4: Witches' Blood

by Ginn Hale

  Those internal injuries could be easy to miss at first glance. Often, the shocked ushiri’im weren’t even aware of the extent of the damage to their bodies.

  Hann’yu walked quickly to them. “All right, let’s get a look at the two of you.”

  While Hann’yu undressed the other ushiri, John swiftly and efficiently removed Fikiri’s clothes. The heavy wool of Fikiri’s coat was still cold from the Gray Space. Jagged rents marred the coat’s front and back. The leather vest Fikiri wore beneath his coat had fared better. Only one cut punched all the way through it. A single, tiny scratch marked Fikiri’s thin chest and that had already stopped bleeding. His legs, too, were unharmed. His worst injuries seemed to be a deep cut along his right arm and a gash across his chin.

  From the next bed, John heard a quiet hiss escape from Hann’yu. John glanced up to see Hann’yu tossing aside the other ushiri’s blood-soaked underpants. The ushiri’s face was white and he shook violently. His hands were folded over his groin.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Hann’yu assured the ushiri. “A few stitches will patch everything up good as new.” Hann’yu glanced to John. “How’s Fikiri?”

  “Two superficial cuts. He’ll need stitches in his arm and maybe his chin. Otherwise just bandages.” John studied Fikiri for a moment. There was a dark bump on the side of his temple. “Did you hit your head?”

  “In combat practice two days ago,” Fikiri said. “Ravishan did it.”

  John nodded. Nothing life threatening, then.

  Hann’yu moved swiftly, gathering his needles and stitching thread. “Get Fikiri’s cuts cleaned up and bandaged. I’ll start sewing up Thuum.”

  “Will you need my help with him?” If the wound was very bad Hann’yu would want John to bear it for Thuum. John didn’t relish the thought, but if absorbing some of the ushiri’s injuries would save Thuum’s life, then John would do it.

  “No.” Hann’yu gave him a quick smile. “This will just require stitches. It would be most helpful if you could prepare Fikiri.”

  John nodded, relieved. As Hann’yu pulled the canvas panels shut around the bed where Thuum lay, John turned back to Fikiri.

  “Is he going to live?” Fikiri asked.

  “He’ll be fine.” John didn’t know if that was completely true, but it was what Fikiri and Thuum both needed to hear right now.

  John filled the washbasin with water and brought bandages and towels over to Fikiri’s bedside. He sat down on the stool next to the bed and kicked Fikiri’s discarded clothes out of his way. Bright red splotches of blood spattered the sheets all around Fikiri. The boy looked scared. He held his right arm close to his body and pressed his left hand over his slashed chin.

  John tore a strip off one of the towels, folded it into a pad and held it out to Fikiri. “Hold this against your chin.”

  Fikiri obediently did as John told him.

  Gently, John cleaned and bandaged Fikiri’s injured arm and then the deep gash in his chin. Then, John turned his attention to the smaller scratches that slashed across the skin of his arms, neck, and face. Fikiri looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a gang of angry cats. After John was done with him, he resembled a poorly wrapped mummy. Tufts of his blonde hair had come loose from his tight braids and now hung like wisps of smoke around his pale face. John found the blood-stained sheets beneath his skinny body and the heap of torn, bloody clothes at the foot of the bed too depressing to look at. A fifteen-year-old boy shouldn’t have to endure this kind of life.

  “Come on, let’s get you into a clean bed.” John easily lifted Fikiri’s thin body and carried him to the next bed. Fikiri lay back into the pillows and pulled the blankets over himself. John thought the boy might just go to sleep, but instead Fikiri looked up at him with a strange, yearning expression.

  “Do you want me to get you something for the pain?” John asked.

  Fikiri nodded and John brought a cup of yellowpetal water. Fikiri took the small clay cup with his left hand and sipped the liquid. After taking several more drinks, he set the cup aside on a small medical tray that stood beside the bed.

  “When we were on the Thousand Steps…” Fikiri’s voice was just a whisper. John stepped closer to the bedside and knelt down to hear him.

  “What about it?” John asked.

