“Eat,” said Shkarag, head cocked and avoiding eye contact. “Just eat your šo-damned eggs.” She gripped her thigh as if it were her anxiety, and she strangling the life out of it.
Taking the hint, Tirdad did just that. A few bites in, and he was enjoying it as if he weren’t surrounded by what must’ve been his greatest sin. Maybe it was the wood; maybe she’d lifted a new clutch; maybe it was all in his head. Whatever the case, this meal was a different sort of delicious—the sort you only get from returning home after time abroad, your mother and grandmother eager to cook your favourite meals. He savoured every bite.
“Won’t be the last,” Shkarag spoke up when he’d finished it off. She still wouldn’t look at him. “Been lucky. Maybe. Always saw them first. Found somewhere to hide. We—” She scratched the scales behind her ear. “Divs are stronger now. I—” That same hand became a claw. “The pull is lopsided like . . . like the world, and you’re a real daydreamer when it comes to imagining all the ways you could—” Shkarag inhaled sharply. She clenched her thigh so tightly her muscles bulged in the fitted sleeves of her caftan. Her lips parted enough to reveal her lowering fangs. Tirdad paid special attention to the pouch she reached into to retrieve a handful of eggs, which she crammed into her mouth.
Without a word, she began packing her things. Tirdad watched her stiff movements, and a quiver of questions lined up to loose before he discarded them all and followed suit. The sooner they put this place behind them, the better.
They traversed the splintered, greasy trunks and scores of branches, as if slogging through a detritus-choked riverbank. Each concentrated on their boots, at the same time crestfallen and careful of their footing. Not a word was shared for the duration of the trek through the thicket’s remains.
The magnitude of his actions weighed heavily on Tirdad. To anyone who knew him or his creed, the reason was obvious. It’s an awfully, perhaps unjustly, insignificant thing to kill. Less so, to consider the far-reaching effects, and more intimately, that you have snuffed out a spirit with dreams of its own. Even in defending oneself, even in peacefully living off the toils of others, a tacit scale pits one life against another.
And Tirdad figured he’d put a real strain on the scale with this one. Maybe he’d tipped it forever in her favour. He’d gone as far as striking down a being of pure good, a paragon of Truth and order, and in doing so weakening both. Odds were the true extent of the damage would elude him. What could possibly hope to compete?
That considered, the more he thought about it, the more he felt a welling pride in what he’d done. An unusual, conflicted pride, but pride all the same. Tirdad glanced at Shkarag, who had a pensive frown trained on the branches that creaked and popped beneath her boots. Before she’d curtailed him earlier, he’d meant to tell her that she’s the only one in all the world for whom he’d go to such lengths. Perhaps she’d seen it coming.
She was smarter than she let on. More empathetic. But her eccentric nature and mental unrest did an exceptional job of masking it—when they weren’t disrupting it entirely. What he wanted to know was why she’d cut him off at all. One thing she had never been was forthcoming.
At the tail end of the thread, it occurred to him that his thoughts lingered on her more often of late than they had in any of their many adventures. More often and in earnest.
Tirdad was mulling over the meaning of this when at last their clogged path thinned out to a gentle slope carpeted in tussocks, wildflowers, and huddled shrubs. Ahead, the hills were mantled with all the accoutrements of a thriving forest. Now and then, the uneven treeline parted for outcrops or clearings, much like the one they occupied.
“Well, this is a relief,” said Tirdad, peering now at the turquoise lake hemmed in by the hills. “And here I was worried that sorry sight would go on for farsangs.” He indicated the lake with the pommel of his sword, where more and more his palm had come to rest when idle. “Don’t write that osprey off just yet.”
Shkarag followed his gaze, hugging her spear and yielding her weight to it. Her eyes described the lakeshore before she muttered an unenthusiastic “Oh.”
Tirdad swallowed the urge to pry, extending a palm instead. “Mind sharing one of those eggs of yours?”
After drifting for a time over the surface, she regarded him with an enigmatic cant. He noticed, however, that she wouldn’t look squarely at him. Rather, she described his outline much as she had the lake.
