Peculiar Soul

It is not uncommon that I hear voices of discontent at the lack of progress in the War. Mine rose among their number, when I was freshly-ensouled and new to the conflict. That we have fought for nearly a century and find ourselves trading the same denuded scraps of land back and forth each season - it feels futile, and in its immediate context it is.

What I did not realize at the time was that there is no short path to triumph, for the long conflict of the War must test us in its fullness before any meaningful resolution. Anything else only prolongs the pain for no benefit; we must undergo the depths of this trial. Struggle is the vehicle by which a man makes himself fit for a soul, and what is true for one is true for the multitudes; in this crucible of violence we refine the soul of our people into something worth venerating.

There are many who misunderstand the concept of the peoples’ soul, thinking it either a pleasant fabrication spun to placate the unsouled multitudes or, conversely, a literal soul of surpassing magnitude. It is neither, being more real than the former and less real than the latter.

To understand, answer this question: what does a soul recognize in a man, to deem him worthy? Every child knows this answer; it is that every man carries within him the echo of the first soul. In rising to struggle we find the divine within ourselves, which we retain even if no soul answers.

This renders the War a worthy pursuit, independent of any eventual victory. We raise men through this conflict into their divinity. Not all men may know the joy of having a soul, but each who marches into battle may know the honor of deserving one.

- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687

The blot of darkness stayed fixed on the horizon as they began their descent, although the unnatural dark was quickly masked by great clouds of steam that billowed up from within. Michael shuddered, remembering the oppressive heat and dark that Vincent’s soul had generated on the day they had fled his father’s carriage.

Emil urged the horses forward. His eyes lingered on the plumes from the plains ahead as they streamed upward, lips pressed into a thin line. Michael felt his strident worry; it pulsed away under his impassive expression in a slow heartbeat.

“Will it be a problem?” Michael asked.

“You know as well as I,” Emil replied. “I seldom travel these passes, and never before when Smoke was on the field.”

Michael nodded; he might have even believed Emil if he could not feel the grim foreboding within him. “Let’s hope for the best, then,” he said.

“Let’s hurry.” Emil gave a quick, coughing laugh. “I’ve never had weather that cared what I hoped. I’ll rest easier when we’ve got trees overhead.”

Despite that, he did not urge the horses to go too much faster; the slope was steep and they were already pushing the bounds of reason with the pace of their descent. Emil’s knuckles were white on the reins, his eyes constantly darting back to the sprag wedged into the spokes of the rear wheels.

Michael could not say his fear was misplaced. On the slope they currently walked, if the horses were to spook or the wheels break free then there would be little they could do to stop the cart from hurtling down the mountain. After the initial drop from the pass, the descent grew so severe that Emil made everyone disembark and walk behind the carriage to keep the weight down.

And still the clouds came. The plains were nearly cloaked from view now, the vista beyond the forest shrouded past a thick wall of mist that trailed upward into darkening thunderheads. Wind picked at them, warm and humid as it swept up the slope. The first fat raindrops struck Michael’s shoulders while they were still amid the high mountain tundra.

He looked around nervously, feeling the swelling energy of the storm around them. The clouds pressed close atop them, and dull grumbles of thunder reverberated from the rocks until it seemed the mountain was voicing its displeasure at their trespass.

The last stretch of open mountainside before the safety of the forest was a yawning, gentle slope; Emil stopped the cart and fairly tore the sprags from the wheels before hopping back up to the bench.

“Time to move,” he shouted. “Everyone up! Hold on to-”

His last words were lost as an actinic finger of lightning snaked down to strike against the nearest peak. The thunder arrived in the same instant, a concussive slap to Michael’s ribs. Vernon screamed and collapsed, his hands clasped over his ears; Charles and Michael picked him up and threw him into the cart.

The horses trotted forward in nervous fear, Charles leapt up to the receding step and extended his hand down. “Time to go, lordling!” he shouted.

“Go!” Michael yelled, motioning them forward with an emphatic wave of his hand. “I need to clear the path when we hit the trees. I can keep pace!”

Emil snapped the reins without delay; some detached part of Michael’s mind wondered if he should be offended at the lack of hesitation from the carter-

Another tendril of lightning struck against an outcrop upslope. The cart clattered over the rocky field at breakneck speed, the horses barely restraining themselves to a panicked canter. Michael bared his teeth and began to run along with them.

