Chapter 96: The Prodigal Son

I met Liesl at a charity ball for the dockworkers’ hospital. She was beautiful, so radiant that I thought she must be there representing the fishers’ guild. I knew in that moment that I must marry her; a short time later I did.

For nine years I had the pleasure of being the man with the most beautiful wife in Calmharbor. She gave me my son, Michael, and brightened my dreary old house with her smile. But being married to an Assemblyman is not easy work; each day she saw how others in the chamber sniped at me, played their petty political games. It wore on her.

The woman I loved grew sickly and pale. Her smile faded, and eventually she along with it. I stand before you now to say that my wife, Liesl, Lady Baumgart, died - not of natural causes, but from the relentless strain of witnessing her family being hounded by shameless political beasts.

Shame on the members of the Assembly who have abandoned all pretense of civility and decorum. Shame on you who know no boundaries in pursuit of power. I name you all murderers; my wife’s blood is on your hands.

- Karl Baumgart, eulogy for Liesl Baumgart, 680.

“Business, is it?” Karl asked. His voice was neutral, his tone light; Michael knew it was a manner that his father wore at will. “Is that all that draws you back to speak with me? Most of a year away with not so much as a letter, and all the while I hear reports of grand battles, Mendiko intrigue, impossible souls.” He smiled thinly. “Everyone telling me tales of Michael Baumgart, meanwhile I have not a scrap of news about my son.”

Michael’s skin bristled with gooseflesh under his father’s gaze; it was not how he had expected their first conversation since the spring to begin. The last word reverberated in his ears. Son. Michael took a breath and raised his chin. “It’s been a busy span of months,” he said. “For both of us, it would seem. I’ve been seeing your name come up more and more.”

Karl gave an amused snort. “I as well. The papers will tend to write.” He leaned forward onto his desk. “I hear much of you, though not all of it has your name attached - a shame. I expect that if the general public knew half of what crosses my desk about you, I would no longer be the one people think of when they hear the name Baumgart.”

There was no reply that Michael could make, no snippet of conversation that applied from the hundred times he had gone through this meeting in his head prior to today. In none of those imagined meetings had Karl Baumgart seen fit to compliment him. He forced himself to keep his eyes up, focused on Karl’s.

“I’ve kept a low profile,” he said. “To keep myself safe. First from Spark and the Institute; later from men under the Assembly’s command. I confess that I’m surprised to find you this amicable.”

“Why?” Karl asked. “Because we’ve worked at cross purposes?”

“Because it’s unprecedented,” Michael shot back. He regretted the words immediately upon speaking; his close association with Sobriquet had given him conversational habits that he would have considered suicidal mere months earlier. Dread prickled in Michael’s gut. He waited for his father’s face to darken, or to go deadly calm; for the soft whisper of blades to rise up around him.

But the anger did not come. Michael felt nothing from his father but the gentle rasp of that horrid soul, slowly whispering its threats.

Instead, Karl Baumgart laughed sharply, leaning back in his chair. “So you found some spine on the continent,” he said. “Good. I gave it my best, but every man needs something different, just like with souls.”

He tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair. “Unprecedented. And do you think I should treat you like the boy who was snatched from my carriage? I’d be a fool not to acknowledge that you’ve done great things in your months away. Did you think I would spurn you for them? Chastise you?” He raised an eyebrow. “In the end, your involvement has benefited me to such an extent that most in the Assembly have assumed you’re working at my direction.”

“Yes, I’ve - encountered that belief,” Michael said. “And I presume you’ve done nothing to disabuse them of the notion.”

“Naturally. You’ve developed something of a mythology in the Assembly, especially among the junior members. Not without my encouragement, of course.” Karl smirked, tapping a stack of papers on the desk. “Your timing couldn’t be better. We’re in turmoil, Michael, and we need unity to weather this storm.” He raised his eyes, his gaze settling coolly on Michael. “Stellar. The bearer. My reports say that you know him.”

Michael nodded slowly. “I do,” he said. “Luc.”

“And I presume your business concerns him.” Karl leaned forward. “So? Speak. I’ve talked of nothing else all day. If you have more to add than is in my briefings, then I would hear it.”

