Chapter 51: Under the Oak

The divinity we bear wields us like a hammer against the world, and its will is seen in righteous action. It is simple and easy to listen to this voice, but the righteous man must do so without regard for pain. Divinity does not recognize the frailty of men, and shows us the path that must be taken even unto our deaths.

The test of the righteous, then, is whether one may surpass base fear and doubt with trust in the divine. It is a noble thing to sacrifice oneself in the cause of divinity, and the most terrible of crimes to deny its exhortations in favor of comfort and safety.

Every man must die; this is the truth. Knowing this, the cowardly man flees from death - but the righteous man accepts it as the natural end of life, and seeks to die brightly, boldly, with the fire of the divine burning in his breast. This is not to say that death is to be sought, for ending the path before its fullness is also a coward’s refuge.

Make of your life a hammer’s blow upon the iron of the world. Rise up to your height - and fall with purpose.

- The Book of Eight Verses, the Verse of Flame. (New Kheman Edition, 542 PD)

Trees blurred past on the side of the road, the sunlight filtering through their branches in a quick, irregular beat. Michael clenched his jaw and looked over at Sobriquet; she, too, was sitting with barely-concealed tension as Unai pushed the motor carriage faster still.

“The young master and mistress should be at ease,” Unai said. Michael sensed the valet’s restrained amusement; Unai was utterly relaxed as he wove the vehicle around curves in the road at a speed that beggared any horse. “Mendian has excellent roadways, and the automobile is rated to travel much faster than our current speed-”

“Please, no,” Sobriquet muttered, her hand locked around Michael’s arm as if it were the only solid thing in the world. “The current speed is fine. Or slower.”

Michael saw the brief reflection of Unai’s smile against the glass. “Unfortunately, we must keep pace with Her Radiance.” He nodded ahead; Michael saw the heavy, ornate automobile that held Leire disappear around a turn. “She enjoys a brisk drive, and resists all attempts to moderate her speed. The rest of us, as ever, are left to keep pace.”

The carriage bounced; Sobriquet looked green.

Unai glanced at her in the mirror. “...if I might offer some more practical advice,” he said, “it is often said that looking out the windows helps with any discomfort.”

A wide, sweeping curve pulled them to the outside of the vehicle. Michael found himself pressed between the carriage door and Sobriquet, then jarred back to the center of the seat as they regained the straightaway. He let his sight drift up and out until he was viewing the carriage from above; true to Unai’s advice, he felt his incipient nausea settle.

“I will be instituting some changes around here,” Michael muttered.

He saw Unai’s eyebrow lift, in the reflection; there was a flicker of feeling that came and went as rapidly as the roadside trees. “It would be your prerogative,” he said mildly. “Just as it is hers. It is rare that Her Radiance enjoys such opportunities.”

His words caused a twisting in Michael’s stomach that had nothing to do with their speed. Spacious though it was, Leire’s compound was still a prison of sorts, a cage to keep her from doing harm to the world. She had been confined there for longer than Michael had been alive - longer than his father had been alive, based on what he had been able to piece together.

The thought was a melancholy distraction, one that must have showed on his face; Sobriquet’s grip shifted from a panicked vise to something lighter, small ripples of concern pulsing from her. Michael forced a smile and shook his head fractionally.

“Far be it from me to deny Leire her fun,” he sighed. “It shortens our trip, at least.”

“Indeed,” Unai said, “we are nearly at the end of the protected valley.” He removed one hand from the wheel to gesture upward at the hills; his passengers both tensed involuntarily. “The steep sides and poor soil make building here somewhat difficult, so everything down to the foothills has traditionally been part of the Star’s domain. You’ll see that the city begins rather immediately after the checkpoint - ah, here we are.”

Michael shifted his sight upward once more, just in time to see the view open up upon a broad, flat sweep of land with glittering waters beyond. Every bit of it was choked with buildings, from low warehouses and lots to the shining pillars of glass and steel that loomed over the distant harbor. Calmharbor had been a large city, the largest in Ardalt by far, but there was no comparison to the riotous sprawl of Goitxea.

He felt Sobriquet’s grip on his arm relax as she stared out over the city. “How many people live here?” she asked. “I didn’t think Mendian had so many people in it.”

