God Within Us

THE clattering of hooves on cobblestone echoed through the city as Yesugei entered Belnopyl at the head of the armored company. The great pale flame he held high above his head cast a fierce glow upon the faces of the soldiers who watched his approach with awe and relief. As the nomad princeling passed beneath the raised iron gates of the Golden Pass his hand closed, and the light was extinguished. Some of the world’s color seemed to leave the world when his clawed fingers smothered the flame, leaving only the lingering scent of smoke and sulfur.

From the far side of the courtyard, Vasilisa's voice rang out, a clear note of joy and disbelief. "Yesugei!"

It still felt as if she were living half a dream, until she stepped down from the ramparts and approached Yesugei. The nomad vaulted off the back of his warhorse, and the burst of sudden relief overcame the facade of nobility once more. She collided with the nomad in a fervent embrace, and the force of her arms nearly lifted Yesugei off his feet. The world blurred about them as she spun with him in a half-circle, and uncertainty melted into laughter - they had made it. They had survived.

But not unchanged.

After what seemed like a long year’s embrace, they parted. The smell of blood and leather still clung to the nomad like a heavy perfume, but his face seemed somehow younger, more lively in freedom from Stribor’s men, though no little time could fade the dark circles under his eyes, nor the half-healed bruises. As she caught her breath, she realized she had taken hold of Yesugei’s left hand. The flesh was blackened and hard to the touch, like a cracked log pulled from a fire, and his fingers ended in dark claws that were all too familiar. She was holding the hand of an Apostle, and the concern was plain in her eyes when they flicked back to Yesugei’s face.

“Your arm…”

Yesugei smiled, a weary but genuine expression, and his fingers twitched, sending a small pulse of light through the deep scars that ran along his flesh. The nomad looked about the ruined city, and the ragged soldiers that greeted the rest of the riders. “Broken, but still alive. I think I’ll fit in well with this city, wouldn’t you agree?”

The nomad caught himself and, straightening his dusty sheepskin robe, he gave a low bow in her honor and removed his fur cap. “My lady.”

“Stand up, damn you!” she muttered to him, her voice a mix of well-natured mirth and annoyance. “I’d have had you bowing and ‘my lady’ing me some four hundred miles ago! You think to do this all now?”

“It is as he should,” came the deep voice from behind Yesugei. Ilya’s boots landed with a heavy thud upon the ground as he swung down from his horse.

At least there was one who seemed unchanged - her father’s closest druzhinnik was as massive and mustachioed as ever, though he somehow did not seem so threatening and vast in her eyes as he had before. She went to embrace Ilya in kind, and his grandfatherly hug squeezed some of the breath from her lungs as the druzhinnik laughed, sounding close to tears. His long whiskers tickled her face as he planted a kiss on both of her cheeks, and then he took a long look at her, as if still uncertain it was his liege’s daughter that stood before him.

“Too long…it has been too long…” Ilya bemoaned, shaking his head. “Too much darkness in the world - but I knew you would return. We all did.”

The last of the riders came through the Golden Pass, and then Ilya’s voice died away in Vasilisa’s ears. Cold, a terrible, biting cold, suddenly came upon her and carved a deep wound through her soul. It smelled of cold, and it felt as though a great creeping shadow had stolen upon her - a sword hanging just above her head. Her voice faltered, and she heard sounds of hushed awe come from the others in the city as the final rider climbed down from the black gelding. The stranger was clad in a great cloak, but no clothes could completely hide the Apostle’s stone form from sight. Two glittering eyes looked to her, and Vasilisa’s heart grew cold with dread.

Her fingers twitched for the Kladenets, but it was nowhere near at hand. The Apostle raised a hand up - whether in warning or in greeting, she did not know - but before she could call for the guards she felt Yesugei’s reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Unukalhai is with us,” said the nomad, and Vasilisa looked from him to the Apostle in astonishment. “For now. There is much that we need to discuss - and too little time.”

***

Down and below around the Golden Pass, the shouts and praise of Belnopyl’s folk could scarcely be heard above the howling of the winds. A storm was coming - Yesugei sensed it in the air, which felt charged with lightning and fear. Below, the soldiers from Ilya’s company were busy manning the walls and striking their camp at the base of the outer wall, and their many banners flapped loudly with the chilling breeze.

