Slumrat Rising

The carriage bumped up the unpaved road. On the other side of these jagged hills were coffee farms, lush and green. Excellent paved roads ran up and down them, heavy with wagons carrying the precious beans to be processed for export. This side of the hills didn’t get as much rain. It was dry, scrubby, barren, home to a few small homesteaders failing to subsist on their subsistence farming. You lived here because you couldn’t afford to live anywhere better but weren’t ready to give up just yet.

The carriage fit right in. It, too, looked about dead but not quite ready to quit. Ratty, tattered, paint peeling or patched with the wrong color, springs squeaking and creaking alarmingly, and even the bound spirit seemed to whine and groan as it turned the wheels. You just knew the late afternoon sun had turned the inside into an oven.

The rattletrap carriage bounced and jostled and jolted its way to just under the summit of a particularly bleak-looking hill. There was a small house here, or perhaps it would be better called a hut, with a pen for some goats and another for chickens. Not many goats. Not many chickens. A drab place, like a dozen others dotting these bare hillsides. The only thing that distinguished it was that it had a broad well sitting next to the house. In an age when even the most impoverished could have a water-summoning talisman, what could speak of greater poverty than a well?

The carriage rattled to a halt at the edge of the property. Its driver sat and waited. A half-hour later, an old woman walked out of the house. She moved slowly, carefully, but her back was straight and the scarf over her head focused his eyes on the beauty she still had. Older, wrinkled. Faded from her first flowering. But still beautiful. She nodded to the driver.

He opened the door and stepped out. A short man with a young face, a wild beard, and two of the oldest, angriest-looking eyes you ever saw. Those eyes softened into pain and regret. He reached into the wagon and pulled out a sword, still in its sheath. He raised it over his head and walked towards the house. The old lady saw the sword, clutched at her chest, and collapsed to her knees. She screamed and screamed as her heart broke.

“Starbrite made their move, but sooner than they should have been able to manage. We are still picking through the mess, trying to sort out how they did it. Some kind of orbital insertion carrying some hellish payload. The mechanics aren’t important.” The young-looking man’s eyes reddened with fury. “The point is that it shouldn’t have worked, and it shouldn’t have mattered even if it did work!”

The old lady didn’t say anything. She just stroked the sword on her lap.

“But the great undertaking failed. It failed. We had calculated all the possibilities. The most likely one was remote bombardment followed by invasion. The least likely, even less likely than them succeeding without being disturbed, was for the old bastard to come down and interfere personally. There were contingencies for everything, everything within that spectrum. Even what happened was covered by contingency. The working should have been triggered by the sacrifice of the defenders, if not the enemy. But it didn’t work at all!”

“The defenders. My granddaughter.” The old woman said.

“The last of my line. There will be no prophets in Siphios, ever again.” She continued sadly. “None on this whole benighted world. All gone. All gone.”

There was nothing he could say to that. He just looked at the sword and clenched his fists.

“She told them, you know. Again and again. The contract has been broken. Nothing will come of a sacrifice, no matter how great or powerfully crafted. But no, it was a “matter of faith.” Faith. Lecturing a prophet about faith! And then they dragged her off to die!” The bitterness in the old woman’s voice grew. Bony knuckles tightened on the sheath, but she made no move to touch the hilt.

“It is… the touchstone of who we are. Our contract with God. Everything else can change. Everything can come or go, but not that. If we are without His protection… who are we? What are we?” The man muttered. He ran his hands through his hair, then started to grip it, pull it until he felt it start to tear.

“Who are we? I know who I am. I know who you are, too, Justinian. So did Moira. Two hundred years is a long time to hold a crush. She was probably the happiest person to see you married off to Eliza.” The bitterness came slipping out of the old woman, wrapping around the words.

“Yes, I loved her. I still love her. She loved me too, though never romantically. I think it’s why she sent me the sword.” Justinian admitted it frankly. He was far too old to deny himself.

“She sent you the sword because she knew you would survive and carry out her will.” The old woman snorted. “No way your precious king would allow you to fight with the others.”

“True.”

