3: Black Blades

by Ginn Hale

  Ravishan too apparently had other things on his mind. He asked, “Is Hann’yu sending you down to Amura’taye for supplies?”

  “Yes, I’m going down with the other ushvun’im tomorrow.”

  “Do you know where Candle Alley is?” Ravishan lowered his voice to a whisper. John stopped scanning the book.

  He said, “I could find it. Do you want me to bring something back for you?”

  “No, I want to meet you there tomorrow night.”

  “Why?” John asked quietly.

  “There are things we can’t talk about here.” Ravishan glanced over the two empty tables behind them and then studied the rows of shelved books. John followed his gaze. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the small room with them, but John couldn’t know for sure. There was always the possibility of some ushiri watching from the Gray Space.

  John wondered what it was that Ravishan needed to tell him in strict privacy. Was it about Nayeshi? Something Ravishan had overheard Dayyid mention? Or perhaps it had to do with the nun at Umbhra’ibaye who Ravishan secretly spoke to.

  Ravishan whispered, “After seven bells. There’s a stone wall at the end of the alley.”

  “I’ll be there,” John agreed.

  Ravishan smiled.

  “You won’t get into trouble, will you?” John asked quietly.

  “Not if I don’t get caught,” Ravishan replied easily.

  John thought of cautioning Ravishan, but he heard the soft whisper of the door opening behind the two of them. Ravishan instantly spun around to see who had entered. John restrained himself. He kept his eyes glued to the book in front of him. Nothing seemed more conspiratorial than two people simultaneously looking up in sudden, startled silence.

  “So, this is how Rathal’pesha is written?” John ran his finger over the sweeping script.

  “Uh—” It took Ravishan a moment to refocus on the book. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “The reading is going well, then?” Hann’yu asked from behind them.

  John turned back, as if he had just realized that Hann’yu had entered the room. “Not as well as I would like, but I think I’m improving.”

  “Good.” Hann’yu walked to their table. To Ravishan, he said, “Ushman Dayyid must be expecting you at practice, don’t you think?”

  “I just stopped in to have Ushvun Jahn look at my arm.” Ravishan pulled himself off the stool. “It’s been hurting lately.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed you’ve had a sudden rash of injuries.” Hann’yu nodded, barely concealing his amusement. “You’ve been in to see Ushvun Jahn almost every day for the last three weeks. I hope you aren’t dying.”

  Ravishan flushed. “No, I just...”

  “Yes, yes.” Hann’yu waved aside anything else Ravishan might have said. “You really should get to practice.”

  “Of course.” Ravishan bowed deeply to Hann’yu and gave John a slight nod. “Thank you for your time and skills.” Then he quickly slipped out of the room.

  Hann’yu watched him go and then addressed John.

  “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but he likes you quite a bit.”

  A wave of guilty dread rolled over John. He didn’t want this to be the moment when Hann’yu warned him against getting too close, being too friendly. His skin suddenly felt slightly too hot and his palms went clammy. It was a guilty reaction, and he knew it. He said nothing and simply continued to gaze at Hann’yu as if the comment had been no more than a mention of the weather.

  “It’s good to see,” Hann’yu continued. “I don’t think he’s ever made friends with any of the other ushiri. He’s so much better at controlling the Gray Space than most of them and too proud of himself for any of them to like him.”

  “He’s not a bad kid.” John shrugged, hesitant to be drawn out any further.

  “He’s hardly a kid at all anymore,” Hann’yu said. “When I was first sent here five years ago, he was scrawny, awkward, and so brittle. You wouldn’t have recognized him. I used to worry that he’d just come apart one day.”

  “But he’s gotten better?”

  Hann’yu sighed. “I think having a friend has helped him greatly. It’s brought a value to his life other than becoming Kahlil. I was worried for a while that if he failed it would kill him. When Fikiri came...” Hann’yu shook his head. “I suppose I’m just trying to thank you for befriending him. I hope it isn’t too much of an annoyance to you.”

