it’d be harder to work with words that you strung together outside of the moment you were trying to use them.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never found it particularly difficult to think outside of a room I was in,” she said.

“He’d have an answer for that,” Michael said ruefully. “I don’t. I wish you could have met him. I’d be interested to hear what thoughts he would have had on your soul.”

“Based on what you’ve said, I’m not sure we would have seen eye-to-eye on it,” Sobriquet replied. “Don’t mistake me, he sounds like he was quite a man - but I doubt he’d approve of my methods, nor I of his.”

“You’re probably right,” Michael said. He frowned at a particularly stubborn scrub oak, nudging it a bit farther off the path. “But then again, who knows. I’m beginning to think that the Jeorg I knew was rather different from the one most people met. His time alone changed him from the man he was. It’s something I was hoping to ask Leire Gabarain about, when we meet her.”

Michael could almost hear Sobriquet’s eyes snap onto him. “The Star?” she asked.

“She trained Jeorg, years back,” Michael explained, speaking slowly; a disconcerting blend of unease and focus was pulsing out from Sobriquet. “He said she was the one that inspired him to found the Institute, so that Ardalt could be more like Mendian.”

The footsteps behind him stopped; he turned to find Sobriquet staring at him. After a moment, she shook her head and motioned for him to keep walking. “That is not something we are supposed to know,” she muttered. “That’s not something anyone is supposed to know.”

Michael turned his sight, puzzled. “He never said that I should keep it secret - but, then again, I’ve found that there were quite a lot of things he should have said and didn’t.”

“Michael, you’ve just told me that Mendian substantially abridged their neutrality to weaponize Ardalt against the Safid.” She rippled with agitation, then forcibly stilled it. “Do me a favor and don’t let on that you know this. They’ll be suspicious just because you know Jeorg, of course, but do not give the Mendiko any additional reason to suspect that you’re a threat to their neutrality. Our lives are complicated enough already.”

“That’s not-” Michael paused. “Okay, yes, I suppose that is more or less how Jeorg phrased it. I hadn’t really considered Mendiko politics in all of this.”

“You should probably start,” Sobriquet advised. “They present a united front to outsiders, but from what I’ve heard their internal discussions are remarkably fractious. Their neutrality is about the only thing they do agree on.”

Michael sighed. “So we’re really not safe in Mendian after all,” he said. “We’re just trading danger for danger, like we did with the Safid.”

“Oh, no - we’ll be substantially safer in Mendian,” Sobriquet said. “We’ll receive notice of our death or imprisonment by formal writ rather than Sibyl’s men coming to slit our throats in the night, it’s a big step up.”

“I can feel myself relaxing already.” Michael pressed forward through the forest, his thoughts spinning with memories of Jeorg. The old man had been tremendously fond of Mendian, and of Leire in particular - but he had intimated that she might not be equally eager to see him, now that he thought about it. Michael had assumed at the time that there was a personal issue that had divided them, but if Sobriquet was correct then Mendian might want to avoid anything that would call to mind the Ardan who had once studied with the Star of Mendian.

He felt the dread settle into his stomach, a low, cold knot that twisted while they walked. Day deepened to evening, and then again to night. Still, they walked. Michael let the fires inside him swell and burn, strengthening his sight. Forging the path also became easier, almost effortless by comparison; he silently chided himself for not thinking of using the fires from the start. There did not seem to be a fatigue associated with using them, but he did notice that Vincent’s fire in particular was difficult to keep trained on the task at hand, sliding back into quiescence when his attention wandered away from it.

Was the difference in his personality, or was it that Vincent would have objected to his soul passing to Michael? He dearly hoped it was not the latter, although he knew that Vincent would indeed have objected; it was the thought of some lingering vestige rebelling within him that turned his stomach. Michael did not fancy himself a captor of the unwilling.

Light found them in the chill hours of the morning, with fog rising in low swatches from the forest floor. The light showed that Emil’s face had once more gone pale and drawn with exertion; during a short pause for water he had indicated the carter’s condition to Sobriquet. Her response had been a tight shake of her head, her lips pressed together bloodlessly: Emil would persevere until Mendian. She had been growing increasingly agitated as the sky lightened above them.

Michael thought he could guess why. Sibyl’s men still hunted them, and the further north they traveled the closer they were to Sibyl herself. Sobriquet’s eyes strayed north again and again, always along the same heading - toward some distant ship in the strait, where a young woman sat and searched and hated. He kept the fires burning well past the day’s first light, feeding Stanza’s rush through the forest.

That was what saved him, when the first bullet cut through the foliage; the bright-gold edges of mirrorlight bent and curved around a straight track through the forest, a blazing line that traced directly to Michael’s collarbone. His eyes widened as he realized what it meant, the danger flaring equally bright in his mind. He had the presence of mind to push Sobriquet aside as he dodged; the bullet went just wide of his shoulder and slammed into a tree. Charles shouted in surprise, the others dropped low as more shots cracked overhead.

“Shit,” Sobriquet spat. “I see him.” Her soul blurred, and Michael heard a distant scream. There was a crash of a body falling into the underbrush; more screams followed from around them. After a moment, she opened her eyes. The woods grew silent.

