Nika woke before dawn.
It wasn't necessary he have privacy, though privacy was won; everyone was still asleep, passed out, worried into darkness, or given over to dreams. His waking early was only because he always woke early; the sharp spike behind the eye of something like a hangover reminded him. He grinned to himself – it had been a good night, in good Midraeic fashion.
Outside the little prisoner's tent was a deep rut, gouged perhaps by some great slaughtered animal and forgotten by the grass. Whatever the cause, there it was, its perfection for fitting human tread requiring the tent's mouth to be placed over it, footprints creating a more banal story where the soft prairie grass had given way to mud.
A heavy dew had just fallen, making the ground moist, but not wet. Nika stretched and felt the air, and felt the inside of his abused head and the outside of his abused skin and resolved to be awake in a few moments. It was a very easy trick, a skill made, not born. He needed focus and created it and solidified it as if it had always been there – like the gouge in the ground.
Very carefully he stretched his fingers down, some never-questioned instinct keeping his eyes on the spot of future sunrise. It hurt his muscles, to bend his knees so slowly, to hang as his fingers touched the spiked tips of prairie grass, cooled with dew. He liked that hurt, though, liked that rasp of burning pain in many ways, in many settings, and of many causes. He touched upon the memories of burnings past, and no color came to his cheeks – just a smile to his lips. Never could focus while praying.
As he kneeled across the path, he didn't sink into the mud, as he had thought he would. The child-like part of his mind, now running rampant as it always did at ritual steps, thought breathlessly of the earth swallowing him up, awed in the true sense of the word. But in truth, he didn't sink. No leaping waves of mud arose. He just squelched and settled. All the better.
It pressed the cloth to his knees and made it stick like cool plaster bandages. They said it was the balm of the soul, praying; figured that his would need wrapping up in casts. He somehow always imagined the soul like the frond of a palm, ancestral plant he had only ever seen in pictures and descriptions, whose image was nonetheless clear in his mind. Its little fingering leaves broken, its stem stripped – perhaps some wilt, or over-sunning, both at once – it was not, after all, just a plant, but a human soul. Why did he pick the palm frond? It seemed so delicate.
And grew in deserts. Ah, there it was. One did not argue with child-instincts, and as a child he had prayed for his little palm frond, growing as it was, crowded amidst the stretch of others. He thought perhaps they would smother him, his little leaf. He never noticed they gave way before him; he always looked elsewhere, for fear of ones he imagined might stop him if he did not look for them. It was the sublimity of the soul that it grew far faster than the body; once his reached a height of understanding, he was all the sudden aware that there was no more struggle upward, only outward, to touch or not to touch, to live amongst in light or lay waste with shadow.
He liked to live amongst.
Still crowded amidst the stretch of others, only now he realized that some others were not trees or leaves but bark, some others were branches – some were sand and others bounced like monkeys through the rest. At any rate, his conception of his own soul was not universal; others understood theirs differently, and some as not existent at all, but still he lived amongst them, and thinking about it got rather confusing but was just as important as thinking about his on its own. Supposedly when he prayed, he prayed to the God of All (let's not get into that – it sufficed that if asked, he, Galen, was certain that Midras would talk to anyone; anyone who could be spoken to could also be welcomed and loved).
But when he prayed, he prayed still for the same little palm, the fronds sometimes shaken in the wind.
Letting out a sigh as his legs rested, he composed the upper part of his body – back straight, shoulders relaxed, and – most difficult – eyes closed. He bent at the waist, and with a fleeting thought thanked the stretch of the muscles on his back and the backs of his legs as he pressed his forehead to the ground, mumbling the name of God the Most Merciful.
God the Benevolent, God the Kind, and the God of the Pitiful.
It seemed as if he could hold still long enough and be covered by what dew was left to fall, and sit like a stone, and never have to get up again.
He recited all the Names of Mercy, and called upon the God who was the giver of impartial dreams, to righteous and sinful alike.
He would trade all of the happiness, the glorious moments and true things of his life, if it would take away the burden he had been to everyone he loved.
He prayed to God the Beneficent. God the Pardoner.
Imagine his family, who without him might have lived happily, undisturbed in his little hometown. Missing all the marriages of his sisters would have pained him, there was no guarantee Abban would be alive, his father would have had to wait for a son until Paciano... and as much as Nika wanted to believe otherwise, it would have been hard for him to wait that long. Nika filled a gap.
He prayed to God the Destiner. Prayed to the God who held the strands of Fate, and Whose Voice Called into Being.
