Chapter 79: Human Nature

You cannot conquer a people. This is often how it is phrased, but our own experience under Ghar’s boot taught a different lesson. Land is conquered, people are subdued. Some of these people rage and wither under the harsh light of change, others sleep dormant, waiting for their hour. This second faction is by far the largest and most dangerous.

Ghar’s mistake was to assume that a span of years would render these sleeping seeds impotent and safe; history has shown the error in their logic.

- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687

The welcome party arrived sooner than Michael would have preferred, but he was able to drag himself outside even so. He and Sobriquet entered the tavern’s main room together; enough cheer and laughter greeted them that he suspected some of the villagers had begun their celebration early. Warm air scented with spices and roast meat banished the evening’s chill.

Thomas swooped over to welcome them with great enthusiasm; the headman’s chilly manner from earlier had vanished entirely, replaced with a bombastic cheer. He stopped short of actually hugging them, though the set of his arms said that he had considered the prospect. Instead, he contented himself with handing them a tall mug of ale apiece and ushering them to a table.

“It’s not much, of course, but we’re proud of our little tavern,” he said, sparing a wink for the harried barman. “One of the oldest buildings in Rouissat, and the largest for most of that time.” His smile dimmed. “Least until the Savvies built that monstrosity of theirs, but we’ll have that set right soon enough. Enough brick there to build a few houses, maybe a couple of stout granaries - we found a good use for some of those bricks already, of course, but we’ll think on the rest over winter.” He chuckled darkly, then took a long draught from his mug. “Heavy enough that we don’t need to worry about theft, though the Savvies tried with damn near everything else.”

Michael nodded. “We had thought you’d be wanting for food, but it seems like you’re well-stocked,” he said. “Looks like you managed to hang on to more than most.”

“We’ve learned how to deal with Savvy thieves over the years,” Thomas snorted. “Rouissat is out of the way, but we still had to be cautious. Most houses here have cellars, but few have cellar doors.” He waggled his eyebrows at Sobriquet. “And we did our part for the cause over the years, to show them they weren’t welcome.”

She flashed a grin back at him, feeling the infectious cheer of the room. “It’s people like you that kept Daressa going through the occupation,” she said, her voice loud enough to carry over the din; there was a cheer and sloppy toast from those nearby at the praise. “It can’t have been easy. The Safid were here in - what, forty-five?”

“Forty-three,” Thomas said, nodding gravely. “Only a few of us left that remember anything from before the occupation, and none that were any more than children.” A melancholy came over him, and he looked out at the swelling ranks of young Ardans enjoying the party. “It’s good to have this many young folks in town. Our young ones - well, some died over the years, or got taken in conscription. Others married Safid, or went to find their fortune in bigger towns.”

He took another lengthy pull from his mug, then shook his head; his smile reasserted itself. “But that’s enough of that talk,” he said. “We’re celebrating, hey? Supper should be nearly ready - ah, yes.” He beamed as a pair of older women staggered out with a whole roast pig on a platter, setting it down on the bar. A queue of men formed immediately, but Thomas waved Michael and Sobriquet back to their seats when they made to stand.

“Please, let me,” he said. “It’s the least I can do for genuine Daressan heroes.”

Michael turned to Sobriquet as the headman began to push his way through the crowd around the pig, raising an eyebrow. “I suppose I’m an honorary Daressan now,” he murmured. “His mood has certainly improved.”

“You’re the first man to bring soldiers here in fifty years that didn’t want to plunder the town,” Sobriquet replied. “He had good reason to be paranoid.” She looked him up and down. “Besides, you look suspicious.”

“I look suspicious?” Michael laughed. “I don’t look suspicious, I’m perfectly respectable.”

“Which is why anyone with a brain would be wary if they saw you poking your nose around honest country villages.” She poked him in the shoulder. “You have too much money, it makes people nervous.”

Michael poked her shoulder in return. “I don’t have any money whatsoever,” he said. “And I doubt I’m still named in my father’s will, if that was your hope.”

