6: Broken Fortress

by Ginn Hale

  “It shouldn’t have,” Jath’ibaye said. He didn’t meet Kahlil’s gaze but instead stared out the window to the courtyard below.

  “But it did.” Kahlil shrugged to cover the edge of disappointment that moved through him. He knew that Jath’ibaye would prefer him to become Ravishan, his brave heroic dead lover, resurrected. But as much as Kahlil wanted Ravishan’s life, he couldn’t be any man but who he was. “The way I see it, neither he nor I belong to this world anymore. But I’m the one who lived and he—for better or for worse—died. I can’t change that…Not even you can change that.”

  Jath’ibaye averted his bright gaze from Kahlil’s face down to the stack of pages Kahlil had translated. “There are people here who knew him—people who were his friends. When they see you, they’re not going to know what to do. They’re going to want you to be him.”

  “I know,” Kahlil said.

  “They’ll make mistakes. They’ll want you—” Jath’ibaye cut himself short, and swallowed before continuing, “They’ll want you to remember them the way they remember you. What will you tell them?”

  “I’ll just have to tell them that I’m not Ravishan.”

  “But you are fundamentally the same man. Not only are you the same flesh and blood, but you also had the same parents, the same upbringing—”

  “No. When I prayed to Parfir to send me a new teacher, a man better than Dayyid, I got no one. He got you. It changed his life forever.” Seeing the way Jath’ibaye’s jaw clenched just slightly, Kahlil felt bad for disappointing him and also more jealous of Ravishan than he had imagined possible. “I can’t be Ushiri Ravishan’in’Rathal’pesha any more than you can be John Matthew Toffler from Arlington, Washington.”

  Jath’ibaye looked truly surprised at the mention of his own name. Kahlil wondered if he had somehow managed to forget it. He supposed that it had been decades since anyone had called him by his real name.

  At first, Jath’ibaye seemed like he might offer some further argument. The muscles of his jaw clenched and flexed but he remained silent. At last he simply said, “It’s getting late.”

  Kahlil nodded. The hour would have been early in Nurjima but Vundomu didn’t seem to support the same wild nightlife.

  Jath’ibaye gathered the pages Kahlil had translated and then stood. “I should let you get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll talk more about your duties and your disciplinary problems.” He smiled almost ruefully as he said those last words and Kahlil couldn’t help but smile back at him.

  “Until then, good night.” Jath’ibaye moved quickly to the door.

  Kahlil tried to think of something to say, some other topic to introduce so that Jath’ibaye would not leave. But Jath’ibaye was already at the door. He glanced back at Kahlil once, just briefly. He was dirty and tired and there was an emptiness to his gaze that struck Kahlil as utterly defeated.

  “Take care,” Kahlil called out, but Jath’ibaye had already gone. The door closed on Kahlil’s last words.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Kahlil slept badly and only for a few hours. In his dreams, the walls of Vundomu collapsed around him. A desperate voice called to him. As he searched through the crumbling ruins, arcs of flames exploded through the halls. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something white stalking him. With insectile speed, it skittered between the jumping shadows. As he watched he noticed more and more of the sudden flashes of motion. Bones, he realized, hundreds of hungry bones were crawling up through the wreckage.

  He startled awake. Despite the cold night air, his body was damp with sweat. He heard people rushing through the hall outside his room. The sun hadn’t even risen. He kicked the sheep skins and quilted blankets off his body and sat up in his massive bed, feeling disoriented and unsure of where he was or why he was here.

  Then he remembered.

  Vundomu.

  After his dream of stalking bones, the sound of people running outside his rooms disturbed him. He got out of bed and wandered out into the empty greeting room.

  He glanced out his window to Jath’ibaye’s chambers. The rooms blazed with the bright green light of mashaye lamps. The silhouettes of a half-dozen people jumped and shifted as the light flickered across the white curtains.

  Kahlil went to the bathroom. When he returned, the noise in the hall had stopped but Jath’ibaye’s chambers looked packed. Kahlil guessed that there were at least twenty people gathered there.

  He wondered what was going on. Had something gone wrong? It certainly looked that way. Did it have to do with the gaun’im in the south or with the hungry bones in the north? Or something else that he didn’t even know about yet? There were too many possibilities for Kahlil to guess what had happened. But he wanted to know.

