Chapter 6

  Acarnus: ten years BK

  Acarnus wolf-bound, small and pale even for a child, his color only just beginning to develop, was left on the threshold of the remote Nazkhar monastery. He did not cry in fear, nor wail in loss. He sat on the stone beside the door, gazing out on the dusty wasteland beyond, holding a rusty bar of iron in his lap. He sometimes cast his gaze above to read the motto engraved over the threshold: UNYIELDING DILIGENCE. For three days and three nights he sat, still and silent. By the fourth day, the rusty bar of iron in his lap had become a gleaming knife, razor-sharp. On the fourth day, a monk emerged to retrieve him.

  This monk was small and delicate, like the child Acarnus, but his reputation and power were great. He was called Brother Chain. He had bonded to a kestrel; he had delicate feathery grey spines instead of hair, a sharp narrow face, and keen, fierce eyes. He wore only great lengths of chain, bound to his wrists and ankles and draped shoulder to shoulder like a sash.

  Brother Chain took in the small Acarnus and trained him in the ways of the ancient dragon Chasing Winds, of whom Nazkhar had been a disciple. The precepts of Chasing Winds were simple in essence, complex in practicability. The core of her teachings could be summarized in the words “duty,” “honor,” and “control.” Duty is paramount; honor in all things; an unbreakable hierarchy of control—in society, in nature, in the fabric of reality—that must be understood and respected.

  Acarnus compiled all this into a further summation: order. All things in their place. Order, as the perfect ordering of molecules within sound metal; as the rigid and unvarying schedule of daily life within the monastery; as of numbers and the patterns of the natural world and the basic tenets of science and mathematics. All of this, together with the teachings of Chasing Winds concerning duty and honor and control, were one in the mind of Acarnus.

  And he excelled under the wing of Brother Chain.

  Eight years BK

  “You have a keen mind for discovery, Acarnus,” said Brother Chain, peering at the holoscreen before him and swiping rapidly through the report Acarnus had compiled regarding the treasonous activities of Brother Seven Spades. “It will get you in trouble.” He frowned sternly at the child, scarcely five years old, yet Acarnus saw a mischievous twinkle in his keen eye. “I think I will be submitting this report to the Overseer.”

  Acarnus hardly cared about that. “But how was it?” he asked. “My investigation?”

  “Besides hazardous and unprovoked? It was brilliant. Your logical extrapolation of details, supported by your following through with forensic analysis…I think we may have a new Miriam Fivemind.” He favored Acarnus with a smile, and the young daimon beamed back in pleasure. This was the greatest praise he had ever received.

  “Someday,” said Acarnus, carried by his elation at being compared to his greatest hero, “I’ll solve the Great Mysteries.”

  “Oho!” Brother Chain raised feathery eyebrows. “And where will you start?”

  “By asking the right questions,” said Acarnus, who had already put a great deal of consideration into this.

  “Such as?”

  “The first question, the greatest mystery, is this: where do we come from? Why do we fall from the sky? Why are we the stars?”

  “Why did we fall, you mean,” corrected Brother Chain. “If you wish to make yourself truly useful, work on the problem of why we have ceased thus to fall. You yourself are among the last ever to do so.”

  Acarnus nodded. “But in order to know why it has stopped, mustn’t we first know why it happened to begin with?”

  “Perhaps. Go on.”

  Acarnus narrowed his eyes in concentration. “A star falls from the sky, and that star becomes a daimon. From what we can tell, the being of the daimon itself comes into existence just within the ring system of Infernus. Yet the rings, though composed of clear arda, show no trace of biomass on analysis, much less daimon DNA. The daimon’s color is fixed at the time of descent, but it is unbound. Location of the fall: random. Cause of the fall: unknown. Timing: falls are slightly more common during the auroral sweeps of storm season. To all of this: why?”

  Brother Chain tamped tree salt into his pipe and lit it as Acarnus spoke. “These questions have all been asked,” he pointed out when Acarnus had finished. “Specify. Ask better questions. More specific questions. Questions to which an answer can be ascertained empirically.”

  “I’m still reading about it,” replied Acarnus. “So much has been written.”

  This made Brother Chain laugh. Dense smoke trickled from his thin lips and down to the floor in an elegant cascade. “They aren’t called the Great Mysteries for nothing, boy. Daimon like you have been investigating this for as long as recorded history. Even the gods and dragons don’t know—or if they do, they will not say.”

