Heretic
Part Three
Chapter 3
The air smelled faintly of smoke, mixed with the wet, thick odor rising up from the slow muddy river to Kierna’s right. She rode along it’s banks, the ever-present plains of grass stretching away to the left. With the river bolstering them on one side, Garreth was riding rear-guard behind and Farrus ahead. The left side was slowly rising hills, so Kierna had opted not to post an outrider as they would be in danger of sudden attack from the far off top of the hills unless they rode atop them, in which case they would be too far away for the rest of the group to assist them. Ganiza claimed they had no need for watchers anyway. High overhead, circling like a massive vulture, was the third of her creatures, Eitia. From below, it looked like an eel slivering in invisible water, a long but thin serpent-like creature with numerous bladders across its back, filled with some gas that kept it afloat. Kierna was skeptical that it could fly for so long with such a method, but as it was an avatar of one of Ganiza’s gods it was likely to be relying on supernatural endowment.
Her panther-like creature Malerax was ranging somewhere off in the grass, often miles away. He would return when they reached camp, another line of forewarning in case of attack. Ganiza’s twin-headed snake Aeshana was still curled around her shoulders, next to Kierna where she rode on another slyzeer lizard like the one Baako had. After Ganiza had ridden double with one of her men for the first two days, they’d purchased the lizard at a village outside of her lands. Actually, the people had insisted on giving it as a gift to the shaman, showing a deferential mix of fear and respect. Kierna had left them a gift of silver to make up for it, though the looks she got were far more hostile.
Kierna didn’t know what to think about traveling, not only with a self-proclaimed Lector who considered herself a partner to her gods, but with three physical avatars of those gods themselves. So far, they hadn’t shown anything beyond ordinary animal intelligence, deferring to Ganiza like well-trained pets, though she always couched her commands in the terms of requests. It made Kierna uncomfortable. Was Ganiza a heretic? True heretics were rare, and the term fairly fluid, but she thought she knew Ethka’s Council of Grand Clerics would determine the matter. Serving an Unbound was the ultimate heresy, but Ganiza was nearly as blasphemous, with her three gods she did not seem to see as her rulers. Calm, always relaxed, amiable, Ganiza made an ideal traveling companion. Still, there was an undeniable tension about her, a wall of belief between her and Jehx’s priests that made true friendship impossible. Baako, motivated by his usual self-preserving nature, kept the farthest from her. He was riding up ahead with Farrus now, the two of them no doubt swapping frequent complaints about Hratha’s rustic nature.
Kierna’s gaze kept wandering back to Ganiza, who rode along with a serene expression, her lips turned up in the hint of a smile. Under the bright sun, away from her alien home, Ganiza looked shockingly ordinary. A bit diminutive, narrow-hipped and small-chested, Ganiza had an androgynous look. Her deep brown skin, eyes, and hair were common all across the grasslands. With her mouth framed by laugh-lines and her deep eyes shadowed by her brow, she had an aged look to her. But while her body lacked the tight muscles of a practiced soldier, she had a fitness to her that told of many leagues walked daily, living a rugged lifestyle alone in her land, and she was clearly still young, whatever she claimed about her age. Feeling Kierna’s eyes on her, Ganiza turned and smiled at her, tilting her head in a slightly questioning fashion. Kierna turned away as though she’d merely been glancing past her into the hills.
An in-drawn breath of surprise distracted Kierna, coming from behind. “What are those?” Kenth asked, his voice tinged with wonder. Curious, Kierna turned and followed his gaze.
In one of the many large islands that dotted the river they followed, several creatures had crept out of the brush onto the shore, watching them from across the span of water. They were nearly as tall as a man, sleek two-legged lizards with bodies covered in brightly colored feathers. They had no beaks, but long narrow snouts filled with sharp teeth. Thick, long tails stuck out well behind them, balancing them into a long position, and they crouched low, tilting their upper bodies forward like spears about the thrust. The two short, chicken-like arms that hung in front of their bodies seemed vestigial. But their legs were clearly powerful, their feet tipped with sharp talons. One toe in particular was three times larger than the others, featuring a long scythe-like claw as big as a dagger. They watched the passing horses with cold, predatory eyes shining with intelligence. Kierna didn’t like the look of it, and reached for her bow, preparing to string it in case they decided to approach.
