The half-viper banged her chest on the divan as she struggled.
“Šo-wretched hero,” she cursed, struggling against the divan. “Cometo—” She gagged and shook her head violently, biting at the furniture in a vain attempt at extracting the terrible-tasting garlic from her mouth. “Cometoslaymeandstealmyeggs! Get your šo-wefted and šo-warped hands off me! I’ll ripyouapartand you’ll be chum fortheDourboat.”
“Shkarag,” Ashtadukht said soothingly. “It’s okay.” The notably clumpy speech struck her as odd; it was as if the words were dammed up and had to force their way out in gushes and jets.
Shkarag canted her head sharply, putting her infrared receptors to work in identifying Ashtadukht. “Getthishero off me!” she hissed.
The divan lifted easily thanks to Shkarag’s fierce fighting, such that it was thrown rather than moved. Ashtadukht looked on as the half-div first stomped the divan then leapt onto its cushions and hammered away. Watching Shkarag attack with abandon, somehow managing to rip parts off with her bare hands, made her wonder whether the other overturned furniture had suffered the same fate.
When she’d finally calmed down, Shkarag curled up on the dismantled divan and pomegranate-red rage gave way to sobs almost muted by the cushions. “Need more,” she muttered shakily. “Need more; mustforget.”
Ashtadukht seated herself on the heap, to the snapping sound of decimated wood, and stared into the gloom. This was her doing. If she’d done anything wrong along the way, it was this.
“We’ll get you more,” she promised, giving the half-viper a pat as she did. “It’ll be all right, Shka—”
“Waray. I’mWaray. Waray, Waray, WarayWaray.”
Ashtadukht glanced to her side, and it was probably best that she couldn’t make out the details of Waray’s sorry state. She produced a wan smile. “Waray. How could I forget? Must’ve mixed the names up.”
“Ugh.” The sobbing had calmed to isolated bouts of energetic trembling and the rare snort. “Ugh.”
“Huh?”
“Hurts. And tastesšo-treasonous.”
“Take the garlic out of your mouth.”
A movement to her side then, “Oh.”
Silence followed, in which Waray was likely examining the clove like some bird that’d mistaken pokeweed root for a worm, before she spoke again. “Need more,” she buzzed sullenly.
“I said we’d find more,” Ashtadukht replied, empathizing with Waray’s need for oblivion, and thinking she’d like some herself. “So we will.”
“Where’s pinecone-up-his-arse? Across thefinalbridge?”
“No. Just gone.”
“Oh.”
Ashtadukht related the events that’d transpired since she left, and didn’t feel obligated to leave anything out owing to both a need to share with someone and that someone being Waray.
“Thought so,” Waray remarked when she’d finished.
“Thought so?”
“Thoughtyouwere a šo-swaying half-whore.”
“I—ah.” Ashtadukht chuckled dryly. “That’s half-Whore to you, half-viper.”
“Half-Viper.”
Ashtadukht fiddled with her cuff. “Waray.”
“. . .”
“Waray.”
“What?”
“I’m very sorry.”
There followed a measured quiet, the likes of which had been reluctantly delivered to a still, vapourized, condensed, and finally received as a more knowing, less abstract quiet. It was the sort of quiet that spoke for itself. “Whatever for?”
“Well . . .” The half-whore kneaded in earnest. The dismal, tenebrous shift in the air was not lost on her. She trained a frail smile on the half-viper. “I just am. You know, requisite regret. Maybe I secreted one of your eggs in the past and don’t remember it.”
“Maybe,” Waray granted. “Maybe.”
“We should go,” Ashtadukht said. “They’ll no doubt cleanse this place with fire.”
“Letthem cleanse methen.”
Ashtadukht slumped and let the nightingale’s song flood her brain. She knew that empty tone, that defeated outlook; she knew it intimately. Even now, it burned in her as limply as a snuffed flame. Passion burned with unchecked verve, devoured its fuel, and sputtered out. Despair required no upkeep; it heaped barely-glowing coals in the back of your mind and fuelled itself.
Any argument appealing to a sense of self-preservation would surely fall on deaf ears. “Being cleansed with fire . . . hurts, you know.”
