Beneath Ceaseless Skies #136

by Christian K. Martinez

  “You could kill me, you know,” she said, “If it would soothe your anger. Tell the boys, and your Elders, I was mad, I was planning to kill them. You’re Kurtana, you read people, master their ways, right? Could tell them you were consigning my soul to peace, the only way I’d know it now. I was Gholish, wild, uncontrollable. They still say those things of us? I have been out of things a while.... Doesn’t matter. But you could kill me, I wouldn’t stop you. I deserve it. I do not think it would help you, though. Killing rarely does.”

  She was ready for it too, ready for it to end. To return to her father. She didn’t know what would be next for her. What to do, without the old Ghol. Without what was. She could visit again, she supposed. But she was tired, done; she’d have welcomed that tower falling on her, that column collapsing into inferno against her throat. Release.

  Tsani didn’t end her, didn’t move for the longest moment; a stretched second full of tusks. Sagraille shook the thought away. Thoughts came true sometimes. Thoughts like that.

  She didn’t see what happened in the girl, what changed, but something did. Tsani relaxed, losing a tension that Sagraille hadn’t noticed was there until it wasn’t. She glided forward to kneel at the table, though calling the waterfall of silk and almost-exposed skin she displayed kneeling was probably insulting. It was more beautiful than that. A painting from the medium of motion. With her hands folded delicate steeples just on the edge of the table, Sagraille almost scoffed. The girl even cast a shadow with elegance.

  With one finger Tsani gestured to the board, unsmiling, but there was something almost like a smile behind her eyes.

  “So this game? You can teach me?” she asked.

  “Hua? It’s a soldier’s game, about war,” Sagraille answered, cautiously. Tsani hadn’t seemed particularly favored towards the profession. War was taboo enough already here, without buried pain.

  “But you could teach me?”

  “Yes, yes I could. Would you like me to?”

  Tsani nodded.

  It was hard starting. Fenn’d taught her to play, forever ago. They’d been wasteful, using Hour-spells for pieces instead of carving a set. Using the magic of Ghol as if it would be forever. Imagining time like an endless thing. He’d been a fun sort. Easy with smiles.

  It was hard remembering him.

  * * *

  They played Hua for weeks with barely a word between them, but many moments. The first thing Sagraille taught her was being honest. Let the self through, into the game. It was what Fenn had told her, after telling her she was a bad liar and shouldn’t try her hand at a thing like that.

  Tsani glared in the beginning, almost without pause. Hua was a hard game; Sagraille’d been lucky they even had a board, even if they’d only placed it as a decoration. A piece of home.

  She taught patiently, in a rough sergeant’s voice. “Remember your pieces, the flow of worlds,” she said a hundred times.

  “Hua is a study of balance, as complex as living, but stated clear. Simple in basis, manifold in practice. There are soldiers of Metal that cut the guardians of Wood, who feed the beasts of Fire, whose hearts are dimmed by the messengers of Wind, who govern the shapers of the Earth, which uphold the dancers of the Water that rust the soldiers. Except -”

  Tsani groaned at each “except,” rolling her eyes, but she absorbed it. Sagraille beat her, again and again, but the girl improved. Grudgingly. Game by game.

  After each, Tsani prepared the board again. Sagraille said nothing, watching her with the Eye. The young woman struggled with defeat, raging, quieting the rage. Calming herself of the “red ways”. Mastering herself, over and again. They called it Quiescence, or something.

  Tsani talked sometimes. About old lessons, friends that weren’t really friends. How she’d excelled through every program to become one of the youngest Kurtana in the Temple’s history. There was no better dancer; few better with the Elements even among the Cousins. All she needed was tempering. No one had challenged her before. Except Fa, Hurogi. She complained about them like a child would; how they hated her. Picked on her. She didn’t understand why. Were they jealous?

  “Maybe it’s ‘cause you whine too much, when you’re the best in their class,” Saigraille answered. Tsani’d gone quiet for days after, only speaking again for their brief expedition to the stables.

  Mours. Sagraille could see him, could feel him from her room, but wanted to touch him. He’d saved her, like he always did. Good ole horse, coat white as bone, hooves black as night, eyes a midnight grey, spinning and uncertain. He was marvelous but not unscarred. Lines of old pain knotted his muscles, marred his hide; each slowed him slightly, dragging him down. He couldn’t go on forever, and neither could she.

