The Last Road

by K. Johansen

  “No,” he said, and put a hand over his cup. The woman shrugged again and left them.

  “I paid for that, you know. You might as well’ve drunk it.” But the hand clutching his cup trembled.

  “No.”

  The redhead didn’t protest. Eyes widened as the woman came back with another plate of food. “Eat,” she said. “Better use of your coin.” Left them.

  He hesitated. He certainly hadn’t handed over enough for that heaped plate. Ahjvar ignored him, resumed his own meal. Didn’t mean he stopped watching, though. A bit curious, be honest, to see what happened next. The man finally tore bread, sopped it in the gravy. Stopped pretending he didn’t care after the first bite and ate as if it were the first food he’d seen that day, tearing at the meat with teeth and fingers, scooping up vegetables and gravy with the bread, even his fear forgotten. Ignored the wine.

  First meal he’d seen, yes, and maybe in more than a day, yet he’d gone to the bathhouse and paid for a shave, unless he had a razor up his sleeve.

  Gone, or been sent.

  “Who paid you?” Ahjvar asked, when the plate was nearly as clean as Jui or Jiot would leave it and the man was licking his fingers, trying to wipe them on the hem of his robe and pretend he had better manners than to have torn into his food so…

  “What?”

  “I’m not interested in what you’re selling. You’re not wanting to be here, however much effort you’ve put into making yourself presentable. Anyway, buying me drinks? I thought it was meant to go the other way.”

  Dark, narrow eyes. Staring. He licked nervous lips, took up the wine. Drank. Took a breath, then; found courage to speak.

  “Could show you around the city,” he suggested. “Maybe…there’s a nice tavern by the south gate. They bring their wine from Gold Harbour vineyards, better’n anything around here. How about we go there?” Smile. “I’d let you pay.”

  “I’ve seen the city.” Not in a couple hundred years, give or take, but he didn’t suppose it was any more worth seeing now than it ever had been.

  Nobody here who wanted to kill him. Not any more. The Leopard was long forgotten, and any earlier hunting name he’d ever worn as well. He’d worked for a clan-mother of the Thuya once. Generations dead. Even if that hadn’t been so, someone sending the man to, what, seduce him— kill him? Surely not. Lure him off somewhere, for whatever purpose— who? Why? They’d left the lad terrified, whatever they’d asked of him, or expected of him, or told him, and he wasn’t new to his miserable game; the serving-woman had been surprised he was the one paying, not that he was cosying up to one of her guests.

  “Not interested,” Ahjvar said, and to see what would happen, put a hand over the redhead’s, as one might, maybe, taking leave of a friend. It felt awkward. “Sorry,” he said, equally awkward, because he wasn’t. Was damned angry, not so much at the unfortunate young man as at the city, maybe for existing at all. But the lad tensed up at the touch, didn’t try to make it any kind of second thought, attempt to hold him, to persuade, which he ought to have done if that was his game. Ahjvar let him go. Got up and left the table himself. Went out to the back, with a pause at the counter, where the woman rinsed cups in a basin. “Don’t let him up to my room,” he said, with a jerk of his head back towards the redhead. “I’ll throw him down the stairs if you do.”

  Her lips thinned, but she nodded.

  Good.

  Didn’t go up to his room, though. Nothing up there he needed. Had left everything in the loose box he’d seen his two camels into. Scorpion’s distrust of strangers would keep all safe, probably better than the wizardly knots he tied his bundles with. Just pulled his plaid headscarf up from his shoulders, wrapped it to hide hair and beard, drifted through the stableyard to the street, unnoticed, night and shadows. Not taking on Ghu’s nature, here, walking unseen. Maybe he could draw on that, maybe not, so far from Nabban. Didn’t want to be drawing other attention, though. Goddess of the river. Other things that might watch. Found a dark corner. When the young man came out the street-door, though, he didn’t even look. Walked slowly away, head down. Reluctant in his destination?

  Ahjvar followed.

  They ended up near the southern gate of the city, where the man did get nervous, looking over his shoulder. Full night by then, and waxing moon just setting. The few people out and about had been like the redhead and Ahjvar, intent on their own affairs. The streets here were utterly deserted. Warehouses, mostly, and a few workshops standing within their own walled compounds. The young man knocked at a gate in a stone wall. It was opened at once, spilling lamplight. Someone had been watching for him.

