Dawn of Swords (66 page)

“May you live eternally in the shadow of your goddess,” Ashhur said. The compassion in his booming voice was genuine, and he seemed hurt. His eyes lifted to the heavens, to Celestia’s shining star above. “Please accept your child with love and gentleness,” he said, “and let her live on forever in your bosom.”

Jacob knelt beside Ashhur, all of the anger completely washed from his face. The deity looked over at him, the kindness in his eyes enough to melt a mountain of ice.

“I am sorry for your loss,” he said.

A tear rolled down the First Man’s cheek.

“It should not have been this way,” he said, a hitch in his words.

Ashhur nodded to him.

“The merchant was right, my Lord,” Jacob continued, stunning Roland with his ability to maintain his composure given his evident shock and sorrow. “Your brother’s people had a small army massed in the northern deadlands. They’d been tormenting the people of Drake, kidnapping the townspeople only to murder them in sacrificial rituals. We searched the Tinderlands, and stumbled on Karak’s forces as they were attempting to raise creatures from a different world. We were spotted and chased. Roland and I hid in a cave while…while Bree and Azariah went to warn the townspeople. They were followed, and…and…and Bree was killed when the camp was attacked.”

Jacob was clearly descending into a pit of sorrow, but he soldiered on nonetheless.

“Turock Escheton has begun teaching others in the ways of magic, did you know that? A whole group of spellcasters, all up there in the north.” He laughed, but it was a humorless sound, and
his tears flowed freely now. “They crushed the army, but it was too late to save Bree. She’s…gone.…”

Jacob leaned forward, crying into his palms. Ashhur placed a massive, consoling hand on his back.

“Again, I am sorry, my son,” he said. “Such a horrible turn of events. If there’s anything I could do.…”

Jacob’s head snapped up with a start, and he stared in desperation at his deity.

“But there is,” he said, the words sputtering from his lips. “You can give her back to me.”

Ashhur frowned. “That I cannot do.”

“You are a god, my Lord. You hold the power of life in the palm of your hand.”

“I do not, my child. You are mistaken.”

“No!” Jacob screamed, his hands balled into fists. “I watched you create a thousand young men and women from jars of clay! I watched them form from the earth, life coming where there had been none before. How is this any more impossible? Grant Brienna the life she was
supposed
to have, the life she was already
living
before it was ripped from her!”

Ashhur glanced at Jacob for a long moment, then sighed. He placed two fingers on Brienna’s cold forehead before rising to his feet. The god backed up, looking down on his most trusted servant. He seemed beyond sad at that point. In fact, Roland thought he appeared ready to break down himself.

“I cannot do what it is you ask,” Ashhur said. “You must understand, Jacob, I do this because I love you. If I granted your request, you would hate me. What I can give you would be a shell and nothing more. You would never forgive me for it.”

“If you deny me,” Jacob said, his words halted, broken, “
that
is what I will never forgive. Bring her back. Now.”

Ashhur let out a sigh that seemed to come from the very deepest part of him.

“Because I love you,” he said. “Remember that when you see what you have demanded of your god.”

He snapped his fingers, and the air shimmered. Roland watched in awe and horror, as Brienna’s chest rose and fell. She sat up sharply, as if pulled by a string, and her eyes opened, staring straight ahead. For a moment, Roland felt overjoyed, but that joy ended when he saw black, rotting gunk trickle from her slightly parted lips, when he noticed that her eyes were still glossed over and milky from death.

It seemed as though Jacob didn’t, however. His expression was one of mad glee, and tears of joy poured down his cheeks as he wrapped his arms around Brienna’s body, holding her close, sobbing into her neck. Brienna didn’t respond, not even when he whispered how much he loved her into her ear. She simply stared straight ahead, unmoving, and Roland’s heart broke.

Ashhur frowned at the display.

“When my brother and I created life,” he said, “we did so at great cost. A piece of our immortality went into each and every one of you, just as a piece of Celestia went into each of her creations. The power it required to accomplish such a feat was enormous, and when we finished, we found ourselves to be much lesser than what we’d been when we soared through the heavens. It is strength that we will one day regain, but that is a slow process, one that will not reach its fruition for millennia. Such is the price of creation, but both Karak and I paid that price willingly. Neither of us can give you what you want.”