  * * *

  The stable hands said the big horse had nearly killed a few of the stallions when they’d tried challenging him in the field. He’d struck them down with his hooves until they bowed to him like men, bloody. The story made Tsani tremble inside; she wasn’t used to thinking of horses as soldiers. The violence still made her uneasy.

  She greeted him bravely after hearing it, though, or tried. He’d taken his rider here, to a place of safety. All alone. How could compassion such as that be matched with the violence he’d done? She swept into his stall, touching his muzzle, resting her face against his and breathing him in. He was a strange beast; animals had always calmed to her, but he felt different. He was proud in the way people were proud, and it showed in every line of his body, like some sort of storybook horse. It filled her with a sort of awe.

  He stiffened at her touch, ready to attack but relaxing. Her magic wouldn’t work on him, nor did she try it. She gave him her trust. He snorted kindly to her, nuzzling. Grateful for a warm touch. Calming her somehow, quieting something in her. Sagraille stood behind them, in the doorway. Tsani could feel the both of them gazing over her shoulder.

  They stayed maybe ten minutes before Sagraille’s legs shook and she was gripping the column of smooth wood beside her to stay upright. Tsani danced back, spinning on the heels of her feet, confused as she saw her charge.

  Tsani pressed herself in the crook of Sagraille’s arm like a cane, pulling her from the stables, bowing head to Mours. She felt a question trembling in herself.

  “He’s killed people, hasn’t he? That.... Mours. He’s a war-horse, yes? He’s a nice horse, but the Ghol give them armor and ride them into battle, making them trample the weak, is that true?” she asked. Accused.

  “He’s been with me since the start. The only horse that would follow me through the Hourglass doors; practically charged them. So yes. We’ve killed together. Often; sometimes. Some of them were evil men, evil women. Some of them weren’t. Mostly they were just people. People that would hurt what I loved and cared for if I didn’t hurt them first. When I was young that was a broad list. Then got twisted. Fear’ll do that, twist things.” Sagraille sighed, leaning more on Tsani’s shoulder, as if heavily weighted. The soldier-woman wasn’t happy. Didn’t have the sound of past enjoyment in her. There wasn’t guilt either, simply. Simply sorrow.

  “When you talk about those things, you sound tired. Didn’t you enjoy it? The killing? Isn’t that why you were a Soldier?” Tsani couldn’t quite believe what she felt, what she read in the woman’s furrowed brow. This woman was a warrior, evil, adept of the red ways... murderer. She was evil, wasn’t she? A pause. Tensing of the muscles running through and through, making Tsani almost tense in turn.

  “Like it?!” Sagraille growled, shaking her head firmly enough to nearly make herself fall. Tsani struggled to keep her up, blinking in shock. Tears thundered to her eyes from the fury rushing through her from Sagraille; the woman’s heart screamed. Unconsciously Tsani soothed it, whispering, letting water in through her gentle whimper, the strength of earth gravitate from her bones; a breath of wind to carry way the vigor of Sagraille’s vast pains.

  It was the first time she’d tried to help the soldier, the woman, at all. She’d played the game. She’d strugg
led to see something, to keep open the eyes. First Standard of the Spark.

  “I’ve never liked it. I liked the violence, I loved the artistry of combat, but never the killing. It’s why I left home at all, so that if I had to, if I had to kill, it would be for something I loved. That’s what I found in Ghol. It’s why I traveled forward, why I took the last door to the end of time, why I stole the Eye, so that if I killed, I would never do so blindly.” Sagraille’s eye shifted, changing. Black with a white and slitted pupil, spinning in its socket, letting out an eerie light that twisted shadows, almost wailing. Tsani lowered her eyes as Sagraille continued, unable to stand the trembling pain that came out of that eye. Oh what wounds.

  “So that I could be strong enough that I wouldn’t have to strike at all. That’s what Cei showed me. What the Barons stole when they killed her. Idiots. Thought we’d weaken. We’d shatter. They fantasized she’d been the architect of all our war against them, when she’d been the one to give them peace. To hold us back. There was no joy there; pain and fear, on all sides.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tsani replied, shaken, thinking. She didn’t meet the older woman’s eyes again, even when they started playing again back in the room. And not for days afterwards. She didn’t talk much for a long time.