Michael pressed his lips together; he had come here with the intent of talking to his father about Luc, but found himself utterly unprepared to speak when the moment arrived. He felt minuscule once more, Karl looming large above him despite everything, his gaze flensing away Michael’s pretensions of adulthood.

The blind fear and panic swept through him - but he had felt this a hundred times, from a thousand men. Borrowed fear was nothing new, whether it was from a mob of soldiers or the echo of a life he had left behind. Michael removed himself from it; his chin came up, his eyes focused on his father.

“Luc is dangerous,” he said. “More so than his soul would indicate. He is - like me. Stellar is not his only soul.”

Karl’s eyes flashed. “I had heard rumors,” he said. “But nothing certain. You’re sure of this?”

“Very.” Michael felt his mismatched hands acutely in that moment. “I’ve fought him a few time since he arrived here. Besides Stellar he has an auditor soul, an artifex stoneworker, an anatomens and many, many potentes. Likely more than that, but those are the ones that he’s made known.”

“Interesting. And he’s been accruing them recently, since Gabarain died.” Karl tapped the desk. “His growth is even more explosive than yours.”

Michael grimaced. “Luc is - not well. He was raised by Spark, on his island; after that he was taken from horror to horror. It damaged him. He has taken souls through murder and deceit. The Institute is a means to an end for him, though he has offered only ramblings to explain that end.” He looked at his father. “He must be stopped - no, killed. If he is allowed access to Calmharbor and the Assembly, he will use that opening to take yet more souls. Assembly souls, those of the most powerful men in Ardalt. He will pursue Sibyl and Sever, if he can. Under no circumstances can this peace of his be entertained.”

Karl listened quietly, leaning back in his chair with fingers lightly pressed against his lips. When Michael finished speaking, he drummed them against his cheek thoughtfully. “I see,” he said. “That is a very dire warning. You’re sure of this?”

“I wouldn’t be here speaking to you otherwise,” Michael said. “It was my sole purpose in coming to Calmharbor.”

“You wound your father,” Karl snorted. He straightened in his chair, offering a slight grimace at the effort. “All right. If he is as dangerous as you say, and as unwell, then there can obviously be no negotiation in good faith. We must treat him as we did Spark, which is an easy precedent to apply to one claiming directorship of the Institute.”

Michael blinked, his mind failing to process his father’s words for several moments. “All right?” he asked.

“You disagree?” Karl retorted. “You feel I should not listen to my only son when he hauls himself across oceans and battlefields to deliver a warning of dire import to my ears?”

“I did not expect you to agree so readily,” Michael murmured.

Karl rumbled out a low laugh. “Am I that unreasonable?” he asked. “Have I been so obstinate in the past? When did I ever deny you tutors or books? What outings did I forbid? I have always given you everything I could bear to give.” He spread his hands. “It would be foolish of me to disregard a gift of advice given in return.”

He looked away, to the office’s lone door. “Though this will be a hard thing to ask, for some. There are many Assemblymen with holdings in Korbel and Stahm, and they have been first among those clamoring for an early peace.”

“Peace isn’t on the table,” Michael muttered. “It is war, or war by quieter means.”

“Obviously, but that will not sit well with a man who is watching his fortunes shrink away to nothing,” Karl shrugged. “Lord Engel - Niko, he was in here when you arrived. Gave you that ridiculous coat when you were twelve, if you remember; he’s heavily invested in timber and can’t get product from the westlands until hostilities end. He’ll be insolvent before the new year if nothing changes.”

Michael frowned. “That’s unfortunate for Lord Engel,” he said. “But I don’t see what can be done. As long as Luc is present-”

“Yes, yes,” Karl said. “But that isn’t how Niko will see it. This is the reality of the Assembly, Michael. Logic is secondary to who is making the argument; if I hear you say that this Luc isn’t to be trusted, I believe you. You’re my son.”

He gestured to the doorway. “The others, though, the ones with empires to save and workers to pay, they won’t discard a way forward so easily. They don’t know you save as my little boy.” Karl snorted, then shook his head. “No. We’ll need to convince the holdouts with something a bit more real.”

