4: Witches' Blood

by Ginn Hale

  For a stunned instant he stared at Dayyid, horrified by what he had almost done. It had come so easily that John felt almost sick with himself. Dayyid stared back up at him, his dark eyes wide and his breath coming in gasps.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Idiot!” Before John could react, Dayyid brought up his leg and landed a solid kick into John’s stomach. John tumbled back and Dayyid rolled up to his feet. In an instant he stood over John with one foot placed on John’s neck.

  “The win is mine,” Dayyid declared with a smirk.

  “Yes,” John conceded before Dayyid placed any further weight on his neck. “The win is yours.”

  Dayyid stepped back, allowing John to regain his feet.

  The wound across the back of John’s hand hurt like hell but it didn’t seem too deep, despite the volume of blood spattered across the training mats.

  John noted the numerous welts and scratches that stood out across both of Dayyid’s hands and forearms.

  “Do you understand why I defeated you, Jahn?” Dayyid asked the question over his shoulder as he strode to the dressing table where his cassock and coat lay. He dressed quickly, hiding his injuries.

  Because you’re a dick, John thought, but he said nothing. The last thing he wanted was to start another fight.

  “It is because I am a true servant of Parfir. My entire being is dedicated to him. I never have to question myself or fear that I am on the wrong path, because Parfir is with me in everything.” Dayyid looked up to the towering statue with an expression of reverence. Then he cast John a disdainful glance. “You have not taken Parfir into your heart, and so you question your actions. You hesitate in battle because you do not know if you are just or not. I never hesitate. That is why I beat you and why I will always beat you.”

  John cradled his bleeding hand and glared at Dayyid’s back. Very briefly he imagined himself drawing his own knife and plunging it between Dayyid’s self-satisfied shoulder blades.

  But John quickly stopped that line of thought.

  He wasn’t here to fight the injustices of the Payshmura religion or to teach Dayyid some humility. He had come to Rathal’pesha to find a way for himself, Bill, and Laurie to escape this entire world. He’d promised to show Ravishan a kinder, better life in Nayeshi. No matter what he couldn’t lose sight of those things. He just needed to endure all of this. After all, Ravishan had assured him that the issusha’im were closing in on the Rifter. It could be any day now. They would escape Basawar and he would never see Dayyid again.

  John drew in a deep, calming breath and slowly released it.

  “You’re right,” John told Dayyid.

  “Of course I am.” Dayyid turned back to John with a smug expression. “These lessons will ensure that you never forget that.”

  John lowered his gaze but couldn’t help noticing how gingerly Dayyid held his left hand. John suddenly realized that he must have hurt Dayyid badly when he’d punched through his Silence Knife. And then he recalled that brief expression of shock that had flickered across Dayyid’s face.

  John bowed his head to hide his smile. Dayyid could talk all he liked about being Parfir’s holy servant, but for that instant at least, he had to have known that Parfir hadn’t been with him. Though he knew it was petty, John took more than a little consolation in the thought.

  That become more true, especially as the weeks passed and his training with Dayyid intensified. He always conceded the win to Dayyid, but more and more often he exalted in those brief moments when he broke through Dayyid’s divine weapons and forced Dayyid to feel defeat.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  As the months passed, spring grew into summer and even in the heights of the mountains, beds of berries ripened and the scents of fruit and flowers carried on warm winds.

  Despite the balmy weather, John woke, shaking and clammy. He’d dreamed of the bones again. Their strange voices hissed and murmured through his groggy memory. He tried to recall the dream but it, like others, faded to fleeting impressions of black hollow eyes and thousands of skeletal hands searching for him. He’d been terrified, but now he couldn’t recall exactly why. It was something he was happy to forget.

  He stared at the dim white expanses of the canvas panels that surrounded his bed. The first bright rays of morning light played across the cloth. The strong scents of other men’s bodies hung in the warm air of the dormitory. He thought suddenly of the one morning he’d woken with Ravishan in his arms. If only they could have lingered… Then his revere drifted to the few minutes he and Ravishan had stolen alone in the pine garden last evening.