“A single egg?” he asked. “It needn’t be a rare one. I don’t have your refined tastes after all.” Truth be revered, his stomach turned at the request; it was a wonder he’d kept them down the day he’d sampled her collection. So if it turned out she had her misgivings, all the better.
The half-div either inclined or cocked her head, a distinction that he’d never get down, and adjusted her grip on the spear to free a hand. With marked deliberation, she unbuckled the pouch on her hip and took her time feeling around until she pulled out an egg. Not bothering to confirm the accuracy of her touch, she placed it in his palm, scales ridged yet smooth.
“There,” she said. “Glossy ibis because . . . because plumage could festoon your sword.” Her eyes flicked over something in the distance. “If not for starlings. Maybe.”
The pale blue egg almost matched the sheen of the lake. He accepted it with a smile he hoped she noticed, and summarily cracked it open over his tongue, fighting the urge to gag as the undeveloped chick oozed down his throat. “Thanks,” he said, tossing the shell aside. Then, with another tilt of his pommel toward the water, “Shall we? Wouldn’t mind some fish, and a bath would be nice.”
Shkarag assented by limping down the slope.
Tirdad leveled a frown on the ossuary-still forest to his rear. A long road lay ahead, but he prayed the worst of it was now behind them—though they’d be hard-pressed to find something more formidable than a yazata. Heaving a sigh, he tore his stare away and joined Shkarag on her way toward the shore.
It turned out there wasn’t much of one. The hills met the water at an incline that was less navigable than it let on from afar, all stone and scree plunging straight in. Still, they were determined now that they were here.
Shkarag disrobed without so much as a warning, unstrapping her blood-red cuirass and pulling off her mail.
“What’re you—” Tirdad about-faced. “Have you no modesty?”
“No,” Shkarag flatly replied. “I’m half div. And haven’t molted since I—” She grew quiet, though he could hear her peeling off her caftan. “Nothing you haven’t gawked at in my dreams,” she said, followed by the murmur of water.
He supposed she was right. Those statues of hers had spared no detail. He turned around to find her huddled on the shore and submerged to her neck, staring blankly across the lake. She looked utterly despondent—the sort to be wading to the bottom, or entertaining the idea if not.
“Hurts,” she said. “Hurts. They say—” She held up a claw, which afforded him the cruel scar where her arm had been severed, and the rippling sinews beneath. “They say words are all so much wind. And you think that’s just as the crow flies.”
Tirdad replied with the same meaningful hush that she so often resorted to. Given her empty stare and recent behaviour, the threat of her mood coming to a head was all too real. So her willingness to open up came as a welcome relief. All ears, he took a seat.
For a long while, she only stared—straight ahead, gaze neither darting nor drifting. Unlike the blank stare he’d witnessed earlier, she wore the intense focus of a struggle. Venturing a guess, he supposed her guarded nature was objecting to the even the slightest admission.
Shkarag finally broke the silence with a barely audible, “Maybe.” Louder then, “Never the words that smart, but the truth they carry. Like some, like some šo-famished osprey with its talons in your belly, and you’re shouting that having scales doesn’t mean you’re a pike or carp or whatever they eat, and it’s just flapping away without a care because finally a meal.” She let out a
low hiss. “Truth smarts something fierce.”
Another bout of quiet struggle passed before she continued. “That—” She raked a claw over her scalp. “That bird-sympathizing heap said some truths. Been around long enough to see empires crumble. Helped.” She cocked her head. “A bit. I think.
“Remember the trumpet of elephants as the Conqueror led the charge that would end your ancestors.” She paused to reflect, seeming nostalgic, if dismally so. “Watched an eruption . . . a two-thousand-year-old boom that rattled my bones and drowned the sun. More memories than nests to stow them in. Most have been forgotten. So afraid hers will be lost again in the—”
Shkarag clammed up, and though it was only for a moment, what followed was patently forced. “Been around,” she said. “Blood’s—” She flexed her fingers. “Blood’s scorching. But it’s not enough. Have to spill it. Discord’s scorching. But have to sow it. Instinct. Rewards overwhelming pleasure.”
