New Benalia's Light, Part I
Blood and ruin. Steel and death. Father and daughter.
Rancid oil wafting on the air. Prismatic light glinting off a swinging blade, surging toward its destination, moving of its own accord, rending apart worlds, lives, loves.
"Danitha. Do your duty."
Danitha Capashen's knees shook against the chapel floor, sweat beading against her forehead as her legs screamed beneath her. Specks swam in front of her eyes, washed in the iridian hues of the stained glass above and around her, and she tasted vomit in her mouth. Her chest, concealed in silver and golden armor, heaved.
Under her breath, she hummed a tune. The words echoed in her mind.
Into the smothering dark, Serra spoke a single word: "Hope."
Song of All, Canto 2. A trick she had learned from an old knight. She had heard the Song since she was a girl, sung the Serran hymn at mass and over ceremonies with him—who was it? No, no need to remember—she sang it until her voice cracked. When she lost focus even now, the Song was there, a rhythm to which her heart always beat time. Every warrior needed it, a tune or verse or drumbeat to keep in the heat of battle, that was what he had always said—
Ah, of course. He was the old knight. It was his trick.
She felt ill.
A thump behind her. A voice. "Lady Danitha?"
She whipped her head back, hand reaching for the pommel of her sword—but she released a sigh. Only Marten. The steward's eyes latched onto her, staring with exacting insight.
"It's time to go, my lady," Marten said quietly. "The council is convening."
Danitha sighed, nodded. A single breath and she was composed.
Duty must be obeyed. If the frame of duty is broken, none shall weave life's fabric. Canto 167.
She lifted herself to her feet, rolling her shoulders to dispel her nerves. They passed through the chapel's apse, the last glimmering light of the stained glass draining away from her ivory-colored cloak. The godly light failed to warm her. As they exited, a retinue of knights circled around them, led by her personal bodyguards, Janya and Payle.
A breath. "Go ahead, Marten."
The steward fished a tablet from within the folds of his robe, tapping it with his quill. "In attendance: House D'Avenant: Lady Cerise D'Avenant, along with her daughter, Tori. Firmly support you, though they're getting impatient about the retinue we promised for their inner islands. House Croger: Markus Croger, representing his mother, Lady Eadith. Grumbling about the Keldons, though not so loudly as usual. House Rosecot: Symon Rosecot, representing his brother, Lord Alvan. Starting to get grouchy about supplying the Coalition with grain levies. House Tarmula: Lord Rache Tarmula and his loremasters. Much friendlier to us since we connected them with the Coalition research unit at Tolaria. House Deniz: Rethana Deniz, representing her father, Lord Jerek. Wishes us to take action against Vodalian piracy, though whether it was truly pirates or the Denizes covering for their own incompetence, I don't have enough information to say."
Danitha smiled. Marten stumbled through conversations with about everyone—but he could breathe life into the sepulchral mass of shorthand notes, numbers, and to-do lists that clogged her daily ledger. That was why, even in spite of his youthful inexperience and scandalous ambivalence to the Church of Serra (some had even said complete rejection of it), her fath—no need to name him, no need to think—her predecessor had ignored Marten's youth and appointed him to the position of High Steward. It was also why Danitha had kept him on her retinue. It was strange to think that, a scant few months before, he had just been her cousin—a friendly face when she sat in on Council meetings, an excellent companion during diplomatic missions, and a much-needed voice of reason to calm her brashness.
Now, Maten's insights were more needed than ever—because in the wake of the Phyrexians' latest visit, the Seven Houses' politicking was fiercer than ever. Present, as always, were old ideals, piety, glory, and power, but there was also the responsibility of supporting the Coalition and making good with ages-old rivals. Yet another duty, she mused, her stomach fluttering. They were getting closer to the council chamber, the abstract designs of the chapel architecture blending into more mimetic representations of Benalia's founding and its first heroes.
Danitha frowned. Marten's rapid-fire dossier had finally sunk in. One house was missing. "What about the Joryevs?"
"The Joryevs," Marten said venomously. "Marana Joryev. Representing Lady Aveya."
"Marana? I haven't heard of her—is she one of the children?"
"Tch. Hardly. Distant cousin. She was a minor bookkeeper in the Joryev administrative corps until a few months ago. Nobody of note. Either the Joryevs have all come down with a cold or they're tryingto insult us."
"Because of me?"
"I wouldn't take it personally. It's a show. They pulled these same tricks with your—erm—" He began to sputter.
"Lady Danitha!" a voice called out. Just in time.
They neared the lavishly decorated door at the end of the hall. Her retinue of knights parted slightly, revealing an elegant figure clad in white and black lobstered armor. The stark colors and stygian design—spikes sprang from her pauldrons and sharp lines traced across her chestplate—made a striking contrast with the multicolored stained glass that shone on the Capashen knights' armor. Her features were sharp, set into a semi-permanent frown, and her dark eyes smoldered like coals. They lightened ever-so-slightly as she approached Danitha.
Aryel, Knight of Windgrace, Knight-Commander of Benalia, gave a perfunctory bow.
"Glad you're here," Aryel said, sweeping past the circle of bodyguards. "I don't know how much longer I could speak with these diplomats before I started taking off heads."
"So now that'll be my job," Danitha said, smirking.
Aryel hailed from the swampy island of Urborg, but after its conquest by the Cabal years prior, she and her knights had fled to Benalia. She had proven a remarkable commander: she was swift, bold, and highly aggressive—even concerningly so, to some peaceminded Benalish. Nonetheless, her tactics had honed her troops for combat with the Phyrexians. When the Invasion began, they had been ready. More ready than some of us, Danitha noted distantly.
