by John Marco
Lukien stole a glance at Lahkali. The Eminence, distracted by Karoshin, did not notice. He smiled, pleased with her. Beneath the lines of her gown he could see the leanness of muscle taking shape, and he knew that behind her white gown, purple bruises had risen. Lahkali had taken some powerful blows during her training, but she had never once cried or broken down in defeat. More importantly, she had done everything he had asked of her, refusing to capitulate even when her body screamed for rest. And that was why he had granted her this day on the river. She had earned it.
Lukien turned fully around to see the bow of the vessel. There, among the sailors in their knotted-button shirts stood Jahan. His friend looked pensive, staring out toward the misty mountains, alone and ignored by the busy sailors. It had taken some convincing before Jahan had agreed to come along. Unlike Lukien, his simple friend from the village had yet to grow accustomed to Torlis or its fabulous palace. Lukien tried to get Jahan’s attention, but the man with the ponytail remained lost in thought, his eyes locked on the riverbank. At last one of the sailors saw Lukien’s gesture. Nudging Jahan, he pointed toward Lukien.
‘Come here,’ Lukien mouthed, waving his friend over. Jahan smiled and shook his head. Lukien frowned then waved more insistently. To this, Jahan simply turned away.
‘He is welcome to sit here,’ said Lahkali suddenly. She too had turned to see Jahan. ‘He knows that, Lukien, yes?’
Lukien nodded. Except for Karoshin, the others on deck were mostly out of earshot, a blessing for which Lukien was grateful.
‘He keeps to himself, your friend,’ Karoshin commented. The old priest seemed perturbed. ‘He does not like it here, I think.’
‘We have tried to welcome him,’ Lahkali reminded Karoshin. ‘I do not know what else to do.’
‘Let him be,’ said Lukien. Jahan’s behavior had troubled him for weeks, but he had already decided there was nothing to be done. He had asked Jahan, to help him train the young Eminence because Jahan was more like them and Lukien wanted the company. Jahan, however, had taken poorly to the city and its inhabitants.
‘It is us,’ said Lahkali. ‘He fears us.’
‘It is you, Lahkali,’ said Karoshin. ‘Forgive me for being so precise, but you saw his face when he met you.’
‘Because I am a girl,’ sighed Lahkali. ‘It is always the same. Lukien, are you listening?’
‘I am, Lahkali, but there is nothing I can do about it,’ said Lukien tartly. He continued watching the shore, though by now they had passed the fishing village.
‘You have spoken to him about this?’ asked Karoshin.
Lukien tried to change the subject. ‘Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.’
‘But it troubles you,’ said Karoshin. ‘And if you are troubled than you cannot do your best. And you must do your best to teach Lahkali. That is what troubles me, Lukien.’
Lukien avoided the priest’s glare. ‘I understand, Karoshin. I will do my best. You have my promise.’
‘We trust you, Lukien,’ said Lahkali.
Karoshin turned his probing attention back toward Jahan. ‘He stays with you. He wants to go, that much is plain. Yet he remains.’
‘He stays because he’s loyal,’ said Lukien.
‘Loyal to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘For what reason? He’s not your servant.’
‘He is a friend,’ said Lukien. ‘Don’t you have friends, Karoshin?’
‘Very few! When I was younger I had friends. But now it takes much to make a friend of me. Come now, Lukien, the truth – why does Jahan stay with you?’
Annoyed, Lukien said, ‘Because he thinks he owes me a debt. Because I saved his son from a crocodile, in the river near his home. A hooth, I think he called it.’
‘Ah!’ Karoshin exclaimed. ‘I see.’
‘No you don’t, and don’t look so smug about it.’
‘A hooth?’ Lahkali raised her eyebrows, impressed. ‘Then what you did deserves his loyalty. A hooth could have killed you, Lukien.’
‘No, my lady, it could not have, for I am cursed, you see.’
Lahkali nodded. ‘Your amulet.’
‘And the spirit that keeps me alive, yes. Tell me something – you have never asked me about my amulet, not since that first day. Why not?’
‘Because it does not surprise us,’ said Karoshin.
