by Stephen Deas
‘Berren.’ Kol wore a grim smile. ‘Well, well. Fancy seeing you.’
‘Justicar.’ Berren looked from side to side. ‘What’s happening? That’s the Overlord!’
‘Yes.’ Kol raised an eyebrow. He seemed unusually pleased with himself. ‘I noticed.’
‘What’s he doing here? What are you doing here?’
Kol grinned. It was a nasty grin, the sort a cat might give to a cornered mouse. ‘Where’s your master, boy?’
Berren shrugged.
‘And if you did know, would you tell me?’
Berren shrugged again. ‘Not if he told me not to, Master Kol.’
‘That’s justicar to you today, boy. You know I could have you sent to the mines just for that, just for not telling me things that I want to know.’
This time Berren sniffed. ‘Might as well send the whole city then, Master Kol, because it’s packed full to bursting with people who don’t know where Master Sy is hiding.’
Kol bared his teeth some more. ‘You think you’re safe in here where I can’t touch you, but you won’t be here forever, and I’ll always be waiting. One by one I’ll bring you in. I don’t know whose side you think you’re on, Berren, but for as long as you’re not telling me what it is that you know, it’s not mine. And that’s a bad place to be.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Tides ebb and tides flow. The Autarch rests in Torpreah, the Emperor still has an heir, armies have stayed in their castles and it seems there is to be no war after all, not this year; so our Overlord finally grows a spine and climbs off his fence. And so now I’m here, with the one and only man in this city who can command the priests of the sun, and at last we get to the truth.’
‘I told you everything I know, Master Kol. All of it.’
Kol snorted. He pulled back the shroud on the cart. Underneath was a body, someone who’d been dead and drying out for months.
‘I haven’t forgotten you and your master, Berren, but today I have my eyes on a different prize.’
It took Berren a moment to recognise to corpse, and even then, it was the clothes he recognised more than the dried peeling leathery face.
Master Velgian.
29
CURIOSITY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
He ran straight back to Tasahre, who was sitting at the edge of their fighting circle, legs crossed, eyes closed, with a smile on her face.
‘They’ve got Master Velgian’s body! They’re going to call his spirit and make him talk! Or something like that.’
‘Good.’ She unfolded her legs, stood up and tossed a waster at Berren. He caught it without thinking. ‘Now can we resume our practice?’
‘It’s Master Velgian! They’re going to bring him back from the dead!’ Practice? This was no time for practice! Berren hopped from one foot to the other. ‘Don’t you want to be there? Don’t you want to hear what he says?’
‘No.’ She came to him and lifted his arm so he was holding his waster out straight. Then she balanced her hourglass on the end of his blade and took her own position across the circle. She stared at him down the length of her sword. ‘Calling back the dead is … it is an unclean thing to do. A necessary evil perhaps, and it will be kind when this is done to give the assassin’s body to the sun at last. But no, I do not wish to witness such a deed.’
‘I do! I want to know who made him do it!’ Berren grinned. He couldn’t ask the priests of course — they wouldn’t tell him anything and he’d just get a telling-off for being nosey. Even following a few around trying to eavesdrop on his way back to Tasahre hadn’t helped.
‘To what end? What difference will it make?’ She was trying to sound severe but there was a twinkle in her eye that Berren had come to recognise. One that said we are more than just a teacher and her student. One that said they were friends.
‘You want to know too!’
For a moment, Tasahre’s sword wobbled, actually wobbled, and Tasahre’s sword never wobbled. It took Berren a moment to realise why. She was trying very hard not to laugh.
‘What?’
She shook her head and then she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. ‘Of course I do. But it is forbidden.’
‘Forbidden? Why?’
‘A sword-monk does not dabble in such things.’
They stared at one another. Berren glanced at the glass on his sword: five minutes left.
‘But shouldn’t you be there? I mean one of you? Sword-monks can smell a lie — that’s what they say!’
‘Yes, Berren, we can, as you very well know, but from the living, not from the dead.’ For a moment he thought he caught a slight stiffening in Tasahre’s face. She was always hard to read, but there was an air of unease to the way she stood.
