The False Martyr (21 page)

“
Come on!” Dasen shouted
from beside her. “We have to run.”

Teth was frozen. Her eyes
shifted from creature to creature, from one mangled victim to
another and returned again to the battlefield. The blood, the pain,
the death, the fear, the desperation were before her again, were
every bit as real as they had been outside Thoren. She wanted to
fall to the ground, wanted to cry, wanted to curl up in a ball and
never see anything again. Her entire body shook. Her breath caught.
Her heart stopped. She hyperventilated, stabbing pains radiated
from her chest, shot down her arms. And still she could not
relinquish the terror, could not escape the fear, could not help
but feel it all again.

“
Teth!” Dasen yelled.
“Come back! I need you! Please, we have to run.”

She looked at him. And saw
hundreds of bodies scattered to dust, saw the horrible devastation
that he had created. She gasped, released a single sob, and
retched. She waited to feel her emotions pulled away, to feel that
terrible sucking sensation, to witness the horrible things that he
would do with those emotions, to see the man she loved become a
monster as real as the ones he had destroyed.

“
Teth,” Dasen begged.
Confusion and fear fought for control of his face. He looked from
her to the creatures and back, desperation growing. “I love you,
but I need you to come back to me. I need you, Teth.
Please!”

Teth heard his cries, knew
he was right, but could not seem to make her body answer. They were
going to die, and it was her fault. The Weavers had given their
lives so that they could escape, and she could not control her fear
long enough to justify their frightful sacrifice. She who had
always been too strong to be afraid, who had faced everything the
Order could send at her, who had been tempered by the worst the
Order could offer – wasn’t that what the old man had just told her.
And now that it mattered, she was going to shatter.
Not tempered enough
, she
thought and almost laughed.

Another sound rose behind
them, a low whir that was present even over the sounds of death. A
grasshopper landed on Teth. Larger than any grasshopper she had
seen in her limited time on these plains, it was as long as her
finger. It sat on her arm, tiny feet digging through her shirt. She
stared at it, then looked to Dasen, then at the creatures who were
just finishing the last of the Weavers. Several of them had turned
their eyes on their real targets. Smiles formed on their
bloodstained mouths. The whir built until it consumed all the other
sounds until it reached almost deafening heights.

And the grasshoppers hit
them. There were millions of them. They were everywhere. They
covered everything. Their tiny talons held Teth in a thousand
places, their scent enveloped her – the same scent that the Weaver
had thrown at her from the bottle. She looked up through the cloud
of hopping, flying, swarming shapes and saw nothing but the green
and brown expanse of their bodies. The monsters were lost, and with
their disappearance, the spell was broken.

She grabbed Dasen, held
him around the waist, felt his arm resting across her neck, and
ran. The grasshoppers swarmed around them, hopped over them, clung
to them, hid them. Barely able to breathe, unwilling to even open
her mouth for fear of what else would end up inside, supporting
Dasen, nearly blind, she was shambling, but they did not have far
to go. Teth held back the scream that threatened to break from her
lips, fought the need to swat at the creatures, ground her teeth
against the deafening whir in her ears. In a few strides, they were
out of the garden and heading toward the fields. The Weavers’
workshop appeared at their side, provided a short reprieve from the
swarm. Teth looked up and saw the grasshoppers in a solid wave
above them leaping from the top of the building toward the river.
Past them, black shapes circled in a cloud of smoke.

“
Where are we going?”
Dasen asked beside her.

“
I have a boat by the
river,” Teth just managed before they broke from behind the
building and reentered the swarm.

They ran through it and
heard the crackle of fire, felt the heat beyond that of the already
furnace breeze. Teth had thought that the smoke was the result of
the explosions or the old man’s self-immolation.
A prairie fire
, she
realized now. And everything fit: the lack of rain, the bone-dry
heat, the grass as brittle as straw, the lightning. All this had
been planned.
Just like my entire
life.
He planned it all. He created a fire
to drive the insects before it. He burnt thousands of acres,
sacrificed his followers, himself, his commune.
And none of it had been necessary. He had done it for no
other reason than to show her his power, to show her the length of
his reach, to prove that there was no, could never be an,
escape.

I am his puppet. The
puppet of a terrible master that will do anything to complete his
show, who will burn everything to the ground if that is what is
required, who has not a scrap of human compassion or regret, who
would do all the terrible things he has already done.
They emerged from the fields, started down the
hill toward the grove and the boat it held.
All of it
, she realized.
We don’t control anything. He has done it all. My
entire life has been nothing but the creation of that cruel, old
man.
And even in death he pulls the
strings.

Teth’s legs gave out, and
they fell, tumbling down the hill. The grasshoppers flowed over
them. The flames closed. Teth ended on her back. Dasen was on top
of her.
Nothing matters. I can never have
happiness. I can never have peace.
I can’t
even have this. I can never have him. It has all been set. The
struggle will never end.
And only then did
she realize the depth of what the Master had said, the expanse of
what he had done. The revelation fell on her like a tree, crushed
the very life from her. She screamed then screamed again and
again.

Dasen was getting up.
“Teth,” he called. “What happened? Are you hurt? We’re almost
there.”

When the screams petered,
she just laid on her back, watched the grasshoppers and smoke
through her tears. A thousand hardships played before her eyes,
every painful moment in a pain-stricken life: her parents, the
villagers, the forest masters, the counselor, the solitude, all the
bruises, all the abuse. She lived them all again and saw them for
what they were. There were no accidents. There was no happenstance,
no freewill; there was that old man. And he had taken away the only
thing that had made it all seem worthwhile, the only thing that
allowed anyone to continue through the pain of life. He had taken
away hope. He had denied her any chance of happiness, any hope that
someday all the fighting would be rewarded.