He peered over the edge one last time, and then turned to Vasilisa’s chambers. Enough time had passed for her to think on all that they had spoken of, he judged - and besides, it was all the time they could spare.

Somewhere out to the south and west, Ilya’s outriders had reported signs of an army on the march, having followed the many tracks that led away from the Leaden Fork. They did not know how far the rebel lords had gone, nor their numbers - only that they had many times their own. Unukalhai’s words came back to him - three armies, but which was that of the rebel lords? Certainly they did not march for love, but then was it greed for the throne, or wrath for the slights they claimed to be avenging?

Yesugei shook his head, cursing the dreams and riddles of the Apostles. He stepped back into the shelter of the princess’ room, and was met only by abject silence. Vasilisa was seated at her table, her arms crossed and her head bowed low in thought; the warrior Ilya was by her side, similarly troubled; and Unukalhai stood off in one corner of the room like a chastened child, though one who needed stoop low to avoid the ceiling of the room.

Hearing the door close behind him, Vasilia turned to look at Yesugei. Her eyes were dark, but for a moment he swore he saw small tinges of gold in her gaze as she studied him, and then flicked her eyes to Unukalhai. Her teeth were clenched, her neck and shoulders tense; he realized with some small amusement that the silence was for fear - the druzhinnik and even the Apostle seemed frightened of what she would say. After all, it was not every day a woman was to learn her mother was an Apostle - the spawn of one who shared blood with the crystal-born abominations of the world.

In truth, Vasilisa seemed to be handling the news far better than any of them had secretly hoped.

The Princess of Belnopyl sighed, and then buried her face in her hands. “What is to be done, then?” he heard her mumble through her scarred fingers. “Your gods - one of them, at least - speaks in my ears, but for all I hear, I still know naught of what to do! I see dreams, I see…things…but to grasp for answers is like trying to grasp for smoke!”

Unukalhai stirred, and Yesugei saw that the Apostle was busy studying Vasilisa’s cleaver - Alnayyir’s cleaver - which they wielded with some difficulty before propping it back up against the wall. The Apostle’s chain glinted and sparkled with excitement as Unukalhai approached Vasilisa carefully, and crouched by her side, pointing out from one of the windows.

“You know where your path lies,” sounded the Apostle’s voice, though their lips hardly moved. “Chirlan, or perhaps the Star-Eater, has shown you where your destiny is to be sought. The seed of Vaal, the Mother’s water…it is here, somewhere. And the dagger-”

“What destiny?” Vasilisa interrupted, wiping her nose and looking to the Apostle with a venomous look. “I have seen in my dreams only destruction, and a black death to take the world. That is no destiny to be sought after - my mother Cirina rejected it for good measure, no matter the weight of her sin!”

For a brief moment, the Apostle seemed at a loss for words. The stone mask betrayed no expression, but there was a stunned silence that stretched on for a long while - long enough for Yesugei to start thinking Vasilisa might have killed the abomination with her outburst. Then, Unukalhai blinked, and turned away.

“Then you would have Jirghadai take up the title of the Vessel?” asked the Apostle slowly. “The one who wishes to bring about fire and sword to the whole world, before the return of the Majesties? You would pass the fate of mortal men into the hands of such a monster? Not all of our kin are yet convinced of humanity’s corruption - and neither do any of us know the will of the Majesties for your race.”

The Apostle jabbed a finger in Vasilisa’s direction. “Indeed, the Question of Humanity may only be answered by a Vessel - what would you say, princess of Belnopyl? I have seen into the Flame-Kissed one’s mind, and I have seen only hatred, hatred to rival that of my kin. A man who has lost all that is dear, and now only lives to take life. Do you think such a man would answer kindly, mercifully for humanity’s part, if he should be made its judge?”

The Apostle’s cold, dead eyes locked with Vasilisa’s own searching gaze. Then Vasilisa spoke, “You speak truly then, that there is no other way?”

“It is the will of the Majesties,” replied Unukalhai, a tinge of bitter sorrow in their voice. “They may bide their time. Khariija bought humanity five hundred years at the cost of her own grace, but it is nothing - five hundred, a thousand, a million - time is one thing that you mortals lack, but the gods have it ever-plenty, and their design will come to pass.”