Two minutes on the hourglass. Berren watched the sands trickle down. ‘I’m going to go and listen,’ he said.
‘They will not let you in.’
Which made him laugh. ‘I know more ways to get about this temple than the rest of you lot put together. I was raised a thief, Tasahre. There’s nowhere I can’t go.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘And here we are, teaching you swords too? I shall begin to wonder if that is wise if you continue to say such things.’
He shrugged and beamed. ‘I could say nothing. Wouldn’t make it any less true.’ One minute. ‘Tasahre?’
‘Berren?’
‘Come with me.’ Thirty seconds. His shoulder was starting to go, the tip of his waster just beginning to wobble. Behind Tasahre, the great gates to the temple dome were opening and there was Justicar Kol and his cart. Berren watched it roll slowly inside and the doors close again. The last grain of sand trickled through the hourglass. Berren didn’t move. After another minute, Tasahre gently lowered her own sword.
‘I cannot.’ She stepped smartly away. ‘Now! Guard!’
Berren lowered his waster. ‘You’ll have to catch me first!’ He dropped it and bolted across the yard, dodging around Tasahre and heading for the dome.
‘Berren!’ It took her a moment before she was after him, swift as the wind. He ignored her, pelting past the closing doors of the dome and round to the back where the bulk of the temple joined it, the dormitories and the teaching cloisters and the kitchens and the priests’ tower. He sprinted for the kitchen, up onto the roof of a low drying shed and then shimmied to the top of the teaching cloister. He smiled. Tasahre was right behind him. Somewhere under his racing feet, Sterm was teaching a class full of novices. Telling them all about some saint who simply didn’t matter any more, most likely.
‘Berren!’ Tasahre called him again. ‘Stop! You cannot!’
Oh yes I can! His smile spread through him, making him run even faster. He vaulted a chimney block and then hurled himself at the high roof of the dormitory, gripping the edge with his hands and swinging his legs up onto the tiles a whisker of a second before Tasahre could reach him. He paused for a moment and looked down at her. ‘Admit it — you can’t catch me!’
She jumped, a standing jump, high enough to reach the edge of the roof with her hands while the rest of her followed in one fluid movement. Berren dashed across the top of the sloping roof towards the dome. There was a walkway that ran around it, an easy climb from the dormitory. He vaulted up and ran to the little door that led into the inside, to a catwalk that ran high around the dome above the altar. No one ever guarded the temple rooftop.
At the door he skidded to a stop.
‘Berren! Don’t!’ But she wasn’t close enough to stop him. He opened the door and slipped inside, creeping now. Below him, the centre of the temple dome was filled with people, forty or fifty of them. The cart was empty now. There were soldiers, the Emperor’s men in their pale silver, carrying Velgian to the altar of the sun. Berren moved quickly and silently away from the door and then crouched to watch. There were shadows up here. If he was still, no one would see him, even if they thought to look up. He just had to be quiet, that was all.
‘Berren!’ Tasahre came through the door. She hissed at him but she didn’t shout; instead, s
he came quietly to crouch beside him and grabbed his arm, tugging him. ‘Come! You cannot be here! It is forbidden!’
‘Why?’
‘They will expel you! I cannot be here!’
‘Then go away!’ Berren jerked his arm away from her.
‘Berren!’ She was getting angry. He’d never seen that, not once in all the time he’d been with her. She grabbed his arm again.
‘Get off!’ Below, the soldiers had Velgian on the altar now. They stepped back, leaving space around the dead thief-taker. The Overlord in his golden robe was standing beside an old man in sunshine yellow, the Sunherald of Deephaven himself. The Emperor’s soldiers and the temple guardsmen eyed each other with twitching suspicion. But it wasn’t the Sunherald who stepped towards the body, it was a woman, dressed in the same brilliant yellow robes as the Sunherald.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Berren.
‘The Sunbright,’ whispered Tasahre. Her grip on him eased.
‘What, Ansinnas?’
