by Rabia Gale
“Brother,” I say, in my cloak voice, high, sweet, and buzzed. “What are you doing?”
His gaze flicks to the chamber at the end of the corridor, the place where Kato sleeps a troubled sleep, cradling his new hand.
“An assassin, brother?” I say. “Is this what you’ve become?”
His mouth thins, his eyes grow flat. “Why do you call me that?” His every muscle is ready to spring.
If I were not a cloak, he’d be a very dangerous man.
“What else shall I call you, then?” A memory floats to the top of my mind. I snatch at it. “Daral, perhaps. Fingers, maybe? Or Sweetcakes.” A smile comes unbidden to my lips.
“How do you—? No, you cannot be…”
“I do look a little different these days,” I say softly. My voice hardens. “But inside I’m still the same. What of you, then, Daral?”
His teeth snap together, but he says nothing.
I circle him, my cloak a misty blur, sending out tendrils. They touch his face and hands, but he doesn’t flinch.
“I smell old blood on you,” I whisper. “Stale urine and human waste and fear. I see that you smile and say one thing in the sunlight, lurk and say another with your knife in the shadows.
“What are you doing with your knife tonight, Daral?” Breathed into his ear.
I feel his trembling. But his voice is even and his face blank. “I looked for you when you were taken. I followed the trail as long as I could. But there were powerful people taking pains to make sure that the disappearances stayed hidden. Our leaders, selling our own people to Highwind.”
“And so you became a blade?”
“For you!” he cries out. “For your sake. I joined the College. I took an oath to the Brothers of Night. They trained me, used me judiciously. They let me follow the rumors and the whispers, and finally I heard a name. One name.”
I incline my head.
He clenches his teeth. “Sera Vorsok.
“She was behind it all! The kidnapping of eilendi women, the Highwind spies sneaking around our libraries, the merchants asking all sorts of questions about the arcana! Look what she did to you!” He reaches out to touch me. I spin the ends of my cloak into black ropes and catch his wrists, hold him away from me.
“And then the summons came,” I prompt.
“And then the summons came,” he agrees. “From that witch, Sera Vorsok.” He turns his head, spits on the floor. “Flaunting her Highwind army, while her allies sneak around the many-banded lands and steal our arcana. As though she had the right to bargain for us.”
“But she’s dead,” I say.
“Yes. The College sent me, to assess how dangerous she was and make an end of her if I thought she needed it.”
“Judging from your hate, you had already made up your mind.”
He flinches. “She did this to you, and you condemn me for it?”
“You sought vengeance, not justice. Did the College know what drove you?”
“Of course they did. I—” He pauses, frowning.
No fool, my brother, I think, and pause, wondering where that came from. Memories struggle up as if from the very depths of the Nine Hells, in shadowy scenes and brief flashes. Are they mine or another’s? How can I be sure, I who spin apart so easily, who have mingled my substance with so many others?
Can I trust them?
“The College knew how you’d judge Sera, and they knew that they could use you as scapegoat. They would get what they wanted, and they could deny the responsibility for it. You might hang for your crime, if Sera’s family found out.”
“So what of it?” He shrugs off realization. “She needed to die.”
“She already did. Yet you still skulk around Kaal Baran with your knife.”
“He’s her husband, isn’t he? The failed Champion, the Hope Destroyer.” A grimace twists Daral’s lips.
“He had no idea what she was. She deceived him by manufacturing her own death. She hurt him as bitterly as she did any of us. He had no part in her schemes, and he saved us all at the Gates.”
“So he says. And you. Why should I believe you? You look nothing like my sister. So what if you know a childhood nickname or two?” He thrusts his chin out, belligerent.
“You fell out of the prickle tree when you were eight and broke your arm. We kept a stinging snake as pet for three months before our uncle found out and killed it. You used to dream of running away to sea, even though you’d never seen it. You just wanted to go to a place of water and wind, instead of dryness and dust. You never told anyone else that.” I take a breath. “Only me.”
