Chapter 36: Introspection

“So, what do we do now?”

They were sitting by their campfire, trying to regain some of the heat lost after a long, and for some of them, sleepless night. Sir Themur had stood watch while Dina, Relaila, and the family rested in the aftermath of the attack, though she strongly suspected the father had mostly feigned sleep, trying to keep an eye on them to protect his family. Trust in a Knight Eternal didn’t come easy.

Just after sunrise, Dina and the mother had cooked a meager breakfast from what they could find among the supplies the poor family had carried on the cart, combined with a few greens from the forest surrounding them. She felt guilty for eating what little they had, but the mother had insisted. Still, the oatmeal wasn’t bad, though she could have done with a bit less mold on the stale bread.

When no one was looking, Dina had—entirely by accident, of course—misplaced a few talons between the boxes on their cart.

Now, the sun, slowly rising above the tops of the spruces lining the eastern horizon, was beginning to chase away the morning fog. The thin wisps of gray that had covered the low-lying land were disappearing as she watched.

The night is always coldest just before sunrise.

The thought was comforting in its simplicity.

“What do we do about the mission?”

Relaila tugged absentmindedly at her long, red hair. “I suppose that depends on how we see it. Was it ordained by the gods or the Emperor?”

Sir Themur snorted. “There’s no real difference. The Lion might think he’s in charge, and the army probably even believes he is. But trust me, I’ve been around long enough to know that while he may think he’s the one making the decisions and Mardocar is nothing more than his advisor, the truth is, the Emperor is just as subservient to the gods of the world as we were.”

“Before we decide anything else,” Dina interrupted, “that is what we’re saying, right? That we’re no longer serving the gods?”

Her two friends turned their heads to look at her.

“I think so,” Relaila said. “Remura has brought me nothing but misery. Disguised as carefree bliss, yes, but that kind of deception is just in her nature. All she’s done has been to manipulate me, to suppress who I was. It’s time we turn the tables on them and let them feel our grief.”

Sir Themur nodded. “I agree. I will not lift my sword for Mardocar again.”

“So we’re all in agreement, then?”

Dina looked at them across the warm fire. The burning wood crackled, and a few small sparks erupted into the air. Watching the flames was oddly relaxing this morning, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

“Then what do we do now? There is no mission, and no gods commanding us anymore. Do we just go home?”

Relaila still seemed concerned, though. “There’s still the prophecy.”

“That’s nothing more than empty words,” Sir Themur said, shaking his head. “Mardocar’s ramblings, dressed up to sound grand and divine, but they mean nothing. He doesn’t know the future any more than you or I do. Chances are he just stole a real prophecy and twisted it to serve his own ends. Or he made it up on the spot, like he did with that so-called prophecy about you.”

Relaila nodded. “Yeah, he told us we’d meet you in Terynia in, what, a few days’ time? And then you arrived there, but a day later than he had said you would.”

“He was upset with me,” Sir Themur explained to Relaila. “I had more or less accused him of killing my wife. He wanted to prove a point to me about his power, and came up with that prophecy. Obviously, it didn’t quite come true the way he intended it to.”

Dina found his confession surprising. “You doubted Mardocar even back then? Let me tell you, he worked very hard to get me to fulfill that prediction of his. Too hard, in fact. It was rather obvious he was trying to manipulate me, so I guess I dragged my feet just to spite him.”

“I’m glad you did. It showed me what I needed to see.”

“Aren’t we forgetting something, though?” Dina asked. “What will the gods do to us now?”

Sir Themur’s voice was heavy with conviction when he replied, “Nothing.”

“Really? How can you be sure?”

“I think he’s right,” Relaila said, her voice slow. “Remember, we talked about the gods of the world striking people down, and how no one’s actually seen them doing it.”

“That’s right,” Sir Themur interjected. “No one’s seen it, because they can’t do it. But it’s enough that people believe they can, so I think they’ve cultivated a rumor to that effect. And now, we’re calling their bluff.”

Dina wasn’t so sure. “What if it’s not? A bluff, I mean? It’s a steep price if we’re wrong.”

Sir Themur sat silent for a moment, apparently contemplating something.

“Remember that woman I met back in Dawnlight? Alena, I think her name was.”

That piqued Dina’s interest. The woman had been spying on her for weeks before she even met the Knight Eternal, and she was eager to find out how the two knew each other.

“She told me you were friends. You’re not sure of her name?”

“She was very friendly.” He chuckled lightly.

“Seriously, other than you two, she’s the first person I’ve met in decades who genuinely seemed to have my best interest at heart. I’d say that qualifies her as a friend.”

Well, Dina thought warmly, by that logic, she qualified as his friend, too.

“So, what about her?”

“She told me the gods of the world don’t actually have the power to kill. Not unless we do it for them. Or maybe they do have the power, but they’re not allowed to use it. It was complicated.”

Relaila leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees. “Allowed by whom?”

Sir Themur hesitated before answering, as if he were privy to something he wasn’t sure he was allowed to share with them. But eventually, he seemed to decide he was permitted to tell them.

“The Word,” he answered, almost reverently.

“What’s that? Who’s that?”

He sat quietly for some time, as if trying to come up with a way to explain something he didn’t quite seem to understand himself.

“Look at all our gods,” he finally said. “There are gods for love, gods for strength, gods for commerce and for farming. Whatever domain you can imagine, there’s a god for it.”

Relaila nodded. “Don’t forget rape, genocide, and plague,” she added darkly.

“Of course. But there’s one domain none of the so-called gods of the world have claimed. We have hundreds of them, but have you ever heard any of them calling themselves ‘god of creation’?”

