Only… there was the shame of his mangled hand. He did not look at it, but he felt the weight of it there beside him, pressing upon the sheets. He imagined cutting the limb off above the wrist. Then he would be rid of it. He would be one armed, crippled forever, but he was that already. At least he would not have to carry the foulness of the Santoth curse for everyone to see. If there was a knife in the room, he would do it now, right here. If it killed him, no matter. That would be for the best.
He heard a noise. It was just a small sound of a foot pressing against the floor, but hearing it he realized somebody was in the room with him. He turned his head.
Aliver stood, leaning against the wall near the door, staring at nothing at all, lost in thought. Just the sight of him made Kelis’s pulse quicken. He wants to be here when I wake, to tell me to my face. He would tell him that none of the kind things he had said back in the room with the queen and the man with the stone eyes and the charlatan and the children had been true. Not the things he said about Kelis, at least. Those had been lies for the others’ benefit. Kelis began to close his eyes, knowing it would not help, but wanting his dreams back again.
“Do you remember my laryx hunt?” Aliver asked.
The second the words faded, Kelis doubted that he had heard them. Perhaps he was still asleep.
The prince turned to him. “Do you, Kelis, remember it? I’ve been thinking about it as you slept. I realized that I’d never spoken to you about it, not truly, I mean. We celebrated together. I accepted the rewards thrown at me. I danced. You did as well. We both danced, didn’t we? Younger then, and beautiful. You were, at least. I was too pale to be a handsome Talayan.”
He smiled and pushed off the wall. He walked forward a bit, turned on his heel, stopped. And then, as if the thought just occurred to him, he squatted in the center of the room and bounced on the balls of his feet. He looked to be preparing for a run, building energy in his bunched leg muscles. He tented his fingers together and touched them to his nose.
“And then Thaddeus appeared and my life changed. I thought the laryx hunt marked the change, but that was because by then I thought myself a Talayan. I wanted nothing more than the approval of Talayan men and the love of Talayan women. Thaddeus changed all that. I never made the time to speak to you about what happened. When I could have later, I didn’t. And then nothing went as I planned. I want to speak of it now, though, if you’ll let me.”
Kelis did not know what to make of his energy, his revelry, his tone. Nothing. He remained silent.
Aliver seemed to expect that. He spoke for the both of them. He led Kelis through what he remembered of the hunt. The two of them were in the wild for three weeks before they found the nest of a lone laryx. Only young males ever were alone, those that had left their family group but not found a mate yet. As Kelis stood watch, Aliver fouled the nest. He spat on it and pulled it apart, peed and defecated on it. He left his scent all over the area.
When Kelis saw the beast returning they both moved away a distance to watch. By the cackling yelps it responded with, it felt the insults keenly. The creature snarled and yipped. It was ugly, as all laryx are; misshapenly thick in the chest, stout necked, with small, powerful hind legs. It ran in circles, snout down on the ground and then up in the air, tracking already.
Aliver came in close a few times and twice pricked it with arrows. Neither was enough to truly injure it. Its hide was too thick for arrows. It got its mouth around the shafts and yanked them out. No damage done. But the second one riled it enough to charge, just as Aliver had wished. As he ran before it, Kelis dropped away to the side. His part in the hunt was over.
“Or it was supposed to be,” Aliver said. “You were to let me run the thing down alone. But you didn’t.”
No, Kelis thought, I didn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Instead of leaving Aliver to his fate, Kelis ran behind the hunted and hunter, following them both across the plains, keeping them at the edge of his capacity to track, just barely in view. During the day he watched the dust kicked up by the laryx’s paws. At night Kelis kept track of them by their movement beneath the moonlight. One day into the next, and then on and over again. Three days in motion. Aliver kept the beast on his scent, kept it running, let it see or smell him when its attention wavered, as it grew fatigued. For that was what the run was about: to make the beast so tired it would collapse, exhausted, and receive the spear that would kill it without protest.
