A man came upon the Great Shield laboring in a mountain pass, breaking rocks that had fallen upon the trail. He stopped, for the path was still blocked, and gave the holy man his greeting.

“How odd it seems,” the man remarked, “that I should chance upon the Shield of Men as he is breaking stone asunder. Is not your power in solidity and strength? How can you bend your soul to destruction when it does not give you this power?”

The Great Shield paused in his labor to respond. “There are two truths,” he said. “The strength of the stone, and the strength of my fist. Both are true, and valid, and my soul upholds them both.”

“How then does the stone break, but your fist remains whole?” the man asked.

The Great Shield picked up another stone, holding it within his mighty hand. “My soul upholds both,” he said, “but my mind is the arbiter of truths. I may choose which is true, and which must yield. This is the power of the divine, which raises us above mere nature.”

The man recognized the sound of holy truth and sat to watch the Great Shield exert his truth upon the mountain.

- The Book of Eight Verses, the Verse of Union. (New Kheman Edition, 542 PD)

A jolt startled Michael awake. He sat upright in his seat, looking around; he saw only trees and patches of low grassland outside the truck’s windows.

“Sorry,” Unai said, steering the truck around a particularly egregious divot in the road. “It appears Saf has let their road maintenance slide somewhat.”

Michael snorted. “They’ve been distracted,” he said. “I suppose it’s forgivable, circumstances being what they are.”

Unai spared him a glance. “Nonsense,” he said. “Roads are the arteries of civilization. As with men, obstructions and blockages are disastrous to the health of a state.” He returned the truck to the center of the roadway with an indignant sniff. “It’s mismanagement. The sign of a diseased society. All of the roads in Mendian are beautiful, well-paved and clear of debris.”

“All of them?” Michael laughed. “What, do you check?”

“There are reports, budgetary allocations in the Batzar. There are no better metrics of a country’s health than its annual budgets. I attend every-” Unai paused, then settled slowly back in his seat. “I was accustomed to attending every major session of the Batzar,” he said.

Michael felt the pain ripple out from the older man, low and insistent in the manner of a scabbed wound. He felt the urge to reassure Unai; Michael would be the next Star of Mendian. Unai would be welcome, valued - able to return to some semblance of normalcy.

He stepped back within his mind, examining the impulse as it passed. It would have been a superficial reassurance, a blind reaction to the pain. Michael breathed once, deliberately, and considered. “Antolin said that you used to work for the Batzar itself,” Michael said instead. “For their Foreign Directorate?”

Unai nodded. “Before I was ensouled,” he said. “I served a tour in the military in my youth, did a few years in the border forts. In those days the Zuzendaritza answered to a Mendoza - old man Karlo, not his idiot son.” He shook his head. “My commanding officer was one of their cousins, distant relation. He asked if I wanted something more challenging than watching trees and rocks for idiot Esroun trespassers, and I said yes.”

“Was it?” Michael asked. “More challenging, that is.”

A smile plucked at Unai’s lips. “Oh, yes. You must understand that Mendian is a neutral country. That means that we don’t intervene officially outside of a few narrow scenarios. The batzarkideak have their personal business, though, and if some of that happens to advance the interests of Mendian - well, one can hardly blame a country for the actions of a few zealous patriots.”

“One certainly can,” Michael noted, grinning. “But one would have to catch said patriots in the act, first.”

“Just so.” Unai slowed for a curve in the road, squinting as the turn splashed low sunlight into his eyes. “The continent was a mess, then. Esrou made its armistice with Saf when I started my tour; from an outside view it seemed like a good thing. My first years in the Directorate showed me what it was - a play by Saf to consolidate their gains and focus on the Ardan front.”

He glanced at Michael again, his face sombre. “We were in a panic. Mendian had planned on keeping the fronts as long and chaotic as possible to bleed Saf dry. The next decade was spent trying to shore up the failing Daressan state, handicapping Saf where we could and funneling resources through intermediaries.” He frowned. “But we failed there too.”

Michael nodded, his head sifting through half-remembered passages from books about the War. “What happened?”

“Saleh Taskin,” Unai replied. “He received his soul as an infantryman, very young. For most of the early War Saf only had one of the Eight - Sever. Smoke had been lost for years, its bearer in some far land or living quietly. When Taskin gained it, he invigorated their attacks, gave them a renewed fanaticism.” He grimaced. “The Batzar was frightened. The Safid now had a direct counter to the Star’s power. It was why they said yes when Ardalt asked them to turn Jeorg Dreschner into an asset.”

