Vultures Read online

  “Maybe it’s not a bad thing,” Cailean said, and both Theailys and Leyandra raised eyebrows. “That power, that control you had—”

  Theailys snorted indignantly. “What control do you think I had, Cailean?” He stood, banging a fist on the table. “I was possessed! I felt everything, I heard souls screaming as I reaped them”—he hadn’t remembered that until now—“and I liked it. It imbued me, the thing possessing me, with strength. I saw it all, watched myself destroy the Reaver without actually being able to move.” He shook his head, eyes wet. “That…that’s not control. That’s imprisonment, torture in its highest form. Imagine if this darkness inside of me, this thing decided it wanted to kill more than just lokyns. Imagine if I had to watch myself kill Anayela again, or Searyn. Imagine being powerless to prevent yourself from slaughtering those you love.”

  Cailean narrowed his eyes and downed the rest of his drink. “I don’t need to,” he said. “I’ve been there before.”

  “What do you mean?” Theailys asked.

  “Galska Nuul,” Leyandra murmured. She looked at Cailean, confusion drawn across her face. “I thought—”

  “I lied.” Cailean sniffled, then heaved a sigh. He fixed his eye on Theailys. “When I lived and worked in Harbanan I loved a man named Bar. We were married. We were going to start a family.” He tensed his jaw to keep his lips from trembling. “But he died, and I was alone.” He let a watery chuckle escape. “Except…except Bar wasn’t actually dead, you see? This monster, this thing called Galska Nuul that’d been terrorizing Harbanan for years? Turned out he and Bar were one and the same. He came back to me in the end; for a moment it was just the two of us, like old times…”

  Cailean trailed off, trembling.

  “He possessed you, didn’t he?” Leyandra asked. “Oh, Cailean…”

  “I couldn’t do anything,” Cailean murmured. “So, I watched, powerless to stop myself from driving my blade through Bar’s heart.”

  Silence hung over the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Theailys said finally. “That’s—fuck. I’m sorry.”

  “’S why I told you what I told you on our way to Ulm,” Cailean said. “You let the devil in, you better be ready for the inevitable pain.” He sighed. “Fucking entropy. Fucking coin bullshit.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Leyandra asked.

  “Something Bar told me the day I drove my dagger through his heart,” Cailean said. “I understand it now, I think, and fuck all if it’s not twisted.” He poured himself another drink and took a sip, swishing the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing. “Think of the world as a coin. On one side, entropy; on the other, law. When the coin favors entropy then shit like this”—he held his arms out wide—“happens. When it favors law, we have decades, centuries of peace.”

  “And if it favors neither, then we have balance,” Leyandra guessed. “From chaos comes law, from law comes chaos.”

  “Right,” Cailean said. “Galska Nuul’s reign of terror was about restoring balance in some really sick and twisted way—”

  “You think this war with Te Mirkvahíl is about restoring balance?” Theailys scratched his nose. “I suppose that makes a bit of sense. Without chaos law becomes tainted, thus we look to horribly entropic events to draw law back to its true purpose.”

  “Exactly.” Cailean took another drink. “Interesting philosophy. Fucked, too .”

  Theailys motioned for Cailean to pour him a drink. As he caught the glass Cailean slid across the table a thought occurred: chaos, law, and balance, another triptych. It felt appropriately applicable to the dream he’d had several nights ago, the dream in which the idea of the triptych had first manifested. Faro was surely entropy or chaos, so what was Theailys: law or balance?

  There came a knock at the door, and in stepped an acolyte with a folded piece of parchment in hand. The acolyte beckoned to Theailys; he stood and accepted the parchment curiously, the acolyte withdrawing.

  “What’s that you have?” Cailean asked.

  Theailys opened it, scanning. Smudged ink, written hastily it seemed. General Khoren charged with treason for…

  Theailys blinked. He had surely misread that. Trembling, adrenaline rushing through him, he reread the letter in its entirety.

  “Theailys?” Cailean stood and approached. “You all right?”

  Theailys said nothing, only held the letter out to Cailean, who read it, cursed, then picked up a chair and hurled it across the room, screaming.

  Searyn was dead.