  The gate was painted white. Something on it. A design…

  He’d seen that before, tattooed over a dead assassin’s heart.

  What had the devil Yeh-Lin said? A calligraphy you would not know…the gate and the bridge…it means nothing to me.

  Voices. Ahjvar moved closer, keeping close to the wall.

  “No,” the redhead said. “You just tell Timon yourself. I’m done with his games. I’m going.” Sudden venom. “Tell him to go try himself, if he wants the man that badly.”

  A yelp as someone seized his arm, jerked, and he vanished within. The gate slammed shut.

  Ahjvar leapt, fingers just making the top of the wall. Swung himself up, on fingers and toes till he saw there were no spikes set. Lay flat then, studying the ground. An open yard, ordinary enough. What could have been workshop or warehouse with living quarters over it, long building, the first storey stone, its few narrow, horizontal windows set high against thieves; the upper wooden, with a gallery running all the way along, and a wing running away to meet the southern wall. Smell of horses. Stable. A man in a long gown was marching the redhead across the yard, his arm twisted behind his back. No one else about. Ahjvar flowed down the wall. Knife in either hand. He was close behind when the man opened the front door of the building, dragged the captive within.

  Waited, listening. Silence. Long enough for them to move beyond the entryway. He tucked the left-hand knife into his belt, lifted the latch, pushed the door open just a crack, listening. Still silence. Darkness. He slipped in.

  A bigger space than he had expected. He waited, until the faint light behind him, from the window above the entrance, became enough to make out what he faced. Looked like a dining hall, strange thing to have at your front door. Long tables with benches, what he guessed was a serving hatch in the far wall, a closed door to either side.

  Left or right? Investigation proved the right opened into a kitchen, the left a dark passageway. He followed it. An open doorway, stairs leading up to silence. Living souls above. Living souls ahead. Shut his eyes, listening—call it listening. Wondered, Ghu, can you tell? Where is he?

  Ignored the stairs. Not sure if he knew, or only imagined he knew. Trusted and went ahead.

  Door, open, to the left. Light. Suddenly raised voices.

  “That’s all you had to do, get him here! Seven devils damn you, how hard can it be?”

  “You were wrong. He wasn’t interested. I can’t make someone want me. Nori knows, if I could don’t you think I’d be more choosy than to take up with—”

  A thump and a yelp. Angry words. Beyond anger—deathly rage, but a language he didn’t know. Several voices, others shouting what sounded like orders.

  He needed his sword, not knives, in this space. Slid around the doorpost.

  A large, square room. Closed door in the far wall. One window over it. Candles burning either side of it, two clusters of three set on the floor. Three also lit in the centre of the room. Unfamiliar white script ran from each grouping of candles to the others, crossed the threshold, the blocky whitewashed characters running between two guiding lines that were not painted on the floorboards but poured, thin ridges of yellow dust.

  The young man huddled on the floor, arms wrapped around his head. Small red-robed man, kicking him. Men—all men, no women— were gathered around, voices a babble. Nine of them. Three armed with
swords and one a spear besides, armoured, plain helmets, short scale shirts, leather kilts reinforced with riveted plaques, greaves…blurring, long red-lacquered scale hauberks, tall boots, faceless masks the colour of blood and flame—fire seared across his belly…there was water, dark and deep, her breath in his mouth, and the taste of his own blood—

  No.

  He was drenched in sweat, and yet the cold of icy water cut to his bones.

  No.

  Here. Now. He touched wrist against the necklace beneath his coat. This was…not even his nightmare. It pushed at him, that memory— from outside himself.

  Oh, Jochiz, would you? He grinned, teeth bared at the shadows.

  Three armed, three in plain red robes, three with sleeveless white over-robes setting them apart, and none of them had heard anything, none turned to see. One of the white grabbed the kicking man, pulled him away, threw him to his knees, then struck him backhanded across the face. Followed up by kicking the redhead himself as he tried to crawl away.

  “Leave him!”