  Sagraille left her to it quietly, which she appreciated. Focusing on the game, on teaching, on forgetting. Every stretch of her muscles screamed of pain to Tsani’s sight, not monstrosity. The slight twinges, the careful movements. Her rough voice didn’t speak of callousness but of a well won compassion. It was hard for Tsani to adapt, seeing the woman through a Kurtana’s eyes. Looking at her with other than hate.

  They slept at the table, laying down on mats the boys brought them for the dark. There was tea, and simple hearty food. Sagraille began to heal, wounds sealing over, muscles strengthening. She took to pacing while Tsani considered moves on the board.

  They received three messages in as many days, each of them from Cousins. Tiny letters painted by graceful hands. One was on a blue slip scented with sandalwood. Mei. The others with fragrances of fruit, on white cards. Hurogi and Fa. Tsani waved them away without a glance, focusing back to the board after each, biting her lip. She was doing her work; she was focused now. The studied patterns in which she moved her hands, the way she grew from teaching. It eased something in Sagraille, the old pains; progress was being made. Slowly, with only the eddies of magic, but nonetheless. And Sagraille would not trust a major working; it had to be a little at a time. No letters were needed, no instructions.

  Tsani focused more intently on the board each time. Leveling plains into fens with the Magi piece, shifting the world. Burning City, losing still. Growing icy wardens on mountain side. Tsani answered each message the same. Not petulantly, but polite.

  “If I am right for this,” Tsani said, “as they’ve decided, they should trust me. Or am I not the painter of coi? A dancer of moonbeams? Am I not who I am?”

  Tsani was gentle enough with the messengers that they smiled when they left instead of growing angry. She charmed them, but did not reply. Or make comment on the letters. Not once.

  Sagraille snorted after the last finally left; he’d been persistent. Forceful, almost. As forceful as any man in Temple. He was new, as all Fa’s attendants were, new and untempered, with too much flame. Tsani’d snuffed it out with a shrug, redirecting, balancing; the silk of her dress slipping over her shoulder an inch away from immodesty. He’d blushed, she’d smiled; back to the board.

  “Isn’t it rude to barely even read them?” asked Sagraille. “You’re playing games after all. Hardly pressing, they’re your elders.”

  “It would be, but I’m working. They understand. Or should.”

  “You’re playing games, learning from me. Slowly.”

  “I’m working.”

  Tsani smiled, one of those captured-with-a-paintbrush smiles that she knew almost annoyed the older woman. Sagraille shrugged instead, moving wooden soldiers to her mountain, kindling them to melt her icy wardens. A river flowed down. They played.

  * * *

  Cousin Fa’s wail struck its way through Temple like an axe cutting wicker-weave, and Sagraille was awake. Readying. The building shook with her. With the knowing of her. Half-phantoms of every dance she’d stepped, every song, poem, masterful glance, glittered through the halls like dark whims.

  The girl woke half-mumbling Hua moves and rules clauses, shaking without knowing why.

  Sagraille smiled. “Wood takes Mountain, groups of three. Like a dam, letting loose Waters, charge....”

  Tsani blinked the sleep away, trembling. Sagraille could see the thoughts floating round her head. Still dark. No birds. What’d that awful sound been? Wait. No birds at all, not even the owls. Not even the littlest crickets. “What?” she blurted.

  “Quiet, girl. Quiet now,” snapped Sagraille. The eye shone like a red lamp, throbbing, pulsing deeper and crimson, throwing shadows across the room and into corners; scanning past the walls, into Temple.

  Tsani obeyed, sitting up. Quiet as grass and gravestones. Not a sound.

  Through the Eye, Sagraille felt Fa.

  Rage, rising up uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Almost a century of pain, of spooled-in wonders, unleashing. The other Cousins were waking but slowly. Too slowly. They weren’t ready all at once, in a start; they weren’t warriors, they wouldn’t stop her in time. Fa had been of their strongest; now going strange, wild, Banshi.

  Kurtana without control. Without humanity. She looked to Tsani. The girl was scared. Vulnerable, but still poised, in that practiced serenity. It was only the surface of fear; there was something holding it at her eyes, away from her heart. A trusting comfort laid on her face.

  Trusting her.

