The Name of the Wind (21 page)

Of the battle itself I have only one thing to say. More people died at Drossen Tor than there are living in the world today.

Lanre was always where the fight was thickest, where he was needed most. His sword never left his hand or rested in its sheath. At the very end of things, covered in blood amid a field of corpses, Lanre stood alone against a terrible foe. It was a great beast with scales of black iron, whose breath was a darkness that smothered men. Lanre fought the beast and killed it. Lanre brought victory to his side, but he bought it with his life.

After the battle was finished and the enemy was set beyond the doors of stone, survivors found Lanre's body, cold and lifeless near the beast he had slain. Word of Lanre's death spread quickly, covering the field like a blanket of despair. They had won the battle and turned the tide of the war, but each of them felt cold inside. The small flame of hope that each of them cherished began to flicker and fade. Their hopes had hung on Lanre, and Lanre was dead.

In the midst of silence Lyra stood by Lanre's body and spoke his name. Her voice was a commandment. Her voice was steel and stone. Her voice told him to live again. But Lanre lay motionless and dead.

In the midst of fear Lyra knelt by Lanre's body and breathed his name. Her voice was a beckoning. Her voice was love and longing. Her voice called him to live again. But Lanre lay cold and dead.

In the midst of despair Lyra fell across Lanre's body and wept his name. Her voice was a whisper. Her voice was echo and emptiness. Her voice begged him to live again. But Lanre lay breathless and dead.

Lanre was dead. Lyra wept brokenly and touched his face with trembling hands. All around men turned their heads, because the bloody field was less horrible to look upon than Lyra's grief.

But Lanre heard her calling. Lanre turned at the sound of her voice and came to her. From beyond the doors of death Lanre returned. He spoke her name and took Lyra in his arms to comfort her. He opened his eyes and did his best to wipe away her tears with shaking hands. And then he drew a deep and living breath.

The survivors of the battle saw Lanre move and they marveled. The flickering hope for peace each of them had nurtured for so long flared like hot fire inside them.

“Lanre and Lyra!” they shouted, their voices like thunder. “Our lord's love is stronger than death! Our lady's voice has called him back! Together they have beaten death! Together, how can we help but be victorious?”

So the war continued, but with Lanre and Lyra fighting side by side the future seemed less grim. Soon everyone knew the story of how Lanre had died, and how his love and Lyra's power had drawn him back. For the first time in living memory people could speak openly of peace without being seen as fools or madmen.

Years passed. The empire's enemies grew thin and desperate and even the most cynical of men could see the end of the war was drawing swiftly near.

Then rumors began to spread: Lyra was ill. Lyra had been kidnapped. Lyra had died. Lanre had fled the empire. Lanre had gone mad. Some even said Lanre had killed himself and gone searching for his wife in the land of the dead. There were stories aplenty, but no one knew the truth of things.

In the midst of these rumors, Lanre arrived in Myr Tariniel. He came alone, wearing his silver sword and haubergeon of black iron scales. His armor fit him closely as a second skin of shadow. He had wrought it from the carcass of the beast he had killed at Drossen Tor.

Lanre asked Selitos to walk with him outside the city. Selitos agreed, hoping to learn the truth of Lanre's trouble and offer him what comfort a friend can give. They often kept each other's council, for they were both lords among their people.

Selitos had heard the rumors, and he was worried. He feared for Lyra's health, but more he feared for Lanre. Selitos was wise. He understood how grief can twist a heart, how passions drive good men to folly.

Together they walked the mountain paths. Lanre leading the way, they came to a high place in the mountains where they could look out over the land. The proud towers of Myr Tariniel shone brightly in the last light of the setting sun.

After a long time Selitos said, “I have heard terrible rumors concerning your wife.”

Lanre said nothing, and from his silence Selitos knew that Lyra was dead.

After another long pause Selitos tried again. “Though I do not know the whole of the matter, Myr Tariniel is here for you, and I will lend whatever aid a friend can give.”

“You have given me enough, old friend.” Lanre turned and placed his hand on Selitos' shoulder. “
Silanxi,
I bind you. By the name of stone, be still as stone.
Aeruh,
I command the air. Lay leaden on your tongue.
Selitos,
I name you. May all your powers fail you but your sight.”

