David Dalglish - Dawn of Swords

Azariah laughed. “Are you a man? It takes more than age to make a man, boy. What pain have you suffered? What struggles have you overcome? What scars mar your body? Right now, you are a tree stripped of bark. I’d hearken to guess that none of the wards of Ashhur’s Paradise have grown up yet.”

“Shush, Az,” said Brienna, shaking her head. “Don’t do that to the boy.”

Azariah ignored her, leaning in closer, the reflection of the flames dancing off his irises. “Tell me, Roland, what do you feel right now?”

Roland cocked his head and stared back at him, unsure. “I…I don’t know. It’s like my body won’t do what I tell it to. Back home, if it’s hot, I tell myself not to feel it, and it gets cooler. When it gets cold in winter, I do the opposite. But here…no matter how hard I tell myself it isn’t that cold, I shiver and shiver. I keep seeing the wolves ripping apart that carcass, and the shiver becomes a quake.”

Azariah stared at him with those penetrating eyes. He’d always understood people, more than any of the other Wardens.

“You see more than just a wolf and a deer, don’t you?” he asked. “What is it that flashes before your eyes when you close them? What nightmare won’t let you sleep?”

Roland bowed his head. Shame worked its way into his gut, a feeling of weakness that was unrelenting.

“I also see Martin Harrow’s body,” he said. “I see his mother and father weeping. I see Ashhur standing over them as they buried him in the dirt, telling them their son is in a better place…but when I see their faces, I know they don’t believe him. But how? How could they not believe him? Ashhur is their god, and he created us all. Why do they doubt?”

His shame grew, and he blurted the words out before he lost his courage.

“Why do I doubt?”

Azariah shifted onto his knees. He was one of the shortest Wardens, and yet his height was still impressive.

“Ashhur speaks the truth. Martin is in a better place now, lounging in the golden plains of Afram, the void in which the gods mold an afterlife for their people, drinking wine with his great-great-grandparents. It is natural for you to doubt, and you should feel no shame. But belief in the truth is often thwarted by the great killer of hope, a foe you know so terribly little about.”

Brienna sighed.

“What is that?” asked Roland.

“Fear.”

Roland sat up straight, even as Brienna tightened her grip on his shoulders.

“You keep saying that,” he said. “I’m not a fool. I know what fear is-all of us do. When Master Jacob was visiting the delta, I had many dreams that he would not return, and it frightened me. When I was younger, I used to worry that my parents would scold me when I ignored my chores.”

“Such terrible fears,” said Azariah. “Have you already forgotten the wolf?”

Roland fought back his shudder.

“That too,” he said.

Azariah shook his head, letting out a sigh.

“You’d rather pretend it’s not there than face it. None of you in Ashhur’s Paradise can face fear; none of you can stand tall and make it your servant instead of your master.”

“Az, don’t,” said Brienna.

“The boy needs to know,” the Warden answered. “There might be danger where we are headed.” He fixed his eyes on Roland. “Here in the west you have been greatly sheltered,” he said. “All of Ashhur’s children have been, so do not feel that it’s your fault. What is there to do in Paradise but breed and pray to the god who walks among you? A simple life, of oneness with the deity, the land, and your family. But that is not all there is. You know nothing of pain or of loss. Never has anyone in this land died before his or her time…Martin was the first. That is why you know nothing of it, Roland. You’re soft. In many ways, it is a beautiful thing, and the people of Paradise cherish one another in a way that exists nowhere else in this world. But we’ve left that land now. We are in the wild, and nature is a far harsher mistress.”

“You act like you know any better,” said Roland, a bit harsher than he intended. “You’ve lived there with us. You’ve been…been…as coddled as we are! What do you know of it?”

The Warden’s fire-flickering eyes darkened for a moment, then grew wistful, almost sad.

“I know much. We all do. Ahaesarus, my brother, Icariah, Ezekai, Torian, Uriel…we all experienced a life before Dezrel. Before we came here. Before we lost everything.”

Roland immediately regretted his words, almost wished he could take them back. But his curiosity got the better of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “How did it happen?”

Azariah smiled a gloomy smile.

“I was a carpenter once, working in my corner shop in a small city on a distant world we called Algrahar. I had a wife and children, and I loved my family dearly. And I also loved my god, whom we worshipped each night before the shrine of Rana that sat on the outskirts of the city. Life was full of joy, and much like you, we knew nothing of pain. As with Brienna’s people, our god had blessed us with unnaturally long lives. Those I loved remained by my side through the entirety of my existence. It wasn’t until one winter day during my sixty-sixth year that I knew even a moment of terror.

“You must understand that in our world, with its two suns burning brightly on either side of the horizon, it was always daylight. Sometimes the world darkened, and we could glimpse the brightest of the stars, but we never had nightfall or true darkness…not until that day. Suddenly the sky split as if a black dagger had sliced through the heavens. From the swirling mists within that darkness emerged a horde of flying beasts. They wore strange armor and bore giant black wings on their backs, and they were legion. We stood dumbfounded, not understanding what was happening until it was too late. The creatures descended upon us, attacking us with swords and spears. Those who fought back were destroyed instantly. The streets of our city ran red with our blood, and the air resounded with our dying screams. My wife was sliced from shoulder to hip before my eyes. My children were lifted by the evil beasts and carried high into the nightmare sky, then dropped down on the streets below.

“It was no coincidence that I lived. The beasts slaughtered the women and children, leaving us, the men who surrendered, to be rounded up and herded into pens. It was there my brother, Judarius, and I awaited the judgment of whatever dark force had brought this misery down upon my people.”

Azariah paused, staring into the fire as if he were worlds away. Brienna shifted uncomfortably beside Roland, holding him tighter against her.

“Do you know what the worst of it was?” Azariah suddenly asked. “It seemed as though our god had abandoned us. As hundreds of us sat in that grimy pen, watching our captors soar over the gates, we realized that we were alone. Rana heard our prayers no longer, and his light had been extinguished from the world. That is when we knew fear. That was when we looked into the abyss and saw its darkest face.

“Nothing is as frightening as the thought that only blackness will greet you when you leave this life. Not strange creatures falling from the sky and murdering our families. Not the lack of understanding nor the promise of death every time the gates to our prison opened. No, our despair came from thinking that Rana’s teachings were all a lie, and that when we perished we would simply cease to be, never to see our loved ones again in the shimmering forever. That , boy, is a fear you’ve never felt before, a fear that changes you, twists you in its maw.”

Roland breathed deep, a rasping breath that filled his shivering lungs. “So it wasn’t true?” he asked, both spellbound and horrified. “The words of your god?”