The rain was falling in earnest now, whipping into his face in stinging droplets. The wind struck him in fitful bursts; the air robbed him of his momentum and sent him stumbling for a precarious moment. Michael swore and reached out to Stanza, wrapping the world in the bright glows of possibility once more.

His feet landed surely, and he kept running. Under Stanza’s guiding aegis he nimbly threaded his way through the tundra in the cart’s wake. The footfalls made a rapid rhythm, blending with the rain and hoofbeats.

Lightning struck again, close to his right - and again, closer. His next breath carried the sting of ozone, sharp on the wind. Michael’s ears rang. There were two muted blasts from elsewhere on the slope, then a third just behind them.

Michael ran forward with the storm resonating in his bones; the indifferent power of it loomed over and around him. Thunder rang out, and he shouted back with wordless exhilaration. A laugh tore free from his throat. For a moment, in between footfalls, the slivers of light limning each rock and raindrop slid over each other in their vast and intricate chaos.

A glimpse of something shuddered through him, the same recognition of scale and power that had reverberated within him as he fled from the attack over Leik. The next blow of his foot came slowly, dimly as he tried to turn his sight towards it-

And then the first wind-bowed trees stretched over their path, forcing Michael to focus ahead and clear the way. He thrust the image of Jeorg shaping their way home to the fore of his mind, like a burning star; the gnarled branches fairly leapt aside at his outstretched hand.

Emil kept the horses running fast until they were comfortably sheltered under a crowd of pines, or the horses declined to listen to his requests until then. Perhaps they had reached an agreement, Michael thought, a wild grin still plastered over his face from the run. His heartbeat thudded along under the high ringing in his ears as he slowed to a stop beside the cart.

“Ghar’s blood,” Emil gasped, slouching back against the boards and massaging his chest. “Ghar’s bloody fucking ashes. We should have died ten times over just now.”

Sobriquet staggered down from the cart, looking nauseous; she dropped to her knees and stared intently at a patch of dirt. Clair followed just behind, looking rather green herself. Michael sent his sight into the cart.

Vernon was crumpled in a heap with Luc and Charles crouched over him. Blood shone darkly from his ears and streamed from a wound on his head; from the state of the interior Michael guessed that their flight had tossed around supplies and passengers both in the cart’s cramped interior.

“How is he?” Charles asked. “Can you tell?”

Michael nearly fell sideways at the sudden spike of fear the question provoked in Luc, who shrank back at once from Charles. “I can’t,” he said, clasping his hands together across his chest. “No, no, I can’t.”

Charles looked up, his lip curling. “He’s in a bad way. I’m not asking you to fix him, just tell me if he’s hurt worse than it looks.”

“No!” Luc shouted, scrabbling backwards. “I can’t touch him, the last time I-” He paled and bit his lip so hard that Michael saw a red bead of blood. The panic rolling off of him was enough to be disorienting; Michael stumbled over to the cart and poked his head in through the door.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I can look, if looking is all you need.” He climbed upward, feeling the strain from his run now that the adrenaline was ebbing. He let his fingers brush over Vernon’s skin, then closed his eyes.

Gingerly, he pushed Stanza out across Vernon’s body, holding it tight so that he did not repeat what he had done to Isolde - or to Spark. He frowned. There were discontinuities in the auditor’s flesh, places where the paths of his being were obviously wrong; they were broken or twisted in Michael’s perception. Blood dribbled from his ears and the cut on his face - but nowhere else.

Michael spent several long seconds gathering Stanza back to him, moving painfully slow to be sure he did not injure Vernon further. He lifted his hand and let his breath out in a relieved sigh. “I think he’s fine,” Michael said. “I’m no expert, mind, but I don’t see any injuries save for the obvious ones.”

Charles nodded his thanks to Michael, then spared a withering glare for Luc as he exited the cart. Luc sighed and slumped back against the wall of the cart, letting his eyes slide shut - only to spring open again as Clair crouched back through the door.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is Vernon-?”

“Fine,” Michael said. “Well, not fine. He should see a real anatomens about his ears, I don’t know enough to say if they’ll heal on their own.”

