by K. Johansen
He was blind, and deaf, the world torn from him, he from the world. Lost. Darkness. Void. No earth, no sky, no light, no wind, no warmth.
He howled.
Jochiz was gone and he was lost, as he had been lost, when Jochiz found him, when Jochiz saved him, his brother—
My god, my brother—
He was held. He was—not alone. Never. Not in himself. He was—
They were—
We. My god and my brother.
Sayan.
He.
I.
Here, now, in this place I make again between us—and the voices that cried out in his mind, in his heart, the voices that had never been silent, that had raged and called to him unheard, buried deeper than the dead within, they were not this voice, they were silent, too, and they listened, he listened, with all that was in him, in this fearful place of nothingness. Like to like and what my own has woven, a bridge between—you hear me now. Like to like, by that bridge. Stand against him. Remember what you are.
Vartu. Shape of a name, taste of it. His enemy. His brother’s enemy. And he was Sarzahn, yes, and he must not trust, he must—his brother—
Was he your brother? A mild curiosity.
No. His—he found the shape of the idea, the thing it might have been, words.
Shield-bearer. Startled, considered that. The wrong word. Not a word of his people at all. The idea…not so inapt. Yes, shield-bearer, it might be. At his side. Following. Following into—
What was forbidden. What was—alien, overwhelming, they should not have, they should have debated, persuaded by other means—they had not understood—they had never dreamed what the world might do to them—
They sought to distract him. They sought to destroy. These voices, all of them—his enemies and his brother’s enemies and he thrust the words away.
No, Sarzahn. Listen. Can you hear? But it was not Vartu who shaped those words.
In his dreams, there were always voices. They whispered, but the wind took their words.
What wind?
There was wind. Sudden. Fierce. Clean.
The wind took him. He staggered upright. He hurt, every bone of him hurt, and he tasted blood, and he smelt her, Vartu. They had fought—
They had fought the devil Tu’usha. He and she. Together. Allies. But this was not that, not rubble, not ruin. Not the hard victory, Tu’usha defeated. Not Vartu standing by him, battered, weary, wounded and heartsick, telling him something—she—he could smell her but he could not see her—he needed to remember that day, the pain in his head, his eye, the woman, not the devil, yes, the beautiful, lean, dark, weary woman sitting in the dust by the caravanserai gate—
Gaguush. Her name had been Gaguush.
Gang-boss. Lover.
Wife. Waiting.
There was, distant in the darkness, a faint light. A warmth, and he was very cold.
Sun slanted, setting, throwing long spears of light through broken cloud, bright on the grass, and the purple dark between. Wind ran in waves, wind became horses, running…
Sheep on the hills, blue cattle, broad-horned, in the valleys. They raised their heads to watch the wind-horses running…
He thought he saw the wind-horses, running, though they were a myth older than this land, these gods, a myth, a poet’s fancy spun out of the rippling of the grass. He saw them, which no one ever had. Fleeting glimpse. White horse, and dark bay, running, running, running in darkness, silent, no ground beneath their hooves. They were with him here, in this emptiness that was where he…existed. Only that. Tall, swift horses of a breed he did not know, and they shed starlight, snowlight, like drops of water scattered fording some shallow stream. Fording the darkness, the night, the emptiness that was close and thick and smothering, muffling sound and sight and thought. He was the dog, chasing, hunting, through the darkness, to seize the horses and bring them down, because they were prey, they were enemy, they should not be in this place, and they ran, and ran, and kept ever ahead.
That was his brother’s—not his brother’s, his enemy’s thinking and he must outrun it, must leave it, shed it, let the thorns of memory comb it away and if he bled, let him bleed himself clean—
He had been running so long. Hours. Days. He had been running, following, yes, days, and he forgot; he saw them and forgot and every time he slept, every time he shut his eyes, he was in that place again, and the chase had no end, but always the end was in view, a glimpse, a perfection he could not reach. The horses ran to it, and he followed, and there was something in the darkness that reached, that dragged, that sought to hold him, but in the wake of the running horses it could not hold and all the hooks and chains were torn away.
There you are. All of you. Go—go!