  “No, not at all.” John knew it was as important to conceal his pleasure as it was to hide his earlier alarm. Yet he couldn’t help but feel happy to know that he had bettered Ravishan’s life. “It’s nothing, really.”

  John flipped through the book and found that he was once again looking at the drawing of the first Rifter. Her wide eyes and tiny pinprick pupils stared out in an expression that struck John as more horrified than wrathful. She appeared to be shocked that the world was crumbling beneath her feet.

  Hann’yu glanced to the book and rolled his eyes. “Dull, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not too bad,” John replied.

  “There must be something better here.” Hann’yu studied the spines of the books on each of the shelves. “If we were in Nurjima, we could just walk down the street to a bookshop. Have you ever been there?”

  “No. I’ve heard about it.”

  “A den of sin and revolutionaries.” Hann’yu smiled as he spoke. “It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Sounds like you miss it.”

  “I do, but politics won’t allow me back,” Hann’yu answered.

  “I see.” John returned to the book. He sounded out the words under his breath, slowly piecing together sentences as if he were reassembling the splintered remains of an ancient fossil.

  “Parfir is the water, the air, and the land,” John mouthed to himself. “He smiles, and the rain is gentle, the sun shines, and the fields prosper. But his rage is the Rifter bringing floods, fires, and chasms.”

  “You don’t ask many questions, do you?” Hann’yu asked.

  “Pardon?” John glanced up in confusion, his thoughts still occupied by the Rifter.

  “It’s nothing,” Hann’yu answered. “I am simply surprised that you didn’t ask me more about it. I think every other priest in the entire monastery has pulled me aside at one point or another to ask why I was sent from the Black Tower. Most of them seem to think I’m reporting back to the Usho.”

  “I guess that might follow.” John knew that the Usho was the highest-ranking ushman in the Payshmura church. Their Pope, he supposed. But that was about all John knew of the subject.

  Hann’yu smiled. “You couldn’t seem to care less.”

  “Should I care?”

  “No,” Hann’yu replied. “I’m just not accustomed to such honest indifference.”

  “Well,” John offered, “you can tell me all about it if it would make you feel more comfortable.”

  Hann’yu chuckled. “You’re too amusing of a man to have to read that tired old rag. Let me see if I can’t find something more diverting.”

  Hann’yu wandered back between two rows of towering shelves. John heard him climbing the rolling ladder that offered access to those books shelved up against the ceiling.

  “You know,” Hann’yu called back to him, “looking at the books here you’d think that there was no such thing as literature at all. Holy text, holy text, appendix to a holy text. And...oh. Well, this isn’t too bad. A History of the Practitioners of the Forbidden. Ah, and this as well. Not as bad as I thought. Oh, this doesn’t belong here at all!”

  John heard Hann’yu rustling through the books.

  “Jahn,” Hann’yu called him, “come here and take these. I can’t carry them and get down the ladder at the same time.”

  John put his own book aside and took the small stack of books that Hann’yu handed down. Two were the heavy leather-bound volumes that John had expected. Brass clasps held them shut, and silver work had been inlaid across their covers and spines. The thi
rd volume was startlingly different.

  John stared at it in disbelief. The cover was glossy, the binding supple and cheap. The title, Dan the Milkman, was written in the cheery typestyle of so many American children’s books. There were deep gouges in the cover, and as John opened it, he could see that the pages had faded badly. He could hardly read the name printed on the flap. John squinted at the awkward pencil marks.

  This book belongs to Kyle Harris. Please return if lost.

  Kyle’s book was beyond lost, John thought.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” Hann’yu asked. John almost jumped at the sudden intrusion into his fascination.

  “Yes,” John answered. “What is it?”

  “A thing most rare.” Hann’yu smiled. “It’s a text from the world of Nayeshi.”

  John didn’t know how to react. It was a children’s storybook, probably printed sometime around World War II, judging from the look of the illustrations.

