Chương 124: Turnabout

I live inside a glass cage. I've always known that this would be the case, were I to receive the soul of the Star, but the reality of my confinement is beginning to make itself felt upon me in ways I failed to anticipate. The problem is that I, Leire, do not live in a glass cage. I have, and likely should sell, a lovely little flat near the Goitxea harbor, which is convenient to the Batzar administrative offices and a few excellent restaurants that I find myself pining for.

I enjoy walks on the harbor, or reading on my balcony, or sitting until late at a cafe discussing things with my friends. And I find that, absent all of these stimuli, the vine of my self is beginning to wither away, replaced by this strange woman named the Sixteenth Star, who spends all of her time venting her misplaced irritation on her attentive and quite blameless staff.

Who picks at her food and prowls what hallways are permitted to her at odd hours, who spends her time writing rambling diaries that refer to herself in the third person. Even to me, it bears the whiff of insanity - but what is insanity except a person unable to state with certainty who and what they are? Circumstances have denied Leire Gabarain's existence, as she was.

There is a woman who might stand in her place - a worthy woman, I think, and one who might effect great change in the world if she released her grip on sentiment and let the wilting remnants of her former self slip away. It is something I think I've actually said before, with an air of great wisdom, even though it wasn't until now that I truly understood what it meant: change starts from within. Pithy, at best, but now I brood on it. The world has changed, and I may no longer be the woman who lived in it.

I shall build my new world in a self fit to live there, first - and then begin the messy business of ensuring that she thrives. - Leire Gabarain, Annals of the Sixteenth Star, 645. Sobriquet's hand gripped the edge of the table. She leaned forward.

"There's no way that's possible," she said.

"It's actually one of the reasons Leire was so essential to our scientific aims," Lekubarri sighed.

"Her soul is one of the only energy sources capable of inducing instability in otherwise-mundane materials. The force of the light rips away the fundamental structures of matter, causing them to collide and recombine. The resulting materials are often intensely deadly for short periods of time, and present a lingering risk for months or years afterward." He shook his head, rubbing a hand across his bald scalp; for the first time, Michael saw a hint of fatigue in the batzarkidea's face.

"I've been poring over materials all evening, half of it with our scientists on the telefonoa -" Michael cocked his head, but Lekubarri gave him an exhausted wave before he could speak.

"Like a radio telegram," he said dismissively.

"Not important. The point is, the finest minds in Mendian have been dedicating their time to this problem, and they all agree that the risk is real, and if anything is more severe than I've stated it. We simply lack data to make predictions, and nearly everyone with an auspex soul worth mentioning is useless right now - if they haven't died outright." A vision of Carolus's bulging eyes swept across Michael's vision; it was eerily real, without the counterbalance of his mundane sight to check it.

He shook his head irritably before looking back to Lekubarri.

"The entirety of the lands under the storm will be affected?" he asked.

"Not just those," Lekubarri said darkly.

"Although the Gharic peninsula will be harmed the most, the wind from the storm will carry the particulates far. The storm is stretching far up into the upper reaches of the sky, carrying the dust into air currents that circulate worldwide. If the storm carries on for long enough, and intensifies to a sufficient degree - which is very plausible, given what we've seen so far - then you will begin to see effects everywhere. Disorders of the lung will be first, especially cancers.

Children will be stillborn, or born with deformities-" His eyes flicked to Antolin, who gave him a level look in response.

"Yes, I was read in on that," Antolin said.

"The incident in Ilarraitza, downstream from the laboratory. You're saying the entire continent will be like that?" Lekubarri shook his head.

"Based on our readings, parts of Pashaluk Qalo are already worse than Ilarraitza ever was. This type of contamination is insidious, slow. It gets into the vegetation, and from there into animals or humans. In Ilarraitza we were able to dig up the topsoil and bury it in sealed vessels, but that was only a single valley." He tapped one thin finger against the circle on the map.

"As things stand, we've already lost a sizable portion of land for the next several decades. If we're quick, and lucky, we may be able to contain the worst damage to merely twice that area. If not-" He turned to Sobriquet, then to Amira.

"Our median prediction is that much of the continental interior will be uninhabitable for the next decade, and unusable for crops for at least another two." Sobriquet's knuckles were white where she gripped the table; Amira looked at Lekubarri impassively.

