by Col Buchanan
Ash gave a dismissive toss of his head. 'The Seer is what you Mercians call a… prodigy. They have not always been so, our Seers, but this one… this one is a man of learning as well as of intuition. When we first came here, to the Miders, he heard of Zanzahar and the many things they imported there from the Isles of Sky. He travelled to the city to study them, though it was not always clear what those things had been designed for. The seeds of the mali tree, for instance. They are sold in that city as rare charms capable of bonding to their wearer. They store a person's life in some way, so the wearers, if they practise certain techniques, can relive those events in dreams of their own choosing. The Seer – it was he who discovered how to bisect those seeds and twin them, so we could use them for our own purposes. In that way he invented the seals.'
'So how did you conduct vendetta before then?'
'With great difficulty.' Ash cast a backward glance at his apprentice. There was a sparkle to his dark features, a vitality that seemed to have been absent for some time. 'Your wounds have healed well,' he observed to his apprentice.
'Yes,' Nico agreed.
It was true. The wounds caused by Aleas had been small enough cuts, as it turned out. They had not even require stitching. Nico had simply applied beeswax to them, as Aleas himself had suggested, whereupon the wounds had not bruised but stayed red and raw for some days, before scabbing over, causing the discomfort of constant itching more than anything else. When Nico had later caught his reflection, backlit by candle flame, in the glass of one of the kitchen windows, he was even somewhat taken with what he saw. The small scars made him look older, he decided.
The Seer lived alone in a little hermitage further up the valley. His hermitage sat on a hump of grass in the bend formed by a small, frothy brook that ran between rocks turned green with algae. Trees protected it on the windward side, gnarly jupes in full bloom and a large weeping willow whose leaves trailed in the current of water and sparred with its passing. The hermitage itself was nothing more than a shack, with a rectangular hole cut in one wall to overlook the brook, and which served as both window and door.
'Remember what I have told you,' said Ash as they approached.
Nico followed him inside. For a moment, in the dusty sunlight filtering past him though the doorway, he wondered if they had come to the wrong place.
In the centre of the tiny hut, the Seer sat cross-legged on a mat of woven rushes, facing the door with his eyes half closed. He was a skinny, ancient man, with a milky film covering his hooded eyes, and skin like that of fruit left too long in the sun. He was a farlander, obviously, and his dark skin contrasted sharply with the great puffs of white hair sprouting from his nostrils and ears. His scalp was bald. His earlobes, ritually mutilated, hung obscenely down to his shoulders in a manner Nico had never seen before.
Nico turned with open mouth to Ash to find him kneeling on the ground. With a jerk of his head, he indicated for Nico to kneel beside him.
The ancient farlander stared at Nico silently, in a way that reminded him of one his mother's cats, as if gazing at something that was not even there. The old man blinked slowly, then spread his lips into a grin that exposed his toothless gums. He nodded once, as though in greeting, seeming pleased at the sight of the young man before him, or amused at the very least.
He became serious as he turned to Ash who, without comment, passed the dead seal into the old man's shaking hands.
They waited expectantly. A chant filled the air as the old Seer whined something in the farlander tongue, and scratched at the lice infesting his robe. Eventually he fell silent, sitting entirely motionless with his eyes closed, the occasional grassfly settling on his bald, liver-spotted head. It was like those initial sessions of practising meditation on the Falcon, in which Nico had been unable to settle, and the aches of his body had eventually turned to agony. Indeed, he tried to settle into meditation, but it was useless, for he was too impatient to find out what would happen next. Absently, he chewed at his lip and stared at the damp-stained planks lining the opposite wall.
It was a blessed relief when the old Seer finally broke his meditative silence, smacking his dry lips and leaning away from the lifeless seal cradled in both hands.
'Shinsh ta-kana…' he croaked in a high-pitched voice. 'Yoshi, li-naga!' And then he nodded his head and frowned quite sadly.
'Murder,' Ash translated for the boy, his voice hard.