Their design…the Grand Design…Yesugei realized the thoughts that came to his mind were not his own. The crystal inside his own flesh reached out for its original bearer, and with its grasp went his own consciousness, his own mind. Blending, Melting. Shaping into one form - and of the two that were made one, he was the lesser and overwhelmed by the thoughts of the Vessel.

Blind, endless time…the abyss of the future from which no past could be traced, not by any mortal. Pulled in by Vasilisa’s mind, he fell into the great sea of consciousness and time with her - no, there was no him nor her, they were one, bound by blood-oath and a crystal given in mercy, in love. They surged through the roiling sea, and all around them great waves rose and fell - within them lay the futures that could be, myriad and vague, only granting the tiniest of glimpses before fading away.

In all of them lay death. Even now, there were millions of voices that cried out, a million corpses, a million skulls - within every path there lay death on a scale unimaginable. Within every path, the snare of the divine lay - the Question of Humanity at every turn.

He struggled to keep his sense of self. He knew now that Unukalhai spoke the truth. She was the Vessel - and from such a fate, there would be no escape. It was a crown with teeth turned inwards, unable to be removed. But his resignation was suddenly flooded away by defiance, and he sensed Vasilisa’s mind thinking, swimming deeper, searching for a different path, a different future. One in which the Majesties could be defied.

No, came the sudden, singular thought. Then the vision faded rapidly away as if Vasilisa’s mind were in retreat, robbing him of the chance to see what future could be parsed. His throat burned from the pain of breathing - he bent double-over, and gasped from the shock of his mind crashing back into his body, the shock of knowing himself once more.

What had she seen?

“It must be done,” spoke the princess of Belnopyl gravely. Her eyes had a hard edge to them now, and they set Ilya back into his seat when he rose up to speak. “But I will not scurry into some hole and leave this city to die.”

Vasilisa stood from her seat and looked down at the kneeling Apostle as a master looking upon a slave, bitterness in her gaze and voice. “You wish to throw your lot in with me? Then you will do as I say, and fight for me. The enemy that comes upon our door does not know nor care for prophecies and Vessels - and I will not abandon my people to chase these prophecies. We will turn back the threat of the usurpers, and only then will I seek the Hollows and your destiny.”

A moment of grating silence passed…and then Unukalhai bowed their head in reverence. “It shall be so.”

Yesugei smiled, as did Ilya, who rose up and said to Vasilisa, “Truly, knyaz Igor has raised a fine heiress to the city! What are we to do then, lady Vasilisa?”

The princess of Belnopyl pointed to the ramparts outside the tower. “Have your men bolster the ranks along the walls - distribute those who are strongest-willed among the towers. If they hold fast, it might be that lesser men will think twice before casting down their swords and fleeing.”

Yesugei stepped forth, rubbing the lingering flashes of pain from his temples before peering over the map laid out onto the table. The Khormchak way of war was on the open field - they held little love for protracted sieges, for the greatest strength one could have was the choice of when to give battle, and when to flee.

The smart thing would be to hit them on the march, he thought as he pondered the map. Give me a squad of mounted archers, and we could bleed them for every inch they step towards Belnopyl. But they did not have a squad of mounted archers - there were a handful of western herdsmen who were decent shots from the saddle, but they did not know the finer ways of Khormchak war, and would scatter in an instant the moment the archers of the enemy were to shoot back.

No one else is coming. Not in time. On foot, it would take Kargasha's host three or four days to arrive, if they struck a hard pace and marched through the night. Yesugei looked out from the window of the keep - try as he might, he could only conjure up faint hope for their stand. Ilya’s gathered men were a great boon to their ranks, but they were only a small band - the rest were militia, drawn up from the surviving freeholders of the city - the Marmuns and Dorus and Khavels of the world given arms and armor. But if they were not too old or too young - as many were - then the men they had at hand were too beaten and weary to give a good fight. Still, clad in leather and padded cloth, at least some of them looked like true soldiers, standing guard by the keep which was to be their last fallback point if the outer walls were to fall.