“Such as?” Michael asked.

“The easiest would be to let them see that you’re right.” Karl jabbed a finger down upon his desk. “Bring this Luc in, have him speak before the Assembly. If he’s as cracked as you say-”

Michael was already shaking his head. “No, he’s too dangerous,” he said. “He could have any manner of soul. Shines, instigators - Stellar itself is too hazardous to be allowed in the Assembly.”

Karl spread his hands helplessly. “Then we will need to find some other way to reassure them,” he said. “Perhaps if you spoke to them first, at length. Describe your travels with the man, his growing madness. Reinforce their assumption that you were acting at my behest; it will lend you more credibility than if they think you were just tromping about with foreigners the whole time.”

“But that’s precisely what I was doing,” Michael frowned. “I can’t lie to the Assembly. There are verifices-”

“Not a lie,” Karl said, chuckling. He shook his head. “Michael, verifices only see blatant untruth. You can tell the same truth in many different ways, and some of them will be more convincing to the other Assemblymen; that’s politics. You may say the rebels are led by a murderer, or by an unrepentant murderer - unless you’ve heard him repent, the latter is true. It’s the same for everything.”

Michael’s mouth twisted. “Then they should be quite used to hyperbole on the Assembly floor; they’ll disregard me no matter how strongly I couch the warning.”

“As I said: the identity of the speaker matters most.” Karl inclined his head to Michael. “You’re a new face to most, and an unknown political quantity to all. That’s why I suggested leaning on my reputation for a start. If I introduce you and tell the Assemblymen to take heed, it is a tacit endorsement of everything you say and do. It’s a demonstration of my trust in you.”

A flush crept onto Michael’s cheeks. “I appreciate the gesture,” he said. “It should help convince them, at least.”

“It’s more than a gesture,” Karl insisted. “It’s your birthright. Normally you’d have been introduced to the Assembly after your soul was registered. I can’t complain about the delay, however.” He smiled, showing his teeth. “After the past few months, I have no doubt that your tenure in the Assembly will be memorable indeed.”

Michael shifted uncomfortably under the glare of his father’s smile. “I had planned on my tenure in the Assembly being short,” he said. “Limited to my current visit, in fact. I have no plans to remain in Ardalt after Luc is dead.”

Karl’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?” he said. “And where else will you go?”

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“Mendian,” Michael replied. “I have - obligations that will keep me there.”

“Mendian,” Karl repeated. “Ah.” His smile faded; he looked nearly distraught by the news, though Michael could still sense no hint of emotion beneath the quiet whisper of his father’s soul. “Well, that does make things harder. A promising new member would have made a convincing statement.”

Michael looked away before he could stop himself, forcing his eyes back a moment later. “Weren’t you just saying that it’s trivial to tell a version of the truth? We don’t have to mention my future plans.”

“My boy, they will ask,” Karl sighed. “It’s well-known that you fought with Mendian against Ardalt; it’s only through Saf’s subsequent defeat that I was able to depict your actions as benefiting us. Someone is bound to put your loyalties to question if you speak. You must be ready to say that your allegiance is with Ardalt.”

“I don’t know that the truth can be stretched that far,” Michael said. “I have no allegiance to Ardalt, and have not for some time.”

His father gave him a considering look. “You could decide that you do,” he said. “You came all this way to save the country, son. Will you really abandon it to live with our enemies? To stay in a land where you don’t speak the language, where you’ll forever be a Gharic barbarian?”

He leaned forward. “Here you will be powerful, respected. You’ll have your accomplishments, your souls and the Baumgart name. It’s your homeland, Michael. You can’t turn your back on it so easily.”

“This isn’t about my allegiance,” Michael shot back. “Or my future plans. I came here to stop Luc from hurting anyone else, not to join the Assembly. If they won’t listen to me without that commitment, then you will have to tell them in my stead.”

Karl’s eyes narrowed. “And why would they listen to me, a man whose son cavorts with the enemies of Ardalt? I’ve intervened on your behalf, phrased your dalliance with Mendian as a deep plot to use them for our own ends. Break that veneer of loyalty and they’d use you against me in an instant. It’s more than your own future at stake.”