  “We could have turned around,” Fikiri murmured. “You could have let me turn around and we could have gone back to Nurjima.”

  John didn’t say anything in response. He didn’t even move.

  Fikiri continued to fix him with that intense look. “Why didn’t you let me turn around?” His voice wasn’t angry, but soft and confused.

  John stood and retrieved the empty cup. He didn’t want to look at Fikiri. Seeing the boy’s pain and knowing that he was complicit in it made him sick with himself.

  “I’ll get you another drink,” John said.

  “My mother promised to take you and your family with us,” Fikiri persisted in a whisper. “Didn’t you believe her?”

  “I had to bring you, Fikiri—” John cut himself short, knowing he couldn’t explain himself to Fikiri. He turned, found more yellowpetal water, and refilled the cup. Without looking at Fikiri, he set it down on the bedside tray.

  “I have duties in the common sickroom.” John forced the words out with a mechanical flatness. “You should rest. Hann’yu will be with you soon.”

  “Why can’t you tell me?” Fikiri persisted in a whisper. “Even Behr and Loshai don’t know why you did it.”

  “I’m sorry,” John said. Then he turned and walked away.

  #

  The common sickroom was located outside the infirmary down a flight of wide stairs. It was a larger, open chamber with more beds lined in close rows. The shelves that lined the back wall were not packed with medicines but with bedding, canvas panels, and bedpans. Hann’yu rarely sent John down to the common sickroom to work. He seemed to think that it was in some way beneath John.

  John surveyed the few men who occupied the beds. Most were older and sleeping. Two gray-haired ushvun’im stood near the large windows that opened to the gardens. They held buckets and scrub brushes, but seemed lost in conversation. Neither of them took note of John, which suited him.

  There were several baskets of clean sheets and beds that needed to be remade. John needed to do something. So he started with that.

  He didn’t want to think about what he had done to Fikiri. At the time, he hadn’t really known what would be expected of the boy. But even if he had, John knew he would have forced Fikiri up those steps anyway. He would have done it because Rathal’pesha was the key to his return home.

  He could offer himself the excuse that Laurie and Bill were both depending on him. He could tell himself that it was only a matter of numbers—the needs of three to that of one. He could say that Fikiri wouldn’t have been alive at all if it hadn’t been for him. John had simply made the best of the options he had been given. He had done what needed to be done. He wanted to take some consolation in the truth of all that, and yet none of it made him feel good or just. It made him feel sick with himself and with the world that surrounded him.

  Sometimes his life seemed like nothing but a series of ugly choices. Putting his dog down or having it live on in crippling pain, lying to his family about his life or losing them for the sake of honesty. There never seemed to be a painless option, only degrees of what he could live with and what he could not bear.

  John made the beds quickly, with focused intensity. Crisp, tight corners came to him easily, as did high polish on boots and miles of silent marching. His father would have been proud of that, at least. These were beds the old man could have flipped a quarter on.

  John stopped, staring at the basket of sheets. He didn’t know why he was suddenly thinking of his father. That was pointless. Even if John did ever get back home, his father wouldn’t spare him a word.

  It was regret, John supposed. Another right choice that he had made that hadn’t been much better than
the wrong choice. And what for? So that he could end up here, in this stronghold of repression, lying awake at night fantasizing about Ravishan and praying that he didn’t get them both killed. What consolation was he supposed to take in knowing that his father, an entire world away, knew he was gay?

  Pointless, John thought. Sometimes life was simply pointless. He supposed that this entire silent rant of his was much the same. No matter how bad he felt, there was nothing to be done about it. He had made hard and even cruel choices, but in the end they were the ones he knew were right. There was no use in regretting them.

  John made another bed, more slowly this time. He wondered, not for the first time today, where Ravishan was and what he was doing. He was probably training, taking his frustration out on some undeserving opponent—or possibly taking it out on Dayyid.

  The thought of that, at least, brought a slight smile to John’s lips.

  He supposed he should go back upstairs and see if Hann’yu needed him. He picked up two sets of new, clean sheets and folded them to take with him. He’d need to change the beds Fikiri and Thuum had used.

