Chapter 57: Conviction

Here is a truth: that no man acts without believing himself correct. Even in doing something he knows is wrong, there is a circumstance invoked within his mind to excuse that trespass. Every evil upon this earth is inflicted with the same conviction as the acts of greatest good.

Here, too, is a truth: good and evil remain distinct. The good man performs his works knowing that he is on the path of the divine, and that no action taken in service of that truth may be evil. The wicked man acts in the knowledge that he is lost, however, and feels in his heart the futility of each footstep. Hedonism, greed and excess are not evil, for even the divine leads men to such ends in the turning of their paths - but like the needle of a compass, the man who has strayed finds his steps bent towards animal instincts.

To find the divine requires mindful thought; do not fear the base impulses of your form, nor neglect them, but ensure that at all times the path is beneath your feet.

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

Michael had always viewed declarations of war as dramatic events, perhaps marked by a rousing speech or a angry enumeration of grievances. The tension had been high during the initial foray into Safid territory; the Mendiko had been eager and nervous in turns, untested men and materiel breaking centuries of precedent in an afternoon.

The morning that their war of liberation turned to Ardan-occupied Daressa, by contrast, passed almost without comment. The airship lifted, its engines straining, then made a lumbering turn to the south. A few minutes later they were past the notional line dividing Daressa - and Michael had gone to war with his fatherland.

He began to wonder if something was wrong within him, twisted and bent by his months of hardship. A man should feel something when he commits treason. Yet - his attachment to Ardalt had been left behind months ago, in the wreckage of his father’s carriage. He had lived in a nation of two, that summer, and after Jeorg’s death had no land to call home.

Now he stood astride the fate of two nations. Michael grinned at the absurdity of it all and turned from the window. “Back to Leik,” he said. “Except this time we’re in the airship.”

Sobriquet arched her eyebrow. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” she said. “We’re meant to liberate the city, not blot it from the map. This isn’t going to be like her little punitive expedition against the Safid.” She looked back out the window, her breath going out in a long, slow sigh. Small, hidden eddies of disquiet chimed from her before settling back to uneasy silence. “This whole thing started because of dead Daressans in Leik, and I’m afraid that’s where we’ll find ourselves once more. The Ardans could make this painful for us.”

“Leire can’t help within the city itself,” Michael agreed. “But she’s a powerful presence. With the ship in the sky overhead, she’ll mean more surrenders than deaths from the Ardans. These aren’t Safid troops, they don’t have Saleh spooning talk of struggle and victory into their heads. They’re here for money, or to earn their proof of a tour. None of them came here to die, and the Mendiko are known to be fair with prisoners.” He gave a small, dark laugh. “Most of the time, anyway.”

He looked over when Sobriquet didn’t respond; she was watching him closely. “What?” he asked.

“I’m not sure whether it would be more concerning if you were distraught,” Sobriquet said. “It was wrong of Antolin to force that on you.”

Michael raked his fingers through his hair, looking out over the mountains below. “Antolin did what he thought was necessary,” he said. “We talked about it after, and we reached an understanding. And - I reached an understanding of my own. I may have been slightly naïve, before.”

Sobriquet gave him a flat look. “Slightly.”

“Shush. Not everyone can be a hard-boiled resistance leader.” He shook his head. “Seeing that man’s conviction made me realize that this conflict will cost lives. Not because it’s right, or just, but because those lives have been twisted until they can’t coexist with others. They’ve dedicated themselves to a path that will stifle the futures of millions - yours and mine among them. Saleh won’t simply shrug his shoulders and turn to peace if we stymie his ambitions here - he and those who follow him will find a way to continue their struggle.”

“You’re not wrong,” Sobriquet said, stepping forward to put her arm around him. “Ghar’s bones, I never thought I’d hate hearing you agree with me this much.” She squeezed tight, then stepped back to look at him. “I wish you didn’t have to make that choice. I wanted-” She looked to the side, the troubled echoes Michael had felt before returning. “I hoped that you could help me find my way back, when this is all over. Now I’m afraid that we’ll both be lost, before the end.”