“Some millions,” Unai responded. “Most of Mendian is rather inhospitable, I’m afraid, so the few southern cities along the strait represent the majority of our population. Goitxea, with its position by the lake, has historically been a center of trade and culture - as well as our primary point of contact with the southern countries.”

The car slowed to a more reasonable speed as they approached a military checkpoint at the base of the road, the gate already opened wide to permit Leire’s car passage. Unai nodded his head at the guards as they passed - and then they were in the city.

Michael’s eyes widened; even this far out from the city center the streets were paved, smooth and black. He did not see a single horse, only more automobiles. They crowded on the sides of the street, choked lots and alleys in dirty, multi-hued variety. They were battered, unwashed, manned by laborers rather than well-dressed coachmen. After a few blocks he slouched back against the seatrest, stunned.

“There are so many,” he muttered. “My father can’t even afford a carriage, and here they’re using them to haul bricks. You must have every Mendiko artifex working day and night, to have so many.”

Unai smiled. “Almost none of these vehicles are artificed,” he said, a distinct note of pride in his voice. “Mendiko artifices are almost exclusively employed for military work, civil projects and infrastructure maintenance. Her Radiance found long ago that it was better to have an artifex build a foundry than serve as one.”

Michael could only nod wordlessly in response; he had been listening to Leire talk about the necessity of scientific advancement for days, but it had not registered with him what that meant in practical terms until now. He remembered his father seething over the expense of a horseless carriage, muttering darkly about his standing in the Assembly - yet here, men Karl Baumgart would not deign to look at were treating them as they would any draft horse.

He spared a glance for Sobriquet; she, too, was wide-eyed and staring at the press of vehicles. Michael realized that he had not seen a single automobile in Daressa, and why should he have? Who was building carriages in the midst of war? Who was refining oil, forging steel, shaping glass and rubber under the constant threat of death and destruction? Michael looked out the window and saw what one thousand years of quiet peace looked like.

Emotion rolled over him, only partially his own; he saw tears in Sobriquet’s eyes as they cut through the prosperous bustle of Goitxea. More so even than Esrou, Mendian showed what Daressa had lost to the War, what the shells and bayonets had robbed from her country. Even if the fighting ended tomorrow, how long would it take for them to construct the sprawling edifice of peace?

Michael had no answer. There were no clear paths between the present and future - but there was, at least, a vision of what might lie in wait past the endless destruction of the War.

The carriage was silent as they drove closer to the buildings at the harbor, reaching high up to the mottled clouds. Each was subtly different, clad in a small fortune of glass and steel. Near the center of the mammoth forest, however, there was a conspicuous void. No spires towered over a small circle of land near the coast, and the crowded streets gave way to trees and gardens across a boulevard. There was another checkpoint, its gate decadent and richly-worked with artificed designs; flowing images of trees and mountains formed the bottom, while the top bore men and women standing tall before a radiant sun. The guards snapped to attention as Leire passed through, relaxing only as Unai passed by in her wake.

In the center of the park lay a wide, low dome of glass. Michael knew without asking that it was the Batzar; it was a building written with the architecture of history and power, heavy with age. They took a wide route around the edge of the clearing before pulling into an outbuilding.

Unai stopped the carriage and quieted the engine, his eyes tracking Leire’s vehicle as it continued into another section of the building. The valet managed to exit the vehicle and open the door for Sobriquet before either of them could undo the odd Mendiko safety restraints; he smiled and beckoned them outward.

“This way, please,” he said. “We will wait in the viewing gallery until the Batzar convenes.”

Michael nodded; he gestured for Sobriquet to go ahead, then followed both of them into the facility.

If there was one thing Michael had learned from his brief stay in Mendian, it was that the Mendiko did not take half-measures where architecture was concerned. The main room of the Batzar lay under the building’s grand glass dome, the sunlight glinting through the latticework of metal overhead to fall upon a crescent table.

The table ran nearly the entire circumference of the room, leaving the central area and a space near the tips of the crescent open. The middle was a low, lovingly-kept stretch of grass, bounded by flagstones. At the far end of this captive field stood a tree, an oak that sprawled upward towards the sunlight in a riot of knobbly branches.

Michael’s first thought upon seeing the tree was that it must be the oldest living thing in this world. The bark was twisted with age, fissured and split to reveal deep hollows marring the heartwood. For all that time had ravaged it, however, its leaves grew thick under the sheltering glass; the land under the dome was no sweltering greenhouse, but a calm, shady space possessed of a preternatural stillness.