‘Yes.’ She let go of him. It seemed odd to Berren that with so many of the Emperor’s soldiers in the temple, the priests hadn’t called in their sword-monks. But they hadn’t. Apart from Tasahre, he couldn’t see a single one.
‘Is that usual?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I have never seen such a thing as this.’
‘When the warlock made the Headsman talk, he said she was the one he’d met with.’
Tasahre hissed. ‘And you would believe the spirit of a dead murderer, conjured by a warlock?’
Berren didn’t say anything. He could feel her unease, though. She wasn’t sure. There was doubt in her, just a crack of it, but enough to make her stay. ‘This is all a farce!’ she growled.
The Sunbright bent over Velgian. Light flowed from her hands, bathing him.
‘What’s she doing?’
‘Berren! I do not know!’ He’d never seen Tasahre so tense before.
The Sunbright stepped away from the body. The light faded from her fingers.
‘I have spoken to the spirit of the murderer,’ she said, loud and clear enough for everyone in the dome to hear. ‘He could not stand the decadence and the arrogance he saw. It was his decision to try and to kill Prince Sharda Falandawn. His alone.’
A rumble of discontent swept the men below. The overlord was shaking his head and looking at Kol. The justicar was shaking his head too, harder, almost trembling with anger. The Sunherald was smiling.
‘It’s not true!’ shouted Kol. ‘He wouldn’t! I know him — knew him. Someone paid him!’
‘He acted alone,’ said the Sunbright again.
Berren hissed. ‘It’s not fair! She’s lying! She must be! He told me there was a purse full of emperors …’ He looked at Tasahre, but the sword-monk had gone white. She was staring down at the Sunbright and at Velgian’s body. In the corner of her eye, a tear crept loose and began to roll down her cheek. She touched a finger to her nose.
The Overlord and the Sunherald were glaring at each other, exchanging quiet heated words. The soldiers around them stirred uneasily. Hands slipped to sword-hilts.
Tasahre stood up, very slowly. She moved to the edge of the catwalk and leaned over, where anyone who looked couldn’t fail to see her. Kol was pushing his way towards the Sunbright, his face bright with fury. Temple soldiers moved to be in his way and grabbed at him. Kol went for his sword. Around them, the Emperor’s men began to move. Another sword came out of its sheath.
Tasahre drew a blade from across her back and pointed it down at the temple altar. ‘Liar!’ she screamed, and the whole of the dome seemed to ring with her voice. Below, everyone froze. They all looked up. ‘Sunbright Ansinnas! Your words carry the stink of falsehood!’ And then she jumped, right over the edge of the catwalk. It must have been at least thirty feet to the floor, and the whole temple shook as she hit it. Berren rushed to the edge, because surely no one could fall so far without breaking a bone at the very least — Velgian’s fall from the roof had been less and that had killed him! But Tasahre was already up, striding towards the middle of the temple, both swords out now, one held straight out in front of her, aimed right at the Sunbright’s face.
‘Traitor! Assassin!’ shouted the Sunbright. ‘Stop her!’
No one moved. They all seemed paralysed. The soldiers who stood in Tasahre’s way, the temple guard and the Emperor’s men alike, backed out of her path. She stopped in front of the Sunbright. The tip of her sword hovered between Ansinnas’ eyes. ‘Liar,’ she said again.
‘I speak as the spirit told me,’ said the Sunbright. Her voice was shaking, but maybe that was just because she had a sword in her face.
Tasahre sniffed the air. ‘Liar,’ she said again. ‘You did not speak to the spirit of this man at all. Every word you spoke, every single one, was false. You knew, before you even began, that this man did not act alone. How did you know that, Sunbright? The truth, Sunbright!’
Ansinnas started looking for a way out. Berren couldn’t see her eyes, but he could see the twitching of her head.
‘Did you pay for foreign soldiers to come to Deephaven? Did you?’
‘No!’ The Sunbright was quivering.
‘Liar!’
The Overlord’s face had transformed. He’d gone from anger to the look of a cat who, quite unexpectedly, had cornered a mouse. He nodded towards the nearest of his soldiers. They moved towards the Sunbright.