Michael smiled down at her. “I think you’re better off than you believe,” he said. “The partisans you’ve organized will form the core of Daressa when it rises back up from the rubble.” He slid his hands up to her shoulders, giving her a light squeeze. “It would have been easy for the partisans to lash out in acts of destruction and cruelty, but you’ve kept them focused on their future, not revenge.”

She pursed her lips, her unease whispering louder. “You’re wrong,” she murmured. “It was never me that kept them focused. Clair made the resistance what it is today. She kept their attention on the things that mattered, told all of us to help Daressa first and hurt the occupiers second. I’m - not her.” She shook her head angrily, turning to stare out the window. The whispers were a vengeful chorus now, strident and dire. “I want the Ardans to fight us. I want them to raise their arms at the Mendiko and die screaming. I want-”

Sobriquet grimaced, shuddering with palpable waves of revulsion. “I want you to kill them,” she whispered. “Even knowing that it will hurt you. I don’t want the men who killed my sister to go home to their families and live happy lives.”

The strength of the emotion pouring from her took Michael aback. “Sera-”

“I asked the resistance for reports from Leik last night, while I was helping Antolin plan,” she said dully. “They told me the city is gripped by terror. Sibyl is there. Without me to shield them, nobody can speak against the Ardans, nobody can hide arms or supplies.” Her fingers trembled; she balled her hand into a fist. “Apparently it wasn’t so bad at first, but the Ardans held a demonstration in the old town. They spoke against the resistance, called us criminals - then showed the people what they did to criminals. They brought out Clair’s - body.”

Michael blanched, his eyes widening. Their mad flight from Emil’s carriage flared brightly in his mind, the smell of blood and the screaming of the horses thundering into his mind. “Ghar’s blood,” he swore. “They’ve all gone mad.”

“It’s nothing new,” Sobriquet said bitterly. “This isn’t the first sister or brother that they’ve made an example of. The others just weren’t mine.” Her face twisted, and she looked back out the window. “Enough people in the crowd knew who Clair was, knew the work she had done. There was a riot, they stole her body back. The man I talked to said they burned her, with honors - there was no place they could bury her where Sibyl wouldn’t find her again. Instead, Sibyl found everyone else. The rioters, the partisans, she’s swept the city clear of anyone that so much as breathed against the Ardans.”

Waves of anger and shock seethed through Michael, his nerves thrilling in borrowed rage from Sobriquet. He breathed in, then out; it did not diminish. “This is my fault,” he muttered. “Vera would have stopped this. Isolde would have, but with Vincent gone-”

Sobriquet’s hand gripped his arm, painfully-tight. “This is Sibyl’s fault,” she growled. “Do not excuse that murderous bitch from her own actions.”

Michael nodded absently. He half expected his pulse to hammer in his ears, his breath to come fast and shallow - but an odd calm gripped him instead, his heart steady and level. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You’re right. I just - I had my own hopes. I know she has the capacity to be reasonable, even kind - as she had been to me. Some part of me always thought that Sofia would come around in the end, that there was some reconciliation where we wouldn’t be at odds.”

“And now?” Sobriquet asked.

Michael looked at her, his face grim. “Now she’s beyond hope.”

“Contact reported,” a lieutenant called out, his hand pressed against a pair of bulky headphones. “Left flank again. Another Ardan company, they’re surrendering without resistance.”

Antolin snorted. “Probably more of the 81st Infantry. At this rate we’ll have more of them than the Ardans.” He made a weary gesture to one of his senior officers. “We’ll bring this batch with us, we’re going to have to set up a new holding camp at Leik anyway.”

The officer nodded, and the grand marshal turned his attention to Michael. “You weren’t wrong,” he said. “Not much fight in the Ardans today.”

Michael shrugged. “Every group we’ve come across has said the same thing - either they got lost during the withdrawal, or nobody bothered to tell them they were supposed to retreat. Point them towards food and shelter and most won’t argue.”

“Our estimates of their officer corps were apparently quite generous,” Antolin remarked, shaking his head. “My junior staff could have orchestrated a better pullback. I find myself in disbelief that such a force could have held out against Saf for so many years.”

“Have any of the captured men been ensouled?” Michael asked.

Antolin raised an eyebrow, then looked to one of his staff; the man shook his head. “Some few,” the officer said. “Nothing but low-level durentes and potentes - perhaps a dozen men in total.”

