3: Black Blades

by Ginn Hale

  Ravishan nodded and Hann’yu seemed to take this as the end of their conversation. He dropped some wilted clumps of leaves into his mortar.

  “Maybe,” Ravishan whispered, “it wasn’t Fikiri who broke it.” Ravishan’s warm hand brushed John’s forehead again. His fingers swept John’s hair back from his face. Then Ravishan lifted his hand away.

  The touch hadn’t been more than a moment of contact, but somehow it soothed John. It eased him to know that Ravishan watched over him. John slid into a deeper rest. His vision dulled to shadow, and for a time, he simply drifted in a mist of sleep.

  The next time an image opened up before him, John knew he was dreaming right away. He was moving up a white stone staircase, floating through heavy gold gilded doors and passing deep into forbidden chambers.

  The air around him roiled with the smell of burning ozone. Plumes of pale blue-toned smoke hung like the suspended letters of a script he couldn’t read. They twisted around him and broke apart as he swept through them. As he took in a breath, he felt an electrical sensation prickle his lungs.

  It drew him, though he felt a little afraid of it. He passed through the final door and stepped into a vast, circular room. The air inside crackled. Thick clouds of bluish smoke hid the ceiling. All along the curve of the walls were gold arches. They looked like doorways but only opened to flat expanses of solid wall. Though they appeared to be nothing more than decorative details, the doorways revolted him. He couldn’t bring himself to approach them.

  Overhead bolts of white light burst through the cloudy blue smoke. John caught the silhouette of something huge hanging just above him: a long spiral of human vertebrae strung together on red copper wires.

  Dislocated arm bones jutted out, extending their fingers to other skeletal bodies. Ribs arched open, holding hipbones and femurs. There had to be hundreds of bodies woven together, flickering with tongues of electricity. Suddenly, the spinal column directly above John twisted and a yellow skull peered down. The jaws drew back on copper wires.

  “We smells its blood,” the skull whispered. The finger bones began to tremble and clatter against each other. They twitched and tugged at the wires holding them as if they were struggling to pull free.

  John jerked back, falling through the door behind him into a sudden darkness.

  He bolted upright.

  “It’s all right.” Ravishan gently caught his shoulders. He was still in bed at the infirmary. It was darker now, almost nightfall.

  “Lie back down,” Ravishan told him. “You’re not well enough to be up yet.”

  “I’m fine,” John answered, but he let himself be pushed back into the comfort of the pillows. He felt cold and slightly sickened. Ravishan smoothed the blanket over him.

  John said, “Have you been sitting beside me all day?”

  “No, I was standing most of the time, but then Hann’yu left and I took his chair. One of the ushvun’im came to see you.”

  “An old man?”

  Ravishan nodded. “Bald, with two honor braids. Very few teeth. I don’t think he told me his name.”

  “Samsango,” John supplied.

  “I told him that you wouldn’t be up for another day.” Ravishan leaned back in the chair. “You really shouldn’t be awake, you know.”

  “I don’t think I’m as badly hurt as you think I am. The cut in my palm was pretty deep but nothing life threatening.” He felt a little embarrassed now, remembering how he had fainted from the injury.

  “It’s not the cuts that I’m talking about.” Ravishan’s dark eyes narrowed as he gazed at John. “Don’t you know what you did?”

  “I know I passed out. I think it must have been shock. But I’m fine now.”

  “You collapsed the God’s Razor.” Ravishan lowered his voice slightly. “You overpowered Dayyid and Fikiri.”

  “It could as easily have been something Fikiri did wrong.” John didn’t know why, but the speculation that he harbored some kind of strange power within him made him uncomfortable.

  Ravishan scowled.

  “It wasn’t Fikiri,” Ravishan said. “He can hardly open his own Gray Space, much less crush Dayyid’s.”

  “So maybe it was someone else.”

  “Who?” Ravishan asked. “We all saw you do it.”

  “I don’t know.” John sighed, feeling tired again.

  “It was you.” Ravishan smiled at him. “Now Ushman Nuritam wants to test your bones to see if you are an ushiri candidate.”

