Peculiar Soul

The raven derided the mockingbird daily for lacking its vision. How could it feed its children, limited as it was? The sun rises and falls. Still the raven boasts over its growing children. The sun rises and falls. It tells the mockingbird that it pities the family who must rely on such a parent. The sun rises and falls. The raven feeds its children with pride. The sun rises and falls. His children lose their down and grow in mockingbird feathers.

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

The hazy glow of morning snuck its way into the woods drop by drop as Michael carved their trail. Sobriquet, to her credit, was still walking at the same steady pace she had set earlier. He supposed that she was rather used to traveling afoot, given her predilection for wandering alone and sleeping rough.

Despite his earlier boasts, Michael feared that he might be the first to tire; although his physical endurance was not in question, the mental effort of bending aside the vegetation to allow them easy passage was beginning to wear on him. It was a slight but constant burden, and the sleepless night was not aiding his concentration.

The signs began to show in small ways, branches or roots that failed to withdraw from the path or which grew back twisted. Limbs splintered rather than bend, leaves drooped in brown, wilted clumps where they passed.

A wayward tree limb hit Sobriquet in the shoulder; she stopped and turned around. “All right,” she said. “Time for a rest.”

Michael nodded, exhaling long and slow. “Okay,” he said, kneeling down once more. “Just climb on-”

Sobriquet planted her boot on his shoulder and kicked out; he fell backwards onto the forest floor. “Not for me,” she said. “You’ve been using your soul all night without pause, and I can tell you’re not accustomed to it. We’ll stop here and indulge in some sleep before we continue.”

He looked up at her. “We have a rendezvous to make. Shouldn’t we be trying to make good time?”

“I set the meet based on a realistic, sane pace,” Sobriquet said. “For two travelers on foot, that includes the occasional rest. We’re already well ahead of my expectations.” She walked over to a nearby twist of root that rose up from the ground, sitting lightly down upon it. “Besides, if it’s a choice between waiting or taking branches to the face for the rest of our journey, I will wait.”

Michael nodded; now that he had stopped moving, the fatigue was taking the opportunity to settle in. He marshaled his focus for one moment longer. Roots rustled together, dirt falling in clumps as they tangled to form a raised bench. He brushed off the remaining soil and sat on it - then released his grip on Stanza.

His vision swam with the sudden relaxation. The forest around him loomed larger now that it was no longer beholden to his whim, trees creaking and vines settling against the restless wood as nature regained its own authority.

Then it was quiet. Sobriquet looked around with a raised eyebrow before leaning back against a tree. “There,” she said. “Now try to actually rest. We’ve got another quarter-day of this, and I doubt you’ve slept since before we visited Sever’s camp.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Michael muttered. He laid back gingerly on the platform he had made. “The past day hasn’t been conducive to sleep.”

Sobriquet laughed. “I can always give you a push,” she said, flicking a small twist of distorted light from her fingers. “But most people don’t find what results to be particularly relaxing. It would be better for you to sleep naturally.”

“Yes, let’s not,” Michael said, failing to muster a smile in response. “I’m not entirely sure what would happen if you tried.”

She leaned forward once more. “Oh?”

Michael shook his head, shifting on the raised bed of roots to try and find a comfortable position. “Souls don’t sleep,” he said. “I’ve seen what they can do when unchecked by an active mind.”

“Your soul frightens you,” Sobriquet observed.

Michael raised his head to look at her. “Shouldn’t it?” he asked. “You were there at Sofia’s camp. Am I wrong to fear it?”

There was a pause; Sobriquet made an equivocal flutter of her hand. “You have power,” she admitted. “Perhaps more than you’re comfortable with. I remember feeling the same, at times. But fear?” She shook her head. “Fear isn’t constructive. Fear is your mind exploring what it thinks you don’t know. Listening to it prevents you from learning those answers and addressing the fear.”

He sighed and let his head drop back to the platform. “That’s useful advice,” he said. “But freely exploring my soul’s capabilities is not an option. It’s - complex.”

“Because you have more than one soul?” Sobriquet asked. “Or because you have one soul in particular?” She waggled her fingers, her eyes flickering with a haze of distorted light. “Durens, spector, Stanza - and Spark. Or were there yet more?”