Men and women began to file in from the far end of the room to take their seats at the table - mostly older, and mostly men, though a scattering of exceptions leavened the crowd. The air under the tree buzzed with the grumble of a dozen quiet conversations as they took their chairs, then quieted as one man walked onto the grass.

He spread his arms and began to speak in Mendiko. Michael frowned, but Unai leaned forward to murmur a translation.

“It is the traditional invocation of the Batzar,” the valet said. “He greets the representatives of the scattered Mendiko people, and commends them for gathering far from their beloved mountains to commit to the welfare of all our people.”

Unai paused as the speaker turned and gestured to the side, his movements suddenly muted and hesitant. The valet smiled. “And now he says that the business of the Batzar must wait, for the Star of Mendian comes to speak on a matter that turns the fate of all.”

At this, a susurrus of restless motion shivered through the room. Doors to the side opened; eight men entered bearing a massive palanquin, wrought with metal and crystal. Amid this cage of glass sat Leire, stiff-backed in a chair. She looked down imperiously as the men carried her to the center with a deliberate, measured pace. They lowered her to the grass and retreated; even then, the height of the palanquin was such that Leire’s seat towered over the others.

The room was utterly quiet as the doors to the outside shut once more. Leire’s chin came up as she surveyed the Batzar with an imperious glare; her eyes marked everyone at the table before she began to speak.

“It has been long since I exercised the privilege of my office,” she said, her voice snapping with crisp Mendiko consonants; Unai translated her word-for-word with a grimly-reverent tone. “Long since I sat under the oak. The Star should watch from afar, bright and distant, only descending in the hour of greatest need.”

Her hands gripped the armrests of her chair, white-knuckled. “So mark well that I am here,” she said. “The falling star heralds calamity. I come before you today to speak of the destruction of Mendian, and the death of all that you love.”

At this, the quiet gripping the batzarkideak broke; a few shouted, others shot to their feet, and one man with a solid build and thick, dark hair glared up at her with a baleful expression. Unai’s voice was thick with distaste as he relayed the man’s words.

“You overstep!” the man shouted. “Authority is not given to you to threaten-”

“Sit.” Leire said, her voice a whip-crack even from the confines of the palanquin. She did not move save to narrow her eyes disinterestedly. “Authority is not given to you, Batzarkidea Mendoza, to speak while I am speaking.”

She held her gaze on him until the man slowly sat down; after a few moments she spoke once more. “This oak that shades us has always been the symbol of Mendian - not of the Mendiko, for we were not always united. Of Mendian, of the Mendiko union that exists for one reason alone: to safeguard our lands from the south.”

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Leire let her words hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “The south is embroiled in conflict,” she said. “Conflict that we have encouraged for our own benefit. The Gharic lands are washed with the blood of Safid and Ardan soldiers, of Daressan women and children. Meanwhile Mendian grows like our oak. Healthy, yes. But stagnant. Sheltered. Confined by a fragile shield.”

She stood from her chair, gesturing upward. “And what if that shield should break?” she asked. “Would the oak survive, after so long without feeling the wind and rain?”

Her hand lingered, extended, her fingers spreading wide - and then clenching into a fist. Cracks spidered through the glass panes overhead, the supports bending with a metallic groan. Panic took the room; some of the batzarkideak turned to the doors, only to find that they had been replaced by a stretch of blank wall. Others hid under the desk, or sat in mute astonishment as they watched shards of glass drop from above.

“Would the oak survive?” Leire thundered, the glass walls of her palanquin crumbling to dust. She stood tall as the dome continued to drop around her, a radiant nimbus building around her body. “When Safid guns deliver death to our people, and Goitxea burns?”

The whistle of shells sounded from overhead; more glass tumbled down as their concussions rocked the room. The few people standing dove for cover, save one; Michael saw Antolin leaning against a back wall, shaking his head with a bemused smile.

A shell struck the oak’s trunk, splintering it and kindling a fire in the wood. There was a great shout from the room, fear and dismay pulsing from them so strongly that Michael nearly sank to a knee. Unai grabbed his arm firmly, keeping him upright as the flames roared up into the branches.

