The Combatants Meet

In the oldest stories, the legends before Olyon worship became the only religion, South Kravikas was called Morufu's Palm. The land was flat, dry, cracked, and hot air was the god's breath on your neck. Morufu was, fittingly, a god of fire and trials.

The kilometers-long column marched mostly at night, in twelve regiments, each with its own trains carrying supplies of mostly water. The men carried their food and bedding. The mounted officers and cavalry could travel over the packed and broken ground, but men on foot and gurantor trains traveled much faster on the road. Eight could walk abreast on the highway and leave a lane for mounted messengers.

Three days past Satoma, at dawn after a long overnight march, just as Zaid was getting impatient for a first encounter with his enemy, the main force encountered a lone rider bearing a flag of parlay, white with a red diagonal stripe. Word went down the line, and in time Princeps Zaid came forward with his guard, some staff, Guardian Paraskevi, and her disciple protection detail. The party of twelve also flew a flag of parlay, to let their adversary know they agreed to meet.

The rider was a woman, middle-aged but hardened by years of training: a veteran. Her spear was a bronze of unusual color, and her shield was covered in black cloth.

The general spoke first. He let the woman see his imposing mane and long incisors. "Do you want to surrender already? It seems like a wasted trip!" The people around him laughed, but the messenger refused the bait.

"My master wants to talk before the fighting begins. Will you?" She gestured, and not one hundred meters away was a large shelter, a polished clamshell of shifting green colors, with several figures taking refuge there from the sun. It hadn't been there just moments before. There was music coming from the clamshell, reflected by the round surface to reach them so far away. Zaid didn't recognize the tune.

"Silica, with native mineral inclusions," recited Zorda in a sing-song voice. "Aventurine. Good work. Good work."

Paraskevi cut him off. "That's enough, Zorda. Give us protection."

Disciple Zorda rattled off the prayer in a fast mechanical way, and one by one they received their blessings of protection. Unlike most disciples, Zorda could say the prayer once and apply the effect multiple times. When he was finished, they followed the lone rider to the shaded audience.

According to scouts, there were no enemy forces nearby, but with disciples on the field it was impossible to be sure. If they hadn't seen a four-meter tall green clamshell standing a stone's throw from the road, what else had they missed?

The song that greeted them was mournful as if grieving the death to come. Maybe the enemy was attempting some kind of elaborate mental warfare, but his men weren't about to be deterred by a bit of music. Zaid brought his group to a stop, still mounted on their appalons. A boy sat on a chair in the shelter bowing a nickleharp. He was at the awkward age where children begin to morph into adults, stretched thin by sudden growth. The boy wasn't alone: he had two guards with him, a young man and woman with orange spikes for hair and easy, alert stances. The brindle hair and purple lenses over his eyes identified the musician as the new Pasha. His armor was scarlet, under layers of cloaks. To Calique, autumn nights felt cold.

He stopped playing and put away his instrument. "You're here. Greetings. I am Pasha Phillip the Younger. And you are?"

The Princeps's adjutant answered for him. "You stand before Princeps Zaid, whose presence is too great a privilege for the likes of you."

The purple lenses were aimed at the guardian. "Guardian Paraskevi, it's been a while."

"Your courtesies are wasted on me, heretic. We are here to end you, and save Tenobre from your wickedness."

"And I don't know you, disciple. Who are you?"

"Zorda," answered the old disciple, while avoiding eye contact, "Disciple Zorda."

The Pasha smiled. "I know your work, Brother Zorda. We're big fans of yours in Nexus."

"I like your building. The sparkles are called aventurescence." The more he spoke, the more unusual he seemed. He sounded like a child in an aging man's body.

"Thank you."

"Zorda, hush." Paraskevi's voice was firm.

"You're different, aren't you Zorda? People say you're broken or defective, but you just see the world differently from the rest of us."

"Don't talk to him," the guardian demanded, "you're here to talk to me."

"I'm here to talk to the Princeps, but you can have a turn. Did you explain to Zorda that he was entering a war, that he was helping kill people? That he could be killed?"

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"No Kill! No kill! You said no kill! You said no kill!" Zorda began to pump his arms up and down, agitated. One of his bulwark guided his appalon away and started to calm the man.

Zaid's mouth twisted in distaste. He was uncomfortable with the simpleton and his outbursts, but he'd learned more about the Arts from talking to him than he had from any books in the Citadel.

"I understand he's your strongest disciple," Taylor said to Paraskevi, "but he has the emotions of a child. Even if he survives this, he'll never be the same. Send him home. Let him build his roads and be happy."

"We don't let heretics decide how we deploy true disciples." Paraskevi was good at delivering those heretic lines. The spite was tangible, but it was getting tiresome. The Princeps could barely keep from rolling his eyes.

"That's one thing I'm not clear on. We believe in the same god," said Taylor reasonably, ticking items off on his fingers, "we say the same prayers, and purport to live by the same tenets. Why can't we live in peace? Just because we disagree on a few dogmatic details shouldn't mean we have to fight to the death."