  They saw Ahjvar then. A moment’s silence, beyond startled. Knee-melting terror. One of the red robes dropped to the floor, hands over his face, gabbling what sounded like prayers, intense, rhythmic, circling back to the same words over and over.

  “The devil you worship can’t hear you,” Ahjvar growled, but didn’t care if they understood, and for all he knew it wasn’t true. “He can’t help you.” Of that he was more certain. Jochiz wasn’t here, not riding any of them with even a fragment of his soul. No possession. Just dreaming tools.

  The three in white fled to a far corner. The cowering priest gave a strangled sort of scream and scrabbled away backwards. One of the armed mastered himself and rushed forward, drawing a short stabbing sword, shouting at the same time. Some command. The three in white crowded together, began singing, hands clasped together, facing one another, voices unsteady, which wasn’t going to help their working any…Ahjvar stepped aside and hooked the warrior-priest’s leg out from under him, stamped on his hand and kicked the sword away.

  Pointless mercy, letting him live. Pointless asking what they wanted. The song gathered strength, wrapped him. Words to hold and bind, to pull him to his knees…

  He didn’t bother with any wizardry that might counter their working. Felt it crackling over his skin, uncomfortable, not even pain. As if they had taken a fine bird-net to catch a stag. Spear and sword moving to take him from either side, and the spearman lunged. Swayed aside and took the man’s head, turning back. Killed the man on the floor who was coming up with a knife. Went after the third armed man, who leapt back—he followed—the sing-song unknown words battering, stifling all thought, an assault on its own, a din of noise, a hundred carts stampeding over a bridge. Foot had crossed the line of script. The surge of wizardry laid in the spell woke, answering—fire waking, the sulphur burning but not smouldering, not sulphur alone, a wildfire hunger, and it was him it reached to feed on, seizing him, burning within, sightless flames unseen. On the floor and he did not know he had fallen, but he rolled away and to his feet again, unsteady, sword in hand, and couldn’t see, a drunken confusion of light and shadow melting, running, something clubbed him down but he didn’t lose his sword this time, twisted and slashed at sandalled and fleeing ankles, missed his distance. Shut it away, what pulled at him, flames, needle-teeth, peeling at what felt like his heart. Up on one knee, blinking, blur of white. There. Yelling. The redhead was struggling with one of the men. Later. Went in a surging rush upright, swinging, into the wizards. Laid one’s throat open, swept back into the belly of another, man folding over. He staggered himself, struck from behind, the heat of a blade, but in anger he found his balance, whatever their song had fed into their lines of spell fading. Fires still burned, choking, lung-searing fumes of sulphur all too real now, but the burning that raked at him within gone, and it was only his tearing eyes distorted vision, nothing more. Ran the last wizard through hardly even looking, letting go his sword, spinning away as the man fell, the forage-knife in his hand, to catch the warrior-priest turning to flee, jerk his head back, slash his throat and throw him down. Ghu’s knife to his left, pulling his sword free. Could feel the blood hot on his back; couldn’t tell how deep the priest’s blade had bitten. Didn’t matter. He was still standing. It would heal. Coat would need mending, though. He tried to avoid growing too ragged and beggar-mad. Ghu didn’t like it. His young man on his knees, hands bloody, panting, wide-eyed, one arm across his face against the smoke. Priest on the floor before him, blood pooling across the words of the snare on the floor.

  He’d lost count. No. Two were missing. The unarmed priests. Fled.

  A word, a shape, could extinguish the flames, spreading now to the floorboards, burning cheerful, clean orange and scarlet, and the smoke was waking nightmares on the edge of mind, whispers, feather-touch of dead hands grasping—

  Stop it, stop it now, he had the power—

  Had the power to walk out of here, too. The smoke was nothing, the fire barely had hold yet. He did not need to lose himself to the terror of the flames. They—Jochiz would have burned him again, and again. Leave it to grow.

  Not a thought Ghu would approve? Ghu wasn’t here. Shoved the blood-sticky forage-knife into his belt, seized the coughing redhead by the upper arm, heaved, dragged, kicked the outer door open. Cold air like a draught of clean water.

  Dragged the young man away to the compound wall, dropped him there and crouched down beside him. Burning sulphur. That could be deadly. The man coughed and coughed, doubled over, eyes streaming. His own were. Throat, lungs felt hot, sanded. He’d survive.