  * * *

  First Mar. Then Anayela. Now Searyn. Theailys sucked his flask dry. He stood at the edge of the Thumb, looking north as the moonlit sea crashed against the rocks below. Some triptych. Some… He hiccuped, then leaned over the stone banister and retched, tears trickling down his cheeks to amalgamate with his disgust. Khoren had better be alive when I return. I’m going to kill that fucker myself.

  “Together we will reap the general of his soul, my Flesh,” said Faro, finally rousing after two days of sleep. Theailys welcomed the company of chaos, regardless of what had transpired in Tal. “I will help you avenge your sister. I am sorry she is gone.”

  I didn’t even get to say goodbye before I left, Theailys thought. They just showed up and whisked her away. He recalled that moment clear as day. The fear in Searyn’s eyes, the confusion. Theailys reared his head back but no scream, no howl of anguish came. Just a sob as he dropped to his knees, the flask clanking several feet away.

  “There now, my Flesh,” Faro whispered, manifesting at Theailys’ side. He put a hand on his shoulder. “There now.”

  Theailys looked up at Faro. For the first time he saw not a white-eyed shadow, but a gentle face composed of smoke. Why do you look like me?

  “Do you really not know, my Flesh?” Faro asked. “I would have thought it obvious. We are the same, you and I.”

  Theailys tilted his head. How?

  “Think, my Flesh. That day when the Faithbringers confronted you in the woods.”

  Theailys recalled being collared in the woods, questioned about the bodies. He also recalled their ignorance of Faro as the shadow had toyed with and mocked them. How he was the only who could see Faro.

  I’m…phrenzic, aren’t I?

  Faro nodded. “To admit an illness such as this is not easy, my Flesh.” He dissolved, withdrawing to Theailys’ mind. “But it is a good first step toward achieving balance.”

  Theailys snorted. Funny coming from you, you know? Chaos preaching balance.

  “No one is perfect, my Flesh.”

  Why’d you do it? Tal. Why’d you make me watch, make me feel? Theailys pushed himself to stand, leaning against the banister for support. Shit, why’d you cede control?

  “It is truly remarkable, my Flesh, how many questions you seek answers to when you already have them floating in your head,” Faro chuckled. “If we are to fix this, this situation of ours, then law must come to light. Without law there is no balance.”

  Theailys heaved a second time. Are you…saying…?

  “Yes. Another voice,” Faro said. “And the fact I sound less crazy than usual suggests my efforts to invoke him haven’t been for naught.”

  Theailys vomited again. What…the hell…is wrong with my head? The night swam in and out of focus, the volume of the crashing sea waxing and waning. Theailys staggered back from the banister, tripping over his own feet. The back of his skull smacked the flagstones and darkness embraced him.

  “Mirkúr.”

  “Illum. It has been a long time,” Faro said. Before him stood a figure of…well, illum.

  “You say that as if my absence was self-imposed,” Illum said, crossing his arms. “So many years of repression, of being subdued by your bloodlust and madness—why seek me now?”

  Faro narrowed his eyes. “You know why.”

  “Balance,” Illum said. “We suffered the loss of our parents, our brother, and our wife. Now our sister, too, it seems. So why now, after all this time, after all
this pain you caused us?”

  “Because,” Faro said, “the world is going mad. I can sense that, and I am quite sure you can too. Something is horribly amiss whether our waking self cares to admit so or not.”

  “Why not do as you always do, then, hmm?” Illum snapped. “Reap. Annihilate.”

  “I would not have to if you were here to temper my insanity,” Faro hissed, mirkúr blades forming in his hands. “Without law, chaos, or had you forgotten?”

  A brilliant longsword took shape in Illum’s hand. “I would be able to temper your insanity if you had not banished me in the first place!”

  “I AM DEPRESSION!” Faro lunged and swung. Illum danced out of reach. “BANISHING YOU IS WHAT I AM MEANT TO DO, YOU FOOL!”

  Illum extended his blade, threads of luminescence shooting forth and encapsulating Faro. “This is true, yes.” Illum flicked his wrist and the encapsulation shrunk, reducing Faro to a shrieking orb of smoke. “But I am Euphoria, and I am meant to banish you.” Illum extended his free hand, palm upturned, and drew the orb in. “Your time is at its end.”