  John didn’t see any point in arguing about it. And he suspected that he didn’t know enough about the Gray Space to win the argument anyway.

  “So, what will this test entail?” John asked. He closed his eyes.

  “Nothing much,” Ravishan said. “A few prayers. You drink tea, open a Gray Space...take off your clothes and dance—”

  “What?” John opened one eye, and seeing Ravishan’s grin, whispered, “It’s not nice to tease the man from another planet.”

  “You have my deepest apologies.” Ravishan stretched in the chair and yawned.

  “Tired?” John asked.

  “Tired and sore.” He lifted his arms slightly so that the sleeves of his robes fell back, exposing his bandaged arms. He smiled proudly. “Hann’yu asked me to bear your wounds.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I give my blood in place of yours.” Ravishan lowered his arms. “It lessens the extent of your injuries.”

  Like donating blood, John imagined. But there seemed to be far more bandages than a transfusion would have warranted.

  John asked, “Does it hurt?”

  “Not much.” Ravishan shrugged. “You?”

  “A little pinch in my palm, but that’s about it.” It was something of a lie, but John didn’t feel like complaining.

  “You should sleep,” Ravishan told him.

  “You as well,” John replied.

  “I’ll be right behind you. Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t take too long,” John said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Ravishan gave a soft murmur. His eyes were closed and his arms hung limply across his lap. Steadily, his breath slowed and deepened. John smiled, realizing that Ravishan had already gone ahead of him.

  Chapter Thirty

  The simple, bell-shaped cup in John’s hand looked as though it could have been carved from alabaster or limestone, but it felt lighter than either. No mineral created that finely grained surface. Delicate ridges marked where a ligament had once attached, where the force of muscles had once flexed and strained. The cup had to be bone.

  Heat from the tea inside lent a living warmth. John took a quick drink of the greenish tea, expecting the bite of daru’sira. Instead a weak, floral fragrance hung in his mouth. There was almost no taste, just a light scent after he swallowed.

  A year ago he wouldn’t have tasted anything at all, but he had somewhat adapted to the faint flavors in this world. He supposed that when he got back home everything would be too strong for a while. He tried to imagine what his favorite salsa would taste like now. For a moment, he drifted back to sharp searing tangs of lime and lemon suffusing earthy-sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh cilantro clinging to chopped red onion, and slivers of jalapeno pepper all bursting up like fireworks between the soothing, cool bites of cucumber.

  He took another sip of the tea, hardly tasted it at all, then glanced up to see how the men around him were enjoying theirs.

  Rows of ushiri’im and ushman’im knelt on either side of him, forming a neat corridor between him and the raised, gilded dais at the front of the room where Ushman Nuritam sat. It was easy to find Ravishan’s shorter locks in the sameness of bowed heads and long black braids. Fikiri too stood out with his dark blond hair. Both knelt directly behind Dayyid at the edge of the dais.

  Ushman Nuritam sipped slowly from his own white cup. His long white braids fell around him like cascading streams.

  This room was small compared to the massive scale of the rest of Rathal’pesha, but still
it seemed almost empty with few more than fifty men filling it. Sharp morning light diffused into a soft glow as it fell through the hundreds of sheet mica windowpanes. Carved vines climbed the stone pillars and twisted over each of the steps leading up to the dais. Behind Ushman Nuritam rose the huge figure of Parfir.

  John studied the statue. As always, Parfir’s body rose up in an amalgam of trees, leaves, flowers and animal forms. His raised hands extended to the ceiling. His fingers became arched supports. His hair had been sculpted into waves with marble fish and water lilies braiding through them. The light barely reached the heights from which Parfir stared down over his assembled priests.

  John squinted up into the dimness. The god seemed to offer him the faintest smile.

  Ushman Nuritam lowered his cup and set it to his right. Not knowing what else to do, John emulated him. Ushman Nuritam nodded just a little. John hoped that it was a sign of his approval and not that the priest was drifting off to sleep. The old man almost always seemed to have a distant point of focus and often he seemed utterly unaware of his surroundings.