“You’ve been around it too long. You smell like money.” She leaned in and sniffed exaggeratedly before planting a kiss on his cheek. “But it’s a flaw I can overlook.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Michael chuckled, half-rising to grab an offered plate of pork from Thomas. “Thank you, this smells incredible.”

The headman joined them at the table, grinning wolfishly around a mouthful of meat. “Thanks for the excuse to indulge,” he said. “Honestly, it didn’t feel real until now. The Safid left, and good riddance - but nothing else changed. No Daressans coming back, no word from out east.” He shook his head. “Just wondering who the next to show up would be.”

Thomas looked up as Lars approached the table, sliding aside with a bit less enthusiasm for the Ardan captain; Lars let his plate clatter to the table and raised his mug. “Doubt you expected our lot,” he said. “Didn’t think to find myself here either, of course. Damn sight better than the welcome we got under Ardan colors, cheers-”

Lars toasted Thomas again; the headman intercepted the incoming mug with his own and took a grudging sip. “If milady Sobriquet says you’re for Daressa, then you’re welcome here,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ve had quite enough of foreign folk for our tastes.”

“Too right,” Lars chuckled. “Can’t blame you, fifty years cheek-by-jowl with the bloody Savvies. We’ll be out of here soon enough, don’t you worry.”

“Heading off to chase down stragglers?” Thomas asked. “Or this Esroun man you’re hunting?”

Michael cleared his throat before Lars could respond; the captain appeared well-lubricated enough already that he didn’t want him rambling. “Only looking for the one man,” Michael said. “Hopefully no Safid in our way, but if there are soldiers left we’ll point them towards the border.”

“Point them towards the ground, more like,” Thomas grunted. “Or they’ll be back before long, mark me. Plenty of ‘em got to thinking this land was theirs, and they won’t sit idle.”

“Oh, we’re old hands at dealing with their sort,” Lars said. “Why, just a few weeks back, outside of Az-” He caught himself, grinning and pointing a finger at a nearby soldier who had wheeled on him with an expectant look. “Imes, lad, you won’t catch me in old mistakes. No, we had just marched down to Imes after the Safid shelled Leik, and we caught a patrol of fresh young Savvies who hadn’t been called back - poor bastards almost died of shock alone, seeing us! Any rate, my commander sent me out to chat…”

Thomas nodded along, his standoffishness forgotten amid Lars’s relentless stream of chatter. Michael had to admit that the Ardan captain had a way of setting people at ease; he recognized the manner of a young Calmharbor socialite when he saw it, thanks to a few too many events with his father. Those men usually adopted their enthusiasm for the moment, however. With Lars, Michael found he had trouble telling where the affect stopped and the man began. The young captain was clearly from a family of means, though his name wasn’t one Michael recognized offhand.

But amid the laughter and theatrics there was something else that put Michael ill-at-ease - the sparkle in the headman’s eyes when Lars talked of assaulting a wayward Safid camp, the easy way Sobriquet nodded along with his blow-by-blow description of an advance. It floated like an oily film atop the merriment in the room, leaving the taste of salt and iron on Michael’s tongue.

He stood from the table; a few eyes looked questioningly his way.

“Outhouse?” he asked, looking at Thomas. A laugh and some quick directions later, he stepped out of the door and into the chill night air. It was bracing, but clean and fresh in the way that warm air never quite managed. He walked a few paces from the door and looked up at the purpling sky, breathing his fill.

“Not in a festive mood?” Zabala asked.

Michael turned; he hadn’t noticed the fortimens leaning against the outside wall of the tavern. “I suppose not,” he admitted.

“Nobody ever tells you about that part of it,” Zabala grunted. “The drinking, I mean. I never indulged much before I got my soul, but I do miss it sometimes. There are some nights when it would be nice.”

It took a moment for Michael to piece together Zabala’s meaning. He blinked, taking stock of his current state - the ale had been strong, as ales went, but he was still perfectly clear-headed. “Oh,” he muttered. “Damn, I didn’t realize. Hasn’t been time for a drink lately.”

“There are some places that sell pure grain spirits for potentes,” Zabala said. “But most don’t, since normal men take to drinking it as well - port cities tend to have laws about it. But the taste…” He shuddered. “It’s not worth it. No help for you, anyway, since it only works on fortimentes and weaker potentes.”

