The Legend of Broken (36 page)

“The accuracy of those last facts, Niksar,” says Arnem, too softly to be overheard. “I have yet to establish …” He raises his voice again, before suspicion can be fostered: “But let me add to the honored elder’s statement only that the maiden neither took her own life, when the business was discovered, nor was struck down by some furious member of her family.”

“Why think the soldier involved at all, then, Honored Father?” Niksar calls. “Did she show signs of the pox, or some other—
disease
of like nature?”

“Indeed,” the elder answers, displaying angry, horrified grief.

“Very well, then,” Niksar says solemnly. “The laws are clear, if it was given to her by the soldier. There should be no confusion, no ‘mystery.’”

“There
should
be none,” Arnem replies, esteeming his aide’s respectful manner, and matching it. “But we have two additional and unfortunate facts to consider, for they lie behind the actions of the young pallin’s comrades—and, more importantly, those of their commander. Both the soldier and his maiden insisted, even unto their deaths from the sickness, that they had engaged in no—” The commander attempts to find a gentler word, but cannot: “No
fornication.
Only innocent trysts.”

Niksar, however, has fixed his mind on the first of Arnem’s revelations: “‘
Their
deaths’?”

“Indeed,” Arnem says. “For the pallin also died, soon after the girl.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Arnem sees Visimar’s wandering gaze and attention fix on the great stone structure that they are approaching: it is a reaction of the sort that the sentek has hoped to provoke.
“Ignis Sacer,”
the cripple murmurs. “The Holy Fire …”

“Elder,” Arnem calls, as the horses reach the litter. “May I assume that the two deaths, while they may not have occurred at the same time, were of the same—
variety
?”

The elder seems somewhat uncertain of the meaning behind this question, and he hesitates; at which the fearfully fascinated Visimar, perhaps unwisely, steps in: “Of course they were, Sentek. In both cases, death was preceded by a fever that seemed to come and go, each time returning with more force. It was eventually accompanied by small red sores across the back and stomach, as well as the chest and the throat.”

“Our own healer,” the elder says, “then thought it to be rose fever, which was cause enough for alarm.”

“Indeed, Father,” Visimar says, nodding and glancing at Arnem as the latter starts at the mention of rose fever. “But very soon, it degenerated further, into a madness that destroyed their minds, as well as an unspeakable rot that ate their bodies away.”

The elder’s face darkens. “I have never seen its like. Kafra’s wrath is terrible, especially when it ravages such young and healthy forms.”

Already making Arnem nervous with his apparent inability to choose his words carefully (or silence himself altogether), Visimar presses forward with his description: “Yes—a ravaging sickness, perhaps too fearsome to be accurately described by words, and consuming first their minds and then their beauty: it turned their admirably pale skin—particularly that of the girl’s delicate hands and feet—a deep, sickly yellow, then the color of plums, and finally black, after which first the toes and fingers, and then perhaps entire extremities, simply … fell away. And the stench …”

Ignoring the warning look that Arnem has fixed upon him, Visimar seems to puzzle with his own comments: “And yet …” A series of unusually deep wrinkles enter Visimar’s brow: “And yet—there is something incorrect about it all, Elder …”

“Incorrect?” the elder says, distrust sharpening the word.

Arnem attempts to patch the momentary breach: “I am certain that my comrade meant only to say that there is something
amiss,
Elder.”

The elder, however, is unappeased: “Of course there is something ‘amiss,’ Sentek Arnem: the entire business is—”

“Perhaps, perhaps, Honored Father,” Visimar says, still lost in thought. “But if the illness were a pox of some horrifying variety, as you claim, what you describe would be its final stages. Yet you have intimated to us that the couple knew each other only a short time; that the soldier’s interest was but carnal and temporary, whatever his or the girl’s claims to the contrary. Yet—even assuming that their trysts were so base—it would take months for any known pox to manifest such monstrous symptoms.”

