“What do you want me to say, Makin?”
“I don’t know, but after all these years, I think you owe me a few words of friendship, at least.”
“You have words, Makin. My enemies get my sword. Or don’t you remember that?”
“I do. I see what you’re doing. I’ll close my mouth now, Ferral. Your bride awaits.”
The man, indeed, said nothing else for much of the ride back. The Lord of Barun’s compound, including his own, enormous yurt, was set atop a rocky hill, overlooking groves of white saxaul shrubs and orange trees. They rode past the gates and were met near the wooden towers by servants dressed in long, white robes. One of them, a bald man with tattoos carved along the back of his neck, took one look at Enosh’s soiled clothes and shook his head.
He remembered another wedding, when he had sold a Jinsein girl for limited access to the Lord of Al-ir’s lands; a cheaper trade than what he was to embark on now. While the servants scrubbed his feet and braided his hair, he imagined what Sume would say if she learned of the irony, and couldn’t quite stop his face from twitching.
He missed her. That much, at least, he could admit to himself. As he walked past the household yurts, following the procession of people, and saw his bride waiting, the only thing he could think of was Sume’s face at her wedding. Ab above—she must have seemed braver than he looked right now. Had her forefathers seen her that day, they would have flushed with pride at her courage. She had been very young, and Mhagaza, Lord of Al-ir, had been so very old, stinking of sweat and tooth decay, yet she had not even dropped her head once. She had gazed back at her husband-to-be without trembling, or so it had seemed to Enosh from where he had been standing that day.
He approached the end of the procession. There, they tugged at the veil that covered his bride’s face. A pair of sharp, brown eyes looked up at him, before turning to her father behind them. Azchai didn’t look back.
Gasparian wedding ceremonies were long and elaborate. He dutifully followed what the shamans told him to do, though he struggled to understand the guttural language. Eventually, he found himself hand-in-hand with the girl. She glanced up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. He smiled back, tried his hardest to see her and not another, and did his best to pretend that a prince of Gorent marrying a minor lord’s daughter was not as appalling as it sounded. Sume’s becoming a concubine to one of the richer k’ans in southern Gaspar had been a much better transaction. As interesting as Azchai’s yurt with five rooms was, Mhagaza, bless his soul, owned an actual mansion.
But of course, wasn’t it his father who had told him that sacrifices needed to be made once in a while? Meirosh was not a hard man, not the way Yn Garr was, but that only led credence to his words. He had shaped Enosh’s life with the memory of them.
They uttered their vows, their hollow voices ringing in his ears. Even though he was an accomplished liar, speaking the canned phrases—written, no doubt, by one of Azchai's scholars in a hurry—made him feel ill. Did any of the guests believe it? Did the woman, across from him? He had shown more honesty to whores.
The rest of the celebrations were held amongst the fig trees. Wine trickled like spring water. Dignitaries from across the kingdom came to offer Azchai and Enosh their sincerest congratulations.
“No,” Azchai told them, bowing deep enough to allow the his visitors to press the flat of their short, broad swords against his forehead. “It is our honour that such men as yourselves would come so far away as to attend our humble gathering.”
“Indeed,” one man said, a certain K’an Omo, whose broad shoulders and flat features reminded Enosh of a frog. He had the long, wispy moustache that men favoured in those parts and was wearing a bright yellow robe, adorned with several silk belts. “It has been a long journey, K’an ono Barun. I hope you’ve roasted one of these goats for the occasion.”
“Not one, but many,” Azchai said, grinning. “And a young calf, besides. We roasted a lot of animals today, my good men. Minister Geda, my heart is glad to see you’ve come.”
“My mother sends her warmest thanks for the men you sent to accompany her. She doesn’t leave the old village very often and wishes to see Kalthekar next.” Minister Geda’s voice was flatter even than K’an Omo’s face. He bowed to Azchai first, and then to Enosh, his hands loose at his sides. It was a gesture of indifference at best.