  He pulled on his dark wool pants and then found the cleaner of his two shirts. His socks were getting a little ripe even by his low standards. Absently, he wondered where he was supposed to go to get his clothes laundered.

  The thought slipped from his mind as he continued watching the people gathered in Jath’ibaye’s chambers. He easily recognized the unique shadow cast by Ji’s canine body. She was up on something—a chair or a table—shaking her head as she spoke. Her back arched slightly, hackles up.

  Kahlil reached to unlatch his window, with the idea that he might be able to overhear them. Just as he slipped the latch open there came a loud knock at his door.

  When he opened it, he found the young woman he’s spoken with aboard Jath’ibaye’s ship standing on the other side. She was no longer dressed in sailing gear, but now wore the heavy russet coat and black pants that seemed standard issue for Vundomu.

  “Besh’anya?” Kahlil was almost certain that was the dark-haired girl’s name.

  “I didn’t know if you’d remember.” She smiled charmingly.

  “How could I forget?” Kahlil supposed he looked a wreck, but then it was the middle of the night. Her expectations probably hadn’t run too high.

  “I’m going to guess from the late hour that this isn’t a social call?” Kahlil hoped it wasn’t a social call at least. Especially not a private one.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not,” Besh’anya replied. “The Five Districts Council has asked for you. They’re holding a meeting in Jath’ibaye’s apartments right now.”

  “I noticed the commotion out the window,” Kahlil remarked.

  Besh’anya nodded. “I think everyone in the fortress has been called up in front of them. Ji sent me to get you.”

  “Let me get my boots.” Kahlil stepped back from the door, allowing it to swing open. Hesitantly, Besh’anya followed him into his rooms.

  “I’d offer you a seat, but I don’t have any chairs yet.” Kahlil went to the bedroom and found his boots.

  “So tell me,” he called from the bedroom as he laced his boots up, “what is this Five Districts Council that I’m being called before?”

  “You don’t know?” Besh’anya asked.

  “Not yet,” Kahlil replied.

  “They’re an elected council that makes decisions concerning the five districts of Vundomu. Wah’roa represents all of us here in the Fortress District. Tai’yu speaks for the Greenhills District. Hirran represents the Iron Heights in the east and Gin’yu speaks for the Silverlake Islands.”

  “That’s only four,” Kahlil remarked.

  “Litivi supposedly represents the Westcliff District, but really he’s just his mother’s proxy—Gin’yu, I mean.”

  “Jath’ibaye isn’t a member?” Kahlil asked. He grabbed his leather coat as well as the yasi’halaun, which he strapped across his back.

  “No.” Besh’anya smiled at him in a shy manner that assured Kahlil that he couldn’t be looking all that bad. “Jath’ibaye acts as a representative for the council when he visits the gaun’im in Nurjima.”

  “Really?” Kahlil went to the door and Besh’anya followed him. “I don’t think the gaun’im know that.”

  “No,” Besh’anya replied, “the gaun’im fear Jath’ibaye. So it’s
better if he presents the council’s decisions.”

  “And no one is worried that he might just be presenting his own decisions?” Kahlil couldn’t help but ask. He was honestly much more comfortable with the idea of Jath’ibaye as a solitary ruler than as a representative to some council. An elected council could not claim any divinity. Its members were only human and likely to fall prey to the rivalry, bribery, ambition, and short-sightedness of all mortal men.

  “Of course not. Jath’ibaye is beyond reproach.” Besh’anya gave Kahlil a rebuking look, but then went on, “On the few occasions that Jath’ibaye has gone ahead with a decision without the council’s approval, they have always agreed that it was the right choice afterwards.”

  “Then, when it comes down to it, Jath’ibaye is in charge,” Kahlil said, grinning.

  Besh’anya studied Kahlil briefly, then hesitantly she nodded. “If Jath’ibaye wished, he could overthrow the council, but he never would.”

  “No,” Kahlil said, “that wouldn’t be like him.” Doubtless, government by an elected council had been Jath’ibaye’s idea in the first place. It was the kind of idealistic system that a native of Nayeshi might implement.

