by David Hair
‘Get me . . . out . . .’ he gasped at the nearest. ‘Hide me . . . protect me . . . Bahil-Abliz, I command you to protect me!’
The Ablizians cocked their heads as if listening to other voices while Malevorn slid down the wall.
*
‘I am . . .’
The Lokistani woman stared at her hands . . . if they were still hers. ‘I am . . .’
Huriya hung like a broken doll in her manacles, limp as a puppet with snapped strings. She was as dead as it was possible to be . . . and yet she lived on.
In me . . . She lives on in me . . .
There had been sounds in the passage outside but they’d receded and gone silent a few moments after she’d taken the other woman’s soul. It had been unlike any other taking: somehow more solid, more tangible, and the burst of memories had been so vivid she’d lost all grip of reality, on identity and purpose; she had floated in a sea of voices until she woke to this.
I was a huntress . . . I was an archer . . . And for a brief time, I was a mother . . . I was Hessaz . . .
‘I am . . .’
I am Sabele.
She rose and cautiously opened the door, finding the corridor empty of all but Toljin’s corpse. She retrieved her gear and dressed with calm haste before going to the other cell. She went down on her haunches in the doorway, and called in her kindest voice, ‘Nasatya . . . come here, my dear. Come to Mami.’
15
Moksha
Religion: Omali
There are many lives that the soul may be clothed in during samsara, the endless wheel of life. Did I say endless? Then I misspoke, for it isn’t endless: but only those who have attained perfect harmony may leave the wheel for the state of moksha, that blissful freedom enjoyed by the gods, from which no mortal returns.
THE SAMADHI-SUTRA (THREAD OF ENLIGHTENMENT), HOLY BOOK OF THE OMALI
Mandira Khojana, Lokistan, on the continent of Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 929 to Moharram (Janune) 930
18th and 19th months of the Moontide
‘Are you sure?’ Alaron asked, looking hard at Yash.
Two weeks earlier it had been Ramita, Puravai, Corinea and Yash sitting around his bed in the sickbay. But this time it was Yash on the bed and Alaron beside it, looking on anxiously as his friend prepared to take the ambrosia.
With fragile calm the novice said, ‘Yes, Al’Rhon, I’m sure.’ He waggled his head in the Lakh way, which was enough to make Alaron smile through his fears.
He and Corinea had talked Yash through the experience, explaining exactly what they’d gone through and how they’d survived, and Puravai gave Yash assurances of his own skills and discipline. But the young man was putting his life on the line, and he was the only one who would be able to pull himself through.
‘Remember,’ said Corinea, ‘that everything you go through is just a dream. Any dangers you face will be of your own making, and the only thing you need to do to overcome them is wake up.’
Yash threw Puravai a sly look. ‘You know me, Master. I’m a very bad monk, but I’m a very good fighter. And a bad sleeper.’ He raised the thimble as if toasting the old monk, then drained it in one swallow.
Alaron gripped Ramita’s hand and they settled down to wait for their friend to die and live again. Her strong little fingers entwined with his and their eyes strayed from the young man as he fell into slumber, to each other.
The past two weeks had been full, working with Corinea to brew the individual vials for each of the thirty-four candidates, ensuring that each ingredient was at its optimal potency, each measure precisely measured. Alaron had been an indifferent student of potions: like the other boys, he’d preferred blasting things. But under Corinea’s tutelage, he was gaining an appreciation of the niceties of the art. They had scheduled one transformation a day for the whole of Octen and into Noveleve. They would all be devastated if a mistake led to a death, though they were steeling themselves for the possibility. But losing Yash would be a crushing blow.
Working with Corinea hadn’t been easy. She was irritable, sharp-tongued and waspish, and remained entirely sceptical of the Zains’ ability to deal with power or the real world. She was also scathing of his burgeoning relationship with Ramita.
In her usual hectoring tone she’d said, ‘East and West are incompatible, and lasting love is impossible, so you are doubly doomed.’
And as proof, she’d cited all her failed relationships as evidence, until he’d snapped, ‘Perhaps it was you!’
That hadn’t helped their own relationship, but it had shut her up for an hour.