Azchai didn’t seem to mind. “She may have the escort for as long as she wants. I am pleased they were of service. Might I add, Minister Geda, that Barun is immensely proud of your accomplishments up there in His Holy K’an ono K’an’s lands. I am sorry His Holiness could not make it.”
A thin smile appeared at the corners of Geda’s otherwise expressionless mouth. “Surely you did not expect His Holiness to venture so far, and with such…accommodations.” He glanced at the orchard before waving away a server, who had come up to offer him a plate of dumplings, filled with raisins and meat and fried in goat fat. It was served on a bed of flat, black noodles made of sweet potatoes.
“I did, of course, indicate in my invitation that he was welcome to my home.”
“Yes. Er—I’m afraid your pavilion—His Holiness has gout, you understand. And the journey past the desert would have been terribly uncomfortable. Were this not my home province, I myself wouldn’t have gone. But you are welcome to bring him the gift mare yourself—the one you mentioned had hair flowing like silver. I’m sure he can find a corner in the stables for it somewhere, if not the kitchen.” He smiled and walked away, in the pretense of procuring wine, before Azchai could say anything else.
“That young upstart,” Enosh heard Azchai growl under his breath. “The way he talks, you’d think he wasn’t born mewling around in turkey dung like the rest of the suachar from his village. What does he own, anyway, that he dare snub his nose at my hospitality? Me, K’an of Barun! I notice no one has asked about K’an Rajiat’s absence from our party. That little quarrel between the two of you is gossip up in His Holiness’ lands. You should feel proud.”
“Lord—”
“Call me apa.”
Enosh smiled thinly. “This wedding came at a price, if you recall.”
Azchai turned to him. “Now? My daughter will miss your presence.”
“She will not. When I left her a few minutes ago, she looked relieved.”
“Would that I had other, more amicable daughters to give you, Ferral.”
“You jest. I could not imagine a better bride, what with her eyes like twilight sparkles,” he said, raising his voice. “Now give me leave to visit your dungeons. I will be gone but a moment. You have my word.”
Azchai hesitated. After a moment, he nodded and called for the captain of the guard. “Take him to the caverns.”
“Now?” The captain looked bewildered.
“He wants to see the mage. I trust you will have him back before my daughter notices him missing.”
“I—”
“Hoshat, my good man!” Enosh snorted. He bowed to his new father-in-law before following the guard down the road.
The caverns that served as Azchai’s dungeons occurred naturally from underneath the hill where his household stood. The captain held out his arms. “Your new lord,” he told the rest of the guards, “in case you weren’t aware.”
The guards straightened themselves before bowing, their knees falling to the ground. Enosh bowed back, feeling awkward in his Gasparian clothes. “I’m here to see the mage.”
The guard looked nervous. “Are you sure, sir?”
Enosh glanced at the captain. “K’an Azchai never told me how you came by this man.”
“There were strange occurrences in the village. Children were disappearing and creatures were seen in the sky on occasion.”
He licked his lips. “And there was proof that he did this?”
“No, but he was picked up from a village, drinking the blood of a goat dry.”
“This was serious enough for the k’an to get involved?”
“It wasn’t his goat. The owner w
as furious.”
The guards led them past steps carved into the soft limestone, their torches casting enormous shadows against the walls. Enosh was reminded of the caverns where Naijwa’s beast lay and had to suppress a shudder. The captain mistook that for something else and smiled at him. “I know. These mages frighten me a little, too.”
“They are just like your mandraagars.”
“Mandraagars work with the laws set forth by An-albaht, the first K’an ono K’an of these lands, who ascended into the heavens and become a god. These heretics carry with them ways from Dageis—blasphemous, unholy ways. We have allowed them to live too close to our lands for far too long.”
They stopped at the end of a tunnel. It was blocked with a wooden barricade. The captain nodded. Enosh stepped forward, peering through the spaces, and called out, “Bannal!”
A raspy voice answered him. “Bannal? You think I’m him?” A gaunt figure in loose robes bent forward.