  “I’ve seen copies of it,” Hann’yu said. “But I never imagined that the original would just be filed with the rest of the books here.” Hann’yu gazed down at the book with a warm, nostalgic expression. “I learned my first holy words from this book.”

  Carefully, almost tenderly, Hann’yu turned the pages of the book.

  “His name is Dan.” Hann’yu said the English name with a mechanical exactness. Then he smiled at John. “The book tells the story of how every morning, before anyone else rises, Dan visits the houses of good children, leaving gifts of sweet milk and cream.”

  It was an entirely different impression of a milkman than John had ever had. He sounded more like a kind of Santa Claus than a distributor of dairy products. But it did offer him a hint as to why all the ushiri’im were taught to claim they were milkmen. And also why Kyle had claimed his name was Kyle. For a brief moment, John wondered what would have happened if the book had been something like Pirate Pete or Heather Has Two Mommies.

  Hann’yu closed the book gently. “I’m sure it was put here by mistake. It should be up in the holy cases.” He gazed at the beaten cover a moment longer and then glanced up at John. “It looks like nothing but scribbles to you, doesn’t it?”

  “Pretty much,” John replied.

  “Maybe someday you’ll learn to read it. For now, let’s stick to simpler things.” Hann’yu picked up one of the leather-bound Basawar volumes and handed it to John. “Practitioners of the Forbidden. Don’t let Dayyid catch you reading it.”

  “I won’t.” John took the book with a feeling of slight dubiousness as to its contents. He didn’t imagine that any of the ‘practitioners of the forbidden’ managed to live happily ever after.

  “And speaking of reading.” Hann’yu reached into the folds of his robe and produced a scrap of paper. “These are the herbs that I’ll need you buy when you go down to Amura’taye. Can you read all this?”

  John slowly sounded out the names of the plants.

  “Good.” Hann’yu handed him the list. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

  Hann’yu picked up the other two books. John thought he glimpsed the words: Tales of Tempting Women. Hann’yu grinned at him and said, “I may have to watch out for Dayyid myself.”

  After Hann’yu had gone, John pushed Practitioners of the Forbidden aside and returned to his original study. He flipped through the heavy pages, catching whiffs of incense, until an illustration caught his attention.

  John knew it had to be the Kahlil. The dark-haired man glared out from the page with a ferocious intensity. The black tattoos above his eyes seemed to glare as well. He held a short black knife in each hand and the hilt of a gray sword could be seen rising from over his left shoulder. Ragged white bandages waved from his right arm like banners.

  John leaned closer to read the minuscule gold letters that surrounded the figure.

  Kahlil. He who crosses the worlds. He who hunts the Rifter. He who receives the golden key. He who unleashes the Rifter. He who spills the sacred blood. He who slays the Rifter. Blessed three times. Flesh, blood, and bones.

  John read the words two more times, slowly absorbing them. Everything he had been reading, the conversations he had overheard, the images he had seen, they all clicked into place.

  His roommate Kyle had been the last Kahlil, and he had been on Nayeshi hunting for a Rifter. The memory of how intensely Kyle had stared at Laurie washed over John. Kyle had asked her if she was a witch. He had felt that she had power, real power, while John had just thought her deluded.

  Anxious tension gnawed through John’s muscles.

  Kyle had to have recognized Laurie as a Rifter that first morning when they’d met. He had even managed to send her back to Basawar. But something had gone wrong. John guessed it had to do with the key he had taken from Kyle. Guilt still nagged at John for the theft. Now, it seemed a far worse transgression. Kyle, the last Kahlil, had ended up torn to pieces in the White Space between worlds.

  Now, the priests at Rathal’pesha were desperately attempting to train another Kahlil to find a Rifter to destroy the Fai’daum. And completely unbeknownst to them, their Rifter was already here, living at the very foot of their monastery.

  John didn’t want to think about what the Payshmura would do if they found her. But he had read the words. He had seen the images. They would use her to destroy their enemies and then they would poison her, bleed her, and murder her. Then they would retrieve her bones to carve another yasi’halaun, find another woman, and do the whole thing again.