"So we must kill the man at the center of the storm," Amira said.

"This much hasn't changed. It does us little good to know the harm he will cause if we have no means of stopping it. That is why we came here, is it not?" She turned her stare to Antolin.

"To ask the great minds of Mendian for their wisdom? Or are they only good for worry?" Antolin met her stare, his lips twisting into a smile.

"Ados. It won't surprise you to learn that we've given the matter some thought, but it's not a simple problem. We have countermeasures for killing potentes, and for striking at a lucigens from outside their range. The trouble is that none of our plans takes into account a lucigens who is also a potens, to say nothing of a potens with strength comparable to your own. Any artifex might kill him if they could draw close enough." He turned to Michael.

"But if you're here, that tells us what your assessment is. So which is it? Are you unable to kill him, or unable to get close?"

"Mostly the latter," Michael said.

"I think. When we fought before, he struck at me a few times before I could do the same; any one of those blasts would have knocked me out of the fight had Saleh not intervened to protect me." Michael glanced at Amira, who was still looking unflinchingly at Antolin.

"Luc has an immense hoard of potens souls. Attacking him through that strength is possible, but slow. He fought against it every step of the way. I would need time-""How much time?" Lekubarri asked. Michael looked at him, annoyed.

"Couldn't really say. As much as you can give me, if you can give me anything. You must have done research with Leire to protect against attacks from lucigentes, even one as powerful as her. I know you feared the soul would fall into Safid hands."

"That we did," Lekubarri said, nodding to Amira.

"And we made efforts in that regard, some of them quite successful. Reflective materials, ablative metal foams - if nothing else, we've expanded the field of non-artificed metalworking quite considerably in our search." He smiled, seemingly unbothered that nobody else shared his humor.

"But even at our best we weren't able to make something that could stand up to her full strength for more than a moment, and that was an experiment with battleship armor. Perhaps with your friend's support it could serve, but it's not like we have a sample lying around; to fabricate anything like that would take weeks, and the facilities for it are all in the mountains above Goitxea. I don't think that's the route through this problem."

"Then I'd appreciate your suggestion on which is the proper way forward," Sobriquet grated.

"Or did you come here to smile at us and share how bad things are without any thoughts whatsoever on how to address said problems?" Lekubarri hummed, unperturbed by her tone.

"Plenty of thoughts, my dear, but none of them without caveats." He drummed his fingers upon the table.

"We have quite a capacity for bombardment. One option in particular-" Amira stood abruptly from her chair to glare at Michael.

"Why are we here?" she snapped, her voice dripping with disgust.

"Bombardment. Metalwork. That is the heart-eater at the center of the storm. He means to end the world. That is his path, and it can only be withstood by the righteous holding to their own paths. Don't speak to me of experiments and craftwork; this is a contest between men and souls. There can be no substitute."

"I don't disagree," Lekubarri said coolly, his eyes shifting to Michael.

"Ultimately it will be Michael that resolves this, there's little doubt about that. However, we must move forward along the avenues of conversation he's left open to us." Michael cocked his head, narrowing his eyes at Lekubarri.

"Maybe you should explain what you mean by that." he said. The slender batzarkidea drummed his fingers on the table, taking a slow, measured look around the room before allowing his eyes to drift back to Michael.

"I mean that if we're talking about addressing gaps in your capacity, there are more straightforward ways to approach the problem. Ways that you've reacted poorly to in the past." It took a moment for his meaning to sink in; when it did, Michael leaned forward on the table until the wood creaked under the pressure.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"I won't let myself be fattened up with souls, like Spark wanted - or like you tried to do back in Daressa."

"I remember," Lekubarri said.

"Well enough that I didn't raise the issue, if you'll give me my measure of credit for that. I'm more than happy to keep dithering on about battleship hulls while the continent dies. Saf and the other southern countries will perish. Millions will die, but you won't have killed them! So congratulations on that." He spread his hands, smiling.

"Mendian should be in a much better situation relative to the survivors, given our understanding of how to mitigate the hazard. When the Star eventually comes to you, you may rest content that you've done us all a remarkable service." He leaned forward, his eyes glinting across the table at Michael.