He wasn’t wrong. Dina thought back to her own years of practice. She had healed thousands of sick in Patera’s name. But the god had never raised anyone from the dead.

“That’s because they can’t actually create,” he continued. “Alena said only the Word can. These so-called gods, all they can do is transform, transfer or mold what’s already there, usually by twisting and corrupting it. But they do not have the power to create new life.”

Dina froze. “So when Patera refused to heal Relaila without a sacrifice, it was because she actually couldn’t?”

“She’d never admit that,” Sir Themur replied, nodding. “Saying they don’t want to is just a smokescreen to hide their impotence. Mardocar did the same with my second-in-command. He actually began to heal her, but his powers weren’t enough, and she died before he could finish. When I asked him to resurrect her, he refused, of course. But now I know that was just deflection. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t.

“Imagine if one of them began to call themselves ‘god of creation’ and then kept failing like that when people prayed to them! That’s one power they really wouldn’t be able to fake.

“But this world, Taeron and everything in it, from the depths of the seas to the stars in the sky—the Word made it all. That’s what she told me.

“The so-called gods of the world are not gods at all. They’re nothing more than parasites, preying on man. Fallen spirits intent only on destroying what the Word made, twisting and opposing His will.”

“Well, do you believe her?” Dina asked him, genuinely curious to know. “We only have her word for it—a woman you’ve only known for, what, an hour?”

“When you put it like that…,” Sir Themur said, chuckling a little. “No, I do believe her. I think she’s right. The facts fit, a whole lot better than anything Mardocar has ever told me, that’s for sure. But believing her story is one thing. Figuring out what it means for me is another. It’s something I’ll have to think about some more.”

One of the children—it was the young daughter, she saw—walked up to the Knight Eternal and climbed into his lap, apparently undisturbed by the aroma of death surrounding him. For someone three times her height and clad in heavy, spiked armor, he was surprisingly tender with her, Dina thought with a smile.

“Are you a mage?” the girl asked him with a thin voice, looking longingly at his black visor.

Sir Themur shook his head. “I’m sorry, little one. You got the wrong one.”

He pointed with his iron-clad hand to Relaila. “That’s the one you want. Her name’s Relaila. I think she needs a hug, too.”

The girl slipped out of his lap, down to the ground, and stumbled over to the Blood Sister.

“Hello,” she said. “Can you do a magic trick for me? I’ve heard mages like you can make fire animals. Can you show me? Can you do a rabbit?”

Relaila looked physically sick.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she said, her voice wavering. “It’s not… I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

Dina looked at her, intrigued by her response.

“Can’t, or won’t?” she asked when the girl had retreated to play with her brother, then instantly regretted her question.

A single tear was tracing a path down Relaila’s cheek. In its wake, it left only her bare skin, cleansed of soot and dirt.

Despite crying, she smiled at Dina.

“Won’t. But even if I wanted to, I’m not sure I could. My magic has been unstable lately.”

Dina understood. “Yeah, I noticed that during the battle. That’s why I asked.”

“One second it’s working perfectly. I’m casting fire everywhere without any issue. Then, the next moment, it’s as if I never learned magic in the first place. There’s nothing there.”

“I don’t think you ever did,” Dina told her. “Learn magic, I mean.”

“How so?”

“It was never you. You never had any dark magic. It was always Remura. You stretch out your hand and there’s fire. Naturally, you think you’re the one casting it.

“But what if it’s just a trick? What if you only held out your arm and it was Remura who created the flames, roughly where you intended them to go? Remember, she’s been inside your mind this whole time. She always knew your intentions, and she had both the power and the reason to fake it. It was just another counterfeit.

“The same is true for me, too. I don’t think I ever had any healing magic. It was always Patera, following my will. Most of the time, I should say. More than once, it felt like the healing had a mind of its own. I guess, now that I think of it, it really did.

“Remember how easy it was to use our dark magic. There was never any effort required. Just will it, and it happened. I wonder if that wasn’t because it was never really us doing it. It was always the gods. All they needed was our permission.”

“I did have magic, once,” Relaila told her. “But it wasn’t Remura’s. I don’t like to talk about it, but I used to be a Fire Breather. Back before… her.”

“Why did you stop? What changed?”

“Some things happened. But mostly because of what you said. The effort. As a Fire Breather, I had to control every step of it. The density, the speed, the temperature. Everything had to be right, or the fire just fizzled out.

“And then there was the power. With the Deepwell, I could only work within the laws of nature. I couldn’t cast fire underwater. I could only cast in a straight line. Once it left my control, I couldn’t change the path of the fire.

“All that changed with Remura. Concentration and precision were no longer needed. I could cast in battle without risk of failure. I could summon multiple tendrils simultaneously and control them all at once, curving and twisting them as I wished. At least that’s what I thought. And the power… With Remura, there was no practical limit to how strong my fires could be.”

Dina nodded. “We’ve all been deceived.”

“Not just us,” Sir Themur interjected. “Everyone has. We’ve been blind, but now we’ve been given the gift of sight again. The Word must have long worked behind the scenes to get the three of us to this point. I think getting us here was His plan from the beginning.”

Relaila looked at him, reeling from the shock of realization. “You mean the Emperor didn’t…?”

“I’m sure he thought he did. Mardocar’s false prophecy, our mission… They were all meant to bring us together. But unlike the so-called gods of the world, the Word really does know the future. He knew what we’d experience along the way. What we’d say to each other. All He had to do was provide little nudges here and there, to give us the opportunity to open our eyes—if we wanted to.”

Dina let out a relaxed sigh. “It all brought us together here, didn’t it? To this moment?”

Her mind was still full of questions, but those would have to wait. For now, it was enough to sit by the fire this morning, warmed by its glow and the presence of her friends.

Author's Note

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