An Odd Celebration

It was an odd celebration. The Tower was hushed. Soft voices flittered among small groups on wings of rumor, flocks of bright guardians rustled in their ceramet plumage, hawk-bright eyes darted toward the Speaker’s chambers.

It was not every day that one of your fellows killed a god.

The object of their study and speculation stood at the balcony, their back to the orrery machinery that dominated the Speaker’s chamber, looking up towards the pale and crumbling moon of the Traveler. There was no sound but the swish and rumble of the machine in its clockwork dance. Lost in thought, the Guardian paid it no mind. It was not every day that you killed a god.

They did not turn at the sound of approaching footsteps, nor glance at the Speaker as he stood beside them, hands clasped at his back. They stood long in silence, pale figures in the Traveler’s reflected light. If some stars were darker that night, more occluded, then neither noticed.

“You do not wish to join the celebration?” the Speaker asked at last, without turning.

The Guardian made no immediate answer, but the Speaker was not hurt. This one might go weeks, months, even years without speaking to another. They preferred to let their Ghost do the talking. And their guns. Those spoke plenty loud, loud enough to shake the heavens. The Speaker could wait.

“If not for yourself, then for the others—they wish only to congratulate and honor you.”

“That is precisely what I do not want,” the Guardian said with sudden vehemence.

The Speaker did turn then to regard the Guardian. Both were masked though, faces hidden behind unreadable shields. “You have lifted a great threat from the City,” the Speaker probed, gently. “Defeated a great champion of the Dark.”

The Guardian shook their head. “I—” they began, and their hands twisted together. The Speaker felt a prickle of worry, to see their greatest so unnerved. He was having headaches, nightmares more frequently now. Was this why? Some premonition that their greatest champion was about to turn, perhaps.

“He wrote a book,” the Guardian explained down to their clenched hands. “I found it, on his ship, in pieces. A book. To explain who he was, why he did what he did.”

The Speaker nodded and sighed. “Ah, perhaps I understand. You discovered the individual within your enemy. Perhaps you even feel sympathy for him, or guilt for his death?”

The Guardian was already shaking their head. “No, no, not that. There is something pitiable about him, yes, maybe in some small way I feel sorry for him. But that’s not it.” Their shoulders rose in frustration, then sagged away in defeat. They looked back up towards the Traveler, but if their gaze had been questioning before, now it was almost accusing. When they spoke again, it was in a faint voice, far away. “It spoke to him.”

“What did?” Within his mask, the Speaker closed his eyes, knowing the answer.

“The Darkness. It spoke to him. It explained … everything. Everything. It told him what the Light and Dark are, how the universe works, what it was, what it wanted him to do, how he had to do it, it set him on the path and guided his every step …” the Guardian’s voice trailed away.

“Ah. Yes. I see.”

“Why is the Traveler silent? It speaks to you. What does it say?”

The Speaker could not explain the dreams, the visions, the nightmares, even if he had wanted to. In any case, that was not what this situation needed.

“What would you have the Traveler do? Write a book, just as the Darkness did? I understand that has historically been a popular approach for humanity. The Bible, the Quran, the Talmud, the Vedas, the Tipitaka, the Avesta, the Book of Shadows … Write it all down, no harm could come from that, surely. Nothing like, for example, witch-burning or the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Just give me something,” the Guardian snapped. “I’ve seen what we are up against and the logic that is driving it and I have no answer to it. I feel I am drowning in a tide of despair. I’m not asking for easy answers, but give me something. A stick, a gun, something, anything, a weapon to fight off this feeling.”

The Speaker turned and crossed the chamber, and began up the steps to the small balcony that served as his office. The Guardian, after a moment’s hesitation, started after. Halfway up, the Speaker’s foot slipped and he staggered. The Guardian reacted without thought, springing forward to catch the Speaker before he could fall. The Speaker nodded in thanks.

“There,” he said. “You didn’t need anybody tell you what to do just now.”

“Hardly the same.”

“Isn’t it?” The Speaker cocked his head. “It is a simple way to make a simple point: Good people do not need to be told to do good in order to do good. They just—do it.”

“Fine. Then it could say that, at least.”

“No, no, even that is too much.” They reached the top of the stairs and the Speaker sat down with a heavy sigh. He waved the Guardian to another chair. “The Traveler does not want you to fight the Darkness just because you think it wants you to. It does not want you to protect the weak and innocent just because some book told you to. It does not want you to believe in laws and cooperation just because you were ordered to. Deciding for yourself to do these things has always been the point, the whole point, the only point.”

The Speaker picked something up from a table and handed it to the Guardian. It was a pistol, black and barbed and spiked, its surface slick and sick and seeming to ooze beneath their fingers. Something hateful and spiteful and alive, terribly alive. It whispered. It made a promise.

Handing it to the Guardian was a risk, a terrible risk. Yet the temptation it offered, and the power to resist it, was the crux of their conversation now.

“Did you ever wonder why there were Warlords?” the Speaker asked. He tapped the gun in the Guardian’s hand. “Or why Dregden Yor existed?”

The Guardian examined the gun without revulsion or horror. Another way this Guardian was different. Sometimes they seemed utterly indifferent to the Light or Darkness. They must be made to care, the Speaker thought, then laughed at himself. That is exactly what they must not do, must never do. The future teetered, balanced on a knife’s edge. Would this Guardian become another Dregden, or another Saint?

“The possibility of corruption is necessary?” the Guardian mused.

“Exactly. You have read the enemy’s words, so you know this is not merely a war of conquest or annihilation, but the struggle to decide how the universe itself will be organized. For the Light to win, it must do so precisely because it never tried to coerce anybody to help it win.” The Speaker held up two fists to represent the two choices. “Think of it like lovers: Do you want a lover who says, ‘Love me or I will kill you’, or one who says, ‘Love me or not, it is up to you’?”

The Guardian nodded absently. They stood, still toying with the oily-ink weapon in their hands, and sighed. Until that moment, the Speaker had never realized how lonely it might be, to be the god-killer, the champion, the one everybody looked to. “It’s is so very lonely, sometimes. I just want to be loved, either way, you know?”

“The Traveler won’t love you just because you want it to,” the Speaker replied, sadly. And waited.

“No, I suppose not,” the Guardian agreed, and came to a conclusion. They spun the gun around their index finger with a casual flourish, first in a vertical loop, then horizontal, then brought it snapping around, leveled at the Speaker’s head. But pointing the other way, barrel towards themselves, handle towards the Speaker.

The Speaker rocked back in surprise, then realized what had happened. He reached up to take the pistol with a wavering, relieved hand. He laughed, a little nervously, a put the pistol back down on the table, afraid he might drop it otherwise.

“Reckon you’re right, I know what to do without the Traveler telling me,” the Guardian said.