“. . .”
Ashtadukht got the impression that Waray had shrugged. She looked at it another way. What had kept her going all these years? Vengeance. Justice. She wondered whether the half-viper would find it equally enticing. “We could make—” She had to tread lightly. “We could make them pay.”
“Mmn?”
“Them. The ones responsible for . . . the ones responsible. We could punish them, bring justice to their gates.”
The proposition took hold on fancies the half-viper had secured behind the many labours of a mythological quest, but fancies she could never outright rid herself of. These fancies were built on memories she refused to acknowledge, and one such fancy had been hooked: revenge. Waray probably hadn’t the faintest idea why, but she said, “Maybe.”
They left soon thereafter, Waray moving sluggishly and, now that the moonlight illuminated her finer features, looking a total mess. Her gaze often took on that dreadful thousand-yard stare; her tunic and trousers were stained and stiff from months of egg- and drug-related accidents; her lips moved wordlessly; her head canted this way and that without provocation. She made Ashtadukht look hale, clean, and full of vim.
The virtuoso performance of the nightingale faded as they distanced themselves from the estate. The sun scored streaks of dawn on the night, and would soon drive the wicked planets away. Ashtadukht turned to Waray and bade her, “Take me to the burrow of the divs.”
XII
Waray had agreed with an honest yet uncertain “Maybe.” The accompanying wince made it seem as if she’d chart a path of aimless circles around the Mazandaran Sea. As it was, they’d followed an easterly course along the water’s edge, and gradually turned north as it did.
Although there were no signs of pursuit, Ashtadukht had insisted they maintain a steady pace and steer clear of civilization. The only fully restful days were those in which her body demanded it. She had been busy meting out her warped attempt at justice for many years now, and others would most certainly want to bring the same to her.
She had the presence of mind to consider this not because she admitted to any wrongdoing, but owing to her view that wrongdoing was relative. The same people who she knew without a shadow of a doubt were shit in the mouth of society were also loved ones to another—another who was immutably incorrect yet no less in love.
Their only forays into cities were to obtain the drugs she’d promised Waray, which helped the half-viper find some peace during the day. Despite the temptation, Ashtadukht refused to indulge; someone had to have their wits about them while they rested.
Half-whore and half-viper continued north. The nights grew too cold for any number of layers, the sun’s upper culmination dipped further below the celestial equator, and about the only positive effect of autumn coming to the Mazandaran plain was that daylight retired sooner and was less eager to resume its assault come morning.
They arrived at the Great Wall of Varkana, which swam like a baked brick leviathan below the northern border of Iran. Outfitted with over thirty forts and extending from the sea to the mountains, its muted red scales had repelled many an invasion by nomads and divs from the north.
For a pair of humble travellers it wasn’t much of a hindrance. Ashtadukht and Waray rounded its western end without challenge.
“Makesyou wonder,” Waray remarked as they passed.
Ashtadukht, who’d been fighting a deeply-ingrained habit of assuming a brazen, authoritative posture when faced with anyone who’d dare impede her, final
ly felt permitted to tear her gaze from the dirty toes of her boots. A scowl washed over her expression, having been staved off for the duration of her play at meekness. By—well, she wasn’t sure who to swear by anymore—but by some deity she hated it! Acting meek as a lamb left her incensed.
“Wonder what?” she grumbled.
“Whether itmolts,” Waray answered, setting her head eerily awry and throwing a charged glower to her rear. “Šo-slithering wall, dropping brickslikenobody’s business. Probably šo-haughty, too. Thinks it’s too hoity-toity formoltingbecause it’s a land leviathan.”
“That’s only a figure of speech,” Ashtadukht refuted. “It isn’t really a leviathan. Do leviathans even . . . do they molt?”
“I think. Well, I’ve dinedwithleviathans. They molt. And they don’t go putting on airs and slitheringoutof water. A mind to go back there and show it what Ithinkofits šo-la-di-da swagger. I’ll find its snout, I’ll find its arse, and it’lltalkoutofits arse.”