Imagine Cole. Imagine what Cole was going to feel. It would be simple, for Nika. He would be dead, as past feeling as one can get – if God was truly merciful, that is (the thought of being dead without Cole was just as repulsive as being alive without Cole, only with the addendum of eternity). Nika was out of communion, not unrepentant; he hoped his God was one of fine distinctions. Once dead, he had no worries though; it was life where action controlled the strength and level of justice and right. In death all was just. If he suffered in Hell, he suffered without doubt.
Cole would suffer. Nika knew it wasn't ego when he thought maybe Cole would suffer for the rest of his life.
Better that Nika had never lived to be lost.
His lips trembled, and his hand closed over the grass beneath it, but he said the names of God at the Ends of the Earth, God of All, Whose Presence is Being, God the Distant and Mighty.
The mud cooled his skin, and eventually it hurt less. He let go of the grass, and tried not to think about how it was like letting go of the Earth. Letting go of the Earth to sink within it...
Like at Stag Lake. Ah, pray to God and his mind wandered everywhere God supposedly was. The disadvantage to omnipresence was to be both inescapable and uncatchable at once; he supposed that might be an advantage of Ainjir's place-and-time oriented gods.
Ainjir's gods were distant to his mind now. It was not like the edge of the lake. They were figments, fractions of memory, broken as a scattered people, but it was like a glass bell with its delicate hollow clapper shattered. Shake the confines of Ainjir and you still hear the rasping of sharp-edged dead gods clamoring within its borders, and yet the sound of the toll is forever silenced. Better yet, it seemed, to have the clapper, the fragile bulb clasped firmly and passed from hand to hand, to sound against walls, borders and bells as various as the nations of the world. At least, it had worked for Midras. Then again, the point of Midras was the open air – never was his God contained by trees or borders, except in the foolish venture of Comidras, a thousand years ago, after which Gaius and his imagined empire had named themselves. And hadn't they learned their lesson, then?
No. Stupid Comid bastards.
He prayed to the God of Fleeting and the Long, the God who built halls and blessed babies.
It seemed right to him – or at it least rang true – the scattered people and their whole God. Then again, he was built to believe that way. Still, when he felt fear, he felt no corresponding urge to put the names of Ainjir's distant gods on his lips, though he knew them, and occasionally felt their ghosts in the brush of the wind, or the rustle of the hiding fox.
Or in the thundering of his body, the skin that tried to contain its thundering and failed, or held it barely, radiating with its heat and noise. In those moments, he did turn his back on his God, whom nothing contained, who could not possibly feel what he felt (what he felt held no perfection – its lack was its strength). Instead he strove with the old gods, who pushed against and with and within their people, understanding what it means to feel more than a body can feel, to feel another but ill contained in his own skin forcing you out of yours – and together, in a moment, to have freedom...
He prayed to boundless God, the Omnipresent, the Endless.
...And to shudder back home. Pulled by the chains of the flesh – chains made by a free God, for just such shaking and rattling and noise – that reassurance, that return... the noise of life.
He would remember the lake for all of the last sweet moments of his life. If it was wanting that made things precious, his memory of the lake would be burnished gold, its every edge fogged by the close heat of his dying breath. Greedy soul, he easily bent the green and vibrant, the precious healthy parts of himself around it to protect it, to keep it. One had life only a short time. The present was a gift, meant to be fleeting – the pain would be fleeting, too.
He prayed to God the Judge, God the Lawgiver, God Adjudicate.
It was his own fault. It was his ego that had gotten him here. Let it not be said that he never learned though. He had given up...
He had always imagined a kicking and screaming death. He had always imagined a fight, to die in battle, if only with Death itself. He supposed protracting a war for five years could be counted as a fighter's death. What he had never imagined was being so... calm. So reserved.
He prayed to God, to whom belongs the future and the past. He prayed to the God of Times to Come, the God of Schema.
Eha, though – he knew where the reservation came from. He died in front of others. He died for the sake of others. How he died was counting for much, and in his end, he must be dignified. Laughing almost interrupted his intonation; how amusing that he must go bowed to the perceptions of others, more aware than he had ever been of eyes on him, of opinions held of him, and of how he could use those, how he could direct those.
He prayed to God the Greatest and Least. He prayed to the God of little things, protector of children. The God who made mice as easily as he had made men.
He had learned. He touched his lips to the soft mud three times, interrupting his prayer with the supplicant's gesture. He supposed his ancestors had come up with that gesture some place less muddy. You weren't supposed to spit while praying, but he had never been very good at being faithful anyway. He had tried to have faith like his father's: patient, calm, and sure. He had tried even when he knew he would fail. His faith was a shuddering, violent, spitting-when-he-shouldn't thing.