  “BALANCE!” Faro raged. “BALANCE!”

  Illum shook his head, then crushed the orb. Balance simply would not do. Balance meant that chaos always had a chance to supersede. If things were as mad as mirkúr claimed them to be then law and only law could rule this fragile husk of what had once been a happy man.

  Illum dismissed his blade and held his arms out wide, allowing himself to dissolve, his brilliant essence beginning to permeate the blackness of this thing that was Theailys’ mind.

  I will see this world absolved of darkness. I will see myself absolved of fury and despair. The outside world blinked in and out. Theailys An was starting to wake. I will do what must be done.

  Another blink, and Illum was blinded by the brilliance of the waking world.

  * * *

  They called the Seraph’s chamber the Seat of Divinity. Before Theailys stood an effigy perhaps a hundred feet tall. Embedded in the massive statue were seven podiums and seats: one for each upturned palm; one for each of the four unfurled wings; and one for the faceless hood. At each podium stood a figure shrouded in white and wearing a helm with an eyeless visor; fixed atop each helm was a circlet.

  Theailys bowed his head to these figures, waiting to be addressed. His gaze wandered, admiring the architecture and design of the Seat. The white of the floors bled into the walls, ascending in threads that gradually faded to shades of gray the closer toward the ceiling they grew. The ceiling itself was like an ascending stairway, the stairs replaced with stained glass that cast threads of white and red light onto the chamber floor.

  “Theailys An,” the Seraph’s Head finally addressed. “Welcome.”

  “Thank you.” Theailys took a breath to push away the modicum of anxiety. Weirdly enough he felt better, more at ease than he had in weeks, and that was even after last night learning of Searyn’s death. He recalled momentarily vomiting off the Thumb, then shook away the memory and scanned the Seat. “I have come to collect the star crystal for which I petitioned and was granted access to months ago. In light of recent of events, however, I understand if the Seraph sees need for further deliberation, though I would implore that any punishment you see fit to bestow upon me comes after we have destroyed the Heart of Mirkúr once and for all.”

  Theailys clasped his hands behind his back, taking a second steadying breath. That had sounded well enough. Formal, responsible, devoid of desperation. He only hoped the Seraph would see reason.

  “The transpirations in Tal were most troubling indeed,” the Head said, voice doubled and distorted by its visor.

  “How many souls was it?” the First Right Wing inquired. “Marshal Nor offered only an estimation.”

  Theailys swallowed. “I…” He shook his head, casting his eyes toward the floor in shame.

  “Too many to count, presumably,” the Second Left Wing said. “Surely such a beast as this cannot be left to run amok.”

  “Beast?” The Left Hand chuckled. “How boldly excessive. I see no beast, but a man at war against himself, against the demons in his mind.”

  “Indeed,” the Right Hand offered. “There is a darkness in Theailys An. Call it chaos, call it entropy, whatever you desire, but know this man might be our only hope to raze the Heart for good.” The Right Hand turned to acknowledge the Wings and Head. “We all have darkness in us. Let us not forget that some here are dissident too.”

  “The Hands present valid observations,” said the Head, “but let us not forget when last The Keepers’ Wrath was wrought.”

  Theailys tilted his head. “I am not some clone of Faro Fatego if that is what you are insinuating. I am not some puppet of Te Mirkvahíl. If I believed there was even a chance The Keepers’ Wrath would fail do you think I would be here? Do you think I would have pushed myself to see this weapon to fruition if I thought history was trying to repeat?”

  “If you thought history was trying to repeat,” the Head said. “Therein lies the key: you. But what about what the rest of Ariath thinks? Pray tell, what might the phantaxians think?” The Head leaned over the podium. “We have eyes all around, Theailys An. Did you think the Seraph unaware of the time you spent in Te Vétur Thae?”

  Theailys tensed his jaw. “King Undrensil and his daughter believe Te Mirkvahíl to be lying in wait.”

  “A belief that contradicts your fallen sister’s claim of having slain the beast,” the Second Left Wing said.

  “What to think?” the First Right Wing mused. “What to think?”

  “Respectfully, you have my condolences,” the Left Hand said.