“I almost did it right,” Aliver said.
Almost, yes. But with a laryx almost is not good enough.
Kelis hid in an outcropping of stones when the laryx first gave up its pursuit and lay down, panting in the shade of a lone acacia tree. Kelis watched, thinking, No, not yet, as Aliver circled back on the beast. No, don’t approach from behind it. Make it rise and chase you more. A laryx was never fully exhausted the first time it gave up. It had more in it and was dangerous still. He knew these things, and he knew that Aliver should, too. That’s why he held his tongue and stayed hidden.
Aliver glanced at Kelis, and then went back to contemplating the images sheltered beneath the spread of his fingers. “But I was too tired. I let it cloud my judgment, and I let the beast trick me. You know what happened. When I approached to sink my spear in it, thinking it had fallen asleep, the thing opened its eyes and laughed at me. It ran at me and came close to ripping me apart right there. I was just lucky to avoid that first charge. I ran for the tree, jumped into it. I dropped my spear. You remember that, don’t you? I dropped my spear to cling to the branches of a tree almost too small to support me.”
It had been as Aliver described. Kelis remembered everything. He had seen it with his own eyes, of course, from a different viewpoint. He saw it with fear beating in his heart, more afraid of the prospect of Aliver’s death than his own. If he had wished to, he could have admitted that when he ran at the laryx it was not just to distract the beast. It was in the full willingness to offer it his flesh instead of the prince’s. The fact that the beast turned toward him without fully charging was just a stroke of good fortune.
It was the moment Aliver needed to come back to himself. He had dropped to the earth, grasped his spear, and sunk it into the beast’s side. The laryx spun with all the force of its massive frame, lifting Aliver into the air and tossing him away. This time, though, Aliver kept a grip on his spear, and it ripped out of the beast’s hide with a spray of blood. He still had it ready when the laryx lunged at him. This time he sank it in the monster’s shoulder. He stood holding it steady, the laryx’s mouth bristling with a carnivore’s teeth, lips and nose twitching. It even pawed the earth, pushing forward and driving Aliver back. But not enough. The wound in its side was too deep. The hole in its shoulder had severed an artery and cut through enough tendons to weaken it. The laryx died there, so close to Aliver’s face that he had only to lean forward to touch his nose to its snout.
“The kill was yours,” Kelis said. His first words since he had awoken.
“But it would not have been mine without you.”
Kelis fixed his lips in a sour expression, not sure how to deny that.
“Let me tell a few more things. First, you should know that I didn’t forget what you did. I didn’t fail to understand that you’d saved me. I think, now that I look back on it, that I felt… a failure, as if the kill wasn’t really mine. I think that’s why I agreed to fight Maeander Mein. I’m not saying I knew that it was because of the hunt. I didn’t, but how often do we do things without knowing our own reasons? I wanted to make sure I was worthy of all the things given to me-and being asked of me. Foolish, yes? It got me killed.”
Kelis started to protest, but Aliver stopped him.
“But here I am again, alive again. I would be a fool twice over not to learn from it. So here’s what I think. I think that the laryx was my kill.” He let this sit a moment, and then said, “But I needed your help to make it. You watched over me when I needed it. You put your life in danger to save mine.
That’s what got me out of that tree so fast. I didn’t want your death on my hands. See what we have here? We succeeded because we care for each other and risked our lives for each other. It should never have been about doing it alone. When I fought Maeander, I forgot that. I will never do so again. I have you to thank for that. And I have you to thank for bringing Shen to me. Don’t make that face.”
Kelis did not know what face he was making, but he must have frowned.