Michael sighed, then looked up at Antolin. “There you have it,” he said. “They made their withdrawal; they took every resource that mattered.”

A dark look passed over the grand marshal’s face for a moment, replaced quickly by dull fatigue. “Eromena,” he sighed. “With men left to slow the Safid, should they advance. Or us, I suppose, but we’re better-equipped.”

“My father used to say that even if a common man should gain a soul, his labor would still benefit others more than himself.” Michael ran a hand through his hair, grimacing. “I don’t imagine those soldiers merited consideration as anything more than a diversion. The withdrawal of the ensouled would have been their priority over the expendable common troops.”

The officer that had replied nodded, stepping forward with a sheaf of hastily-organized notes. “It matches what we’ve been hearing. In the past few dispatches we’ve received assessments from medical staff at the northern camp; most of the men bear signs of heavy obruor influence. Confusion, anxiety, gaps in memory. Some of them are - bad, sir. They’re beyond our care.”

Antolin made a low, rumbling noise of disapproval. “Didn’t count on them to stay at their posts while their commanders fled,” he muttered. “Spread that report to the advance. If they did this everywhere, it’s only a matter of time before their recovery turns to mass panic. After such manipulation they’ll be irrational at best, and almost certainly violent.”

Michael watched muscles work in the grand marshal’s jaw, his normally-inscrutable emotions showing plain disgust. Antolin turned to stare out the window; Michael turned the other direction. The crew of the airship had taken note of the shift in their commander’s mood. A slow drip of tension began to color their professional mien, fed with the steady reports of Ardan forces on the ground.

Another company appeared on the flank, lost and practically begging for capture. A patrol found a dozen men dead, with bloodied tracks leading away into a field. Farmhouses burned along the road, horses dead or straying lame in the tanks’ path.

There was a ripple in the air for the barest moment before Sobriquet’s avatar manifested in the center of the bridge; she went directly to Antolin, her posture rigid.

“I have a report,” she said. “About an hour’s ride southwest of our position, there’s a village that serves as a regional hub for the resistance. They signaled trouble, said that Ardan soldiers were massing in their outlying fields. There’s no fighting yet, but the Ardans are raving, crying, talking to nothing - it’s only a matter of time before it turns to violence.”

Antolin turned slowly to look past the blurred image, then sighed. “I had hoped I was wrong for once,” he said, beckoning his staff closer. “Our advance will have to slow while we reinforce our supply train; these Ardans weren’t abandoned at all. They’re caltrops, meant to harry us and plunge the countryside into chaos.”

He began to issue orders to his officers in turn, only returning his gaze to Sobriquet when the last had departed. “And while they shift to deal with this basakeria, we will secure this village. For a temporary local command on the ground, this seems as good as any. Spread the word to the resistance that the Ardans have made weapons of their men.” His eyes narrowed. “Any arms you’ve been keeping hidden, now is the time to use them.”

Sobriquet inclined her head, then vanished. Antolin turned to Michael. “You’ve dealt with men like this before,” he said. Michael saw the brief shimmer of his soul as it twisted around him; a whispering dust of glass blended in and out of existence before he could blink. The grand marshal cocked his head to the side. “This will be one of two things, a rescue or a massacre. My options lean heavily towards the latter. I would like you to try first.”

Michael licked his lips, his vision crowding with the vacant eyes of Spark’s victims, with Peter’s broken-toothed smile. “Some things you can’t fix,” he said. “Depending on what was done, there may be no path forward.”

Antolin nodded. “Even so,” he said, his eyes defocused; Michael saw the sharp glint of light from within, deadly snowflakes reflecting things half-seen. “It would be best if you tried first. If your way fails, well-” He looked back toward the officers on the bridge, each grim-faced and walking with purpose.

The light faded from around him. “My way will work,” he said. “But it won’t be pleasant.”

Michael shivered as the outside air rushed past the doors, carrying with it an evening chill. There was no corpse-stink here, no buzzing of flies and screaming of wounded horses, but smoke hung too heavily on the wind for comfort. It mixed poorly with the wet-mud smell of the field they had landed in; he wrinkled his nose and strode forward.

