by Nathan Long
Yeah, I know I should have left it alone, but it bugged me. I leaned in to Lhan as we passed a bunch of guys all arguing about whether Arrurrh had souls.
“So gals don’t go to school here?”
One of Lhan’s eyebrows raised up over the top of his mask. “Women in school?”
My hackles started to rise. “Something funny about that?”
Lhan frowned. “No. But it isn’t done.”
“Why not?”
“It is for a man to study, so that his wife may live a life free of toil or taxing thought.”
I was about to say something about, “What if she didn’t want to live a life free of toil or taxing thought?” but then I looked around at all the waitresses cleaning up spilled booze and puke as drunk students staggered past them arm in arm, and I stopped short. “So, those women? Their men didn’t study hard enough?”
Lhan shrugged. “Those women are servants. Their men are undoubtedly the same. They would not be allowed into the colleges regardless. Only men of good birth may enroll here.”
He said it so matter-of-fact that I blinked. Another Waarian slap in the face, though really, how different was that from back home? We had scholarships on Earth, sure. But mostly you didn’t get into Harvard without some serious green. Still…
“So, you’re saying the the rules of the Seven only apply if you’re a Dhan? A poor guy doesn’t have to make his wife’s life easier?”
“He should certainly try, but it is the lot of the poor to struggle. All they can do is pray to be born into a better station in their next life.”
Now he was really making me mad. “Hang on. The only way to be upwardly mobile around here is to die?”
“Upwardly mobile? I don’t know the term.”
“Lhan, don’t be an idiot. It’s the great American dream. You work hard, make money, buy your way out of the slums, and get to rub elbows with kings and queens. That doesn’t happen here?”
He scowled behind his mask. “Poor men occasionally get rich, but one could never become a Dhan. Nobility is an honor conferred by birth.”
I stopped, then turned to him, my face getting all tight. “Is that what you believe?”
Lhan looked nervous, like a puppy who knows his owner is mad, but isn’t sure why. “Mistress, we have had this conversation before. All souls are returned to the great sea in death. When it is time for them to be reborn, Majdu the Life Giver judges them and chooses their birth. A poor man who has led a blameless life may come back a Dhan, or even the Aldhanan. But a poor man cannot become noble in the course of one life. It is—”
“How can you say all that shit when you know what I am?”
He stared, completely confused. “I do not understand you, Mistress. Though we have parted ways, I still consider you the most noble, honorable—”
“Is that what you think? You think I’m some kind of space royalty or something? You think I’m fucking Princess Leia?”
“I know not this princess you speak of, but in my eyes—”
I cut him off with my hand. “Don’t. Please. Listen, I—I think we better clear this shit up right here. I don’t want you saying later on that I conned you into palling around with me on false pretenses or something.”
“Mistress, I would never—”
“Just listen!” I pointed to one of the waitresses, bending over as she served a tray of drinks so the college boys could get a good look at her cleavage. “My mom did that for a living.” Then I pointed to a whore, standing in the mouth of an alley. “Sometimes she did that. My dad worked in an orchard when he wasn’t in jail. He was a field hand. Your fucking Life Giver judged my soul and decided it was the lowest of the fucking low. So maybe…” I was glad he couldn’t see my face behind my ninja mask thingy. My eyes were leaking like a bad seal. “So maybe you wanna rethink calling me “Mistress,” ’cause I ain’t no noble. I never will be. There ain’t enough spins of the wheel left.”
Lhan laughed, and I nearly punched his lights out, but then he touched my shoulder and looked through my veil into my eyes. “Mistress, you misunderstand me. I only meant to explain that title cannot be given to those that do not already have it. That is only law, though some fools think it nature.” He sighed. “It is true that most on Waar are blind to the difference between nobility and noble birth, but I cannot help but see it, for I have known too many who were born noble, but have no nobility, and many more who have inner nobility but no title. Certainly I know that I will be a dung hauler or a slave when next I rise from the sea, and I pray that my dear father will be born into worse than that.”
“Oh, come on, Lhan. You—”
“Jae-En, by your actions, you are more noble than any man on this street. It is I who, despite my birth, am not worthy of the appellation. I who, despite privilege and education, wasted my youth to license and debauchery in these holes you see around you.”
I shook my head. “Lhan. I know you. Maybe you fucked around some. Everybody does that in college. But you couldn’t have been that bad. You’ve got too big a heart. You’d never hurt anybody. Not on purpose.”
He drew himself up. “And do you count inaction as ‘on purpose?’ What say you of cowardice?”
Before I could put together an answer, he turned away from me, as cold as he had been warm ten seconds ago.
“Come. The Dusty Tome is this way.”
***
Lhan led me down the noisy street to an open-fronted place that had a big leather-bound book nailed over its door for a sign, and tables and chairs spilling out in the street, all filled with intense, robe-wearing bookworm-types shouting over each other’s arguments, or sitting by themselves and trying to look tortured while they wrote in their journals.
He paused in front of it, then stayed paused, like somebody’d glued his feet to the ground.
I took a wild guess. “So, this act of cowardice you were talking about. Your, uh, inaction. Is that why you’re all weirded out about coming to see these guys again?”