  That look was like a kick to the side of Sagraille’s head, and she almost ran. Gathered herself, fetched Mours, and left. Almost. Someone trusted her again. Someone living.

  It hurt.

  Maybe there was a heart, after all. Maybe not entirely gone. Tsani was in danger. Sagraille was weak. Didn’t matter. Hours and Aeons, it hurt.

  She steadied herself, whispering, pulling time around her like a vice, and commanding it. Not seconds, but hours. Not minutes, but days. The smell of dust and blood didn’t reach them; the sounds of snapping wood and crushing stone didn’t penetrate. A bubble formed, coalescing into shape around them.

  “I am going to show you something no one has seen outside of Ghol, or maybe even in her, for many years. Do you understand?

  Tsani nodded. Still confused, but not stupid. Quiet. Trusting. When had the girl started trusting her? Didn’t matter now. Time to go.

  Sagraille gathered a traveling-time to herself, by strength of will. The sound of hoof-beats; the path of herds gathered round them. Spindly nine-legged horses took shape—avatara of time. They crowded into her body, into Tsani’s. She hadn’t worked a thing like this in far too long. It thrilled her, an electric tingle on her tongue .

  “Take my hand,” she ordered. She could barely see, with the avatara filling her. Only through her Eye. She gathered the strength of Mours too, and he was suddenly with them.

  Her body shook, blood seeping from the most recent of her wounds. Tsani’s hand was in hers; it had been for a long time. Time?

  They took a step; distance bent. Into the hall. Another, into the courtyard. Tsani retched; the girl was crying but she didn’t stop. The Banshi was above them, no longer resembling a woman. It screamed, the sound smashing down on them. Focused and absolute. Ripping stone and earth, and human flesh. The sphere cracked, was going to crack. Sagraille needed to pull it in close, couldn’t. Not with Tsani, not with Mours. He knew it too.

  He neighed, eyes rolling back. There was a moment before he died when they looked at each other. She would never stop owing him, thanking him. He’d carried her a long while. Her time now, to carry others.

  He leaped past the sphere of hourglass strength, muscle and skin flensed by the Banshi’s maelstrom. Bones crunched
and he screamed—another step. Away from it. So sorry. Get away. Couldn’t help him. It hurt; it all hurt again. Couldn’t save him. But could save her. Tsani. They’d both save her. He’d made the choice. It was done. Focus. Almost out of the Temple. One more, through the Arches. Another, on the hill, beneath a tree. Ready to run, to take Tsani and run—

  “I have words for you, Blade-Saint,” he said, “and your charge. There is something I would like her to see.”

  He shouldn’t have been able to see them, let alone stop them. But he did. He was leaning against the bark of an emerald tree. At a folding of his hands, the balance of time stopped; the travel days and herd hours eased out of her, healing as they went. Wasn’t right; wasn’t how the magic worked. He didn’t care. Kurtana. Sagraille was barely winded, but the cold stung, numbing her fingers. Her hands. The numbness, any numbness, scared her now. The pain was better. She flexed the fingers, the night bit them; better. Her hand squeezed Tsani’s tight.

  “Cousin?” the girl whispered.

  Cousin Hurogi looked frail without his paint, dressed in billowy breeches and bandages wrapped along his arms instead of robes or dresses. His bald head wasn’t shining; didn’t display the lengthy magic of paints and whirls the Cousins so adored. His skin was wrinkled; he was an old man. His eyes were red, and streaks of tears scarred him. He wore a single necklace of jade beads and a golden teardrop in his right ear. His nails were painted night-sky purple, small gems glued in flecks like stars; miniature suns. A moon on each thumb. He smelled like cloth. His shaded eyes squinted slightly through the dark, large on his face, locked in the direction of Temple. The Banshi. Fa.

  “My Cousin is dead, my Sister is dead,” he said, “For she was as my sister, little Tsani-spiteful. Spiteful, but not so wrongly.” He closed his eyes as he spoke. Gathering himself. Almost angry, but giving it away. The night took it from him.

  “You were always proud,” he continued, “clever and proud. Young and proud. It is hard, for some of us, to bear that. You will be a great woman. Greatness is hard to accommodate without the wisdom of age. See already, we were small minded. We schemed. Yet, for you a Knight bleeds. A dead heart beats at the center of a sandstorm. Kurtana, I think, Kurtana. I was wrong. We were wrong.”