No Return

by Zachary Jernigan

  Certainly, she grew tired of his superstitions and his prejudices, though they did not surprise her. She had never considered Anadrashi any less prone to the irrational than their devout opponents.

  What was the difference between a man who believed in God’s love and a man who did not?

  Nothing, as far as she could tell.

  Why, then, did it feel as if there was something more to him? Why did he loom so large in her mind? She had seen beautiful men before. She had met talented, even genius men. It rankled her, being drawn as if by physical force to Vedas Tezul.

  Who was he to warrant so much attention?

  Berun believed in Vedas’s uniqueness, surely. He had not tried to convince her that this was the case—had only mentioned it the once—but his feelings were increasingly obvious. He watched Vedas whenever the man was not looking, and Churls wondered what the constructed man saw beyond the graceful flow of muscle under the slick skin of Vedas’s suit—the way the material clung to him, revealing more than it hid, emphasizing the rise and fall of his buttocks, the tensing of his broad shoulders.

  She wondered what Berun saw in Vedas’s restrained smile. Thick, sensuous lips framing straight white teeth made whiter against the darkness of his skin? Or merely a smile?

  She had to shake off her arousal several times a day. It was pathetic and moreover worthless, feeling that way. Beyond the occasional glance at her backside or chest—a meaningless gesture, yet another male’s inability to control his eyes—Vedas had never given any sign of returning her desire. Besides, she could not keep her big mouth shut. Each night, though she tried to keep the conversation neutral, she managed to offend him. He was so easily affronted, and she so easily discouraged.

  If Berun were not there to interject now and then, the two would have parted ways out of frustration long ago.

  Vedas returned to the fire.

  “No Dull Sword tonight?” she asked. She had been teaching him the technique intermittently as they traveled. Though humorless, he was a good student. Of course he was.

  He met her eyes briefly as he sat. “No.”

  “You’ll feel better tomorrow,” she said. “You’re still breaking in your travel muscles.”

  He smiled tightly, little more than a grimace. “I had no idea there were so many muscles in the leg. I thought the hills of Golna were enough to prepare any man for simply walking uphill. And then there’s my training. In the abbey, we use weighted gloves and staffs. We lift barrels of sand over our heads.” He stretched his legs out and grabbed his ankles. He groaned. “I think I’d rather do that for twelve hours than repeat today.”

  The wind picked up. Berun shifted to the right and slowly made his torso flatter to shield the fire. “I wonder what it feels like to get tired,” he said. “I notice when a task becomes more difficult, but I don’t understand pain or tiredness. They’re just words.”

  Vedas grunted and released his ankles. “You’re not missing much.” He angled his head to the sky. The Needle had not fully risen, and so he did not curse Adrash by touching the horns of his suit. Instead, he breathed in deeply, his taut belly inflating like a drum. “I smell pine trees.”

  “Me, too,” Churls said. She frowned, deepening the lines around her mouth. “Wait a minute. There are no pine trees east of Anlala that I know of, certainly none in Dareth Hlum—it’s too far east. How would you recognize the smell? You don’t look like the kind of man who frequents perfumeries.”

  He grimaced. Once again, she had said the wrong thing.

  “I may not look it,” he said, “but I have on occasion. There are plenty of Knosi in Golna, but I wasn’t born there. My parents came to the city when I was just a boy. I barely remember Grass, the city of my birth, but I do remember the smell of sagoli pines. The stunted trees lined our street like little old women in frocks. On the way across the continent, I smelled other types of pine. Slightly different smells, but mostly the same. Sometimes, I buy pine oil. I don’t care what kind. Having the smell in my room reminds me of something... Something I might forget if I don’t remind myself.”

  Berun shifted, but had nothing to add. He spun two rocks in his hands like Churls had seen monks do in Fali. They were nearly perfect spheres, diminishing in size every day. In a month, he had ground four pairs into marbles.

