He glowered, searching the darkness at her back. Vedas would return from relieving himself at any moment.
“Berun,” she said. “Why keep it a secret?”
“I don’t know. What was I supposed to do, allow us to stumble into them?”
“It wasn’t just that. I can tell when you’re distracted.”
His gaze shifted to her face. He examined her features, which had long since ceased to appear typical to him. No, he could not tell if they were beautiful, but such distinctions hardly concerned a constructed man. Of their own accord, the corners of his mouth turned upwards, and a new feeling arose within him, deeper than affection. He had been called out on a lie, and not because the thing had been ripped from his mind, but because another being knew him intimately enough to recognize it.
‡
He did not think overlong about why the thought of telling Vedas filled him with apprehension, for the truth spoke plainly: his father would not have the information in the Black Suit’s hands.
Admitting this fact consciously only increased the agitation within Berun. For two days, he waged a silent war of wills against an invisible opponent—a master mage who contorted Berun’s mind so thoroughly that it seemed he fought himself. Churls said nothing, but her concern for him was obvious. She kept close by, as though protective of a child.
They set up camp a mere fifteen miles from Bitsan, a small city on the southeastern shore of Lake Ten. He dug a shallow pit for the fire, feeling as though his entire body were close to shuddering apart. As strong as the urge was to remain silent, an equal force compelled him to assert himself. The balance could not last. The slightest tug in either direction would send him careening headlong down a new path.
Ever closer to enslavement, or toward self-determination.
“Vedas...” he said, and the scales tipped. The words flowed from him, accompanied by a sense of release he had not experienced since the night he had held Churls’s sword above Vedas’s sleeping form. He sat straighter as the great burden of secrecy lifted from his shoulders.
There, he thought when he had finished. I’ve told him, Father, and the world hasn’t collapsed.
A deep frown cut furrows alongside Vedas’s mouth. He kneaded the flesh of his inner thighs. “How far ahead can you see?” he asked. “Can you see Danoor?”
Aglow with his victory, Berun did not fight the temptation to brag. “I can see the Eleven Sentinels crumbling into the sea north of Grass Min. I have spent hours watching the cloth markets at Levaés. As we speak, sunlight is crossing the first of the Aroonan Mesas. I see all of Knos Min, Vedas. Of course I can see Danoor.”
Churls kicked the fire’s last glowing coal into sparks, and reclined under the lean-to Berun had constructed. “What does it matter?” she asked. “We won’t be there for at least three weeks.”
Vedas stared down at his clenched fists, and slowly opened them. “I’m expected in the first week of Royalty.” He held a hand up, forestalling her response. “I’m not opening up that old argument or complaining. Still, I won’t pretend I like the situation, not knowing what I’ll be waking into. If there’s a way to be more prepared, I want to take it.”
Berun shrugged. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to observe the city. At the end of this month, people will start to arrive. Religiously neutral gamblers and fighters from Casta. Adrashi of every denomination and occupation from Stol and Nos Ulom. Fewer are coming from Dareth Hlum, as the trip requires travel through Nos Ulom or Toma. Because it falls on the eve of the half-millennium, Toma has prepared for this tournament for years, and will send thousands of its people northward. The largest group by far will be Knosi, and though they have pledged to keep the celebration peaceful, they will fail.”
“How do you know this?” Berun asked.
Vedas sighed. “The tournament has always been followed by small-scale riots. I persisted in believing that this year would be different. I thought the celebration would overwhelm the instinct for violence, even among the Tomen. In other words, I fooled myself. I didn’t want to believe the actions of my brothers and sisters could have such consequences.” He nodded to Churls. “My eyes have been opened.”
Churls met Berun’s gaze. “Trust him,” she said.
“Hopefully,” Vedas continued, “the violence will be restricted to fractious Ulomi and Tomen on the outskirts of the city. If it spreads to the general populace, the whole of Danoor could be in danger. It would be very helpful to know the situation before stepping into the city. In fact, it would be good to know how things progress from the very beginning.”