She stood between him and his enemy. In the darkness, she was a fire, cold and silver, streaked with scarlet, a pillar of fire spreading into wings of flame and her back was to him and her sword held against—the emptiness, and what lay beyond it. The thing that hungered yet for him reached, flung jagged grappling claws that held him and he slipped from them to run.
Her blood was in his mouth.
No. The taste of earth and grass and sun, and the horses, a sure path through what he could not see.
Darkness shrieked, and hissed, and commanded. It fell away, flung from this place by cold light and a sweeping sword.
But he was racing the horses, and must follow where they led.
The island of golden light and grass and the sheep on the hills and the blue cattle and the long low ridge of hills was so far distant, a small thing, run as they would they could not reach it, run as he would—a world held in a child’s cupped hands.
Look,Pakdhala said, Trout said, Gultage said, Look, papa, look, do you see? Now do you see, at last?
Do you see the hills? Do you hear the black larks singing, and the killdeer cry? Do you smell the earth, the sun-warm clay, the grass bruised beneath our feet as we ride, the earth opened by the plough, the sweet rain laying the dust?
Do you feel it, opening for you, opening within you, unfolding…?
So close, the horses, running, running, and he could hear the thunder of their hooves, of his heart, exhausted, running, running, he had been running so long, chasing the horses, beautiful, wild, free, not enemy, not prey, only what he would be, and there was no scent of them in the air, only grass, and hay, and bitter greens, the taste harsh and choking in his mouth, his throat, and—
“Hawthorn for a god,” a man’s voice said, a stranger’s voice, soft but with depth to it, a voice to shape song with, quiet and close. He spoke aloud, as if he stood by Sarzahn’s shoulder. But he was running, running after the horses he could not overtake. Very matter-of-fact, the man’s voice, though his words were meaningless. What language he spoke, Sarzahn could not have said. “And cornel for truth.”
“Yes,” said a voice which was his own, and he did not know why he said yes, what he agreed to, because the words meant nothing.
“And the white-flowering elder tree last, brother. Which is rebirth.”
The horses—he was almost upon them, black-legged white and dark, dark bay, tall and fleet and scattering starlight as though they kicked up the winter’s first soft snow—were running, running, and they plunged from the darkness, the emptiness, through into light and he cried out— howl, cry—leapt after them, desperate not to lose them, not to be left behind, into the golden light, into warm sun and green grass and the singing of the black larks. The horses leapt again into the sky, creatures insubstantial as an image on water, running, running, further and further, dwindling away, snow beneath them, or perhaps it was cloud, and a cold wind rushed past, carrying the scent of pines, and they were gone. Holla-Sayan was on his knees on the hill of his god, and his god was dead and not-dead, an unborn ache beneath his heart; the hill was empty of what should be there. He was weeping like a child for death first met, on his knees, and a sword lay against his neck, hot breath and a predator’s fangs bared at his ear. His chest hurt, scream
ed its wounding, and even through the breast of his brigandine the hot blood was soaking, but the weapon that had dealt the blow had been spun out into chains and bindings, and now they were broken and gone. He bled, but the body—it knew what it should be, it healed itself, and Sarzahn snarled at the pain of it, the treachery of his lieutenant, of Jochiz. And still a sword lay against his neck.
“Is it you, this time, dog?”
But the devil did not wait for an answer, lifted the sword away and put her hand there instead, and then pulled him to her, arms around him, rocking him, and the bear huffed and nosed against him, licked salt tears; he was Holla-Sayan, cold and shaking and weak as if pulled from drowning, and he was held close within the compass of the bodies of his friends.
“Sarzahn,” Moth said. “So. Sarzahn. Cold hells, Holla-Sayan, it’s good to have you back.”
It was…yes. But…
Someone missing. Someone lost. He remembered—
Intensity. Rare laughter, pressing close in the night. A weight and a warmth in the curve of his arm.
Jolanan. Her name. He remembered. But he was exhausted beyond bearing, beyond thought. Months struggling in the darkness, months lost, screaming, straining to hear the voice, the voices that were his own crying out his name…
He needed to seek her. He had hurt her. Siege and war and Gods-damned traitor Jochiz…he needed to find her. Tell her—what? Didn’t know, what could possibly be said between them now. But needed, still—
But Jochiz at the gates of Marakand—
“Rest, brother,” the god Gurhan said. “Rest a little. Ulfhild holds the city walls.”
