Peculiar Soul

“I forgive you,” the traveler said, “for it is not me you set your hearts against.”

The villagers scorned him and bade him be silent, but he shook his head.

“There is a man you spurn, but he is not me. You have never met me. You do not know my home, my mother and father. You do not know the secret thoughts that pass behind my eyes as I lay awaiting sleep. The man you hate is of your own creation, a vision you see atop the form of other men. He is spun from your own thoughts and woven of your fears.” The traveler looked at the villagers and shed a tear. “Again, I forgive you. This man is hateful. Be rid of him and content yourself with his absence. When another comes to your village, look at him with fresh eyes and see the truth of his heart.”

The village headman did not respond save to light the pyre under the traveler’s feet.

- The Book of Eight Verses, the Verse of Blood. (New Kheman Edition, 542 PD)

The forest whispered apart around the cart as the horses drew it forward. The animals moved with a slow, deliberate walk, their heads tossing nervously; Emil was watchful and tense, and Michael could sense the horses’ dim awareness of his mood. There was no need to take any particular care when moving, of course - Sobriquet’s veil lay around them, and Michael hid the traces of their passage under a blanket of creeping roots and vines.

Yet even Michael caught himself speaking quietly, darting glances at the forest around them. They had traveled thus far with the knowledge that they were being watched, pursued, but it had been a far-off thing. Now there were Ardan soldiers along the road, not five minutes’ walk distant. Even if they were blind to their presence, even if they would doubtlessly fail to catch them in the woods - there was an inevitable tension lent by walking so close to men that would kill them given the chance.

Michael shook his head and returned his attention to the forest. They had descended somewhat as they approached the road, moving into broad lowland valleys that touched the mountain pine forests with scrub oak and elm. The high cold of the hills had brought autumn’s first touch early, and there were patches of gold amid the green slopes. For a moment Michael forgot the discomfiting pressure of their pursuit and saw only the forest, the simple beauty of its growth.

A whiff of smoke from the Ardans’ camp pulled him back to the present, cutting through the clean mountain air and setting the horses to nervous whickering. Emil made soft clucking noises with his tongue, and Sobriquet materialized over the cart.

“This is our closest approach,” she said. Michael noted with some satisfaction that her voice was quieter than normal as well; even she was not immune to the soft paranoia of proximity. “After this the road is clear, though we shouldn’t risk walking it for some time.”

Emil grunted. “We’ll have to at some point,” he said. “There are only three passes north from this valley.” He extended his arm, pointing to either side of a tall, snowcapped mountain that loomed ahead of them. “The easternmost is the road to Estu, and the Mendiko holdings south of the strait - not an option, needless to say. The western two lead to old Rul, and the northern front. Neither should be well-used, the Ardans prefer to bring their supplies the long way around and avoid the mountains entirely.”

Michael looked up at the eastern pass, his sight sharpening on it. Even at this distance he could pick out the hard, grey lines of concrete amid the rocks. “Bear with me while I ask an apparently needless question,” he said, “but we’re trying to get to Mendian, right? Why not just-”

“There is only one open crossing to Mendian,” Sobriquet said. “The Goitxea locks, bordering Esrou. Anywhere else, approaching the Mendiko border is swift and certain death.” She pivoted, her form floating down to hover next to Michael. “And before you ask, we will not be approaching under cover of stealth. History is rife with accounts of dead men who thought themselves cleverer than the Mendiko.”

The glint of metal twinkled from above the distant fortifications, and Michael narrowed his eyes. “They could close the pass, if they wanted to block it off,” he muttered. “Why leave it open?”

“Because Mendian does not believe in defending borders.” Sobriquet floated up to look across the valley. “It’s why they have land on this side of the strait to begin with - their doctrine has ever been retaliatory conquest rather than simple defense. The pass is not where they plan to defend Mendian if attacked, it is from there that they will strike forward to destroy their enemies. It is how they have dealt with aggressors ever since the days of the first Gharic emperors.”

Emil snorted. “And here I had heard Ardan schools were well-regarded,” he said. “What do they teach you, if not that?”

“I learned of Mendian,” Michael said defensively. “My tutors focused on-”

“Tutors?” Emil laughed. “Ghar’s blood. Of course, my lord, forgive me for implying that you mingled with the common folk.”

