If this was among the gifts of standing in a god’s presence, then Galar Baras at last understood the rewards of faith. In those heady words so laden with meanings; in the confessions and frustrations, the mysteries and the furies, there had been frightening power. In such moments, he realized, worlds could be changed, broken down, reshaped and twisted anew.
He could not imagine the state of Lord Anomander now, the proclaimed protector and First Son of Mother Dark, who for all his status and power had been unable to prevent the massacre. And now, it was rumoured, he had broken with his brother Andarist, and this was a breach beyond imagining only a month ago.
When Galar arrived at the encampment, he would stand before Commander Toras Redone, and voice Lord Henarald’s call to war. The Hust Legion would march northward, to Kharkanas. Once there, Toras Redone would kneel before Lord Anomander and pledge the legion to his service, in the name of Mother Dark. And then, perhaps at winter’s end, the weapons would unleash their voice of horror against Urusander’s Legion.
Galar Baras knew the outcome of such a clash, but he wondered at how the victory would taste. This future I see is too bitter to bear. Mother Dark, your First Son asks of you but one thing. By your word, you can command Urusander to kneel before you, and so end this war before it truly begins. Together, Urusander and Anomander can hunt down the murderers and see justice done. We can name them criminals and so keep the world we know.
Yet a part of him wondered, in a voice venal in its clarity, if the world they all knew was in fact worth it.
She will meet my eyes, and again I will see the truth in them. Sober or drunken, her desire overwhelms me. I yield, weakened into deceit, into betrayal. I make of vows a mockery, even as I long to utter them for myself, and find their honest answer returned to me, in this uneven woman with her uneven love. There are many fools in the world and I must count myself among them.
Who could be righteous in this midst of failings, these seething flaws hiding behind every familiar mask? And what of this delusion, that the mind of the nefarious, the criminal, was a stranger’s mind, with sensibilities alien and malign? We are cheaters one and all. I see the proof of that in myself. Even as I long for and, indeed, demand virtues among others — in the name of reason and propriety — I am hunted by my own vices, and would elude the bite of reason and make of propriety nothing more than a public front.
And now I fear that I am not unusual, not cursed into some special maze of my own making. I fear that we are all the same, eager to make strangers of the worst that is in each of us, and by this stance lift up the banners of good against some foreign evil.
But see how they rest against one another, and by opposition alone are left to stand. This is flimsy construction indeed. And so I make masks of the worst in me and fling them upon the faces of my enemies, and would commit slaughter on all that I despise in myself. Yet, with this blood soaking the ground before me, see my flaws thrive in this fertile soil.
Ahead, where the way sloped upward to cut through the crest line of a ridge, Galar Baras saw the picket towers flanking the road. But no guards stood on those elevated platforms. Have they decamped? Did someone else bring the news to them? Toras Redone, will we slip past one another yet again, to ever stretch the torment of our love? He would welcome that bitter denial, and if by surfeit alone could drown every desire, would have them never meet again.
Kicking his horse into a canter, he rode up the slope.
The banners remained on the watch towers, announcing the Legion’s presence. The absence of guards marked an uncommon breach in discipline. It was possible that the commander’s drinking had become terminal, ruining the morale of every soldier serving her. But even that notion rang false. What soldier of the Hust Legion did not know their commander’s weakness? And did they not by every conceivable measure strive to ensure the isolation of such failing? Nor would she lose such control: by it alone she found her necessary arrogance, as was common to the cleverest drunks.
He longed to see her again, but the threshold of this meeting was troubling, and as he pushed his mount to the rise his mouth was dry and his nerves were stretched. Passing between the towers, across the level span and then to where the road began its gentle descent into the shallow valley floor, Galar Baras came within sight of the encampment. He saw the rows of tents. He saw — with vast relief — a few figures moving slowly along the avenues and tracks between the company squares.
But something was wrong. Soldiers should have been gathering to the evening meal, forming queues at the cook tents. The avenues should have been crowded. He saw the other picket stations and none were occupied. A strange stillness gripped the camp.
