The Outworlder

by Natalie J. Holden

  I decided to keep the part about hiding my ambitions from my father and waiting for him to die to myself.

  “I’m certainly glad you did,” said Adyar Lah, raising his glass again, and we drank.

  “What’s your story?” I asked, emboldened by the drink.

  “What, why I’m Dahlsi?” He smirked.

  “Why you’re in Mespana?”

  “Oh, it was a no-brainer. I always fantasized about seeing other places. As a child, I aimed at Chaar, but later decided I wanted to explore new worlds. So, it was either Mespana or the Cosmographic Society and I had no talent for math.”

  “And you don’t want to go outside anymore? Visit one of the old worlds?”

  “I do. I was actually planning a journey to Chaar.” He grimaced. “I feel like it’s going to be harder now.”

  Harder. I wished my job was merely as hard. We defeated the rebels, but I still had to bring my family back. From Tarviss.

  If they were still alive.

  I pushed that thought away.

  Given how easy our conversation was, I thought maybe I could use it to get some answers.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I chanced.

  He arched his eyebrow. “A personal one?”

  “Well, not really. It’s about someone else.”

  His smile faltered. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, considering, “I don’t like gossiping.”

  I felt a twinge of disappointment, but decided to press on, “someone described Dahlsi as a gossipy bunch to me.”

  “That’s a bit of a stereotype, isn’t it?”

  His gaze became harder and my cheeks heated. I scrambled, trying to think of anything that would prove I’m not… the person he initially took me for.

  “He was Dahlsi,” I said, hopeful.

  Adyar Lah didn’t seem impressed. “One can be racist against his own race. What do you want to know, anyway?”

  I hesitated. I wasn’t so sure anymore if I wanted to ask. But the curiosity still gnawed at me and I didn’t have many other ways to satisfy it.

  “What’s the deal with Tayrel Kan?”

  Adyar Lah gave me a weird look. “If you’re asking if he sleeps with Myar Mal, I know as much as you.”

  I was glad I was done eating; otherwise, I would certainly choke. “Is he?”

  Adyar Lah’s eyes widened almost comically before he lowered his head sheepishly. “I don’t know. That’s what some people say.”

  I quickly rectified: “That’s not what I wanted to ask.”

  I took small comfort in Adyar Lah seeming to regret taking the conversation in that direction.

  “What then?”

  “Why everyone seems to hate him? Laik Var warned me to stay away from him,” I explained, seeing his doubtful gaze, “giving the reason that Tayrel Kan later told me was bullshit. And Tayrel Kan said if he died, no one would mourn. So, why is that?”

  Adyar Lah didn’t answer immediately. He looked away, biting his lip as if considering. Finally, he turned back to me. “Did you ask him?”

  “Yeah, and he told me to ask someone else. He said gossiping only makes sense when you talk about others.”

  Adyar Lay smirked, but it seemed pale. His arms were hunched and his fingers drummed on the table. “I don’t know, Aldait Han. It’s not my story to tell.”

  But I felt I was getting close, so I reached for my ultimate argument. “He said he didn’t mind.”

  “And you think he really didn’t, or he was just resigned to the fact that everyone already knew?”

  I couldn’t answer that. If the latter was true, I guessed that made me an asshole for prodding. On the other hand, if he hadn’t meant that, why did he even say it? If you say something you don’t mean, you can’t blame people for misunderstanding you.

  But after a while, Adyar Lah sighed and started talking, “I guess, there’s no harm in that. If I don’t tell you, someone else will. It happened… five cycles ago? I was just starting my duty, and we were both in the Second Cohort. He had a partner—”

  “You mean a work partner or a lover?” I asked, once again failing to bite my tongue.

  “Both.” He shrugged awkwardly, and I wondered if he was mimicking my gesture. “But it was a turbulent relationship. They fought as much as they fucked, pardon my expression. Anyway, one time they went on a mission to explore a new world.” He paused, and I realized I was leaning over the table with anticipation. “Tayrel Kan came back alone, scarred and so spell-shocked he didn’t speak coherently for days. And I mean proper, Dahlsian days.”