“You gave her back to me,” Jacob sobbed, as if he hadn’t heard a word the god had said. “You gave her back.”

“I did not, my child,” said Ashhur. “Brienna is not alive. I have animated the shell, but what was contained within that shell has moved on. You hold a puppet, nothing more. Her essence has returned to the goddess and is once more a part of Celestia’s heavenly host.”

Jacob kissed Brienna’s cheek, then looked at Ashhur.

“Then summon it back,” he said. “Pull her soul down, or ask Celestia if you must.”

“I cannot,” the god said, his lips forming a tight line of despair. “And even if I could, I still would not. Jacob, this life, this world, is only a beginning. And since it is a beginning, it must also have an end. How many times have you yourself lectured on this? Life is a cycle, a wheel, a gift. You act as if the reversal of death were no greater than the creation of life. But look at what my children do with their own imperfect, frail bodies, with lives as long as the flame of a candle. They create life together, yet can any one of them face death and make it tremble? The time for eternity is coming, but it is not here. It is not now. I will not break the greatest of laws, not even to ease your sorrow. Is this not what you have told me the people of my Paradise must learn to accept? Is this not what you have insisted my children are unprepared to face? No, Jacob. You are the First Man. You are the greatest. And you of all should know the limits of life and death.”

“But you are immortal,” Jacob whispered. “You made
me
immortal. Does our very nature not contradict your
limits?
”

“No,” Ashhur replied with a shake of his head. “In my present form, even I can perish. The only eternity that exists will not be found in this mortal realm. We are all beings with a beginning,” he snapped his fingers once more, and Brienna’s body went limp in Jacob’s arms, “and an end.”

“No!”
Jacob shouted, hysterically trying to keep her corpse upright. “You bastard! Bring her back!
Bring her back!
”

In a movement much too quick for a being his size, Ashhur grabbed Jacob, pulled him away from the corpse, and then touched Brienna’s forehead again. He muttered a few words, and her body lit aflame, the fire devouring her remains in mere seconds, until all that remained was a clump of ash lying in the grass, holding her form for a short second before Ashhur blew on the pile, scattering the ashes to the wind.

“NO!”
Jacob screamed once more, reaching for the billowing ash, trying to pluck it from the air.

Roland collapsed to his knees and then let out another sob. The finality of it all struck him dumb, left him feeling like he’d been stabbed in the gut. And, oh, how much worse Jacob appeared.

“Your love for her and her memory must never end,” Ashhur said. “But I will not watch you debase yourself as you cling to a rotting corpse. The flesh is dead. The soul lives on.”

Roland knew by the look of dismay on the god’s face that it was perhaps the most difficult thing he had ever done.

Jacob’s expression slowly changed. It was like watching a broken thing gradually rebuild itself, only with jagged edges and everything not quite in its proper place. His eyes, which had shimmered with life and knowledge, now glared at his deity with a dark rage that left Roland terrified.

“The soul may live on,” Jacob said. “But the men responsible live as well. You must act.”

“What do you mean?”

He went to the horse that had collapsed, the one holding the mad priest’s corpse. He violently grabbed Uther’s head and lifted it, showing the distorted, burned, and broken face to Ashhur.

“Do you know who this is?” he asked, his voice dripping with disdain. “Uther Crestwell. Placed in charge of the men who have been tormenting the children of Drake—
your children
—for months.” He threw the dead man to the ground and lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “We watched their citizens butchered by the son of Karak’s Highest. Will you sit back and deny your brother’s hand in this?”

“Uther shamed his family. He left Neldar on his own. Whatever force he commanded up north, he did so independent of my brother’s knowledge.”

“Do you really believe that?” Jacob asked, aghast.

“I do.”

“Why? How? Look above you, my Lord. The moon will be full in two days. When your brother marches into the delta, do you think he is going to do so innocently? Do you think the people there will grovel at his feet and beg for mercy? His army already killed more than forty of them three months ago. Are you willing to let even more perish?”