  Four years BK

  In the grey stone courtyard of the monastery, walled in by flat featureless slabs of dusty metal and rough stone, Acarnus played counter-chess. In this game, two combatants play chess atop a board wherein the pawns were as large as daimon. Each combatant states their move, which is at once replicated on the board through hidden mechanisms, and then initiates a brief combat engagement against their opponent. Moves are made swiftly; the field is ever changing. Victory is achieved by winning the game or by winning the fight. Skill in just one area—combat or chess—is insufficient for attainment of excellence. Both come together into something new, for a wise move on the chessboard can create an advantage in combat.

  Acarnus excelled in counter-chess. At ten years old he was nearly fully grown, and although there were none at Nazkhar in his age bracket, yet few at the monastery could triumph over Acarnus in counter-chess. Brother Chain was among those who could win, and in fact he most often did, but his victories were always martial. Brother Chain predicted that Acarnus would be unbeatable in several years, at least by anyone at Nazkhar.

  Brother Chain watched from above as Acarnus declared his next move against his opponent, Sister Silent, who used a device on her forearm rather than her voice to announce her moves. Sister Silent, a grey like most at the monastery, expertly wielded a long whip of woven metal fibers. A dangerous combatant, but Brother Chain could see that she would lose the game of chess in several moves unless she could defeat Acarnus in that time.

  Sister Silent lost. Acarnus could not always avoid the grasping filaments of the whip, but he could always slip free before becoming completely ensnared.

  Acarnus ascended to the observation balcony after the match, joining Brother Chain in watching the board reset itself. “Well done,” said Brother Chain when Acarnus arrived. The young daimon bowed in thanks.

  “I have arranged a challenge for you today,” said Brother Chain. “I feel that you require a greater range of diversity in your opponents.”

  “As you say, Master Chain,” said Acarnus, bowing again.

  “I believe he is ready and waiting. Once you feel fit for another game…”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “I am ready now,” said Acarnus, though still winded. Brother Chain hid a smile. Acarnus understood his own excellence. A pride grew there that required pruning.

  “Return, then, to the floor,” said Brother Chain. “Take dark; your opponent will open with bright.”

  “Who is my opponent, if I may ask?”

  “He is the keeper of the Temple of Thunder, in the wake of the Thunder God.”

  Acarnus nodded and returned to the floor, assuming a calm and ready stance among the dark pieces. The door across the board opened to reveal one of the biggest daimon Brother Chain had ever seen.

  Rasmus and Acarnus introduced themselves, Rasmus with jovial camaraderie and Acarnus with caution. He was analyzing his opponent and not liking what he found.

  Rasmus opened the game with an odd pawn move and a charge across the board toward his opponent. He moved swiftly for his bulk, and his punch broke not only Acarnus’s defense but one of his pawns. The four-ton piece of stone cleaved into several parts under the impact. Thus was the battle joined.

  It became apparent almost at once that Rasmus cared not at all for the game of chess. He called out random moves, several times needing to be corrected for declaring an impossible or illegal move. Brother Chain also had to rule, quite early on, that breaking the pieces was technically not against the rules. There were no rules, in fact, regarding this eventuality, which raised some questions about how to proceed when Rasmus knocked over the towering dark king in an attempt to crush Acarnus.

  Thus the first meeting of Acarnus and Rasmus was a brief, chaotic, and destructive affair. Acarnus could not run forever, and the strikes he managed to land on his much larger opponent had no visible effect. In the end, he was beaten down before he could even win the match by chess.

  Rasmus dug Acarnus from a pile of rubble and gently set him back on his feet as Brother Chain descended to the board. Delicate chains clinked and rattled as they lowered the elder to the debris-strewn battlefield. “I appreciate your restraint, young Rasmus,” said Brother Chain, and if there was any sarcasm in his words, it was lost on Rasmus.

  “Now Acarnus,” Brother Chain continued, speaking casually as though they had just awakened from meditation. “Do you believe that, in time, you could overcome Rasmus—either in counter-chess or on a more traditional field of martial combat?”

  Acarnus nodded without hesitation. “Of course.”

  Rasmus laughed, not in mockery or malice, but in approval. He clapped Acarnus on the back, returning him bodily to the gravelly floor.

  “Time is your ally,” Brother Chain agreed. “But it is one you will not always have. You made many mistakes just now, chief among them failure to accurately assess your opponent prior to the game.”

  Acarnus nodded and struggled to his feet, swatting away Rasmus’s helping hand.