Tirdad had been listening with an alertness he hadn’t used since the studies of his youth, so the shift in her speech was abundantly clear. While it remained soft, the delivery had grown stunted. He eyed her egg pouch.
“Truth smarts,” she went on, as if the syllables had to be stropped across her cords one at a time. “Smarts when a friend hears. Spilled so much. Sowed so much. Countless. But . . .” Shkarag trailed off, then splashed her face with water. “Not with you. Afraid you don’t see. Want it something fierce. But not with you. Fight the pomegranate-red always.”
So that was it. She’d been distant and depressed since their reunion, but their encounter with the yazata had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d feel similarly if his secret sins were laid bare against his will—before a friend, no less.
Shkarag closed her eyes and entered another of her lulls, which could probably be likened to coming up for air. The stretch lingered until he thought she’d fallen asleep, and was nodding off himself by time she spoke up. “The water makes everything sluggish, makes me sleepy,” she said, lending credence to her claims with a yawn. “But it helps to control.” She glanced back, and her gaze found his for the first time since the incident, searching and anxious. “Yazata said some truths. A few. Maybe. Whispering in your ear like some—”
She caught herself. “True that you know me less than you think. Guess I only look half human anymore. Swear I’m not manipulating you. All I want is your company. That’s the truth. The truth like some—”
She couldn’t hold back any longer. “Like some šo-stupid div saying a thing that makes her skin crawl, like some maggots having a grand time in her throat, and they’re all dancing merrily so fucking proud of themselves like some, like some campfire that bites something fierce. And who to bite but that same šo-stupid div?” She ended with that, eyes trained on his.
Tirdad matched her stare—really looked this time, giving her sanguine gaze the consideration it craved, though it flitted around in its usual way. What he saw there was ancient, weary, and above all else, sincere. The real significance of what she’d shared, and surely the driving force behind her desperation, came to him then: what she hadn’t shared. Those thousands of years weren’t spent in solitude. Until a few centuries ago, she’d been with her sister. Then all of a sudden, alone. What’s more, she hadn’t just shared, she had confided.
He made certain to tread lightly, maintaining eye contact for as long as she wished it. “That toenail-swallowing yazata could’ve said you were the Stinking Spirit himself for all I care. Like I told it, you’re my dearest friend, and nothing, I mean absolutely nothing will get in the way of that from now on.”
Shkarag averted her gaze at that. “You loved Ashtadukht.”
Trenchant as ever. Perhaps treading lightly had to be thrown to the wind. For a time, anyway. “You loved your sister.”
The hiss she loosed was quick to deflate. “Maybe,” she conceded.
“Yeah. We’ve both made a host of terrible decisions. Difference is you’ve been at it for thousands of years. So, if it’s something you need to hear, I don’t hold your past against you any more than you hold mine against me. You wouldn’t be here if you did.”
“Maybe,” she conceded.
“You want to be here. I want you here. It really is that simple, Shkarag.”
“Maybe,” she conceded.
“Then it’s settled. We’re stuck with one another.”
“Maybe,” she conceded.
Tirdad got to his feet, brushing the dust off his poppy-red tunic and resting his palm on the ram’s head pommel. “It must’ve been hard for you to get all that out, but I’m glad you chose to. Has it put your fears to rest?”
Shkarag canted away. “Maybe.”
“Give me a clear reply, won’t you?”
“Thank you,” she said. Then, after dunking her head, she stood, which prompted Tirdad to turn around.
“Please warn me,” he said. “For my sake if not yours.”
The millennia-old half-div dressed, but didn’t bother equipping her armor. Instead, she packed her mail into a pillow, and pulled out a cloak to bundle under. By time Tirdad turned back around, she was already sound asleep. She hadn’t even washed.
“Well,” mused Tirdad, “I’ve got to hand it to you. That was a creative approach to regulating your bloodlust.” He knelt to adjust the cloak to better cover her, frowning as he did at the scars he’d thought he’d known for decades. Turns out they could’ve been inflicted by a bronze sword in some civilization lost to even the most learned historian.