“Damn,” Michael said, trying to think back to the last drink he had enjoyed. His mind yielded a memory of the balcony at Leire’s house, of Sobriquet leaning close-

“Damn,” he repeated. “I would have gone for a drink before, had I known - but the whole thing was something of a surprise.” He shook his head, feeling unaccountably put out by the idea. “It’s not as though I drank much before either. It’s - Ghar’s bones, I’m not sure why it bothers me so.”

Zabala smiled knowingly. “We all lose things,” he said. “With time, if nothing else. Friends we can’t speak to anymore. Old men who used to be able to run, soldiers who used to be able to stand, to see.” He shook his head. “Souls take their due as well. It may not seem like much, never being drunk - or weak, or fragile. But people - people are drunk, and weak, and fragile, and now we can’t be.”

“Most people would say that a soul makes you more than human,” Michael observed.

“Most people are idiots,” Zabala snorted. “More than human, but not more human - not by any stretch. Spectors are robbed of their perspective, potentes of struggle, verifices of pleasant doubt. The Star lost companionship.” He looked at Michael. “And you’ve lost more than most, even if you bear it well.”

Michael pressed his lips together, disliking the taste of Zabala’s words. “My life isn’t so bad,” he said. “A stark improvement over where I was prior, in fact.”

“I didn’t say it had to be unpleasant,” Zabala replied. “But things do change, and not always for the better - else you’d be in there with the men, and not out here moping at the stars.”

“I’m not sure what that was. It was - too much, for whatever reason.” Michael shrugged. “They’re having a good time.”

Zabala chuckled again. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “There’s only one reason Daressans and Ardans can drink together in there without it coming to blows, and it’s because they’ve both got someone they hate more. Those sorts of gatherings tend to get uncomfortable.”

Michael frowned. “We’re all fighting the Safid,” he said.

“Yes, but you’ve never lost to them.” Zabala stepped closer to Michael, his voice dropping low. “You’ve never seen your friend shot while retreating from an overwhelming force. You’ve never had your village raided, your children turned against you by a culture that isn’t yours. They have.” The Mendiko soldier met his eyes for a long moment, then looked away.

“Hate is human too,” Zabala said. “But with enough power it turns to pity, or contempt. You can’t hate people who can’t hurt you.” He grimaced, then shook his head, stepping away. “Another thing it takes from us. Try to remember that they’re all still human, even if we can’t be.”

He turned and walked off into the twilight, his pace unhurried; Michael watched him go. Some time passed. The men inside laughed and cheered. He heard Lars and Charles launch into a bawdy song. It occurred to him that Charles would have happily killed Lars a few weeks ago - would have gone out of his way, in fact, since Lars was formerly a Swordsman.

Yet here they were, singing merrily to a mixed crowd of Ardans and Daressans. Michael listened and tried to hear the hatred, but that oily taint had slid away - or under, perhaps. There was only the joy of camaraderie, of song and food and drink. For a long moment he contemplated going back inside to reclaim his seat, but that warm, heady air no longer held any appeal.

He turned to walk back. Footsteps came from behind him seconds later; Sobriquet’s arm slipped through his own. “Rude to leave without saying goodbye,” she teased. A moment later, the smile faded from her face. “Is something wrong?”

Michael shook his head. “Nothing in particular,” he said.

“That’s not quite true,” she said, her eyes narrowing; she stepped in front of him to block his path. “What’s wrong?”

There was a brief span of silence; Michael grasped at words. “I - can’t get drunk anymore,” he said.

Sobriquet pursed her lips, humming. “I heard; it’s unfortunate. It’s nice, at times. You could at least come back in and enjoy some more of the pork, you didn’t eat that much.”

“I’m not that hungry.” Michael saw her eyes narrow again; he sighed. “I know you heard the rest of my conversation with Zabala. It’s sweet of you to pretend like you didn’t, but I - it’s not what I want to talk about.”

