5: The Holy Road

by Ginn Hale

  John pulled the blankets in around himself. Laurie had taken this so much better than he had. Of course, she hadn’t really believed John when he had told her that she was the Rifter. Chalk another one up for Laurie, John thought grimly. She’d been right. He wondered if she’d give him a smug little grin when he told her. Probably.

  That revelation could certainly wait until they were all safely back in Nayeshi.

  There was a soft knock at the infirmary door. Then John heard the door open.

  “Jahn?” Ravishan’s voice was hushed.

  John wasn’t sure that he was ready to talk to Ravishan. But he couldn’t hide behind these curtains forever.

  “Over here.”

  Ravishan walked to his bed quickly and opened the canvas panels. His face was pinkish from scrubbing and his black hair still wet. Thick white bandages engulfed his right arm. Ravishan crouched down beside the bed. He offered John a shy smile but then winced as the motion pulled at the tender scars on either side of his mouth.

  John gazed at Ravishan’s mouth. The small scars curved up from his lips, giving the illusion of a slight smile.

  If John hadn’t been there in Candle Alley when Dayyid had attacked Ravishan, then the wounds would have been far worse. They would have nearly severed Ravishan’s lower jaw. The scars remaining after Hann’yu treated them would have formed two pale lines running almost to Ravishan’s ears. John remembered stealing quick glances at those scars and wondering how a man got them. Now he knew.

  John felt suddenly cold. He glanced up into Ravishan’s excited eyes. Even without the Prayerscars, John recognized Kyle’s face looking back at him.

  All this time he had been living with Ravishan and he had never realized. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that they were the same person. John had recognized the similarity between them the first day he had seen Ravishan, but he hadn’t understood that the gates crossed time as well as space. Kyle had been a man in his early thirties, while Ravishan was a boy in his late teens. John couldn’t have known then that the gates had brought him back through time to Kyle’s youth.

  But now it was obvious.

  “I have good news.” Ravishan pulled a stool up to John’s bedside and sat. “The Issusha’im Oracles found the Rifter.”

  “Oh?” John did his best to seem surprised.

  “I have been chosen to be the Kahlil.” Despite his lowered voice, Ravishan’s tone reverberated with pride. “Last night I was bound to the Rifter.”

  “How did that go?” John asked. It was all he could manage.

  “He’s just a skinny boy.” Ravishan gave a soft laugh. “I could hardly believe it until the issusha’im struck him. The ground beneath him burned to black glass, but the issusha’im’s spell didn’t even scratch him.”

  “What about you? Did it hurt you?” John eyed Ravishan’s bandaged right arm.

  “They needed my blood for the binding,” Ravishan replied.

  John gave a tired nod. Most rituals that Ravishan endured involved the spilling of his blood. So much so that, at twenty-one, he hardly took note of it.

  John studied him, contemplating the future he already knew.

  After fifteen years of spells, passages through the Great Gates and the Gray Space, Ravishan’s right arm would be a mess of ropey tissue. He would wear bandages with the same ease that other people wore sunglasses.

  “For a moment,” Ravishan went on proudly, “I felt as if I were there with him. I could smell the air there and feel the heat of the sun. I even heard a girl call out his name.”

  “His name?” John asked. Alarm prickled through him.

  “Toffee,” Ravishan said firmly.

  John nodded again, relieved. That was his nickname—Laurie had screamed it when she had seen him caught in that white bolt.

  Ravishan grinned but then lowered his voice. “Once I receive the blessings of the Usho, it will be time to cross to Nayeshi. We’ll be free of this place.”

  John had seen the blessings in holy texts. They were embodied by the Prayerscars, those black tattoos over the Kahlil’s eyes. Tattoos that would make Ravishan’s ignorant roommate wonder what kind of freak he was.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” Ravishan asked.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, you look…are you angry at me?” Ravishan lowered his gaze to his hands. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry about what happened in Candle—”

  “No. It’s not that.” Everything that had happened in Candle Alley now seemed utterly insignificant. “I’m not angry. I’m staring because I’m amazed by you.”