  Ushman Nuritam’s voice was not loud but it carried easily throughout the absolute stillness of the chamber. “Parfir bless us, for we are your loyal sons. And forgive us, for we are not so wise as you. Help us know your purpose for our brother Jahn. Help us so that we may serve you more perfectly. Help us so that we may defend your holiness.”

  “Bless us!” The words rose in a loud unison from all of the priests surrounding John. John only managed to come in on the end, calling out ‘us.’

  Dayyid rose, strode to John, and then crouched down in front of him. His expression conveyed nothing.

  He opened his black coat to reveal a leather vest reminiscent of a gun holster. From this, Dayyid drew out two sheathed knives. The hilts of both were black. They looked just like the knives that Ravishan and the other ushiri’im carried. Dayyid placed both in front of John.

  “Choose one,” Dayyid whispered to him.

  John regarded the identical knives. John frowned, realizing that he should have kept Ravishan up, asking him more about this test. He wanted to peer out at the ushiri’im and ushman’im to see if he could catch a clue from Ravishan. But there was no chance of that. Dayyid was watching him too closely.

  There was no point in dragging this out. He simply reached for the knife on the right. Immediately he pulled his hand back. There was something wrong with that knife. The air around it shivered with a cold, electric sensation.

  “Why didn’t you take it?” Dayyid asked.

  “I don’t know,” John replied. He didn’t want to tell Dayyid more than he absolutely had to.

  “Is there something wrong with it?” Dayyid asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There must be a reason you drew back.” Dayyid leaned closer to John. “It is important that you tell us.”

  “This knife just feels...” John paused, searching for a word that didn’t betray his revulsion but still conveyed the sensation that radiated from the knife. “Powerful and strange.”

  Dayyid nodded slightly. “And the other blade?”

  John reached out more tentatively this time. He picked the sheathed knife up and held it for a moment. It was carved from bone.

  John said, “I don’t feel anything from this one.”

  Dayyid stood and addressed Ushman Nuritam.

  “Ushvun Jahn did not choose the blade bearing the curse.”

  “And yet he knew it?” Ushman Nuritam replied softly. “He felt it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, let us continue,” Ushman Nuritam decided.

  Dayyid carefully collected the knife and carried it to Ushman Nuritam, who slipped it into his robes. He wondered what exactly had been so disconcerting about that particular blade. He recalled a similar but much more intense revulsion when he had come across the remains of the Great Gate at Wolf Rock two years ago. Were there certain elements in the world of Basawar that were so integrally foreign to him, to his entire world, that they were inherently repulsive?

  John examined the sheathed knife that he had chosen. What about it had differed from the other so greatly? His fingers slid across the clasp that kept it sheathed, but he stopped himself from drawing it. He had no idea how an action like that would be taken in the context of the test. He wasn’t even sure how his last action had been interpreted. He seemed to have chosen the wrong knife, and yet Nuritam insisted that he go on.

  John set the knife down beside his small white cup.

  Dayyid strode back down from the dais. With a flick of his hand, he swept his long, glossy, black braids back over his shoulder.

  “Stand and approach,” Dayyid told him.

  John stood, though not as gracefully as he would have liked. His left foot had gone numb from sitting crossed-legged on the stone floor for so long. As he limped forward, John thought he caught a brief smile from Dayyid. It was gone before John could be sure it had been there, much less guess why. Perhaps it was simply an acknowledgment of the universal experience, which all priests in Rathal’pesha had, of having a foot go numb.

  Dayyid said, “Close your eyes.”

  John’s instincts rebelled at the thought of closing his eyes with Dayyid standing so near him. He lowered his lids but still peered through the shadow of his lashes. Again Dayyid gave him a brief, amused smile. John realized that Dayyid knew he was peeking.

  “Now turn your back to me,” Dayyid told him.

  With great reluctance, John did as he was told.

  From behind him came the almost inaudible hiss of a Gray Space opening. John almost bolted back around as he felt the chill. In an instant it snapped closed again and another space opened. John held perfectly still, eyes pressed closed. He desperately didn’t want a Gray Space to touch him again. But he could do nothing but stand here and wish.

