David Drake: The Heretic

Abel parried. Turned. Now his back was to the melee behind him.

Slashed.

Abel parried, and his hands buzzed with the bone-shaking blow. It felt as if the small bones of his wrist were shattered, though they must not be, for he still hung on to the saber.

A stab. Abel brought the saber up just in time to ward the long knife’s point away from his eye.

The man was bigger than he was, outweighed him by at least two stone.

This is not going to end well, Abel thought.

Sweat was running down in his eyes. Or maybe it was blood. He couldn’t tell, didn’t have time to check.

Another massive side stroke. This time Abel ducked down, the long knife’s edge passing just over the hairs of his head. He thrust out with the saber. Caught the point in Rostov’s shin.

The Blaskoye danced back, his left shin spouting blood, the flowing white robe clinging to the red wetness on the leg.

But he wasn’t going down.

He’s not going down.

Instead he was advancing again, madness in his eyes, his knife raised and ready to butcher. Abel popped back up, steadied himself, jogged backward, not retreating, but giving himself time to prepare, to meet the advance.

Then he was falling. Tripped. Falling over backward. And he glanced down even as he fell and saw what it was that had tripped him. Maday’s body.

He landed hard, and his saber flew away from his hand. And then Rostov leaped over Maday’s splayed form and was standing over Abel.

What do I have to fight with? I have nothing. I have-

The obsidian knife. Mahaut’s gift. A plaything with a blade the length of a finger. He reached to his belt to pull it free-

But Rostov was upon him, straddling him. Abel raised his other hand, whether to fend off or strike, he didn’t know. Rostov batted it away hard. Then, both hands on the hilt of the long knife, he brought it down hard toward Abel’s face.

At the last possible moment, Abel twisted. The knife plunged past his face, opening his cheek, but sinking point first into the ground. The blow was hard, and the knife sank deep into the muddy levee soil. Deep enough to put Rostov’s hand next to Abel’s ravaged face.

Abel turned and bit into the Blaskoye’s thumb.

Bows and muskets, blood and dust-

Rostov screamed. Abel bit down harder. He had it, the knucklebone of the thumb, between his teeth. Rostov pulled back mightily, as hard as he could.

You can’t catch me, I’m the Carnadon Man!

Abel held on to the thumb. He squeezed his jaw muscles tight until they hurt.

Rostov’s face was the picture of pain and amazement. How could this cause so much pain? He grabbed his own wrist with the other hand, preparing to put all he had into an attempt to yank free.

Abel bit.

Rostov shifted his weight forward to get a better grip, to be in a position to spring back and free his thumb.

Which was all Abel needed. He slid his other hand, the pinned right hand, free from under Rostov’s thigh.

In that hand was the obsidian dagger.

He bent his elbow and punched upward. Once, twice.

Abel felt it when the dagger hit a rib, grazed off, and found the opening between bone.

The first punch punctured a lung.

The second found the Blaskoye’s heart.

Rostov jerked back, pulling the dagger from Abel’s hand and his thumb from Abel’s mouth.

Red, pumping arterial blood sluiced from the hole around the dagger. It was as if a great dam had broken.

Blood, blood, and more blood flowed out.

And, as would a wild dak shot on the hunt, the moment came when the fight within Rostov was over. He didn’t close his eyes. He merely lost focus and wasn’t looking at anything anymore.

Then he slumped sideways and fell off Abel. Fell for the most part. Abel had to kick himself out from under the one leg that remained over his own torso. But finally he rolled free, pulled himself shakily to his feet. He gazed down at the Redlander.

And then, on impulse, he knelt beside the man. He put a hand on his head and turned it around, looked into the face. He put two fingers inside Rostov’s mouth, between the white, sharp teeth, and pried the jaw open.

There it was. On the upper palate. The wafer of Zentrum.

Rostov had been a man of vision, in his way. Only the visions had been supplied to him and were not his own. Or maybe they were. Maybe Zentrum had only enhanced what the Blaskoye had dreamed he might accomplish.

Your people might still accomplish it, Abel thought. Only they will have to do it without you.

Abel stood back up. His side hurt. He’d need to get that tended to, despite its superficiality. He’d seen men die of less.

You taught me to reason like my enemy, Center , he thought.

Yes,Center said. That is so.

And you taught me to know my enemy’s heart, Raj, he thought.

Aye, lad, Raj replied. What are you getting at?

I need to know.

Abel kicked Rostov’s body. Dead. Yes. Really, truly dead.

He knelt beside the Blaskoye.

I’ll need the dagger, he thought. I want it, anyway.

The little knife took two hands to extract, and he had to put a knee onto Rostov’s abdomen to do it.

He straddled the Redlander’s body. The mouth was still open. The disk on the upper palate glinted within.

Abel pushed the obsidian dagger within and, holding the head steady with his other hand, cut the disk away from Rostov’s skin and bones, and pulled it out.

This is not a good idea, lad, said Raj.

Will you stop me?

Raj did not answer.

Will you, Center?

The probability for a successful outcome is not optimal.

Will you stop me?

No.

You understand why, don’t you? He held the disk between his right thumb and forefinger. Bits of flesh and bone still clung to it. But then, it began to glow. And as it glowed, the remaining shards of Rostov detached. Abel turned the disk over, and they fell away. It was a clean, white disk now. Lustrous, featureless.

You two have been with me since I was six years old, he thought. Practically since I was old enough to think at all you were there. You have been my friends. My guardians. But always for me you have only been voices in my mind. Voices that I cannot know for sure were not merely myself speaking, my own madness. And you told me about Zentrum. You told me that Zentrum was not God, not even a god, but merely a kind of complicated machine. And that his plans were wrong for this world. That his plans were not good for men, that there would come a time when men must move beyond Zentrum and his dreams of Stasis. That we must move beyond because there were other men coming, men in fast ships that sailed the night sky, and if we were ready, and if we survived the coming calamities, the disasters that Zentrum is unable to prepare us for, then we might be able to join those men from the stars ourselves. That we would not only survive, but thrive in a way that we never could have, never could have imagined, under the law of Zentrum.

But what if it’s all a fantasy? I was a kid, a six-year-old who had just lost his mother. Everything was taken from me, her love yanked away. What if I made you up?

What if every day since then, I have made you up, listened to voices that are only myself babbling within? And far worse than that, what if I have made up my purpose? What if none of it is true?

What if there are no worlds among the stars? What if there are no ships on the way? What if the Land is the only place there is, and the Law of Zentrum the only truth? What if the only enemy is myself?