Chapter XII

“And Prince Ari, in his mercy, did beseech the sacrilegious Akhert, 'I beg thee that we should speak terms of peace. Many have died for this. Verily, I fear too much blood has stain'd the ground,' so spake Prince Ari.

“But the villainous Akhert spake unto Ari, 'Get ye back to Arx with thy knights. Must I truly fight you every place I go? Subra is mine, and thou hast no stock in its fate, worshiper of stone.'

“Prince Ari was furious at the sorcerer's words, and he pleaded with him again, 'Though thy warriors are many my knights are mighty. Art thou not afraid to die? Then think on thy followers! These men and women trust thee and look to thee for guidance! Lead them not into battle against me, for I have no wish for them to be slain.'

“But the nefarious Akhert spat upon Prince Ari and drew his dark blade. 'We fear not death, for I have conquered the grave! My kingdom is spread out across Erets, but men's eyes cannot see it. My followers carry my kingdom within their hearts, yea it beats through their veins with their blood. The Heaven you so love will pass away, but my kingdom shall last for eternity. Foolish prince, knowest though not of what I speak? Thou too can achieve what my followers have achieved! Cast aside the foolish Law of your fathers, and follow my new Law. Do as thou wilt, this is the Law, for I will forgive any sin and grant life ever-lasting to any who serve me. What thou desirest shall be given to thee, and no more shall anyone judge thee. If thou submit unto me I shall make even the God you worship and all of his angels to serve thee.'

“And when Prince Ari saw that Akhert could not be dissuaded from his course, and that his tongue spoke only lies, and that his heart only desired violence Prince Ari was broken in his heart. And Prince Ari did draw his sword and order his knights to charge.

“A great battle was fought that day, and many a brave warrior died, both those who fought for Prince Ari, and those who fought for Akhert. And at the end of the battle, Akhert was found to have been slain by Prince Ari's own hand. Prince Ari cut Akhert's body all to pieces with his sword. When all was finally calm, Prince Ari let the last few of Akhert's followers take their leader's remains to be buried, as was Subran custom.”

Tamas, astride his horse, nodded along as Khol finished the reading. “So, why is that passage your favorite?”

The two of them had been riding through the green Arxian countryside for over a day, along with Shamira and a handful of other bodyguards. All the while Khol had been reading aloud from a book about the exploits of Ari, one of the most beloved kings of Arxian history. “It's such a grand tale!” said Khol. “I just love reading about the struggle between good and evil.”

Tamas chuckled. “I can understand that. If only it worked that way in real life.”

Khol gave his father a perplexed look. “Does it not? I've heard the stories about you and your brother, Sahar. He sought to destroy all of Erets and you fought to stop him. Was not that a battle of good against evil?”

Tamas sighed and looked down. “My brother was...disturbed, I'll put it that way. Really, my whole family was pretty crazy. Yes, when I fought Sahar in...you know, that duel, that was a battle between good and evil...in a sense. But that was not the whole of the battle. The Unchained fought against Lady Farrah's army there.”

“The Unchained were also evil, though,” said Khol. “Just like Sahar, they wanted to see Erets come to an end.”

“Anyone can be deceived and succumb to a flawed philosophy,” said Tamas. “Those who suffered much...or who had seen much suffering...those people are the ones who wanted to see the world end, and I can't say I completely blame them.”

“What do you mean?” asked Khol, cocking his head.

“Well...think of it this way, Khol, you have a happy life right now. You're royalty, you have a loving family, you even have a supernatural best friend.” Tamas chuckled, finding it easier to joke about Sitri than speak seriously of him. Khol did not seem to think it was funny, and even looked confused about why his father was laughing. Shamira shook her head at Tamas, clearly not approving of his sense of humor about this.