Two Capashen knights swung around Danitha and Aryel, each taking one side of the door. There was a brief flurry of movement and clanking armor as the Capashen retinue entered the high meeting chamber, passing into a sea of light. She took stock of the councilmembers and their retinues, all seated apart, each bearing their house's sigil, each gazing at her. She picked out the newcomer immediately: Marana Joryev was seated at the far end of the table. She was slim and pallid, and her eyes, which gleamed the color of sprawling amaranth fields, would not stay still. She was flanked by several Joryev knights, their armor draped with black cloaks and their sigil, a seven-keyed ring, glowing softly in purple stained glass—but most noteworthy were the lockboxes that each held in their hand, clutching them like they were dangerous. Odd.
Chairs squeaked and papers shuffled in the wind as the representatives of the other Great Houses rose from their seats. Each one bowed to her and to one another, each offering a distinct flourish—the D'Avenant's dipping their heads low and sweeping their hands high into the air, the Rosecots thumping their chests with one hand, the Joryevs closing their eyes and crossing their arms, and so on. It was one of the many elaborate rituals enshrined in Seven Houses' day-to-day practice. Of course, Danitha mused, the rituals themselves were just attempts to reconstruct the practices of Old Benalia, the kingdom that had existed before the devastation of the first invasion. It was history long dead, but the Benalish were a people who spent every moment of their lives grasping for it, hoping to find something meaningful. With mixed success, she thought bitterly.
Danitha took her seat at the head of the table, cleared her throat. There were dozens of eyes circling around, and her stomach fluttered as they bore into her. It wasn't the number of gazes—she had attended these meetings since she was a child and speaking before crowds was hardly unfamiliar—but the look in them. In her visits to the Council through her childhood and adolescence, even the most serious conversations had come with an unspoken proviso: they took her seriously, but only in the subjunctive, the as if. All of them were suspended there in the gossamer veil of knowing that, when push came to shove, they didn't need to rely on her, because her father was in charge. But here, now, there was nobody else. No longer as if, but reality. And she could hardly be up to the task.
No time. She blinked. Years of training constellated into alignment: she spoke loudly, clearly, unwaveringly.
"Let us come to order," she said. "First: updates from the Houses…"
Things went to Marten's prediction. The D'Avenant daughter, Tori, reiterated her house's loyalty and pledged troops to the new fortification efforts—though she remarked that the D'Avenant archers were spread too thin. Lord Rache Tarmula had nothing but kind words, going on at length about the advancements in Phyrexian linguistics that his researchers and the Tolarian scholars had uncovered. The Crogers, Rosecots, and Denizes each made perfunctory gestures of loyalty, but voiced louder complaints.
"I respect your concern, Lord Croger," she had said after Markus had sneered at her order to begin organizing Keldon-Benalish patrols on their borders. "But Warlord Radha is our ally. Her warriors will help us, not harm us."
"Certainly, my lady," Croger had said venomously. "House Croger simply wishes to note that when the brutes pillage our homes and massacre our elders, we will be content to have warned you."
"I assure you, Benalish security is my utmost priority—"
A voice needled from another part of the room. "Danitha knows plenty about massacring our elders, after all." Members of the Croger retinue snickered, and as she whipped her head around, she found a sneer slithering across Symon Rosecot's face.
"I beg your pardon, Lord Rosecot?"
"Hm?" His eyes shone with emerald light. "I said nothing, Lady Capashen."
Such disrespect wasn't uncommon, but it was surprisingly flagrant. She frowned. With only two houses firmly behind them and three practicing such open disloyalty, to say nothing of the opaque Joryevs, the Capashens stood on unsteady ground. If Benalia wasn't preparing for war, she might be worried.
But, she realized dimly, why shouldn't she be worried? There was nothing to stop the Council from taking some extraordinary measure—a change in their structure, a new division of power, even a suspension of her leadership. The Capashens currently held power by the rule of the Ranking, which rotated each house into power during the lunar year, but why hold onto that tradition when so many others had been shattered at their feet?
And, of course, there were the Joryevs. The massive question marks. Marana Joryev had not yet spoken, but she had been active all meeting. Her eyes slipped this way and that as each representative spoke, up to their faces and then down to the notepad in her lap and then back up to their faces and then around to the other representatives—clearly trying to match names to faces, notes to lives. Marten hadn't exaggerated: the Joryevs had sent their dregs to this meeting.
When the conversation turned her way, Marana's hands clenched shut, crunching her papers together. She licked her lips, cleared her throat, looked out.
"Greetings, erm, Councilmembers," she mumbled. Danitha heard snickers. "I come, hm, here, on behalf of House Joryev, who are, erm, not, well."
"Perhaps they've come down with a stuttering plague," murmured Lord Rosecot. Danitha bristled, shooting him a blazing glare.
"I'm here, ah, to report that we've…we've found something," Marana continued. The Joryev knights swept towards the table, dropping their parcels on before her and clicking them open. They tilted the boxes towards the councilmembers, gingerly, with stiff caution in their movements."
"At first," Marana said, "We thought it was just paranoia, delusion, perhaps mischief. Fearful scouts seeing something that wasn't there, or teenagers playing pranks."
Danitha furrowed her brow. From where she sat, the contents of the boxes appeared ordinary. A conch shell, a steel pauldron, an open book. She wondered whether the Joryevs were making some strange joke.
"But then, we looked closer. Our Tolarian scholars use spells to scry origins, enchantments to reveal deceptions—even tried washing them with water. But the…well, it stayed on."
One of the Joryev knights approached her. She peered into the box, and for half a moment, a blessed moment when all was still normal, she saw nothing. Then, she saw it.
"We don't know what it means, but we…we need help."
Etched in the seashell, almost blending into its cream-and-brown exterior, she saw it. On the pauldron, etched into the steel as though with a branding iron, she saw it. And in the book, on page after page, printed over the letters, she saw it.
A circle speared with a sharp line. The insignia of Phyrexia.
"What's the meaning of this, Joryev?" barked Tori D'Avenant.
"It's as it appears, Lady D'Avenant."