“They have many names across the grasslands, but we mostly call them Threshers or Reapers,” Hammarra answered. “People call lions the queens of the grass, but Threshers are more like armies. Deadly, smart, they work in large packs. I’ve heard stories of them attacking groups of armed men and winning.” Kierna saw Hammarra already had her bow strung, watching the bird-lizards with an arrow knocked. “We might want to move away from the shore, Captain.”
“There’s no need to worry.” Ganiza’s confidence cut through the tension. “So long as I am here, they will not attack.”
“You’re certain about that? Even if they pose no threat to you, how could they know not to try?” Kierna asked.
“Beasts lack mankind’s rebellious nature. They know well enough not to try and hunt a god. With just a shift of attitude, you too could dissuade them with your presence, Paladin.” Among the others, Ganiza rarely called Kierna by her name. She was not quite certain whether the honorific she gave her was a sign of respect or a subtle condemnation of her position.
Hammarra bristled at her words, glaring. “Claiming divinity doesn’t make you a god, and animals aren’t smart enough to recognize a Lector just by looking at them. Pretend to power all you want, shaman, but don’t mistake us for some backwater clods who will bow and scrape in fear of your mysterious nature.”
Ganiza only went on smiling, the words washing over her like water around a stone.
“Best keep our bows strung anyway,” Kierna said. “Hammarra, ride back and stick with Garreth, in case those things decide to jump the river and go after a lone target. Kenth, inform Farrus of the threat as well, just in case Baako doesn’t know about them.”
Hammarra took a steadying breath, composing herself, then saluted and turned her horse to ride away. She recognized the dismissal, undoubtedly, but Hammarra was wise enough to know when to follow a commander’s attempts to smooth relations. Kenth rode forward, nodding to Ganiza as he passed, then turning his curiosity back to the Threshers across the river. After what the shaman had said, the beasts looked less threatening and more apprehensive, as though they were keeping an eye on a superior predatory encroaching on their land.
Kierna’s gaze wandered back to Ganiza and found the woman meeting her eyes. Kierna stubbornly kept staring. She was not some blushing girl sneaking glances at the object of her interest and hiding away.
“You’re not what I would have expected in a paladin, Kierna,” Ganiza said. Now that the others were gone, she spoke more softly, casually.
“I don’t see how I’m especially unique.”
“You’re a thinker. I can an almost see the words turning over and over in your mind, picking away at the tangle of the questions you can’t put down. You don’t have to, you know. I am happy to answer any questions you might have.”
Kierna didn’t deny her assertions. The things Ganiza had said that first night at the camp, her strange relationship with her gods, and the obscure references she made to her powers, all of these things were rarely far from Kierna’s mind.
“The night I met you, I said that we are not gods. You implied that you disagreed with that statement. And now, you seem to do the same. Claiming divinity is undeniable heresy, but it doesn’t seem to concern you that you might offend me,” Kierna said.
“The truth shouldn’t be offense to anyone. You are a woman of faith, are you not?”
“Yes. I believe in my god. He has proven himself worthy, time and again.”
“Faith should not be so weak that it folds at the slightest contradiction. A person who hides from dissenting opinion out of fear that they might be proven wrong is coward. Their ‘faith’ is like armor made of straw, that will blow away with the first rough wind that buffets it. I don’t think you are so weak, Kierna.”
“So, you do believe you are a god?” Kierna asked. Ganiza didn’t answer immediately, idly petting one of Aeshena’s heads as her smile faded, replaced with a pensive look.