“So ends Mendian!” Leire roared, shining painfully bright. “So ends a foolish people, complacent and soft! Look at this fire, let it sear itself into your mind, for if you forget the danger waiting for us in the world-”

There was a shift; the thunder of shells and the roar of the fire disappeared. The dome once again stretched overhead, and no glass carpeted the chamber. The great oak, however, still loomed blackened and twisted behind Leire’s undamaged palanquin. She sat within, as if she had never moved, staring grimly out at the batzarkideak.

Beside her was Sobriquet, breathing hard; sweat beaded her face and dripped with each exhilarated breath. Her wild grin was a marked contrast to Leire’s scowl, although Michael could feel Leire’s amusement as she watched the stunned members of the Batzar slowly rise to their feet.

“-then you will see it here in truth,” Leire said mildly. “And it will be too late to stop it.”

The first to collect himself was Mendoza, who staggered forward with his hair in disarray and sweat staining his collar. “What have you done?” he asked, staring up at the blackened tree. “The oak-”

“What of it?” Leire asked. “The oak is the symbol of Mendian, and I say that its current appearance is one befitting our state. What is your plan for the years after my death, when the shield protecting you fails?”

“The same as ever,” Mendoza retorted. “You do not represent the entire defense of Mendian. We will persevere in your absence, and seek the next holder of the Star.”

Leire smiled a small, predatory smile. “Is that so?” she said. “Grand Marshal Errea, how do you think we would fare against the forces of Saf if the Star of Mendian passed into their control?”

Antolin gave Leire a long, level stare - then sighed and straightened up. The batzarkideak turned to look at him, still vaguely disoriented from the assault of sound and noise they had experienced earlier.

“As you’re well aware,” he said, “we’ve run exercises approximating that scenario as recently as last year. The results of those exercises were - discouraging.”

“How discouraging?” Mendoza asked.

Antolin slowly turned to look at him. “A likely defeat within the first ten to twenty years,” he said.

A clamor erupted as the batzarkideak began talking over each other, voices raised in protest; Mendoza’s voice cut through them all. “This seems like information that would have been of interest to the Batzar,” he said, his voice strained. The tendons in his neck were visible, his face reddening. “Grand Marshal Errea, why was this not brought forward sooner?”

“Not brought forward?” another man asked, walking forward; he was a tall, thin man with a neat black goatee and a shaved head. “Batzarkidea Mendoza, did you perhaps not receive the annual defense report at the start of the year? I seem to recall that it was rather dire.”

Mendoza turned to glare at him. “That report, Batzarkidea Lekubarri, said nothing about the potential defeat of Mendian by the Safid.”

“It did not,” Lekubarri admitted. “In its final draft. After it was thoroughly edited for clarity and accuracy and all manner of lovely things. But I’m curious, Grand Marshal Errea - before it was submitted to our scrupulously-neutral editors, what was the primary recommendation of your report?”

“That we prepare for inevitable armed conflict within the next decade,” Antolin said. “And that we prepare to intervene proactively in order to stave off a more-destructive conflict later.”

Again, voices clamored against each other in a chaotic press until Lekubarri struck the table with his fist. The others turned to look, and the thin batzarkidea raised an eyebrow. “Given the unusual and delightful visit from Her Radiance, might I suggest that we return to order? She has posed a problem to us, and yet still she stands ready to address the Batzar. Perhaps she also comes to pose a solution?”

He turned and walked back to his seat, but not before Michael saw him wink slyly at Leire; the corner of her mouth turned upward. “Batzarkidea Lekubarri is correct,” she said. “Fortune has favored us with a solution: I have a method by which I am confident we may retain my soul within Mendian’s borders.” She raised a finger. “But it requires a price. Honored Batzarkideak, this chamber must move to declare the ongoing occupation of Daressa by Ardan and Safid forces as an offense to human dignity as specified in article five of the Grand Charter.”

It was as if the mock shelling had resumed anew; shouting echoed down from the dome and made it temporarily impossible to hear anyone clearly. From the fracas, however, a small group of batzarkideak emerged to shout at Leire.

“You would demand that we abandon our neutrality over a Gharic conflict?” Mendoza demanded. “How does this safeguard Mendian?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Leire said, smiling down at Sobriquet.