Selitos knew that in all the world there were only three people who could match his skill in names: Aleph, Iax, and Lyra. Lanre had no gift for names—his power lay in the strength of his arm. For him to attempt to bind Selitos by his name would be as fruitless as a boy attacking a soldier with a willow stick.

Nevertheless, Lanre's power lay on him like a great weight, like a vise of iron, and Selitos found himself unable to move or speak. He stood, still as stone and could do nothing but marvel: how had Lanre come by such power?

In confusion and despair, Selitos watched night settle in the mountains. With horror he saw that some of the encroaching blackness was, in fact, a great army moving upon Myr Tariniel. Worse still, no warning bells were ringing. Selitos could only stand and watch as the army crept closer in secret.

Myr Tariniel was burned and butchered, the less that is said of it the better. The white walls were charred black and the fountains ran with blood. For a night and a day Selitos stood helpless beside Lanre and could do nothing more than watch and listen to the screams of the dying, the ring of iron, the crack of breaking stone.

When the next day dawned on the blackened towers of the city, Selitos found he could move. He turned to Lanre and this time his sight did not fail him. He saw in Lanre a great darkness and a troubled spirit. But Selitos still felt the fetters of enchantment binding him. Fury and puzzlement warred within him, and he spoke. “Lanre, what have you done?”

Lanre continued to look out over the ruins of Myr Tariniel. His shoulders stooped as though he bore a great weight. There was a weariness in his voice when he spoke. “Was I accounted a good man, Selitos?”

“You were counted among the best of us. We considered you beyond reproach.”

“Yet I did this.”

Selitos could not bring himself to look upon his ruined city. “Yet you did this,” he agreed. “Why?”

Lanre paused. “My wife is dead. Deceit and treachery brought me to it, but her death is on my hands.” He swallowed and turned to look out over the land.

Selitos followed his eyes. From the vantage high in the mountains he saw plumes of dark smoke rising from the land below. Selitos knew with certainty and horror that Myr Tariniel was not the only city that had been destroyed. Lanre's allies had brought about the ruin of the last bastions of the empire.

Lanre turned. “And I
counted among the best.
” Lanre's face was terrible to look upon. Grief and despair had ravaged it. “I, considered wise and good, did all this!” He gestured wildly. “Imagine what unholy things a lesser man must hold within his secret heart.” Lanre faced Myr Tariniel and a sort of peace came over him. “For them, at least, it is over. They are safe. Safe from the thousand evils of the everyday. Safe from the pains of an unjust fate.”

Selitos spoke softly, “Safe from the joy and wonder…”

“There is no joy!” Lanre shouted in an awful voice. Stones shattered at the sound and the sharp edges of echo came back to cut at them. “Any joy that grows here is quickly choked by weeds. I am not some monster who destroys out of a twisted pleasure. I sow salt because the choice is between weeds and nothing.” Selitos saw nothing but emptiness behind his eyes.

Selitos stooped to pick up a jagged shard of mountain glass, pointed at one end.

“Will you kill me with a stone?” Lanre gave a hollow laugh. “I wanted you to understand, to know it was not madness that made me do these things.”

“You are not mad,” Selitos admitted. “I see no madness in you.”

“I hoped, perhaps, that you would join me in what I aim to do.” Lanre spoke with a desperate longing in his voice. “This world is like a friend with a mortal wound. A bitter draught given quickly only eases pain.”

“Destroy the world?” Selitos said softly to himself. “You are not mad, Lanre. What grips you is something worse than madness. I cannot cure you.” He fingered the needle-sharp point of the stone he held.

“Will you kill me to cure me, old friend?” Lanre laughed again, terrible and wild. Then he looked at Selitos with sudden, desperate hope in his hollow eyes. “Can you?” he asked. “Can you kill me, old friend?”

Selitos, his eyes unveiled, looked at his friend. He saw how Lanre, nearly mad with grief, had sought the power to bring Lyra back to life again. Out of love for Lyra, Lanre had sought knowledge where knowledge is better left alone, and gained it at a terrible price.