Her expression sobered. “You know, I didn’t even realize I was doing that,” she muttered. “Old habit. People find it strange when you continue a conversation you weren’t party to, so I’ve learned to draw a line straight to the subject first.” Her mouth twisted, then settled on a faint smile. “I suppose Zabala was right.”

“Dour bastard,” Michael chuckled. “He needs to stop doing that.” He took her hand and squeezed, gently. “Do you want to go back in?”

She squeezed back. “Let’s leave them to it.” Her pace quickened; Michael let himself be pulled back towards the quietly broken house.

The morning was clear and cold; Michael splashed his face with water that was barely shy of freezing, relishing the icy sting against his skin. He dried himself with a spare shirt.

Sobriquet stared at him incredulously. “My finger is still numb from testing the temperature of that water,” she muttered. “You’re insane.”

“It’s refreshing,” Michael objected. “But, if you insist-” He turned towards the rising sun, noting its play over the side of their house; the light blurred into jewel-toned splendor, dimming and twisting. The pail of water began to steam, and Michael let the sunlight return to catch the rising drifts of vapor. “All yours.”

“I take back everything I said.” Sobriquet swept in to kiss him on the cheek. “Ghar’s blood, I don’t know how anyone travels without an Ember. Can breakfast be hot too?”

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“Sounds like aristocratic decadence to me,” Michael said. “Probably best if-” He broke off to dodge a thrown sock. “I’ll take a look.”

He walked up to where the men were quartered, casting his sight about until he found a few bleary-eyed soldiers huddled in their house’s kitchen. Michael walked inside. He stepped gingerly over a few sprawled bodies on the floor - men who clearly felt their liquor - and made his way to the kitchen.

The soldiers blinked, then straightened as he entered; one even managed a salute. “Morning, milord,” he slurred.

Michael briefly contemplated telling the man not to call him that; he felt the vague, ominous pressure of Zabala’s disapproval. “Morning,” Michael sighed instead. “You have any extra in the pot?”

“Plenty, milord,” the man said. “But it’ll be a bit, it’s all groats. They’re not quite soft yet.” He rattled a colorful, half-full tin of grain; as he set it back down on the kitchen’s table Michael saw that the side had been decorated with an image of the Caller in the Safid style, painted on with a careful hand. The face, however, was bare metal where the paint had been scratched away.

A chill that had nothing to do with the weather crept into Michael’s gut. He reached to pick up the tin, feeling the heft of it - the weight of the food within. “Thomas gave you this?” he asked.

“And more besides,” the man confirmed, stepping back so that Michael could see a small pile of goods - more grain, dry crackers, salted meat, a few rinds of hard cheese. The refugees will have taken all they can, Zabala had said.

His sight drifted outwards almost by instinct, checking over the rooms of the house. Marks lay on the floor where furniture had stood, clean spots on the pantry shelves where food had once lain. He let it go out farther, combing through the other houses, the bare ones where the Safid had lived and the full, warm Daressan ones.

A few of the Safid houses had carts outside, idle and unused.

“Milord?” the soldier asked; Michael ignored him. His sight combed through the town, finding the absences. The things left behind. The broken doors on the empty houses, the burnt church, the defaced paintings there-

He shook his head, frustrated. There were threads here, pieces of a story that didn’t make sense. He needed to see more of it, all of it at once. His vision flew high, high enough to view the whole town from a bird’s eye - but the detail muddled together, lost in the morning mist.

Michael grimaced and tried another tack, remembering another misty morning weeks ago as they fled north. He had changed his sight, then, pushed it beyond an imitation of his own eyesight. The memory was still there, and the memory of Sibyl’s borrowed sight in the garden.

He pushed, as before, but this time a dozen flames flared within his chest; his sight stretched out until he saw all around him - a disorienting view of the kitchen, and the increasingly-concerned soldiers within.

But it still wasn’t enough. The flames burned brighter as he grasped at the memory of Sibyl’s sight, of knowing everything rather than simply seeing it. He strained against that memory - and fell short.