“Don’t! I know what you are thinking and I don’t want to hear a single word of it. Don’t tell me anything about your responsibility for bringing the Santoth to Acacia. Don’t act like that’s your fault. It’s bigger than you, Kelis, so don’t be so vain. You think the Santoth wouldn’t have found a way here without you? They are a sickness that attached itself to something pure-to you and to Shen and to all the labors you and others went through to bring her to me. That is not-and never can or will be-your fault. So don’t be the person who wallows in self-pity that way. It’s not you, and I couldn’t bear it. Such a waste. I need you to march to war with me, not to be sitting here feeling sorry for yourself.”
“To war?” Kelis rasped, lifting his metal-flesh hand. “I cannot be a warrior for you. Not with this.”
Aliver stepped nearer. His voice dropped, tone softened. “You have a choice. This thing”-he placed his hand over Kelis’s metal one-“has become part of your destiny. It doesn’t end it; it changes it. Perhaps this is a gift. How can you know? It may be a gift to urge you to return to your destiny. Do you remember the boy you told me you were? The dreamer. You were born with that in your heart. You told me that in dreams you read the future, and that you spoke languages you could not speak when awake and that this gave you joy. So return to it. Don’t bemoan the loss of a spear arm. What is that compared to the gifts of a dreamer?”
“I have already had a dream,” Kelis heard himself say, “while I slept here.”
“Do you remember it?”
“Some things.”
“Are they things you could tell me?”
Kelis had to think about that for a while. He knew his answer, but what he had to be slow with was the feeling of hope that rose with it. Could he really be blessed? Could it really be that-after all the things that had come before, and after all the ways his life was and wasn’t what he thought it should be-he would still be permitted to return to where he began? To be a dreamer, and find in the sleeping world things that could help the ones he loved in the waking one?
He said, “I dreamed that the queen rode a sea beast into the depths. It gave her no fear, Aliver. It was what she wished.”
Aliver sat down on the stool and set a hand on his arm. The two men sat in silence for a long time. Kelis began to fear that he had given the prince ill tidings. He should explain more of the dream, he thought, but that was filled with images that might further seem ill.
“If… if the queen is near I could tell her.”
“She’s not,” Aliver said. “Is that all? Did you dream anything else?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell it to me.”
“I dreamed that you had seven children.”
“Did I?” Aliver said. He smiled sadly. “I don’t believe that will happen.”
“You had seven children other than Shen. I could not see their faces. You walked with them away from me. I could not see your face either. But it was you, and there were seven children with you.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” Aliver said. And then, putting it aside and lifting his voice into a kingly register, “Kelis of Umae, will you march to war with me? I don’t need you as a warrior. Not this time. Not ever again. Come with me as a dreamer if you like. Or just come as my friend. Speak to me, as you used to. Puzzle through that dream of seven children with me. Will you do that-be a friend to me? A brother?”
Kelis closed his eyes. He wanted to nod. He wanted to say, Nothing would mean more to me, but he still doubted he could be that blessed. Part of him feared that reaching for a future would be just the thing to pull it away from him. He wanted to…
“Good,” Aliver said, not waiting for his response. “We leave tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Chafing from the sabotage and accidents, the Auldek halted forward progress for a time. Work crews hewed a thoroughfare through the slabs. The crews labored nonstop, through the short day and long night, lit by pitch lanterns that glowed in the howling white dark. They cut and sawed and melted the ice, creating one wide track, smooth and safe enough for the entire army, the animals, and the slaves to walk on. It took several days, and during the first few the Scav managed to set traps in the ice or pick off lone laborers and scouts. When Menteus Nemre and the sublime motion took up protecting the workers, things progressed more steadily.
A full week after the opening battle, the bulk of the Auldek force slipped through the cleared passage. Rialus watched his own station begin the journey, standing on the ice beside Sabeer one gusty, overcast day. The blizzard had cleared, but it seemed even colder for it. Rialus could not keep from shivering. He had woken several times from nightmares of being trapped within his room as his station broke through the ice and water rushed in a torrent on top of him. He had no wish to see this dream realized during the day.