  When he reached the infirmary, he found Thuum tucked into a clean bed and lying in a sedated sleep. The canvas panels were drawn closed around the bed that John had left Fikiri in. John poked his head in. Hann’yu glanced up from where he sat on the stool next to the bed. His delicate needles, his spool of fine black thread, and a bottle of astringent sat on the tray beside him. Fikiri stretched across the bed in an unconscious sprawl. A fine track of black stitches arced over his chin. Hann’yu continued his work over Fikiri’s arm, stitching Fikiri’s flesh as if he were sewing nothing more than a shirtsleeve.

  “He’ll be fine,” Hann’yu assured John. “It was good you gave him the yellowpetal water. He was beginning to babble.”

  “I didn’t mean to knock him out.”

  “Oh, you didn’t. I did that myself.” Hann’yu bent back over Fikiri’s arm. “He was going to end up saying something that would embarrass him later, so I gave him a little prick of something. It ensures better stitches anyway. No tossing and twitching.”

  “What was he saying?” John asked. He hoped it wasn’t more about Lady Bousim’s offers to him.

  “He hates it here. He hates all of us. He wants to go home. He wants his mother. The kind of thing that boys say when they’re hurt and scared.” Hann’yu tied off one stitch and started another. “I suppose you heard a lot of the same when you brought him up the Thousand Steps.”

  “Not much,” John replied. Though he vividly remembered Fikiri curled up and sobbing on the frigid steps, it wasn’t something he needed to share with Hann’yu.

  “Two years ago this behavior might have been acceptable, but now he’s getting a little too old for it.”

  “He’s only fifteen,” John argued, though he didn’t know why except that it seemed that someone should defend the boy.

  “He’s an ushiri. A couple of cuts like these are the least of his problems, and calling for his mother isn’t going to do him any good.”

  John guessed that Hann’yu was right. Still, what harm did it do anyone when Fikiri cried or complained? It didn’t hurt Fikiri.

  But John was beginning to realize that Fikiri’s obvious misery pained the men around him. It pricked at their guilt, knowing that they put these demands upon a child. It would be so much easier if he were strong and silent, if he shrugged off his injuries the way Ravishan did. It would have allowed them all to think that the ushiri’im were made of tougher stuff than other men, that they didn’t feel the hurt as deeply and weren’t terrified in the face of their own agonizing deaths.

  John frowned down at Fikiri’s pale face. He really was just a boy. John found that he had to look away. Like the rest of them, he couldn’t stand to think about it.

  After a moment, John asked, “Do you need me for anything?”

  “You could clean up the beds.”

  “I thought the same thing.” John lifted the clean sheets slightly and Hann’yu offered him an absent nod.

  John turned aside and let the canvas panel fall back into place. He stripped the stained bedding off one of the beds and quickly spread and tucked in the new sheet. John had just started towards the next bed when he felt that slight shudder of air and that whisper of a chill behind him. Though he disliked the sensation of the Gray Space opening, John also associated it strongly with Ravishan’s arrival.

  He turned, expecting to greet Ravishan, only to find himself smiling inanely into Dayyid’s glowering face.

  “Is he with you?” Dayyid demanded.

  “What?” John was too startled by Dayyid’s unexpected presence to reply properly. “Who?”

  “Ravishan?” Dayyid almost growled the name.

  “No.” Then a worrying thought came to him. “Is he missing?”

  “He’s been gone since last night.” Dayyid’s scowl deepened the lines of his weathered face. “Even when he is disobedient, he doesn’t stay away for a whole day.”

  “Maybe he’s lost,” John suggested. Though he thought that Ravishan was just avoiding him. This was probably wise for both their sakes…though it seemed somehow very unlike Ravishan.

  “He doesn’t get lost,” Dayyid stated flatly.

  “I’m sure he gets lost sometimes.” John remembered Ravishan telling him that he had claimed to be lost when he had wanted to slip away and visit him. He would probably make the same claim now.

  “No.” Dayyid gave him a look of sheer contempt. “He claims to have been lost, but he never is. His bones are the god’s own. There is no place on this world unknown to them.”