I see his face caught between hope and disbelief, see it waver to the side of hope. “Is it really you, my sister?”
“So my memories tell me.” How can I know for sure? How can I explain to him the chaos of my thoughts?
“And you think I should spare him?” He gestures towards the room where Kato lies sleeping.
“Your decision is your own.” I step away. “But if you make the attempt, I will kill you myself.” I drive my hand towards his heart. He flinches, but my fingernails, sharp and pointed, are at his chest, pricking skin.
I say, soft and sad. “Look at us now, brother. Once we were children who dreamed of better lives, you of the sea, me of the song. Now Highwind has made killers of us both.”
We hold each other’s gazes for a long heartbeat, the heartbeat of the serpent that lies sleeping at the bottom of the world.
I remember now that we had never needed many words between us.
And then I withdraw with a snap, and leap back up for the ceiling. I hang, upside down, and settle myself for the nighttime vigil.
I watch as he leaves.
I kneel next to a night walker and splash my face with a precious handful of water. Then I heave the cover back on the newly-dug well. My iron hand gleams dully in the morning light. It’s an exact mirror match to my left, down to the lines on my palms and the ridges on my fingertips.
But it feels so different, not just in weight nor texture. When I flex the fingers, it’s not muscle and tendon and bone moving, but springs and wires and metal parts.
It’s living iron, but it’s still iron.
A scent of ozone, and Flutter’s standing right beside me.
She says nothing.
“Well?” I ask, trying for a neutral tone. I can’t quite manage gentleness, but I can mask the impatience.
I wanted Flutter to live, but not like this. Not like this vacant-eyed creature who has trouble putting words together into a simple sentence. Who looks like she’s barely holding herself together, grey-faced and fading in the harsh light.
Her lips move, but it’s several moments before the words come out. “Come and see. They’re coming.”
“Who’s they?” I ask, before I can help it.
She just looks at me, opens her mouth to repeat her earlier words.
“Never mind,” I say hastily. “Let’s go.”
They are the baradari, a group on horseback, raising a dust storm on the road.
“You were right,” says Daral, standing on the wall next to me.
Their standard trembles above their distinctive winged helms. Even in the dust, I see the red hawk is upside down on its cream background. They lost at the Crater.
“Open the gates.”
I plant myself in the middle of the courtyard, Daral at my right shoulder and Leap at my left. For a moment, I remember standing in this same courtyard with Sera at my side, with Toro flanking me a pace away, with Dvid and Tito and the rest at my back, and my heart aches.
It aches for that younger man, now a stranger, and for the betrayal he will know.
His trusted warriors will fall in battle or lose hope in him. His friend will become a stranger and his wife—
My throat closes.
No, I trust neither Daral nor Leap, but for now our interests are aligned. I don’t fear a knife in my back this afternoon.
This evening is another matter.
&
nbsp; The riders pour into Kaal Baran in a sea of tossed manes and foamy necks. Hooves thunder over the courtyard, horse sweat spatters onto the stones.
I hold my ground. A faint pride rises in me to see that my ragtag Highwind army doesn’t flinch. The eerie men eye the horses as if they were food, the cobble crunchers sneer and the cloaks, spread out across the walls, look inscrutable as always.
Horses plunge and pant, their riders call. Sunlight glints off a helmet rim, an unsheathed knife, a buckle on a leather strap.
Their chief pulls his horse to a stop sharply right in front of me. His horse drops trails of slobber all over my shoulder. I tilt my head up, squinting at the bright sky haloing his helmeted head.
I recognize the harsh dark features, the proud flared nostrils. A familiar weariness settles over me, the weariness of years spent trying to forge warriors from the many-banded lands into one army. Of putting hoe-wielding farmers next to career infantry. Of integrating the mounted archers of the plains with the lance-wielding riders of the desert.
Of the futility of the whole endeavor. Oh, how that face above me drives home my failure in the regard.