  Churls simply nodded, and then retrieved her sword from beside her pack. With bonedust and spit, she started polishing, in truth to keep from confronting the silence. She could not name the emotion Vedas’s words aroused in her. Sadness, certainly, but this was too general. Longing?

  Yes. Longing.

  Did longing make Vedas different from any other person she had known? Or was it that he chose to voice it when so many others would rather keep it buried? He did not have to say such things. He could just as easily lie, keep his secrets.

  ‡

  Maybe he can’t keep a secret , a voice said. Maybe he’s an honest man. Churls opened her eyes and growled softly.

  She had not been sleeping soundly. Sometimes it felt as if she could predict when her daughter’s ghost would appear, as though she had been drifting toward the meeting all day long. It felt disconcertingly similar to when she wandered in search of water, knowing in the back of her mind that it was close. She had always been a good tracker, a good hunter, and wondered if close communion with spirits was responsible.

  Not one to indulge in such speculation by nature, Churls was forced by circumstances to consider the possibility. Five years ago, the ghost of her daughter had appeared, changing the structure of her world. The dead lingered in doorways and sat around campfires, just out of sight. The dead were real.

  It was this, Churls knew, or admit she had gone insane.

  She rose from her sleeping bag and walked away from camp. The moon was an iron shaving, the world shrouded. Daybreak was two or three hours away. She thought she saw the burning blue coals of Berun’s eyes in the middle distance, but when she looked again they were gone, perhaps a figment of her imagination. Cool, humid wind flowed over the cliff’s edge, instantly chilling her skin. Gooseflesh rose on her exposed arms and legs.

  The ocean spread below her, a sky devoid of stars.

  “Hello, Fyra,” she said.

  The girl appeared beside her. Churls fought the urge to step away.

  I like him, Fyra said.

  “Who?” Churls asked, though she knew full well whom her daughter meant.

  Vedas. I like Vedas. You like him, too.

  “I do,” Churls said. “But I shouldn’t. I have no reason to like him.”

  You think he’s pretty.

  Churls nodded. “He is. That’s not enough, though.”

  Fyra walked two steps forward, to the edge. Her fine white hair lifted, became a halo around her head. Churls’s fingernail bit into a scab on her forearm, puncturing it. Blood welled, and she smeared it with her fingertip until it became tacky.

  “Why do you like him?” she asked.

  A small shrug. I just do. He’s not like the other men you like. They say things they don’t mean. They steal, they fight.

  “Vedas fights. That’s all he does.”

  Fyra faced her mother. Churls met the stare, and it reminded her too much of looking in the mirror. Fyra had inherited so little from her father. Had someone in the afterlife told her about her half-sisters, who were curly-headed and olive skinned? Had she visited them, seen her father and stepmother?

  What Vedas does is different, Fyra said. He doesn’t fight for money. He doesn’t kill.

  “There’s no difference, sweetie.” Churls straightened her arms against her sides. “And Vedas has killed before. He’s killed a lot of people.”

  By accident, Fyra insisted. And the girl wasn’t his fault, Mama.

  Churls wondered how her daughter knew these things. Had she been watching Vedas for long, or could she simply see into his soul? Churls did not like thinking that Fyra could read minds, but somehow this paled in comparison to the thought that her child had been
observing Vedas since before they met.

  And then it hit her. The obvious answer: Fyra simply believed Vedas. Maybe he’s an honest man, she had said. Vedas had been forthcoming about his recruit’s death, and Churls had only half believed him. She thought it equally likely that he had accidentally killed the child in the skirmish, and fled Golna to avoid the law. She considered this. Even while doubting his character, she had been attracted to him. Perhaps she had always believed him.

  Foolishness, believing someone she did not know.

  He doesn’t understand you, Fyra said. He doesn’t understand people at all.

  “How do you know that? Maybe he just doesn’t like people.”

