As he had after coming out of the Qaharadin, Varis scrutinized his features reflected back to him from the still surface of the water. Instead of a befouled puddle, now he looked into a sleeping crofter’s water trough. When he had first seen the effects of the Thousand Hells upon him, he had been horrified. In truth, that horror had never left … until now. What he saw looking back was the face of a god made flesh. That he had molded that flesh by his own will, only made his appearance all the more striking to his eye.
A pig grunted nearby, and he glanced around in the early morning light. Beyond the swine’s pen, goats peered at him with their strange eyes, chewing cud. A rooster crowed, as if urging the sun to rise faster, but the small house remained quiet and dark. The crofter would crawl out of bed shortly, so it was about time for Varis to depart for Ammathor. Instead of taking his leave, however, Varis looked back into the trough, captivated by his own beauty.
The blanched eyes were gone, replaced now by his formerly dark eyes, which once again saw the world in all its natural splendor. As well, his flesh had filled out and darkened to his natural coloring, if with something more, a faint and enticing glow. That is but a fraction of what the Sister of Najihar saw, he thought, recalling her awe. While it might have served him to remain a being of golden radiance, he had decided he would rather look merely human, at least for now. The shadow of the youth he had been was yet visible, but now his strong features were those of a man ten years older. His top-lock was now a blue-black cable of hair, thick as his wrist, and hung to his belt. He smiled at himself, realizing that he could have passed for his father’s brother, rather than the man’s youngest son.
Eager to begin his life as a supreme ruler, Varis easily hopped the split rail fence and strode toward the road leading into Ammathor, still some five leagues distant. He drew up the hood of his cloak to ward against the abnormally chill air. One day, he meant to ensure that he felt neither cold nor heat. For now, with that knowledge beyond him, he had no choice but to rely on clothing for protection from the elements. Like his image, he had made his present garb: a thick, buttery-soft tunic and leggings worn under dark brown woolen robes; a fine cloak; and sturdy leather boots that conformed to his feet as if they were a second skin. The one extravagance he had allowed himself was a belt of woven gold. All these elements, he had brought forth from nothing, knitting them by will and with the innate power of life. Such creative power staggered him, filled his mind with images and ideas. He was rapidly growing from a man into godhood, and yet he sensed he had far to go. What wonders will I create in after another year?
The feat of making clothing and recreating himself, he admitted, would not have been possible if Ellonlef had not revealed Peropis’s betrayal-he now doubted that she had ever intended to hunt Kian as she had promised, though he did not understand why she had added that deception to the others. Still, learning just how deep Peropis’s treachery went, had built a consuming fury in him so bright and hot that he had forgotten all her warnings of drawing too much of life’s power inside himself. In an instant, he had absorbed the lives-rather the half-lives-of ten thousand souls.
That those souls had proven to be demonic, rather than human, made no difference, as far as he could tell. With so much life in him, something had changed, allowing him to hold the force of their lives inside him, rather than cast it all away. The whirlwind of flame and death had come from his mind, created from nothing more substantial than thought. In time, he would explore the full range of possibilities available to him. When he knew enough, he would bring war on Peropis and, he felt sure, Geh’shinnom’atar would quake at his coming. As for Kian, Varis could feel the man somewhere behind him, driven by a pride that would be the man’s death.
He had not quite reached the dirt road when he heard the rattle of a door’s bolt being thrown, then the squeak of old hinges.
“You there!” the crofter shouted gruffly.
Varis thought about ignoring the man, but instead halted and turned. The bandy-legged crofter stood in the doorway brandishing a long cudgel. Years of long hard work had creased the man’s face and bowed his spine, but he still appeared strong. Varis silently stared at the gawping fool, and as he did so, he let his inner radiance shine forth, just a little. Even with the distance, that golden glow spread back along the way he had come, washing over the crofter’s stunned features. The man, cringing back, abruptly wailed in terror and threw himself prostrate in the dust.
Varis left him groveling, and made his way to the road that would take him up through the Pass of Trebuldar and to Edaer’s Wall, then into Ammathor. By nightfall, he would be King of Aradan.
As he made his plans for the coming day and the rest of his life, he closed on Edaer’s Wall. Though consideration of his coming glory was a pleasant distraction from his walk along the dusty road stretching out under a smoky sky, a league from the wall, his stride faltered. Thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him, Varis stared, grappling with the immensity of the destruction ahead.
The legendary wall had been built in the decades after the First King, Edaer Kilvar, stormed off the Kaliayth to wrest the throne from Emperor Suanahad’s eldest son. It spanned the entire Pass of Trebuldar, a full league between a pair of craggy peaks named the Two Brothers. Varis’s mind remembered the wall as an unbroken, manmade cliff of sandstone standing a hundred paces tall and half again as thick, sprouting a dozen massive barbican gates and hundreds of catapults. Those fortifications had broken and repelled many invading armies over a thousand years, with nary a scratch to show for the effort. Second only to the Ivory Throne, Edaer’s Wall had always been the ultimate symbol of Aradan’s power and glory.
Varis blinked away the memory and truly allowed himself to see what remained.
The greater part of the wall lay in a cluttered heap of shattered stone no more than a third its previous height. Only one barbican gate remained, and from its ramparts the banners of House Kilvar, the crossed golden sword and lance on a field of deep green, snapped in the brisk wind. From the open gate, which was a full twenty paces wide, a small trickle of people were leaving the city. Hundreds more waited to get in. Guards inspected carts, ox-drawn wagons, pannier-laden mules, and the people themselves. From his vantage, Varis guessed only one in ten were allowed to pass-those, apparently, with useable goods. Beyond the crumbled wall, smoke and dust hung heavy over the once shining city, obscuring any fine details of an otherwise bleak picture.
Varis turned his study on the folk who were departing the gate, and those turned away. None made their way down the road, but rather peeled off and crossed the boulder-studded slope of the pass, making for a chaotic tumble of rock at the wall’s southern edge. The rock-fall had not been there when he left Ammathor, and the scarred cliff face rising above it showed where a large portion of the mountain had collapsed. Thousands of people wandered aimlessly amid the massive stone slabs. Further scrutiny revealed countless gatherings of tents and canvas-covered wagons. Farther off, shepherds bearing spears and swords guarded livestock contained within large rope pens. With nowhere else to turn, Varis concluded, nearby villagers had come to Ammathor for protection. He could only imagine that a similar tableau waited on the eastern edge of the city. How many more would come from every corner of the kingdom?
Considering that, Varis looked back the way he had come. Normally, from the River Malistor onward, the road was packed year-round with wagons loaded with goods from all over the kingdom. As well, craftsmen by the thousand brought their wares to Ammathor, where they could fetch much higher prices than in villages and border fortresses. Now the road was empty, and the tracks he had seen in the powdery dust showed more sign of serpents and scorpions than of men. It appeared that the migration to the king’s city had dwindled off.