“Mehmet of the Hawks. The hot winds bring sorrow in your wake, and the proud bird flies low.”
Protocol dictates more tact, but diplomacy was never my strong suit. That had been Sera’s job.
Mehmet’s glance flickers over the Highwinders. “Does Kato the Hope-Destroyer now ally himself with Highwind monstrosities?”
Yes. He’s always been direct.
“I see no monstrosities here, unless you bring them with you. It’s thanks to these that the golems and Garguants that have long plagued our people were wiped out in battle less than a week ago. Surely you owe them some thanks.”
“I owe Highwind no thanks as they desecrate our sacred places.” His voice is even and cool. I raise my eyebrows. Mehmet of seven years ago would have answered with heat and challenge.
“These over here”—I indicate them—“were not involved in the desecration. Do you hold foot soldiers accountable for the decisions of their commanders? We have no quarrel with you.”
He opens his mouth, and I realize we can stand here all day arguing over right and wrong, honor and dishonor, while his wounded companions fall out of their saddles.
“Come, let us discuss the matter over…” I bite my words down on wine and meat, not knowing how much of either is actually available. “…food, while your horses are seen to and your wounded taken care of.”
“We will take care of our own,” he says abruptly. And then, softening, “But we thank you for your hospitality.”
He turns to bark orders to his people, and I do the same to my own.
Leap looks longingly at Mehmet’s horse. “Wonder how that tastes roasted. With garlic.”
I cuff him on the ear with my flesh-and-blood hand.
“Ow,” he says, looking hurt. “What’d you do that for, champ?”
“Next time it’ll be the other hand,” I warn him. “Horses of the baradari are not food and this is the easiest way for you to find that out.”
Leap makes a great show of rubbing his head and muttering but he bounds off fast enough. I hear him call for meat to be roasted and for bedding for the “softskins” and wish that Flutter was still herself.
The question is, which self?
I shouldn’t have been worried about the eerie men and their taste for horse meat.
No, it was the cobble crunchers I should’ve been watching.
Horses don’t like the smell of cobble crunchers, and their riders are only too happy to stamp out what they view as vermin.
That’s not something cobble crunchers will take lying down.
One moment, there was controlled chaos as Mehmet’s men squeezed into Kaal Baran and I delegated their provisioning and lodging to Leap and the others. The next, horses are squealing and their riders cursing, while cobble crunchers, yelling battle cries in their small, high voices, swarm all over the beasts.
By the time it’s all over we have three crunchers with broken bones and several horses bleeding from cuts and overwrought, irate riders.
They’re like that, these baradari. One moment they’re stoic desert warriors, the next they’re in a passionate rage because someone bumped one of their precious horses too roughly.
Mehmet stalks up to me, the decorations on his high boots jingling, holding up a writhing cobble cruncher.
“These rodents don’t belong here. Send them away, Kato.” He throws the cruncher down to the stones, but the creature flips in the air, lands on its feet, and runs off, gibbering.
I fold my arms. “No.”
Mehmet sneers. “You would desecrate this place with these Highwind abominations?”
There’s that word again. “They fought bravely at the Gates. They fought our battle against the golems and the Garguants. They stayed when the Gates opened and the Dark Masters nearly escaped.”
Mehemt’s eyes widened, and I plowed on. “Tau Marai is the Dark Masters’ prison, not their stronghold. And I will not let you say that these Highwinders—human or not—have not earned their place in Kaal Baran!”
Flutter glides up beside us. “Is he bothering you?” she says, in a singsong voice.
Mehmet eyes her with wary misgiving.
“Nothing I can’t take care of,” I say, knowing that a cloak’s methods would be both direct—and permanent.
Flutter continues, as if she’s not heard me. “I smell Highwind tech on you—all sizzle and steel. Tell me, baradari, what did you see at the crater?” Her eyes are shading wildly between human and cloak.
Mehmet tenses. I shake my head at him. He glares at me.
He has no idea how fast a cloak is.