  No, I’m right. I can see some of his memories—the strong ones, the ones that hurt. He tried to help the dead girl’s parents, but he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to say something, but instead he just stood there, looking uncomfortable while they cried. If you could see it, maybe then you’d understand.

  Churls closed her eyes and took a step forward. The wind tousled her short hair. “He didn’t say anything about that.” She pictured Vedas ascending rickety stairs, knocking on a door, steeling himself to deliver the horrible news. Taking responsibility for the death of a child.

  You should ask him about it, Fyra said.

  Churls opened her eyes and found that her daughter had placed her tiny hand in Churls’s own. She resisted the knee-jerk urge to snatch it away. But concentrating on the contact, she realized it felt like nothing. The breeze caressed Churls’s hand, chilling the sweat on her palm. Holding her daughter’s hand felt like air passing through her lungs.

  You will, won’t you, Mama, Fyra said. You’ll ask him?

  “I will,” Churls said, and stood alone on the edge of the cliff.

  ‡

  As she expected, Berun had not yet returned. Churls often woke in the hours before dawn, always to find the constructed man absent. He returned just before the sun rose. She never asked him where he had been. It was his business—productive business, sometimes. On four separate occasions, he had brought breakfast back with him. Two rodents with crushed skulls. Once, he had bagged a rodent and an owl, which Vedas refused to eat.

  Each time, Berun had also returned with a new pair of rocks in his hands, ready to be ground down into marbles. Churls wanted to ask him about his nighttime activities, but could not find a way to broach the subject. Fairly certain he liked her, she did not want to run the risk of making him uncomfortable. He reminded her of Abi, the precocious child her sister had adopted. He even stood the same way, like he was waiting for instructions. Ever watchful. Sensitive.

  Churls sat down, not tired in the least. Her eyes had fully adjusted to the night.

  Vedas lay face down only a body-length from her, half on, half off his bedroll, posture unnaturally tense for a sleeping man. His left palm lay flat on the ground, but his fingers curled into the soil. He had pulled his right knee up until it was level with his waist, and the toes of his left foot pointed into the ground. Both calf muscles bulged with tension. He looked almost as if he were crawling, or climbing a wall.

  Churls admired the twin curves of his buttocks, and wondered what would happen if she ran a fingertip between them. She indulged this fantasy while stroking her inner thigh. Her eyelids grew heavy as her fingers found their mark.

  A sound behind her. A pebble shifting against another pebble.

  Before she could move, Vedas pushed off the ground and leapt forward, aimed at a point just behind her. He twisted in the air as he flew, back grazing her left shoulder. She had barely begun to turn when his body, struck by something in midair, bowled over her. Pitching forward, she was unable to raise her hands before her face struck earth. Her lower lip peeled back and dirt ground against her teeth. A glancing blow, either Vedas or the thing he had caught, scraped along the right side of her head, nearly taking her ear with it. She roared into the ground.

  A growl answered it.

  Churls lifted her head in time to see Vedas and the cat disengage. He was a mere beat slower getting to his feet, and took a vicious swipe to the head. The blow should have taken his head off, yet he simply twisted his neck with the impact and kept moving. He circled the cat, a darkly furred, compactly muscular beast that must have weighed nearly as much as Vedas. It spat, hind legs twitching, front paw extended, swiping with dizzying speed whenever the black-suited man tried to close in.

  Vedas took another hit to the head. Churls saw the white of the cat’s claws, no less than two inches long. Again, Vedas took the impact as though it were a boxer’s weak cross.

  Churls rose to a crouch, the taste of blood and dirt in her mouth.

  “Stay back!” Vedas yelled.

  She had not noticed before, but he had masked his face completely. Unbelievable, that it alone had shielded him from the cat’s claws. Unmindful of his warning, she snapped her head around to locate her sword, and crabwalked backwards to it. Its worn hilt felt good in her hands, but she doubted it would be of much use against the man-sized feline if it turned its attention back to her.