Clair frowned, but nodded. “We’ll have to see if we can find one along the way,” she said, looking between Luc and Michael. “Are you sure there’s nothing you can do? It does seem a bit odd to have to search for an anatomens when we’ve got two already.”

Luc looked up with a stricken expression, but Michael shook his head. “I would not try even to save his life,” he said. “I’ve seen what results. Neither of us should be using our souls on people we don’t mean to harm. It’s just - not possible, not without training.”

“Something we can handle in Mendian, perhaps,” Clair said, giving Luc an encouraging smile. “We’ll make a healer of you yet.”

The reassurance did not have the intended effect; Luc rose and nearly fled out into the rain, leaving Clair staring bemusedly in his wake.

“Your friend is an odd one,” she remarked.

Michael shook his head, settling back against the cart’s side. The steady beat of the rain vibrated through the wood to tickle the back of his head. “I’m not sure if he’ll ever come around to using his soul,” he said. “The people who raised him were - not good men. They used their souls to hurt, and in the end to hurt him directly. He has more experience feeling the pain his soul inflicts than anything else, and that - well, I believe that it matters.”

He tilted his head back forward to look at Clair. “Given what he thinks about that soul, he shouldn’t try to heal with it. Maybe with time, if he can find a place in Mendian-” Michael rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Ghar’s ashes. I’m not even sure if they’ll let us in, with just some documents and a couple of words to open the way.”

“Sera seems to think they will,” Clair noted, reaching down to lift Vernon by the shoulders and roll him onto his side. “She’s not usually wrong on matters of importance.”

Michael smiled. “You qualified that sentence twice,” he noted. “But please, until we get there - don’t press Luc about his soul. It would be best if Charles and Emil didn’t either, although I know that’s asking a lot.”

“They’ll fall in line,” Clair said. She grabbed a spare blanket that had been discarded atop a crate and wedged it under Vernon’s head, leaning back to admire her handiwork. “There. Do you think he’ll wake soon?”

“I couldn’t say. I have no experience with healing.” Michael sighed and tossed her another blanket from behind him, which Clair draped over top of the unconscious auditor.

She adjusted it, her eyes locked downward on the blanket. “I wouldn’t say that,” she said. “My sister and I both owe our lives to your healing.”

“That’s different,” Michael insisted. “The mind and body are two separate things. The mind heals itself, it just needs a small push in the right direction.”

“But the body heals itself too, does it not?” Clair asked.

Michael blinked, considering. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I mean, yes, it does, but - all I do know is that everyone says an untrained anatomens can’t heal. Even Jeorg said that, the man who held Stanza before me.” He splayed out his fingers, then slowly curled them into a fist. “My own experiences have - not contradicted that.”

“Another thing to ask the Mendiko,” Clair said lightly. “Whenever we arrive.”

“Yes,” Michael muttered. “Whenever that might be.”

They were underway before too long had passed, with Michael resuming his duties to forge a path for the cart. It had been hard-used in their flight over the tundra, with a jagged crack through one of the wheel rims and an axle that had been knocked just slightly out of true.

The horses, too, were sorely fatigued from their run and the terror that had gripped them on the mountainside. Between the cart and the horses Michael fancied that he could see Emil’s hair turning greyer with each passing moment, the carter’s eyes darting towards every creak of wood or stray hoofstep.

It took until nearly sunset for the rain to mellow, still falling uncommonly warm and with the occasional grumbling thunderclap from high overhead. As the downpour lessened Michael began to smell the faint odor of smoke and other brassy, burnt notes that he could not place.

The slope gentled as they worked their way down to lower altitudes; after the crisp and dry air on the mountain the oppressive humidity lower down felt nearly suffocating. Sweat began to mingle with the rain soaking Michael’s shirt, and he heard mutters of discontent from within the cart.

Through the trees they caught an occasional glimpse of the massive black dome that obscured the highlands below, but when they came around to their first large clearing just shy of the mountain’s base it had vanished. In its place hung a large cloud of haze leavened with darker smoke from a hundred tiny fires that smoldered within.

Sobriquet fuzzed into sight just ahead of Michael, looking out over the treeless expanse beyond the foothills. “A pity,” she said. “It would have been convenient for him to mask the field until we were safely away.”