  “Ji says he just doesn’t like to be involved in politicking,” Besh’anya admitted.

  “Why are they meeting in his chambers then?” Kahlil asked.

  “The council originally called on him to discuss the withdrawal of our people from Nurjima. But now—” Besh’anya lowered her voice and said, “—they’re asking about the death of Nanvess Bousim. Ji sounded pretty frustrated when she sent me to get you.”

  “That doesn’t sound too promising,” Kahlil remarked. He had been the one to kill Nanvess, but only he and Jath’ibaye knew that—or perhaps not, if Jath’ibaye really did report to this council. It was difficult for Kahlil to imagine Jath’ibaye reporting anything to anyone. He just wasn’t naturally forthcoming—at least he hadn’t been when Kahlil had known him.

  “Tell me as much about this council as you can, will you?” Kyle asked, and Besh’anya did her best to inform him and keep up with his fast, agitated strides.

  Outside Jath’ibaye’s apartments, they were greeted by several guards dressed in russet coats with the red Prayerscars of the kahlirash’im marking their brows. To his surprise, Kahlil noticed that two of the five were women. Doubtless, this was another of Jath’ibaye’s progressive ideas.

  Outside the heavy door Kahlil caught the tones of raised voices, but when he and Besh’anya entered the expansive greeting chamber, the crowd of some twenty people gathered around the huge marble table went quiet. All their attention turned to Kahlil.

  He refused to feel intimidated. He’d faced greater audiences than this in far more unsettling surroundings. Kahlil allowed himself to take in Jath’ibaye’s private suite. It appeared to be laid out much like Kahlil’s own, with high ceilings and wide, deep window casings. But where the red marble inlay of Kahlil’s walls stood bare, Jath’ibaye’s were lined with tall wooden pharmacy shelves.

  Dozens of glass terrariums filled shelf after shelf as if displaying an inventory of summer’s verdancy. Beyond the gawking group of men and women gathered around Jath’ibaye’s table, Kahlil noted several large Wardian cases reaching nearly to the ceiling. Dwarf apple trees, scarlet-mouthed blossoms, and huge delicate ferns filled them. Kahlil thought he caught the flash of a butterfly’s wings.

  He didn’t know why, but he half expected to see Jath’ibaye standing there beside all that contained wilderness. But Jath’ibaye didn’t appear to be in his rooms at all.

  Kahlil’s attention snapped back to the representatives who had summoned him. Aside from Ji, they were the only people actually seated. The rest—their secretaries, pages and runners stood in clusters beside and behind their chairs.

  Kahlil was glad for Besh’anya’s descriptions of them as it allowed him to identify each of them in an instant.

  The aged but still surprisingly powerfully built woman seated on the far right was Gin’yu, representative of the Silverlake District. The bland, brown-haired thirty-something with his mouth hanging half open was obviously her son, Litivi, whose filial obedience apparently granted Gin’yu power over the humble shepherds of the Westcliff District as well as her own island populations.

  Looking past Litivi, Kahlil’s gaze fell upon an older man with graying red hair, dark eyes and a nose as hooked as an eagle’s beak. This had to be Tai’yu, the Fai’daum war hero who represented the vast taye-producing northlands, called the Greenhills. Besh’anya had claimed that he possessed a charming sense of humor, but the expression he wore as he regarded Kahlil seemed far from amused.

  In sharp contrast to Tai’yu was his daughter, Hirran. She was young and startlingly beautiful. Kahlil could only assume that she’d inherited her graceful figure, long black hair and pixie nose from her mother. She represented the Iron Heights where the vast seams of iron that so many gaun’im craved were located. Hirran was also Besh’anya’s favorite cousin, apparently.

  Last among them was Wah’roa, the commander of the kahlirash’im as well as the representative of the entire city of Vundomu. His slim build and slight stature could have been a boy’s, but the deep wrinkles lining his gaunt face bore testament to the tumultuous seventy-three years he’d lived through. Thin war braids held his fine white hair back against his skull. The red Prayerscar that Kahlil remembered blazing like a brand upon his brow had now faded to a dull garnet. He alone of the representatives gazed at Kahlil with an expression of open welcome.