Menteus Nemre stood a little distance away, legs set wide, arms crossed, surveying the progress as if he were a king and not a slave. He wore no hood. The wind tugged at his long, knotted mane of white hair, making him look every bit the leonine merging of man and beast that so perfectly embodied his totem.
“Oh, look at that,” Sabeer said. “You beauty. You’ve caught another one.”
Thinking she meant Menteus himself in some way, Rialus did not notice at first that a real snow lioness trotted toward him. She skimmed along the thoroughfare at the edge of the enormous wagon and station wheels, oblivious to the rotating danger of them. She carried a corpse in her jaws, held high to keep it from tripping her. Behind her, more feline shapes ran to keep up.
The cat went directly to Menteus. She dropped the body at his feet and circled away as he bent to inspect it. The other lions joined her, milling around, looking expectantly at the warrior. Without going any nearer, Rialus knew the corpse was a Scav. It was clothed just like the other one; bloodstained just like the other one.
Menteus took only a moment. He stood, pressed one of his booted feet against the corpse’s side, and kicked it toward the waiting animals. He coughed some command to them, and they pounced on the corpse. They tore into it, clawing at it, growling and snapping at one another.
Rialus looked away, trembling still more.
“My poor chilly boy,” Sabeer said, moving in close to blow a plume of warm air in his face. She had not been so near him in days. She slipped her hands inside his hood and rubbed his cheeks. “Rialus silver tongue, what happened to your skin?”
“Frostbite.”
“Frostbite? I thought you only stayed in your bed with your slave.”
Rialus had explained to her several times before that they did not have carnal relations. He did not go down that road again. “Still, it-it happened.”
Sabeer peered at him a moment, and then touched his cheek with her fingertip. He jerked back. “You’re a foolish man, Rialus. You must take better care of yourself. If you don’t, we’ll have to feed you to the cats. They would like that, considering that you killed one of their number.” She smiled and steered him with an arm over his shoulder. “Come, let’s go before they seek vengeance on you.”
Their walk was short. They stopped at a station that was lined up to enter the ice field. Rialus had seen it before, but had never had reason to visit it or inquire about it. Just one station out of many. A bit smaller than most, its only distinguishing features were the conical gold cap at its pinnacle and the geometry of glass panes that sectioned its roof and sides.
Sabeer entered. Rialus followed. For a moment Rialus did not know why the inside of the place seemed odd. When they reach
ed the top of the winding staircase and came into a dim, dank room, his breath clouding the air in front of him, he realized the station was unheated, unlit except by the dull light that came through the glass panes. Sabeer did nothing about the cold, but she did strike up a spark to get a lamp burning. When she had a flame, she covered it and lengthened it. The room came into highlight and shadow.
Row upon row of shelves lined the walls around them. Tall bookcases crammed with the spines of numerous volumes, or with drawers or doors that folded open. The shelves climbed all the way to the high ceiling of the station, making it one great library, with ladders and narrow walkways scaffolding each level.
“Do you know what’s housed here?” Sabeer asked.
“No.”
“My heart. My people’s history. This collection includes our most sacred records.” She set the lamp down on the table and walked along a shelf, perusing the spines. “Individual clans have some of their own collections, but these are the volumes that we hold in trust together. Remember that I told you we can’t remember the distant past? This is where we come to be reminded of it. I come, at least. Others can’t be bothered. They even let it go unheated since our stores of pitch were depleted. I argued that this should be kept warm, but I lost. They all know how important these records are, but… we’re preoccupied with other things. As you know. This damp cannot be good for the parchment, don’t you think?”
Tossing her long hair out, she looked over her shoulder at him. The lamplight accented the auburn tones of it, and caught in her eyes in an alluring manner. Sometimes, Sabeer was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Sometimes, he forgot that she was a different race than he. Sometimes, he wanted her with a hunger made more violent for the ways in which she played with him. She knew as much. Smiling, she said, “Rialus silver tongue, you say things without even speaking. I hear you, though. I hear you.”
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