“Don’t,” Ashtadukht hastily cut in, delighted to see the half-viper had some verve in her yet. “Just let it go. Be the bigger snake. Besides, do you even molt?”
Blushing had never seemed to suit Waray, as it’d rarely happened, and in most cases would have probably warranted a more violent reaction. But she blushed fiercely. She cocked her head away from the question.
“Waray?” Moonlight had a way of altering colour, but the ruddy tint to the half-viper’s cheeks was unmistakable.
“. . .”
Ashtadukht could no more hide her surprise than pry the amusement from her tone. “Are you embarrassed? Scion of the Bloody Club, Progeny of the fucking Murderous Spear—embarrassed?”
Waray issued an ambiguous hiss and angled her head further. “Maybe.”
“Do you?” the half-whore pressed.
Waray seemed primed to bolt. A subtle, alternating springiness entered her step. She scratched nervously at her scalp.
“Can’t just, can’tjustask a lady if she molts. Can’t. Šo-crinkly skin moltingaway and there are no instructions. And sometimes ithangsthere for days—like it’s afraidto go. And you don’twantto abandon it. Skinship, I think. Skinship. That’s theworst of it.
“Brrv.” The thought sent a shiver through her limbs, and she yanked irritably at her cloak. She canted the other way. “Can’t just ask.”
“I see,” Ashtadukht replied, though she didn’t.
They marched onward, through miserable autumn downpours, Ashtadukht wrapped tightly in her cloak, and Waray’s billowing behind her.
“What I wouldn’t give for an old fir,” the half-whore muttered through chattering teeth. “Some low-hanging branches. Dry and warm. Relatively anyway. Even some dirt to sleep on. Not too much to ask. Didn’t even mention a fire.”
She glanced worriedly at Waray. The half-viper seemed oblivious to the rain; she seemed oblivious to everything. She’d been entering these dazes here and there, and what troubled Ashtadukht was the chance that Waray only ever left those thousand-yard stares because she couldn’t establish a foothold. She came over and re-fastened the clasp then tugged the hood snugly over Waray’s eyes. She pulled the cloak taut and re-secured the rope that held it around her waist.
“A wonder it hasn’t been blown off. Keep warm, Waray. We can’t have you keeling over.”
“Not a šo-wretchedship.”
Ashtadukht contemplated the rim of the hood where it flapped just above a thin, disapproving scowl. She gave the half-viper’s arms a rub, relieved to have her back. “No. Of course you aren’t. We can’t have you freezing to death at any rate.”
“Maybe.” The scowl broke, pursed. The hood canted. “What I wouldn’tgivefor some šo-scrumptious eggs.”
“If we’re lucky,” Ashtadukht mused, slinging an arm over Waray’s shoulder, “the fir will come fully stocked.”
“Birdsdon’tnest in animal hides.”
“Never mind. We’ll be fording the Atrak soon.” She gestured to the north. “Still on the right track?”
Waray shrugged and the hood lurched to one side. “Maybe.”
“I’m trusting you to guide me,” said Ashtadukht. “Will we pass through the Neck of Arezura and into the burrow of the divs unchallenged?”
The half-viper gave an affirmative, “Maybe,” and shrunk into her bundle.
“Why are you so opposed to going? It’s your homeland after all.”
“Only half. Norespect for a half anything. No homelandfor a half anything.”
Ashtadukht nodded. “And your . . . father? Surely he has some sway.”
“Says—” Waray lowered her pitch to a baritone. “Says, ‘No daughters ofmineare bullied,’ so we thrashed themandtorethem apart, those šo-sniggering divs. Thrashedand thrashed and thrashed and—”
“Okay,” Ashtadukht interrupted. A sinister glint had infiltrated the half-viper’s tone, and that was the last thing either of them needed. “So you did him proud. What made you leave then?”
Waray’s heavy breathing made her words seem laboured, when in fact they were positively crackling with energy. “Those šo-sneering andšo-sniggering divs. They neverquit. So father—” Baritone again. “He said, ‘Youhavesown discord in divkind. Now follow my example and bring the sameto humans.’ So we did. Only . . .”
“Only?”
“. . .”