‘It does not surprise you? A man that cannot die?’ Lukien laughed. ‘Now who needs to be truthful, Karoshin?’
‘Karoshin means that we have our own thoughts on these things, Lukien. We have our own magics that we believe in.’
‘Oh?’
Karoshin spoke before the girl could reply. ‘There are always mysteries, Lukien. As a priest I can tell you that. Like the power of Sercin – to you, that is magic. To you, it is hard to believe that a god can become a snake.’
‘I would believe anything after the things I’ve seen,’ said Lukien.
The conversation wearied him. He returned to studying the shore. The feruka had drifted well past the villages now, entering a quiet part of the waterway where the shore was marked by broad-leafed trees and dense grass. Dark hills rambled among the groves and tangled vines. The water licked laconically at the muddy bank. Intrigued, Lukien decided to ask where they had drifted. Pointing toward the hills, he asked, ‘What is this place? It looks different from the rest of the bank.’
‘This is Amchan,’ said Lahkali. ‘A wild place.’
The crowd on deck came to a hush, enchanted by the calls of wild things issuing from the shore. The women sidled closer to their men.
‘Amchan. Does that have a meaning?’
‘Amchan is an ancient place,’said Lahkali. ‘No men live here. That is what the word means to us – the wild place.’
Lukien leaned forward in his chair. ‘I can hear them, the wild things. What lives there? Birds?’
‘Birds and everything else,’ said Karoshin. ‘When I was a boy, I came here to hunt and to see the rass. They are all through these woods.’
‘Rass? Like the Great Rass?’ asked Lukien.
‘No, the Great Rass is special,’ said the priest. ‘The Great Rass is unlike any other. But yes, there are rass here of every kind and colour. They thrive here because there are not men to frighten them.’
Lukien laughed. ‘Frighten them!’
‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ said Karoshin foxily. ‘I had forgotten that men where you come from fear the rass. But here the rass are revered and keep to themselves, mostly. They are wise enough to avoid people.’
‘Not like the dumb ones back home, eh? Thanks, but I’ll go on fearing them if you don’t mind.’
‘Should you fear them? Is that what you want to teach Lahkali?’
‘Call it respect, then,’ said Lukien.
‘She must slay the Great Rass, not run from it.’
Lukien rolled his eyes. ‘You know what I mean. You know what she’s up against.’
Lahkali, who was in the middle of their argument, held up both hands. ‘Enough now. Karoshin, Lukien knows what he must do to teach me.’
‘That’s right,’ said Lukien, though truthfully he was not quite sure. Fighting a rass wasn’t like fighting a man or even an army. He watched Amchan thoughtfully as its groves drifted by, wondering just how he could ever teach Lahkali to slay such a monster.
‘When will you teach me the katath, Lukien?’
Lukien looked up at the girl. ‘What’s that?’
‘The katath! You haven’t even started teaching me to use it. You won’t even let me touch it.’
‘Oh, the katath.’ Lukien smiled to taunt her. ‘There’s time for the katath.’
‘Yes, but when?’
‘Soon, my lady.’
‘How soon?’
Lukien shrugged. ‘The katath Niharn was using to teach you was too large.’
‘So? We can make another! I am tired of training with sticks, Lukien.’
‘Sticks are weapons, too, Eminence. The katath is just a sti
ck with a knife tied to it.’
Lahkali grew flustered by his evasiveness. She said sternly, ‘The clouds around the mountains will thunder soon, Lukien. When they do the Great Rass will come.’
Karoshin added, ‘She needs to be ready, Lukien.’
‘She will be,’ said Lukien. ‘Soon.’
By late afternoon, the feruka had berthed near a muddy beach of palm trees and sun-baked rocks. Far from the villages they had passed on their way, the beach contained a small, pretty harbour off-limits to fishermen and the other peasants of the riverland. Instead of modest homes, a plain but impressive home had been built near the shore, a sort of retreat for the Red Eminence and her royal family, springing up out of the green grasses and surrounded by swaying trees. Tonight, according to Lahkali, they would all spend the evening at the tiny palace, where servants had spent the day preparing for their arrival.