Michael sat up quickly. His impulse was to deny it, but against Sobriquet that was hardly an option. “How did you know?”

“I am Sobriquet,” she said, tilting her chin up imperiously. The effect was somewhat ruined by her smile; she laughed and shook her head. “It hardly takes one of the Eight to figure that out. Your conversation with Luc left it clear enough, although there was an unpleasant residue of that secret lingering around you until your confirmation just now.”

“I’m glad I could clear the air,” Michael said, the forced levity doing nothing to ease the tension he felt. That they both felt, he realized - in echo to his own anxiety, he could discern Sobriquet’s tense focus on him. “If you know that, then you know that I can feel your fear as easily as my own. It’s one thing to talk of mastering fear, but neither of us has been able to dismiss it.”

Sobriquet’s smile faded. “There is no choice but to feel fear,” she said. “Any child who grew up in Daressa knows this. It’s an animal emotion, impossible to think your way out of. I’m just advising that you don’t let it guide your actions.”

“How simple.” Michael laid back down, shifting until he found a comfortable position. “Astounding that nobody’s thought of it before.”

A twig sailed over to bounce off his shoulder. “Just because you’re a durens doesn’t give you license to be a mule,” she said. “I’m not suggesting it’s easy, nor simple. Fear wears ruts in the mind, and the longer you walk them the more difficult it is to step out. You have to recognize it happening, turn aside, choose to walk a different path.”

“You’re beginning to sound like a stubborn old man I used to know,” Michael muttered. “I can’t afford to be so cavalier about this. If I mis-step, I will kill someone. Maybe you, maybe Clair.”

“So don’t,” Sobriquet said. “I’m not worried. Why are you?”

Michael snorted. “You are. I can feel-”

A clod of dirt hit him on the chest. “I am not every thought in my mind,” she said. “I’ll thank you not to judge me by base impulses that neither of us can control. Action defines me, not thoughts.” She leaned back against her tree and closed her eyes. “And right now I am sleeping, with my only concern that you will fret rather than resting and condemn us both to an uncomfortable walk.”

Yet her fear remained, small and persistent; when Michael sent his sight upward he saw that she lay as if asleep. Her active mind belied her appearance, and Michael nearly made a comment on it - but did not, instead letting his sight drift back down to stare up at the sky overhead. It was not yet fully light, and the purple expanse beyond the trees was pleasantly rich and deep.

Did he dare sleep? He had not done so since breaking the tree, and now Spark sat as part of his soul. Dreams could spur him to lash out, muddled by the fog of sleep. He saw a hand, hanging limp from a bloodstained bed-

Michael clamped down on the thought. There was fear, and the rut. The well-worn path his father had traced for him year after year, reinforced with each laceration and moment of huddled terror. He tried to focus instead on the sky, the branches, the gentle waving of the leaves overhead.

He smiled and thought of Jeorg. It felt like so long ago that he had halted in quiet awe at the old man’s use of Stanza to forge a trail through the forest; now he realized that it had been the least of Jeorg’s feats. To pull an apple from nothing, to wither the men from the Institute to husks - the degree of control he had possessed must have been phenomenal, borne from years of familiarity with his soul. And to turn the water against boats-

The image of Jeorg shifted into the old man lying on the deck as he bled. Michael fell, struck by the impending wave of death, pitching forward-

No. He grit his teeth, turning his mind’s eye away from the image. That, too, was a path that had already been trodden to excess. He would find no rest there. Michael took a deep breath, focusing on his sight, on the forest. His awareness brushed over Sobriquet; she had fallen asleep in truth.

His mind stumbled over that observation for a moment. Her fear had been as real and persistent as his own, she had appreciated the danger he posed - one she had no control over. Yet she had slipped easily into sleep, and the fear she had felt no longer troubled her.

Michael did not wonder how she was able to push the fear so easily aside; he knew very well. Clair’s memories had been rife with gunfire and blood, of soldiers storming through villages and searching teams of hounds. Sobriquet had learned, in her words, to step out from the rut when her mind knew that the fear was irrational. When she knew herself to be safe.