The conversation came to a stop for a few minutes. The old woman slowly stroked the sheath, like she had her granddaughter’s hair so many centuries ago. It felt like yesterday. Never again.

“The thing is, I need to know. Everyone needs to know if it is true.” Justinian said.

“What?”

“That God has abandoned us. That this world is well and truly doomed, and we all shall slave for Starbright and his Demon.” Even here, some names were taboo.

“Of course the world is doomed. The Dragon died on the fields of Har Meketi, and the heroes of the world died with him. You were there, old man. You were there.” The old lady never took her eyes off the sword.

“But his spirit didn’t die. The people didn’t die. And where there is life-”

“If the next words out of your mouth are “there is hope,” I will gut you.” She hissed.

He closed his eyes, wincing in apology. It was force of habit. They both knew it. Didn’t make it better. Eventually, he drew a shuddering breath.

“I have to know, Rebkah. I have to know if God has truly abandoned us. If the contract is truly broken.”

“So what. And so what if it was?”

“It’s a vassalage contract, Rebkah. It is vital to know!”

“No, it isn’t. He didn’t intervene and hasn’t for centuries. Our “last, great hope” died centuries ago. Our “Last, desperate, final chance” was murdered by Starbrite’s death sworn at Fort Leucre. My beautiful granddaughter. The last of my line. The last prophet of Siphios was murdered by Starbrite’s death sworn. In a battle she had no business being in. He didn’t save his last prophet, Justinian. God’s gone.”

“I have to know, Rebkah! And that means talking to the one person who would know!”

Rebkah’s head jerked up, staring at Justinian in wild-eyed horror. Her hand swung around in a blur, slapping him so hard he spat blood on the floor.

“How dare you. HOW DARE YOU! You come into my house carrying my granddaughter’s sword, and you DEMAND to know if God abandoned us? Who the HELL do you think you are!”

“I think I am a Mazoi of the Silver Throne! And not for nothing, I hope, a Teacher of Cannon Law. So I have to know twice over.”

“And yet, you may not. You must not. I have been forbidden to practice my art by both Throne and Temple. A necessary choice, I was told, in light of “present geopolitical tensions.” Indeed, I am only permitted to remain in Siphios by special dispensation. For my “past contributions.”

“And because they physically cannot move the Ov.”

“And that.”

“I can guarantee neither Throne nor Temple will hold you accountable,” Merkovah said.

“That is beyond your power, Mazoi.” She spat.

Justinian reached into his pocket. Squeezed hard what was in there. And drew it out. He presented the oversized thumb ring to Rebkah. White gold, with a horrifying sigil carved into a fat gem at its top. The sigil seemed to shift as you looked at it, but no matter how it transformed, you always knew what it meant. Obey.

“Should I kneel? To see the regalia is to see the king.” Rebkah made no sign of moving.

“His Royal Majesty, Abne the Twenty-Fourth, has decided to seclude himself in the Eternal Spring Palace. He will dedicate the remainder of his life to his cultivation of the arts and to his family.” Justinian said mechanically.

“Then Siphios has fallen too. In all but name. Ah. I see it now. Both king and prophet both despaired as they saw death approach. They entrusted you with their hope that someone would keep fighting.” Rebkah muttered.

“That… is what I thought as well.”

Rebkah seemed to collapse in on herself. “Then it’s all gone. All that’s left is welcoming the demon and awaiting orders.”

“No. Not quite. I refuse to believe in any perfection but God’s. There has to be a path. But to find it, we need to know if we are on our own. He was our greatest reliance and the greatest restraint upon us.” There was silence. Justinian closed his eyes once more. Opened them and stood. A Mazoi of the Silver Throne, wielding the ancient regalia.

“Rebkah Sanwit, Bal-Alat Ov of Eyn Dor, I call upon you to fulfill your duty to the Throne, the Temple, and the People of Siphios. Summon Moira Sanwit, that we may confer with her and gain wisdom from her. Hear this order and tremblingly obey.” The sonorous words rolled from his mouth, permitting no opposition.

“You know if I do this, I will be useless for decades. Centuries, more likely. Whatever mad plans you concoct, I can have no part in them.”

“Yes. But it must be done.”