On the other side of the table, Rache Tarmula frowned, peering closely at the shell. "This doesn't appear to have been painted. What is it? Some pigment or brown ink?"
"The symbols aren't written with ink. They aren't written at all," Marana said, waving her hands as though the words floated before her. "They're just…there. As though they've been imprinted on the universe."
"And what does that mean, precisely?" This time, the question came from Symon Rosecot, whose sarcastic lilt had turned to a tremulous shudder.
"We, erm. We don't know," Marana said, looking at Danitha, "That, well, it's why they sent me. They've quarantined themselves. They don't wish to let anyone in or out, for fear of sleeper agents in their midst. I was considered…a negligible risk."
Silence, but not a reverent or empty silence. A choked silence, the quiet that arises when the darkest nightmares, the congenital fears of a hundred generations, are breathed in the air like miasma.
And it was Danitha who had to break it. "We see plainly, Councilmembers, that House Joryev has presented us an imminent threat. Obviously, we must endeavor to ensure that this new incursion is isolated and that we quash it. What, Lady Marana, does House Joryev request for this endeavor?"
Marana was silent a moment, then spoke, with an uncharacteristic certainty that could have only come from rehearsing the line over and over. "You, Lady Danitha. You yourself."
Murmurs and exclamations rippled through the crowd. She caught snippets: "—Terribly unsafe—" "—they know she's got no mercy, of course—" "—could be a cover, could be a sleeper agent already—"
Danitha balked, stumbled over her words a moment, then recalled. If you have nothing to say, ask a question. Collect yourself as they answer. "Who gave you this request, Lady Marana? And why me?"
Marana frowned, struggling to hold her words together in her mouth. "Lady Aveya, she, well…she recognizes that you have firsthand experience in, erm. Combating sleeper agents." A hush. A cold laugh. A dozen conjured images of Aron Capashen, slain on the field of battle. "And she wishes that this threat be taken seriously. That Benalia offer its best to eliminate whatever Phyrexian attack the Joryevs might be facing."
Dozens of eyes on Danitha again. She stared, pondered, possibilities racing. There was a logic to the Joryevs' request, to be sure. Sending an inexperienced leader, one who had not faced the brunt of the Phyrexian force before and who was not prepared for their tactics, might simply exacerbate the crisis. But still, should the incursion be too great, should she be pulled away or worse, Benalia would be left without a leader. More instability. More death. More broken ideals.
And yet, she thought, staring out at the eyes, suspicious and scared and cautious and sad, would that be any different if she refused? If she was the kind of leader the Council thought she was, one who could not live up her name?
She nodded, then threw a gaze around the room. "House Capashen hears your request for aid, House Joryev. And we will answer it."
"You're absolutely deranged, cousin!" Marten said.
"It's hard to disagree, even with a bureaucrat," said Aryel.
They stood on the balcony of Danitha's private chambers, which overlook Benalia City's glittering stained-glass towers and the amaranth fields surrounding the city. Danitha had always savored the gentle breeze that flowed off the Reitmar River, and even their anger couldn't spoil it.
Aryel's slate armor resisted even the beaming glow of the Benalish sun, and though Marten's tunic, scrawled with gold leaf, shone with brilliant light, his face was dark.
"Danitha," Marten said, trying to calm himself. "You should be staying here, helping to prepare our armies. Let Tori D'Avenant and her knights handle this."
She shook her head. "No, Marten. They've requested me, and they'll get my help. We're Capashens. We can do no less."
Marten pursed his lips. She could almost see the fury boiling behind his eyes.
"Let me do it, then," said Aryel. "I'll lead a contingent of Capashen troops. I'll go in your name."
Danitha was tempted to accept. But no. She wanted to tell her why it woulnd't be the same, why it had to be her, why the Benalish had nothing without their faith, that they needed this. But she refrained.
"No. My decision is final. You'll both accompany me and my retinue, and we'll investigate any threat the Joryevs might be facing. Easy as that."
Aryel scoffed, but Danitha knew, could see in her friend's countenance, that she understood. Aryel was a knight without a lord and a warrior without a land. She knew, as well as any of them, what it meant to depend on a leader. She gave a perfunctory bow and departed, preparing to marshal her troops.
Marten was left there, staring at Danitha, studying her. She expected he would say something more about the expedition, but he surprised her with something else.
"You should really stop spending so much time in the chapels, cousin. It doesn't seem to be good for you."
She furrowed her brow. "Something wrong with spending time in Serra's presence, Marten?"
"It doesn't seem to me that she's vey present to you. Or anyone."
"What of her angels, of Lyra Dawnbringer? Or her priests?"
"Powerful magics, to be sure," he said evenly. "The lingering power of a dead planeswalker, certainly. No dispute."
Danitha was quiet a moment. She knew Marten cared little for the Church, or at least professed to. He had attended every service growing up, same as her, but the last few years, the brutalities and losses, had weighed on him.
"Serra's grace preserves us, cousin," she said, almost automatically. "We need to it keep going forward. She reminds us of all we can be."
He kept staring, studying, like the intellectual he was. "So you say, cousin. I don't remember much of the Song. Until it starts fighting our battles or ending sickness or ending death or ensuring the safety of this adventure of yours, I'll leave it to you."
He, too, bowed, then proceeded out. Danitha was left staring over the bounds of the city, spotted with shining images of Gerrard and Serra, hoping and needing.
Once more, Danitha found herself kneeling, trembling, acid in her mouth, before a wall of Serran stained glass.
Chapels were one of the few places that Danitha could spend time unbothered, and in Croden, the small town in which the retinue had stopped to rest for the night on their way to Castle Joryev, that was especially true. Curious eyes were everywhere. Among their retinue, green-faced knights jockeyed for a glimpse at the famous Lady Capashen (Child), Knight of the Coalition (Unready), Hero of the Mana Rig (Failure), Ruler of Benalia (Father-Murderer). The townspeople, too, were curious. Their countenances shone with the awe for the Great Houses that their Benalish upbringing had inspired, but in their eyes, there was something else, a half-second of hesitation carefully ensconced behind a smile. They had paused for a moment to watch the retinue, then pulled away.