And she slept now. A shiver of emotion that was entirely his own swept through his chest. Perhaps he was too close to his own troubles to set them aside as easily, and his life certainly had not afforded him the practice Sobriquet had endured. She had judged him against that wealth of experience, and her judgment was evident.

The branches swayed overhead against the lightening sky. He could still not quite believe it of himself, that his mind would not let slip horrors the second it released its grip on consciousness. It was unlikely, yes. He had slept with Stanza awakened within his soul, after all, and nobody had come to harm. Spark was only different by virtue of his fear.

He could not believe it, but he did not have to. It was a smaller leap to trust that Sobriquet was correct. That he was a novice in the realm of fear and danger, obsessing over what he ought to put out of his mind. That he would sleep, and wake, and nothing more. He took a deep breath and watched the sky, leaning hesitantly back into oblivion. After a time, it took him.

A branch jabbing into his side woke him; he rolled to the side and fell unceremoniously from his platform into the dirt. Michael looked up to see Sobriquet holding a long piece of deadwood, standing well-distant of him.

Her cautious stance raised an unexpected sting of betrayal in Michael’s chest. “I thought you weren’t worried?” he said.

“Prudence costs nothing,” she said airily. “Even the best of us have our ill moments when roused from sleep. I should rather your wrath be visited on the stick than my favorite hand, as I am rather low on spares.”

Michael grunted and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, standing to look around. It was well into the morning, and sunlight slanted painfully bright through the canopy overhead. “I suppose that will have to be enough sleep,” he said. “You said a quarter-day of travel?”

“A bit less, in truth,” she confirmed. “If you’re feeling up to the task?”

He nodded and pushed his soul outward, reacquainting himself with the forest. “Which way?” he asked.

Sobriquet pointed; Michael turned. He fixed the idea of a path through the woods in his mind, smiling as memories of his hunting trip with Jeorg mixed their way in. “It’s not quite the same,” he murmured, “but - I’ll set a course to steer us forth.”

The words settled easily on top of the memory, the woods shifting aside to define a trail that stretched off farther than he could see into the undergrowth. Sobriquet lifted an eyebrow and peered down the path, then turned to Michael. “You’re getting better at this,” she noted. “That wasn’t even a proper rhyme.”

“It’s not-” Michael bit his tongue, realizing that he was being baited. “I can always undo it, if you’re dissatisfied.”

She laughed and did not reply, walking ahead onto the trail. Michael followed. Their walk was a pleasant one but for the dissatisfied hunger gnawing in his belly; he had not eaten in most of a day, and his augmented endurance had been sorely taxing him.

The sun slowly ground its way across the sky, and still they walked. Michael only had to extend their cleared path once more, finding that using his memory of Jeorg as the seed of his effort greatly lessened his own burdens. Was it that he had seen it done with an expert’s hand, or that he still assigned that part of his soul to Jeorg? Either way, Michael was not feeling nearly as strained when they exited the woods just past noon.

They emerged into a broad, fallow field with a decrepit fence, across which lay a road. Sobriquet took to it happily. “Not far now,” she said. “Honestly - if all you could do was lay trails through impassable terrain, I would still count you as one of the most useful souls among the partisans.”

Michael stared back absently, and Sobriquet frowned; her words had provoked some disquiet in him. “You still don’t consider yourself as one of us, do you?” she said.

“Am I?” he asked. “I’m not Daressan. And - as much as I believe your cause is just, I’m not doing any of this for Daressa. I’m doing what I have to do, because of what my father and my countrymen have done.”

Sobriquet laughed. “I don’t have the luxury of accepting only the pure patriots,” she said. “Charles would be the first to go in that case, he just pairs a hatred of Ardans with a love of violence. Your aim and mine might diverge in the future, but while they are aligned I’m glad to have you by our side.” She paused. “Although, after yesterday - I believe you’ll find it harder than you might like to shed your association with us.”

“It was an eventful day, wasn’t it?” Michael grimaced. “Ghar’s bones. Did we really face down two of the Eight and walk away?”

“Imagine how they must feel, having faced three.” Sobriquet tapped a finger to the side of her cheek. “Though - how many know you bear Spark as well as Stanza? I can feel it is more than us alone, but you still carry too many secrets for me to see any part of it clearly.” She shook her head, giving him an exasperated look.