“Huh,” Michael replied; he had not expected to hear Jeorg’s name arise as a part of this particular history. “They intended for Jeorg to fight Saleh?”

Unai made a noncommittal gesture with his hand; the truck lurched over a rut in the road, though Unai quickly seized the wheel to steer it back on path. Michael heard muffled cursing from the soldiers in the back.

“The Batzar may have intended that,” Unai said, smiling faintly, “but if they did, they failed to impress their intention on Her Radiance. She was a student of statecraft and animetry from her early tenure, and she taught him what she felt would most improve Ardalt’s ability to fight.”

Michael frowned, the rest of the narrative following from what Jeorg had relayed. “That didn’t work out quite as she intended.”

“It was effective enough,” Unai sighed. “The Ardans fought, and better than we expected. There were concerns about their heavy use of obruors, but not to the extent that we felt compelled to intervene. Indeed, I spent much of the sixties in Rouns, posing as a merchant; the Batzar fed information on troop movements and convoys to the Ardans as a matter of course.”

“You make it sound like the two countries were nearly allies,” Michael noted.

Unai snorted. “Hardly,” he said. “I doubt more than a handful of batzarkideak knew what old Mendoza was doing. It worked, though - all too well. What they lacked in singularly powerful souls they began to make up in the quality of their rank and file. Over the next decade the Ardans fought the Safid to a standstill. They began to gain ground. Taskin made them pay for every footstep, but he couldn’t reverse their momentum. They were prepared to march on Imes in seventy-one; Saf’s Sever led her men to stop the advance.”

He looked over at Michael. “She fell, and within a week the Institute announced that they had secured the soul for one of their own, an Assemblyman’s son.”

“Friedrich.” Michael blinked. “That is not the story my tutors gave me. I distinctly remember hearing that he received it in single combat.”

“Against Sever, while unsouled?” Unai raised a pitying eyebrow. “The quality of education in Ardalt-”

“Yes, yes,” Michael said tiredly. “I’m increasingly aware of this.” He shook his head, then looked out the window. Trees whipped by in their irregular huddles. He stuck his hand out the window, letting his fingers carve through the buffeting air.

“It’s odd,” he finally said, “to tie together these grand events from history with the faces of people I’ve met.”

Unai laughed, shaking his head. “It never feels like history in the moment,” he said. “It’s only life, with its twists and turns. This campaign, the liberation of Daressa-” He paused, his smile fading. “Our pursuit of Luc. Some years are chapters in history; I imagine that this year will incite entire volumes.”

Michael frowned. He spread his fingers in the wind, his soul filling in the invisible whorls of air with ethereal light. They flexed and spun as his hand parted the air, whipping about unpredictably in response to the smallest movements. “I wonder what those books will say about Luc.”

“That he was a murderer,” Unai said, matter-of-factly. “Posterity is seldom concerned with the tortured childhoods and lofty ideals of assassins; they are known foremost as a footnote at the end of a greater biography.”

There was a resonance in Unai’s words, calling to some of the flames that guttered within Michael’s chest. One saw him as a killer, another as something far worse. Michael knew they were right. Yet his memory rebelled, traitorously supplying memories of Luc smiling, laughing - pleading earnestly for the lives he saw snuffed out around him, and Michael could not fault that concern.

Unai favored him with another look, this one long and considering. “I know,” he said. His eyes turned back to the road, staring ahead. “No men are evil, but some men are sick in ways that touch close to their moral heart. It is good and proper to help these men. I tried. So did you.”

He paused, and the truck rumbled along down the road. “Over the years I saw Her Radiance slip twice, condemning two people to a slow and painful death. She asked me to care for them both. An anatomens may only guide the body down paths it might otherwise have taken, however, and there was no path that led these two patients back to health. Their only lot was to suffer long and terribly before death took them. For each of them, I guided them down a shorter path.”

Michael felt a cold prickling along the back of his neck, an itch in his borrowed hand; he clenched his fist tightly. “It’s not as though I haven’t killed before,” he said. “Ghar’s blood, I’ve killed - so many people.” He sank back into his chair. “Just in a few months. It’s easier than it used to be. I find ways to justify it. To save other lives, or because they were beyond help. And I tell myself that, like you said - that what I did helped, even as it hurt, because cutting the path short spared suffering along its length.”