Somewhere, somehow, she
was being dragged across the ground.

Not only, can I never have
love. Not only can I never be happy. I can’t even have
hope.

She was being lifted
clumsily into the boat. She crashed onto the deck. Her shoulder and
head bounced against wood. She did not react.

Pain and longing. That is
all there is. That is all I can ever have.

She was crying, but she
didn’t know why. Tears would not change it. She moaned and sobbed
without the energy even to wipe the tears away. Somewhere she knew
that she should be doing something, that she should be helping, but
she could not make herself care. She could only cry, could only
feel the pain in her chest, could only see the old man laughing,
could only hear his devastating words.

The boat moved beneath
her, sliding away from the bank. It jerked to a stop.
The rope.
She should
tell Dasen but could not make her body move, she could not make her
mouth form words. She watched the flames rise up the trees, embers
drifted down around her. She could only think of them as a mercy.
She watched them come and silently hoped that they would find her,
that they would finally end it all.

#

Sparks swarmed around
Dasen like fireflies. Fire rained from the trees, leapt from the
grass, swirled in the rising breeze. A wall of heat pounded him
from behind so that steam rose from him to match the smoke all
around. He coughed against the burning in his lungs, blinked away
the water that filled his eyes, fought to breath, struggled to see.
But he thanked his abusers, welcomed the smoke, the sparks, the
heat because they were his only shield against the black shadows
circling through the clouds above.

Head cast down, shoulder
pressed against the keel of the boat, he pushed. He watched the
bodies of grasshoppers float past. Many of them still struggled,
kicking their legs and beating their wings. Many more were cinders,
floating along with the film of ash that covered the water, marking
its line on boat and pants. The bottom of the river was lost
beneath, so Dasen had no idea what he was pushing against, could
only pray that the mud would release the boat before the fire
behind or the creatures above could claim them.

He cringed against a
cinder that found his neck, screamed, pushed himself beneath the
water, and came up dripping. More sparks found him, falling in the
hundreds, and were quenched by the water running down his back
before they found the skin beneath. But he could imagine them
gathering on the ship before him, building, spreading, consuming
the one thing that must not be consumed.

He pushed again. The boat
crept slowly, painfully from the bank, felt like it wanted to
release, but refused to concede as if held by an unknown force.
Cursing, Dasen searched the sky. The fire was climbing the trees,
creeping along the branches, bursting through the leaves, and
falling down on him, on the ship, on Teth who was comatose on the
deck. He pushed again, straining for all he was worth.

The boat lurched into the
river. Dasen fell on his face in the water. He found his knees in
time to see the remnant of a rope land in the water beside him. It
was tied to the side of the boat, had been just out of his view
through the smoke. Its end was charred, its length
blackened.
The fire saved us from
itself
, Dasen thought as he plunged into
the water and clasped the rope. Already, the vessel was caught in
the current and drifting. The rope was his only hope of catching
it, so he pulled, dragging himself through the water until he
reached the boat’s shallow side.

Weak, exhausted, shaking,
he clasped the railing above and tried to pull himself over. His
arms failed him. He slumped back down against the side, gasping.
“Teth!” he called. “Help!” He waited to see her appear over the
railing, waited to see her reach for him, waited to feel her
pulling him up. His hands were sore, his fingers burned, his
muscles shook, but no help appeared. He called again.
Nothing.

Thunder shook the boat so
sudden and so hard that Dasen nearly lost his grip. The first drops
of rain dotted the surface of the river. A huge drop struck his
head and ran down his neck. It was followed by others building to
sheets.

“
Teth!” he screamed a last
time but knew that she would not come. He had no idea what had
happened on that hill, but it was clear that she was not moving
from the place he had somehow dropped her. With a deep breath and
all the strength he could muster, he forced a leg up. Straining and
pulling with his every fiber, he hooked his foot on the railing. A
few seconds later, the rest of him flopped onto the
deck.

At that same moment, the
clouds released their fury. The smoke that had hidden them was
replaced by sheets of water. Rain fell in waves, drops big enough
to hurt. It covered everything, churned the river so that it was
indistinguishable from the sky above. Even the lightning seemed
unable to penetrate it, even the thunder seemed muted by it. Lying
on the deck of the boat, Dasen could barely see his own hand
stretched out to his side, could barely make out the outline of
Teth a few feet away.

She was lying exactly as
she had landed, in a crumpled pile, shoulder and legs to the side,
face to the sky. Somehow, her eyes were open, staring at the rain,
barely blinking to clear the water that poured into them. Dasen put
himself above her, but her eyes did not seem to see him. Her mouth
moved in sobs. Her eyes and nose were red. Her face was hard lines.
She was conscious, crying, unmoving, body as limp as a
ragdoll.

Dasen felt her, moving his
hands over her back, chest, legs. He did not find any sign of
injury – just as he had found nothing on the hill only a few
minutes before – and struggled again to understand what had
happened. They had seen the boat. Nothing had been in their way.
They were going to escape. He had been elated. Then she had
collapsed, and they had tumbled down the hill. He had landed on top
of her. And before he could gather his sense enough to move, she
had looked at him with absolute, breathtaking agony as if her
entire world had shattered before her eyes. She had cried out,
screaming and screaming, then laid still. Her body formed a ball,
and nothing he had said or done had seemed to have any effect on
whatever had laid her low. Not knowing what else to do, he had
found the power to lift her, had carried her to the boat and
dropped her in.