  Ravishan flushed.

  John felt almost absurdly proud of Ravishan and of the man he would become. He would endure years alone in Nayeshi. He would never abandon his duty.

  “It’s one thing to stumble into another world like Bill, Laurie and I did,” John said quietly. “But to choose to go—to abandon everything you know and give yourself to a foreign world—that takes true courage.”

  During their time together in Nayeshi, John had seen Kyle watching the world around him with fearless fascination. He had eaten apples as if they were precious rarities. He had studied coffee pots, phone bills, baseball games and even sock puppets with a benevolent interest. John hadn’t been so accepting of Basawar’s alien qualities. Kyle had remained true to his purpose as a Kahlil, and yet he had seemed to cherish Nayeshi.

  “I haven’t done it yet,” Ravishan said.

  “But you will,” John replied.

  Ravishan nodded as if he, too, knew that it had already happened. He was so assured, and he was right to be, John supposed.

  “When you arrive,” John asked, “what will you be expected to do?”

  “Find the Rifter.” Ravishan shrugged. “Watch over him and wait until the Usho sends word to me.”

  “You mean once they decide to unleash the Rifter?” John frowned, thinking of the stories of destruction and the Rifters’ horrifying deaths.

  “Maybe they’ll want me to bring him back, but who knows? They may decide against it.” Ravishan sounded pleased with the prospect. “If so, I’ll remain in Nayeshi and continue to watch over him my whole life.”

  “Just watch over him?” As he spoke, John realized that when Ravishan discussed the future he was also describing John’s past. Kyle had been living with him for years, waiting for word.

  “Almost nothing in Basawar can harm the Rifter,” Ravishan said. “But in Nayeshi, he’s vulnerable. And he’s just a child. I’ll have to protect him.”

  An odd sense of tenderness and sorrow welled through John. For at least a decade, Kyle must have been there, watching over him. He supposed he would have found the idea sinister if he hadn’t known Ravishan. It was too easy to imagine Ravishan, scarred, tattooed, utterly alien and completely alone, looking at John’s comfortable life with longing.

  John leaned forward and very gently kissed Ravishan on the lips. His skin was warm. The faint fragrances of daru’sira and istana soap clung to him. John remembered that same smell on Kyle, but he hadn’t known what it was then.

  John said, “You’ve been up all night, haven’t you?”

  “I was too excited to sleep.” Ravishan slipped his left hand under the blankets and curled his fingers around John’s hand.

  “We’re going to Nayeshi,” Ravishan whispered.

  John returned his grip. Thinking of the past and future, of himself as the Rifter and Ravishan as the Kahlil, overwhelmed him. It rendered him almost unable to think at all. But simply holding Ravishan’s hand calmed him. He couldn’t undo the past, nor could he know how he had already altered the future. But that didn’t matter. What he really cared about was captured in the warmth of their interlaced fingers. What mattered was the life the two of them made together now.

  “So, you’ll have to go to the Black Tower in Nurjima to receive the Usho’s blessings?” John asked.

  “It’s a pilgrimage.” Ravishan straightened reflexively at the subject of his
duties. His fingers slid free of John’s grip. “I have to travel overland, no passages through the Gray Space. I’ll go by tahldi at first. Then I get to ride the train from Gisa to Vundomu and then all the way to Nurjima. And after the Usho has ordained me, I’ll return to Vundomu to take the Rifter’s bone and carve the yasi’halaun.”

  John frowned. “How long will you be gone?”

  “It could be as long as three months depending upon the travel conditions.” Ravishan leaned a little closer to him. “But I am allowed an attendant.”

  “An attendant?” John raised his brows at the prospect. “Who’s the lucky man?”

  “Any ushvun of my choosing.” Ravishan gave John a coy sidelong glance and John grinned.

  He sat up. “Would it be presumptuous of me to assume that I’m going with you?”

  “Very.” Ravishan smiled. “But you’d also be right.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “As soon as you’re well enough to travel,” Ravishan replied.

  John sighed and tossed his blankets back. “I suppose I’d better get out of bed, then.”