He prayed to God the Subduer, God the Victorious, God who granted Peace through War, which made little sense until it happened.
He had done everything he could. His job now was to keep it from harming as many of those he loved as he could. In a way, that was out of his hands as well. He was doing his part. It just depended on them doing theirs.
Just in case, he prayed for forgiveness, too.
Guy, deep in sleep, became the secret source of a second Verun, his body the mystical marches that hid the true Verun's source. The gentle rising of his chest was the billows of the wind. The hair on his jaw, stubble seeming to gently grow for the viewing, was a good approximation of the constancy of Ainjir's flora. The twitch of his finger was a gnome mine, the smallest creatures always surviving longer in folklore than great, sky-filling gods.
It was cute. In a way. Nika's mouth twitched, but there was no mistaking the reflex of a principal predator for a kindly gesture.
It was cute. And Cole had spent, what, three or four years around things like this? Late nights, planning, the sweet rush of victory that sped the heart and the blows of defeat, which made comrades sympathetic...
Nika grinned at himself. His twinge of jealousy consumed itself quickly, as some of Cole's supreme confidence had, after many years finally rubbed off on him. At least in certain matters. And it helped that he knew enough of his lover's body to tell when he had been holding it in for a while (bivouac at Academy – two weeks’ worth of waiting at a time and such sweet rejoining after). He was impressed, actually, as he had resigned himself to the thought that Cole couldn't go that long; he had been rather afraid that five years’ worth of waiting would've made him explode.
Apparently not.
It was rather funny to him that he still felt that jealousy, though, given all the doom-and-gloom. Silly little human hearts and their eternal loves.
“General Guy,” he said, rather quietly. He was sure it wouldn't work, but Guy was now a general; he deserved some deference. The only thing that filled Guy's tent was his snoring (it was Guy's tent, without Cole in it, there was nothing that made it Cole's). There was no other sound. The lamp had burned out some time shortly before Nika had gone to bed last night; he had kept an eye on it throughout the evening to make sure nothing happened.
He paused, considering. Reaching for a handkerchief left in a heap on the table, Nika made a quick swipe at the pool of spit. He could at least let Guy pretend he had preserved his dignity.
“General Guy.” Nika put a firm hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. “Your camp awaits.”
If Nika's grip had been any softer, Guy's starting into wakefulness would've thrown him out of his chair. Nika's grip steadied and panicked him at the same time.
“At the flank! What? I don't...?” Hair sticking up, Guy's brain eventually caught up with mouth. Swiping a hand hurriedly over his cheek as he focused on Nika's grin, he pulled himself straight. “What's going on? What time is it?”
Nika grinned. “Reveille.” On cue, the horns sounded, calling the men to rise. Nika gave himself a congratulatory imagined pat-on-the-back; hadn't that been impressive!
“Ah, need to get ready... too much to do, camp to break...” Guy ran his hand over his face again, feeling the grim growth at his chin and trying futilely to stroke it down, as if his hand could smooth away the signs of a night spent at a desk. Mumbling a few more things, sounding something like a mental list, he assembled the forces of his mind. His groan built into a sort of lament of the hours, until with a few grunts he settled himself into wakefulness for real.
Surprising as being full witness to this waking ritual was, Nika still grinned. He only let go of Guy's shoulder when he was sure he was awake, then stepped back to a respectful distance.
“Virtue's Tits, whose idea were mornings anyway?” Guy snorted, rearranging his inner air and its sundry valves.
“Well, I have an answer,” Nika's smile widened, “but I'm afraid the issue has been somewhat hotly contested of late.”
Rolling his eyes, Guy stood, again running his hands through his hair. After a moment, he laughed, as if his humor had finally woken within him.
“What in the name of honor-and-glory are you doing up? Not to be dismissive, but I would've thought you had drunk yourself insensible last night,” Guy said, “or at least slept in a bit.”
“The dead have plenty of time to sleep.” Nika grinned.
Guy's face contorted into a frown, which dissolved into a look of curiosity. “I thought you believed in an afterlife that would....” Evidently his brain wasn't awake enough to have complete control over his mouth, but it had somewhat more command as regards his hands, which clapped shut his jaw before he finished the question, failing to appear nonchalant.
Nika merely smiled.
“Is it really Reveille? We're not late, are we?” Guy began to fuss with his jacket, straightening cuffs.
“No, we're not. I woke the horns myself” Guy's eyebrows crunched in concern, and Nika let his toothy grin explain, “And in time with the sun.”
