The Legend of Broken

was ever to take shape.

And yet, the problem presented itself again and again: in a world where priests not only allowed but ritualized every physical excess, how could a romance (and, Visimar emphasized to Heldo-Bah, it was first and foremost a romance) between two people of merely differing ages, even greatly differing ages, be considered some sort of “perversion”? The only way to convince Alandra that she had been taken, rather than had given herself to Caliphestros, was for the priests to convince her that sorcery had allowed him to enter her very mind when she had been his pupil rather than his lover, and had filled it, not with sacred teachings, but with blasphemous science — and desires.

“Great Moon,” Heldo-Bah breathes when he hears this: for he is, as he has protested, not so unversed in the ways of both love and lust that he cannot comprehend such ideas. “I knew that those priests were scheming devils, and the people who followed them no more than shorn sheep, but … So you have no doubt that she did truly love him, once, Visimar?”

“I saw it in her,” Veloc answers, before the old cripple can speak.

“Oh,” Heldo-Bah groans. “Of course you saw it, historian. You see all, that you may one day sing of it to our children …”

“I did not say that I understood it, Heldo-Bah,” Veloc whispers in protest. “But I saw something. And Keera saw it, as well, and she understood it, and explained it to me, later. The pain in his eyes, and in the priestess’s, too, if only for brief instants. Intermingled with all their bitter statements …”

“Yes, bitter,” Visimar says. “For, as has often been observed, there is no bitterness like that which results from love willfully destroyed. And the happiness that my master and Alandra knew was willfully destroyed; its death was plotted, just as surely as was the murder of Oxmontrot, and carried out just as cruelly. And if she had any doubts, all the priests needed do was use her own ambition to exploit them: after all, they said, had he shared his deepest secrets, his greatest knowledge, with her, even if such sorcery was blasphemous? Was that love, to give less than all he knew to her? In truth, my master was only protecting Alandra, for he knew the role she had been born to play in Broken: had he involved her fully in his work, she might well have been mutilated and almost certainly murdered on the edge of Davon Wood, as well. Yet from the moment that she began to believe he was keeping powerful forces and knowledge from her — secrets that she saw, not as ‘sorcerous,’ but as magical — his indictment was only a matter of time. We could all see it, and begged him to leave the city. But he would not go. You see, he never acknowledged that Alandra craved power more than she loved him; and, as I say, if denied the full range of his power, she would take the more vulgar form (however ‘sacred’ it might be portrayed as being) offered by the priests, and view him, not as protecting her, but as ever more determined to hold the position of superiority between them. Thus did he seal his own fate, first with the priests, and then with her; and even more painfully, for him, she began to see him more and more as simply a wicked, even blasphemous old man, who had tainted rather than adored her.”

“Hak …,” Heldo-Bah whispers; but there is sympathy in the oath, now, something like what he displayed to the white panther when he discovered that it was the young Rendulic Baster-kin who had killed her cubs. “The poor old fool … Well, it only demonstrates that you can travel the world and learn the ways of the great philosophers, and still make the mistakes of a Moonstruck village boy who has never seen so much as the next town, where women are involved …”

Visimar turns for a moment, to study the filthy, foul driver of the cart with some surprise. “That is a remarkably apt statement, Heldo-Bah.”

“Do not expect them at regular intervals,” Veloc comments with a smile. “But he does make them …”

Heldo-Bah quickly moves for one of his knives, but Visimar, just as quickly, stays his hand, with the same surprising strength of one who has had to manipulate a staff and crude wooden leg over many years. “None of such foolishness,” Visimar says. “Heed me closely, both of you, for we are only now arriving at the most interesting part of the story.”

“We are?” Heldo-Bah replies, relaxing his arm and urging his horses on. “There is something of greater interest than bedding the First Wife of Kafra?”