“Vera knows,” Michael said. “And so it’s likely Sofia does as well. I can’t imagine she’ll keep that to herself for long, not if she wants to enlist help in catching us. Aside from them, I don’t believe anyone more than you and Luc have surmised the truth.”

“Luc,” Sobriquet murmured. “An odd inclusion. I wonder at his role in all of this.”

“Innocent bystander, for the most part,” Michael shrugged. “Something I empathize with. His part amounts to not much more than I told you back at Sever’s camp.”

Sobriquet hummed. “Do you know, I thought you two shared a burden of secrets,” she said. “And that he would be my fallback option were you to run or be killed. But now I know more of what you had kept hidden from me, yet his truth remains obscured.”

“Glad to know I’m not so easily discarded,” Michael said, frowning. “He could know more about Spark and Claude than he has shared, I suppose, or things he learned while on the island. He did not strike me as someone in their confidence, though. He didn’t even seem to know the full purpose of the island he lived on.”

“One doesn’t necessarily need to know the importance of something for the secret to be important,” she said. “But whatever it is, he’s made no mention of it to Emil or the others. I believe we will have a conversation about it before we allow him to accompany us north to Esrou.”

Michael’s response was cut short as they rounded a bend in the road to reveal a small, squat building with a stable to one side. The pang of hunger in his stomach intensified suddenly as he saw the smoke rising lazily from its chimney, and he fancied that he could smell cooking food even at this distance.

They both sped their pace in silent agreement, reaching the door scant minutes later. Michael walked inside and was hit with the welcome smell of baking bread. He tried not to let his hunger show too plainly on his face as he looked around; the interior was clean and well-kept, with a few patrons taking their midday meal.

Every pair of eyes was on him, including those of the woman behind the bar. Her expression was unfriendly, though Michael smiled at her. “Hello,” he said, feeling distinctly out of place. “We were hoping for some food…”

The woman’s stony expression didn’t change. “I’m afraid we don’t have food fit for Ardan tastes here,” she said. “You might have better luck at another inn.”

Michael blinked, then turned his sight around the tavern’s main room. There was definite hostility from the other patrons, and he - ah. He was still dressed in the shirt and trousers he had stolen to masquerade as an Ardan infantryman. Michael grimaced and looked down at Sobriquet, who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle.

“You said you knew the owners,” Michael muttered. “Say something, or they’re going to stab me before we can eat.”

“Only because I’m hungry,” she replied, stepping forward. She smiled prettily and leaned on the bar. “Don’t judge him by his dress, he’s an adventurous sort. My fourth cousin, in fact.”

The woman behind the bar looked at Sobriquet with mild surprise. “Your fourth cousin? He’s, ah - the one that came up from Imes last winter?”

“Precisely,” Sobriquet said. “Although the passphrase was meant to be ‘last autumn,’ Annette.”

The woman, presumably Annette, frowned. “Do I know you, girlie?” she asked. “Because I don’t remember you.”

Sobriquet sighed. “I looked a bit different the last time we met,” she said, waving her hand impatiently. A dizzying twist of light cut into the air, forming into her familiar avatar. “Better?”

Annette’s mouth dropped open, and Sobriquet dismissed the apparition. “So you’re - oh, Ghar’s dusty grave, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize-”

“It’s fine, really,” Sobriquet said, holding up her hand to forestall further rambling. “We’re just passing through. If you have any food, though-”

“Yes, milady!” Annette said, perking up. “We have stew, bread, a bit of cheese-” She disappeared into the back, still talking, and Michael walked up to join Sobriquet at the bar.

“You seem popular,” he murmured. “Milady.”

She turned to glare at him. “Don’t start,” she said. “I’m no sneering aristocrat.”

“That’s hurtful, I’ve never sneered at anyone.” Michael coughed. “In my father’s case you may have an argument. It’s something of a permanent - oh, here’s the food.” He leaned back to appreciate the view as Annette unloaded a loaf of bread, two bowls of stew, a tray heaped with sausages and a rather obscene amount of cheese onto the bar top in front of them. The bounty was joined moments later by two mugs of ale, although neither one of them had waited for their beverage to arrive before attacking the feast.