“You witnessed Luc fighting at Agnec,” Unai said. “You know what will happen if he keeps that soul.”

“I know.” Michael pulled his hand in from the window, the chill clinging to his skin. “There is no doubt in my mind that Luc will bring disaster to the world every moment he holds on to Stellar. Even with a sound mind, the burden of that soul would crush him. People will suffer, and him along with them. I know that. I know that.”

The truck rolled along for a few moments; Unai said nothing.

Michael clasped his hands together in his lap, warm and cold interlaced. “I’ve drawn and redrawn that line of reasoning ever since that day, and I know it’s valid. I never doubted that. I’m just-” He paused, words swirling half-formed upon his lips. “Despite all the violence until now, I hadn’t thought I would be the sort of person who could justify killing his friend - yet here I am. Certain. Absolutely convinced. It makes me wonder what I’ll be certain about tomorrow.”

Unai drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s a weighty question; every healer has to examine their relationship with death, standing as close as we must to do our work. We view it as an adversary, stealing our patients. But in the end we all must die. Death is simply the other extreme of human experience, a universal truth. There is no fighting it.”

He looked at Michael. “What we strive against is suffering. That is what healers do - and you are a healer, young master Baumgart, despite your lack of finesse in medicine. You have done that work every day of this campaign.” Unai returned his attention to the road. “So my advice is to find the compassion to continue what you’ve started. Indulging your sentiment benefits only you, and I have never marked you as a selfish man.”

“And where does it stop?” Michael asked. “It cannot be simply my own estimation that guides it; Luc also believes that he is sparing the world from suffering.”

Unai laughed; there was no merriment in the sound. “If there was one answer to that,” he said, “then I imagine it would be mandatory learning in every schoolroom.” He shook his head. “Her Radiance always resisted defining souls past their generalities. She felt it denied their bearers the opportunity to arrive at a manifestation that was uniquely suited for their mind, their attitudes, their point of view. That each of us has some uniquely subjective aspect to our existence that nobody may define for us.”

“This is your way of saying I have to answer that question for myself, then,” Michael sighed. “Where it stops. If it stops.”

Unai’s smile turned into something more real. “You have some time to consider it, at least,” he said. “We won’t be able to travel these roads past nightfall, nor would the men tolerate it. Our choice of camp and evening meal is the only problem you’ll be forced to confront today. In tomorrow’s light, things may appear different.”

“I’m being slightly ridiculous, aren’t I?” Michael sighed and leaned back against the seat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to fret. There’s nothing either of us can do about our problems here, in this truck.”

“Not quite accurate,” Unai said. “You could try to sleep, for one.”

The truck shuddered over a series of low bumps; Michael gave Unai an incredulous look. The older man laughed and drove on.

They stopped at sunset, while twilight still illuminated the world in muted colors. Western Daressa was not so different from the interior highlands, although the lower altitude spared them from some of the chill that would have otherwise crept into the evening. Instead, it was a cool night, the scent of the trees around them mingling pleasantly with the first notes of smoke and stew rising up from cookfires.

Michael had worried when they first stopped, for he had no particular expertise in setting up a temporary military camp; the Ardan troops went about their business straight away, however, leaving him standing at the roadside watching as they pulled supplies from the trucks and began to make camp in a flat stretch of meadow.

He had expected that Lars might direct them in their efforts, but the Ardan captain had very little to say to his men. Zabala, however, found much to comment on; he stalked back and forth among the men as they worked, changing the position of tents and fire rings, directing others to fetch water from a nearby stream, still more to plunder the remnants of an orchard that stood at the far end of the clearing, whose apples had mostly peaked and fallen to the ground.

Michael sensed the undercurrent of irritation building against Zabala almost instantly. Men glared at his back, muttering imprecations against the Mendiko interloper in their midst. More than one sent a glance at Lars, but he was deep in conversation with Charles; neither were sparing an ounce of attention for the camp.

Sobriquet walked over to stand beside Michael, arching one eyebrow. “You’re brooding,” she said.

Michael nodded towards Zabala, who was currently directing two mutinous-looking men to shift their half-dug latrine trench to the far side of camp. “He’s not making any friends,” Michael observed.

