Peculiar Soul

Men are not alone in bearing divinity; it is in every raindrop and stone, every tree and beast. In this we are not set apart from the rest. What lifts man up from unthinking nature is that we see the divine other and know it as kin.

This is why mercy is solely the province of men. Do not beg the sea for kindness or the storm for its forbearance. The world does not weep at the sight of blood.

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

Mist clung to the sharp angles of the trenches and made dim silhouettes of the soldiers peering over their lip. It did nothing to hide those closest to Michael, however; Sofia’s eyes were burning clear, and Friedrich’s were impassive flint. The riders she had brought kept their rifles low but ready, though one among their number was unarmed - Vincent guided his mount up to stand behind Sofia, glaring down at Michael with undisguised anger.

“Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be,” he said. “You’re coming back with us when this is over, one way or the other. You can do it on your feet or on your back, with your friends - or without them.” He flexed his hand, and light dimmed and shimmered around his fingers.

Michael met Sofia’s eyes first, holding her gaze for a second before turning to Vincent. “Where’s Vera?” he asked. “Isolde?”

Vincent’s face darkened. “They’re safe from you,” he said. “I don’t know how you twisted Jeorg’s soul to harm Vera, and I don’t want to know why you would. Tell us how to fix whatever you did and things will go better for you.”

There was a beat of quiet marred only by a low growl of thunder overhead. Michael’s lips curved into a smile. He couldn’t help himself when faced at the absurdity of it all, the mistaken conviction sitting rigid on Vincent’s shoulders and sparking fire from Sofia’s eyes.

“You don’t know anything,” he said. “Did you ever? Was it like this, when you plucked me from Calmharbor and sent me off to Jeorg? Head brimming with what you think the world ought to be, and no notion of what it really is?”

Vincent bristled, but before he could speak Friedrich stepped forward. His face showed nothing, and Michael felt nothing from underneath - only the sharp, cold edges of his soul. “I’m not here to waste time on your childrens’ games,” he said, raising his hand and pointing lazily at Michael; all around him, soldiers raised their rifles level with his chest. “Posturing between spoiled brats means nothing in the War. Come quietly, Lord Baumgart - or don’t, and die quietly.” He ignored Sofia’s outraged exclamation, running a finger along the lingering traces of the bruise under his eye. His lips parted to show his teeth. “Choose now.”

Michael stared back, forcing himself to meet the other man’s lacerating gaze, to ignore the tension he felt thrumming from every soldier around them, the overwhelming blaze of grief from Sobriquet and the righteous anger from Sofia.

This was it. He stood at the foot of a path that had filled him with fear and dread, loomed in his mind for the entirety of his stay on the continent. It was not too late; he could still turn away and hide from it. All it would require is that he accept the slow stripping-away of everything he held dear.

He nearly laughed. How odd, to dread a choice for so long - only to find that it was no choice at all.

Michael held his hands up in surrender, reddened palms open, and began to walk slowly towards Friedrich. “I only played one game as a child,” he said. “Tell me - have you ever been hunted?”

He felt more than heard the simultaneous tightening of hands on rifle grips, the subtle shift as barrels moved to track him. “I have. Every day, I stepped carefully to avoid drawing attention. Every night I slept knowing that I wasn’t safe.” Thunder rolled overhead again, the rumbling bass plucking at Michael’s ribs; he felt a fresh pulse of fear from around him at the noise, a sharpening of their focus on him.

“Do you know what that feels like?” he asked, still walking slowly forward. “That constant fear. My whole life I’ve been running, running without going anywhere in particular. Running between hidden and quiet places. Hunted in my own home. Every scrap of safety stolen as soon as I feel secure in it.” He clenched his fists, Clair’s blood dripping from between his fingers. “Have you ever felt so helpless?”

Friedrich did not reply, but Michael could sense the sharp eyes of the rest, the tension thrumming through Vincent as his fingers twitched. They were intent on him, watching his every move.

“At any moment of the day, it could grip you,” he said, letting his voice drop low. “It starts out soft, a vague unease that slowly, surely speeds the heart.” He took another slow, deliberate step forward. The fear from the soldiers hummed around him, shrill and sharp. “Your stomach churns, your bowels freeze.” He stopped walking. His hands dropped to his sides.