"Are they worried that we're here for a witch hunt?" Marten had said. "That our presence means there are still Phyrexians here?"
Danitha had pressed her lips together. "No. They fear that we're bringing them with us. This village has held on since the Invasion, which means that there were either no sleeper agents here—unlikely—or that they've already disposed of them. The village is safe, for now. But every outsider could be another Phyrexian in waiting."
Blood and smoke. Oil and blood. Screams mixed with gurgling bubbles of tar. "Danitha, do your duty."
She had looked out on the throng of townspeople scurrying about the Capashen knights. In the faces that rippled before her—and each look that was shot their way—Danitha caught glimpses of broken lives. She saw one half of a marriage, emptily chattering now that there was nobody to be silent with; one half a friendship, moving sluggishly because there was no other person to go out and meet in the morning; one half of a childhood, stumbling along because there was no larger hand to take hold of. Everywhere, half-lives, once full of devotion and admiration and now lain low before shattered images and dead heroes.
Much as Danitha herself was now lain low, before a stained-glass image of Serra and Gerrard Capashen that gushed red, gold, and purple light onto her face. Her ancestor gazed out with a self-assured smile, the kind that—if the cantos in The Triumph of Gerrard were to be believed—had been able to inspire legions of heroes.
Shadows lingered at the edges of her vision; just out of sight, she could swear, was her father, gazing back at Gerrard with a devoted smile.
"We're here because of him," he said.
"Right. Because we made sure we didn't get eaten by the Phyrexians," she said in the serious tenor she'd adopted even at age ten. He smiled.
"Yes, my love, but more. We're here because of his example. We sing his song down through the ages to remember that Serra has ordained us to do incredible things. He shows us all that we can be."
Tender words morphed into sickening mechanical whirrs. A face whose parts were at war, lips cracked into a vile sneer, oaky eyes gushing oil that shimmered behind wisping fumes of burning glass. They were eyes that wept in a plea for release, but even more, and you had to be up close to see this (close enough to smell the sweat and viscera sticking to the body that had embraced you since you were a little girl), those eyes wept in anguish for a dream being mutilated every second it spent on this earth.
Sacrifice, as Gerrard and Serra and a thousand years of Benalish history had demonstrated, was the way of a hero. If death was the end, it could be honorable. But nowhere in that history, or any of the stories it inspired, was the knight turned into a vulgar abomination, his insides hoisted high for all his soldiers—his daughter—to see, made into a gush of oil to be smeared across a holy symbol, begging for release.
Because that was their greatest crime, wasn't it? They hadn't just made a valiant knight into a vulgar insult. They made sure he was awake for every moment of it. They made sure that he knew it was happening and made sure that he could see the look in his daughter's eyes when she beheld him, when she approached him, and when she separated his head from his neck.
Gerrard and Serra were images of all Aron Capashen wanted to be. But Aron Capashen's final days blasted those images to pieces. When his limp body fell to the ground, it was surrounded by the wreckage of a life's ideals.
Daintha made it just a foot out the door before vomiting.
When she returned to the chapel, she found she wasn't alone. An elderly aven, taloned hands folded gently within his flowing white robes, perched in the pews. He was old, she observed, with graying feathers and a face worn with age, but he swayed back and forth as though to an inaudible song. He was priest, she realized, and she dimly hoped that he hadn't heard her make a mess outside.
"Greetings, child," he said, his voice quiet despite their being alone in the chapel. "Is it that sort of day?"
Danitha smiled. "Lately it seems that sort of day has been every day, Brother."
"Teshar," he said, smiling. He paused, casting his eyes into the pew, then back up at Serra. "I suppose you're right."
She found the stock response slipping from her lips, tasting of acid. "We're here to protect you. We're performing regular sweeps to ensure that there are no Phyrexians lingering in the village, and our forces have been vetted thoroughly. We'll help wherever needed, take whatever you offer, and—"
He waved a hand. Danitha, following the fossilized grooves of hereditary piety more than any conscious effort, fell silent. Reverent.
"There is no need for that. The Ancestor—Serra, I should say—embraces you as you are. In here, you do not need to be what you profess to be out there. 'In the gathering, there is strength for all who founder—'"
"'—renewal for all who languish, love for all who sing,'" Danitha finished. Canto 642. "My father taught me well."
"A virtuous man, then. You are lucky."
"He was. I was." Her mouth tasted of bile. Teshar's eyes flashed with recognition, and he remained quiet a moment.
"Forgive me. It has taken me time to unlearn my old habits, to remember the world in which we live. You number among many. Many fathers lost, many daughters left behind. If we had as many graves as we had mourners, the land would be more stone than grass."
Images flashed before her eyes of Benalia City, lying in ruins, choked by the salty air of a dried river and the bleached bones of her people.
"I suppose it's Serra's compassion, then," Danitha spat, her chest tightening and rage seeping out without her knowing why. She reprimanded herself. "I apologize, Brother."
Teshar shrugged. "You are hardly the first to take her name in anger, and you will not be the last."
"I admire your patience. All of this, the liturgy, the music, the Song—they must soothe you greatly." She envied it.
The aven chortled, to Danitha's surprise. "Hardly. I love our traditions dearly, don't mistake me. But when my altarservers disappear and my organist can't play because they're weeping over their wife's grave and my lector refuses to read the scriptures because the words mean nothing to him, tradition doesn't offer much help."
Danitha bowed her head, adding three more lives to her catalogue of agonies. Three more Benalish to hold up, even as her back already creaked under the weight. And still, she had nothing to say.