  Compared to the nights of easy, anonymous sex he’d known in Nayeshi the simple act of holding Ravishan in his arms should have felt dull, almost chaste. And yet the warmth and strength of Ravishan’s embrace had electrified John’s entire body. The smell of his skin, the feel of his fingers curling along the nape of John’s neck, even the soft rhythm of his breathing had suffused John with arousal.

  This morning he allowed himself to remember and ease his desire.

  At last he sat up and tossed his sticky blankets aside. His body ached a little as he stretched and washed at his water basin. Just looking over his chest and thighs, John could see where Dayyid liked to strike and where his own defenses were too slow. But he was improving. Most of his bruises were old and fading.

  Somewhere nearby, birds called out. John listened to their tiny, shrill voices as he dressed. He recognized the songs. Brownish birds with black heads made them. Doubtless the two singing were males challenging one another for territories. By late summer they would be settled and much more quiet.

  “If only Dayyid would have been satisfied with a song,” John mumbled to himself.

  “He’s not a man like you and I,” Hann’yu had told John a month ago. “Dayyid doesn’t compromise. He doesn’t relent for the sake of human comfort or mercy. But he’s the most genuinely pious man I have ever known. It can make him hard on the people around him, but his only true concern is how best he can serve god.”

  John had simply nodded at the time, but he had known that Hann’yu was wrong. Piety was not the cause of Dayyid’s brutality, but a tool with which he justified his abuse of those around him. John knew as much because he’d seen the best ideals of the Payshmura religion embodied by Samsango. Parfir’s edicts of generosity, humility and compassion moved Samsango to do what Dayyid never would: to celebrate the prowess of those who surpassed him while offering aid and sympathy to those beneath him. His serene piety at times made John wish he could believe in Parfir as Samsango did. Dayyid’s piety only made John want to get as far from him and his church as he could.

  Today, at least, his wish would be granted. Hann’yu needed him to go down to Amura’taye and fetch supplies for the infirmary. One day down the mountain and one day back up. That meant two days free of Dayyid.

  John finished cleaning his face and teeth and poured the used water into the rain gutter outside the window. The morning bells began to ring and John heard his fellow ushvun’im groaning and mumbling as they too arose from slumber. He made his way out of dormitories and back to the kitchens. The morning meals wouldn’t be ready for an hour. Fortunately, Samsango always left out bread and cold cheese for the ushvun’im who would be leaving for Amura’taye. John helped himself and then went out to join the other ushvun’im at the iron gate.

  The sky was pale blue and cloudless. Woody herbs displayed yellow and violet blooms from where they nestled along the path. John brushed his hand against the bare stone of the mountain wall as he strode down the Thousand Steps.

  The rock beneath his fingers was cold and hard and yet it struck John as fragile at the same time. There was brittleness in its nature, like the bones of an old woman; it felt aged and depleted.

  John supposed he was projecting the decay he saw in Rathal’pesha and now below him in Amura’taye. The clear sky allowed him a sweeping view of the city. It stretched out beneath him like a map. He easily picked
out the white curves of the inner city walls. They arched out and enclosed each other, reflecting the city’s growth and decline. He recognized the cluster of small, enclosed structures that would have been the first refuge of a few dozen farmers and herders. Larger walls and buildings spilled out from there. Clearly, Amura’taye had flourished once. Its walls swept and curled out over the entire side of the mountain.

  But now wide stretches of the city stood abandoned and crumbling, like the collapsed walls in Candle Alley where he had first kissed Ravishan. Most of the buildings there had been deserted and derelict. Now, John picked out other districts that resembled abandoned ruins more than an inhabited urban area.

  It was a backwater. More than one person had told him so. And seated so close to the Payshmura stronghold of Rathal’pesha, the tithes were strictly enforced. It was no wonder that the city, like Rathal’pesha itself, was being abandoned.

  What young herder would choose to struggle for a living in a desolate, repressive land when there was the promise of an easier living to be made in a developing city like Nurjima? Stories of city lights, railroads and loom factories all attested to the rise of industry there.