“Your fragile courage,” he said softly, “falls apart.”

The chorus of terror slid into a harmony. Michael saw the twitch of muscles on Vincent’s face, the quickening of Sofia’s breath. The fear cascaded into him, built and reverberated; he stood in the center and forced it to build until the ground seemed to shake with it.

“This isn’t right,” Sofia murmured, stepping backward. “He’s doing this. He’s-” She paled, her eyes widening in horrified realization. “No. No, it’s not possible.”

Michael could not have contrived a terror more profound than what he saw in Sofia’s face; she looked at him and saw Spark staring back. He used it, gave it to the rest until they were locked immobile, wild-eyed and trembling.

The fear built to a crescendo; fingers began to twitch against their triggers. Michael straightened up and pulled fully on Spark, letting it fill his voice, wrap his body, shine in its slow pulse from his eyes. It came easily, smooth and responsive to his whim. “Drop your weapons,” he barked, tugging on the skein of fear he had woven and hearing the clatter of wood and steel in response. Command vibrated from each word, inexorable and irresistible.

“Turn and flee.” He locked eyes with Sofia. “Today the hunters run from me.”

She stared back, transfixed, until Vincent grabbed her horse’s reins and pulled her mount to the side; they charged off together. The soldiers followed in a barely-controlled rush, throwing their weapons down and half-trampling each other in their haste to make distance between themselves and Michael.

Only Friedrich remained, unmoving, a half-smile playing about his lips.

“Fear,” he said. “Fear is an old friend to those who call the War their home. It has nothing left to say to me. No more hold on my heart. You may be able to drive these others off with your tricks, boy, but not me.” He let one foot slide back, raising his hand to point unwaveringly at Michael. “In truth, I had hoped it would come to this. An honest contest of strength against strength. No distractions left. No clever ploys, no surprise and concealment. Stand and fight, Baumgart. Show me how you die.”

Michael reached out to Stanza, watching Friedrich’s soul come alive in glimmers of sharp-edged brilliance. He stepped cautiously to the side, feeling the tickle of his own fear clawing up his throat. The shock from Clair’s death was diffusing, the mad scale of what he had just done beginning to sink in.

He grit his teeth as he saw the edge form - horizontal, at his midsection. It would be too fast to duck under. Friedrich was picking up where they had left off before, not wasting an instant probing his defenses. His mind raced with the feeling of laceration on his skin, the countless cuts and scars pulsing with remembered pain.

But as he watched Sever’s soul contort, the edge deepened past what he remembered of his father’s torments. It was not anything so simple as a knife or sword, not a simple parting of matter. The shining line made a universe in two halves. A sundering, an eternal division.

Friedrich flicked his fingers toward Michael and the line shot forward. Time slowed. The divide it created loomed against his vision, larger than the forests or the sky above. It was inexorable. He saw once more the disorienting vastness that had flitted past his sight in the mountaintop storm, the mismatch of his tiny scale against the uncaring levers of nature.

It was mastery, perfection. Years of working to grow closer to the fundamental truth enshrined in Sever’s soul - yet Michael had a span of moments to grasp the same. He felt small, insignificant. Awed and foolish, that he had been struggling at such a base level when something like this was possible.

A determination lit within his chest, a small candle-flame pulsing away. Perhaps he had been blind, his gaze too low to see the potential in his own soul, but - with death bearing down on him and fire spreading in his breast, he would try at least once with his eyes open.

He focused again on the sundering that Friedrich had unleashed, straining at Stanza - not to halt the approaching edge, but to find a different arrangement of the world. One where the ground stood a little lower in that spot, where Friedrich’s attack chose a path a bit higher.

Michael saw the new path in his mind and pulled it towards being. He had no time for words to ease his task, no luxury of careful observation. It was, as Friedrich had said, a contest of strength.

He found himself wanting. Things shifted too slowly as the edge approached, the massive change resisting his efforts. Despair flared within him - and with it came the candle-flame, shining with resolve. He felt another will join his own, another pull against intractable space and time.

There was a limit to what one man alone could do; Michael felt the flame burn bright as he stepped past it.