Lahkali exalted in the sight of the retreat. Far from the rigours of Torlis, here she could escape most of the advisors who plagued her, enjoying the quiet of the river and its shore. As usual, she was first to depart the feruka, excusing herself from Lukien and telling him that the staff of the palace would see to his needs. Lahkali was anxious to get away, and after greeting her servants she escaped from Karoshin and Lukien, heading toward the back of the grand home where few ever ventured. Here, a tributary of the river diverted into a sandy stand of trees and rocky outcroppings, where newborn fish gathered in a shallow pond. Whenever she came to the palace on the river, Lahkali always went to the pond to see the fish and tadpoles. This time, though, she discovered something else.
Jahan did not hear the Eminence approach. Instead he stared into Lahkali’s pond, oblivious to her. Lahkali paused behind a palm tree, her footfalls hidden by the sand beneath her feet. Jahan looked contemplative, and grossly out of place. While the others had gone to feast, he stood alone. For a moment Lahkali considered leaving him, sure that he would prefer the solitude. But then she remembered her conversation earlier with Lukien, and the things the knight had said about Jahan. She watched him, intrigued by him, wondering what had drawn him to the pond, away from everyone else, even Lukien, his friend. He was an enigma to Lahkali, this simple man from an unnamed village, with peasant ways that delighted some and invited scorn from others. The way the sunlight dappled his face flattered his kind features. In his long, tied-up tail of hair, Lahkali decided he was handsome.
Jahan knelt down next to the pond and began speaking, not loudly or clearly enough for her to hear. Was he addressing the fish, she wondered? She inched closer, revealing herself from her hiding place, trying better to discern his words. So far, Lahkali had led a sheltered life. Despite being the great ‘Red Eminence,’ she was but a youngster and well aware of her short-comings, and she had never ventured far enough from home to get to know the many villages like Jahan’s that dotted the countryside. Jahan continued speaking, then finally dipped a hand into the water, cupping a single tadpole. The creature wringled out of his watery palm and splashed back into the pond. Jahan laughed with delight.
‘Hello?’ Lahkali ventured.
Startled, Jahan jumped to his feet. He blanched when he saw the Eminence.
‘Jahan, it is all right,’ she told him, careful to speak softly and slowly. Their dialects were nearly the same, but without Lukien’s odd magic to translate she was unsure they would understand each other. ‘Do you hear, Jahan? It is all right.’
‘Yes, Eminence,’ Jahan replied. He wiped his wet hands on his pants. ‘I will leave . . .’
‘No, it’s fine,’ said Lahkali quickly. ‘This is a good place to come and think.’ She went to him, smiling to put him at ease. ‘You can eat with the others, you know. You do not have to stay here alone.’
‘Thank you, yes, I know this,’ said Jahan. ‘Later, maybe, I will eat.’ His eyes shifted uncertainly.
‘So you came to be alone,’ Lahkali ventured. ‘Like me.’
Jahan nodded. ‘Yes.’
His silence made her awkward. ‘They are safe here,’ she said, looking down into the pool where the tadpoles played. ‘That’s why they come, too, to get away from the big fish. You and I are not big fish, either. Maybe that is why we both found this place.’
‘No, Eminence, you are a great fish. The greatest fish.’
‘But I am a girl,’ she reminded him. ‘How can a girl be a great fish?’
Jahan puzzled over the question. ‘I do not know. But you are the Red Eminence.’
‘But not what you expected?’
‘No,’ Jahan admitted. His brow wrinkled as he worked the problem. ‘None of this is what I expected. You are all just . . . people.’
Lahkali laughed. ‘Yes.’ She dipped her hand into the water the way she had seen him do. It felt cool on her painted fingers. ‘And I can’t control the rass the way my father could or his father before him. Maybe that’s what it means to be a girl. To be weak.’
‘No, Eminence, do not say so. If my wife heard those words she would scold you!’
‘You are married?’ asked the girl.
‘To Kifuv. To the greatest wife in my village.’ Jahan flushed with pride. ‘Kifuv let me come to Torlis to meet you. She made me promise to tell her about everything I see here.’