“Much more,” Michael agreed testily. “If I don’t return, then this tenuous peace won’t last. Millions in Daressa and Mendian will find themselves embroiled in war once again.”

“And what of Ardalt?” Karl asked. “You’ve left us in a weak position; for all that I’ve downplayed it in the public eye, your aid helped Mendian hurt us badly. Your friend has co-opted a large portion of our own troops against us, and even if we win we’ll be shattered militarily for years. If Saf comes calling, I doubt that Sever alone could repel them.”

Michael laughed darkly. “I wonder,” he said.

The comment earned him a scathing look from Karl. “You think this is funny, boy? Ardalt’s welfare is not a given. Absent our efforts and sacrifices, our country, our people will vanish under a Safid boot - or Mendiko.” He jabbed his finger on the desk, disturbing the stacked papers. “I have sacrificed everything I have for our country. My fortunes, my health, my wife-”

He glared at Michael, the anger radiant in his eyes - though Spark still could not hear it. “And now you propose to abandon me. My own son. To render meaningless all that I have done, and done on your behalf. This was meant to be yours, Michael. A clear path to a brighter future, under your leadership. I secured all of this for you.”

Karl strained against the armrests of his chair, struggling to his feet; Michael saw his muscles tremble with the effort. He was gaunt under his jacket, his clothing hanging loose off his frame as he leaned heavily on the desk in front of him. His face was pale, his eyes red and damp. “My body was broken, defending you, and the anatomentes may only heal so much. My health suffers in this high office. I wish only to retire, to spend my days in peace, but I cannot do it without discharging my duty to the country and our family name. A Baumgart is meant to lead Ardalt, Michael, and it should be you. My son.”

Michael swayed in place, stunned by the speech; he had never heard his father like this before. Karl Baumgart had always been collected, letting only anger color his implacable manner. He was not a man who pleaded, or spoke effusively. Yet this broken, desperate man with his father’s face stood before him, on the verge of tears. It was impossible, unthinkable; Michael’s heart ached with memories he had long ago buried - scraps of paper littering the corner of this very office, the smell of roast chestnuts heady in the air.

Yet Spark offered no counterpoint to his father’s lacerating soul. The blades still churned, murmuring; the tears shone without the resonant emotion that Michael had grown to expect, the grimacing, flushed face sat over nothing but silence. Michael strained to listen, but he knew it as denial even as he tried.

Leire and Saleh had not given their emotions freely. Their souls were radiant, blinding, masking all underneath. Antolin had likewise been hard to fathom, cloaked behind iron-hard discipline. But the silence he felt from his father resembled neither of these. It was Amira’s silence, echoing and empty beneath a human shell.

Michael knew it for what it was. He breathed deep, facing it, not daring to look away for an instant. A child’s lingering hope evaporated within him, memories of happier times cracked and revealed their ugly truth under its glare. They had consoled him once, but they were - and had always been - lies.

“I have never doubted your political acumen, father,” Michael said quietly. “Even when I was a child, I knew some form of it; that my papa always got his way. No matter the cost. It made me proud of you, proud to be son of such a powerful man.”

He took a breath; Karl looked at him expectantly. Michael met his eyes, and this time there was no thought of looking away. “That’s how I know you don’t need me to convince the chamber. There’s no way you’re unaware of the factional positions; you must realize that Carolus will support any motion to continue the war against the Institute. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Karl looked at him for a long moment. He let out a breath, and with it went the desperation, the anger, the passion that had colored his speech. He sat back down in his chair with slow, laborious effort. When he had finished, he looked much the same as he had earlier, save for the mild flush of exertion.

“You’re right,” Karl said. “I don’t need you; I never have. You’ve never provided one whit of benefit to me, so everything I’ve built is quite capable of standing without your support.” He raised his chin. “But I do want you here, Michael. It’s where you belong.”

Michael laughed, though it was a rasping, strangled noise. “Do you know, I thought that for years,” he said. “Michael, Lord Baumgart. I dreamed of being you, of wielding that power you hold so effortlessly.” His smile faded. “But then of course I got a taste of that power, and do you know what I found? That there was always a price for it.”