The world yielded. He bent backwards and watched the line sail a hair’s breadth above his face, skimming threads from the edge of his sleeve as he fell back. The ground’s impact drove the breath out of him in a rush, and he lay panting with his face up to the grumbling clouds above.

A drop of rain struck him on the forehead, then another. It felt like an acknowledgment from the storm, a quiet congratulations that Michael had matched the scale it had shown him on the mountaintop. A smile twisted his lips; he began to laugh softly.

There were footsteps. Friedrich’s face came into view as the other man walked closer to look down at him.

“You pushed my blade aside,” Friedrich remarked. “I’ve never seen anyone do that before. Impressive, if not very useful. Not if you can’t follow through - and I don’t think you have the stomach for that.” He drew his soul into a shining edge once more, holding it poised. “I will remember you. Do you have anything to say?”

Michael blinked away a raindrop and looked up at Friedrich. “Thank you,” he said, his smile growing at the ripple of confusion he felt from the other man. “For not holding back. For showing me the scale one of the Eight should aspire to. Sky to ground.”

The air stilled, placid and mirror-smooth. Michael reached out to draw a line on the canvas he had made, a path between two halves that yearned to draw closer. Friedrich’s eyes widened as he smelled the tang of ozone spike around them. The edge he held ready solidified, growing brighter, but it was too late.

“Strike him down,” Michael spat.

The world turned white, Michael’s bones rattling with a sudden concussion. His ears rang, the muscles in one leg clenching uncontrollably as current raced across the soil. He smelled scorched hair; his mouth tasted foul and metallic.

Some time passed in hazy, half-lucid thoughts. When Michael’s vision cleared he saw Friedrich’s crumpled form lying some ways distant. For a moment he thought him dead, but there was no pain from Michael’s soul to herald his passing - and, after a few moments, he saw the slow, shuddering rise and fall of the man’s chest.

Running footsteps came from the other side; he saw Charles lean over him. The artifex’s eyes were red and bloodshot as he looked Michael over. After a moment, he extended a hand downward.

Michael reached up to take it. With a grunt of effort Charles pulled him to his feet. There was a charred patch of ground a few paces away, the soil steaming hot and crusted with vitreous ash. From his higher vantage he saw Friedrich’s injuries better; his shirt was shredded along the left side of his torso, which was spiderwebbed with angry red marks branching over his skin. Blood masked his face, bubbling with each sputtering exhale.

A shift in the wind tore his gaze away; Sobriquet had stalked out from the carriage. Her avatar floated just ahead of her, its arms spread wide and head lowered.

“Careful,” Charles called out. “He’s not-”

There was a distorted shrieking of the air as her avatar blurred forward to plunge its hand into Friedrich’s face. Its fingers splayed wide and sunk under his skin. He gasped and choked; his back arched, hands clawing spasmodically at the mud. Furrows of churning, crumbling soil radiated outward from him. The apparition jerked its hand away as if burned, then faded into the rain and haze.

Sobriquet scowled and rubbed at the stump of her arm. She watched him twitch for a few seconds more, then let her breath out in a long, weary sigh.

“What did you do?” Michael asked.

She looked up at him with raw, wet eyes. “Showed him how it felt to be torn to pieces,” she rasped. After another moment she turned to gaze out along the trenches. The nearest ones were deserted, their occupants fled. Further away, however, men milled in disorganized groups.

“They’ll be back soon,” Sobriquet said, forcing Michael to drag his sight away from where Friedrich lay gasping. Her eyes were half-lidded, distant. “They’re pulling obruors in. A lot of them. Probably fear specialists, since that’s what they tend to have at the front. They’ll quiet the terror of that first group you drove off, and the next men they send won’t even remember what fear is. That trick was inspired, but it won’t work again.”

“Then we should be off,” Charles said, looking toward the cart. Emil stood hunched over the horses, while Vernon and Luc tugged their packs out of the interior. Charles walked over and took a pack from Vernon, then another which he held out to Michael.

He hesitated, looking at Friedrich. He thought of Claude. Another moment passed, however, and he thought of Gerard. Of Sobriquet, lying broken. And briefly, before his mind averted itself from even contemplating the thought, he imagined Sever’s soul settling into his own, the blades scraping intimately along the core of his being.