In the end, he was not Sibyl. His sight warped and fractured, though, bending to show him a thousand thousand views from every corner of the village. He saw the commons, the tavern, the bare and beaten dirt of the roads. The houses, from shingle to floorboard - to doorless cellars below, to fresh-turned dirt, to bones and rotting flesh-

Michael heaved, his head spinning with nausea and disgust. He heard the soldiers shouting as though from a distance. His sight spun in a horrific kaleidescope, showing a dizzying wheel of sky and ground and wood and bone, never ceasing even as he pulled to wrest it back into something more familiar, more controlled.

Then he did, the flames asserting themselves once more, and the world settled back into its unpleasant order. Michael was on the floor, his lips wet with bile. The soldiers in the kitchen watched him uncertainly, not daring to draw too close to an insensible potens.

“I’m fine,” Michael muttered, pulling himself upright; he rose shakily to his feet. “I’m - where is Thomas?”

“The headman, milord?” One of the soldiers pointed away. “By the tavern, last I saw, helping to tidy up from last night.”

“Thanks.” Michael wiped his mouth, then grabbed the tin of grain. “Stay here.”

The cold weight of the grain shifted within the tin as he walked; Michael barely felt it. He stalked outside towards the tavern. The village headman waved as he approached, leaving his broom to the side - then let his arm drop as he saw the set of Michael’s shoulders, his expression growing closed.

“Problem, milord?” Thomas asked.

Michael tossed him the tin of grain. The headman caught it, his eyes registering the details on the outside. There was a pulse of recognition from him, then something milder that might have been distaste; his face remained inscrutable. “Something amiss with the grain?”

“Where’d it come from?” Michael asked.

Thomas blinked slowly. “From the village, milord - from Rouissat.” The innkeep had come out to stand behind him, looking curiously. More villagers and soldiers were watching from doorways and windows, pausing in their chance transits of the common.

“From the Safid who were here?” Michael saw a change come over Thomas’s face at last, his brows drawing together at the question.

“Some of it, aye,” Thomas said. “But it was only our due after so long under their heel. Every scrap of grain, of timber, of stone that comes from this village is ours by right.”

Michael took a step forward. “Strange that the Safid didn’t want it for their travels,” he said.

The headman took a step back from his advance; his eyes flicked to the side, where his rifle was leaning against the stone wall of the tavern. “They got their due as well,” he said.

Sometimes there was ambiguity in what Michael felt from others. Fear was stark and unmistakable, while more nebulous emotions often felt like a tune he didn’t quite recognize. The satisfaction that rolled in waves from Thomas, though - Michael could not mistake it for anything but what it was.

“Their due,” he repeated, taking another step closer. “I saw the bodies, you bastard.”

There was a moment of surprise, fading quickly to flinty anger. “A man has the right to defend his home.”

“Defense, was it?” Michael asked. “Let’s see.” He sprang forward and grabbed Thomas’s arm before the headman could do more than squawk in surprise; Stanza flooded outward and touched upon the tangled paths of the man’s life.

There was a child of little note, save that his father was the village’s headman. His family was neither poor nor prosperous, and if there was an air of worry about the encroaching war it was far too much for a young child to understand.

But then some soldiers left and other soldiers came - foreign soldiers, with veils upon their hats and odd mannerisms. The child’s father was still headman, though, and for a while things continued as they had before.

Then came the builders, who chopped down the town’s old orchard and raised a church in its place. The townspeople protested, threatened the builders. More soldiers came, that night, and the boy never saw his father again. There was a new headman who lived in the church, and the boy was nobody but a widow’s son.

The boy became a man, and the man watched the village grow. New houses went up, and new families moved in. They were polite, kind even - but never friendly to those who didn’t attend the new church. Prosperity lived behind those doors, for there were no Safid jobs for nonbelievers, no new allotments of land or contracts at the market.

Some of the villagers began to attend; the man’s aging mother forbid him to go. His father did not die, she said, for her son to sing the invaders’ praises.

The man grew older. The invaders had families and warm hearths while he huddled alone in his father’s house. The tavern was a refuge, one of the few places left to the old guard of Daressans in town. There they would sit and drink, commiserating. Few Safid ever wandered in, and fewer still after the tavern developed a reputation for being unfriendly to churchgoers. There were fights - once, Thomas was brought up on charges for breaking a man’s nose. He grit his teeth and paid the fine to the church coffers, hating every coin that slipped through his fingers.