“Ah.” Guy pulled on his uniform some more. He began to frown, as silence sat between them. Morning grogginess had calmed his usual anxiety, so now Nika was getting the opportunity to watch it build back up to familiar levels as Guy's thoughts began to churn faster and faster. Nika kept smiling. Guy, after a moment, noticed this.
“You know,” he said, affecting confidence, “Cole is going to solve it. He said he would, and he will.”
“I know,” Nika returned.
When Nika's response didn't grow into something sensible, Guy frowned, covering it up with another foray. “Then why do you keep talking like you're going to die?”
“I face what is before me,” Nika said. “Also, because a good general knows that it isn't always a matter of everything happening in the right way as everything happening in the right time. It is sometimes 'When', more than 'How'.”
Though his frown deepened, Guy covered that over with an even more exuberant expression of superiority. “Well, we’ve covered this. You're not a very good general are you? You lost.”
Again, the mouth-brain thing. Guy, busily adjusting a button on his chest, raised nervous eyes to Nika.
“I lost,” Nika said carefully, “and I am a very good general.”
Guy couldn't quite make this correlate, but Nika didn't seem angry with him, which he considered a good enough victory, if not the one he had exactly expec–
Guy froze. He looked up, seeing Nika's small smile widen, ever so slightly, so slightly he doubted he was seeing it or imagining it, at the shock in his eyes.
“You missed a very good evening, General Guy – I daresay we're all prepared to meet our fates, if some with slightly less coordination than others when the light gets bright.” Nika walked over to the desk, touching the papers spread across them with the tips of his fingers. He laughed. “Have you figured it out yet?”
“I'm close,” Guy said, amazed that his voice could come out so clear when his thoughts were so chaotic. “I think I've got the whole timeline done, no thanks to you.”
Chuckling again, Nika glanced at him, nudging the papers back into place. “I bet you haven't figured out Kinsael. You'll never figure out Kinsael.”
Stubborn frown on his face, Guy straightened his back. “I'll get it. It's only a matter of time.”
“You say time but this is not time,” Nika snorted, rolling his eyes. “Time is ‘When’. This is ‘How’.” He put his hand down on the papers, tapping with fingers spread.
“You think the history will give you answers you want – it is how you think you can win. It is no guarantee – you only hope – maybe you have other ‘How’s, but this is the one you work towards. I have said to you before, I do not hope. I plan, I deal with what comes before me, what I know. There are many ways to win – many ‘How’s – but I wait for the ‘When’ – and I wait a lot. It’s risky. I am fortunate in that I am quick as I am patient – in this, at least. There will be a time when the army waits for supplies, when a unit is here instead of there, when the guard blinks – I wait for when.”
He took his hand away from the table, clasping them behind his back and looking down at the mess. “Instinct hopes, and hope is what ‘How’s are built on. The great strength of Cole’s method is that he doesn’t wait for ‘When’s – he makes them. Sometimes I think he misses things because he is focused on how to make things happen before he thinks of when the best time to act – or more importantly, not act – might be, but I also know that we are both very successful, in our own ways. Still, though we have the same training, and even make many of the same choices, the same battle looks very different to each of us
“But,” Nika raised his eyes to Guy, nothing in them betraying the casualness of their conversation, “that all oversimplifies things. Anyway, Cole is not here, and – as you say – I did not win. You, General Guy, must have your own plans and instincts, but if Cole is out there trying to find a ‘How,’ I would think somebody must mind the ‘When’s.”
The silence stretched out and made itself comfortable while Guy spent more time on his uniform. Nika stared at the little objects strewn about, their connection to Cole palpable in the way they sat, or marks revealing their handling, and yet so absent of spirit of the man himself. It was true it brought up little jolts of longing, sentiment and what he was sure, if he allowed it, would lead to maudlin thoughts. Luckily, he wasn't the sort of poetic fool that would allow those sorts of things. They were just objects.
It took a moment, but Nika realized that Guy was undoing his jacket just before he slipped it off of his shoulders, busily taking his uniform off.
“You know, it's much simpler to get dressed by putting things on,” Nika said. “I'm sure they won't notice a wrinkle or two.”
Guy frowned, arching a brow at Nika as he worked loose his shirt. “There's plenty of time to get ready,” he said. “I will be meeting the Prince today.”
Nika grinned. “I'll break camp. You get the ink off your face.”
With a furious string of curses, Guy rubbed his cheek, all pretense of calm forgotten. “Ah, shit-balls-ass-fuck – what is it? Does it look bad?”
Nika laughed, tossing up his lazy salute as he left. “No – it's one of Cole's boats. Nobody will even have any idea what it's supposed to be.”