He took a step closer to the desk. “And that price was so horrific in most cases that I refused to act, at least until the horror of inaction became greater still. The freedom to step where you please is the responsibility for what falls underfoot, and the more I am forced to stare at that fact, the more I realize that you simply don’t care.”

Karl’s face grew stormy; for the first time Michael felt a sliver of real emotion leak through, ire rippling through the ethereal blades. “It’s you who should step more carefully,” Karl said, his voice dangerously cold. “Your good fortune does not give you license to-”

“-to what?” Michael asked. “To point out the obvious?” He stood closer still, so that he was against the edge of Karl’s desk. “Name one person you would help without demanding recompense, as we’ve struck my name from that list already.”

“Naïve,” Karl snorted. “Platitudes are no replacement for thought; if you bothered to think about the realities of this world for half a moment you’d realize that you couldn’t come up with a name either.”

“Serafina Miro,” Michael said. “Antolin Errea. Lars Webel. Gabirel Zabala. Unai. Otto. Brand. Leo.” He shook his head. “Innkeeps, children, strangers on the street, Elias Keller’s fucking mother-”

Karl swept his arm across the desk irritably. “More platitudes. You wouldn’t abridge anything important for a random innkeep, wouldn’t-” He broke off, frowning. “Who is Elias Keller?”

“You wouldn’t know him,” Michael said. “He’s not important.”

Karl gave him an aggravated look. “Then why would I pay him any mind?” he demanded.

A quiet, sad smile spread over Michael’s face. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

“You’re testing my patience, boy. You may play at being cryptic and superior with others, but I know what you’re about. You’re no paragon. You’re a child playing with a sword, confident because you’ve yet to lop off any toes.” Karl glared up at him. “Those you just named will be the ones you disappoint when you taste reality for the first time - and it will happen, without guidance.”

Michael gave him a flat look. “Your guidance, I assume.”

“Obviously.” Karl crossed his arms over his chest. “And that is something that I will give freely. It’s time to forget your childish fantasies and be the man you were meant to be.”

“You mean your heir.” Michael’s control slipped as he spoke the last word, his voice coloring with disgust. The dam crumbled; he looked down at his father with naked loathing. “You have nothing that I want.”

Karl struggled to rise again, his face reddening. “You are my son-”

“No,” Michael said, struggling to speak clearly past the electric tension in his throat. “You killed your son, and the man who stands in his place wants nothing of your work. Not the Assembly position built atop tens of thousands of innocent dead. Not Ardalt, built atop millions more. Not our family name, since you’ve done your best to destroy all who bear it.”

Michael leaned very close to his father’s face. “You are an empty, cruel man, and I was a fool to think you had anything but a use for me.”

Karl’s red face shaded to purple, his soul slipping out to draw gouges from the wood of his desk. “You fucking brat,” he rasped. “I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Michael whispered. “You’ll hurt me?”

The room was a silent tableau around them, the dust in the air floating in fractal lacework that radiated away from the two men. The lamps took on a stretched, golden hue. Light scintillated from every direction, flaring as the air twisted, pulsing with the beat of an unseen heart; distance bent in an unseen hand.

Michael breathed out, relaxing his shoulders; Karl Baumgart fell back into his chair. His face had paled, his brow drenched in sweat above wide, staring eyes.

A moment later, those eyes narrowed; the veil swept back over Karl’s face. “You will regret betraying me,” he said. “Don’t think yourself invincible.”

A soft breath of air caressed Michael’s cheek; Sobriquet’s voice spoke in his ear. “Zabala and Lars are already on their way to the mansion,” she said. “They’ll have Ricard and Helene out before he can do anything.”

Michael smiled at her voice; in the next instant he noticed Karl’s eyes locked onto the expression, apoplectic. He would have felt the urge to explain, before, but to this livid, pitiful man before him-

“Destroy your childish fantasies,” Michael murmured. “And become the man you were meant to be. Thank you, father.” He let the smile grow, then fade. “For the advice.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked from the room.

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