Ashtadukht chanced a glance to her side, though subtlety was scarcely necessary. Still firmly wrenched over Waray’s head, the hood obscured everything above her lips, which were forming the faint shapes of some inner discourse. Ashtadukht surmised that it must have been when affairs went south and left it at that. No more prying; she’d learned her lesson.
“Well, I hate to say it, but we should probably find you an axe if the divs there are hostile. Not to mention the guard at the gates. I’ve never been this far out—not to the east anyway. Anything nearby?”
“Axe? Like forchopping?”
“Yes.”
“No. Needabow. Arrows, too.”
“Why don’t we grab both?” the half-whore bargained. “We may need to fell some trees.”
Waray seemed to consider it, angling her head into the downpour as she did. In doing so, the hood drew up enough for her to train inspiration on the stormy sky. “Just might work,” she pondered aloud. “We’ll belumberjacks. Fell-a-dells. Pocket the šo-loftynests.”
“Sure. So get yourself an axe,” Ashtadukht said, hurriedly amending, “Bow and arrows, too.”
The following day they came upon what could in the loosest of terms be fashioned a fishing hamlet on the shore of the Mazandaran Sea. A collection of rickety hovels huddled around a sorry excuse for a pier, where the mangy dog incumbent to these modest arrangements barked incessantly upon their arrival. This hamlet dealt mainly in bream, which wouldn’t have been Ashtadukht’s first guess considering its proximity to the sturgeon-packed Atrak.
They’d approached reluctantly, and only after being certain the dog had attracted some attention. You don’t wander into tight-knit circles unannounced unless you intend to burn the place down. They hadn’t intended to.
“Šo-yapping dog,” Waray hissed from beneath the concealing rim of her hood. She leaned over it, dangerously sibilant. “Haveyouseen my arrows?”
The mutt bared its gums, raised its hackles, and a growl rumbled in its throat.
She leaned closer, her hiss intensifying. “You will.”
Ashtadukht glanced nervously at her companion. Waray and the dog looked ready to scrap. Fortunately, she’d had the presence of mind to engage the hardy fisherman who’d waved them over out of earshot of the half-viper. A small curly-haired girl peeked timidly from behind his leg. Ashtadukht gave her a little wave.
The fisherman had greeted her in a nomadic dialect she couldn’t make heads or tails of. After bumbling through Pahlavi, Turkic, and Latin, they found common ground in rudimentary Bactrian.
“An axe and a bow. Provisions, too. We’ll pay.” She curled and crossed her fingers in the universal met
hod of merchants to indicate what she thought was a generous price. The fisherman looked at her hands like she’d just mangled them. The curly-haired girl giggled.
“More?” Ashtadukht asked. She bent another finger to her palm. His confusion worsened.
She was groping for a more effective way to haggle when the dog issued a series of distressed yips. She expelled an exasperated sigh—knowing it’d be appropriate—and swivelled to see what the ruckus was about. The dog scampered off, trailing smoke, into the nearest hovel. The man chased the flaming dog, shouting as he did.
“Fuck me with a fishing rod,” she cursed in Bactrian, which further excited the curly-haired girl. Her father was a fisherman after all.
Waray had struck a triumphant pose, fangs bared menacingly, and was now casting about with purpose. Something amidst the cluttered driftwood shacks piqued her interest, and she darted off.
The girl moved to follow, and Ashtadukht snatched her wrist.
“No,” she said, and the good-natured girl offered no complaint. The pair watched as one hovel went up in flames, and another, and another.
“Sorry,” Ashtadukht said as Waray emerged from the clutter, woodcutter’s axe in hand. She closed the curly-haired, good-natured girl’s fist around a few dinars, and gave her the best affected smile she could summon. “Stay here,” she said with a wink. “Wait for papa.”
“Hatedogs. Hatedogs,” Waray hissed, panting for breath and swinging the axe with unintentional poise. “Šo-yapping mutt. Never hear anyone complain aboutwetsnakes.”
Ashtadukht flashed a threatening glare at the half-viper. They ran.
• • • • •
A Star-Reckoner's Lot (A Star-Reckoner's Legacy Book 1) Page 26