“Why?” Churls asked. “I don’t see how that will make a difference.”
Berun had been about to say something similar. He stared at Vedas, noting the way the man massaged his hands, how he avoided direct eye contact. Clearly, he would rather not divulge whatever information he possessed. For all the grace and skill Vedas displayed at fighting and hunting, he knew nothing of masking his thoughts. It was odd, Berun thought, that the man’s most obvious weakness was also his most endearing quality. Few men made it so far in life without learning to lie.
“I’ll win the tournament, or I’ll die,” Vedas said. “I expect to win. As we’ve traveled, I’ve become more confident in my skills.” He caught Churls’s eye briefly before looking into his lap again. “Our practices have been very helpful. And while it pleases me to think of victory, I now understand its magnitude. Winning the tournament will result in greater changes than I suspected when I left Golna. It’s not a mere contest of faith. I thought it was, but it isn’t.”
Churls cleared her throat, but held her peace. Vedas stiffened, and then relaxed.
Berun considered his companions, the shaky ground between them, and spoke. “If Churls won’t say it, then I will. There’s no such thing as a mere contest of faith in this world, Vedas. You above all others should know this. To think, even for a moment, that it’s possible to wage war against other men without consequence beyond the battlefield is pure idiocy. You’re not a fool—don’t speak as if you are.”
Grimacing, Vedas ran a hand over his face. “Two months ago, I would have taken issue with those words, but you’re right: I’ve been a willfully ignorant fool. Slowly, I’m coming to understand that men of the same order—brothers and sisters who profess the same convictions, curse the same god—can work toward opposing ends. The stated goal of the tournament is to win converts to our faith, to convince people of the power and truth of our vision. Despite my doubts, despite...”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Despite Julit Umeda, I still believe in this goal. The world is not Adrash’s plaything. Men are not pawns. What I no longer believe in is my right to send an entire city into upheaval.”
“How would you accomplish that?” Churls asked.
“Whoever wins the tournament will have enormous influence. Many who hear him speak will act as he commands without thinking.” As if he were doing so with great reluctance, Vedas pulled a slim tube from his pack. Its wax seal had clearly been broken. “I opened this just after our encounter with the Baleshuuk. I don’t know why I did. I was told not to. It contains a speech written by the master of my order. He has commanded me to read it during the New Year’s celebration in the Aresaa Coliseum, which holds one hundred and fifty thousand men. Afterwards, I’m to have the text copied and distributed.”
He met Churls’s gaze. “I don’t think I can do that. Reading it alone may cause a riot. Still, I must read something. They’re expecting a speech from the winner.” He looked to Berun. “Will you help me? Help me monitor developments in Danoor. Read the speech and tell me I’m crazy, or tell me I’m right to worry. Please.”
He held the tube out, offering it to either of his companions.
Churls took it without hesitation.
‡
They arrived in Bitsan an hour before sunrise on the twenty-first day of the month: Qon’as Du’ses, First Day of Learning.
An unexpected
blessing for the travelers, it began the Month of Learning for the D’Ari A’draasis, the major Adrashi denomination of Stol’s southern lakeside communities. The D’Ari measured the year with a twelve-month calendar, and ended it with thirty-six days of fasting and study. Commerce all but stopped while the sun was in the sky, and tribal hostilities ground to a halt. During the Month of Learning, violence to man or creature was forbidden, a fact all the more remarkable for the legendarily hot-blooded D’Ari.
“I’ve heard of this kind of luck, but never experienced it,” Churls said as she and Berun walked along the city’s deserted main thoroughfare. While she had established the city’s peaceable nature during her dawn reconnaissance, she had nonetheless advised Vedas to stay at the campsite. “We’d better not push our luck by bringing you into town,” she had told him. “It’s enough of a risk bringing Berun in.”
Berun did not need to ask why she wanted him along. Her look of disgust communicated more than enough. No, she did not like asking for protection, but she was not stupid. Besides warfare, the D’Ari were known for their love of foreign women. Pale-skinned wives commanded a high price from tribal leaders. Even the Month of Learning might not prevent them from laying hands on a freckled Castan.