Michael shuddered and turned away, taking the pack from Charles. Friedrich could live, and suffer, and die on his own terms. Michael took no joy in his pain, but he would not risk the man dying near him. Even if he did not know for sure that Sever’s soul would find him…

He was carrying too many of the dead already.

The thought drew his eyes inexorably to the open door of the cart. He could see Clair’s boots just inside, utterly still. The candle-flame he had stolen pulsed in his chest, and at once Michael felt himself thaw from the rigid shock that had gripped him since the attack began.

His legs weakened; he dropped to his knees in the mud. Bile rose in his throat. A moment later a hand grabbed his shirt at the shoulder, yanking him upward and spinning him around.

“Up,” Sobriquet said. Her face was drawn, tear-streaked. “No more time to rest. We’ve got to go.”

He wanted to object, but no words came. Would he insist that they take Clair’s body across the battlefield, or pause to bury her? There was no time, and Sobriquet already knew that; her anguish had lost none of its intensity. It had only become sharp, hard and clear, forced into order by will alone.

The candle-flame pulsed, and his composure wavered. She deserved to know what he had done, but - he did not know what that was. He did not know what he had ripped from Clair as she faded away, nor what it meant.

He did not even know if what he had done was better or worse than the void. Still, he had to tell her. But…

“No time,” Michael agreed, rising to his feet. He spared one last look back at the carriage, holding a fist against the fire in his chest. “And now,” he murmured. “We go once more.”

He stepped forward, drawing close to where the others had gathered - then paused as a discordant note of fear lanced through him. He blinked, startled, his breath catching in his throat as he looked at his bedraggled companions.

At Sobriquet, who pulsed with pain and anger. At Charles, seething and barely restrained. At Emil and Vernon, still reeling with shock - and at Luc, who stood with his back turned to Michael, refusing to look his way. Pulsing with fear, resonating with it, his hands shaking and clenched under their wraps.

Michael set his jaw. “No time,” he muttered under his breath, forcing his mind to turn forward, away from thoughts of promises and betrayal. “There’s no time.”

They had barely made it to the front lines when the first bullets began to fly by, forcing them to dive into the deserted forward trench. Michael ducked down as mud spattered from the impacts overhead, wooden boards splintering and sandbags spilling from the barrage.

“I thought you had us veiled?” Charles yelled. “How in Ghar’s moldy-”

Sobriquet cut him off with a snarl. “Sibyl again,” she snapped. “She’s out there pointing the way for the riflemen.” Her eyes found Michael, and she jerked her head back at the soldiers. “Think you can do something about that?”

Michael blanched. He could not think of Sofia with the same fondness as he had weeks ago, but neither was he enthused at the prospect of trying to kill her. A bullet spanged off an iron fitting overhead, making him flinch; whatever his thoughts on attacking Sofia, she had evidently overcome any reluctance concerning the reverse.

He steeled himself and sent his sight upward to the point where he could see the small group of riflemen firing from the rear trench. They hummed with an odd silence as he watched them; the obruor blanketing them with his soul had stripped away their fear and much else besides. Amid the grim-faced mass of men it did not take long to locate Sofia, with Vincent crouched ready behind her. His sight wheeled upward to the storm overhead. The flame in his chest flared, he grit his teeth-

And nearly collapsed at the effort, the storm’s imbalance not yet ready for another connection between cloud and ground. No path marred the air, no thunderbolt sketched down to strike the riflemen.

He sagged against the trench wall, panting, and shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s not working.”

Sobriquet’s eyes narrowed, and Michael realized that he had lied to her. It had not worked, and he had tried - but he had felt relief when he failed. He was not sorry in the least.

She sighed and shook her head, looking northward. “Damn,” she spat. “I was hoping to avoid this, but it seems like we’re out of options. Michael, watch them. If they charge-” She paused, then shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. I shouldn’t need long.”

Before Michael could protest, her eyes fluttered shut; she was projecting her avatar once more. He swept his sight around but did not see her near Sofia’s men. What he did see was another group of soldiers running between trenches to join them, scrabbling across the shell-pocked soil to take up a firing position.