Time passed, and the winds changed. This time it was the Safid who were nervous, their eyes looking to the horizon for the stomp of soldiers’ boots. Some left right away, others with the exodus of the town’s small garrison. There were a few who stayed behind, though, hoping for the best. The headman in the church who would not leave it behind, the miller who reasoned that all men needed grain, the carpenter and his painter wife, who didn’t want to risk the road with their newborn daughter.

The church burned on the first night after the garrison left, with the headman still inside. The miller went down with a shovel to the head, the carpenter barred his door - but that was no obstacle. The man kicked the door open with five decades of pent-up rage, storming into the house and seeing all that had been denied to him. The cozy furniture, the plentiful food, the beautiful wife turning to protect her baby, the baby that wouldn’t stop its crying-

Michael released his grip, his stomach twisting; Thomas sprang backward. He grabbed his rifle and leveled it at Michael, breathing hard.

“What was that?” he yelled. “What did you do?”

“I wanted to see what defense looked like,” Michael said. He straightened up, looking around at the small crowd that had formed. Mixed soldiers and villagers alike were watching the two men, scattering quickly out of the way as Thomas raised his weapon. Sobriquet stood in the back next to Unai and Charles, watching but not concerned.

Thomas bared his teeth. “What does that mean?” he hissed. “What do you know about any of this, Ardan?”

“I know you burned the old headman in the church,” Michael said. “That you killed the miller, the carpenter with his wife.” He took a step forward, staring down the rifle’s barrel.

“His infant daughter,” Michael whispered. He had been too slow to avoid all of that memory, and a fragment of sound and color still festered in his mind. “What defense was that?”

Thomas’s face had gone pale as Michael spoke, but he kept his weapon high. “They were Safid,” he hissed. “They came here to steal, to take what was rightfully ours. They took everything from me. It was mine to take back.”

The conviction radiated from him, pure and unshakable, backed by a simmering rage - no.

That was Michael’s own. He hadn’t felt the anger creeping up on him amid the shock of seeing Thomas’s murders through the man’s own eyes. His indignant manner, though, his victimhood and lies - there was a disgusting familiarity to them, an echo of the impenetrable self-justification that had pervaded his father’s every oily word.

The change in Michael’s eyes must have been evident; Thomas gripped his gun tight. A golden line of light lanced from the barrel towards Michael’s chest. He moved a hand as thunder split the morning, its echoes fading under the shouts and frantic retreat of those standing nearby.

When the smoke cleared, Michael had not moved; he opened his hand and let the bullet drop to the ground. Thomas gawked at it for a moment, but that was all Michael allowed him. A brisk stride closed the distance. He plucked the rifle from the headman’s hands and bent it over his knee, backing the man against the stone wall of the tavern.

There was proper fear from Thomas, now, but only fear of consequences. Consequences from yet another intruding foreigner who wanted to ruin his life. Michael saw it all clearly, now that he recognized the pattern.

Zabala had been correct again - there was only pity and contempt for such men.

Michael grabbed Thomas’s head with one hand, leaning in close until their faces were nearly touching.

“You murdered a child, you self-obsessed bastard,” Michael rasped. “You murdered a child.” Thomas gasped as Michael’s soul flooded into him - not Stanza, this time. He seized the countless facades that the man had thrown up around an ugly truth. Excuses, justifications, self-deception-

Michael tore them away.

And left him with it.

He turned to face the crowd that had gathered; those who had not been drawn by the shouting had certainly heard the gunshot. Michael felt shock, anger - and fear, of course. Some of his soldiers wore wary expressions, others looked downright mutinous. Michael found that he didn’t much care.

“If anyone has something to say, say it.” Michael spread his arms. “Go ahead.”

The innkeep took a step forward, looking down at Thomas’s huddled form. “What did you do to him?”

“I let him see who he was,” Michael said. There was a strangled, animal sob from the man behind him; the innkeep scowled and rushed over.

The rest were silent. Michael nodded. “Pack up,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

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