Gods of Nabban

by K V Johansen

  Ketkuiz sat very close to Ghu’s side now, hip touching hip, and sometimes it seemed he spoke to her, smiling, eye meeting eye, before offering the tale up to all the hall again. Yeh-Lin, a wry smile on her lips, told some little part. Unlike Ghu, she might lie outright and enjoy it. Ghu’s bowl was filled again, and Yeh-Lin’s.

  Too many people, too much noise, and Ahjvar’s head ached. It didn’t need strong drink to make him feel on the verge of falling over.

  He touched Ghu’s shoulder in a moment when Yeh-Lin was talking, spoke in his ear. “Too much smoke in here. Headache. I’m going out to walk in the fresh air. You stay. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be fine.”

  “Ahjvar . . .”

  “I think I chased some nightmares away for a little, having someone to fight. It’s fine. I’m going to walk and look at the stars. You take care of charming the women. Or whatever.”

  Ghu had Ketkuiz’s hand in his, but he leaned his forehead against Ahjvar’s temple. Said nothing. He never did.

  After a long moment, Ahjvar pushed him off, two fingers on his chest. Ghu was, if not drunk, getting there. “She’s not married or betrothed or anything, is she?”

  “Ketkuiz? Not that she’s mentioned.”

  “Well, find out before you do anything that’s going to involve me in any more fighting today, all right?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  Ahjvar rose and bowed to Ganzu the chieftain before picking a winding way out of the hall into the clean, cold night. The dogs followed him, stretching and yawning.

  “Camels?” he suggested, so they went to find Sand and Rust, who were tethered in the lee of a hut wall, the remnants of a heap of dry fodder before them. They woke enough to regard him warily, no doubt dreading, in whatever passed for a camel’s imagination, another journey so soon. He wandered farther. No one followed him.

  Down to the gate, closed now. A young woman kept watch there and spoke with him, a few halting words to the effect that it was good the Nabbani assassins were dead and the little girl would live if the Old Great Gods willed it, and Ahjvar wandered off again. He stood for a while leaning on a rough fence, watching a pair of foal-rounded mares standing head to tail. Tall, clean-legged, long-backed animals; the style Ghu favoured. Not, he thought, what he himself wanted for close work over hills, battle or cattle-driving. Though for a long race over the open . . . they were not here to buy horses, nor yet to steal them.

  Well after midnight, by the stars. He should reclaim his companions before he did have to carry them both to bed, though it would be tempting to leave Yeh-Lin, at least, to sleep it off wherever she fell.

  It was not like Ghu to talk so much in company. He usually faded away when there were many eyes to see. Hard to do that when assassins had proclaimed you the great enemy of the empire. Any seer who feared a traveller in Denanbak should be dreaming of Dotemon, not Ghu. What could his simpleton boy do in Nabban? What would he?

  Not like Ghu to drink much, either. Ahjvar knew that weary urge to let everything go, just for a few hours. Abandon care. It never worked, but while it lasted . . .

  Ahjvar stumbled now with weariness and the dark, feet uncertain on uneven, unfamiliar ground, rutted, crossed with shallow ditches, pock-marked with hooves, made hummocky with frozen droppings. The brief calm that had come with watching the horses faded, left his thoughts fretting in circles, spiralling down into darkness again. Find Ghu. Sleep. Travel. Another day. That was all his concern. Ghu’s quest, this. He only followed, and once he saw Ghu safely to wherever it was he needed to be, he could—could let it all go. For good. Stop. At last. And face the road of death, and he was damned. It would be a long one. He would rather his soul was lost into the living pulse of the earth. Better to be an animal and pass on so than to endure his own memory, until at last the long road made him fit for the presence of the Old Great Gods, if ever it could. Rather be destroyed, ended. Out, like a flame, clean and gone. No god would contemplate such an abominable thing, the death of the soul, but Ghu had destroyed Hyllau. He could wish for the same end himself, but Ghu—he did not think Ghu would give him that. It was too great a wrong to the nature of the world.

  The feast was fading away. Some of the lamps and braziers had gone out, the fire in the stove had burned low, and most of the revellers were away to their beds. Ganzu the chief was gone. So was Ketkuiz. So was Ghu. Yeh-Lin, unfortunately, was still there.