The elder’s expression darkens, suddenly and considerably: a moment before he had felt unexpected satisfaction at the appearance of the noted Sentek Arnem and his officers, and at the justice he had begun to feel that they had brought with them; now, his blood begins to heat with familiar yet disappointing resentment: “I might have known …,” he murmurs.

But Arnem has already lifted a conciliatory, if warning, hand. “Hold, now, Father, I beg you. This old man has been my surgeon in the field for more years than I care to count, and I will admit, he has become somewhat addled in his thinking and loose with his speech, due to all that he has seen.” Arnem gives Niksar a quick glance, finding in his aide’s face at least some comprehension of his ruse’s necessity; and then he tries to warn Visimar once more with his eyes that he must keep silent. Yet the elder’s indignation only seems to support the old man’s contentions, and if Arnem is able to divine as much, so should Visimar be. Yet despite the cripple’s behavior, the dangerous situation must be handled deftly: “If he has spoken mistakenly,” Arnem continues, “or simply more bluntly than he should have, you must accept my apology—our sole desire is to establish the truth, not to insult either you or your loyal community.”

“Fine words and sentiments, Sentek,” the elder says, his voice more controlled, yet no less suspicious. “And if that is, indeed, your desire, then you must descend with me to the deepest vault beneath our largest granary. There, the temperature is always cool, even uncomfortably cold—and we have kept the bodies of the dead couple there, lest anyone question our actions or our demands in regard to the garrison’s commander.”

“You have
preserved
the
bodies
?” Visimar says, suddenly shocked. “You have not buried or burned them? But—”

“Anselm.”
Visimar finally silences himself at the harsh way in which Arnem says the name. The sentek then turns a kinder expression on the elder. “Of course you would have had to preserve them, Honored Father.”

“Indeed,” the elder replies. “For in such cases, as you doubtless know, Sentek, the commander of the town’s garrison, if he attempts to shield the offending soldier, is, by law, as guilty of misconduct as the soldier himself. Yet after the girl died, and we learned of the youth’s illness, the commander would neither yield the boy up until he was dead, nor put
himself
into our hands for trial.”

By now Visimar is staring at the large stone granary, as if the mere sight of it held answers. “But if this be the entire extent of the matter, Father,” the old man murmurs, “why, I pray you tell, have you experienced
more
outbreaks of the unidentified pox? For you have, have you not? And why have you not told us of them? Surely you are not suggesting that this one pallin was behind
every
death in Esleben?”

At these words, everyone present is suddenly seized by different forms of dread: Arnem recognizes that Visimar is not merely speculating, but is certain of his accusations, whereas Niksar is consumed by a new confusion that causes him to grip the hilt of his sword in preparation for a fight; the elder’s litter bearers, meanwhile, suddenly release their burden, which hits the ground with a sharp slamming of wood against hard Earth as their faces fill with fearful astonishment. Yet Visimar does not move, as the elder fairly leaps from his conveyance and thunders in accusation:

“Who is this man? I demand you tell me, Sentek!”

Matters only worsen when the elder’s bearers begin to murmur the dreaded word:
“Sorcery … it must be sorcery …”

The elder silences these men with a wave of one hand, and shouts: “Well, Sentek Arnem? How comes this fellow to know so much of our business? Not only the girl’s death, but our subsequent misfortunes! Is he in secret communication with someone in Esleben?” But both Arnem and Niksar remain, for the moment, too stunned to speak. “I demand to know, I tell you!” the elder rails on. “You call him your surgeon, yet he does not wear the uniform of your legion—who, then, by all that is holy,
is
he?”

Although inwardly somewhat satisfied that his suspicion concerning Visimar’s usefulness to this campaign has been borne out, Arnem must, because of the cripple’s rash statements, continue to affect only shock: “You don’t mean to say,” the sentek asks the elder, “that he has spoken the
truth
of this business?”

“Truth enough,” the elder answers, himself astounded at Arnem’s question. “But surely you know it to be, Sentek.”