“Such is the way my brother has chosen to discipline his children,” Ashhur said softly. “It is not my responsibility to stop him, as I have told you.”

Pulling at his hair, Jacob kicked Uther’s corpse and began to pace. Roland felt ill at ease. His master seemed unstable, ready to snap—sorrowful one moment, raging the next. He had never seen Jacob act in such a way. It scared him almost more than the ritual performed by Uther.

Finally, it seemed Jacob could stay silent no longer.

“They are
people
,” he said. “They aren’t toys! They aren’t playthings for you and Karak to divvy up like children. You act as if you care for my sorrow. You tell me to love the one lost. What of the delta? What of those people? Their families will wail. Their children will scream. You will sit idly by and watch death befall hundreds, if not thousands, and for what? In order to not interfere? To prove that your way is better in this sick little game you two brothers play? What will it take, Ashhur? What will it take to convince you that Karak will not stop until your people are crushed, and the nation of Neldar spans all the way from the east to the west?”

Coming to the end of his rant, Jacob stood there, arms shaking, body trembling, as his god stared into his eyes in silence. If Jacob was afraid, he did not show it. At last, Ashhur looked away, his gaze turning skyward. Jacob noticed the gesture, and his face reddened.

“Do not look to her for answers, my Lord.”

“I must,” the deity whispered. His head lowered, and he looked so uncertain that Roland thought the world itself might begin to crumble. “I bid you good evening, Jacob Eveningstar. You have
given me much to think over. I will tell you of my decision come morning.”

Without another word, Ashhur strode up to Jacob, held him at arm’s length for a moment, and then bent down and touched Uther Crestwell’s corpse. It caught flame just as Brienna’s had, burning away into the night, leaving behind little sign that the man ever existed. After that was finished, he turned and silently loped back to the Sanctuary, stepping over the wall in the process. When he disappeared through the great door, it closed behind him. An unnatural silence fell over the land. It was so complete that even the insects seemed to have ceased their nightly song.

“Master,” Roland said, his voice shaking, “what’s going to happen?”

“He’ll come around,” Jacob replied, not turning to look at him. “No matter what he says, he will not stand idly by watching the slaughter of innocents.”

“And…and if he doesn’t?” asked Roland.

Jacob glared at him.

“He will,” said the First Man. “The future of this land depends on it.”

Jacob offered one last glance to the spot where Brienna’s body had been, and he began to walk away. Roland called after him, but Jacob did not respond.

When he was gone, Roland stood alone, shivering despite the warmth of the evening. His mind was a jumble of contradictions, as everything he had witnessed over the last few months came to a head in his thoughts. When the torches began to burn out, one by one, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned, expecting to see Jacob but finding Azariah instead. The Warden seemed exhausted, and his eyes were deep wells of concern. He handed forth a jug, which Roland took and sipped from. His stomach began to cramp as the wine reached his belly, but he ignored it. When he finished, he handed the jug back, feeling very, very tired.

“What happened, Roland?” Azariah asked. “Where is Jacob? Is he well?”

Roland opened his mouth, closed it. He thought of the look on Jacob’s face as he stared down Ashhur, unafraid, unrelenting. He shook his head, looked to Celestia’s star, which seemed to have dimmed in the nighttime sky.

“I don’t know.”

C
HAPTER

35

T
here were people everywhere, a bustle of activity that rivaled the chaos Patrick had witnessed the one and only time he’d visited the Temple of the Flesh with Rachida. Ah, Rachida. He hadn’t seen her since she’d departed with her husband for the southern islands. He would do anything to spend just one more moment with her, alone, naked, ravenous.…

“Patrick!” Deacon shouted. “Patrick, stop daydreaming! We need to get these people to safety.”

He sighed and tried to straighten his deformed spine so he could see over the gaggle of people—the very old, the women, and the children—standing in front of him. He caught a fleeting glance of Deacon, who was manning the other side of the temple threshold beneath the sweltering late afternoon sun, his cheeks flushed as he handed out pillows, blankets, and sacks of food to those who were heading inside.

“I’m not daydreaming,” he shouted back.

“Well, your line is growing. I don’t want people to skip your line for mine. Our supplies are divided equally. So hurry up!”