“Indeed there is, Heldo-Bah,” Visimar says quietly. “For the last time I met my master in the Wood to bring him supplies, shortly before the priests took me away for the ordeal of my Denep-stahla, his mind was still in pieces, great as his affection for the white panther obviously was. He knew that, once Alandra had taken the decision to condemn him as a monster and a demon, she would only cultivate the feeling. And that cut into him deeply. Yet now, that wound has been almost wholly healed. In some way, that great beast has lived up to the name he gave her—Anastasiya—in that she brought him back to life, when resignation to death would have been the easiest path. Not only brought him back, but changed him, somehow: she has taken away much of the arrogance he once possessed, and that led him to his ultimate crisis concerning the priests and Alandra. How does an animal, however powerful, accomplish this? Can neither of you tell me, after so many years in the Wood?”

Both Heldo-Bah and Veloc appear somewhat embarrassed by their inability to give Visimar the answer he seeks; and finally Veloc says simply, “It is my sister who knows of these things, far better than do we.”

“Well,” Visimar sighs, slightly dumbfounded. “There must be some explanation.”

“There is,” Heldo-Bah mutters, almost seeming, for a moment, self-reproachful for speaking of such things. “And, while Veloc is correct, and we cannot supply you with the details, old man, there is one basic fact of which I have become aware, and from which, I suspect, the details spring.” He points ahead, to the figures of Caliphestros and Stasi: two beings who seem, in the approaching twilight, to combine into one creature. “There are times when one’s own race of beings is the last sort of creature that can or will help or care if you live or die. But if a great heart, like that cat, does so care, chooses to so care — chooses, in short, you—it fills a place that no human can occupy. No mere human, no potion, no powder, no drug — and believe me, I’ve tried the ones he creates to ease his pain, and they’re very effective. But not effective enough. Nothing is, save another great heart. And the reverse is true, as well: Stasi’s soul has been mended by a human’s. I have seen it between them.” Spitting over the mountainside, Heldo-Bah shakes his head. “And so, if that old man is still sane and still capable of doing what he now seems to be doing — seeking knowledge and justice — that is the only reason why. Don’t ask me to tell you how it happens — talk to Keera, as Veloc says, for that. I know only that it does …”

Once again — silently, this time — Visimar studies Heldo-Bah for just an instant, impressed by the forager’s words, and then looks to Veloc, who but shrugs his shoulders.

“And so, Heldo-Bah,” Visimar asks, “what ‘great heart’ kept your soul alive, when you were cast out of Broken? For my lord Caliphestros and I have been told that story, as well.” Heldo-Bah shoots an icy look at Veloc, who simply shakes his head emphatically. “No, it was not your friends,” Visimar says quickly. “It was their parents, Selke and Egenrich, when my master and I returned to your village to prepare these carts. They are truly kind people, Heldo-Bah, and yet you returned to your old habits, even while living with them.”

“That,” Heldo-Bah says, “is because a different type of fire burns within my soul, Visimar.”

“Ah,” the cripple replies knowingly. “Vengeance.”

Heldo-Bah nods. “A very different spirit that can fill the heart. I do not pretend the effect is as great,” he says quietly. “But it is far more deadly …”

Again, Visimar turns to Veloc; but this time, the handsome historian simply smiles, dismissing Heldo-Bah’s last statement as bravado.

It is an awkward silence that follows; but then, of a sudden, the horses blow out their frustration and weariness in great snorts, and the carts suddenly heave and then level out; and just that quickly — and precariously — the two teams leave the tree- and brush-lined path and find themselves on the cavalry training ground, which is far larger than Visimar had anticipated, and where many of Sentek Arnem’s cavalrymen, as well as the few scouts who are not off determining what weather approaches, are racing about the broad field, chasing down the army’s remaining horses, who have been left largely unattended.

“Baster-kin did take a few into the city, Lord Caliphestros,” Sentek Arnem says, as he again rides toward the carts, which, between the mist and the near dark, are not easy to find, halted as they are in the shadows of several