“God is just a word, Kierna. Language is a human thing, an imperfect system for transferring thought that can never truly express what we mean. One woman might call that water blue, while another insists it is more brown, but it is not that either is lying. They know what they see. It is the words that let them down, because there are infinite shades of color between the common words we use to describe them. You are called soldier, priest, paladin, Lector, woman, Ethkan, grasslander, saint, protector, killer. Which of these epithets is true?”
“All of them, more or less.”
“So then, what is a god? Your Jehx is a god, certainly, and so is the Unbound demon of the man you hunt. You worship one and abhor the other. Three gods travel with us, worshiped by no one, closer to that horse you ride than to the lord you serve. What of the little ones you saw on my hill? Tiny flashes of feelings and soul, with little thought between them. You respect them, I am sure, as you would any god. But in your mind, deep inside where no one can hear, I would be shocked if you kept them on the same level as the gods of your grand city. Would one of the little creatures to stand at your feet and squeak up at you, would you bow to it in reverence? The thought is ridiculous, is it not?”
“They are like children. One day they will be gods, and have worshipers of their own, or else exist in the wild like your gods. But they are divine, even so. Same as the ones who made this world, made us in their images. They still deserve respect.”
“I do not mean to imply that they don’t. If I serve anyone, it is them, after all. I keep their nursery safe and comfortable, so that they might grow to outsize us all. I only mean to make you question the definitions you so readily deal in on a daily basis. You see my point?” Ganiza gestured back to her.
“Yes. You would say the word god is meaningless, because everyone has different ideas of what they are. That some gods are more powerful, some gods more basic than others. I do not see how that makes you and me gods, just because we wield some of their power. Should Jehx decide he no longer has faith in my service, he would cut me off from his miracles, and I would be just a woman again. A god cannot lose their godhood, surely.”
“Surely? What, then, was the Pact? The gods of this world are tiny, compared to what they were before. The difference is as large as the gulf between them and us. Always, there is room for change. Tell me, what are we? Humans, I mean. What makes us different from those Threshers over there, or the horse beneath you, or the beetles under all this grass?”
“Physically? Nothing.” Kierna shrugged. “We’re flesh and blood, material like the rest of the Fifth World. The difference is the soul. Animals don’t have souls. And that’s not a matter for debate. I have a Godseye. I’ve seen it. People are different.”
“Of course. But now we are back to the matter of definitions. We don’t agree on what constitutes a god, but what of the soul? I won’t deny its existence, I can see it as well as you. What is it, though?” Ganiza asked.
Kierna didn’t answer. Ganiza wasn’t being coy. She wasn’t arrogant or argumentative, trying to browbeat Kierna into adopting her views. She seemed truly thoughtful, interested both in Kierna’s views and explaining her own. Kierna didn’t want to cheapen the discussion by throwing out the first dogmatic answer that came to her head. What was a soul? It was what they were, wasn’t it? The brain, the vehicle for thought, could be damaged, crippled, turning a person into a husk. But the soul was untouchable. No matter what happened to the body, the soul would eventually return to the Churn, to be purified, the pain and sadness of life cut away to leave the soul fresh and innocent, to be reborn. That thought was comforting. No matter what happened to her, no matter what mistakes she might make, in the end the same outcome came for all people. The gods might be harsh, even cruel in the case of some, but those who had designed the system cared. They had made it so that even an evil person would be remade anew when they died. Everyone got another chance, and another, on and on until their world ended, some distant day.
But what was it, precisely? That was like asking what blood was. Kierna knew what it did, what purpose it served, how to keep it from leaking from a wound, what to eat to encourage it to thicken faster, to heal, what it meant when the blood became poisoned by injury, how to keep it clean so that it eventually purified itself. But what was it? How could anyone really know except those who had created it? And that was something that was ever-present, physical, able to be touched and tested. The soul couldn’t be touched by anyone. Except, apparently, by Isaand Laeson.
“I don’t know,” Kierna said. Ganiza’s eyes widened, surprised.