“I know no such thing, Elder,” Arnem replies, aware that he is engaged in a dangerous ploy. “If you tell me it is so, I shall not contradict you—but do not mistake this fellow. He is still a competent healer, one who inspires faith in my men, and I have kept him on this march for their sake. But his rants are not true ‘vision,’ Elder; they are only the noises created by his broken mind, whatever their seeming conformity to any truth.” The elder seems to become suddenly uncertain. “And, even if he has stumbled upon some few details of events here,” Arnem presses, “do not doubt that he yet remains a stranger to reason, the greater part of the time.” Drawing his blade slowly, Arnem faces Visimar, but glances at the elder. “Finally, I promise you this—if there
be
any truth in what he says, then I shall discover how he knows it …” The sentek attempts greater congeniality. “But that inquiry, as well as my inspection of the bodies in the granary, do not require your presence, Father. For I have seen the dead of all varieties, during my campaigns, and require no guidance—whereas I would not have you witness what may become necessary, during my interrogation of this man. Niksar—” Arnem’s aide salutes his commander. “Escort the elder back to his home. Do not allow anyone to bully or threaten him in any way.” As Niksar salutes once more, Arnem calls to the elder: “And accept my assurance, Father—you may leave this matter in our hands, and my Talons
will
determine the truth of it for you …”

Faced with Arnem’s hard aspect, Visimar realizes that he has said too much, and ought to have waited until he was alone with the sentek to divulge his accurate apprehension of the lovers’—and indeed the town of Esleben’s—fates. His words have been dangerous, he quickly sees, precisely
because
of their accuracy: the townspeople are plainly interpreting the mysterious illness as some sort of punishment brought down upon their whole community by the golden god as punishment for both the reckless acts of the malevolent young soldier and the disobedience of the commander of the garrison. They do not know, as Visimar believes he does, that a terrible sickness is at work in Esleben, one that is not only impossible to cure or control, but is also of an entirely different nature than the supposèd “poison” with which the Bane (according to Arnem) are said to have attempted the assassination of the God-King Saylal.

In short, there are in all likelihood
two
deadly diseases now at work in Broken: one in the city, and one in the provinces. The first might admit of some cure, if treated as an illness and not a poison; but the second, should it spread, will become as voracious as the fire for which it is named.

Visimar requires but an instant, after this realization, to finally comprehend that he must cooperate with Arnem’s deception, and convince the elder and his bearers that his conclusions concerning the lovers’ deaths and the fate of the town indeed arose from a disordered imagination. By doing so, he will gain for Arnem the freedom to independently seek out the commander of the garrison, and then determine if, in fact, the soldiers of that unit are as doomed as most of the townspeople appear to be.

With this end in mind, Visimar quickly affects a long string of nonsensical declamatory remarks, deliberately made within the retiring elder’s hearing and concerning the “true” (and “magical”) source of his insight. The cripple makes a great show of saying that the birds about Esleben have whispered to him all that they have seen and heard, a ploy—inspired by the work of Visimar’s old master, Caliphestros, who often seemed truly able to draw such information from creatures wild and tame, as if they spoke plainly to him—that is effective; and ere long the elder, still peering out through the back of his litter, orders his men to hasten the return to Esleben, satisfied that Sentek Arnem will honestly determine the extent of the old healer’s madness, and, should it prove in any mischievous way connected to actual events in Esleben, punish Visimar accordingly.

“But remember, Sentek,” the elder calls, as he returns to the assembled crowd, “that the commander of the garrison also awaits the God-King’s justice—and do not think I take any joy in it. For we had hoped, when a new commander was appointed—”

Arnem’s brow arches. “A new commander?” he calls out.

“Certainly,” the elder replies with a nod. “Sent from Daurawah, almost half a year ago. Surely you knew.” Arnem feigns simply having forgotten a fact that, in truth, he never learned. “And we had hoped he would be worthy of our trust—but a man who locks both his dishonorable subordinate and then himself away from his accusers inspires something very different.”

“Indeed, Elder,” Arnem replies. “But I tell you again, we are not here to defy our own customs and laws—if what you say is true, you have my word that the garrison commander will hang for it.”