Annette seemed pleased at their enthusiasm, at least. Michael forced himself to chew deliberately. The hunger spurred by his durens soul had an edge to it that he had seldom felt prior, urging him to wolf down everything he could reach. His first bowl of stew turned into a second, and midway through that he heard the creak of the tavern’s door behind him.

Sobriquet was already up from her chair, having seen Clair and the others coming; Michael turned just in time to see the two sisters hug. He stood to greet the others. Vernon came through the door, followed by Charles, Luc and Emil.

He waved to the auditor and took a step forward, but Clair moved to stand in his path. She stepped forward quickly and hugged him, awkward and crushingly tight. “Thank you,” she said, stepping back just as fast. “For both of us.”

Michael felt her sincerity, her jubilation - and that same note of fear, pulsing along underneath. He smiled, though his heart sank; it was likely that he would have to grow accustomed to fear, now that his secret was spreading.

“It was nothing,” Michael said. Clair inclined her head and pushed past him to talk to Sobriquet once more, leaving him facing the others. He exchanged shorter greetings with the others, wearing the mask of Michael while he felt beneath their expressions.

Vernon was genuinely happy to see him, which brought a warm glow to Michael’s chest. He liked the introspective, unassuming auditor. So too was Charles, which was a bit more surprising even if his reaction to Michael felt more adversarial than Vernon’s; Michael had not thought that Charles enjoyed anyone’s company.

Emil was predictably indifferent, shaking Michael’s hand out of rote social obligation. Luc, though, was easily the most frightened of the bunch. He did not show it outwardly, but bearing Spark had destroyed Michael’s faith in external signs of emotion. The fear was unmistakable, sharp and almost painful to focus on.

Yet Luc shook Michael’s hand with a smile, still wrapped to the elbows with his prisoner’s rags.

“Good trip up?” Michael asked, feeling thrown off by the other man’s intense emotions.

“Better than my last,” Luc said.

Michael could hear it in Luc’s voice, slight enough that he wouldn’t have recognized it without Spark’s confirmation. He leaned closer. “Luc, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Luc swallowed, looking nervously at the others. “Tell me the truth, yes? Are we heading to Mendian?”

“That’s the plan as I understand it,” Michael said. “Why, what’s the matter?”

“Can you make sure they bring me?” Luc asked.

Michael frowned. “I had assumed you wanted to come with us to Esrou, so you could return home.”

“To where, the orphanage?” Luc laughed, quick and bitter. “No, I don’t have a home. They like you, this group you’ve found. Help me persuade them to let me come with you, and not keep me here in Daressa.”

“Luc, you’re not making any sense,” Michael said. “Why would they keep you here?”

Luc held up his hands, and a fresh surge of fear spiked through him. “Because I have Claude’s soul,” he said. His eyes flicked to Michael’s dumbfounded face, then to the ground. “I suppose there was some truth amidst his lies. I thought I could hide it but Charles and Emil suspect. They think it’s odd that I never take off my wraps. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“You - why didn’t you say something?” Michael hissed. “You’re an anatomens?”

“Hsst!” Luc whispered, motioning for Michael to be quieter. “I’m not properly trained, and I - it’s Claude’s soul.” He looked up at Michael. His fear was nearly incandescent, but still little of it showed on his face. “He did things to me, at the end. Things with his soul that hurt more than anything I’d ever-” He paused, the words catching in this throat.

“I can’t use this soul,” Luc whispered. “It’s monstrous, it’s tainted. Evil. But if they know I am an anatomens they will insist, and be angry when I refuse. Angry that I did not tell them sooner. Help me talk to them, please.”

Michael looked at him, feeling unsteady. Sobriquet had said Luc bore his own secrets, different from Michael’s - but not so different after all. In the pained admission had been the echoes of his own struggle with Spark. Bereft of opposing souls to restrain it and the calming presence of an old mentor, could he have borne up?

Evil. He shook his head. “I don’t need to help you talk to them,” he sighed. “Both Sobriquet and Vernon heard everything you just said.”

Luc froze. After a moment, he slumped forward. “I really miss my life from before I knew you,” he muttered, turning to face Sobriquet.

She smiled at him.