Teshar read the emptiness in her face. "When I was young," he said, deliberating words, looking mistily into the distance "I was captivated by stories of my people's Old Continent. Otaria. It was a shining paradise, given to us by the Ancestor. But there was a war—a conflict unimaginable, wrought by the pollution of Phyrexia. Our verdant expanses burnt to ash, our soaring peaks made into rubble, our crystal waters dyed red with our own blood."
How familiar.She knew the stories—the aven exile was one of many historical events drilled into her during diplomatic trainings and national history courses. When the False God Karona leveled Otaria, the Benalish and the Church of Serra had taken the aven in. They had brought their own culture and religion with them, and even as they became devotees of Serra, they still spoke reverentially of their older god, the Ancestor. Many proclaimed, in fact, that those were simply two names for one divinity. There were conflicting accounts, dozens of leading interpretations. She hadn't paid the theology much mind—her greatest concern had been navigating the aven's political standing, their desire for representation in the Council of Seven.
"I loved those tales," Teshar continued, "because in them, I could read a destiny printed in the stars. A marvelous intention that explained the cataclysm. Perhaps we were the blessed few who had abstained from sin. Or perhaps suffering was Serra's way of teaching us."
"If that is true, then by now, we must be well-schooled," Danitha said, thinking of the bloated cemeteries that dotted the Benalish countryside. Tehsar nodded grimly.
"I think differently now. What good is explanation in the face of such suffering? Is Serra so simple that she saves by calculus, or rescues only the virtuous?"
"Certainly not. But the catechisms teach us that she elevates us. Saves us from suffering. Teaches us through it, uses it to make us greater, more heroic." Or so they said. It was difficult for Danitha to imagine what suffering had taught her father, sobbing for mercy in tears of oil.
"Perhaps. But," the priest said, staring at her with the kind of look that leaves one feeling stripped bare, "Tell that to one suffering."
She frowned. "Unorthodox theology, Brother Teshar."
"Perhaps," he said with a grandfatherly giggle. "Perhaps it is god-talk for a new age. I believe that Serra was not gullible. Nor naïve. How could she have been? She had profound power, and endless love. How can one love what one does not understand—and did she not understand us to her core, if she herself suffered and died? She, who suffered, who joined us in the depths of our existence—it would be impossible for her to ignore our suffering, and it would be absurd for her to make suffering only a teachable moment."
"Then what?"
"It is my faith that Serra does not desire suffering for us. Nor that she ignores it. She joins us in it, walks with us through it, gives us the resolve to do what is right in spite of it."
"Then what of Gerrard?" Danitha interrupted, speaking without knowing why. "Wasn't he ordained to destroy Phyrexia, to sacrifice himself so that we can know all that Serra has destined us to be?"
"Gerrard died, and we revere him, not because destiny commanded it but because he chose to do what was right. He, I believe, found Serra, or whatever is meant by her name. Serra does not grace us only so that we can be heroes. She meets us in the flames of this burning world. She extends her hand so that we may find the strength to rise and keep fighting. Not because duty or glory or dreams of heroism demand it, but because this world is holy. Because it is right."
Danitha's throat constricted. She was ten years old, looking up into her father's shining eyes. She was twenty, gazing into eyes soaked with oil. "And if we fail?"
"Failure is where Serra meets us, sister. Our brokenness does not dishonor her. If we fall, then we fall as Gerrard did, and as Serra did before him: in commitment to what is right. Testament to the truth that, deep down, this world matters."
Danitha opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a sharp little sound, like a child's cry. She lowered her head and forced her eyes shut and felt herself a tiny person flung into a world impossibly large, cold surging water pouring her into typhonic depths, not just cold but empty like a crypt, like the hollow eye of a skull that looks back at you. But a hand, Teshar's leathery talons, rested on her back, sharp nails resting gently on her back so as not to scratch her, and the streaks of watery darkness that closed in on her shone through with a beam, a rippling jewel light that fell on her face and wrapped her like a mantle, like a father's too-long cloak—only now not stained with grief but lightened with life. Teshar's talons were so different and so like the other man who had placed a hand on her back, who with Serra's light had lifted her when she broke. He held her there, for a long while.
That night, at half past midnight, at the very moment Danitha began to slip into the haze of sleep, the screaming began.
Her body moved seconds faster than her mind (dimly remembered lessons in swordplay, approving smiles, reminder that your instincts often move faster than your reasoning). Her feet hit the floor and her hand was on her swordthe moment before the sickening, all-important question came to her: who was it? What sleeper agent had they missed, what signs had she ignored? Was it one of her knights, or one of the townspeople, or Marten, or—
It didn't matter now. Danitha murmured a prayer for their soul—and for her own.
She assumed a defensive stance, dropping low and reaching out toward the door. There was rumbling, murmuring, behind the brittle wood. Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her blade, and time slowed to stillness, and her eyes met her blade for half a moment, rippling with the ghostly luminescence in the moonlight. But it was wrong. Splotches of light, beaming like bloody stars, seeped crimson light into the sky. They etched strange symbols into the heavens, as though a vengeful god was scrawling a message on the world.
Not important. Focus. What is around you? A knight can't get to the horizon if she doesn't look around her. Go.
She yanked the door open and found Payle and Janya, on the other side, half a beat behind her. A breathless messenger, blood trickling from a slivering wound in his forehead, leaned against the wall. Moonlight rippled through the stained glass set in the sentries' halberds, throwing a ghostly luminescence over their faces. In that gossamer veil, their faces seemed half-suspended, alive for one moment and then dead the next.
"Lady Capashen—" "Out of nowhere—" "Came from the sky—"
"Stop," she said. "Organize your information. Give me identity. Numbers. Geography. Key people. Now."
The messenger sputtered, took a breath, then—she could see years of discipline, passed down since the day of Torsten, pulse in his movements—spoke.
"Phyrexians. Hundreds. Coming from the columns of metal in the skies. Right on top of us, but they've made a ring around the village. The attack fell right on top of Knight-Commander Aryel's detachment—they had lodged in the inn—and we haven't been able to make contact with her."