She smiled grimly and stood. “Alright. I, too, find the call of oblivion too strong to resist. I will summon my grandaughter, the woman you loved, up from heaven and back into hell for you. And when I return to myself, you had best be dead.”

She led him back out to the well and with the flick of one hand, cast aside its wide cover. Where there should have been water, there was swirling blackness. Black textured by deeper black, without the faintest flicker of light. Rebkah took a last look at the sword and handed it back to Justinian.

Facing the swirling darkness, she raised her arms and started to pray. The rolling chant seemed to not disperse in the air but gathered around the well. The world became denser, more real. The words spilled faster and faster from the old beauty, the strain building up and up until the darkness of the well twisted. A single brilliant spark escaped. Too bright and terrible to be looked at directly, it destroyed the world around it. But it could not escape the well.

“I knew you would do it, Justinian. Couldn’t let me go without saying goodbye.” It was Rebkah’s voice, but coming from the spark. Rebkah herself stood transfixed, her face a rigid mask of horror, and her mouth did not move.

“I need to know, Moira. Has God abandoned us? Has God broken the contract?” Justinian spoke quickly.

“Oh no. We broke the contract when we fled the field of battle at Har Meketi, rather than fight to the last. We lost faith that he would save us. We broke the contract. Therefore God has no duty to save us now.” Even through the veil of death, Justinian could hear Moira’s bitter sarcasm and feel the sting of her acid tongue.

“The contract is no more.”

“Yes, Justinian, the contract is broken beyond repair. The people are without God’s protection and the protection of his laws. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world before it settles into dreary slavery. Or so God says.” And here was that sly tone, recognizable even through her grandmother’s voice. He could never mistake it.

“Is there any hope?” He asked. The fire had gone from his voice.

“From God? None. But there is from me. The working was always doomed to fail. So when the explosions started, I took the liberty to make a little change. One small twist to fate. The path of one life, ever so slightly nudged. One of the death sworn was already loosely bound by fate as it was. He shall become ours. Starbrite will send him to you freely. Give him my sword, and show him a way to fight. Be sincere with him, or he will turn on you without hesitation or remorse. The Children of the Eldest Son have marked him as well. So if you won’t give weight to my words, you should at least fear their will.”

“How will I find him?” Justinian asked. No time to wonder who exactly she was talking about.

“That sounds like a you problem. Now, release me. Every moment here is agony and defilement.”

“Farewell, Moira. I will always love you.” Justinian clapped once, loudly. Rebeka started violently and collapsed. The spark vanished, and the well was simply an empty, dry well. Justinian rushed over to help up the old lady.

“Oh thank you, young man. I have no idea what came over me. Or what possessed me to open the well. Old thing’s been dry as long as I’ve lived here.” Rebkah nattered in a thin voice. “I don’t suppose you could help me put the cover back on?”

Justinian hauled it back into place. She nodded approvingly. “What brings you out to my little hut? I’m afraid I have nothing to offer my guests.”

“An old friend of mine lived on this hill for a while, and she recently died. I thought I would come to see the place.”

“Ah, my condolences. And it’s such a long drive too. Have you seen all that you wanted to?”

“Yes, thank you, Good Mother.”

“Still, I feel terrible. I have a few goats, and the eldest ewe has dried up. Let me feed you at least.”

“Good Mother, you have little enough! I am not hungry. But thank you. I shall remember your kindness.”

“Are you sure? It’s a long way to town.” She sounded worried. Her dim eyes didn’t seem to see much, but she smiled warmly anyhow.

“Very sure, thank you. I have much work to do, and I don’t know how much time I have to do it.”

Justinian got back in his carriage and drove off. His emotions were a storm within him, but the occasional flicker of a smile crossed his lips.

The covenant was shattered. The law was gone. All the prohibitions on certain magics no longer applied. All the prohibition on divination by the stars. On necromancy. On… so many things. He could find this… free soldier. And figure out who Moira was talking about. Which brother was the eldest? And who were his sons?

No matter. The situation was bad. Dire, even. But not without a shred of hope. That was more than enough for him. He would take down Starbrite. Even if he destroyed the world doing it.

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