Enosh felt his hands grow cold. His ears rang.
“I am Vilum,” the man said. “Back when I had a name. Back when I was treated like a man.” He glanced at the guards. “Isn’t that so, you bastards?” He spat through the bars.
Enosh struggled to keep his composure as he tried to regain his thoughts. “Do you know where Bannal is?”
Vilum blinked up at him. Realization dawned on his face. “You’re—!”
“I know who I am,” he said. “I hope you remember what I’m capable of.”
Vilum sat down. “You had him. You took our master prisoner, after destroying our home. He escaped you, didn’t he?” He chortled. “I knew it. You against a mage like Bannal? I’ve seen your paltry skills. In Dageis, you’d be lucky to scrub the kitchens in some minor lord’s mansion. You didn’t stand a chance.”
Enosh tried to ignore the insults. “He had no coin on him when he disappeared. He must have a hiding place somewhere in Gaspar.”
“In Gaspar? Please.” Vilum smiled. “Make them let me go, and I’ll tell you.”
“The goat thing—”
Vilum flushed. “That was a mistake. I was weak and I’d lost my link to the agan. I needed strength. You know.”
Enosh grimaced. “No, I really don’t. But I’ll see what I can do for you. Give me something I can work with.”
Vilum licked his lips. “You won’t like it.”
He sighed. “You may be right. But try me, anyway.”
“He’ll be headed straight to Eheldeth, in the Dageian Plateau. If it has been many moons since he’s escaped, then he’ll be halfway there by now.”
Eheldeth. Of course. The legendary school, where the best Dageian mages learned their craft, was many weeks away. By foot, one needed to cross the relentless desert steppes beyond central Gaspar and then make the long trek through the Bay-at-dan Mountains. Enosh had sent men to watch the ports at Aret-ni and Osaimir, so sea travel would’ve been out of the question for Bannal. If Enosh was lucky, the journey alone would kill him.
But try as Enosh might, he couldn’t muster his usual self-satisfied smugness. Vilum looked sombre enough. Bannal was certainly not as incompetent as he looked. If he reached the Dageian mage council and reported their activities…
Enosh’s mind wound around itself. What would Dageis do? Yn Garr had warned him that the beast, at its strongest, could bring the Dageian mages to their knees. But all of them, and the best Eheldeth had to offer? It had managed to scatter the Enji mages after they’d caught them unaware, but the Dageian Plateau had armies of mages, more than any nation would know what to do with.
He was silent on the way back to the orange grove. His mind wasn’t in Gaspar, but back in that little library in Sen’senal, where his father, and then later, Yn Garr, had schooled him when he was young. He could almost smell the mould and ash that clung to the pages and feel the greasy linseed ink he had bought off the trader down the street. He could also picture the steaming cup of wheat milk Kefier would pick up for him from a neighbour, who always worried they weren’t eating enough. Simpler times. Happier times.
“The power of Dageis lies with their mages,” Yn Garr had told him on that first day.
“Without them, it is an empty land of fools and monkeys. Ah, look at this.” He held out a leather-bound book and rubbed his hand over the charcoal etchings on the grain. “Your people did this by hand, with nothing better than a knife to make the markings with. In Dageis, they would have needed an apprentice mage at least, tapping into the agan like a child fascinated with a new toy.”
“My father told me that the Dageians took our lands,” he replied. “The peninsula south of here used to be Gorenten. We had rich forests, and soil you could till, and the most beautiful temples and books. We could use the agan, too, but not as well as they did, else they would never have driven us towards these shriveled isles.”
“Destroy the mages—destroy their seat of power—and the rest will tumble. They will fall faster than so many other armies, who have learned to rely on true skill and warfare rather than cheap tricks.”
The old man’s ranting made him smile. “Easier said than done.”
Yn Garr smiled back. The turn of his lips made him look almost wolfish. “Watch me,” he said. “Just you wait and see.”
“So he is not the man you seek,” Azchai told him, upon his return. “I still can’t say you made a poor trade, Ferral.”