  John found himself willing away the Gray Space with the same intense concentration that he had called upon as a young child to destroy the monsters he imagined awaiting him beneath his bed. It was all he could do, and he hated it.

  One space after another opened and closed beside and behind him. Each time, John felt the air writhe. Even after the spaces closed, a wounded feeling remained etched in his mind like the gashes a skate left in ice. The air seemed to be growing thinner and torn. It felt rough, almost ragged, as John drew a breath into his lungs.

  Behind him, he could hear Dayyid drawing in deep breaths, as if he were winded. John wondered if the grainy, broken texture of the air bothered him as well.

  John waited for another space to open but none did. All he heard was Dayyid taking in one deep breath after another. John opened his eyes a little wider. Rows of unfamiliar ushiri’im and ushman’im stared at John. John stole a quick glance to Ravishan but his head was bowed, hiding his expression. Fikiri’s eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open in surprise. He turned back to Dayyid.

  Instantly a Gray Space arched up over John like a mouth about to swallow him. A flare of repulsion, fear and anger rushed through John in a wave of heat.

  “No!” John shouted. His breath burned as it rushed from his mouth. Dayyid shuddered. Flames seared along the edges of the Gray Space above John. Then, it snapped shut. John swayed on his feet, feeling dizzy.

  Dayyid stood before John, breathing heavily, his pale skin beaded with sweat.

  “Parfir has blessed you with strength, Brother Jahn,” Ushman Nuritam said at last.

  “Or there’s witch’s blood in your veins,” Dayyid whispered.

  John felt the blood draining from his face. He had been here long enough to know what the Payshmura did to witches. They flayed them alive or burned them on the Holy Road along with Fai’daum traitors.

  “The test has not been as conclusive as we could have wished. We must discuss your candidacy,” Nuritam declared from the dais. “Dayyid, Hann’yu, you will attend.”

  Dayyid nodded.

  “All rise,” Dayyid called out to the gathered ushiri’im and ushman�
�im. All fifty men in attendance stood.

  “See to your duties,” Dayyid ordered. “Hann’yu, please remain to attend Ushman Nuritam.”

  The other priests filed out. John watched them, wondering if he, too, should leave. Dayyid clamped a hand on his shoulder.

  “I am sure you will want to stay to hear this out, Ushvun Jahn.”

  It was only a matter of moments before the chamber emptied. Dayyid led John up the steps of the dais. Hann’yu followed them. All three of them sat down on the broad step just below Ushman Nuritam.

  Up close, Ushman Nuritam’s skin looked like a veil of fine silk. John thought he could see the man’s bones just beneath the surface. His gaze drifted past John and seemed to settle on the distant wall.

  Hann’yu offered John a quick smile—nothing like the hard flash of teeth John so often caught from Dayyid. Hann’yu appeared genuinely friendly. He stretched his legs and massaged his ankles.

  “Jahn, don’t you think we should have cushions? They have them at the Black Tower in Nurjima and so do our sisters at Umbhra’ibaye. I don’t see why we shouldn’t. We’re not fanatics like the Kahlirash’im in Vundomu, you know.”

  “I have spoken to the Usho.” Ushman Nuritam nodded seriously. “He has approved the purchase of 400 cushions.”

  “Then we could add them to the supply list for next month.” Hann’yu’s smile widened almost comically. “My butt will be so happy.”

  Ushman Nuritam returned Hann’yu’s smile in a wide grin that almost startled John. He had grown used to seeing the ushman’im with dour and distant expressions. At just this moment, Hann’yu and Nuritam seemed suddenly very human and approachable. It was a relieving sight after being attacked, cut, and put through an incomprehensible test. It offered John some small hope of being able to appeal to either of the two men.

  Then John glanced to Dayyid. His expression remained cold, almost grim. And for the first time, John noticed that the insignias on Dayyid’s collar and the style of his braids were different from Hann’yu’s. Hann’yu wore emblems of suns on his collar where Dayyid wore a both a sun and a small crescent moon. Hann’yu’s braids hung forward where Dayyid’s were pulled back close to his skull and fell behind his shoulders.