Tamas cleared his throat and continued. “Things are pretty good for you. Now, imagine if that was all taken away. Think for a second what that would be like. Imagine that your mother and I were both gone, your brothers and your sister all gone, and you were no longer a prince of Arx or Nihilus. Imagine that even Dara and Akim were taken away from you.” The longer Tamas spoke the sadder Khol looked. Tamas felt bad about it, but he had to get through to the boy. It wouldn't do to have him growing up only understanding black and white morality. “Imagine that everything you loved was stripped away, and you were left destitute. Now, imagine that because of what you've been taught your entire life you believe this to be the God of Erets who has taken everything from you.”

Khol sighed as he took in his father's words. “...Alright...”

“Looking at it that way, do you see why people might get hateful and angry?”

“I guess...”

Good enough. “For those people who have lost everything they loved in life the world has already ended. The pain of that kind of loss can be unbearable, and so drive people to lash out in anger. Anger is easier to deal with than sorrow.” Tamas paused for a moment, and then looked at his son and said, “Those were the Unchained. People who had lost so much that they could only feel anger, because that was better than despair.” Khol gave a nod of understanding, and the sad look on his face had turned into one of concern. “In every conflict there is good and evil on both sides. My brother was evil, yes, and I fought him. But I also fought, and even killed, a lot of people who were just...broken inside. Sometimes I wonder if that doesn't make me almost as evil as my brother was...”

Khol said nothing. He merely stared at his father as their horses trotted down the road.

Tamas continued, “So...Akhert was evil, that's easy to see, but his followers? Well, who knows what reason they may have had to join his side? Honestly, a spiritual leader who gives you the freedom to do whatever you want without eternal consequence? There's an appeal to that which I can imagine is hard to turn down.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Khol?”

Khol looked his father in the eye and said, “You're not a villain.”

Tamas' heart warmed, and he bit his lip to hold back the tears rushing to his eyes. “...Thank you.”

“And you're not evil.”

“...Again, thank you.” Tamas wiped his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Evil people don't worry about the good people they might have hurt.”

Tamas gave an uneasy laugh and nodded his head. “True. True... Then there may be fewer evil people in this world than you realize. Or maybe there are no evil people. Just crazy people. Crazy people who forgot what it means to be good. But I don't mean to go off on this tangent. Ah...I mean, you're just trying to read one of your favorite stories. So, how does it end?”

“End?”

“Well, yes. The story does have an end, right?”

“Well, after defeating Akhert Ari went back to Arx.” Khol did not raise the book before his eyes again. Clearly he knew all of this by heart. “A few years later he was crowned king, and was this great, heroic king who ruled not from his throne, but from the back of his horse. He was constantly riding through the mountains and driving back enemies who tried to invade. He had all sorts of different adventures and such during that time. Then he grew old and eventually died, but the prophet Ayyah said that one day, when Arx needed him the most, Ari would be reborn and would rule over Arx once again.”

For all of Tamas' doubts about the book's simplistic views of right and wrong he could see its value. “Huh...so it's actually a great book for a young prince of Arx to read. After all, how do you know you're not Ari reborn? Something to aspire to.”

Tamas had said it just as a general comment, and even somewhat of a joke, but as the words escaped his lips he realized just how possible it was. His son was destined to ascend to Arx's throne during a time when Arx had become the largest empire the world had ever seen. The prophet said that Ari would be reborn when Arx needed him the most, what if this was what he meant? Furthermore, there was the matter of Khol's Familiar, whose very presence meant that the Void was watching over his destiny closely. Was it truly possible? Tamas wasn't sure if he should feel pride or fear at the idea that his son could be the reincarnation of a heroic king from long ago.

. . .

With the sound of a cheering crowd behind him, Kezib left the fighting pit and entered the tunnels underneath the amphitheater. He dipped his hands in the water bowl and rinsed off the blood of his fellow slaves, more unfortunate young men and women sent into the pits for him to slaughter. How was a slave uprising to be successful if the strongest slaves were always killing each other for their captors' entertainment?