“No, my lord,” Enosh said, the words clawing at his throat. “I believe I still have eighty or so goats to my name. And your wonderful daughter, in case you think I forget.”
Azchai snorted. “Then you won’t be opposed to fulfilling your end of the bargain—that is to say, the part where you act as my son-in-law. His Holiness, the K’an ono K’an of Gaspar, did not so much as answer my invitation. This was expected, of course, for what attention can us paltry lords expect from such a man? And yet it is our right, being of noble birth, to seek his audience. You will meet with King Zilfikar, bearing gifts so you may raise our family’s name in his favour.”
“While that sounds like a great honour, my lord,” he said, “what makes you think he will meet with a man like me?”
“You are a Gasparian noble now, and you represent one of the richest trading companies in the Kag. He will meet with you out of curiosity, if nothing else.” His eyes softened. “You will do this for me, Ylir. You will head to the holy palace in Nebel, and seek audience with the king.”
Enosh looked at the man. Nebel lay to the north, right on the road towards the Dageian border. He bowed. “Your wish is my command,” he murmured. Yn Garr had taught him well.
Chapter Seven
Sume awakened in the dead of the night before her daughter could cry.
She propped the infant up on her arm and pulled her close to her breast. The infant stopped mewling and began to feed. She bit her lip at the sharp pain. A few moments later, she could breathe again, and her toes uncurled. She pulled herself up to rest against the wall and rearrange the blankets on the straw futon the guards had been kind enough to lend to them. Only then did she notice that Kefier was still awake. He was sitting cross-legged in the corner of the room, bent over a letter. A single candle was burning by his left foot.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Trying to write to Ylir.”
“I told you not to.”
“It’s all right. It’ll be some time before I can get anything down, anyway. And then you can decide if you want to send it or not.” Saying that, he made a slow, deliberate stroke in the corner of the page, and muttered something under his breath.
The infant had fallen asleep again. Sume propped her mouth open, removing her from the nipple like Narani had taught her, and then set her down on the futon. She approached Kefier and caught a glimpse of what he was writing before he set the paper down on the floor.
“I—I struggle with it,” Kefier murmured, before she could say anything.
“I apologize. I wasn’t trying to pry.”
“It’
s been a while since we had time to just sit around, and the guards gave me some ink. I thought I could practice.”
“Let me take a look,” she said, sitting down beside him. His writing was precise, if a little childish, but what caught her attention was his inability to form the correct strokes for some of the letters. Dai could write much better, in comparison. “How long have you been learning?”
Kefier looked embarrassed. “All my life,” he conceded. “My father tried teaching me, but I couldn’t keep up. He gave up at some point. And then when I met Oji, I tried again. The other men said he was good with Kagtar—the ones who can’t read would get him to do it for them. I still couldn’t get any better.” He grimaced.
“You miss my brother, don’t you?”
He looked back at his writing. Oil dripped from his thumb to the paper. He wiped it away. “Not a day goes by—” he began, and then he shook his head. “There’s nothing I can say to make it right.”
“He wrote to me a lot before he died.”
“In Kagtar. I know. He had me read your letters for practice.” He flushed.
“I guess we both knew each other before we really met. He told me you pick up languages really fast.”
He tapped his ear. “If I can hear it, I’ll remember. The reading, not so much. Writing is even harder.”
Sume smiled. “He was grateful for your company, and so was I. You made things bearable for him. I’m sure you didn’t read all his letters. You didn’t know about Dai. He thought that having you there made it easier to do what he was doing for his son. You may not think much about his sacrifices, but they did keep us alive, for a time.”
The baby began to cry again. Kefier got up first, crossing the room before she could get to her feet. He was unusually attentive to the child. She still didn’t know how to react to that. Oji had told her that Kefier was very thoughtful, a trait he preserved even after the years he spent with the hard, bitter men of the Boarshind, but she didn’t realize it included being a father to a child that was not his. He took to parenting more easily than she did.
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