They found an inn close to the docks. Berun and Churls stepped through the door into humid, candle-lit gloom.
“Try not to attract attention to yourself,” Churls said, the hint of a smile on her lips.
For all the alarmed stares their arrival caused, Berun knew few if any of the customers recognized him. The D’Ari had fought for millennia with Nos Ulom over Lake Ten’s trade routes, and by every account disdained all things Ulomi. When a tribal leader took an Ulomi woman as his wife, he removed her tongue so that she could not talk of her homeland. Conceivably, if the men in the inn knew that Berun had killed Patr Macassel, they would welcome him as a hero.
Though he would not voice it to Churls, he found himself wishing for the exact opposite. A vexing wrath blossomed within him, spreading rapidly outward from his central components, causing his body to vibrate from head to toe. He pictured himself knocking the inn’s customers aside as if they were ragdolls, pulping skulls between his palms.
The spheres of his knuckles spun, and a new sensation struck him:
Pounding. Fists beating on an immense door within himself. Ortur Omali, struggling to be free, to assert his will once more—to disprove Berun’s recent victory over him. The reverberations shook Berun, rattling him to the core. For several seconds he feared he might fly apart, and then two voices spoke at once:
Berun, his father said, speaking with the sound of a thousand trees being ripped from the earth, tugging his creation away from the real world. Black spots—shadow moths, flakes of ash—swam before his eyes, obscuring his vision.
“Berun,” Churls said, tugging in the opposite direction. Away from madness.
She spoke his name a second time.
It was enough, barely, another near-defeat. The hex dissolved inside him, and the smoky interior of the inn snapped into focus around him. His joints sagged. He gripped the back of a chair to steady himself, and the wood shattered in his fingers.
Sound ceased in the room. The man at the table before Berun showed teeth, put a hand to the hilt of the dagger strapped horizontally on his stomach. His companion’s fist tightened around the handle of a heavy mug. The bartender ducked behind his counter briefly, and rose with two cocked crossbows. Instead of arrowheads, both bolts were tipped with ampoules: magic enough to hurt a constructed man, perhaps.
“Sorry,” Berun said, brass voice loud in the crowded room. He straightened slowly, careful not to bump his head on the low ceiling. Talk started up again. The drummer and tambourine player resumed their soft rhythm, and the bartender put his weapons away.
Churls clapped a hand to Berun’s broad back. “Congratulations on not attracting attention to yourself.” She spoke loudly enough for him alone to hear. “And so much for a month of peace. What the hell happened there?”
Berun navigated the tables and chairs slowly, glad for a moment to think. He had not told Churls of his father’s appearances, of course—but now that Vedas was out of earshot, he seriously considered doing so. He searched for resistance, and found none. Perhaps Omali could not rouse the energy after another failure.
What could be the harm? Churls might have something to say.
A server, clothed in a single fold of carmine cloth clasped at the neck, waited for them at a free table in the back corner. She swayed in time to the hypnotic beat, alternately exposing and covering her nakedness. Berun peered around and realized that, but for the servers, Churls was the only woman present. The men stared at her hungrily, causing the anger to flare inside him again. He clamped down on the emotion, suspecting now that his father could use it as a doorway.
He pulled a chair out and knelt on the floor. Still, he loomed over the table.
“Coffee and hash,” Churls said to the server, who sashayed away.
Anticipating her question again, Berun held his hands up, palms forward. “I don’t know.” He reconsidered the lie. He trusted Churls. “That’s not true. My father speaks to me in dreams. Sometimes, I’m fully awake. I think he wants me to kill Vedas, but I don’t know if he’s sure about this. He spoke to me, just a moment ago.”
Her eyebrows rose fractionally. “Isn’t Omali dead? No, that’s not important. Are you going to kill Vedas?”