  “I have been thinking,” Brother Chain went on, “that you might adjust your style to better match your strengths. They are—your strengths—as follows: observation, precision, a remarkable intellect, the capacity to pinpoint weaknesses, to utilize the environment, to predict. You have not brute strength like our friend here, pardon the expression, nor my own capacity for control over metals.” He demonstrated this by causing his chains to flare out around him and spin in the air for a moment before coming back to rest. He did this without moving a muscle. “Therefore, I wish for you to consider projectiles.”

  “I will, master.”

  “Very good. Now, young Rasmus, you have made a bit of a mess here.”

  “What’s that?” replied Rasmus. His voice filled the courtyard. Brother Chain repeated himself more loudly.

  Rasmus looked at the wreckage, somewhat abashed. “I…can fix it.”

  “The operator of the Forge of the Storm? I do not doubt it. But first…perhaps you would be interested in a fresh test of your strength? Leaving aside the chess business.”

  Brother Chain then battled with Rasmus, and very nearly won. Video recordings of this event were popular viewing in Nazkhar, and elsewhere, for some time after.

  Acarnus trained regularly with Rasmus from this point forward, and no matter how he studied, no matter his tactics, no matter his skill, no matter his furiously swift intellect and his perfected martial forms and his mastery of all other aspects of his ordered life, he always lost. It disturbed Acarnus deeply and kept him up at night, this recurring proof that technique and strategy, however flawless, could never ultimately prevail against raw, overwhelming strength.

  Two years BK

  An empty battlefield at the close of day, the sun a watery pink disc wavering on the smoky horizon. The scent of fumes, of burning flesh and atomized metal. Ozone and acid, sweat and fear and rage and blood. Blood especially. Acarnus smelled it everywhere: the harsh tang of yellow blood, the dead cold of blue, the rich musk of brown. All of it horrible, here in this moment.

  He threw up, hackles raised, in a series of throat-tearing dry heaves. What had happened? He and Brother Chain, together on an important mission. A mission to deliver a message. What message? He didn’t know. And then…

  Ambush. Yes, sudden and swift. Destruction on all sides, and two Nazkhar monks caught in the middle. Meszrians had descended on them from the skies and had badly underestimated the small grey Brother Chain and his apprentice. And then: concussion, darkness. And now: eerie silence, the world holding its breath.

  Something stirred beside him. It was Brother Chain; Acarnus knew his master’s scent as well as his own. Brother Chain lay in the mud, sprawled amongst his own chains, silvery gray blood leaking from many small holes pierced in his body. His spines were mostly broken. Acarnus discerned at a glance that Brother Chain had at most a minute of life left in him. Brother Chain said something, rasping his words out in a hoarse whisper.

  Acarnus leaned close, not bothering in futile efforts to prevent the inevitable. He himself, he noted, was mostly unharmed. Muddy chains spread all around him. Had Brother Chain shielded him in the last moment? That would be like him.

  “Well…done,” gasped Brother Chain.

  Acarnus nodded in acceptance of this praise. Thoughts crowded his mind, jostling to be released from his lips, for there was much he wanted to say, much he wanted to ask of his mentor and friend in his final minutes. But before all this came a duty. They had been given a mission, and with Brother Chain dying, the duty now passed on to Acarnus.

  “Our mission,” he said, keeping his voice steady, speaking swiftly. “The message. What was it?”

  Brother Chain twisted his mouth in what was perhaps meant to be a rueful smile. “Peace,” he said. “Cessation…hostilities.” He coughed; mercurial blood sprayed from his lips.

  Acarnus began to request clarification, but Brother Chain interrupted him.

  “Nazkhar…will be no more.” He coughed again, his voice now very weak. Acarnus desperately wished to speak, but restrained himself. His mentor continued. “In all things…duty…honor…young…Fivemind.”

  And with this, he died. The last word on his lips was the name he called Acarnus partly in jest and partly in honor, the name of an ancient hero.

  Darkness arrived, and well Acarnus knew the danger that came with it. Well he knew that he might yet join his master in death this evening. But there was one thing to do before worrying about his own survival.

  He rose to his feet and located a nearby weapon suitable to the task. It was a handheld particle disruptor, fallen from one of their assailants. He took it, aimed at the dead Brother Chain. In a swift series of pulses, the head and torso of Brother Chain fell apart into grey mush. Acarnus would not allow his master to rise as a deformed husk, a creature of darkness.

  He wondered, in a detached analytical way, when and how the emotional impact of this tragedy might set in. He would worry about that later.

  He turned to go, and that was when he heard the flute. It was a melody, carried by the wind, and he knew at once that it was the Song of another daimon. Sad and beautiful, it came with a soft rush of air that swirled around him with the scents of a swift and devastating conflict.

  Around him, the dead began to rise.