Michael sighed and said nothing; it wasn’t as if he could deny Emil’s mockery, his upbringing had carried every advantage one could hope for. That his knowledge was so lacking in areas was embarrassing - and concerning; his education was typical for the Ardan elite. If his time in Daressa had taught him anything, it was that Assemblymen lived in an appreciably different world than most people.

“It seems unlikely that any would test them here, regardless,” Sobriquet said, mercifully interceding on Michael’s behalf. “And so we will likewise leave them to their solitary watch, because there are no good outcomes from provoking Mendian. They ensure that there is no profit in it, and a guaranteed loss - every time.”

“A bit more thoroughly-answered than I had planned, but I did ask,” Michael sighed. “I suppose that we have little option but to continue north. Of the remaining passes, which will we use?”

Sobriquet hovered close, amusement in her voice. “Same as ever,” she said. “We’ll pick the one that seems least likely to get us all killed.”

They did not relax until they passed the small creek at the low point of the valley and Sobriquet pronounced that the Ardans had shown no sign of movement. The way was slower now that they moved uphill, but Michael felt himself stepping lighter now that it was just them and the woods once more.

Not everyone shared his sentiments; the horses, for one, were noticeably irritated at the extra work. He smiled and scratched the nearer horse on the shoulder.

“Stop that,” Emil grunted. “Don’t distract them or this cart will be on its side.”

“They’re just-” Michael bit back his response, as telling Emil that his horses were tired, cranky and not a little resentful of his grip on the reins would raise more problems than it would solve. Sobriquet had made her peace with Spark’s presence, but she had the perspective afforded by her own soul.

Michael had little doubt that some of the others would react less-amicably to that revelation. Emil, for certain. Charles and Vernon, perhaps. Luc? He already knew, but he was under the impression Michael had it locked away.

He shook his head and stepped away, feeling Emil’s eyes on his back. The trees began to thin around them as they moved up the slope, stunted and bowed sideways from the wind which now freely buffeted the cart. Past a low ridge the undergrowth faded into hardy, flower-speckled tundra that clung tenaciously between the rocks.

It was a relief for Michael, as he did not have to shape the path anymore; it was likewise a problem for the cart that he could not. The horses stepped gingerly along the incline, with Emil craning his neck sideways worriedly every time a rocky spill of debris came along. Once or twice a rock shifted under a hoof, and Michael could feel the intense spike of adrenaline from both horse and driver ripple through him like a far-off concussion.

On a flatter stretch Luc hopped out of the cart once more to stretch his legs. Michael could feel his immediate relief at being distant from the others, though, a lessening of the constant worry his soul caused him. Without the constraint of fatigue, he likely would have chosen to walk outside the carriage the whole trip.

“A difficult trail,” Luc remarked, his breath coming quicker in the thin mountain air. “Easy to see why this range forms a border. It’s a shame that the way is so hard, it’s quite-” He paused, taking a few deep breaths and shaking his head. “Quite beautiful.”

Michael smiled. “I rather like it. I’ve seen the mountains in Ardalt, when I was younger. They’re shorter, smoother - softer, if that makes any sense. Everything here is bare and sharp, cold and clear.”

A grunt from Emil made them turn their heads. “Best hope we’re off the mountain before the day wears on too much,” he said. “It’ll only stay clear a bit past mid-day. When the rain sweeps in we’ll want to be down among the trees once more, or we’ll have more than rocks and wind to contend with.”

He leaned forward, his eyes crinkling in an unpleasant smile. “Freezing rain, sleet, hail, ice over the rocks and down the slopes. And if you shoulder your way through that, lightning striking swift and hard all around. There’s no will or soul that will see you through that, mark me.”

“We’ll just have to keep a good pace, then,” Michael said, striking a cheery tone as a counterpoint to the discomfited mood Emil’s word had spurred in Luc. “Regardless of which pass we take, I think we can be up and down before then - right? You know best, it’s your cart.”

He refrained from smiling at the little thrill of satisfaction he felt in Emil; the other man betrayed no hint of it. “I told Sobriquet, I make no promises,” he said. “It’s a good chance we’ll be able to make it up and over in time, though. We should at least be away from the most dangerous areas if a storm catches us out early.” He cast a glance forward at the horses. “We’ll need to rest on the far side, though. These poor beasts are worn near to mutiny already, hard as we’ve been working them.”