“You impress me again, Kierna. Most woman prefer not to admit ignorance. It is a sign of wisdom to acknowledge that one knows nothing.”
“It would seem wisdom is about as useful, then, as a sword with no blade.” Kierna said.
“Oh, I’m sure you would be able to find some use out of such a thing. Resourcefulness is the essence of humanity, it seems to me. Let’s return to the subject of words, briefly. Tell me, Kierna, do you know the word Dea?” The word took her by surprise. She’d heard it on occasion, but only from the scholarly sort of priests and clerics of the most solemn and intellectual pursuits in Ethka. It wasn’t the sort of term one would expect to hear from a grasslander shaman.
“It’s one of the First Words,” Kierna said. “From the language gods gave us, the first time they created humans. It’s another term for the soul, the term gods use, though like you said, they wouldn’t actually speak amongst themselves. I’m not certain how it differs from the common word.”
“It differs because it describes not the soul itself, but its purpose. We are different from the common beasts because we were made as reflections of our creators. That’s not a figure of speech, Kierna. Inside of each human, from the old to the newborn, is a tiny sliver of divinity, a piece of god. Dea.”
“And when we die?”
“The Dea returns to the pool of souls, that which new humans are drawn from, a pool of power set aside by the gods when they decided to make us. The Dea. It is the very substance the gods themselves are made of, outside of our material plane. Just as humans are more than flesh and blood, gods exist without it entirely. They are Dea. And so are we. So you see, the difference between us is not a matter of fundamental substance. It’s only a matter of degree.”
Kierna hesitated. Nothing the woman said clashed irreconcilably with the teachings of the Sword Monastery. Nor did they contradict the Tenets, the collection of basic truths recognized universally by all clerics of Ethka’s Heavenly Council. As she said, the difference was mostly in the definitions. But the implications…
Men, women, children, all of us are gods? The soldiers under her command, the refugees she’d protected, the people of Ethka, the villagers who would be slaughtered in droves when Ethka’s crusade made its way to the grasslands? Was even Isaand Laeson a god as well? How, then, could he be a heretic? How could anything be heresy? If people were divine, then what mandated their absolute obedience to their makers? A child might be expected to obey their parents, but when they became an adult, they were free to make their own choices. Would humanity ever be free to do the same?
The implications loomed over her like a mountain about to fall. Kierna’s chest tightened, and she realized she was holding her breath. She let it out, breathing heavily, mind roiling even worse than before. Ganiza hadn’t given her any answers, she’d only provoked more questions. Are there ever any answers? Does anyone really know what to do, what is True?
“Captain!”
Kierna’s eyes shot forward, to where Farrus was trotting over on his horse. She drew an arrow and knocked it to her bowstring at once. Past Farrus, Baako and Kenth rode side by side, unharmed, so there was no threat that she could see. She tried to relax, but her muscles felt tight and hard, and she found herself almost longing for an attack, for the simplicity of battle.
“What is it?” she asked, surprised at how composed and calm her voice sounded.
“We’ve found the source of that smoky smell,” Farrus said, a grim look replacing his usual smirk. “Saw it from the top of that rise. Burned village, about two miles north, right alongside the river. I didn’t see any sign of movement.”
Kierna shot Ganiza a glance. The woman was serious, eyes distant.
“Isaand’s trail continues north, I am certain of it,” Ganiza said. “Szet hides him from the sight of gods on high, but the local spirits could not help but notice his passing. It may have been his doing, this destruction. I can learn more if we get closer.”
“We’d investigate anyway,” Kierna said, trying to shrug off her anxiety. “We have to see if there are survivors in need of help. Farrus, take Kenth and scout ahead. Talk to Baako first, see if he knows anything of value about this particular village. Tell him to wait on the ridge, the rest of us will join him. We’ll enter the village together, ready for danger. This could be it. If Isaand is found, do not antagonize him. Let me speak to him, first.”
“At once, Blessed.” Farrus saluted with his fist, then turned and galloped back towards the burned village.
Heretic 