“Aye. Preceptor Shal-Hau has forgiven me, but the others…” Lhan hung his head.
I cracked my knuckles. “Well, fuck ’em. If they give you any trouble, I’ll—”
Lhan paled. “Please, Jae-En. Be not impulsive. They have every right. What I did was…. inexcusable.”
I shrugged. “All right, but if you want somebody slapped, just say the word.”
“I will not fail to speak. I promise you.”
We stepped through the crowded tables and pushed inside. It was hot as a sauna in there, and smelled like distilled nerd—book mold, B.O., and unwashed clothes. Back home it would have been a Starbucks, or actually one of those coffee houses that hates Starbucks and serves organic coffee from someplace you’ve never heard of. Not the kind of place I’d usually be caught dead in. I tend to favor places where the coffee comes in regular and decaf, and you can get a bowl of chili and a side of fries.
They weren’t drinking coffee here. Lhan said it was called halga, and it looked to me like steaming cups of milk and smelled like hot, over-ripe banana. Whatever it was, it was hyping the hell out of those school-boys. They were all talking a mile a minute, and didn’t seem to be able to sit still.
Lhan pulled his hood down low as we edged through the press, which I thought was overkill. His mask hid pretty much everything but his eyes already.
“Try not to look too guilty, Lhan.”
“Forgive me, but this was an old haunt during my school days, and some may still remember me.”
He pushed toward a little archway in the back wall. It had a curtain across it and a sign hanging in front of it that said, “Reserved.”
“Good. They are in session.”
Lhan stepped past the sign and ducked through the curtain. I followed him into a dark hallway with a crack of light coming out from under a door at the end. It was a lot quieter in here, quiet enough that I heard somebody draw a blade ahead of us.
“Who’s that?” came a man’s voice.
I reached o
ver my shoulder for my bundled sword but Lhan stopped me.
“One who is a friend.”
“A true friend?”
Lhan pulled off his mask. “A friend of truth.”
The guy with the knife stepped forward. He was another student type, though a bit older. Grad student maybe? He lowered the blade, but didn’t put it away.
“Lhan, it is you?”
“Well met, Mio.”
Mio didn’t seem to think so. “Is it? After the trouble at Rian-Gi’s and your past villainies, I know some among us who would consider you well met only if they could cut your—” He broke off as he noticed me, then did a double take at my height. “Wh-who’s this?”
“I’m the cause of the trouble,” I said.
Mio looked at Lhan. “Not…?”
“The same. Worry not. She is a friend. But you mentioned Rian-Gi. Is he…?”
“They watch him, hoping to catch the rest of us. He lives.”
Lhan breathed a sigh of relief, and so did I. He mighta been a bit of a drama queen, but the guy’d done right by me when he didn’t have to. I was glad he was okay.
Lhan looked at the door. “Is the tutor instructing tonight?”
Mio was having a hard time peeling his eyes off me, but he turned back to Lhan at last. “I know not why I should tell you anything of us.”
“Please, Mio. It is a matter of great urgency. I must speak with him.”
Mio gave him the stone face for a long moment, then shrugged. “I’ll ask.”
He cracked the door, letting light and voices spill out, then slipped through. Over his shoulder, I could see a little private dining room with a table in the middle, chairs all around, and benches along the walls. Every seat was taken with more student types, all laughing and jabbering away with each other, and all facing toward a balding old purple guy with a big nose and bigger ears who sat at the head of the table, smiling like the world’s ugliest buddha. Then the door closed and it was all dark again.
“That’s your secret society?”
Lhan looked around. “This? No. Nothing more than an informal debating club, moderated by Master Shal-Hau, all correct and approved by the college. But young men who attend here, and show a certain fervor and slant, are invited to attend more exclusive gatherings, which are—”
“The secret society.”
“Precisely.”
After another minute of waiting in the dark hall, Mio slipped back out the door and gave Lhan a nod. “The Master’s house, in half a crossing.” He looked down the hall toward the noisy main room, then opened another door just to the left of the first one. This one was dark.
“Best if you went out the back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HERETICS!
Half a crossing later—I’d say about an hour and a half Earth time—Lhan lead me up the creaky stairs of an old three-story tenement on the edge of the Academy District. It had a lot of fancy tile work around the doors and windows, and mighta been a swanky address back in the day, but it was a bit shabby at the edges now.
On the third floor Lhan stopped outside an apartment, and I could hear voices arguing behind the door. Lhan took off his mask, then took a breath—and another. Finally he pulled himself together and knocked. The voices cut off, and a few seconds later the door swung open and the ugly Buddha guy stood there in slippers and a green silk robe, smiling like a happy grandpa.
“Lhan-Lar, you live!”
Lhan bowed and crossed his wrists. “Only by greatest good fortune and the efforts of my companion, Mistress Jae-En.” He turned to me. “Mistress Jae-En, may I present my tutor and friend, Master Shal-Hau of Ormolu.”
Shal-Hau bowed. “Thank you, Mistress, for returning to me so dear a student. Please, welcome to my home.”
I waved, embarrassed, and ducked through the door, which was a little low. “Uh, thanks. Hi.”