“Flutter,” I say. “There goes a cobble cruncher over to the side. Fetch him for me.” I point a good ten yards away, where a cruncher is dashing for a hole.
Flutter blurs. She’s a stretched-out shadow for a moment, then snaps back into place, holding the cruncher upside down by his heels.
“Leggo!” says Kunj. He’s lost his hat, and his face is flushed with indignation. “Whatcha do that for, guv?” Ill-usage creeps into his tone.
I look at Mehmet. “To make a point.” I hold his gaze, until he nods, one downward jerk of his head.
“Put the cruncher down, Flutter. Gently.”
She looks at me for a moment, and my heart thuds in my chest. Then she stoops, places the cruncher on the ground, stands up again.
“The crater,” she singsongs.
Mehmet knuckles his eyes. He’s older, tireder than I remember. There are lines on his face that weren’t there several years ago.
“The Highwind merchants,” he begins. “For the last three years they’ve come looking for our sacred artifacts. Anything angel-touched. They came, offering much coin and trinkets to trade—silk and mechanical toys and pretty things that break within weeks.
“Our people”—he pauses and spits on the stones—“our people are so dazzled by these merchants they sell… sell! … the things Taurin entrusted to our care.
“And what the Highwinders can’t buy, they steal.”
“What?” I say, incredulous.
“Oh, they don’t do it right away, and they don’t do it themselves. No, they hire thieves from among our own people. The seraph armor of the First Chosen… the tapestry of Jalinoor… the Winter Blossoms…” He spreads his hands. “All gone.”
My head spins. These are treasures of our people, so cherished by the families that own them that not even I—Taurin’s Champion—was allowed to take them into battle with me.
The seraph armor of the First Chosen? Made of a heavy, pale fabric that no fire could burn, no knife could scratch. The Winter Blossoms? An undying bouquet of many-colored roses whose sweet smell cleansed the body of sickness and poison.
All gone?
Oh, Sera. How you came to despise the gifts of our people, to share these secrets with Highwind.
“So you went to the
crater,” I say to Mehmet.
“Ay, we went to wipe out the Highwind scourge.” His mouth twists. “But Taurin was not with us.”
“He may have not given you the victory,” I say, “but do not say he’s not with you.” I mean to be gentle, but the words come out harsh.
No, whoever Taurin binds, he keeps. I may have been done with him, but he is not done with me. The weight of his message is a stone on my chest.
I put my new hand on Mehmet’s shoulder. “Your fallen warriors did not die in vain. Tell me what the Highwind’s encampment was like. If they have angel-touched artifacts with them, then we will need them.”
His eyes are hooded. “You have seen the sky in the east?”
“I have.”
“If the salt demons should walk again…” He doesn’t finish the thought.
“Then we need the angels to fight for us again.”
“And the eilendi,” puts in Flutter, high and fluting. We both turn to look at her. “You need the eilendi.”
I’m glued to the warm wall outside an open arched window. The gathered heat of day radiates through me, filling me with a pleasant buzz.
Below me, men feast around campfires, tan-clothed desert nomads rubbing shoulders with the leather-and-steel-clad Highwinders. The sounds of chewing and the clatter of bone dice are all the communication they need.
Snatches of talk come from inside; Kato and the baradari chief talking of times both old and new.
They can’t help it—snippets of shared battles and the news of intervening years slip in between the concerns of today. Once in a while, Daral makes a remark, his tenor a cool, quiet counterpoint. A pang tears through me every time I hear it. They take stock of their warriors and weapons, discuss strategies, plan an attack.
Angel artifacts in the crater are the only hope we have against the salt demons.
They pull at me, from their fields of salt. An unhealthy light smudges the eastern horizon, livid as a bruise. Stars stretch into it, hills lean in, crooked and elongated.
It gets worse every minute.
I shape words into the air, the night prayers to Taurin. Taurina riata seya. Taurina barata veya. Taurin saves in the night. Taurin lights up the darkness.