  And Kahlil realized that Jath’ibaye and Ji weren’t the only ones who wanted Ravishan to have been brought back to them. He had to look away from the old man’s warm regard.

  Two toned young women dressed in uniforms of the kahlirash’im stood behind Wah’roa’s chair. Both sported black tattoos of wedding bands across their fingers. Neither wore marriage chains. Kahlil had yet to see a woman in the Fai’daum northlands who did.

  Beside Wah’roa, Ji crouched on a red, overstuffed chair. Against the full velvety curves of the chair, she looked faded and scruffy, like a hunting trophy that had been badly stuffed. Besh’anya’s brother Chyemon stood behind her.

  “Members of the council,” Ji addressed the room in a low soft voice, “this is Kyle’insira.”

  Wah’roa stood, with surprising grace for a man of his age. He held up his red, knotted fingers in the Payshmura sign of blessing. Instinctively, Kahlil returned the gesture. Their exchange caused an unnatural, sudden hush. Wah’roa slumped back down into his seat.

  “Kyle’insira was responsible for stopping the assassination attempt,” Ji continued.

  “Our thanks go out to you,” Gin’yu told him.

  Kahlil inclined his head to her. She smiled, and the expression seemed to lighten her otherwise dour countenance, if only for a moment.

  “Ji advises the council,” Besh’anya whispered to Kahlil. “We’re with her.”

  She led him to Ji’s chair, beside Wah’roa’s. Everyone in the room watched his movement. All the while, Kahlil scanned the gathering for Jath’ibaye as if he could have somehow overlooked his blond, towering figure between two of the mousy secretaries or behind the cluster of scrawny, yawning runners. It seemed wrong that he shouldn’t be in his own chambers when so many other people were.

  “…and in the hour of darkness, the Kahlil shall return, and in his wake, divine wrath shall fall upon our enemy and he will be no more…” Wah’roa quoted the scripture so softly that Kahlil doubted even he was meant to hear it. Certainly, none of the other representatives seemed to take notice.

  “Now that Kyle’insira has arrived, we should continue.” Gin’yu rose from her seat and gave Kahlil a severe glare. “There are questions that the council would like to put to you, Kyle’insira. We hope that you will be forthcoming and honest in your answers.”

  “I will do my best,” Kahlil responded.

  “Ji will sense it if you are not,” Litivi informed him with what he probably felt was a men
acing glower. If the circumstances had been different, Kahlil might have taken the time to knock that sneer off Litivi’s face before answering. But instead he chose to behave civilly.

  “I understand,” Kahlil replied. “Ask what you will.”

  “Tell us how you came to know of the assassination planned against Jath’ibaye,” Gin’yu commanded.

  “A Bousim spy in the Lisam gaunsho’s house reported it to my commander.” Kahlil could see that the council members were not pleased with his answer.

  “And what happened after your commander was informed of this plot?” Gin’yu asked.

  “He sent me out to stop it.” Kahlil shrugged.

  “And why didn’t you or your commander simply inform Jath’ibaye of the danger he was in?” Gin’yu asked.

  Kahlil almost laughed at the suggestion. What self-respecting gaun commander did she imagine would go running to the leader of the Fai’daum at the first sign of trouble?

  “It was hoped that the problem could be handled within the gaun’im.”

  “The Bousim family wanted to protect Jath’ibaye?” Tai’yu asked. His tone was soft, but his expression was concerned. Hirran, too, seemed intent upon this specific question. At least the pair of pretty girls gathered around her were taking rapid notes.

  “Yes,” Kahlil replied. “Their holdings border your lands. Of all the gaun’im, the Bousim family would be most likely to suffer the worst losses if there were another war.” Kahlil couldn’t help but think of Alidas. He had wanted so deeply to avoid another war.

  “And yet Nanvess Bousim was one of the conspirators in the assassination plot?” Tai’yu asked.

  “Yes.” Kahlil nodded.

  “If the Bousim gaun’im are as anxious to maintain the peace as you claim, then why would the heir to their household do such a thing?” Gin’yu demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Kahlil replied. He didn’t like where these questions seemed to be leading.

  “You couldn’t guess?” Gin’yu asked. “You couldn’t offer even one reason why we should believe that the first heir to the Bousim house would risk so much?”