"Peace is expensive, Jaun Baumgart. Leire knew that, and she helped to pay that price, because she knew she could afford it more than most. She knew she could do it quickly, cleanly, with a minimum of suffering. And so she became the woman you thought of with such contempt near the end of her life, the one who arranged for you to gain a potens soul." He leaned back once more.

"A useless soul, no doubt. One that has surely never benefited you in any meaningful-" Antolin tapped his fingers on the table once, sharply, raising an eyebrow at Lekubarri.

"The point was made," he said. Lekubarri's eyes stayed fixed on Michael.

"I wonder. I find that when I am arguing on behalf of so many lives, I suffer from a need for certainty." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Michael rose from his seat, glaring across the table.

"What do you want me to say?" he snapped.

"That I'll slaughter my way through those that trust me? Daressans, perhaps, or the Safid army? Neither of us wants that. You'd need a larger monster than Luc to deal with what I'd be at the end, and I don't think you're likely to find one."

"What you must think of me," Lekubarri said softly.

"My word. That would be horrid, not to mention ineffective. So many dead for so little gain." He shook his head.

"No. One death. One soul. That's all you need - if it's the right death, and the right soul." A small chill slid through Michael's belly.

"You've given the proposition some thought already." Lekubarri's grin returned.

"Indeed. And the proposition isn't so objectionable, considering your recent history." He raised a single finger.

"Sofia Altenbach." Sobriquet snorted, looking to the side; despite her sardonic response, Michael felt a sharp spike of denial and fear. He gave her a curious look as she leaned back in her seat.

"As much as I'd enjoy that, I don't think we have time to go off after her," she said.

"She's not an easy woman to corner, and she's probably back in Ardalt by now." Michael said nothing, looking back at Lekubarri with a growing disquiet.

"You want me to hunt and kill Sofia."

"I'd name it nothing less than reciprocity," Lekubarri shrugged.

"She's certainly made her feelings on you clear, and has labored in no small way to bring us to our current dire predicament." He raised an eyebrow at Sobriquet.

"And she's likely to be easier to surprise than you're assuming. We've been tracking her. She's trying to get to Ardalt, we think, but she's still somewhere in south Daressa, probably trying to get to the port in Imes. She's being cautious." He gave a sly smile.

"I wasn't exaggerating earlier when I commented on our auspices; her sight is almost certainly clouded right now. With you at Michael's side, there's a decent shot that not only will you find her - she won't see you coming." His logic was cool, inflexible; Michael felt it constricting around him. There were no holes to pick at. Sofia had killed thousands, and directly enabled Luc to become what he was.

She had tried to kill him personally, several times, and he had promised to hold her to account for the deaths of the innocents she had murdered. Yet a quiet sentiment made itself felt in his chest, asking where the path stopped once he let himself begin to deliberately seek out souls. He had denied Amira, and Michael knew her offer had been in earnest. To pursue Sofia, after that-"Why her?" Michael asked.

"Why her in particular?" Lekubarri folded his hands on the table.

"Because she is all that is left. Of the Eight, there are only three souls that are not bound to either you or Mr. Flament. The other two are here in this room, and while I would enjoy the conversation that would ensue if I made that particular recommendation-" He turned to Sobriquet, then Amira, his eyes twinkling.

"I don't believe either of your two souls would have the same impact. Resilience has its utility, but I fear it would remain inadequate to keep Jaun Baumgart alive. Stealth is likewise not suited to the task at hand. Perception, though-" He shifted his eyes to Antolin. Antolin let out a slow sigh, rubbing his fingers across his eyes.

"I was the one who made the recommendation that you seek out Sibyl," he said.

"When Leire learned of your ability, and how it functioned, she was particularly concerned about your ties to Sofia Altenbach. In her opinion, that soul represented the single greatest increase to your potential." Michael gave Antolin a pained look; he felt a pulse of annoyance from Sobriquet. She, too, was glaring at the grand marshal.

"I never advocated for pushing the soul upon you without your say," Antolin grunted, holding up one hand.

"That was Leire's fear guiding her. But the Gardener is a soul of paths and possibility, like my own. We see the ground ahead of us, the things that might grow there. Leire wasn't quite sure what would happen if that perspective met the far view of an auspex, but her intuition told her that it would be - extremely powerful." He paused, favoring Michael with a smile.