  John laid his head down against the cool surface of the table. He wanted to be wrong. But it all made too much sense. He would have to tell Bill and Laurie as soon as he got to Amura’taye. They needed to be warned.

  Ironically, he remembered arguing with Laurie about the reason for the three of them being transported to Basawar. He had said that it was a mistake. She had insisted that there was a purpose behind it. Now, John knew that Laurie had been right. And as much as she liked being right, John doubted that she would take much consolation in this particular victory.

  What an awful thing to have to tell someone: you’re the Rifter, the living incarnation of destruction, desolation, and death. He couldn’t even imagine how much worse it would be to be told such a thing.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Laurie leaned onto her elbows, resting her chin on her cupped hands. The bands of silver rings and fine chains that linked her fingers gleamed in the afternoon light. Her long, pale hair had been drawn up from her face in twisting braids. Silver beads, like those Lady Bousim and her maids wore, decorated her hair.

  “The Rifter,” Laurie whispered. She laid her hand on Bill’s arm.

  Bill’s black hair shot out around his face like an ink spill. His skin was the color of wax. He said nothing, just frowned, and took a deep drink of his tea. The last two years had altered Bill deeply. He had recovered some of his strength and could move without struggling for breath, but he was still weak. John rarely saw him laugh or joke in public. He was only slowly drawn out by these quiet, private conversations.

  “That sucks,” Bill said at last.

  John nodded.

  Outside he could hear a kitchen woman shouting at a Bousim rashan for stealing a taste of the evening meal before it was finished. He picked out the sound of children’s voices as well, loud and high-pitched but farther away. These were sounds that John never heard in Rathal’pesha. Even the season seemed different here. Protected from the harshest winds by the mountain, a gentle warmth hung over Amura’taye. The scents of blossoms filled the air, while up in Rathal’pesha frost still came at night and the wind remained frigid.

  A breeze curled through the open window, brushing aside the thin green curtains. Two stories below, red and yellow spring blossoms colored the garden. Bright green ivy wound up the wall enclosing the Bousim house and grounds.

  Most of the buildings of Amura’taye were yard-less stone structures, hunched close together along narrow lanes and alleys that wound crookedly through town. John watched as a
herd of tiny black goats hurried up the muddy street outside the Bousim compound, darting between wagons and among the bicyclists who pedaled along the rutted streets.

  “Are you sure?” Laurie still hadn’t lifted her hands away from her small mouth.

  “I don’t know, but it seems very likely.” John absently swirled his tea, feeling the liquid within the cup curl into a tiny vortex.

  “Destroyer of worlds?” Laurie’s eyes widened. “Does that sound at all like me?”

  John sighed. He wished someone else could be telling her this. He was already tired from the early morning trek down from Rathal’pesha. He didn’t know if he had the strength to argue.

  “I thought it was a myth, like some kind of personification of an earthquake or something,” Bill said.

  “I thought the same thing at first, but training with the ushiri’im convinced me otherwise. These men aren’t crossing through Gray Space and tearing themselves apart in pursuit of some philosophical concept. They are hunting a living person. The Rifter is real.”

  “And a guy,” Laurie suddenly broke in. “The Rifter is supposed to be a man, right? Lady Bousim said as much.”

  “The one who destroyed the Kingdom of the East was a man, but there isn’t just one Rifter,” John replied. “As far as I’ve read, there have been five Rifters, two men and three women. Each of them were brought from Nayeshi by a Kahlil.”

  “But then it could be any one of the three of us, couldn’t it?” Laurie glanced to Bill, again plainly seeking his arbitration, as she often did.

  “Maybe, but if it was John, then why wouldn’t Kyle have brought him back right away? He wouldn’t have shacked up with his destroyer-god for months just to hang out with him, would he? And as for me, behold my awesome might.” He gave a brief, dry cough. “I’m not shattering this world anytime soon.”