“You’re hiding us from view anyway,” Michael noted. “Does it make a difference?”

She gave a shrug. “Everything makes a difference. As it stands, we will have to cross under my protection alone. Hopefully whatever the darkness was meant to cover has left enough chaos in its wake to ease our crossing.”

Michael nodded and set off forward. The rain dwindled to a sulking drizzle, then a mist that clung around the crows of hills and left moisture beading on the outside of the cart. The clouds took on a golden tint, and as they reached a small meadow Sobriquet called for a stop.

“We’ll not make it to the front for another few hours,” she said, “and much past here cover starts to become scarce. We’ll rest the horses, have something to eat and continue on in the morning.”

They made camp wearily but with all the more enthusiasm for it; it felt as though they had woken south of the pass last week rather than that morning. Emil busied himself brushing and feeding the horses. After fetching some water for the rest, Michael drew another bucket from the shallow stream cutting through the meadow’s center and brought it to him.

“For the horses,” he said. “Let me know if they need more.”

Emil gave a wordless grunt that might have been gratitude, turning his attention to the horse he was currying. The horse’s simple relief and pleasure at the comb’s touch drew a smile to Michael’s lips; he lingered for a moment before his presence earned him an acid look from Emil.

He sighed and moved to help the others, distancing himself from the carter’s irritation. A small fire was laid and lit, food prepared from their stores. Vernon woke just as the first stars were emerging overhead, to everyone’s relief, and was helped down to a seat by the fire.

“Can you hear at all?” Charles asked, overloud.

Vernon winced. “Yes,” he whispered. “Everything sounds strange, but yes. Please keep - quiet, if you can. Loud noises hurt.”

Charles settled back onto a block of wood he had dragged near to the fire, giving him a thoughtful look. “I’ve seen wounds like that,” he noted, his voice at a lower tone. “Shell-bursts, mostly. Most men who have them go deaf for weeks, if not longer.”

“Most men aren’t auditors,” Clair pointed out. “I doubt he relies solely on his ears to hear. Michael can see if he closes his eyes - can’t you?”

Michael swallowed the mouthful of bread he was chewing and nodded. “Not as convenient as you’d think,” he muttered. “Makes it hard to sleep in a lit room.”

“Wait on,” Charles frowned. “Then why is he hurt in the first place? If his hearing isn’t from his ears, there’s no reason why the blast should have hurt him more than any one of us.”

Clair matched his frown, then shrugged. “A good question,” she said. “I don’t know the answer. Sera?” Sobriquet shook her head, and Clair turned to the other two men. “Vernon, Michael?”

“I keep regretting that I didn’t pay attention to that tutor,” Michael sighed. “Sorry, no idea.”

“No,” Vernon said, wincing.

“Souls which have a sensory component lead to long-term sensitivity increases in the relevant organs,” Luc recited, looking up from where he sat close to the fire, his knees tucked up to his chest. “One of the books I read said it was a limited form of anatomentis altering the organs over time, but Claude thought-”

He broke off, seeming to realize that he had drawn the attention of the group. “Thought that the theory was rubbish,” he muttered, looking awkwardly to the side.

Michael leaned forward, cupping his chin in his hand. “Mind frees the soul,” he said absently. “Soul frees the body.”

“What’s that?” Clair asked.

Charles laughed and grabbed at a piece of cheese. “Lordling’s finally gone mad,” he said. “Probably wondering what would happen if he put his own eyes out.”

“If I decide to I’ll let you know,” Michael said, looking up with a grin. “But maybe not today. No, it was just something Jeorg said once - my old friend, the man who had Stanza before me. He also said the mind shows the soul how to exist.” He shrugged. “Maybe the soul can do the same for the body, after a fashion.”

“Another-” Clair said, looking up as Sobriquet spoke over her.

“-question for the Mendiko,” Sobriquet said, grinning. “Be careful, we need to prioritize the use of whatever credit these documents earn us. We ask them to rid Daressa of Ardans first-”

“Present company excluded,” Clair said, nodding her head at Michael.

“-and answer questions later,” Sobriquet finished. “I’d like to see them try and evict Michael, it’s taken us most of a month just to get him to the border.” She stretched, taking in the firelit faces around her. “And on that note, we should turn in before too long. It’s going to be a long, slow day tomorrow.”