  “Ah, there you are,” Yeh-Lin said. “I have had,” and she smiled at a threesome of old women clustered by her, drinking tea, who smiled back and politely waited out the foreign speech, “quite enough of discussing the virtues of my nonexistent grandchildren back in Praitan in my little Denanbaki. I’m your young god’s dear old auntie from Two Hills, by the way, if anyone asks.”

  Ahjvar dragged himself to speech again. “Are they likely to?”

  “Probably. They have prised every detail of my two, or maybe it was three, late husbands, my six sons and daughters, and their assorted offspring out of me. I doubt I’ll remember any of it by morning.”

  “It very nearly is morning. Where’s Ghu?”

  “Ah,” said Yeh-Lin. “He and the pretty shaman disappeared not long after you took yourself off. She had him by the hand, but I didn’t notice that he was putting up a struggle.”

  “Good. Where are we sleeping? Here?” Serving-folk were gathering dishes, shaking crumbs from cushions and stacking them on the dais, pinching out the lamps. A few of the women, one man, eyed him with interest. A bit of elbowing back and forth and giggling. He ignored them. Pointedly.

  “There is a guest-house made ready, apparently. I was waiting to see if you would reappear, while being outdrunk by old grandmothers.”

  “That’s tea.”

  “Yes, and I am awash in it.” She offered a hand and without thinking he took it to help her up. “Give me your arm, like a good boy, till we’re outside, and I’ll totter off to find some discreet corner.”

  “Y—Lin.”

  “I’m probably your beloved old auntie from Two Hills, too. Old aunties are supposed to be vulgar and embarrassing. It’s what we do. My dears, it’s been a pleasure.” She patted Ahjvar’s arm and said something that left the old women grinning and chuckling.

  Ahjvar freed himself from her clutch as soon as they were out the door. He might as well be drunk; arms and legs weighed twice what they should. If any assassins lurked, the devil could deal with them. He was through with this day.

  “Oh look, that must be the privy.”

  He walked off and left her, which would have been more effective if he had known where he was going. Any cow-shed out of the wind would do. But Yeh-Lin caught up again while he stood irresolute, and recaptured his arm. “This way. Down in the eastern corner of the hall enclosure, they said. Our belongings were taken there.”

  “Our belongings.”

  “I trust you can spare an old woman an extra blanket.”

  It was, of course, the same hut where he had found the camels.

  Even Yeh-Lin had to duck under the lintel, stepping down into the pit-house. The floor was cobbled, with a clay stove set in the middle on a raised hearth and a smoke-hole over it. The bed was a platform covering half the floor, with their harness and bundles set neatly by. Even the crossbow, the one thing he might have worried about if he had remembered to worry about such things, was there in its bag, with its quiver beside it. No need to dig out their own gritty blankets: sheepskins and thick quilts were stacked ready.

  He left the devil to make the fire, which took her no time at all, and made up two beds on the platform—against opposite walls. Yeh-Lin burrowed into one and turned her back on him. For once, he kept his weapons close by, not sure he would sleep, anyway. The place felt too much like a barrow, suffocating. Even the roof was turf, and too low for a tall man’s comfort except under the peak.

  Don’t think that. Just, sleep, properly warm for the first time in months. No nightmares; he’d told Ghu so. The dogs jumped up to join him and took over most of the
sheepskins when he only sat, his back against the wall.

  “Yeh-Lin?”

  A stirring in the heap of quilts she had made, and she emerged into the spill of light from the stove’s mouth rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child. “Yes?”

  “Nightmares,” he said, watching the deepest shadows of the roof. The light dimmed and she was only a shape, a voice. He still should have been startled to find himself speaking, but . . . she was unexpectedly easy to be with. She knew him, and he did not have pretend he was sane, or whole, or anything but what he was.

  “Nightmares. I’m not surprised.”

  “I’ve hurt Ghu, thinking they have me, thinking I can escape if I can kill them—I can’t find my way back. I know I’m free of them all: Catairanach, Hyllau, the Lady, I know it, but in my dreams, they’re there, and I am so afraid.” Low-voiced, he said, “They call you the Dreamshaper.”