His frown transitioned to a tempered smile as he stood. “Of all those civilizations, I can’t imagine there’s no statue or legend of The One Most Slithered. Stands to reason someone out there would’ve wanted to immortalize your . . . well, I’m sure you’ve done a great many things worth immortalizing.”
With that, he set to bathing and washing his clothes, sword always nearby, and wondering how a div survives for so long, phylactery or not.
• • • • •
“Bandits,” said Shkarag, jabbing her spear in their direction and tilting her head. “Circling something fierce, like that kestrel you think is an osprey, because of course some noble-born runt wouldn’t learn fishing from hunting.”
Tirdad peered down the dry, tussock-bare slope where they stood, to the activity below. A dozen or so horsemen were circling a lone rider, laughing and kicking up dust. “Seems so,” he said. Then, refusing to let her insult go unchallenged, he added, “Every noble is trained in the hunt—it’s tradition. Even Ashtadukht, weak as she was, knew how to draw a bow. A man who neither hunts nor fights is worthless.”
“Must be trained in hiding worth, too,” said Shkarag, which drew a sneer.
The last few days of travel over and around increasingly tanned ridges had crossed them into the arid domain of the Iranian plateau, and evidently, onto the east-west road home to merchants and their predators.
Planet-reckoner and half-div exchanged a glance, which the former affirmed with a nod. Time to do some good, thought one; time for bloodshed, thought the other. Tirdad began by removing his bow from its case, and rather than securing the quiver to his sword belt, he chose three arrows from the lot and sat it on the ground. He strung the recurve’s stiff ears and furrowed his brow at the leisurely pace with which Shkarag limped down the hillock.
“Get moving,” he said, nocking one arrow and stowing the other two in his drawing hand.
Tirdad lifted the bow and drew with practiced finesse that bunched the muscles in his back. Rather than follow the targets, he chose a spot in the circle to lead them by, and let loose the first shot. It whizzed unerringly over Shkarag’s head to find the flank of an unsuspecting bandit, which fell from his saddle. One down. The riderless horse reared, which disrupted the ring as riders swerved to avoid collision.
Not a breath after that initial twang, he was advancing at a jog. Tirdad shifted a second arrow down to line up with the bowstring, and it wasn’t until he nocked, closing swiftly on the h
alf-div, that she surged forward.
She’d been an uncharacteristically pleasant travelling companion given just how hot it’d grown the nearer they got to the plateau—only the lethargic swings of her axe gave any clue as to just how much it nettled her. But it came as no surprise that when she finally had cause to burst into action, it was delayed by fatigue. Once in motion, however, she barreled down the hillock so fast it seemed she’d tumble head over heels.
A savage hiss announced her charge, anticipated a crest in its rising volume. It wasn’t until she’d nearly reached the bottom that it reached that crest, but it did so with her trademark flourish. Shkarag planted the butt of her spear in the dirt. At her speed, she was vaulted over in a wild spin that had her careening toward the crowd. Taken aback by the display, they were even less prepared when she loosed the spear, its velocity amplified by her spin, to spit three—head, chest, and abdomen—leaving the third pinned to the horse of a fourth. Less impressive was her crash.
Her bouncing, skidding tumble threw up a veil of dust, and her and the bandits into chaos. Tirdad trusted she’d thrive there if anywhere, so he put her out of mind, focusing instead on the riders who were yelling and turning circles. Aiming to capitalize on her distraction, he quickly loosed his last two arrows, each of which found their mark in the chests of two confused bandits, and drew his long sword.
A vulgar throbbing greeted him. It tugged on his arm, urging him into the fray. He answered the call by running through the first bandit he came upon, who was too busy shouting and pointing to notice until he shuddered and collapsed at the biting cold in his gut. Tirdad climbed into the saddle and turned the horse about, getting a lay of the skirmish. The bandits’ prey, an elderly merchant, was standing beside his camel—neither of whom seemed all that concerned about the clamour surrounding them. Nearby, a trio of horsemen fenced in what could only be Shkarag, though the din and dust made it impossible to tell how she was faring besides that she wasn’t dead.
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