*
That evening, as the Rshun finished their supper around the tables in the large dining hall that occupied much of the north wing of the monastery building, and the candles brightened against the fading light coming through its many windows, a sudden ringing of cutlery against glass silenced the quiet chatter.
Nico looked up from the table where he sat with the other apprentices, still chewing on the last of his rice cake. Aleas stopped talking to him, and did the same. From the back of the room, a wizened far-lander rose slowly from his wooden chair. He was older than Ash, though not as ancient and withered as the Seer. Nico knew him to be Osh, the head of the order, the man who had founded this very monastery here in the mountains of Cheem. He had several times seen him limping around the place, but never before had he heard him speak.
The old Rshun's voice echoed with a clear resonance around the hushed room.
'My friends,' he declared to the multitude of faces now turned towards him. 'We have, on this night, a task incumbent upon us of an exceptional nature. One of our patrons has taken to the High Road. The Seer informs us that it was murder. He has also told us, through his wisdom, of the culprit responsible for this act.' Osh paused and studied each face in turn, measuring them for attention, or perhaps some other quality only he could perceive.
'Tonight we must declare vendetta on a priest of Mann. Not merely any priest, take mind. No, as always, life refuses to be as straightforward as that. Tonight, we declare vendetta on Kirkus dul Dubois – that is, the son of Sasheen dul Dubois, the Holy Matriarch of Mann.'
Murmurs broke out around the room. Nico stole a glance towards Ash, who sat at the same high table as the old leader. Ash merely sipped from his goblet of water, his expression neutral.
'We have declared vendetta many times upon citizens of the Empire, but never against one of such standing. To do so tonight will be a hazardous venture for our order. Kirkus was aware that his victim wore a seal and was thus under our protection. Therefore, the Empire must know that we will seek vendetta against him. No doubt, they will do all in their power to stop us, including, I suspect, engineering our total destruction. He is, after all, the only child of the Matriarch herself.
'I believe their first response will be to target our agents scattered around the Miders ports, in the false belief that our people there in the cities will know the whereabouts of our location here. Since we have no other contact with our patrons save through our agents, that is all the Mannians can do for now. Tonight, I have already instructed that carrier birds be sent out to all of them, warning them to be vigilant.
'Being of consequence to all of us, I have chosen to speak here at a time and place where we come together to share in simple nourishment. We must be, every one of us, aware of what we undertake tonight. In such a spirit, I select no one to be sent on this vendetta. Instead, I ask for three volunteers.'
A pause, and then in the centre of the dining hall a man stood with a scrape of his chair and clasped his hands before him. Almost as quickly, a dozen more Rshun rose from their seats.
'Thank you.' Osh smiled. 'Now, let me see, who do we have? Ah, Anton, you shall go. And Kylos of the little islands. And you – yes, Baso, I see you – you shall go also. Good, three of our finest.' The others returned to their seats, leaving those three standing alone above a sea of heads. 'You must leave tonight, I am afraid. We may already be too late to intercept Kirkus dul Dubois before he is able to return to Q'os, but we must still make haste before the Empire has sufficient chance to prepare for our retaliation. For retaliate we must, despite the obvious threat to our own order
.
'Remember, an innocent woman lies dead tonight. Her life ill-taken by this young priest. For once, and we all know this for the rarity that it is, the righteousness of our task is clear. This time, we are not merely hunting the killer of a wealthy thug, or a patrician who has caught his brother sleeping with his wife, or a woman cornered into actions in which she had no reasonable alternative. There is no greyness here, as there so often is, and for which we so often seek forgiveness in our hours of quietness.'
Heads nodded in agreement, but there was a notable exception, Nico noticed. Baracha, sitting beside Ash, looked troubled and obviously wished to speak.
'We hunt a monster of the very real kind. And we have a pledge to keep, which we shall fulfil regardless of the cost. For truly, if we Rshun are to be of any worth to the world, then we must prove it now. This is it.'
He bowed his head. 'That is all.'