It was easy, to fall away into the welcoming darkness.
“Let him sleep,” Moth said, and Mikki put an anxious nose to the man’s face as he dropped himself down, falling almost, as if even to sit up demanded too much. Mikki huffed and lay down alongside him, for what comfort and warmth he might give. To watch over him. Holla-Sayan looked, in his human self, terrible. Dark as bruising all about his sunken eyes, and a grey pallor on him that made old scars stand out white like snow. The bloody wound in his chest did not help, though it looked to be healing. Hair all loose, knotted in rat’s-nests, and greying at the temples, which he had not been.
“Will he be well?” Mikki asked, trying to speak low, but the rumble of his voice made Holla stir. Only to press up against him, though, back to his ribs. Comfort, maybe, he took from that. Trust. Touched his muzzle to the man’s hair.
“Will any of us be?” Moth asked. “Ya, I think.”
She stroked his head, touched Holla-Sayan too, a caress as if she left a sleeping child, and went back to her runes and her warding. Adding signs. Singing, soft and low, to wind them into the whole, building, breath by breath, another layer into the defences of the god.
CHAPTER XXXI
…the moon is just past its last quarter, and it nine days since Yeh-Lin left Marakand, riding the winds to Tiypur in the west
A hot supper. A proper hot supper, and a bath, or a bath first, a bath and hot food and sleep in a bed and most of all, no fear, no watching, listening, alert at every shadow, every sound. Would they go first to the ambassador’s house, or to the god’s hill? The priests would have something hot for their supper, that dish of eggs and vegetables and cheese, perhaps, all wrapped in pastry, a Marakander speciality, or just the everyday sort of meal of broad-beans and vegetables cooked together in a crock, with a bit of meat, rich with garlic and oil. Or if the ambassador’s house, and in time for the formal evening meal that all the household took together, as was Imperial Nabbani custom, then there might be a variety of foods, meats and vegetables and noodles, with spicy sauces to dip into, or a simple meal of rice with fermented vegetables and salt-fish, or perhaps the dumplings Ahjvar was fond of. But he’d be happy with a skewer of roasted goat and onions from a market-vendor’s stall. Anything hot and savoury that he could eat without fear. Ailan was lost in thoughts of food, the scent, the taste, trudging in a dream. They had eaten little in the last three days. Ahjvar, he thought, had eaten nothing since the day before. He hadn’t set out expecting to feed two, and they had travelled far more slowly than the Rihswera would have done on his own, even without dodging pursuit, though no hunters had overtaken them since the gully of the waterfall.
Ailan had actually taken thought to carry some supplies with him, when he followed, but not nearly enough. Another lesson learnt.
Smoke. He could not see the city, but he could smell its smoke. See how the air smudged a little, to the south. Something he would not have noticed, before he went into the Malagru. They were close. Could not let their guard down, even here, but it was hard enough to put one foot in front of another. There was a part of him that wanted to stop, to huddle down and say he was done, he was dying. Stupid. He’d been hungry as this before. Worse. He’d scrounged through refuse heaps by the market square, snatched for rotten fruit, shoving beggars—other beggars— aside. Cried when a stray dog as starved as he snapped a burnt crust from his hand. That was before the red priests and their mission-house and the soup and porridge they offered. They’d done some good in the world, and he’d burnt them down. Hands on this throat, choking. Evil. Charity a mask for evil, charity a thing muddled with their need to win souls for their god, good a means to a foul end, and murder, and…he hoped it might be the pastry with the eggs and cheese. He thought that was perhaps his favourite.
He should learn to cook. There was no reason he could not learn to cook, as well as use a sword. He would certainly make no scribe. Nikeh left him in no doubt of that. His head ached strangely but that was being hungry, and he was not starving, in no danger of it; soon they would come to Marakand, down a track along the cliffs, to cross the road and walk to the gates without fear, and—
He walked into Ahjvar’s back.
“Sorry.” Steadying himself, a hand braced against Ahjvar. He looked around for cover, shocked into wakefulness, terrified how hazy his thoughts, his awareness had grown. Thorns growing all about them and he didn’t know where the threat was.