As he walked towards his quarters, other slaves patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. Was he really so obvious? Did he wear his sorrow so openly? Whenever he entered the pit he tried to imagine that it was his captors that he was killing, not his fellow captives. Or that none of it was real, it was all just some sort of elaborate play. But this was not enough to clear his conscience. If Sandalphon really had returned to bring his people back to the True Way and rebuild the Inquisition how could he possibly want Kezib to be a part of that when he had grown up killing friends and comrades to protect his own life?

Looking around the slaves' quarters under the amphitheater, Kezib saw mostly dead faces. All of the joy of life had been drained from these people. Most would say that they wished they were dead. Yet when they found themselves in the pit they found they could not simply give up and die. Even those few whom Kezib had told about Sandalphon's promise hadn't truly garnered any hope from it.

Just as Kezib squeezed his way past his fellow slaves, so he saw a young woman approaching him through the crowd, and a smile crossed his face. The young woman was clad in sack-cloth, like most of the slaves, and her face was wrapped in bandages. Of her face, only her eyes and her lips were exposed. Kezib moved faster through the crowd and pulled this young woman into his embrace and kissed her lips.

“Oh, Kezib!” she said, her voice raspy. “Every time you go into the pit I fear for you! Every time they make it more dangerous for you!”

“Don't worry, Cilicia,” said Kezib. “They make the pit more dangerous for me, but that just makes me stronger.”

“Listen...” Cilicia excitedly gestured with her hands as she spoke. “I can make a deal with one of the guards. They may let me enter the pit with you. I can protect you!”

“I don't want you in harm's way,” said Kezib, shaking his head. “I certainly couldn't fight as well as I do while I was worried about you.”

“Would death in the pits really be any worse than the fate I suffer now?” Cilicia asked. “We are all slaves, made to suffer for the Vice Queen's purse. Me? I frighten small children. That's what I do. Every day I'm reviled as a freak. They pay good coin to look upon the face of a monster.”

Kezib raised a hand to touch her bandaged face, and his thumb ran over her lips. He gazed into her hazel brown eyes with affection and said. “Your face is the face I love. You are beautiful, Cilicia. Everything about you is beautiful.”

Cilicia smiled up at him as he held her, and a sad smile crossed her face. “Come, I have to speak privately with you about something.” Hand in hand, the two of them retreated to Cilicia's cell. The cell was barely big enough for the two of them to sit down in, and not big enough for them to lie together, unless they remained one on top of the other the whole night. The bed, if it could be called that, was a pile of cloths on the floor.

Cilicia closed the door and whispered to Kezib, “I have heard rumors. The Dream Merchant has escaped the city. Was the Dream Merchant not the one you said has been chosen to revive the Inquisition?”

Kezib hung his head. “She is...or was. If she's fled the city then I imagine she'd abandoned us. No slave, after achieving freedom, would ever come back here for the others, only to risk being caught again. Or worse.”

“If our hope lies not with the Dream Merchant and the Inquisition, perhaps we should reconsider Divi Filius,” said Cilicia.

“Not this again...Cilicia, all you know is that you had a dream and in it you heard the voice of someone who CLAIMED to be the Divi Filius. That could have been anyone. Or it could have just been a dream.”

“It was far too vivid to be a dream,” Cilicia protested. “I didn't just hear the voice, I felt his cold breath. It was a vision! The son of the Father spoke to me!”

“Doesn't the Cult of the Father teach that the Father only speaks to men just as the Mother only speaks to women?”

“Yes, but they've never said anything about to whom the Divi Filius speaks! He was part mortal man when he walked among us centuries ago. Perhaps a demigod is not bound by the same rules. And even if he's not the Divi Filius what does it matter? He's offering us freedom!”

“Any spirit, whether a deity or otherwise, who offers help wants something in return. They're not so different from people in that respect. Sandalphon only offered my people their freedom so that they could rebuild the Inquisition. If whomever or whatever this spirit is will not name a price that is very suspicious indeed.”