  Snarling, the cat sprung toward Vedas. Falling under its weight, he caught its head in his hands before its canines found his throat. Slowly, he closed his fingers around its neck. Its back paws skittered along his legs, unable to hook claws into flesh. As Vedas’s grip tightened, the cat thrashed ever more wildly atop his body. Its front paws slapped at his head, claws failing to sink in there as well.

  Churls became aware of the sound coming from the animal’s constricted throat. A low, almost human gurgle. She had heard the sound before. She had strangled men before.

  She ran forward. Her blade passed through the cat’s heart with expert precision, but the animal’s seizures opened the gash wider, and then tore the sword from Churls’s hands. Blood fountained from the wound, hitting her chest squarely, drenching her instantly.

  Its heat shocked her, and she fell to her knees.

  ‡

  The blood had created a tight film across her chest. It itched horribly, but she did not scratch at it. Her lower lip was swollen to twice its normal size, and the entire right side of her head burned as though it had been scoured with grit paper.

  The sun had barely risen, and the world was beautiful. Almost six thousand feet below her and peppered with tiny islands, an expanse of bluegreen sea extended to the horizon. Sunlight passed through the shallow water as if it were glass, revealing the wrack-spotted sand below. Huge, paddle-finned reptiles drifted between the islands, their scale impossible for Churls to comprehend. Legend said the ocean was no deeper than a man could throw a stone, but this too was difficult to understand.

  Men could not sail the ocean, so how could they know how deep it was? The cat lay at Churls’s feet. One leg had fallen over the edge of the cliff. Its fur was matted with blood and dirt. It had indeed been as heavy as a man. Berun had offered to carry it, but Churls preferred to do it herself. She had told the constructed man to stop apologizing. How could he have known a cat would attack?

  Vedas lay recuperating. His suit had protected him from most of the damage, the fact of which still amazed Churls. She had examined his jaw and asked him to rotate his joints. Though these tests proved his injuries were not debilitating, his neck and right knee stiffened enough to worry her. Clearly, she reasoned, travel would have to wait until tomorrow. He complained, but Churls insisted he rest. She sprinkled suffun root over his breakfast, and he had fallen to sleep soon after.

  It was an unexpected comfort, knowing that he lay in a deep sleep. The stress of hiding her attraction, of maintaining the fragile balance of moods between them, was so easily shrugged away. She did not have to think about answering his next question, proving to him again and again that she knew best how to lead them from one place to the next. She stood unclothed, relaxed as she always was after a fight.

  She heard Berun’s steps long before he reached her.

  “I don’t want another apology,” she said without turning. “Save
it for Vedas if you like, but I doubt he wants it, either.”

  “No apology,” he rumbled. “There’s a pond not far. I brought you water.” She turned. “I have…”

  She shook her head. The constructed man dripped water from the bottom of his oddly distended belly. He had carried the water with him, but could not create a perfectly sealed container.

  The spheres rolled away from the bathtub he had formed, and Churls peeked inside. She laughed.

  “What?” Berun said.

  “You brought a traveler with you. Look.”

  Berun’s eyes rolled free from his face and tumbled slowly down his chest. Perched above the water, they observed the orange-scaled fish that swam in tight circles inside his makeshift stomach. He reached inside and cupped it against a wall.

  “Keep it?” he asked.

  “Too small,” Churls said. “Feed it to the sea.”

  Berun nodded his great, eyeless head. “Yours, too.”

  Churls pushed the cat over the edge, and Berun threw the fish after it. The wind pushed both out from the cliff wall as they fell, arcing down to the distant waterline. Churls turned away when she could no longer see the cat’s tumbling body, and climbed into Berun. The water was warmer than she had expected. A month’s worth of grime floated free and mixed with the blood. Berun rearranged the floor of the tub, molding it under Churls’s body.

  She slept, and for the first time since leaving Nbena did not dream of Vedas.

  EBN BON MARI

  THE 23rd OF THE MONTH OF CLERGYMEN, 12499 MD