  The Taren’s wheezing was lessening. For a moment Ahjvar thought, dying, but he coughed some more, scrubbed a sleeve across his face, propped himself up.

  Shouting within the building now. That one window and the open doorway bright, and firelight flickering above, flames spreading up through the wall, along posts, rafters…Good luck saving any of it.

  He cleaned his sword, the forage-knife, while the redhead coughed and wheezed some more, and cut the signs of alder, the male holly, and yew in the hard-packed earth with Ghu’s knife. Fire, death, and what was fear and death and devils, or the fear of them. A curse, of sorts, and he should have given up curses, but there was some deep anger within that he could barely see the shape of it, only that it was there, red molten stone beneath the black crust, and he would have them all dead.

  You dare set your servants against me with fire? You dare do that to Ghu? Or was it for the echo in another boy, friendless and undefended in the world?

  Well, at least he wouldn’t go back in to kill them all. Let them take their chances with the fire. Which was not now going to be easily extinguished.

  “Come on.” Tugged the Taren to his feet. There were shadowy figures out running about now. Bucket chain forming from the well. Little good might it do them. Cries in the street beyond the wall, the clanging of a watch-bell. He didn’t think it too likely to spread. No wind, and the yard within the compound was broad and clear.

  He opened the street-gate as if he had right. City watch had been pounding on it, unanswered. The porter was gone.

  “The devil-worshippers in there meant to sacrifice the boy,” he said. Great Gods, what was he trying to stir up? “They set their own damned fane on fire. Where’s the nearest physician?” Blank, worried stares, maybe for their smoked and blood-stained looks, maybe the boy’s coughing. His Taren slipping away into pure old Praitannec, so they probably only caught one word in three. He flung the gate wide, and they poured in, being human and curious as well as charged with the safety of the city, and he and the redhead got themselves sifted to the back of the growing crowd in the street, and out, and away.

  Tightened his grip, when his captive would have slid free of him.

  “No,” he said. “You come with me.”

  Limp acquiescence.

  “Name?”

  “Ailan.”

  “Good. Come.” Kept hold of t
hat arm all the way back to the inn, though Ailan offered no resistance. Had learnt not to, probably. Learnt to wait, and flit when the chance offered.

  “The fire won’t take them all,” Ahjvar told him. “Some are bound to survive, and they’ll be looking for you.”

  Silence. Tension, in the body he dragged along, walking faster than the young man found easy. A sort of shrinking, as if Ailan would make himself smaller.

  They climbed the wall into the innyard, Ahjvar boosting Ailan up, steadying him down. The stablehands were asleep and the watchdog’s beginning growl was silenced when he murmured, “Hush now, you know me. I’m no enemy to your house.” Nabbani words, but the words weren’t what mattered. The dog sniffed and licked his hand, wagging her tail.

  Wished sleep on the man and woman up in the loft, silence on the beasts, especially the camel he had come to call Scorpion. She was over-prone to grumble. Spider was more easy-going. Got them saddled out in the yard more by touch than the faint light of the lanthorn burning at the inn door, got his gear loaded. Back hurt, pulled, sharp and flaring.

  “You’re all blood,” Ailan said faintly. “Your back.” He still needed to smother an occasional cough in his sleeve.

  “Won’t kill me.” Deal with it later. Didn’t feel too bad.

  Got Spider to her knees, shoved Ailan up among the baggage. “Just hold on,” he told him. “I’ll lead her.”

  “I can’t—I’ve never—”

  “So tonight you learn. Not leaving you behind for them.” Spider heaved herself up, rocking, unfolding. He led both camels to the gate, unbarred it, closed it behind him. Pulled himself up Scorpion’s great height and lightning flared over his lower back, so he lost his breath and his ears rang as if he might faint. Cold hells, no, he was not being taken in one of the Five Cities again, ever again.

  Pushed the camels faster than they wanted to move in the night, finding an edge of light from somewhere, a greying…cat’s eyes, god’s eyes in the dark. Faint, distant scent of smoke, beyond the city’s normal lingering tang. Faint, distant murmur of sound, not enough to alarm this neighbourhood, and yet there, when he listened for it.