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The village was more properly a small town, with neat rows of stone-faced houses and a low wall around the exterior. On any other day Michael was sure it would have been picturesque; now smoke curled up from the exterior walls where recently-doused fires smoldered. Far away, in the northern fields, farmhouses and barns burned unchecked.

A small crowd of the townspeople had come from the near gate as they started their descent. Their evident leader was an old man, sun-weathered and marked with soot. While his fellows goggled openmouthed at the vast airship, he walked up to look Antolin in the eye.

“Milady said you’d come,” he said, his voice tight; Michael could feel the tension within him vibrating like a plucked string. He stretched his arm out, pointing towards the burning outbuildings. “She’s driven the bulk of them to the far fields for now. About three, four hundred at most.”

Antolin nodded, giving Michael a look before turning in the direction the old man had pointed. “Souls?” he asked.

“The one to mind is the Ember,” the old man said. He nodded towards the distant fires, his lip curling. “Nasty sort, set fire to as many of his own as ours. Other than that, a few that might be Bulks. No Cutters as we’ve seen, but who’s to say what’s left in the woods.”

“Good man,” Antolin said, favoring the headman with a nod. “Can you show us to your wounded?”

The man blinked, seeming to see the small cadre of men behind them for the first time. “Yes, milord,” he said. “We’ve got them in the empty granary, off south. You-” He paused, uncertainty quavering from him in fits. “Will this be enough men?”

Antolin looked back at the handful of anatomentes and mundane physicians he had brought. “These are all for your wounded,” he said, turning back to the headman. “He will deal with the soldiers.” The grand marshal gestured towards Michael.

The headman’s eyes snapped to him, taking in his youth, his stature, his distinctly-Ardan features. “Aye, milord,” the headman said; Michael did not need Spark to sense his misgivings. The others from the town were similarly-skeptical, but unwilling to gainsay Antolin’s claim.

Michael sympathized with them; he, too, had his doubts. Antolin gave him a heavy nod and began to walk toward the town, followed by the medical staff. Luc met Michael’s eyes as he passed, saying nothing. He was a kaleidescope of emotion, fear and panic and hope blending into a maelstrom that shivered Michael’s skin for the moment he drew near - then faded as they walked on down the road, leaving Michael alone.

He turned and began to walk along the city’s outer edge. There had been a few buildings here, beyond the wall; now there were squarish patches of ash and charcoal, sodden where the townsfolk had drenched the embers. The grass was trampled down, stalks broken with heavy footprints and ground into the mud.

The wall continued its long, curving arc around the town. It was not a large town, but large enough that Michael had time to listen to the shouts and clamor from among the houses. A baby began to cry. The sound echoed eerily between the stone buildings, chasing Michael until the town’s north gate came into view.

It was obvious at a glance that there had been a fracas here; the north road was scorched and littered with wreckage. Michael recognized the hasty construction as a sort of barricade, held together with nails - too remote or poor for an artifex carpenter, he guessed.

The defensive works had done their job, though. Amid the tangle of burnt timber lay a few corpses, hands curled into blackened claws by the flame or burnt away entirely. To the side lay others, unburnt but bloody with their faces frozen in wild grimaces of pain and rage.

Michael stepped by a few corpses with wide, staring eyes before one blinked, its eyes locking onto him. He took a hasty step away, managing not to exclaim in shock; the man was soaked in blood from a gut wound, one hand pressed tight against his abdomen. He did not move save to track Michael with his eyes.

Carefully, Michael moved closer to the man, Stanza flaring bright to guard against surprises - but none came as he stretched out his fingertips and laid them against the man’s bloodstained hand.

A shattered landscape sprang into view, whatever beauty it had once possessed ground down again and again with callous force until nothing was left but rubble. Michael hastily withdrew his hand, rubbing the smear of blood from his fingers as he stared into the wide, empty eyes of the Ardan soldier. A smear of saliva trailed from the man’s mouth, flecked with blood; his pupils were wide and dark.

Spark had shaped men as he pleased, with little regard for their sanity or dignity. To Michael, it had the feel of pieces rearranged and upturned, then stitched back in unnatural order. It had been brutal, yes, and obscene, but after using his soul Michael could not help but acknowledge that Spark had possessed deft control over its use.