‘This is a great journey for you, isn’t it?’ asked Lahkali. She stood to face him. ‘Lukien told me this about you, that you came to meet the Red Eminence and to see Torlis for yourself.’
Jahan seemed embarrassed. ‘This is true, Eminence.’
‘And you came to protect Lukien, because you owe him a debt.’
‘Also true.’
Lahkali manoeuvreed toward a palm tree, where she leaned against its peeling bark. They were alone, the two of them, presenting the perfect chance to get her questions answered. As though waiting to be dismissed, Jahan kept his eyes to the ground.
‘You are welcome here,’ said Lahkali. ‘You must know that by now. Even if I am not what you wanted to find in Torlis.’
‘Yes, Eminence. Thank you.’
‘And Lukien needs you. You trouble him with your silence. He is a stranger here, just like yourself.’
‘He needs my help to find the sword. I have promised him that.’
‘That is good,’ said Lahkali gently. ‘But it is too much for him to have to worry about both of us, Jahan. You must be strong for him. Can you do that?’
Jahan finally straightened. ‘I can. But sometimes I hear my village calling. Sometimes I want to go back to them.’
His loneliness struck Lahkali. ‘I understand. I miss my family, too. My father mostly. But we both have things that we must do, yes?’
Jahan nodded. ‘Yes.’
He turned from her and went back to staring into the water. The still pond replied with a wavy reflection. Curious, Lahkali followed him. She knelt down next to the pond and looked at her own reflection. The two of them stared. He was not so different from her, Lahkali supposed. They were both outsiders, surrounded by people who thought little of them.
‘Look at our faces,’ she said. ‘See how alike we are? Is that what surprises you so much, Jahan?’
Jahan studied his reflection in the water, then shifted his gaze toward the girl’s. Lahkali watched his brow knit.
‘In my village, we talk about Torlis like it is a place of gods,’ said Jahan. ‘We believe the Red Eminence can do anything. I told Lukien to come and speak to you. I told him you would know where to find his sword. And you do know. You just won’t tell him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lahkali. ‘I cannot. That’s why you’re here, Jahan – to help him.’
‘Yes,’ said Jahan. His tone grew determined. ‘You are right.’
‘He is a quiet one, Lukien. It is hard to know his heart. But he speaks to you, Jahan. You must be a friend to him.’
Jahan nodded. ‘Lukien needs a friend, yes. He mourns.’
‘Mourns?’
‘For a woman. A beloved.’
Lahkali leaned back on her heels. ‘Tell me
about this.’
Jahan shrugged. ‘I do not know much of it. She was his woman, and now she is gone.’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead, yes. She has gone to the next world.’ Jahan retreated a little. ‘Do you have another world, Eminence? Is that what you believe?’
‘Of course,’ said Lahkali. ‘It is only Lukien and his kind that do not seem to believe.’
‘Lukien believes. He did not always believe, but now he does. He has spoken to his beloved. She has come to him.’
‘Really? How?’
‘Like a spirit,’ said Jahan. ‘That is what he told me.’
Lahkali rose. She had not known that anyone beyond Torlis could speak to the dead. She puzzled over this, wondering how much more Jahan knew.
‘That is why Lukien is so dark?’ she probed. ‘Because he mourns?’
‘Yes, Eminence. I have thought about it, and I think he hates the amulet that keeps him alive. He would rather die, I think, and be with his beloved.’
A frown crossed the girl’s face. At last, things were making sense. ‘That’s why he saved your child from the hooth . . .’
‘No, Eminence,’ Jahan insisted. ‘Lukien is brave. He was not afraid of the hooth.’
‘You’re right, Jahan,’ said Lahkali darkly. ‘He’s not afraid of anything.’
A man who wished for death wouldn’t be, Lahkali supposed. Saddened, she knelt again in the damp sand, watching as the tiny fish darted through the water. Jahan had been more enlightening than she’d intended. How had Lukien spoken to his beloved? She was dead, and only the people of Torlis could speak to the dead.