  Because the world itself was the god’s body, John quickly filled in the unspoken reasoning that Dayyid had to be following.

  “Perhaps he’s tired.”

  “Or injured,” Dayyid countered.

  The thought sent a sharp stab of worry through John. He’d left Ravishan in an ugly part of Amura’taye. Ravishan obviously hadn’t returned to Rathal’pesha.

  “He’s never stayed away for an entire night before?” John asked.

  “Never.”

  “Is there any way of tracing where he might have gone?” John asked.

  “Certain men can feel the Gray Space.” For the first time, Dayyid looked directly into his face. “I have the ushiri’im looking for him, but it never hurts to have another man.”

  “What do you need me to do?” John asked.

  “I didn’t mean you.” Dayyid smirked. “Tell Hann’yu that I want to see him as soon as he is done here.”

  John scowled at Dayyid. But Dayyid had already turned away. He didn’t spare John a glance as he strode out of the room. The door simply fell shut behind him. John hurled the clean sheet onto the mattress with unnecessary force.

  “Ravishan really hasn’t been up to see you today?” Hann’yu called from behind the panel.

  “No.” John frowned down at the sheet.

  There was no further response from Hann’yu. John picked up the sheet but didn’t move on. Finally, he said, “Do you think that I should go look for him?”

  “Do you think you could find him?” Hann’yu asked back.

  “I might.”

  “Then go,” Hann’yu replied. “The beds will still be here when you get back.”

  John hardly heard the rest of Hann’yu’s response. He was already heading for the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  John closed his eyes, allowing himself to simply feel the scored lines that the ushiri’im often left when they tore into the Gray Space.

  The walkways, walls, and the very air of Rathal’pesha were rough from the countless invisible abrasions. If he concentrated, John could feel them all. Lifting one hand into the air, he traced the finest imperfection, a sensation not unlike running his fingers across a pane of glass and having his skin catch on the razor thin scratches marring the surface.

  In the wastes he had occasionally been able to feel Ravishan’s passage by following the abrasion in space.
But here in Rathal’pesha, the constant practices of all the ushiri’im made it impossible to distinguish one from another, much less track a single trail.

  He supposed it wouldn’t have mattered in any case. Ravishan hadn’t returned to the monastery.

  If he wanted to find Ravishan, he guessed that he would have to hike back down to Amura’taye. It would take the better part of the afternoon. He would arrive well after sunset. An ushiri could traverse the distance in an instant, so Dayyid probably already had several of them searching the town.

  If Ravishan was there, they would eventually find him.

  But then, there was no guarantee that Ravishan would be in Amura’taye. He was the strongest of the ushiri’im, able to cross mountain ranges in a moment. He could be anywhere in Basawar.

  John leaned his head against the stone railing of the walkway. He shouldn’t have left Ravishan the way he had. If anything happened to him, John knew he wouldn’t forgive himself. He wished that he could just know if Ravishan was safe. Even if he couldn’t find him, just knowing would make all the difference.

  The entire walkway seemed to sway beneath him. John bolted upright, staring around him, but nothing moved. The stone walkway remained solidly where it had always been. There were no signs of a tremor in any of the surrounding towers or trees.

  It hadn’t seemed like an earthquake in any case. The movement had been silent and smooth. The land had seemed to simply slide beneath him as it so often did in his dreams. John remembered the same sensation coming to him the night before he had arrived in Amura’taye. Miles of land had whipped beneath him, leading him up from the flood plains, through the thickening forests, over the terraced farms of the mountain, and straight up to Rathal’pesha. It had taken him directly to Ravishan.

  John lowered his head, again resting it on the railing. He closed his eyes, concentrating. Slowly the walkway slid out from under him. He drifted over the monastery grounds, seeing gardens and stone paths pass beneath him. He recognized Samsango, lounging beneath a twisted pine with two other elderly ushvun’im. A moment later, John swept up over the walls and the watchtowers and then began to rise up the face of the mountain itself. The air was colder and thinner. The few trees that grew there were scrub, and as he ascended higher, even those disappeared. Soon, there was nothing but jutting stone and deep drifts of snow.