He admired the way she asked the question, as though she were asking about a cut of meat, no tiptoeing around the issue. “No,” he answered. “I’m not going to kill him. I like him. Since his decision to rewrite the speech, I like him even more. The world already has enough killing in the name of Adrash. Besides, a riot would delay the real tournament.”
The corners of Churls’s mouth turned down. Not for the first time, Berun wondered if they would end up fighting in the same bracket. Would she drop out if this were the case? He hoped so, for he could not imagine taking her life.
“You like him, too?” he asked.
“Shit.” She groaned and leaned onto her forearms. “What the hell’s wrong with him? What the hell’s wrong with me? I’d like to chalk it up to old age, but I don’t feel that old. Sure, I like him. I have goddamn dreams about him. The kind I haven’t had for two decades. And what do I get for my obsession? Next to nothing. He ignores me and I’m nervous as a fucking newborn deer around him.”
The way she spoke of herself awed Berun. Despite her uneasy interactions with Vedas, he had not expected it from her. Of all the people he had ever met, she possessed the keenest, most self-assured mind.
Surely, the Black Suit was to blame for the awkwardness between them.
“He looks at you often. You don’t see that?”
She grimaced. “Of course I do. So what if he looks at my ass? A man staring at your ass means nothing. He doesn’t talk to me like a man talks to a woman. Outside of our sparring sessions, he flinches at the slightest touch. And even if he didn’t, how would I respond? He’s a religious fanatic sealed in a suit he probably hasn’t removed in years. Beyond the logistical problems, that fact means something. I don’t like fanatics. My parents were fanatics. My sister’s a fanatic.”
“And what about the speech? He wants to change it. He asked for help. This means nothing to you?”
“Orrus Dabil Alachum,” she swore. “You’ve thought things through, haven’t you, Berun? In truth, I don’t know how to account for any of this. Until the night he tussled with the Baleshuuk slave, I thought he was one person. Now I think he might be another. You told me I see something in him, but the truth is I don’t know what I see. Most of the time I wish I’d never met him. Then I just wish he’d—”
The server returned, and Churls made her expression blank. She tapped the server’s wrist with her index fingertip, and said in a low voice, “There’s a gram extra if you can give me some information. We need a boat to Ynon. Doesn’t matter what size, but it has to be reputable, and
it has to leave soon.”
“Reputable?” the server asked slowly. Her green eyes, which had appeared glassy and unfocused a moment before, darted from Churls to Berun. “I do not know what you mean by this word.”
“Flags,” Churls said. “It must sail under flags. No mongrels.”
The server nodded. “How soon is soon?”
“A day, two at most.”
Churls’s eyes followed the woman through the crowd. She stared at her mug, at the ceiling, anywhere but at Berun. She picked at her food and he kept quiet, respecting her mood, and eventually a man approached the table with an offer.
‡
They exited the inn. Churls squinted into the sun. “I don’t want to go back yet.”
Berun nodded, and they walked along the shore, away from the docks. He admired the way the sunlight glinted off the waves, the sound of gulls screaming. He imagined what it might be like to smell things. Men always commented upon the smell of water. He considered asking Churls if she would mind if he took a stroll under the glass clear shallows, but rejected the thought. At that moment, she possessed a fragility incomprehensible to him.
She loves Vedas , he thought. Love, too, was unfathomable.
“Even with flags, it’s not always safe,” she said after some time. “Pirates sail these waters. Maybe our luck will run out on the lake.” She squinted into the sun. “Sometimes I think that’s what Vedas wants. A big fist to come out of the sky and smash him. A confirmation that fate’s aligned against him.”
“Maybe.” Berun sensed she had more to say, and waited for it.
“I’ve read the speech,” she eventually said.
“I know.” He found a flat stone and pitched it hard enough that it was lost to sight long before it stopped skipping. He came upon two large rocks halfsubmerged in the sand, and picked them up. He turned in a circle, and then laughed his brass laugh. “Look around us, Churls. In an ocean of sand and small stones, these two rocks. Rough around the edges, ready to be turned into weapons.” He began spinning them in his hands, grinding them down.
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