Michael blinked, then let his smile slip through. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do,” he said.

“Only let me ride in peace,” Emil muttered, looking out over the valley. “Rare enough that I get to travel a route like this. I’d sooner remember the silence of it than have my recollections spiced with your nattering.”

Michael nodded and stepped back to walk by Luc, letting his smile broaden once more as Emil turned forward. Luc saw his grin and shook his head.

“Glad everyone is enjoying the journey,” he wheezed. “Must be nice to never run short of breath, yes?”

“You could ride in the cart,” Michael said.

Luc’s face fell, and he turned forward. “I will,” he said. “I just - need to be outside for a while.”

Michael pursed his lips and turned his own gaze ahead for a few steps, looking along the trail. “I know why you’re worried,” he said quietly. “It’s all well to be concerned, but you don’t have to fear it so. The soul needs intent. It needs the mind’s direction to work. You’re right to be cautious of sleep or surprise, but if you’re only riding along with the others-”

“I know,” Luc said. He continued on, breathing raggedly. “You’ve said. I - sitting there in the cart, it’s hard not to focus on it. It’s - well. I suppose I don’t need to tell you what it feels like. You know as well as I what it’s like. To be invaded by the dark, to have something foreign graft itself to you.” He looked up at Michael, eyes squinting against the wind. “How do I quiet it? You seem untroubled by - that soul.”

“Not untroubled,” Michael admitted. “Only less so. I don’t know that any advice I give you would be worth much, to be honest. My situation is odd, I have more than one soul. I was able to rely on one to suppress the other, approach the problem from a different angle. To make an image in my mind that limited my soul’s expression-” He paused, considering his words; he did not want to alarm Luc by discussing Spark in too much detail. “That wasn’t a good solution, regardless. In the end it needed time, and will likely take more time still before all is done.”

Luc looked up at him inscrutably; the sea of fear-sharpened emotion within him had changed somewhat, but Michael could not pick out exactly how.

Michael sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not being very helpful.”

“It’s my problem to solve, in the end.” Luc shook his head and forced a smile. “You’ve given me something different to think about, at least. I’ll - oh.”

He stopped and pointed ahead; Michael looked up and saw a large rock that had fallen across the narrow slope upward. It had fractured as it fell, but one large monolith lay against the mountain in such a way that there was no hope of working the cart through the gap. Emil tutted and slowed the cart to a halt, glaring at the obstruction.

“We’ll have to move that,” he muttered. “Ghar’s bloody bones. It’s a pity your stonework artifex went and got himself killed.”

Charles hopped down from the back to glare up at Emil, but stalked toward the boulder without comment. Clair, Sobriquet and Vernon likewise emerged to inspect the blockage.

“I’m not sure we can move that,” Vernon said. “Larger than the cart, and all in one piece. I can’t imagine how much it must weigh.”

“There are ways around simple weight,” Clair muttered, walking over to stand by Charles as his bracers flowed into a single bar of metal, long and thin; he worked it into the packed soil underneath the boulder and heaved. For a moment, nothing happened - then it burst up from the soil to scrape roughly along the rock’s side. Vernon winced and turned away, his hands sliding over his ears. Charles scowled and shimmied the rod in deeper, the end deforming to burrow further under the boulder.

Michael and Luc exchanged a glance as the artifex pulled on the bar to no avail. “I guess we should help, or we’ll be here a while,” Michael said. “Let me see…”

Michael walked up to look more closely at the rock, letting his sight drift close to its lichen-mottled surface. He had rusted metal before, but stone did not rust. It crumbled, slowly and over eons, turning to sand by water’s caress or windblown grit. He tried to imagine the stone fracturing in the same way he had broken up the boulders earlier, sending Stanza questing out for weaknesses in the rock.

It sat unmoved. He stepped back with a frown and watched as Luc, Clair and Charles all tried to pry the rock forward off the trail. There were no sturdy tree roots this high up, no streams of water to slowly weather it. The rocks around it still bore sharp edges from their fracture; how many years had they been lying exposed to the elements with no appreciable effect on their shape? This rock might sit unchanged until the dying of the world, for all Michael knew. He sighed and focused in on the boulder once more. Its smooth surface was devoid of cracks or grains that might be wormed free by the wind or the constant freeze and thaw of ice. The soil under it was more pliable, but removing enough of that to dislodge the boulder would leave the trail impassable even to those on foot.