"You defy the first families, the holy bloodlines revealed by Saint Bahram. You steal the sacred arts and hand them out to commoners and nobodies. You will be purged, for the glory of Olyon. You will …" but she couldn't finish over his laughing.

"Oh! I'm sorry, really! But it's so funny! The creator of life, the universe, and everything needs you to add to his glory?" He gradually became more scornful. "Do you honestly think the thousands of lives we spill into the dirt has any power to add the merest glimmer to his glory? No, but please, please go on and tell me how we're going to enhance Olyon by killing each other."

"Enough mockery," said the Princeps. "Surrender yourself and your disciples, and the free tribes will be spared. They can keep their oases, and I will leave Sand Castle unspoiled."

"I don't know you well enough to trust you, and I know Enclave well enough to know their orders are to kill us all. Here is my counteroffer. Take your thirty thousand men home, and let's not fight at all. Nexus will continue training disciples and ensure Kashmar always has a cadre in residence. That way, whenever you have monster problems or need to fight a plague, help is directly at hand."

"You want to replace the church," accused the guardian, "you think you can upset the divine order with your foul ways. You will infect the world with your heresy!"

"I want to help and protect people. I had planned to do that within the church," Taylor insisted, "but you keep trying to kill me. You should be fighting the monsters, instead of fighting the people who tried to help you."

"You are the monsters," spat the guardian.

Taylor decided to speak only to the Princeps. "I have heard your offer, Princeps. You have heard mine. I'll give you until sundown to change your mind."

"Whelp," shouted Bassel the adjutant, "you think you can give terms, when he is as far above you as the sun is above him?"

"Please tell me you don't actually need someone to follow you around to tell everyone how great you are."

"It is annoying, isn't it?" rumbled the Princeps. "He can't help himself. Like most people, he needs someone to look up to. And he doesn't like his idols being disrespected. Your people look up to you too, from what I hear. I wonder what would happen if we killed you here."

"If you tried, that would be a great opportunity for me. That's a fight I'm favored to win, and it lets me kill leadership at the beginning of the war. So make your choice, Princeps Zaid. Ride away from parlay in a respectable manner, or stain your honor to gamble everything on attacking right now."

The boy looked ready for him. Eager, even. As the young pasha had chosen the time and place for parlay, Zaid had to assume he had planned for treachery. If he could hide a big shining structure in plain sight, he might already have him surrounded and Zaid wouldn't know.

Without a word, the Princeps spun his mount and returned to the marching column. His detail followed him in silence, except for the weeping Zorda. The green stone structure was gone by the time they looked back, like it had never been there.

"Fast prayer," said Zorda, forgetting his sorrows. "Very fast. Good fit. Perfect fit."

"What are you going on about now?" demanded an impatient Paraskevi.

One of Zorda's bulwarks answered. "He's talking about the pasha's arts. He's impressed."

Paraskevi was reluctant to agree. "A little talent doesn't mean he can match the true disciples. He lacks everything of consequence."

Zaid wanted a second opinion. "How about it, Zorda? Who do you think is better with the arts? Those disciples," he pointed at a distant part of the column where most of the disciples rode in a carriage, "or Phillip the Younger."

"Phillip is better. Much better. Much much better." Zorda said this without looking directly at Zaid. He always avoided eye contact. "I hear his voice. He talks to me."

Zaid and the others were alarmed. "What does he say?"

"He says, 'Don't die here. Use Overlook and get away. Build your roads in peace.' But I won't go. Enclave is family! Protect the family!"

Guardian Paraskevi spoke soothingly to the man-child. "That's right, Zorda. We're family, so we protect each other."

Zorda hugged himself and rocked back and forth out of time with his appalons gait, which made him wobble precariously. "He says, 'Goodbye Zorda. I'm sorry we can't be friends.' He's gone now."

The Princeps glared at Paraskevi accusingly. "Not many people can use Message. The Luminous Histories say he's an accomplished monster hunter. Nexus News says he killed the creature that slew your disciples. Zorda says he's a better disciple than yours. I think you undersold the boy's threat. Is there anything you want to share?"

"He's a child," she said back at him, "with a pack of failed students and low-grade talents for followers. He's good at puffing himself up, but when the fighting starts the tribes will abandon him. Even a great disciple can't fight whole armies."

"You don't know the tribes like I do," he said, "they'll follow anyone who can bring them victory. And they're fighting for their homes."

The woman, Zaid decided, was an idiot. Even more so than her defective disciple Zorda. Enclave refused to see his obvious talents as a disciple because their pride depended on it. But they were right about his youth, exhibitionism, and lack of experience. A practiced warrior would never allow such a large armed party to get so close: he should have stopped them and demanded a meeting alone with Zaid, or perhaps with one attendant each.

This was going to be harder than he hoped, but Zaid was certain he would win. Hadith's Destiny allowed no other outcome.