“I don’t think he’s trying,” Sobriquet replied. “Ardan soldiers seem to offend him on a deeply personal level, it’s something I can empathize with.”

“We’re going to have to work together for some time,” Michael noted. He watched as Zabala reiterated his demand, stepping closer. One of the soldiers, a stocky man with a flat, brutish face, raised his shovel angrily in response.

Michael began to walk towards them, only to stop as Sobriquet’s hand caught his wrist. He looked at her; she shook her head. They looked back just as the shovel wielding-soldier swung angrily at Zabala’s head.

The metal blade of the tool struck Zabala’s skull with a low clang, bouncing off. Zabala stood motionless, directing a profoundly unimpressed look at the soldier who had attacked him; one moment later he had closed the distance between them to grab hold of the man’s forearm.

Instantly, the soldier dropped to his knees. His face contorted in pain, though Zabala gave no sign of exertion. Once more, the Mendiko pointed to the latrine pit, then to the far side of the camp. He said something in a low voice that spurred a quick, pained nod from the Ardan man. Zabala released him and took a step back - then stalked away towards another section of the camp.

Michael blinked, bemused, as the air of resentment and annoyance faded from the camp. The two men lifted their shovels and walked to the far end of camp, the rest listened to Zabala with nothing more than resigned acceptance, and even something that felt oddly like relief.

“Soldiers,” Sobriquet snorted, shaking her head. “At least the Mendiko are professionals. This lot feel more like pack animals than men. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to leave them and continue on with just Charles, Unai and Zabala.”

“We could,” Michael admitted, rubbing the bristle of regrowing hair on his scalp. “But even in western Daressa your support network is thin. If Luc crosses to Saf, what then? Even if you’re doing the bulk of the searching, we’ll need a base of operations. Food, supplies, lookouts - what?”

Sobriquet was smiling up at him. “Look at you, Commander Baumgart,” she teased. “I’ll grant that there’s often a need for extra hands, but these men? Most of them are good for little more than brute labor, and I’m not sure I’d trust them to stand watch at night without deserting or selling us to the Safid.”

“They were the ones that fought free of obruor control and stood up for what they thought was right,” Michael noted. “That’s got to count for something.”

“So they’re practiced mutineers,” she deadpanned. “Wonderful.”

Michael looked out over the camp, watching the men trudge about their business. “They don’t measure up to the Mendiko standard, it’s true,” he admitted, watching as Zabala loomed over another soldier struggling to set up his tent. “But they turned against their masters because of me, at least in part. They wanted a change, and fought for it. It’s the same spirit that I imagine you looked for in your own partisans.”

Sobriquet wrinkled her nose. “I suppose,” she said. For a few moments she sat quietly, watching the men go about their work.

Clad in drab Mendiko off-duty wear, they looked less like soldiers and more like a band of oddly-similar wage laborers playing at military tasks - which was broadly correct, Michael supposed. Aside from Zabala and perhaps Lars, their reasons for soldiery were limited to temporary circumstance; even then, they had rejected their Ardan colors for Mendiko.

And now, they were in Michael’s service. The thought struck him with uncommon force, racing around in his head unpleasantly while the camp went up around them and fires were lit. He was jarred from his contemplation by the savory smells of dinner reaching their peak; his stomach reminded him of more immediate concerns.

Sobriquet had wandered, leaving him in his musings, so he walked to join the lengthening line. It was only seconds before the man ahead of him looked back to see who had joined their queue. The way his face paled would have been comical, though the humor of it failed Michael in the moment; he quickly became the awkward focus of attention.

A moment later, the men shuffled aside, an obvious invitation for Michael to step past them towards the stew.

It was intensely uncomfortable, and Michael felt the urge to raise his hands, to motion them back into place, to protest that he would wait in line for his share along with the others. He let the impulse pass, listening to the still evening air. There was the old, familiar fear. It was disappointing, but expected; Michael had long-since stopped being troubled by it. He could not even say it was unfounded.

Beneath that sharp note, though, there was more. Uncertainty, tension, and something nebulous and bright - hope, perhaps, or expectation. Men with a void where some rote sense of patriotism or duty had once lain, now seeking a new direction.

Michael did not want that; it was nearly painful to consider himself usurping the mantle of Michael Baumgart, Heart-Eater, this fictional man that all too many Safid and apparently Ardan soldiers had crafted tales of. It reeked of arrogance, of presumption, of behavior that was all too similar to the example set by his father.