  He stopped.

  My mouth was suddenly very dry.

  “What about the other guy?”

  Adyar Lah shook his head. “No one knows. But he—his body or whatever was left of it—was never found. There was another expedition to that world, and they didn’t find anything; nothing that could kill one of our best men.”

  He paused and it took me a while to understand what he was implying. “You think Tayrel Kan killed him,” I said, surprised how calm my voice sounded.

  I remembered a few things about Tayrel Kan that struck me as odd; how he insisted that humans shouldn’t wield magic, and how he never worked with a partner. It all made sense now.

  Surprisingly though, I couldn’t bring myself to think about him as a murderer. I spoke with Tayrel Kan; I knew he wasn’t a bad man, and having witnessed the power he wielded, it was not hard to imagine it getting out of control. So even if his partner died, I couldn’t think of it as anything other than an accident. Especially when one looked at the effect it had on him.

  So no, knowing it didn’t make me think less of Tayrel Kan. The only thing I felt was deep sorrow.

  Plus, the warnings given by Laik Var and Malyn Tol made much more sense now. I just wished one of them had bothered to tell me the truth. But that was a very Dahlsi thing to do—not to lie, just not tell you things.

  “I don’t know.” He turned his head away. “Look, I learned my lesson about not judging people from what others say, but… everyone thinks so. Tayrel Kan doesn’t speak. There was an investigation, but he wouldn’t say a word, and without a body, there was no evidence, so…”

  “So, he was acquitted. But still, everyone believes he’s a murderer.”

  “Yeah.” He waved, but it lacked conviction. “You want to know the creepiest part?”

  I gave him an encouraging nod.

  “This guy’s first name… was Myar.”

  He looked at me expectantly.

  Again I wasn’t sure what he was implying, but then remembered his first reaction to my question about Tayrel Kan. Was the name another thing that made the sorcerer gravitate toward our kar-vessár? I wondered how popular it was. Come to think of it, I never met another Myar.

  “Next you’re gonna tell me that he looked like our kar-vessár,” I tried joking, but it came out flat.

  “I honestly don’t remember. I only saw him once or twice and always at a distance. But many people noticed Tayrel Kan displays an unhealthy obsession with our current leader. More than a simple infatuation. Crazy theories are circling, about how he sees him as a sort of reincarnation of this other guy?”

  I couldn’t help raising my eyebrow. “That… does sound a bit crazy.”

  “Everyone knows he’s not exactly stable. Wouldn’t that be something though? Tayrel Kan devoting himself to Myar Mal because he reminds him of the lover he killed?”

  “I’m not sure if ‘devoting’ is the right word; I’ve heard they’re fighting all the time.”

  The other thing Adyar Lah told me about Tayrel Kan’s previous relationship popped in my mind and I blushed.

  “Yeah, but it’s all for show. Tayrel Kan may moan and bicker, but as soon as Myar Mal raises his voice, he shuts up and does as he’s told. I think some people exaggerate his defiance because no one else dares speaking up to kar-vessár.”

  “I’ve heard Myar Mal was feeding Tayrel Kan drugs to make him easier to control.”

  Adyar Lah s
ent me a lopsided grin. “You think someone like Tayrel Kan needs an incentive to get high? Not that he doesn’t have a reason, but still…” He paused for a moment, before picking up, “look, there are a lot of rumors—really nasty ones about Tayrel Kan. I don’t want to repeat them, or even wonder if they’re true. But anyway, there was a time when he was close to getting kicked out of Mespana. He pissed off all the vessár-ai; no one wanted to work with him. But then Myar Mal took him in and basically created a new position just for him.”

  “Tayrel Kan is a powerful sorcerer.”

  “Yeah, but how often does he use his skills?”

  “He was pretty useful last time.”