‘No!’ The Sunbright shrank away from them. ‘Guards!’
Tasahre turned on the temple guard. ‘The first one of you that raises a blade, I will cut you down. Any of you.’
The Emperor’s men took hold of Ansinnas. They marched her away and no one moved to stop them. The Overlord and his followers and Kol all trailed after them. The Sunherald turned and walked out the other way, without a word to Tasahre. The priests and the temple guard went with him. Tasahre stood alone bedside Velgian’s body.
When everyone else was gone, Berren walked around the catwalk. On the other side of the dome, a tiny set of steep steps led down. He crossed towards the altar, but as he came close, Tasahre whipped round and pointed a sword at his face. It was the same thing he saw for ten minutes every day across the fighting circle, yet here and now, the sight almost stopped his heart. He froze, paralysed with a moment of utter terror.
‘And now you see,’ she said, as the tip of the sword held his eyes, ‘the power that this holds.’
As his heart remembered to beat again, he looked at her. Tear-tracks marked her cheeks.
30
SOMETIMES THERE IS NO ONE ELSE
They went through the rest of their daily routine. She worked him as hard as she always did, and the more his mind wandered, the more she pushed him. Sometimes he liked that, losing himself in the sheer physical energy she demanded from him. She still beat him at almost everything but he made her sweat to do it now, and there was no taking anything for granted any more. He had no idea, after what had happened in the temple, how she could put that aside and go back to the simple motions of the fight, thoughts unclouded by the fears and anxieties of the world. Yet he saw no guilt, no fear in her, only a deep sadness.
But today his timing was off, his footwork sloppy, and not just because of what Tasahre had done. Today was Moon-Day. Abyss-Day was tomorrow, the night before the Festival of Flames, the day he’d been waiting for ever since he’d fled the warlock. Tomorrow he’d find Master Sy again, and now the sight of Velgian had left him thinking of the thief-taker, of where he might be and what he was doing and why, and why did it matter so much, and what was it that Velgian had wanted him to know? He still didn’t know.
When they were done, Tasahre held him back for a moment. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes did it for her, fixing his feet to the dirt while she sheathed her swords behind her back. She came towards him and held him, her hands on his shoulders, and stared at him, and then touched her cheek lightly to his, almost as though she knew their time was coming to an end. Maybe she was right. After today, maybe s
he’d be sent away. Or after tomorrow, maybe it would be Berren who left, off on some ship far away with his master, running from the justicar who was once his friend and the city he used to serve.
‘I do not know if I will be here in the morning,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘You have it in you to be a good man. Hold fast to that.’ She let go of him and left.
He watched the priests, later that afternoon, moving Velgian out of the temple before dusk prayers. They took him over to the same place they were keeping the warlock’s things. Berren went to prayers like a good novice, unsure whether the priests knew that Tasahre hadn’t been alone when she’d challenged the Sunbright. If they did, no one said anything, but still, he’d keep his head down for the rest of the day in case. He did his work in the kitchen, saw Tasahre come in and eat with the other sword-monks as she always did, and then when they were done, settled down to his own supper. It bothered him, not knowing what would happen to her, same as it bothered him with Master Sy, but with Tasahre he knew there was nothing he could do. Nothing he should do.
Velgian. Right here in the temple.
He tried never to think about what had happened between him and Kuy before Tasahre had run the warlock through, but it was always there in his dreams or when he closed his eyes. Mostly what he remembered were the strands of his soul, laid before him, and cutting them and understanding every part of what he was doing — that was the nightmare that woke him with a cold sweat when he was asleep and made him shudder when he was awake, wondering how else he might have changed, whether without those missing pieces he was still the same Berren he’d been before.
But he remembered the rest too. He remembered the symbols he’d been forced to write, the ones that made the dead speak.
He picked at his food. The answers he wanted were there to be had. He almost got up, right there and then, to go and look for Tasahre, to ask her to come with him. Then he changed his mind and ran through the way that conversation would go.