“Going to be hard to sleep with that racket,” Vernon muttered.

Michael raised an eyebrow and looked around; aside from the normal sounds of the forest at night and the gentle crackling of the fire, it was dead quiet. “Doesn’t seem any louder than normal.”

Vernon shook his head irritatedly. “Buzzing, off to the southwest. Hard to tell what it is, everything sounds - harsh,” he said. “I’m surprised you can’t hear it. It’s loud.”

“No, he’s right,” Luc said, tilting his head. “There’s something-”

“Aeroplane,” Sobriquet snapped, shooting to her feet. “The fire-”

Charles was already on his feet, the metal flowing down his wrist to scoop dirt up and over the fire. It hissed as the wet soil smothered the embers, and Michael coughed at the sudden cloud of smoke that engulfed them.

“Scouts? Looking for us?” Emil asked.

“There’s no wings based in the north that I’m aware of,” Sobriquet said, her eyes distant; presumably she was trying for a closer look at the craft. “Hard to get parts and fuel this far from the coast. And it’s not a fighter, it’s too big. Bomber, maybe, but there’s just one.” Her eyes snapped back into focus, and she gave Michael a grim look. “Coming up from the south.”

Ice formed in Michael’s stomach. “Sibyl’s runners?”

“Hard to say from this distance,” Sobriquet said wryly. “I’m not Sibyl, you know. But yes, I’d lay odds that its appearance here has something to do with us.”

“Wonderful,” Emil spat. “More trouble.”

Sobriquet nodded, then turned back toward the cart. “Trouble for tomorrow,” she said. “Rest up. This was always going to be a dangerous crossing. Whatever they’re concocting for us, we’ll throw it back in their face.”

Her defiant words notwithstanding, a grim tension laid across the group as they broke camp in the morning. In a matter of hours they would be at the front.

For all the looming danger, however, the forest was no less pleasant for the morning. Sleepy draughts of birdsong wafted through the trees, provoking irritated glares from Vernon and adding some brightness to what would otherwise be a rather eerie landscape. The mists had risen up again overnight, and their way was cloaked in thick billows of fog.

The trees faded away before the mists did; before mid-day their path turned from forest to plains, then again from plains to bare earth. In some places it was packed and dry, in others so muddy that they had to detour the cart around. Abandoned trenchworks dotted the land, and they soon found themselves forced onto an old road that threaded its way through gaps in the endless crumbling furrows.

In an oddity, posts were driven into the side of the road and rope strung between them; Michael wondered at the fraying rope for a moment before moving on to follow the cart.

Mud gave way abruptly to baked clay that fragmented in irregular cracks across the ground. Michael bent to inspect the ground, finding it dry and hard.

“Smoke,” Sobriquet said. “This must be the edge of yesterday’s darkness. We’re drawing closer.”

Indeed, the few skeletal trees they saw jutting upward from the mud were bleached white or blackened charcoal, all but their largest limbs crumbled away. Bones protruded here and there, similarly bare - horses, for the most part, but Michael saw a few that looked smaller and more delicate. Familiar. He shuddered and kept walking.

Sobriquet began to steer them to one side, then the other as they reached the first manned Ardan positions. The mist parted here and there to show traces of low buildings or the sinuous hummocks of earthworks; the trenches were better-maintained now, their last tenancy more recent.

“Stop,” she said, low but urgent. Emil drew the horses up short, and she hopped down from the back. Michael joined her as she paced ahead.

“I’m an idiot,” she muttered. “Should have seen this coming. They’re fighting Smoke, of course they’d - here, look.”

Michael looked, sending his sight into the mist. He saw what Sobriquet was referencing straightaway; the road was crossed with dozens of strands of wire, barbed and hung with metal bangles that promised to clatter noisily if the wires were disturbed.

“The dark,” he murmured, sending his sight as far as he could. The wires stretched across every patch of ground he could see through the mist, with no route through. “Ghar’s ashes. They’ve set this whole front up to fight enemies they can’t see.”

Sobriquet nodded grimly. “Not convenient for us.” She stalked back to the cart and threw the door wide. “All right, Charles,” she said. “Time to get to work.”