He took our cloaks and masks and weapons and put them on hooks, then turned back and stared at Lhan’s belly wound, which still looked pretty raw.
“By the One, pupil, do you live? It seems impossible.”
Lhan shrugged, embarrassed. “’Tis due almost entirely to my own foolishness. A tale for another time.”
“Of course, of course. Come in. The others are waiting.”
Knowing he was a professor, I’d kinda expected Shal-Hau’s place to be like Rian-Gi’s study—all stacks of scrolls and piles of papers and dirty cups and saucers everywhere, but it was more like something out of the Waar edition of House Beautiful. There were wide, low couches all around, piled with tasseled pillows and bookended with little tables with vases on them. Greenish bronze lamps with patterns punched in their sides shined patterns of light on weird old masks and musical instruments that were hung on the walls as art. It was as spotless and neat as a model home, but at the same time felt as warm and welcoming as Shal-Hau’s smile.
I couldn’t say the same for the dudes that were filling the couches.
There were seven of them, all dressed in dark students’ robes like the guys in the back room at the Dusty Tome, but these guys weren’t laughing. As Shal-Hau stepped out to fetch drinks and snacks, they all stared at me and Lhan like we’d run over their cat, and I heard some whispering in the ranks.
“By the One, she is a demon.”
“The Church’s broadsheets did not exaggerate after all.”
I was kinda feeling like something Lhan had brought in for show and tell, and it was making me a little hot under the collar. Lhan wasn’t doing anything about it, either. He was just standing there, as stiff as a kid meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. So it was almost a relief when one of the guys, a dignified beanpole with a samurai topknot and the cheekbones of a hungry elf, broke the ice and spoke up, even though he didn’t have anything nice to say.
“I am surprised to see you, Lhan. I hadn’t thought you would have the courage to show your face. Unless perhaps you have come to betray us to the priests as you did Bedu-Bas.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I coulda punched him in the nose on attitude alone. Lhan just crossed his wrists and bowed.
“In truth, Sei-Sien, I feared to come, knowing the reception I would receive. I hope it speaks to the urgency of my message that I conquered that fear.”
A little butterball with a droopy mohawk folded his arms. “And what message is this?”
Lhan bowed to him too. “Thank you, Gaer-Zhau. It is this. That it is time at last to strike the church as you have always meant to.”
Cheekbones curled his lip. “Really? With Rian-Gi under surveillance? With you and your companion accused of kidnapping the Aldhanan’s daughter? With the church looking everywhere for you? I cannot think of a worse time.”
“And yet, in truth, there has never been a better time.” Lhan took a step forward. “Though you know it not, we are stronger now, and better allied than ever before. And when I tell you—”
“What do you know of our strength?” Cheekbones flicked a hand at him. “Did someone speak of it in a brothel? You haven’t—”
“Let him speak, Sei.” Shal-Hau trundled back in with a tray of crunchies and some kind of wine in a clay jug, then motioned for us to take a couch across from Sei-Sien and his pals. I felt like I was sitting down at the defendant’s table in a courtroom, and shivered. The last time I’d felt like that I’d done a year in county for assault.
Shal-Hua helped himself to the vino, poured some for me and Lhan, then crossed to another couch and sat down.
“Go on, Lhan.”
Lhan nodded thanks to Shal-Hau, then licked his lips and turned to the others. “First you must know that it was not Mistress Jae-En and I who kidnapped Wen-Jhai and Sai-Far, but the church itself.”
Gaer-Zhau raised an eyebrow. “And why would they do that?”
“As bait.”
Sei-Sien laughed. “To catch what fish? You? They wouldn’t waste the effort.”
Shal-Hau gave him a warning look.
Lhan shrugged. “At first, I admit, we thought their aim was to lure Mistress Jae-En into their clutches, but soon we learned the truth. It was the Aldhanan they wanted.”
That perked up everybody’s ears.
“The Aldhanan?”
Lhan leaned forward. “The church told the Aldhanan that Mistress Jae-En and I held his daughter and her consort in Durgallah, and meant to sacrifice them to the ancient gods of the sea. In reality, a large group of priests disguised as heretics waited there in ambush, intending to kill him.”
“What!”
They were all staring now.
“Mistress Jae-En and I were to have been named the Aldhanan’s assassins, and used as an excuse for a new Aldhanan, a puppet fully under the control of the church, to wage war against true heretics such as yourselves and further tighten the Temple’s control of Ora and its water.”
Shal-Hau put down his cup. “You—you speak of these things as if they have already happened. Do you say that the Aldhanan is dead?”
Lhan smiled. “If not for the courage and strength of Mistress Jae-En, I believe he would be. Fortunately, she warned him in time, and the false heretics were defeated and exposed, and the Aldhanan’s daughter and her consort rescued as well.”
Sei-Sien coughed. “Forgive me, do you say that the Aldhanan is aware that his daughter was kidnapped by the church? That he knows they meant to kill him?”
“He knows worse than that.”
“What could be worse than that?”
Lhan looked at me, then back to them, then coughed. “This is the second thing you must know, a secret that could destroy the church if it was revealed.”