  “A Northron bit of poetry and almost entirely without meaning. That I ever fashioned dreams to draw unwilling men to my bed is a lie.” That drew his gaze down to her, but her eyes burned in the darkness, a flicker of fire behind them. Ahjvar flinched back, hand going to a knife, sick with a cold sweat.

  Yeh-Lin frowned. “What?”

  He shook his head, swallowed a panic that had nothing to do with her, could surely have little to do with the Lady of Marakand either. The sick fear was older than that; it had its birth in his own hands and a limp beloved body—but it was worse than it ever had been, bad as the dreams—there was water in his lungs and blood in his mouth and her tongue and her breath forcing into him.

  He did not remember that. Did not. Would not.

  Yeh-Lin kept still and watched him. Only when he drew a long, deep breath and wrapped his arms around his knees at last did she say, “Better.” Or maybe it was a question.

  The dogs, who had sprung alert, pressed close, Jiot’s nose on his shoulder, Jui’s on his feet. Warmth.

  “Are you so desperate you would turn to me for help?”

  “I hit him again,” he said, speaking to the shadows, not her eyes. “You saw his mouth. I did that, last night. I’ve tried to ward myself against the nightmares, but nothing I do is strong enough. They run too deep. I would kill myself rather than hurt him, but—it’s him I have to ask to let me die.”

  “Which would hurt him. You are a fine pair of fools. And you trust me?”

  “Who else is there who knows what I am? No, I do not.”

  “Just as well. I can’t say I entirely trust myself, but regardless of that, I do not think your dreams are a place you want me. I think I would do more harm than good. What did you see just now that set you shying like a whipped colt?”

  He did not answer, but she did. “I am Dotemon. I am one of the seven. The Lady who enslaved you was my kin and my kind. I do not think you would see the difference between us, naked of the body of this earth.”

  “I want to know if a strong wizard could pluck the memories out of me like weeds. Like cutting off a rotting limb. It would be better than this. I don’t think a human wizard could. I couldn’t. But you?”

  “Not—so easily as weeds,” Yeh-Lin said. “It would not be so easy as amputating a limb, no, and you know how very easy that is, and what the consequences can be. I think—I think you would lose a great deal else, too, Ahjvar. A great deal of yourself. And your young god would not let me wound you so. He would not let me try. Trust him for that. No,” she said. “Look at me.”

  He did, meeting the fire in her eyes again. He did not flinch this time, but he was cold and his pulse was loud in his ears.

  “I will not. You’ve surely had enough of gods and wizards and worse tearing at your soul. These dreams are wounds like any other. They will heal.”

  “I can’t believe that any more. For a while in the desert I thought I had mastered them, but it took nothing at all to bring them back. Nothing. A shadow, a foretelling—of you, I think, Great Gods, was that all? You? Ghu lies awake to keep the dreams off and it’s wearing him to exhaustion. He won’t say so, but I do see it and what’s the use of it? Even then I don’t sleep well. I can feel them: dreams taking shape, even when I’m awake and by daylight. Maybe I’ve lived too long, maybe I am mad and he needs to let me go. When I do sleep—some night he won’t be fast enough to stop me, some night I’ll forget to put a knife out of reach and he won’t be fast enough or strong enough—I don’t want to kill another—another friend.”

  “You’re sleeping with him?”

  “Yes. No! He sleeps by me. Not the same thing.”

  She snorted. “No. No, of course it isn’t. Ahjvar . . . What my wisdom, such as it is, tells me is, you dream. You know you dream. You know the dreams have no power over you—no, listen, they have no power over you, those who have possessed and tormented you and abused you, they are memories and shadows; they are gone. The one you knew as the Lady is dead; I have seen that in my dreams, and the sword that slew her, though I don’t see whose hand—not your concern. She is dead and the devil she was is gone from this earth with no returning. The goddess Catairanach I put into the ground myself. The monster that possessed you so long is destroyed and you are free of her, there is no taint of her left in you. The dreams of all three are like a sickness, expelling poison. You know this in your head, but you need to learn it in bone and blood and heart. You need to understand it in your dreams, so that they are no longer real.”

