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Chapter 64. The Truth |
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ain was his first awareness. His head throbbed like the inside of an enormous drum and his throat ached with thirst. For a long time he lay still upon his right side, hardly daring to move. Cold, and he was still tired. He might have slept longer if his poor body had not hurt so much. “I have come to bargain,” said a familiar voice. Pendaran did not answer. He waited for Haodrim to speak again, wondered what game he was playing now. Nestled in the darkness behind his eyelids, he did not give any indication that he had heard. “You asked for my help. I am offering it.” “All I want is for you to go away,” Pendaran croaked at last. He drew his knees up closer to his belly, the burn of his thighs almost unbearable. It was as if he had been kicked to the point of rawness and left for dead. “I cannot go away,” Haodrim rumbled, “I was seeded in your flesh. The Mursaat has bound us together. We are one being now, for good or ill.” “I don’t care. Just… go off and die.” “Then you would die as well.” “At least I’d have some satisfaction, then.” Pendaran did not open his eyes. He no longer trusted them and he had very little faith in his own thoughts and memories now. If it was true that he and Haodrim were one, it hardly mattered. He doubted he could hide anything from the Margonite. If he had anything left to hide. “Odd, is it not? You are transparent to me, and yet you confound me.” Pendaran felt cold stone beneath him and the ache of rubble poking into his thinly clad flesh. He sat up, refusing to lie before the monster though his body burned and shuddered at the effort. He pressed his back against the worn blocks and mortar, his heels digging in against hard pan as he drank in the familiar odor of ash and blasted earth. He did not want to look but he already knew what he would see. Peering through his crusted lashes he saw the remains of his birthplace. Once more the jagged walls emerged from the red haze of ruined Ascalon and he took a mental catalogue of the only place he had ever called home for the first twenty-three years of his life. The steps that had once led up to the bedrooms where generations of his line had lived and loved and died were now lumps of stone piled with cinders. The richly carved balustrade that had once curved above the marble entry hall had been vaporized along with everything that had mattered to him during the innocence of youth. “At least they died quickly,” Haodrim said quietly, his footfalls crackling over the hardened earth and rubble, “You saw this and wanted to die, if I recall correctly.” “Yes,” Pendaran rasped. “Why did you continue?” Haodrim asked, the malice gone from his voice now as he approached a fallen column, its base cracked and twisted like the stump of a petrified tree. “I couldn’t.” Haodrim strode closer, his great nose emerging from the deep shadows of his hood. “Could not or would not?” Pendaran laughed though it hurt to do so. “You tell me. You appear to know everything.” A sardonic smile curled the man’s lips. “Revenge? Really?” Pendaran shrugged. “You see all this horrible destruction, your entire nation ground down to rubble and you decide to live for the sake of revenge? Pathetic little you against the gods?” Haodrim mocked. “At least I cared enough to have anger and grief. I pity you. You’re not even human any more, you’re a perversion.” Haodrim spread his arms, taking in the blasted landscape with a sweeping gesture. “This is the might of Abaddon. You do not look upon this and tremble?” “Abaddon is dead. As for trembling, it’s something flesh does under duress. I trembled when I got married, too, come to think of it. It was much preferable to bowing and scraping to a power-hungry deity. I’ll keep my humanity, thanks.” “Humanity has grown weak since the gods departed!” Haodrim spat, towering over him now, the hem of his ornate robe slapping Pendaran’s chin. “Or perhaps we grew strong when we learned to stand on our own two feet. I don’t need you or Abaddon. Quite frankly, I don’t really need the other Five.” “Blasphemer! You would roast upon the coals at Abaddon’s feet for uttering such filth.” “So followers are better when coerced with fear? That must be why people are flocking to your dead god’s temples. My guess, of course, is that he wasn’t missed.” “He was the first and mightiest of them! He was the father of the gods!” Haodrim shouted at him, “He gave them the secrets of his power and they imprisoned him in Torment for his generosity!” “Ungrateful kids,” Pendaran wheezed, gesturing to the ruins, “but I’m afraid I’d lock my daddy up too if he were capable of this.” “The one from whom he wrested power was no better,” Haodrim roared, “but at least he tamed the great dragon and freed humanity. It was our turn to rule! We are his scions, his children and you mock his gifts.” Pendaran shrugged. “This is a great present,” he replied, lifting his hand and allowing a ribbon of blasted red sand to pour through his fingers, “How did he guess I always wanted my entire family and home to be utterly destroyed? How thoughtful. And I feel so free.” Haodrim fell silent and stalked away. “You see, I learned something from this,” Pendaran said to his back, “Destruction is easy. Why should I hold you or anyone in awe for what nature mindlessly does on its own given enough time?” “Be silent!” “No, I will not be silent. I am avenged by acts of love and beauty,” Pendaran laughed, “Abaddon be damned. The inability to choose or create is no power at all.” Haodrim snarled an oath and stalked away, leaving him alone in the chill wind. For a time he only sat there, too weak to rise and in too much pain to care. Then, gazing upon the remains of his past, he remembered the great hearth that had once loomed over the entry hall and the old trestle benches that were placed near it on cold winter days. He recalled the musty odor of his father’s dogs wrestling and growling in their simple exuberance as they all warmed up and dried off after the hunt. There was the sweet odor of mulled wine and the resinous tang of fir boughs brought inside to adorn the mantle and the stairwell. There were the voices of he and his brother, of his father and uncle, singing the old Wintersday songs beside the fire. They held the truth of light reborn from the depths of night, of the indomitable nature of the human spirit. He raised his voice as a dare, as a taunt, until the pain fell away. Until he was free. |