“I doubt I found them all,” she whispered. “But I can hope I got their spotters. Slow, low and quiet. The border crossing isn’t too far now, just over that next ridge.”

Charles nodded and crept forward, his bracelets flowing in poised spikes over his fists, shifting with every motion of his arms. Michael took point once more, keeping the clear path just large enough to fit their party. He began to bend the trees only at the base where he could, limiting any shifting in the canopy where an observer might see it from afar.

Twice, Sobriquet paused; both times men screamed in the woods, the sound of thrashing and cracking branches carrying for scant seconds before silence took hold once more. Michael saw light growing past the distant trees, a clear area that was likely the road to the crossing itself. Sobriquet steered them parallel to it, maintaining a good distance from the break in cover.

A light crackling of twigs came from beside them; Michael spun to see two - no, three men crouched nearby, seemingly as startled as he was by the encounter. Two were armed, their faces smeared with dark grease. The third was their Fade, a wan, slender figure that Michael had trouble focusing on. His form seemed to blur and shift into the chaos of the forest around them. The surprise lasted only an instant before Charles stepped in low, metal lashing out to loop around the barrel of the nearest man’s gun. The barrel of the gun distorted into fluid and blurred across its wielder’s neck; there was a spray of red as he collapsed.

Michael tried to catch the second man with a burst of growth from nearby trees, but he was already jumping out of Charles’s range. He fired wildly; the shot took Sobriquet in the shoulder. A stab of pain rippled out. Michael saw her stagger back, blood staining her shirt. Ice flooded his gut, subsumed in an instant by white-hot fire. Vincent burned bright and fast at the provocation, but Clair exceeded flame. Michael felt a sun burning in his chest as he turned towards the rifleman and met his eyes. The Ardan soldier worked the bolt on his rifle-

“No.”

Michael felt the fire sear and twist in his voice, watched shadow bend around him and rivulets of mirror-light stretch in their fractal beauty. There was a discontinuity; when his vision cleared the soldier dropped to his knees with smoke trailing from empty eyes. A blur came from the side as the Ardan Fade raised a sidearm to point at Michael. A shot rang out, and the Fade dropped. Emil slouched against a tree, panting as he slowly lowered his gun.

A wave of dizziness swept over Michael as the moment passed. He looked down at the face of the man he had killed, his eyes scorched clean from his head and skin lacerated with the telltale organic traces of Stanza’s power. He felt a wetness below his nose; his hand came away bloody.

“Ghar’s fucking-” Sobriquet swore, clutching at her arm. “Luc, get over here and patch me up. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Vernon, help Michael. Charles, point - and keep your eyes up, there’s probably more of the bastards out there.”

Vernon bent to slide under Michael’s arm, helping him forward. “Come on,” the auditor said. “We’re close.”

Michael tried to respond but found his thoughts sluggish, the pulsing rage of the fire dying down now that the danger had passed. Their group staggered toward the road, quiet but for a hiss of pain from Sobriquet as Luc laid his fingers on her arm. Brambles clawed at them as they walked, tearing into their clothing; Michael frowned. That hadn’t happened before. It was another second before he realized he had cleared them away previously. With an effort of will he pushed them away - too far.

His uncoordinated push had left them standing in a clear space abutting the road, and bereft of the trees he could see a low concrete structure topped with coils of wire. Men stood at the gate and peered from embrasures, guns swiveling to point at them.

Michael’s heart thudded with alarm, but Vernon squeezed his arm as he tried to straighten up. “Mendiko,” he said, slowly stepping away from Michael and raising his hands. “Not Ardans.”

Muddled tension changed to relief; this was it. He took a step forward, then frowned. There were words he was supposed to say, words that Jeorg had written on a long-lost slip of paper. He searched for them and found his thoughts slipping through his fingers, his consciousness waning in the wake of the day’s exertions.

The men at the gate had shifted their weapons to point at him as he staggered closer. They were like no soldiers he had seen before; rather than the drab blue or grey common to most armies they wore loose fatigues of mottled green and brown with rounded metal helmets. Their weapons were dark and bulky, wooden only on the grips and butt.

One soldier stepped forward, keeping his weapon level. “Stop,” he said, his Gharic precise and unaccented. “State your business.”

“I have-” Michael frowned, staggering. He heard Sobriquet’s footsteps behind him, and heard them stop abruptly when the gun barrels pivoted to her. Clair’s fire brightened again, and with it came a flash of lucidity.

He took a breath and grimaced, drawing on it further and feeding it to Stanza, reaching back for the first time in weeks to retrace the lingering damage from Spark’s meddling in his mind. He quested down paths and alleys until he found early morning sunlight slanting through boat windows, and Jeorg writing quickly on a scrap of paper. He watched the old man’s lips move, and felt his own do the same.

“Ah,” he sighed. “Izarrarentzat. Bizitzaren zuhaitza.” The flame slipped through his grasp, diminishing back to a candle in his chest; he had enough time to see a shocked expression on the soldier’s face before he collapsed to the road.