Charles cursed and whipped his metal rod against the rock, throwing sparks. “How about it, milord?” he called out. “Anything in your bag of tricks for this?”

“Working on it,” Michael replied. “It’s a stubborn sort of rock.”

“It can afford to be stubborn,” Sobriquet murmured. “It won’t mind being caught up here if the weather turns. If it won’t yield, we may have to. Emil, do we have enough time to make for the other pass today?”

Emil sucked air in through his teeth, then shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said. “We’d have to go down and camp by the Ardans - for one night at least, perhaps two. Going down will be tougher on the horses than going up, mark me, and they’ll be in no condition to climb again after we turn.”

Sobriquet turned and watched as Charles snaked his metal down under the boulder once more, cursing loudly. Luc and Clair strained to push it as he pried from below; Clair’s feet scrabbled in the dirt while Luc grudgingly slid the wraps from his hands for better purchase.

Michael frowned and closed his eyes once more, focusing entirely on his spector’s sight. He willed it closer to the rock, closer than he could bring his real eye without losing focus and light. The rock had a varied texture, mottled light and dark, but Michael could discern no join between the colors - they all seemed to blend into one continuous substance, for all their visual distinctiveness. Granite, perhaps? Geology was a subject that had set his mind to wandering; once again he had cause to curse his youthful inattention.

He frowned and tried a different approach, trying to recall those painfully arid textbooks. This was a stone, not a person, and he had been thinking in processes that happened on human time-scales. What mattered to the rock were the long, ponderous cycles of geology and weather, grains of sand flecking off once in a millennium. Whether by the collapse of the mountain or the ending of the world itself, this stone would eventually crumble away to nothing.

The scale of it was hard to hold in his head. He pulled further on Stanza, and for the first time felt an odd sort of strain in the flickers of mirror-light that filled his vision. It was a far gap for the soul to bridge, and in its trembling tension he felt whispers of chaos, unpredictability.

The change grows to become violence, Jeorg had said. Michael grit his teeth and tried to ignore the pounding of his heart. “Stone that sits upon the land,” he rasped, trying to contain the tearing he felt in his chest. “Time will grind you-” He coughed, feeling a spike of pain in his temples. Fear returned. The result may not be what you had hoped.

He clenched his fist. Two days in the valley with the Ardans, with Sofia on their heels. Two days for the front to prepare for their arrival, for word to arrive of their route north.

Someone would die, if they lingered too long. Perhaps everyone.

His nails bit into his palm, knuckles whitening. He pulled again on Stanza, the taste of blood and bile in his mouth. Endless time, weathering and wearing. The slow flux of stone, mutable over eons. Michael tried to focus on it, and for a moment the mirror-light showed him something empty and vast. It vanished as soon as he glimpsed it. “Will grind you down,” he gasped, chasing the resonant echoes of the thing he had seen. “Down to-”

There was a loud report, and the monolith in his focus shattered into a thousand wisps of shining light, the edges reforming around four large chunks of flowing-edged rock that had split from the whole. He felt the tension within him snap like a cable to send him shuddering to the ground. Blood dripped freely from his nose; his vision blurred.

“Michael!” Sobriquet called out. “Clair, help me get him away from the rock-”

He let their voices blend into indistinct nonsense, his focus sliding sideways and away for a time. When he regained it, he was inside the cart looking up at the others. Soft vibrations rumbled up from the cart’s wheels.

“Mmh,” he muttered, trying to work some saliva into his parched mouth. Clair looked down, then reached to pass him a canteen. Michael raised himself up gingerly, wincing at the spike of pain in his head before taking a few swallows of the water.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, milord,” Charles said. “You’re a shit artifex, in my professional opinion, but I’ll make an exception in this circumstance and say - well done.”

Michael blinked. “Thanks,” he croaked. “But I’m not sure what I did, if anything. I may have - um. Overreached.”

“You lost a mugful of blood through your nose, is what you did,” Clair scowled, handing him half a sausage. “Here, eat something. We didn’t put up with you for this long so you could kill yourself fighting a damn rock.”

He took the food, nodding gratefully; when Clair’s stern glare did not waver he took a tentative bite from the end. She nodded in approval, crossing her arms.