  At the same time John couldn’t help but wonder how many of those same herders might instead choose to join the Fai’daum and fight to destroy the theocracy that so relentlessly drained them of resources and drove them from their homes.

  “It looks so peaceful from up here, doesn’t it?” an older ushvun’im commented to John.

  “Yes, it does.” John turned his attention back to the men traveling with him.

  “If you look just past the city wall there,” the man pointed to a tiny cluster of huts, “you can see what remains of my uncle’s farm.”

  “He raised taye.” John guessed the obvious and the ushvun nodded.

  “But the crops aren’t what they used to be. He moved to Gisa and left the land to me.” The ushvun gave a dry laugh. “As if I could afford to pay the tithe for a property… Still, it’s pretty, isn’t it, with the wild flowers all blooming across the old fields.”

  “It is,” John agreed.

  And soon other ushvun pointed out the farmlands or hill pastures that had once been their homes. John shared what he could of his own history as they descended.

  His strides were naturally longer than those of the other ushvun’im, but he slowed to their pace, and when a gray-haired ushvun seemed to flag, John took the pack of oil jars that he’d been hauling to ease his burden. All of them then paused to share a flask of daru’sira.

  When they reached Amura’taye, his fellow ushvun’im wished him luck in finding all of the herbs Hann’yu had requested, and one handed him a blessed stone to give to his sister. They had all heard that she had been unwell of late.

  John accepted the stone and thanked them, though he knew Laurie would have no use for it. Then he marched off to find the medicinal supplies Hann’yu needed. He purchased boughs of pungent southern herbs, jars of arcane brown syrup and glistening, succulent green blossoms. Samsango’s knuckles had been bothering him recently, and so John added a jar of camphor-scented analgesic. The thick musty smells of the apothecaries clung to him. It reminded him of days he had spent wandering between the cramped shelves of used bookstores.

  They needed needles in the infirmary as well. John walked across town to the open streets of the Smiths’ Rows. Most of the goods were crude. Rough knife blades, ax heads, bicycle chains, and scythes were common. It was only among the cases of delicate gold and silver jewelry that John at last found medical instruments. He chose twenty of the finest silver needles. Then, out of curiosity, he looked over the other devices in the medical cases.

  John picked up an instrument that resembled a pair of surgical scissors. There was an odd wire loop up by the blades. He frowned at it.

  “Gelding shears,” a familiar voice supplied from behind John.

  He turned to see Bill grinning at him. A faint tan colored his skin and his thin frame showed traces of muscle. John couldn’t remember him looking so well since they had left Nayeshi. Laurie’s spells were making obvious improvements in his health.

  “We just heard that the ushvun’im had come down for supplies. I figured I should see if I could hunt you down.” Bill eyed the shears in John’s hand. “Looking for just the right gift for that special someone?”

  “Something like that.” John set the shears aside.

  “Do you think you have time for a lunch break?” Bill asked.

  “Sure. I’m done here.” John shrugged. When neither the prior nor an ushman accompanied them, the ushvun'im tended to be lax. They rarely paired off or bothered to supervise each other’s activities. So long as he got back to the church hostel before dark, no one would care what he did with the remaining free hours of the afternoon.

  “Good. Loshai is dying to talk to you.”

  “How’s she doing?” John stowed the needles in his pack and then swung it up onto his back. “Is her stomach still bothering her?’

  “Oh yeah.” Bill looked almost pleased. “Apparently, it comes with the territory.”

  “What?” John frowned at the reply.

  “I think she wants to tell you herself,” Bill said quietly.

  John decided not to ask anything more, not out here on the open street where they could be overheard.

  He suspected that Laurie’s recent bouts of sickness were linked to the spells she poured over Bill. John didn’t know much about working a healing spell, but he had been watching Hann’yu for more than a year now. Hann’yu always chose another priest—generally John—to bear the brunt of the wounds he treated; Laurie only had her own strength to call on. It had to wear her down.