Danitha frowned and hoped that her eyes wouldn't betray the sick feeling beneath. Outside, the night shrieked with the sounds of steel meeting steel and men screaming for mercy. "And Lord Marten?"
"Oh! Yes. He's secure in the chapel. The town's priest, the aven, corralled as many villagers as he could. The Phyrexians didn't pay attention at first, but they'll be coming."
"Are there that many?" Danitha said, furrowing her brow. "Why aren't they splitting their forces?"
He looked at her, eyes wide, voice struggling for words. "You don't understand."
But when they pushed out the front door the makeshift compound, Danitha did.
The red lights in the sky weren't half-dreams or nocturnal phantasms. Dotted across the sky like leprotic sores, bleeding images blazed down on the village. Huge columns of metal like roots of some terrible tree stretched across the sky, and from their prongs, nightmare forms flung themselves to the earth. Winged metallic dragons spewed onyx and ruby flame, and forms that had once been alive laughed like hyenas as they tumbled to the ground, skittering on metal legs towards the Benalish. And all around her, the village burned: flames crimson and gold from out-of-control hearths, splashes of green and red light from hastily crafted spells, steely blue lights shining in windows as the screams of the innocent fell silent.
She blinked, then turned to the messenger. "Go to the chapel. Tell Lord Marten I'm on my way. He'll give you further orders."
There, in his smoke-stained faced and puffy eyes, she saw what she didn't want to see: he didn't know if he could make it. But then, he nodded. He was Benalish. He would do his duty, even if it broke him.
He disappeared through between blazing buildings, and she turned to face the street. She blinked, and then heard a ghastly cacophony: tinkling clicks like a coin dropping in a well, and below that, metallic voices wailing a strange melody. And then, the Phyrexians arrived.
Before her she found a host of monsters made of chrome and porcelain, ever so slightly alive, but moving with marionette jerkiness. Two chrome-plated creatures slithered toward her, their spiderlike bodies sprouting tentacles that gleamed blue light, and three porcelain soldiers, bearing strange swords and axes that looked like bone, marched forth with eerie coordination, guttural hymns echoing from behind their masks.
She barked an order, and with orchestral precision, Payle and Janya fell into formation. The sentries fanned to make points on a triangle, drawing the chrome spiders' attention and holding them back with their stained-glass halberds. The porcelain soldiers' attention paused for half a beat, as if awaiting orders on which direction to take—and Danitha found her time to strike.
She sprung forward, and, taking she sword in both hands, she stabbed into the crimson flesh in one of the soldiers' sides, then twisted. To her surprise, however, the solider barely flinched—if anything, its ghastly song grew louder. The others swept towards her, but Danitha kept her cool, dropping back and parrying their bony blades. Behind her, she noted, the sentries had pulled back together and drawn the spiders with them, chopping away tentacles even as more grew to replace them. They were outmatched.
And she was outnumbered. Need to even the odds. She ducked another swing from the soldier she had stabbed, then used her momentum to swing her sword upward—sliding through his muscly elbow and cleaving it away. It wheeled back, disoriented, and her leftover energy, she whipped the blade back down, burying it in another soldier's helmet. It dropped to the ground, limp.
"Your brother Raff is so sure that knights know nothing of science," Aron had laughed. "But a swordswoman should know as much about weight, motion, and geometry as any Tolarian physicist."
A clang. A crunch against her armor and the cold feeling of earth as the remaining soldier drove his blade at her chest. Thankfully, her armor absorbed the blow—but she doubted her head would. Behind her, she heard her sentries shout as metal slithered into flesh. The Phyrexian stepped over her chest, raising a sawtoothed sword high into the air, aiming at her temples.
Time slowed. Normal strategy would be a kick to the stomach, but considering that it might not have a stomach…could parry, but from this angle, I wouldn't have the leverage to hold the blade in place…ah. Of course.
She pressed her legs together and drove them into its stomach, but instead of kicking out, she lifted it into the air and vaulted it behind her. She wheeled over in time to see the Phyrexian collide with one of the chrome spiders, both tangling on the ground in a heap.
Limited time. She sprung to her feet, and a whirl of stained glass and steel, she dismembered the remaining chrome spider, freeing the sentry that had been entangled in it. She barked another command and the sentries fell back into position, surging over the fallen Phyrexians like the tides and spearing them with their weapons. The spider hissed at her with eldritch rage, but she cut off its shriek with a blade planted between its eyes.
Her adrenaline dropped and she began to pant, recovering her breath from the Phyrexians' strike. By now, the other spider and the soldier had gone still, and her sentries trudged back to her, human blood mixing with grisly oil. She noted, dimly, that Payle was bleeding from her side.
"Can you stay up?"
He frowned, winced. "Don't know, my lady. Thought it was just a flesh wound, but it's…burning."
He peeled away the cloth, and her stomach lurched. There, mingled with Payle's blood, were weeping pools of oil. Payle looked at her with the face of a child, not an adult. She had ripped the Phyrexians apart, but here, Danitha saw, she was afraid. Danitha tried to keep her countenance firm.
"Don't worry," she said, trying to believe it. "You'll be alright. But do your duty, soldier—find somewhere safe. Barricade yourself. No use fighting when you're about to fall over."
"Yes, my lady." Not a word said about the oil; not a word needed to be said. But they both knew it.
"Janya, with me." They marched into the streets, and despite herself, she turned back, seeing Payle leaning against her halberd, knees shaking. Her eyes flashed at Danitha, and she saw what she had seen before that day: a lifetime of Benalish honor, Benalish duty, Benalish faith, disintegrating, turning into dust that floated above the shining pools of water and blood and oil.