She mirrored the smile, clenched her fist-

At once, Michael was standing in the dusty streets of Leik, looking down a long avenue strewn with rubble. His stomach clenched at the memory; he knew this street. He had walked it before, weeks ago, to search for evidence of Ardan involvement in the shelling.

And indeed, there Michael was. An image of him staggered up from the rubble, helped along by Gerard. Vernon, Clair and Charles followed. Michael felt another pang of emotion at seeing their faces again; he looked over at Sobriquet and saw her motionless, jaw clenched and eyes squeezed shut in concentration.

The chamber was silent as they took in the scene, blinking at the bright sunlight or screwing up their faces at the scent of charred flesh and rot.

“Leik,” Leire said. “As it was on the seventh of this month. Tens of thousands of Daressans dead. Still more injured or left homeless. An attack, we were told, by the Safid. Yet in actuality those dead were murdered by the Ardans to lay blame upon their rivals, in the hopes that we would strike a blow against them.”

Michael saw that some of the members wore expressions of shock; it had evidently not been common knowledge. Others did not show surprise, however; Mendoza, Lekubarri and several more looked on impassively.

“We knew this, of course,” Leire continued. “Yet we struck a blow against the Safid anyway, because it was a rare chance to do so without abandoning our precious neutrality.”

The drone of engines sounded; the sky darkened as the Mendiko strike group arrived at the city. Their sleek fighters raced out to the bay, and the minute figure of Leire herself stood on the airship. Light struck out from her to annihilate one Safid ship, then two.

“I killed thousands of men that day,” Leire said. Her voice was quiet, yet carried to the entirety of the room. “In the air above victims they did not murder, while the true murderers cheered my coming. Cheered that the gullible Mendiko had taken the bait, and that all they had to do in order to secure our aid was murder fifty thousand people.”

Michael heard the cheers on the breeze as it picked up around them, the storm wall forming around the city. Wind blew dust from the ground, although no clothes or hair blew - it was Sobriquet’s wind, and could touch nothing real.

“Enough of this farce,” Mendoza called out. “That decision was made by the courts, and it stands unchallenged. I mourn the loss of so many, as do we all, but it is not cause to throw Mendian’s greatest shield away no matter how much sympathy we may feel.” He glared at Sobriquet. “Or how convincing an illusion you might muster. We are not children to be frightened by such things.”

“You seemed frightened enough,” Lekubarri observed from the side. “I was about to ask Her Radiance if she might introduce her guest, but if you require a new set of trousers I would support a recess.”

Mendoza scowled, but did not respond to the barb; he made a dismissive gesture and turned back to his seat. “Get on with it, then,” he snapped.

The illusion vanished, the confines of the Batzar materializing around them once more. Sobriquet sighed, relaxing as her eyes opened with a look of satisfied exertion; she caught Michael’s eye and smiled before turning a much less friendly look on Mendoza and his cohort.

“This is no mere guest,” Leire said, favoring Lekubarri with a smile. “This is the de facto representative of the Daressan people in Mendian. She bears the soul of the Whisperer.” Before the room could react to her revelation, Leire turned to the other side. “And this,” she said, “is the man who will secure my soul within Mendiko borders. He bears the soul of the Gardener.”

The room erupted once more, but Michael paid it no attention; as planned, he walked over the blackened husk of the oak tree and laid his hand upon it - feeling only whole, healthy bark underneath. He smiled as Sobriquet’s remaining illusion began to fall away from the tree, ethereal leaves bursting forth from the charcoal and fading to reveal the truth beneath.

By the time the tree was fully ‘restored’ the room had fallen silent.

“There will be questions,” Leire said. “And I will answer them in full. But our decision is this, and it is one that only you may make: shall we welcome the horrors of war to Mendian, or shall we intervene to right an injustice that we purposefully left to fester? Shall we face the coming conflict with the Star, the Whisperer and the Gardener at our side - or none of those?”

She stood again from her chair. “Their price for assistance is that we hold true to our own laws. That we uphold the principles of freedom and self-determination that we claim as the right of all people, and not just the Mendiko.” Leire glared down at them, a soft light playing about her in an echo of Sobriquet’s prior illusion.

“As the Star of Mendian, I call for a vote on the matter - that Mendian may survive.”

Michael watched the chamber dissolve into chaos once more. He let the noise wash over him for a brief moment before he sighed, shook his head and walked over to stand alongside Sobriquet.

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