  “And it was his first job since Myar Mal became commissioned. Some people go so far as to call him Myar Mal’s pet.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. I leaned back, struggling to reconcile what I’d just heard with everything I’d learned before, wondering what was true and what was hearsay. I didn’t suspect Adyar Lah—or Saral Tal, for that matter—of trying to bash our leader or Tayrel Kan or anyone else. And yet, they couldn’t both be right. And both of them only based their knowledge on hearsay. It was impossible to discern what was fact, what was misheard, and what was just slander. In the end, the truth either lay somewhere in the middle or was completely different, and to figure out which, I would have to speak with one of the interested parties.

  I couldn’t imagine it going well.

  Besides, what I realized—and not without regret—was that I didn’t even know how to find Tayrel Kan now that we were back in Sfal.

  My mood for company died after that. The waitress came to clear the dishes and asked if we needed anything else, but I wasn’t hungry. Adyar Lah paid the bill, and we both got ready to leave.

  A man approached our table. A Chaarite, with skin like copper and dark, almond-shaped eyes. His head was completely hairless, with a line of white tattoos running through the middle, and he wore intricate clothing with more layers than I could count. I dimly recalled him standing in the opposite corner every time I was here, watching over the establishment. Was he the owner? I was hoping he would talk to Adyar Lah, but he addressed me.

  “Please forgive my intrusion, good sir. There are not many Tarvissi left in this area.”

  I nodded, not sure what to say. I was probably the only Tarvissi left in the area.

  “Would it be too rude of me to ask if, by chance, you are the member of Mespana who put an end to that abhorrent uprising on Maurir and slew its leader?”

  That was an overstatement if I ever heard one. It’s true, I killed Peridion—and for a moment felt some irrational guilt about that. But the fight would probably be won even without my input. If I didn’t do it, someone else would. Confused, I looked at Adyar Lah.

  He cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed. “That’s the version presented in media,” he explained.

  The media. Unwittingly I reached for the mirror hanging at my belt. I didn’t think about checking the official reports, not to mention the media. Quite a leader, I was! But I realized there must have been a reason that this version of the story was being spread around. I thought of the late Laik Var and what he wanted me to do. I wondered if that meant…

  “I gotta go.” I stood and darted off.

  Chapter 27

  Myar Mal looked like shit. The post-anaphylaxis swelling had subsided, but his eyes were still red and surrounded by deep shadows, his face pale and gaunt. Even his normally iridescent irises settled on a dull, stormy gray.

  He pushed the scroll toward me.

  “That’s all I could manage,” he explained. “The permission for your family to return.”

  “Thank you, Myar Mal.”

  He leaned back in his chair and assumed his usual emperor pose—right arm bent and propped over an armrest, left stretched out on the desk. He was sizing me up with a gaze that, although tired, was as piercing as always, and I lowered my head automatically.

  “I was right about the conspiracy,” he started, not waiting for me to ask.

  I wouldn’t, by the way. Curiosity was eating at me, but I would rather consult my mirror or wait for the newspaper. I still hadn’t managed to overcome the nervousness that the kar-vessár filled me with, and I had an irrational suspicion that despite him doing all the talking, he was getting more information from me than giving it.

  “The conspiracy started with Sanam Il-Asa. I should have known. He was… a sensitive guy. Very self-conscious. He was fascinated by Tarvissian culture, and when Peridion and the others rebelled, he took it personally. You were his primary target, I presume, but when I allowed your promotion, he decided to get rid of me too. He roped Raison Dal in after the decontamination team took a hold of that nut you dropped. Then, got Ayrela Va-Roma to help. I’m not sure when they recruited Amma La. Anyway, it’s over now. The surviving traitors were sent to Xiburk. Except for Raison Dal—he’s in house arrest, only because I accidentally broke his back, and no one can be bothered to heal him.”

  Xiburk was a Dahlsian penal colony: a small world with a barely breathable atmosphere and a rocky, mineral-rich surface. It merged with a tiny island on Tydus, so even if someone managed to escape, there was nowhere to go. Prisoners were set to work extracting noble gases and precious minerals, and all provisions had to be brought from other worlds since Xiburk had no native life or water.