  “I know that.”

  “You know, but you aren’t paying attention to what it means. Listen to me. Knowing is not enough. You need to learn to feel it in your bones. Maybe he needs to leave you to dream, to find your own way out.”

  Ahjvar said nothing. She saw it in his face despite the darkness, he knew she did, felt it in his soul, the scream. What if I do not wake? That was his nightmare, and Ghu knew it. What if the thing Hyllau had made of him had become his truth? “And if—” he managed.

  “Then he will break the goddess’s curse he took himself to hold you in the world, and let you go,” she said. “Do you think he is so weak he would not, or so cruel he would bind you here undying if you became even a shadow of that monstrous thing in your own self?”

  “No.”

  “Trust him. Go to sleep.” She added, “We elders need our rest.”

  He made himself ask, “You or me?”

  “However you count it, I’m older than you by a few centuries.”

  “But for how many of those were you sealed in your grave?”

  “Hah. Boy, don’t mock my hard-won old age. You never lived long enough the first time for your joints to start creaking. I win either way. Go to sleep, dead king.”

  He woke to a gust of cold air and Ghu sitting on the edge of the bed-platform.

  “Morning?” Ahjvar asked hazily.

  “Not yet.” Ghu pulled off his boots, crawled under the quilts, shoving dogs aside. “Ketkuiz went to take a turn sitting with the child. Ah, Ahj, I didn’t realize I was so tired. And I’d forgotten what it was to be warm.” He lay up against Ahjvar, nuzzling into his hair.

  “Don’t do that,” Ahjvar said, acutely conscious of Yeh-Lin not much more than an arm’s reach away, undoubtedly awake and probably snickering. “You’re drunk. Still.”

  “Yes. Yes, I think I am. Somewhat. She threw the stones to tell my fortune.”

  “Hah. Are you going to claim that was what you were doing all this time?”

  “Well, no. Mostly not.” Ghu laughed softly. “But do you know, I am to die in Nabban and find what I have most sought?”

  “In that order?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Ketkuiz said the stones fell both ways.”

  “Was she drunk too?”

  “Oh, yes. Moderately so.”

  “Then don’t take it too seriously.”

  “Nothing I didn’t know. It could read far more ways than she sees. Ahj, I am human, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.” Blue-lipped with cold, battered, starving, huddled on his garden wall on the cliff. Yes.

  “Good. Do yo
u want to turn back?”

  “What? No. I go where you go. Ghu . . .” whose face was in his hair again and breath warm on his ear. “Don’t.”

  “Sorry.” Ghu rolled over, and, so far as Ahjvar could tell, fell at once into a deep sleep. There was a faintly strangled sound from the other corner.

  After a time, “That man,” Yeh-Lin observed out of the darkness, “is in love with you.”

  “I know.”

  “That must be rather . . . frustrating, for him, pretty shamans notwithstanding. I’d be happy to trade beds with you.”

  “No.”

  “Or with him.”

  “No.”

  “That last was a serious offer, just so you know. Dreams and all. Though you smell like rancid rykersyld, the pair of you. When did you last bathe?”

  “Hot water, you mean? Soap? Sand Cove.”

  “I said when, not where.”

  “Sand Cove. Last summer. Though I think Ghu made it to a bathhouse in Marakand. What’s a—no, I don’t care, I don’t want to know. Yeh-Lin?”

  “Yes?”

  “He is drunk. If I dream, don’t let me hurt him.”

  “I am within reach, and faster than you, sword of the Duina Catairna. Stronger, too. You will not hurt him.” She did snicker, then. “And also a very light sleeper. They do say that thirteen-herb white-spirit is very . . . invigorating. Do try not to disturb your elders, eh?”

  Ahjvar didn’t dignify that with an answer. And he did sleep again. He dreamed of searching for something in the fat little apothecary’s shop in Sea Town, hurling jars to the floor in the fury of his search, and not able to find whatever it was, though it held, he thought, some matter of life and death. But that was only a dream such as anyone might have. He woke on his own, heart racing, feeling he had lost something. Ghu was still there, stretched alongside him. That was all right, then. Ahjvar went back to sleep with a hand on Ghu’s chest.