*
'It is a bad business,' announced the head of the Rshun order, the next morning, from the padded chair in his study at the top of the monastery tower. He spoke in their native Honshu, its syllables harsh and short-lived, as he always did when they were alone together.
Ash, sitting on the window seat at the other side of the room, did not respond.
'We take on an entire empire by pursuing this one vendetta,' continued Osh. 'I pray it will not prove our undoing.'
'We have stood against powerful enemies before, master,' Ash reminded him softly.
'Aye, and lost all.'
A muscle in Ash's jaw flinched at that remark.
'Perhaps we had no other choice then,' he replied. 'As we have none now. What else can we do but honour our pledge, and act from our Cha?'
It was an interesting word, Cha. In the common language of Trade, many words would be needed to describe it, like 'centre', or 'stillness', or 'clear heart'.
'Cha?…' mused Osh, irony evident in his vague smile. 'My Cha seems always clear to me, my friend, when I slice cheese or drink chee or fart in my old pine bed. But when I sit and ponder such things as this, affecting the future of the monastery itself, and the many hazards I must be aware of for the sake of all our futures, my Cha muddies itself with uncertainty. And then I wonder if perhaps I have not lost my way.'
'Nonsense,' snapped Ash. 'Last night you stood and explained to us why we must pursue this vendetta, regardless of the consequences. Your actions decided the issue. What more certainty can you expect?'
Osh sighed. He responded quietly, as though talking only to himself. 'And all the time, I wondered if my words were not leading us to yet another massacre, or at the very least, another exile from our home.'
Ash returned his gaze to the window. He felt tired today, like on every other day since his return to the monastery, for his head pains had grown more common, and he had been sleeping poorly. Ash had been expecting this to happen. Often, when intent on a vendetta, his body would wait until it had reached a safe haven again before allowing any sickness or injury to run its natural course.
He had always tended to keep his own company while living here in the monastery. Since returning, though, he had become even more secluded than before. When he felt well enough, he trained outside the monastery walls, or undertook long walks through the mountains, avoiding others he spotted on their own hikes, his young apprentice amongst them. Mostly, though, he stayed alone in his cell, sleeping when he could manage it, or reading poetry from the old country, or just meditating. He did not wish the other members of the order to perceive that he was ill.
'It is not that kind of certainty I ask for,' Osh pressed. 'I have been more in my life than merely Rshun. I have led armies in the field, you recall? I have commanded a fleet across the great ocean of storms. My dear Ash, I once slew an overlord in a chance encounter that lasted for the entirety of three seconds. 'No, it is not certainty in my actions that I am lacking, or have ever lacked. I think perhaps it is Chan that I have lost, and I fear it makes my decisions weak.'
Another interesting word, Chan. Like Cha, in Trade it could mean many things: passion, faith, love, hope, art, blind courage. Sometimes, it could mean the mysteriously clever ways of the Fool. It was, in actuality, the outer manifestation of Cha in action.
'I grow tired of this business, that is all. Too much of my life have I spent as Rshun; soldier, general, nothing more. It has become a life hardly worthy of breath. When the time is right I will hand over the reins to Baracha. He is much more the scheming politician than I, even if his Cha is unclear.'
'Phff, if he were in charge now, he would have us parlaying with the Mannians and discussing a pay-off in return for the young priest's life.'
'Then perhaps Baracha is wise beyond his years. Who is to say he would be wrong, if it resulted in our survival?'
Ash felt the blood rush to his face, but kept silent.
'You were never Rshun; back in the old country, Ash, as I was,' continued Osh. 'You do not know how it was – not truly. Our patrons there wore a simple medallion for all to see and if they were slain, we gathered what information we could that might lead us to the killer. It was a messy business, I assure you. Sometimes we killed the wrong person. Often we were never able to track down the true culprit at all. Even today, here in the Miders, with our seals and our mali trees imported all the way from the Isles of Sky, we have sometimes failed to finish vendetta.'
'Yes, but we have always tried. It is the promise that we make.'
'Our promise, yes,' Osh agreed. 'But in the old country, our promise was always a practical one. I doubt that we would have ever risked our entire order in such a way as this.'