They passed without incident through the street, but when they found the town's plaza, things were even more grisly than she'd feared. From the doorway of a smoldering bakery, a marshal barked orders at several recruits engaging a porcelain armored warrior. Near the central monument a cavalryman reined in his terrified horse and plunged his spear toward a flying Phyrexian plated in porcelain. At the fringe of the square, a father led his gaggle of children into a smoky alleyway, desperate to escape.
She felt sick. To the north, at the inn where Aryel and her troops had lodged, swarms of onyx and porcelain and chrome Phyrexians surrounded the building like a cloud. Smoke gushed from the windows and inbetween flashes of silver Benalish armor, she saw the dark inhuman forms of Phyrexian monstrosities. And there, to the south, at the little church where she had cried for her father in Teshar's arms, the facade had been half-reduced to rubble and the doors had been ripped off their hinges.
Aryel was an essential asset. Should she be compleated, the Phyrexians would gain a general capable of dashing Benalia's greatest warriors to pieces. But Marten, Marten was her right hand. He held more knowledge than anybody, even her, and if they got that, all the Coalition's defenses would be vulnerable.
"My lady," Janya breathed. "What do we do?"
Her? Decide? Impossible. She would know what to do later. All overwhelmed, all in need, all her people, but—
The civilians. Those half-lost lives.
"Go to the inn. Find Knight-Commander Aryel, if she still lives. If not, get any survivors to the cathedral. We won't let them take any more."
"Yes, my lady."
Danitha charged toward the church, dodging beneath flying Phyrexians and burning woodwork to reach the door of the church. When she reached the precipice, she considered turning back, thought of Aryel's armor being gutted by Phyrexians and her corpse being plunged into their oil, her friend, gone, like so many others. But no.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the light inside the church; the some stained glass remained in place, shining light down on Benalish faces, but most windows had been shattered, and shivers of light glinted in the half-twilight of the burning town.
A statue of Serra stood at the center of the chapel, nine feet tall, arms at her side, though even she looked strange in this light. Danitha picked out Marten immediately: she stood, inexplicably, waving a longsword entirely too large for him. To his side, a Benalish night lay limp on the ground. Teshar was next to him, both with their backs to the wall, as they shepherded children behind them. But why? The Phyrexians—
It wasn't a statue at all.
The figure turned to her, and she saw its body, half etched metal and half rippling muscle, she let out a gasp. She recognized it from Tolarian briefings—a Phyrexian obliterator.
The beast, whose wiry tendons pulsed with life even as its metallic jaws belched mechanical death, leveled itself at Danitha, its bloodied tail scraping along the cobblestones. It raised its clawed fingers up, revealing shreds of metal and blood and flesh caught between them, and as it cleaned itself, Danitha swore she saw it smile.
She let her mind trace the grooves from years of swordplay drills, mock battles, and—more recently—insomniac nights spent imaging hypothetical attacks.
"You can't have them," she shouted. Then, she charged.
It closed the distance in half a moment, and they met in the center pews. It swung a bladed arm at her, steel plates clanging together a cackle in its throat—but she spun out of the way, her armor catching fragments of cobblestone split apart by the obliterator's claws. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw its tail bat aside her sentry, slamming him into the ground with a sickening crunch. She darted in and pricked the obliterator's fleshy wrist, which squelched and oozed black oil. It swung around at her, but she slipped beneath its arm and rolled along the ground, sweeping her glittering blade across the monster's side. Her sword glanced harmlessly off its metal plating, but as she rose to her feet and yanked the blade back, she felt it slip across rotted flesh. The obliterator wailed.
She smirked at it, dimly wondering if it had eyes to see her with. Of course, she reasoned, it wouldn't matter if it killed her. She paced back, waiting for the next engagement, and the obliterator did the same, dropping to four legs like an enormous tiger. It wheezed in staccato, alternating between noxious smelling breath and bursts of cold metallic air. She strategized: arms too close to spin out of the way, teeth to sharp to go straight in, no telling what it would do if she tried to get under it—
A quiet whir of machinery. Then it sprung forward, leaping hit into the air and sweeping its claws, stained with blood, toward her. Had to take the risk. She tried to crouch and roll beneath it again, but as she drove her sword into its abdomen, a column of darkness slammed into her stomach and air poured out of her lungs. She felt a pierce, a crush, a crunch, and she whirled through the air to find herself suspended by its tail. Barbed tendrils jabbed over her armor, and she felt a cold metallic sting as they speared her sides. Blood stung her mouth.
And all around them, the windows filled, then burst. Phyrexians in chrome and porcelain and etched onyx poured into the church, descending upon the screaming Benalish. She saw Teshar fire a bolt of white light from his hand, then another, but they closed around him.
She tried to swing her sword, but the tendrils were covering her arm, her wrist, preparing to pour glistening oil onto her, and the bastard was laughing, laughing just like her father had, with that icy sound like plates smashing together.
She bled. She choked. She screamed.
But then, so did the creature. Shining Benalish glazeplate sprouted from its leg and the creature dropped to one knee. It wheeled around and yanked Danitha with it, and she saw Marten, still wielding the knight's longsword, hacking at the obliterator's leg. The creature gave a sickening hiss. The tendrils loosened around her arm ever so slightly.
"I am a Capashen! I am Benalish!" Marten roared. "We will not break!"
Danitha wrenched her arm through the tendrils, holding onto her sword with all her strength, but it was like moving through tangled vines.
He swung the blade again, but this time it clanged off the obliterator's ebon armor. In a blur, the creature whipped its arm toward the squire, and he dove to the ground. Another dodge as he slipped under its tail, then another as he chopped away the tendrils with clumsy swordstrokes, streaking the steel with black blood.
Danitha found herself yanked back and forth as the creature wheeled around Marten. Then, appearing along its side, he jabbed the blade between the scaled plates of its skin—and apparently found purchase, for the Phyrexian gave a sickening roar. Marten yelled, half yelping and half cheering, and Danitha wanted to laugh with him. She almost had her arm out—so close—could help finish the monster off—
A blur of movement. Shimmering blades. Danitha tried to scream, but the obliterator moved faster than sound.