Yesugei turned away from the window. “How many can the rebels call to their banners?”

“Two, perhaps three thousand,” replied Ilya with a wave of his hand. “Enough to take this city.”

“But not enough to hold it, if there should be a costly fight for it,” Yesugei replied, and he felt an idea come together in his mind. “If they lose too many taking the city, then they will find themselves in the same place as us - hungry, under-strength, and with enemies all around. Loyalists. Other usurpers.”

“What are you saying?” asked Ilya gruffly.

“I think the rebels are not counting on Belnopyl to put up much of a defense - if any at all,” he replied. “They must surely know the state of this city and its defenders from the talk of any freeholders that sought shelter behind their walls. And with Pyotr’s men cut apart at the Leaden Fork, it may be that they think the city is almost completely without garrison. Either way, it is likely they will be counting on an easy victory, and taking the city by storm. We should rid them of that notion.”

Yesugei paused, trying to recall the stories that were told around campfires in another life where he had still been a prince. “My tribe…before my father went to battle against an alliance of Qara-Isyqs and Suan, he placed war-banners and lit campfires enough for thirty-thousand men, when he had only a third of that count. The Qara-Isyqs quit the field when they saw the specters of an army many times their own - they feared losing too many men in one battle, and so for fear of finding themselves under-strength for tomorrow’s war, they left. My father’s noyans butchered the Suan who remained.

“We should do the same: set the women, the young, and the old to make decoys from grass and straw, and put them up along the walls - two, maybe three for every man of flesh and blood. You have more armor and weapons than men, so use them! Let the enemy come to Belnopyl, and when they arrive, make them think that we are close on to a thousand, rather than our paltry two-hundred. Perhaps then at the least, they will not be so hasty to throw themselves into an assault - and we will buy ourselves some time.”

“Fooling the enemy with dolls?” chortled Ilya, shaking his head. “Only a Khormchak could think up such a thing! Perhaps when they storm the walls at last, they will be too busy laughing to kill us!”

“Then kill them while they laugh.” Vasilisa spoke coldly. “It is foolishness, but at the very least it is a plan - and busy hands might help stave off frightened minds, and talk of yielding. You should trust in the judgment of Khormchaks, Ilya - they dealt our kin a defeat long ago, so surely there is some wisdom in their ways of war.”

That was a bitter draught to swallow for the old druzhinnik, who bowed his head and muttered something under his breath. Still, he did not argue the matter - instead he gave a resigned sigh, and stepped for the door.

“Very well. If it is by straw dolls we’ll have our victory, at least the singers will have a grand time making a story of it all.”

The druzhinnik left to the sounding of the great keep’s bell, and he muttered a dark curse before slamming the door shut. Three long tolls echoed - ringing the death knell of the world, as Aysen had said.

Let the world live on a little longer, Yesugei thought. Let there be songs written of princesses and straw soldiers.

Let there be people left to hear them sung.

***

The passage of the morning to afternoon could be little marked in the bleak gray days, but it must have been the afternoon when Yesugei heard a voice come up from the trapdoor to the tower of the Gods' Gate.

“Room for one more?” A pale face looked up at him, and he recognized the marsh-dweller from Vasilisa's company, clad in maille and leather.

Yesugei shifted aside, and Austeja came up through the door, struggling with several wooden poles and a heavy bundle in her arms. The warrior dropped her load onto the ground, and from the bundle fell free several padded jackets and helmets. In the cold of the sunless day her cheeks and nose were rosy, and with her wild hair she cut a beautiful figure, even in her armor.

“Lady Vasilisa told me this was your idea,” said Austeja as she set about lashing the wooden poles into skeletons for their soldiers. Her voice was strangely sullen, but he did not sense it was over the dolls she was tasked to set up. “She must trust you a great deal, to listen to the counsel of a Khormchak. Your people slaughtered and enslaved hers by the thousands, yet now you are allies.”

“What's it to you?”

“Nothing,” said the warrior with a shrug as she pulled a padded jacket over one of the wooden skeletons. “Only that you have traveled with her the longest out of anyone else - you are bound, I sense, by more than just oath. And if course, her have her ear in a way that not even Ilya can claim.”