There was no control evident when Michael looked down at the dying soldier. The Ardan obruors had stomped out any trace of feeling with crude vigor, then done it again, and again, and again. If this man had once loved, hated, laughed or wept, all of that had been ground away into dull compliance - and, bereft of that boot grinding into his psyche, his mind was a wild riot of conflicting thought, a bell tolling no note in particular.

Michael hesitated for only a moment before reaching out to touch the man’s hand once more, pushing Stanza forth - and then twisting sharply. The man’s breathing stopped, the muscles on his face relaxing as the air slowly filtered out of his lungs. Michael reached up to slide his eyes closed, then stood.

And walked to the next man. He let his fingers trace over another ravaged and desolate land, then quieted it. There were more amid the dead, clinging to life with blind tenacity; Michael sent them to the release of the void, one by one. There was a peace to it, soothing a part of him that had chafed with the memories of Peter and Beni, of all the men who had died long before the last beat of their heart.

The peace shattered when he peered into a barren wasteland and saw a tree. Not a large tree, nor a particularly healthy one, but a hardy shrub that had borne up despite the splintering blows raining down upon it. It was bent, twisted and bare, but on a few branches green leaves were unfurling from buds to quaver their defiance.

This man could be whole once more. Michael stood up and looked at him; the soldier was a man around Michael’s age, with short blond hair and a thick sweep of stubble across his chin. His eyes had been closed when Michael touched him, but now they slid open to watch his face. Not with the unseeing frenzy of the others, but the calm patience of the hopeless. The man lay in the mud, bleeding from a gash along his ribs and a ragged cut to his calf - he lay and waited, watching Michael.

Michael bent down to touch the man’s hand again, letting Stanza slide back along the paths of his life. He was from Calmharbor, like Michael, although he had been born in a part near the freightyards that Michael had never visited. His life had been simple and direct; his mother had told him since the day he could stand that his task was to grow strong, join the army and send back coin for his sisters.

He had done so, and now he was here. Michael let the threads stretch back into the pattern of the man’s life, then for good measure reached out into the man’s body and gingerly stemmed the bleeding; he had proved to be a poor talent for anatomens work in his sessions with Unai, unlike Luc, but he had been determined to at least learn enough to avoid a repeat of Clair’s death.

He straightened up to look at the man who might now live - and then walked to the next, who was beyond help. Two more men died before he turned to look back at the north gate, and the townsfolk silently watching him. Their expressions were unreadable, but Michael felt the fear pulsing from them in waves, the hatred for the men lying dead on the road and still rampaging wild in the distant fields.

“This one will live,” Michael called out, pointing to the man he had healed. The townsfolk did not move, save that their hatred redoubled. Michael frowned and took a step toward them, managing not to wince as their fear did the same.

“Take the soldier to the Mendiko,” he said, pointing to two younger men. “You and you. He’s a prisoner. They will want to ask him questions and see what he knows.” He tilted his head, trying to winnow the emotions of the two men apart from the rest; there was still enough hate behind their eyes that it gave him pause.

He sighed and let Stanza fill him, with a touch of Vincent’s soul rippling the air around him for good measure. “He will reach the Mendiko alive,” Michael said quietly, confident that all could hear.

The hate vanished from the men, replaced by white-hot fear; they leapt to extract the man from the pile of corpses before carefully threading their way through the crowd at the gate. Michael watched them go, then turned back to the field. He began walking away from the gate.

“Sera,” he said. “You can let them go.”

A blur of motion flickered in the edge of his vision. “About time,” she said, her exhaustion evident even through the buzzing voice of her avatar. “It’s a larger crowd than the Batzar. I have enough left in me to take a few down, if you need.”

Michael shook his head. “I’m going to see how many I can save,” he said. “Leire is watching; none of them will reach the gate alive.” He looked toward the airship and saw a diminutive figure barely-visible on one of its outside decks. “For once I don’t mind that they’re testing me. These men can’t be allowed to exist like this. They need to be made better, or they need to be released from their torment.”

A ripple of surprise percolated through the avatar. “I’ve never heard you so adamant about something before,” Sobriquet observed. “Are you sure? This will be hundreds of men, you can leave them for Leire. You don’t have to be the one to do this.”