Charles and Emil fired at them, though it was mostly a symbolic effort given that they only bore sidearms. Nevertheless it spurred the Ardans to move carefully, slowly. Luc and Vernon huddled unarmed at the bottom of the trench, a grimace contorting the auditor’s face. Luc’s face was blank, his eyes resolutely turned away from Michael.

Vernon raised his head. “They’re preparing to charge,” he said. “They’re bracing - yes, here they come.”

Sure enough, Michael saw the Ardan troops spill over the rim of the trench, eerily silent under their obruor’s aegis. There were no battle cries, no calls to courage and glory - they ran expressionlessly forward, clutching their weapons tightly.

Charles and Emil redoubled their efforts - until their ammunition ran dry. Charles glared at the pistol and wordlessly reshaped it into a sinuous blade of metal, its wooden grips clattering to the ground. Emil swallowed hard and pulled a knife from his belt.

Sweat beaded on Michael’s brow as he watched the soldiers charge closer. Their bayonets gleamed dully in the light filtering through the clouds. He tested the air once more and found the storm intractable, resistant to another strike so soon after the last.

He abandoned the thought, sliding back to more familiar ground. Clair’s flame burned within him as rust bloomed from the soldiers’ weapons, barrels flaking and mechanisms freezing tight with orange florets. They looked down in confusion; Michael only grimaced and turned to the next group of men.

A bare moment after he focused on them, explosions ripped through the charging soldiers. Dirt flew, blood spilled; Michael glimpsed the chaos for only a moment before the world went dark.

He blinked, looking around and seeing only blackness. A rush of warmth swept over them, the air turbid and suddenly stifling. Shells continued to burst unseen in the space between the trenches, filling the air with thunder and the screams of men dying in the dark.

“Get ready to run!” Sobriquet shouted. “Charles, Michael, in front! There’s wire a few paces ahead of the trench, we’ll need a path through.”

Michael held Stanza close, drawing on the soul until mirror-light shone bright around him. Luminous outlines hung around the others, dimmer light clinging to the contours of the trench. He saw Charles look incredulously in the direction of Sobriquet’s voice.

“How am I supposed-” Charles began, cutting off as Vernon stood and walked over to grab his arm.

“Keep hold of me,” the auditor said, his voice almost lost against the roar of the barrage. “I’ll lead you to the wire.”

Sobriquet stood and tapped Emil on the shoulder. “You’re with me,” she said. “Michael, can you guide Luc?”

“I can,” he replied, walking over to where Luc was shivering at the trench’s bottom. He saw the other man’s head lift at the vibration of the boards, saw him shrink back from an imagined touch. Michael bent down and spoke as quietly as he could amid the shelling.

“You need to take my hand,” he said, holding it out. Luc couldn’t see it, but it seemed right to extend it regardless. “Please, Luc. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Luc stared blankly in Michael’s direction for a long moment, long enough that Michael nearly spoke again - but then one hand tentatively extended outward, trembling.

Michael took it and pulled Luc upright, leading him over to where Sobriquet stood by Emil, her foot braced on a step up out of the trench.

“I assume this is your doing?” Michael said.

The outline of Sobriquet’s face turned toward him, he caught the edges of a pained look on her face. “I was hoping to avoid entanglements on the Safid side of the lines,” she sighed. “I had - hoped a lot of things.” She shook her head. “Would have been easier if we could have walked through unnoticed.”

Michael nodded. “And now?”

“Now we’re expected.” Her hand gripped the wooden boards, her feet braced against the step. “Get ready. The shelling will end soon. Clear the far wire, let Charles take the nearest fence.”

His sight soared upward, finding the thin tracery of light that glowed from the wires. He did not wait; he narrowed his focus on it and willed it to corrode. The lack of sight made it surprisingly difficult, and if he had not spent a good portion of the last hour rusting various things he doubted that he would have found any success here.

One last explosion sounded in the distance, shaking the hot, dark air and sending bits of rusted wire tumbling to the ground. A beat of silence followed.

“Now!” Sobriquet cried, scrambling upward.

Michael grit his teeth and followed, reaching back to help Luc up over the wooden edge. A hot wind blew above the trench, carrying with it the smell of burnt powder and cooked flesh. He took Luc’s hand, squeezed it through the sweat-drenched wrappings - and began to run north.