  It was really as simple as that, John supposed. He might feel alienated and overwhelmed, but he couldn’t elude his life. He couldn’t take back a single realization or action. He just had to get up and go on. Seeing the way Ravishan smiled at him, feeling the tenderness of his touch, it didn’t seem so difficult.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  John hadn’t expected to feel so stunned by the speed and power of traveling by train. But years in Rathal’pesha had ingrained his sense of distance to a matter of footsteps. Now it felt as if he were flying. There was something exciting and energizing about feeling the rumble and force of the massive engine under their feet. Swaths of white steam swept over them like walls of parting mist, revealing new lands.

  Beside him, Ravishan and Alidas leaned against the guardrail of the passenger car, discussing the fortress-city of Vundomu, where they would stop before traveling on to Nurjima.

  John had been surprised when he’d discovered Alidas among the multitude of herders and traders traveling south to the Gisa railway. Alidas had confessed, with an embarrassed expression, that his knee had grown worse—too undependable for Commander Tashtu to have a use for him—and he was being sent to Nurjima for treatment.

  Ravishan and Alidas had hit it off surprisingly well and even before their caravan had reached the train yard in Gisa, the two of them were snickering over obscure religious jokes and amiably debating the values of the new breech-loading guns.

  The smell of coal and oil rushed over John. He gazed out as autumn trees and golden taye fields whipped past his line of sight. Looking back, the mountains of the north were only blue shadows against the darkening sky.

  “What do you think of your first train ride, Jahn?” Alidas shouted over the roar of the engine.

  “It’s certainly a smoother passage than a tahldi’s back,” John replied and Alidas nodded in agreement.

  “Just as fast, but a train doesn’t tire and it can carry huge loads.” Alidas informed him. “Men, tahldi, guns. These things could move entire armies in a matter of days.”

  “It smells terrible,” Ravishan shouted. In spite of his words, he was smiling. “But I’ll grant you that it is an amazing machine.”

  After a week of bouncing along on the backs of tahldi, John agreed wholeheartedly. His back and thighs still ached from the constant impact of the animals’ bounding gaits. Alidas seemed to share John’s relief. From time to time, as he leaned on the railing and gazed out at the setting sun, Alidas’ hand slipped down to his right thigh, massaging the muscle just above his knee.

  “I’m not sure that the rest of the passengers are taking to it so happily,” Ravishan commented.

  The majority of their fellow rail passengers were livestock. Goats, sheep and tahldi filled the fifteen big boxcars behind the two passenger coaches reserved for human occupants.

  The traders, herders and farm families who boarded the train scrupulously avoided contact with either John or Ravishan. What little comfort they might have felt in the presence of Payshmura priests had been destroyed by the massacre in the blood market. The men bowed their heads and went silent at the sight of either of them. Women drew their children close as if expecting John to snatch them up for his supper.

  A few traders talked to Alidas, but in a wary manner. They never looked at his face; instead they bowed their heads and stole quick glances at the rifle slung across his back.

  As they had traveled down from Amura’taye, the stories of the massacre only spread and grew in the retelling. So much so that, by the time they’d found and boarded their train in Gisa, none of their fellow travelers dared to share a car with them. John, Ravishan and Alidas had the space entirely to themselves—a full thirty seats more than they required even when they each stretched out to sleep.

  Seeing the increasingly crowded conditions in the second passenger car, John felt slightly guilty, but he didn’t know that there was much he could do.

  So many people had been killed and word traveled quickly through grieving friends, terrified survivors, and Fai’daum members. If the Payshmura priests had seemed like tyrants to the common folk before, they’d become something just short of monsters now.

  “Jahn?” Ravishan moved a little closer to him—though not so near that Alidas might think it unusual. John could see the concern in his expression and forced his brooding thoughts aside. There was no point in worrying about any of this. Soon enough he’d be back in Nayeshi and all of Basawar could be forgotten.

  “I was just wondering if we’d reach Vundomu before nightfall,” John said.