Ash shook his head. 'That may be. But we are a different thing here, in this land, than the old assassins. We have remained detached from the politics of the world, and neither do we manoeuvre for our own gain. We simply offer justice for those that are in need of it. If we do not risk ourselves now, then our promise to all those people means nothing, and we mean nothing, and all we have ever lived for is merely a sham.'
Osh considered his words. It seemed he could not find fault with them.
Ash continued: 'What did you yourself always say to me when I was most anxiously facing a decision?'
'Many things, most of them nonsense.'
'Yes, but what was the same thing you said to me, time after time?'
'Ah,' growled the old general. 'Grin, and roll the dice.'
'A worthy sentiment, I always thought.'
Osh's sigh was audible. It was an expression of release, though, not exasperation, and he relaxed further into his deep chair, his eyes regarding something on the chee-table set in the middle of the room, perhaps the play of sunlight across its surface. The table itself was of wild tiq, carved from the planking of one of those ships that had brought them both here all the way from Honshu thirty years before.
Ash studied this old man he had known for so much of his life. His master seemed unaware of his own hand scratching idly at his left leg. Ash noticed it, though, and he smiled to himself, without commenting.
It appeared that, in some way, the debate was settled for now. They fell into one of their comfortable silences, the kind that could last for hours without any need for talk. A clatter sounded somewhere beneath the floorboards, distant enough to be subdued, probably someone dropping an armful of training weaponry, or perhaps a stack of platters from the nearby kitchen. Nearly lunchtime, Ash thought, so more likely platters. Friendly smells wafted in though the open window: keesh baking, and spicy stew.
Osh stirred in his chair, glanced down at his hand, saw it scratching his leg. He snatched it away, bemused. 'Over twenty years I've been with this wooden leg of mine, and still I scratch at phantom itches as though they really existed.'
Ash barely heard him though. The dull ache in his head was worsening, and he clasped a hand to his forehead.
'Are you all right, old friend?'
Osh arose into continuing silence, adjusted his false leg and limped across the room to where Ash perched on the deep, sunl
it window seat.
'Yes,' replied Ash, but with his voice shaking. He pressed both temples with his fingers, trying to squeeze away the pain.
'The headaches again?' inquired Osh, resting a hand on his shoulder.
'Yes.'
'They grow worse, then?'
Ash fumbled deep inside his robe, then produced his pouch. His fingers shook as he opened it and drew out a dried dulce leaf. He placed it in his mouth, settling it between tongue and cheek.
'They have grown so bad recently, sometimes I cannot see at all.'
Osh's hand squeezed his shoulder. It was not like him, to offer a gesture of comfort.
Ash drew out another leaf and placed it inside his mouth, against the other cheek.
'Is there anything I can do for you? Ch'eng, perhaps?'
'No, master. He cannot help me.'
'Please, enough of the master. You ceased to be my apprentice a long, long time ago.'
The pain slowly subsided. Enough at least for Ash to smile back at him – though he avoided his master's eyes, which had grown watery and dark all of a sudden.
'We grow older than we think,' he said in an attempt at lightening the mood.
'No,' said Osh, as he shuffled back to his padded chair. 'You grow older than you think. I am already aware of my decrepitude, and plan to retire as soon as possible with what little dignity remains to me.'
'I have been pondering the same thing,' admitted Ash.
The old general settled back in his chair and fixed Ash with a look that was familiar after these long years – his head tilted back, his sharp features drawn in concentration, his hooded eyes appraising whoever was before them. 'I had hoped as much, when I saw you with an apprentice after all these years. What prompted your change of mind?'
'I have not changed my mind. But we had a conversation, you and I, some months ago. In my head.'
'When you were on the ice?'
He nodded.
'Perhaps, then, it was more than that. I had a dream some months back. It was very cold. You did not think you were going to make it.'
'No, I did not. But you offered me a bargain, and a promise that I would make it home alive if I agreed. So I took it.'