“To kill them,” Michael said. “And yes, I have to do this. If you could see what I see, when I touch their minds - these aren’t men anymore. I’ve had to make some hard choices since reaching Mendian, and I’m not sure I’ve chosen well every time. But this-” He turned to look at Sobriquet. “This is no choice at all.”

She did not reply, but Michael felt her focus shift outward, to the field; there was a low murmur from the townsfolk as they saw what she had spotted. Manic, shambling men ran forward out of the field, their eyes wide enough that Michael could see the whites of them even from a distance. More and more emerged, a mass that clung and flocked like demented starlings before lurching towards the gate.

Michael took a step forward, looking at the approaching mob. They were like the others, empty bells ringing forth as they rapidly closed the distance between them. The Ember was clearly visible, his uncontrolled soul wreathing him in darkness and setting light to the clothing of those running too near. The burning men ran on, unfeeling, until the fire claimed what was left of them.

The senseless violence of it, and the scale of that violence - it struck Michael, and for a moment he felt dwarfed by the atrocity rushing down the field. He clenched his fists and pulled at the twinned fires within him. Clair leapt to raging fury, burning bright to protect the Daressans behind him; Vincent roared equally high at the insult done to the Ardans in front.

“Glad we’re all in agreement,” Michael muttered, stretching out his hands and pulling on Stanza. He watched the lines of the world flex and glow, converging on the men ahead; for a moment his mind went blank. Words were needed, now, but none seemed right until he turned to look at Sobriquet.

He took a breath. “Wending, winding, neverending,” he said, smiling as she pulsed with surprised recognition, the words used to heal her echoing forth again. “Broken paths desire mending.”

His voice raced out, drawing reality tight with anticipation; the soldiers faltered in their charge, slowing.

“Ever seeking, searching, finding, to their destinations binding.” It found purchase, the broken husks of men freezing in place as the bare roots of their self remembered that there had once been more, once been a tapestry where now only torn shreds remained.

But here Michael paused, because he did not know these men - did not understand who they were, as he had done for all the others. A restless shiver ran through the group, feet shifting at the pause, and he raised his head. The man he had healed hadn’t survived because Michael willed it so. He had survived because of his own will, his refusal to be ground down to nothing.

Spark threaded through Michael’s voice, adding the color of demand to his words.

“Choose to be the men you were, stitch together what was broken,

Let my words take root to spur a self once lost - and now awoken.”

The last syllables tore into the crowd in a fusillade, dropping the men to their knees in limp, nerveless bundles. Michael’s breath caught in his throat, his heart pounding with the exertion of effort as he drew taut the lambent strings he had cast. They seized upon some of the men, snagging in the remnants of their minds - and slid free of others, finding no purchase left in the barren wastes the obruors had made.

Michael sighed and straightened up, letting the tension loose; some of the men had fallen, twitching weakly. More still struggled to their feet, however, shaking the haze loose from their eyes and staggering forward towards the gate. Alarm spiked from behind him, he heard a panicked command to ready guns for a volley.

He took another step forward, stoking the fires within him higher. His body felt radiant, ethereal, the fabric of the world warping with every footfall. Vincent’s soul joined the chorus, and Stanza’s golden light shone ever-brighter as the world around him dimmed. Sobriquet was shouting something indistinct, but it was past his notice - the words came of their own accord, now, an echo of his will - his conviction, at how this must end.

“Banish pain with fire’s kiss,

Guide the lost to the abyss.”

The fires raged, raged within, and Michael felt it race down the gossamer lattice until it kindled within the soldiers. They staggered and fell, burned through in an instant; smoke curled from empty sockets and gaping mouths, poured forth from wounds amid boiling blood.

Then the last man fell, and the world was silent. Michael turned to Sobriquet, who hung motionless in midair, then to the townsfolk standing in front of the gate. He began to walk forward; an avenue appeared through the crowd. He stopped and looked at the front line of men, their hands shaking and white-knuckled as they clutched their rifles.

“There are a few still alive there,” he said wearily. “See that they get to the Mendiko for healing as well.” A response came, distant in his ears, he walked forward without hearing it. The crowd roared with silent emotion that passed over and through his senses.

Michael walked into the city; he was tired, and wanted to rest.

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