Yet this was what he did not want; the men still stood waiting for him to take his stew first. Michael did not think for a moment that Zabala had any real antagonism towards these soldiers, only a species of paternal exasperation - yet the antagonism was there. The soldiers sought it, expected it, seized upon it like a drowning man clinging to a buoy.

Michael walked down the line with a measured pace, passing the waiting men to stop in front of the stewpot. “It smells delicious,” he said. “What’s in it?”

The man with the ladle dropped his gaze. “Nothing proper,” he said. “Just salt pork and potatoes, milord.”

Please, it’s just Michael. “Sounds perfect for the weather.” Michael held out his bowl, waiting while the man ladled a generous portion. “Thank you.”

“Of course, milord.” The man ducked his head again, then raised it fractionally. “I don’t mean to overstep, but some of us - the men, milord, we was talking…”

Ghar’s ashes, man, I’m no lord - just ask your question! “Yes?” Michael said, raising an eyebrow.

“We was wondering where we’re headed,” the man said, sounding mortified even as the words left his mouth. “And, ah, what the pay would be.”

Michael looked back down at the man for a long and lingering moment, until the cook flushed and turned aside muttering words that he could not make out. It was a cold and emotionless glare; Michael only realized this after he had delivered it for quite some time, having been distracted by his utter lack of prepared answers to those questions.

He forced his eyes up and over the men, who were all turned to him in anticipation. Michael forced his breath in, then slowly out.

“I probably should explain what we’re about, shouldn’t I?” he said. “It’s quite simple. A man has taken Stellar, the Star of Mendian. I’m going to find him and reclaim the soul for my own, and I need a company of good men to assist in the search.”

Blank stares answered him; one man’s mouth hung comically open.

“We may be going as far as Saf,” Michael said. “And the search may take some time, although I hope to finish it before the year’s end. As far as pay-” He looked over at Sobriquet, who had almost managed to suppress her laughter. “I understand that many of you wish to remain in Daressa now that hostilities have concluded. Service buys you residency, as well as enough money to establish yourself comfortably.”

Sobriquet made a sour face at that; the men murmured appreciatively.

“How much money?” one called out from the back.

I have no idea, I’m not even sure what the exchange rate is- “One thousand livres.” Sobriquet’s eyes flew wide; Michael winced internally. “Half paid upon return, half paid after a year’s uneventful residency.” There were some grumbles at that, but Sobriquet nodded grudgingly.

“Think it over,” Michael said. “Any man who doesn’t wish to take the job is free to travel with us to the next town and depart freely, with a full pack and no obligations.”

More grumblings. One man in the back stepped forward - Michael recognized him as the one who had tried to strike Zabala. “You expect us to fight Stellar?” he asked.

Michael held eye contact for another long moment, although this answer bore very little thought. Obviously they weren’t meant to fight Luc, that was Michael’s task alone. But they knew Stellar, had seen that soul’s power, and the fear that whispered through them now was far stronger than it had been before.

The protesting voice within him fell silent. Michael’s misgivings, his doubt - it all remained, but it was irrelevant in this moment. It wasn’t what these men needed. Michael shifted his sight to look at himself from their view; he saw a man with a serious, calm face, its eyes half-cloaked in shadow. But - just a man.

“That will be my fight,” he said. “And mine alone.”

The soldier scoffed, tilting his head back skeptically. “You can fight Stellar?” he said. “By yourself?”

Michael lifted his face into the light, looking at the one who had spoken.

But you’re more than just a man. You have a soul, which looks to your mind to understand certain truths. Free your mind…

Michael let his soul expand out gently, calmly, floating on the evening’s light wind. The air stilled, the grass ceased its whispering. Michael watched with a soldier’s eyes as the man by the cookpot became something more, something with eyes of mirrorlight and a voice of command.

But the voice did not speak; it had done enough of that. Michael closed his eyes, listening instead, letting his sight drift back inwards. His soul followed a moment later, lingering to caress the grass, the stunned soldiers, the quiet apple trees, each with their own secret collection of paths branching out and infinitely forward.

He opened his eyes and grinned at the soldier who had spoken. “Well,” he said, “I suppose we’ll see.” Michael nodded at the soldier serving stew, then took a bite from a small, perfectly-ripe apple in his other hand.

It was delicious, as he knew it would be.