  As for the rest of his revelations, I was at a loss for words. Not for the first time, it struck me how little I knew about the world and the people around me. Like Ayrela Va—I never even spoke with her and yet she was conspiring to kill me!

  If another next attempt at my life was made, would I even know it was coming? Would I stand any chance of protecting myself? But what could I do?

  And Myar Mal—I witnessed him at his lowest, yet I thought I barely knew anything about him. It was like there was a glass wall between me and the rest of humanity, one I could never hope to scale.

  I wasn’t sure why Myar Mal told me about the investigation, and even less so how to respond. So when he finished for a moment, we sat in silence.

  “And there’s this whole mess with Tarviss,” he murmured, to me or himself I couldn’t tell. His next question dispelled my doubts, though, “have you heard? Tarviss wants war. Luckily, so many people want to enlist, a cycle from now, we’ll be able to double the number of Cohorts.”

  He sent me a pointed look.

  “I thought it was just an exaggeration,” I blurted, just to say something.

  “It wasn’t. We’re already talking about opening a second training center.”

  And all of it happened when I was sleeping the battle off. No wonder he was kar-vessár, and I was… not.

  Speaking of which…

  “I’m very sorry, Myar Mal,” I said, reaching to my sash, “I realize it’s not the perfect moment, but I have to resign from my duties.”

  I was careful putting it down, but as it touched the surface of the desk, I snapped my hand back, as if it was a snake ready to attack, wrap itself around me and keep me in this stupid position.

  “Why?”

  He didn’t seem surprised, more disappointed, and I felt a pang of shame. Not enough to change my mind, though.

  “I’m not suited for the job.” I chuckled nervously. “Let’s be honest, Laik Var only wanted me as an example and you as a bait. Now, neither of you need me.”

  “We always need good men.”

  I lowered my gaze to look at my hands, twisting them on my lap, but my heart actually skipped a beat at the praise.

  “I can stay in Mespana,” I said uncertainly. In truth, I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. “Just… not as a vessár.”

  He didn’t answer straight away, but I felt his eyes drilling into me. I got an irrational fear that he would reject my proposal and do—what, really? Insist on keeping me as vessár? Or kick me out completely? Why would he do that? My worry turned to agitation, and I was scrambling for anything else I could say to convinc
e him, when he put an end to my suffering.

  “Laik Var believed in you. He wouldn’t promote you if he didn’t think you were suited for the job.”

  “I’ve heard he only promoted me to spite you.”

  I regretted the words as soon as the left my mouth. Myar Mal was silent for a moment, and my heartrate spiked. Why did I even open my mouth?

  “You believed that?”

  I raised my head just to meet his incredulous gaze, then dropped it so fast my neck creaked.

  “I don’t know,” I murmured. It made sense when I’d heard it, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Neither do I,” he admitted after a brief pause. “But in the end, he is dead, and all we are left with is what we choose to believe.”

  What did I believe? I remembered Laik Var as a great leader, but maybe it was only because he was the only leader I’d served under. And maybe Innam Ar was right, and I grew needlessly attached. It made my duty easier. But, in the end, I knew nothing about who he was outside of the uniform. So perhaps…

  Perhaps faith was the only thing I could use to sort through my feelings.

  “He was a decent man,” picked up Myar Mal. “A bit too stern for his own good. Too set in his own convictions.”

  I got a feeling he wasn’t necessarily talking about my relationship with Laik Var.

  “A common trait among older men, I noticed. They assume if they’ve lived this long, they must know everything and we youngsters have no choice but to obey. I imagine that if he was less stubborn, Amma and I would have had better chances. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.” He finally caught himself and his gaze turned razor sharp again. “I’m sorry, Aldait Han. I shouldn’t bother you with my problems.”

  “It’s all right,” I answered automatically. But there was nothing right. Not with Laik Var being dead. Not with Amma La trying to kill Myar Mal.

  Not with our supreme leader being so depressed he couldn’t carry a simple conversation without trailing off.

  “You know, I think the only thing preventing you from being a good vessár is yourself.”