  “Childish behavior, shaming a fallen general before her kin,” the Right Hand scolded, looking up at the Head and Wings.

  “Childish indeed,” the Second Right Wing agreed. “You align yourselves with General Khoren’s school of thought with such flagrant disrespect.”

  “If we are all done arguing amongst ourselves,” the First Left Wing interjected, “might we proceed with judgment?”

  The head sighed. “As you wish. Those in favor of officially granting the petition?”

  Four hands. Theailys felt a rush of relief and heaved a sigh.

  “Those in favor of trial upon destruction of the Heart?”

  Raised hands from the Head and Wings. A bit of weight returned to Theailys’ shoulders, but it was nothing he hadn’t anticipated. In fact, he found he more or less agreed with being tried, which felt a big departure from his previous mindset. From chaos, law, he thought. And from both, balance. Maybe this was a first step toward restoring balance to his country, to his world.

  What do you think? he asked of Faro.

  “A trial is fair,” the voice replied. It was different, more measured and soft-spoken. “A trial is law, after all.”

  Are you the other voice? Theailys asked.

  “Call me Remy, if you wish,” the voice replied.

  Where’s Faro?

  “Is that what he had taken to calling himself? How ironic,” Remy mused. “Mirkúr is asleep. The coin has flipped.”

  Which would explain why Theailys had felt so light the entire day despite the shitstorm that had been the previous night. He supposed he was all right with this, though being unable to feel Faro’s presence was strange. It made Theailys feel naked in a way, vulnerable, even.

  “We will have the crystal prepared and delivered to your quarters,” the Head said.

  Theailys nodded, bowing to each of the seven in turn, offering prolonged gratitude to each of the Hands. “Thank you, Seraph. I will take my leave.” He offered the formal salute, then turned and started from the Seat, feeling an amalgamation of discomfort, confusion, and relief.

  * * *

  Wars were not won with one broad stroke. Victory required strategy, and strategy required patience, the former being something Behtréal had always excelled at, the latter being something he’d acquired through the years. He’d had failures, yes, but from failure blossomed wisdom. His fath
er and brother had always been fond of that saying.

  This will work, he assured the monster in his thoughts. I have seen it. I have learned from past mistakes.

  Faro Fatego had been a pawn encircled by knights, empowered by a king and queen, and Behtréal had made the mistake of trying to take Helveden and The Keepers’ Wrath by force. But not this time. No, he was keen to play the waiting game, the slow burn as some might say. He would clear the board then strike with unbounded fury. Vengeance for the sake of vengeance. Vengeance for the sake of reclamation.

  He looked at the box atop his desk, at the mirkúr-tinged face residing within. “Oh, General Khoren.” The man had been quite alarmed to see Searyn An’s naked corpse come staggering at him with a blade, not that Behtréal blamed him. It had made defacing him all the more worthwhile. Tender flesh was easier to flay and my—how the general had screamed!

  “His soul shrieks even now,” Te Mirkvahíl groaned. “May I, Te Luminíl?”

  Yes, Behtréal thought. Devour what little of it remains. We are low on illum.

  He felt a surge of a power moments later and Te Mirkvahíl sighed contentedly within his mind.

  Behtréal reread the letter he had composed, then scrawled the queen’s signature at the bottom. He placed it in the box with Khoren’s face and tied it all together with a piece of string. What do you think? he asked of Te Mirkvahíl.

  “There will be chaos,” the voice replied. “And from chaos, death. From death, deliverance.”

  I thought as much, Behtréal agreed. He stood from his chair, parcel in hand, and started from Mistress Khal’s office to send word to the Seraph. They were going to panic, then retaliate with a force of Faithbringers when they learned that Queen Ahnil had murdered General Khoren and devoured his soul.

  Like I said, Behtréal thought. Wipe the board.

  1 1

  Dream

  “You’ve been quiet, lately,” Cailean said.

  Theailys glanced up from his evening meal of bread and meat. “A lot on my mind.”

  “Quite the understatemefnt,” Remy said, manifesting as an inverse silhouette. His almond-shaped black eyes scrutinized Theailys. “Do you plan to indulge his curiosity with a better explanation?”