But even in the fullness of his hard-won power, he could not call Lyra back. Without her, Lanre's life was nothing but a burden, and the power he had taken up lay like a hot knife in his mind. To escape despair and agony, Lanre had killed himself. Taking the final refuge of all men, attempting to escape beyond the doors of death.

But just as Lyra's love had drawn him back from past the final door before, so this time Lanre's power forced him to return from sweet oblivion. His new-won power burned him back into his body, forcing him to live.

Selitos looked at Lanre and understood all. Before the power of his sight, these things hung like dark tapestries in the air about Lanre's shaking form.

“I can kill you,” Selitos said, then looked away from Lanre's expression suddenly hopeful. “For an hour, or a day. But you would return, pulled like iron to a loden-stone. Your name burns with the power in you. I can no more extinguish it than I could throw a stone and strike down the moon.”

Lanre's shoulders bowed. “I had hoped,” he said simply. “But I knew the truth. I am no longer the Lanre you knew. Mine is a new and terrible name. I am Haliax and no door can bar my passing. All is lost to me, no Lyra, no sweet escape of sleep, no blissful forgetfulness, even madness is beyond me. Death itself is an open doorway to my power. There is no escape. I have only the hope of oblivion after everything is gone and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.” And as he said this Lanre hid his face in his hands, and his body shook with silent, racking sobs.

Selitos looked out on the land below and felt a small spark of hope. Six plumes of smoke rose from the land below. Myr Tariniel was gone, and six cities destroyed. But that meant all was not lost. One city still remained….

In spite of all that had happened, Selitos looked at Lanre with pity, and when he spoke it was with sadness in his voice. “Is there nothing then? No hope?” He lay one hand on Lanre's arm. “There is sweetness in life. Even after all of this, I will help you look for it. If you will try.”

“No,” said Lanre. He stood to his full height, his face regal behind the lines of grief. “There is nothing sweet. I will sow salt, lest the bitter weeds grow.”

“I am sorry,” Selitos said, and stood upright as well.

Then Selitos spoke in a great voice, “Never before has my sight been clouded. I failed to see the truth inside your heart.”

Selitos drew a deep breath. “By my eye I was deceived, never again….” He raised the stone and drove its needle point into his own eye. His scream echoed among the rocks as he fell to his knees gasping. “May I never again be so blind.”

A great silence descended, and the fetters of enchantment fell away from Selitos. He cast the stone at Lanre's feet and said, “By the power of my own blood I bind you. By your own name let you be accursed.”

Selitos spoke the long name that lay in Lanre's heart, and at the sound of it the sun grew dark and wind tore stones from the mountainside.

Then Selitos spoke, “This is my doom upon you. May your face be always held in shadow, black as the toppled towers of my beloved Myr Tariniel.

“This is my doom upon you. Your own name will be turned against you, that you shall have no peace.

“This is my doom upon you and all who follow you. May it last until the world ends and the Aleu fall nameless from the sky.”

Selitos watched as a darkness gathered about Lanre. Soon nothing could be seen of his handsome features, only a vague impression of nose and mouth and eyes. All the rest was shadow, black and seamless.

Then Selitos stood and said, “You have beaten me once through guile, but never again. Now I see truer than before and my power is upon me. I cannot kill you, but I can send you from this place. Begone! The sight of you is all the fouler, knowing that you once were fair.”

But even as he spoke them, the words were bitter in his mouth. Lanre, his face in shadow darker than a starless night, was blown away like smoke upon the wind.

Then Selitos bowed his head and wept hot tears of blood upon the earth.

 

It wasn't until Skarpi stopped speaking that I noticed how lost in the story I had become. He tilted his head back and drained the last of the wine from his wide clay cup. He turned it upside-down and set it on the bar with a dull thump of finality.

There was a small clamor of questions, comments, pleas, and thanks from children who had remained still as stones throughout the story. Skarpi made a small gesture to the barkeep who set out a mug of beer as the children began to trickle out onto the street.

I waited until the last of them had left before I approached him. He turned those diamond-blue eyes on me and I stammered.