  “We’ve heard that things are moving along in Rathal’pesha,” Bill commented as they crossed the street.

  “So I’m told,” John said. He guessed that Fikiri had been keeping them informed.

  The walk to the Bousim house went quickly. They only had to pause once, halfway up a steep hill, for Bill to catch his breath.

  “Oh yeah, feeling the burn,” Bill whispered between deep breaths. “I have no idea how other people walk around all day long.”

  “It’s not nearly as easy as it looks.”

  “Tell me about it.” Bill straightened. “Okay, let’s not keep the ladies waiting.”

  John followed Bill to the Bousim house and up to one of the more elegant chambers of the second floor where Lady Bousim preferred to receive her guests.

  Breads, fruit, and cuts of lamb had been laid out on the long wooden table. Thinner tapestries embroidered with images of summer flowers and fruit-laden trees hung in the place of the heavier tapestries that had insulated the room the last time John had visited.

  Lady Bousim greeted John with a smile as he followed Bill in. Laurie beamed at him from the seat to Lady Bousim’s right. A healthy blush colored her skin and she’d at last put on enough weight to make her slim figure truly feminine. Her eyes were bright.

  John grinned at her, feeling overwhelmed with relief to see her looking more than well—radiant, in fact.

  The other two attendants, Ohbi and Inholima, sat to Lady Bousim’s left. They bowed their heads when John entered the room. Ohbi’s glossy black hair had grown even longer than John remembered. Clusters of sliver beads and ribbons hardly held back all of her twisting braids.

  Of the four women, only Inholima appeared ill. A sallow tone pervaded her once golden skin and dark purple bags hung beneath her eyes. She smiled faintly, showing the small gap between her front two teeth. Most disconcertingly, the tinge of oxygen-starved blue that had once colored Bill’s mouth now saturated Inholima’s lips.

  John suddenly had a terrible idea of who had been chosen to bear the brunt of Bill’s illness.

  He knew Inholima was a spy, placed in Lady Bousim’s entourage by Lord Bousim. If she were to ever discover the witchcraft that Lady Bousim, Laurie and Ohbi practiced, she could get them all killed. So John could see why they wouldn’t hesitate to make her
weak and ill.

  Still, just sitting there at the table, she seemed young and pathetic. It made John feel sorry for her in spite of himself.

  “Ushvun Jahn.” Lady Bousim waved him to a seat at the table. “Is it possible that you have grown even more handsome? It is such a delight to see you again.”

  “Thank you, Lady Bousim.” John bowed to her.

  “Tell me, how is Ushman Hann’yu?”

  He had almost forgotten that the two of them knew each other. His memories of last year’s Harvest Fair had been so dominated by the witch burning and his fight with Rasho Tashtu that he hadn’t remembered introducing the two of them.

  “He’s well,” John told her. “A little overworked, but well.”

  “You must inform him that I am anxiously looking forward to this Harvest Fair so that we can talk again.”

  “I will.”

  Inholima cupped her hand over her mouth and coughed. It was a sticky, gasping sound. She looked embarrassed at the ugliness of it.

  “My dear,” Lady Bousim said to Inholima, “are you sure you’re well enough to be out of bed?”

  “You look terrible,” Ohbi said softly.

  “Maybe you should rest,” Laurie added.

  “I don’t think I could stand much more bed rest. Lying on my back all day, I feel like I’m withering away.” Inholima smiled weakly. “I want to stay up at least long enough to hear Behr play.”

  Bill glanced to Inholima. “That’s flattering. I had no idea you liked it so much.”

  “It’s soothing,” Inholima said.

  “Well, if Lady Bousim doesn’t object, I’d be happy to play for you,” Bill said.

  “Of course you should play, Behr,” Lady Bousim said. She turned easily to John. “You must try the white rolls. The flour was brought all the way from Milaun. They’re so soft, nothing like the tough bread you find around here.”

  “Thank you.” John took a roll. It wouldn’t taste like anything to him. He added a slab of pale yellow cheese to his plate as well as several slices of lamb cutlet.