Yesugei narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Austeja's turned back. So that was why she had left her own post at the Golden Pass to set up wooden soldiers by his side. He looked around the tower, and then peered over the edge where a handful of spearmen lingered by a barrel of rocks - no listening ears were about them, just as a conspirator would want, if their absence was not her doing in the first place.

“What do you want from me, then?” He spoke pointedly to Austeja, nudging one of the iron helmets on the ground with the tip of his boot. “To tell her some counsel you yourself would not dare? Well, let me hear it then - what would you have me say?”

There was a tense silence between them. Austeja made a show of adjusting the padded jacket over the wooden dummy, searching for her words before she turned to look back at Yesugei. He took a small step backwards. Had the golden flecks in the marsh-dweller's eyes always been so bright? He shivered from a sudden gust of cold that rose up against the battlements.

“This is a strange place, and not just for the terror within the keep,” said Austeja softly, pointing to the distant belltower and the spires of the royal hold. “This is the land of my ancestors, and this holy place was once a place of dreams, of life. Do you know what I have seen in my dreams, since I have come to this land?”

Yesugei stirred uncomfortably. Austeja began to pace about the tower, muttering darkly to herself before she spoke again. “There is death all around us, death hounding us since ever we have left Rovetshi. The Hollows were meant to be a sanctuary, a place where life might bloom and ever grow - but in my dreams I have seen only fire. Fire and death. Vasilisa's death, Yesugei - I have seen her die in my dreams. Then fire, fire all around, and with you in the centre of it all, bringing fire to this holy land, this place of life. All of it will be burnt to the ground, and I am afraid. Afraid of the fire. Afraid for her.”

She turned suddenly to Yesugei, her eyes shining and searching, peering deeply into his own. “Do you love her, nomad?” She asked quietly. “Do you love her, truly?”

The question jumped at Yesugei, and he felt heat rush up to his face. His mind spun - what love could be found in a dead and silent heart? There was beauty to Vasilisa, both in body and spirit. And of course, she had saved his life - and they were bound by blood-oath. Yet to say he loved her…

What foolishness was this? He looked to Austeja, and saw by her small smile that his heart had betrayed him whilst his mind pondered.

“I do,” he said at length, meeting her searching gaze. “I love her.”

“Then you must not let her go into the Hollows,” said Austeja. “You have her ear, more than anyone else. You must not let her go, and neither should you - or else I am afraid this fate I have seen will come to pass, and the cradle of life will burn. She will burn. Do you understand?”

Yesugei nodded - and he felt the knives of her words twisting through his soul as he did. How? How to convince her, whilst Unukalhai is by her side, prodding her ever on?

He thought of the visions of the futures yet to come. What had Vasilisa seen? The futures he saw were many, but he recalled how they all led to one place - the Question that was to be answered, whether by one Vessel or the other. Was it fate then, for him to turn her away from the Hollows and Unukalhai's words? The seed of Vaal, the Mother's water…the dagger. Khariija's dagger.

Austeja stood up, and stepped away from Yesugei. She fixed a helmet onto one of the dummies that now stood guard by the ramparts, and gave him a final glance before moving to descend through the trapdoor. Before she went down the ladder, a sudden thought came to Yesugei. He placed one foot upon the trapdoor, and pulled up the sleeve covering his blackened arm.

“There is strength in fire,” he said to her as his arm pulsed with a soft pale glow. “Strength, and rebirth. Vasilisa's life was claimed once already in the Devil Woods, and she arose stronger, and more wise. I was burned once, yet it is because of the flames I had brought Ilya's men to your doorstep.”

He thought about a wise crow's words, and spoke again, “Dreams are fickle things, it is said, and perhaps that which you see are your fears, not what will truly come to pass. I will tell Vasilisa your counsel, but I do not think it will convince her. But what I can assure you is this: I will not let her die, if not for the sake of our oath, then because the man who would take up Vasilisa's fate in her place would drown us all in darkness.”

“And what if it is precisely your protection that should lead her to her final death?” shot back Austeja. “It was you who brought the flames to the land - you, with your heart of fire, whom I saw burning lady Vasilisa. What if it is you who will be the one to doom her, at the end of days? Do you love her enough to let her go, when the time comes?”