“Ah, cold hells!” Ahjvar said, with his head flung up as if listening to something distant. And he dropped to his knees on the stony ground. Ailan crouched by him, reaching for an arrow, looking around wildly, seeing nothing.
“Get me wood,” Ahjvar said.
“Wood?” he repeated. But he didn’t ask why, that was something understood, ask questions after, not when Ahjvar spoke like that. He was already scrambling up over the rocks. There was a litter of dead twigs under the thorn trees. “What kind of wood?” He could maybe hack some bigger branches away with his knife but Ahjvar had sounded so urgent.
“Anything that’ll burn. Now!” Ahjvar was scratching lines on the stones with the point of a dagger. Writing, not Nabbani characters. “Alder for flame,” he said, Praitannec words and all the Nabbani overtones slipped away. It was beautiful. It did something, inside Ailan, as if the sounds were a home for him. Maybe his mother had spoken so, maybe his father, if ever he had one. Even when he didn’t know the words and had to guess, or ask, they gave him that feeling.
“Yew for a devil. Hermit’s pepper for binding.”
Ailan was gathering the broken twigs even as he listened and tried to watch, to understand what need drove this sudden spell-casting. Thorns jabbed, stuck into him, but if he used his hands lightly they did not strike deep. Swept them into the skirt of his coat and scrambled back clutching it up.
“Good,” Ahjvar said, and piled them all in a loose heap between his three—symbols? words? Laughed, even as he did so. “Hawthorn. Kingship and a god both. But we want myrtle.” He wrote in the air with the dagger, and Ailan could see the lines, like frost, tiny flakes of it, sparkling a moment before they melted away in the sunlight. “Myrtle sets free.”
The pile of dry thorns burst into flame, snapping and spitting, and Ahjvar rocked back a little on his heels, in time to keep the swinging braids of the hair before his ears from being set alight. He pulled one of his brac
elets off his wrist, not the heavy golden ones with the cat’s heads terminals, but the thin black braid of silk.
Not silk. He threw it on the fire and for a moment it lay there, untouched, but twisting, as if it were a live thing, and a white smoke coiled up. Then it burst into flame as well, a dirty grey smoke then, stinking. It was hair. Ailan had wondered, to tell the truth, if it were his god’s hair, some lover’s token, though it seemed a bit irreverent really.
It was over in a moment more. The hair turned to white ash, a braid of it clinging to the swift-burning thorns, and then it broke and sifted away, and the twigs too were crumbling, falling into nothing, consumed.
“Take care, old woman,” Ahjvar said in Nabbani.
They watched in silence a little longer, but the fire died quickly, no charcoal remaining to smoulder, nothing but ash, and the characters Ahjvar had scratched on the stones turned from the white marks a rain would wash away to rusty stains. Ahjvar got to his feet and scuffed a foot across it all, scattering ash, flinging the stones aside. Offered Ailan a hand to pull himself up.
“What happened?” he asked, shrugging on his pack again. It was far too heavy, empty though it was. The sword. He took up his bow. It didn’t seem as though Ahjvar were going to answer. He was already picking a way down another steep slope that looked something only goats should dare.
But he stopped and looked back. Waiting for Ailan to find a way down to him.
“The old woman…”
“Yeh-Lin,” Ailan said, as they went on. “Has something happened?” And on another thought, “Is Nikeh all right?”
“I don’t know. But Yeh-Lin was…her wings were clipped, a little. All this time. And she needed to be free.”
“Is that bad??
“Yes.”
“Is—has the city fallen?”
“I don’t know.” Ahjvar frowned. Held out a steadying hand, stopped where he was, a narrow place now, squatting down to study the way below. Ailan sank down beside him, grateful for the rest, so soon. “She’s—far away, Ailan. I don’t know what’s happened in the city.” He pointed, marking a route. Hunting signs, not words. Secrets of the Wind in the Reeds, the unseen agents of the empire, which possibly even the Rihswera of the god should not be teaching to a godless Taren whore. But he obviously thought he should. Practice, always practice. Ailan still didn’t know for what. Maybe Ahjvar didn’t either.