Michael levered himself back into a more normal sitting position atop a crate of supplies, taking another drink of water and letting his eyes drift closed. His thoughts wandered back to his struggle against the boulder, its inhuman solidity. A fragment of what he had seen in the mirror-light flickered through his mind, fogged by memory and pain; he tried to concentrate on it.

He gave up. His head was pounding, and the small bite of sausage had reminded his stomach that it was indeed rather hungry. Its demands were reasonable ones; Michael acquiesced and took another bite, opening his eyes to look around the cart.

It was cramped, with everyone riding in the interior. Despite that he felt none of the awkward strain that had driven him to walk outside in past days. The destruction of the boulder had lifted everyone’s mood, save for a few spikes of acute concern. Reasonable, given the delay - they would have to hurry to get down the mountain in time. He took another swig of water, feeling the emotion modulate suddenly into satisfaction-

Michael prided himself on showing no reaction to surprise, something that had no doubt saved his life while living with his father. Even so, he struggled for a moment to keep his breathing steady when he realized that the concern he felt radiating from the others was not for the Ardans, nor for their chances with the weather.

“Are you all right?” Luc asked, looking up at the hitch in his breath. Michael still felt a tiny thread of fear from him, and perhaps that would never go away - but it was drowned by other, warmer things now. Perhaps it had done him some good to see Michael laid low by his own soul and pull through relatively unscathed.

He smiled and nodded back. “I am, thanks,” he said. “Although I really don’t know what I did back there besides give myself a headache.”

“Going to put me out of work,” Sobriquet muttered. “You managed to cut it down into chunks that we mere mortals could shift out of the way.”

“We?” Clair asked. “I don’t recall you doing much of the shifting.”

“It’s unwise to engage in a struggle when not properly armed for it,” Sobriquet replied, waggling her fingers.

Clair snorted. “Stop it.”

Sobriquet leaned in, smiling. “Luckily you weren’t left shorthanded.”

An empty sack flew across the cart to strike her in the face. “The least useful of the Eight, I swear,” Clair grumbled.

Michael suppressed a grin. “How are we doing on time?” he asked. “Was I out for long?”

“Not long,” Vernon replied. “Not even an hour, I’d say.”

“And we’ve been making good time since then,” Sobriquet said. “In fact-” Her eyes defocused, and a few seconds later Emil stopped the cart.

“Now?” he called out. “We’re in the most dangerous part of the pass if the weather comes in!”

“We’ll just be a moment,” Sobriquet said, crouching to open the door and jumping lightly down to the ground. “The view is worth a few minutes’ pause.”

Curious, Michael sent his sight out of the cart. The light struck clear and cold from the sun high overhead, and all around him the land stretched away in hazy majesty. They had stopped at the highest point of the pass, a dull ridge of stone that slouched between two adjacent peaks. To the south lay the valley they had just traversed, all forest and mountain with a few clearings dotting the gold-on-green forest.

To the north, though, lay a vast open highland. He could see the path forward snaking away down the spine of a ridge, and past that a sea of greenery that had yet to feel autumn’s early touch. Lakes glinted against the vista, and the sunlit snakes of rivers winding their way through the trees.

Yet there were bare, grey patches as he looked further north, stretches denuded of trees and ground to dead, churned mud. He let his gaze linger on it for a moment, then stood to join the others outside.

The chill wind struck him in the face, banishing the last of his lightheadedness from before. He blinked against the sudden breeze, then walked to look north with the others.

“The front,” Charles said. “It’s slid back and forth across that plain for years, in this stretch. Right now they’re farther north than they’ve been in decades, but still not to the far side of it. In fact-”

He broke off as an odd pulse swept over the landscape, clouds and haze vanishing from view in a heartbeat. The world flexed, shimmered - and in the distance, a perfectly spherical blot of darkness appeared over the land.

Michael stared. Even this far away, the black void was huge - enough to lose Calmharbor in its midst. For a long moment nobody spoke, only watching the unnatural darkness and the clouds it sent spiraling away on the updraft.

“I had been wondering where the Safid were keeping him, if not opposing Sever in the south.” Sobriquet said. “I guess now we know.”

Michael licked his lips, feeling the slow fear creeping back into the others. “Smoke?” he asked.

Sobriquet nodded. “Smoke,” she confirmed wryly. “As luck would have it.”