"It all loops back around. It wasn't so long ago that we had a conversation very like this, where I told you that I admired your resolve not to kill while simultaneously scheming to push you towards that very end. Now we're here once more." He rose from his seat, pacing to the corner of the room. There was a window there; he paused in front of it to look out over the city of Rouns.

"Do you remember the request I made of you?" Antolin asked.

"On the voyage here, when we last parted." Michael nodded, licking his lips.

"You asked me to do whatever it took, regardless of the consequences."

"I asked it of you too soon," Antolin said wryly.

"Because I thought that moment would come before we next spoke. Or maybe it did; these things have a way of slipping by unseen. There are a thousand moments where we could craft a better future, and we look away from all of them. I know you see such paths, as I do." He turned to Michael, his eyes glinting with a faint light.

"There are likely few paths left to us that lead to victory, or even to survival. Where we find one, we must seize upon it with all of our strength and ride it until the end. The bitter end." He walked closer to Michael, standing over his chair; Michael rose to look at him, feeling oddly self-conscious about his ragged appearance, his burnt and hairless head. Fear plucked at him. His mind skewed to focus everywhere but on the grand marshal's proposal.

Sibyl's sight mocked him from the corners of his memory, the world rewritten in monstrous detail until he felt dwarfed and alien to it. He saw Sofia's eyes, always distant, always elsewhere.

"I don't want her soul," Michael said.

"I've touched only the barest part of it. It's everything that is vast and terrifying about souls, with none of the power to stand against it. I don't want to kill her, for all that she's been murderous and evil, because we began in - understanding, if not friendship." He paused.

"I've always seen glimpses of myself that terrified me, in the skein of paths ahead. I always wondered how Michael Baumgart could become such a frightening existence. Just me. But I'm already - there. I'm already far worse than any of the faces I've seen. So many souls, so much blood. And it has to be for something, in the end, or I'm just another monster." He looked up at Antolin, feeling the scarred skin of his face stretch with the motion.

Paths shifted in the distance, the heat of a harsh light shining ever-brighter on his sightless eyes; the light within him pushed back against it, swelling, drawing the borders of a greater self that already spilled far beyond mortal boundaries, at once lesser and greater than human.

"I'll be who I need to be to see this through," Michael said.

"And I'll count on you to be there when it's over." He looked at Antolin, then at Sobriquet, who had gone pale. The denial he had felt no longer hid away; it was written plainly on her face.

"You don't think I should?" She pressed her lips together, then sighed.

"Just remembering the look on Clair's face when I said something similar to that," she said.

"A long time ago." Michael managed a smile.

"You've done all right," he said.

"I'll be fine. I'll be me. It's all any of us can do." He swiped a hand across his scalp, feeling suddenly weary; his attention turned to Lekubarri.

"You know where she is?" The batzarkidea bared his teeth in a smile. Vernon jogged up to the rail platform, a few folded papers clutched in one hand.

"We're clear for the third car," he said.

"Had to buy out a few passengers, but it's Lekubarri's money - I was generous. We'll be back in Imes before nightfall." He smiled, nodding towards the carriage in question; it was part of a battered passenger train, one of several that the new Daressan government had inherited from the Safid occupation.

"I'm surprised he didn't just commandeer the carriage," Sobriquet muttered, taking her ticket from Vernon's outstretched hand. Michael did the same.

"The situation certainly warrants extreme measures."

"He probably wanted to avoid a panic. There's a reason the train was full." Zabala took the rest of the tickets, handing the last two to Brant and Richter.

"No reason to add that to our plate, not when we can throw the Batzar's money at the problem instead." Michael nodded, still feeling an odd disconnect at the mundanity of it all. Their purpose was nothing less than saving the world, but still they had to be sure the conductor could punch their ticket like civilized passengers. Somewhat civilized, anyway; Michael's appearance had garnered more than a few open stares from those around them, and not for the usual reasons.

Men who looked like him weren't uncommon after the War, but most of those were bedridden rather than idling on a platform. He ignored the stares and followed Vernon onto the train. With his typical thoughtfulness, the auditor had booked Sobriquet and Michael a private cabin; as soon as the door clicked shut Sobriquet sprawled out across one of the two benches, her eyes closed. Michael sat across from her.