  Ravishan clearly knew more than that troubled him, but he didn’t press the matter. Instead he turned his attention to the mountain range ahead of them. He said, “At this rate we’ll arrive very soon.”

  “Yes, Vundomu’s just there.” Alidas pointed to the ridge of mountains ahead of them. The golden light of sunset gleamed across the peaks as if they were polished metal.

  Ravishan simply nodded. He had traveled through the Gray Space to Vundomu, so he’d seen the fortress before. John gaped at the two gray ridges and the strangely black mountain that rose between them. A dull haze seemed to hang over it, punctuated by tiny flickering fires. They spiraled up the black mountain with the perfect uniformity of skyscraper windows.

  “Are those watch fires?” John asked.

  “They’re barrack lamps.” Alidas smiled fondly at the black mountain. “Those at the top of the fortress are the kahlirash’im barracks, armories, stables, and practice fields. Below them are the servant quarters, infirmaries, and kitchens. And last are the smiths’ and miners’ barracks.”

  “That entire thing is a fortress?” John stared at its black mass and the haze of smoke that surrounded it. He could make out its seven massive, walled terraces as he studied it. In a way, they resembled the terraced farmlands of Amura’taye, but black iron walls encircled every rise. Hundreds of watchtowers rose up from the walls at regular intervals. It was obviously a single structure, but one on the scale of a mountain.

  “A fortress but also a temple,” Ravishan clarified. “The rashan’im there are priests and the most devout of them are the kahlirash’im. They worship Parfir in his vengeful aspect, the Rifter.” Ravishan stared ahead with a look like longing. “Once the Usho ordains me Kahlil, I will be counted as one of them—the holiest of them.”

  Alidas, too, regarded the fortress. “The Bousim house sent me to train at Vundomu in preparation for becoming Fikiri’s attendant.” John expected Alidas’ expression to betray either relief or regret that he had not fulfilled his duty. Instead he simply continued to gaze out at the black fortress and said, “A rashan there is a different kind of man.”

  “Three eyes different?” John asked. To his relief, Ravishan smiled and Alidas laughed.

  “Compared to some of the rashan’im working for the gaun’im they might as well be.”

  “Certainly
their filed teeth are unique,” Ravishan opined.

  “Yes, but the rashan’im at Vundomu are also a sacred brotherhood. They’re literate, honorable, and sworn to uphold Parfir’s laws.” Alidas sounded wistful. “A womanizing drunk like Commander Tashtu would never have been tolerated in Vundomu, much less promoted.”

  “Tashtu?” Ravishan cast a glance in John’s direction. “Wasn’t he the rasho that you beat up at the last Harvest Fair?”

  “The very one,” John replied. It still angered John to think of how the man had accosted Laurie.

  Alidas smiled slyly. “Now that we’re away from Amura’taye I can tell you how much I envied you when you did that.”

  “Thanks,” John replied. But he didn’t feel proud, so much as disturbed by the fact that Tashtu was still in the Bousim house with Laurie. There was nothing he could do to change that; he simply had to pray that Pivan would keep his word and protect his friends.

  “I take it, you don’t like your Commander Tashtu?” Ravishan asked Alidas.

  “Hate him, really,” Alidas admitted. “He can’t do anything in moderation. He’ll have the men out on maneuvers for weeks, then he’ll change his mind and no one will be allowed off of the Bousim house grounds. He’ll want full formal dress, then get sick of it and demand to know ‘just who do you think you’re going to impress in this backwater?’ We never knew what to expect.”

  “It sounds like he doesn’t know how to lead his men,” Ravishan said.

  “He’s just a drunk,” Alidas pronounced firmly.

  “You’re as glad to be leaving Amura’taye as I am then?” Ravishan asked.

  “I’m glad to be going but not so happy about the reason.” Alidas’ fingers only brushed his right leg. “But perhaps my leg will improve after treatment in Nurjima.”

  “I hope it does,” Ravishan said. “Will you stay with the Bousim household there?”

  “I have to. I was tithed to them, so it will be at least another ten years before I can buy my way free.” Alidas suddenly sounded very tired. “But after that I’ll be my own man.”