The bladed claws caught Marten in the side as he was yanking the longsword out of the creature's leg. There was a splintering crack, and Danitha saw the obliterator's metal jaws illuminated by shards of shattered Benalish stained glass. They hung in the air for a moment like shooting stars, then rained down on Marten, who lay at the oblierator's feet, blood seeping from his side.
He was crying. Just like he had when they were children. She had never cried then but wanted too now. He was so young. His mother loved him so.
The obliterator pinned him to the ground with another claw, as if eager to extend his suffering. It planted a foot on his chest, its barbed tail whipping around and preparing to strike. Whipping her head around, begging for help, she saw that the swarming Phyrexians were leaving the way they came, entangling warriors and civilians and carrying them along with them.
And there, coiled and choked by porcelain metal, his hand reaching out for help, was Teshar, the priest, the lover of all creation, being pulled away.
From below, she heard Marten's sobs. But no, not sobs. "The light of love shines brightly through even the smallest of cracks." Beneath his choked cries and bloody moans, a sound. Garbled lyrics that she thought her cousin had willfully forgotten. "All shall be illuminated."
The Song of All. Canto 903. A promise from Serra: I will not leave you.
The creature's tail raised above Marten's head. Danitha screamed.
She yanked her arm with all her force and screamed and the tendrils ripped and broke. Prismatic light flashed in the dark as she drove the sword into the creature's meaty neck, and its roar turned into a gurgle. Glistening oil exploded from its mouth and inky viscera gushed onto her arm. The creature dropped to one knee, its tendrils going limp and letting Danitha drop to the ground. It turned to look at her, roaring and inkstained scream of fury and hate. She repaid it by driving her blade into its mouth and through the top of its jaw. The scream died away as the creature went limp, slipping to the ground.
She wanted more than anything to rush to Marten, but the others—only, as she wheeled around, the others were gone. Many of Benalish civilians remained, but any warriors were gone, their weapons dropped where they stood. Where Teshar had stood, now only were fragments of his staff and shreds of his cassock. Now, she found, tears were streaming down her face.
"Danitha," a voice said, weakly. Marten. She rushed to her cousin's side, moving without thinking, wrapping his bloody wounds in shreds of her cloak, using his own ripped tunic as a bandage, trying to stave off the blood flow, no time to think about the oil.
"The crypt," he whispered. "Open. The crypt."
But the townsfolk were already ahead of her. Yanking open the door to the church crypt, they revealed dozens and dozens of civilians, maybe hundreds, taking shelter among the bodies. The Phyrexians had missed them.
"How?"
"Teshar's. Idea," Marten said, wincing. "Path leading away. Through the crypts. We can go. Three abreast. Everyone out. In thirty minutes."
"Always thinking in numbers, cousin," she croaked.
"Ha. Ha."
He coughed, blood mingling with his spittle. Danitha went to one knee to help him, but she winced, clutched her side, stiffened. More blood from her wound. She couldn't leave him, but she wasn't strong enough to lift him.
One more try. She went down to one knee, her sides screaming, and wrapped Marten's arm around her neck, then lifted. To her own surprise, he began to move—and, she realized belatedly, it wasn't her doing it.
Three villagers had circled around them, lifting Marten up by the shoulders, legs, and arm. She recognized them: one-half of a friendship, one-half of a marriage, one-half of a childhood. Withered faces, dim eyes. But something else. Something that shone out like starlight.
"We've got him, my lady," said one, an old man.
Something moved in her, something small and profound, a gentle beat like a hummingbird's wing and thundering roar like the movement of the earth. She was filled with something new, a feeling that rippled through the depths of her being and filled her with the desire to embrace them, to hold them, to keep them close to her and to love them for what were and what they had done and to feel an immense agony for all that they had lost and were still losing. Tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away quickly.
The villagers moved quickly, lifting Marten and cradling his broken form as they moved toward the crypts. Danitha limped behind them, trying vainly to shake off the pain of her wounds. As she reached the crypt, she surveyed the survivors: one-hundred-and-twenty-odd people, adults and children alike. Only a few had arms of any kind, and even fewer had training—just a few reservists on their off-rotation. She began to wonder what had become of their knights, but then recalled the carnage at the inn. Aryel's face flashed across her mind.
"Lady Danitha." She turned and found the old man who had carried Marten to the crypt. "I mean not to harass you further, far be it from me, for all you've done. But we're a great many, and many are afraid. Do you know where Brother Teshar is, that he might say a hopeful word?"
She felt sick. She saw the image of Teshar's terrified eyes, his soft hand reaching out from the cloud of Phyrexian metal. So very much like that other man whose once-loving eyes, weeping with oil, had looked at her, begging. "He's…gone. I'm sorry."
The old man's eyes dimmed. "I see." A pause, a gulf, unnamed agonies and hopes run aground. "Then what should we do?"
She glanced over her shoulder. Janya had never returned, and perhaps if they waited, she might arrive with Aryel and her troops. Perhaps. But if they stayed, then more Phyrexians were sure to come. Danitha doubted she could stand for much longer, much less fight. And yet again, and yet again: Aryel, her friend, her confidante, her general, the key to their survival, for how could they expect to survive in the wild without her troops?
Back at the townspeople, faces dark, scared, wishing to be home, wishing to be in a world where lives were not lost and friends were not torn away and hopes were not splintered. Her people.
"We keep moving," she said. "We'll find somewhere safe, then regroup. All shall be illuminated, brother."
Half a smile crept across the old man's face. He rejoined the crowd, which began to shuffle and rustle as the townsfolk fell into their three-by-three formation. She looked out on them with love and agony.
"If you're there, Lady Serra," she whispered, "Help me be like my father." Then, she slipped towards the front, ready to lead the way into the darkness.