She was calmer now than she had been at the meeting, but there was still an acid tension that gripped her, flying out to disrupt the calm of their cabin.

"Of all the people in that room," he said, "I would have thought you'd be most in favor of me going after Sofia. You've pushed me towards it often enough." She hummed irritably, not opening her eyes.

"It's not about what I want," she said.

"It's necessary. Lekubarri wasn't wrong."

"Yet you still don't want me to do it." Michael leaned forward.

"Why?" Slowly, one of her eyes slid open.

"This is likely to be the last opportunity we have to rest for a while," she said.

"We should rest." Michael sighed.

"Sera-""I don't care if she dies," Sobriquet said, sitting abruptly upright to glare at him.

"It's certainly her fucking turn. But you do. You always have, because she was nice to you once. Saved your life. I get that. You have your lines that you don't cross, little Michael rules that set the bounds of what you can do. Except now you're going to break the rules and kill her anyway."

"She's done nothing but try and kill me since Daressa," Michael protested.

"A cartload of innocent bystanders have paid that price in my stead. Turning that around on her isn't unreasonable. I can't let sentiment keep me from-" He shook his head, looking to the side.

"From helping people."

"From killing her, you mean," Sobriquet shot back.

"Or are you making an exception to that rule too? I've done this before, Michael. I spent the entire War carving off bits of myself, and when it all came to an end I saw how little there was left over. Everyone was talking about what they wanted to do after the War - Lars had Vera and that stupid ship, Vernon had his music, Emil wanted to rebuild the country. But all I could do was keep myself away from those dreams, because I didn't have anything left. I didn't have an 'after' - except for with you."

She sat back down on her bench, looking up at Michael; there were tears in her eyes.

"I would have stayed in that horrible little flat with you forever, eating stale bread and griping about the cold. But we weren't done, and Luc called us back out - and every day since I've seen you carve away at yourself. You've given pieces up, even if you don't say anything. And I know that-" Her voice trailed off, and she looked to the side.

"I know you," she murmured.

"And I know you won't survive this. You'll kill her, and you'll kill Luc, and we'll come back together - but there won't be an 'after' anymore. We'll both still be in our wars, missing what we gave to end them." Michael looked at her quietly for a long moment, weighing her words in his head.

"I don't see another way," he said quietly.

"I'm not sure there is one." Sobriquet wiped at her eyes, slouching against the backrest.

"Life doesn't always give you good options. I thought you had some. I was even greedy enough to think I could borrow them, for a time. But instead you got mine."

"I don't think that's so terrible," Michael said, managing a smile. It faded.

"You're not - wrong. I've given some things up. Some of them I was probably better off without, honestly, but they were mine. My fears, my limits. And those did make me who I was, for a time. But who I am isn't fixed." He shrugged helplessly.

"Vera said something once that stuck with me. That we're all 'cascades of thought and whim, tumbling forward through time.' We're processes, not some stone carving, and I've come to understand that we control only the smallest parts of what we are to the world. All I can control is what I am to myself." He found his smile again, reaching out to clasp her hand.

"And what you are to me." She gave his hand a squeeze, mustering a smile in return under reddening eyes.

"And what am I to you?" she asked.

"That's a secret," Michael replied, kissing her on the forehead.

"I'll tell you when we reach Mendian." His words wrenched a laugh from her; she slid over to his bench and sat with her head resting on his shoulder for a time. Eventually, though, as the engine began to strain against the cars and the station slowly slid behind them, she raised her head once more.

"Do you think the flat is still open?" she asked.

"We shouldn't be in Imes for long, but it would be nice to swing back through." Michael snorted.

"I can't think why anyone would move in there on purpose," he said.

"It was drafty, ill-appointed and leaked from the balcony. Its only redeeming quality was that you lived there too."

"I rather liked it," she said defensively.

"It had a cozy feel. We should look into purchasing it - or I should, since I'm the only one with any money."

"I feel like we can make it work." Michael gave a rueful smile, gesturing vaguely forward to Imes.

"We'll have to talk with Emil about it, after everything else. I imagine he'll give us the deed just so we leave him in peace."

"That sounds like a good plan." Sobriquet closed her eyes and let her head drop against his shoulder once more. The train began to build its speed, rushing down the long track to Imes.

"After everything else."