Despite this, Corinea was invaluable, and he doubted they’d have managed without her. Alaron had even mixed potions for Cym and Ramon – because you just never knew. He’d calculated their individual ambrosia recipes on a whim one night, when they still had the Scytale, and he couldn’t stop himself daydreaming of being able to hand them both their vials, imagining the looks they’d have on their faces . . . but in his heart he feared them dead.
As Yash’s breathing slowed until it was barely perceptible, Ramita said quietly, ‘Al’Rhon, please remember that he must get through this himself. It’s not your fault if he doesn’t come through.’
‘It is if the mix is wrong,’ he replied tersely.
‘We’ve been careful,’ Corinea said, ‘but Ramita is right: we can’t do it for him.’
‘He has much determination,’ Puravai noted.
‘What will we do if he becomes one of them . . . a Souldrinker?’ Corinea asked. It wasn’t the first time the question had been raised, but they hadn’t come up with an answer.
‘No one who must kill to gain the gnosis will be permitted to do so,’ Puravai said. ‘We’re Zains. We don’t kill, except at the utmost need.’
Corinea scowled but said nothing; she’d been arguing over the morality of war with the Zain master for weeks now. Alaron could see both sides: the need for every novice they could get, and the invidious nature of the Souldrinkers poisoning all they were trying to achieve.
‘If any become Souldrinkers, they will accept being kept in isolation,’ Puravai said firmly. ‘Each has agreed this, should the worst occur. That is my decision.’
‘What causes it?’ Alaron wondered.
‘I don’t know,’ Corinea said, ‘and to the best of my knowledge Baramitius never worked it out. Something lacking in the potion? Something chemical in their body reacting with the ambrosia? Or maybe even something in their personality? I’ve heard one theory that something in the aether may have been involved – some kind of daemon who was present at the first Ascendancy – but no Souldrinker I’ve encountered was possessed. The reality is we don’t know.’
Unexpectedly, Puravai spoke up. ‘Antonin Meiros spoke with me once about this. He said those afflicted had been of all types, some virtuous, some immoral, so he ruled out personality or “spiritual” reasons. He too had examined Souldrinkers and found no trace of possession, though he said that there was a level of psychic linkage he couldn’t trace or explain. So he believes it is an unknown physiological reaction to the ambrosia.’
‘Johan Corin realised what he was, during our shared vision,’ Corinea mused. ‘Of course, I say “shared”, but at that point, I was the only one with the gnosis: he only experienced it because I was subconsciously sharing it with him. I foresaw what he would become; he tried to make that happen.’ She sighed. ‘It’s so tangled.’
‘That implies that some part of you recognised what he was,’ Puravai commented.
Corinea’s eyes went wide. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ She looked around the circle with uncharacteristic openness. ‘I’ve not thought of that before, but it makes sense. Somehow I knew – but how?’
They had no answers to that, and gradually the silence deepened as they waited. It was hard to watch; Alaron found it more distressing than going through the change himself. He was profoundly glad Ramita did not need to take the potion.
When the crisis came, they watched and wa
ited with bated breath, until Yash suddenly coughed and shuddered and his eyes snapped open. Ramita gave a small cry and Puravai sat forward, his white knuckles the only indication of his anxiety. Then the young man sat up, looking dazed, and for a moment struggled to speak. Finally he said weakly, ‘So what happens next?’
Alaron frowned, then realised and silently spoke to Ramita and Corinea,
‘Yash, look at me,’ she ordered, then turned, picked up her wine goblet and suddenly dashed the contents into his face. Half of it spattered over his face as he flinched and threw up an arm – but the rest of the fluid was swept sideways, a fan-shaped cascade of droplets pushed aside by an invisible force that knocked Corinea backwards off her stool and sent Master Puravai spinning into the corner.
‘Master!’ Yash cried out, but the old monk sat up, beaming as he rubbed his skull.
With a rueful smile he said, ‘Don’t worry about me, young Yash. I’m quite well.’ He came to his feet nimbly, his face shining, proud. ‘And so, it appears, are you.’
Yash stared at his hands. ‘I am! I truly am!’
*
Ramita shuddered at the sound of the wind howling against the iced-up shutters. A storm had blown up the valley that afternoon in the midst of the eighth acolyte’s transformation, which had been successful – they all had, so far, and she was so thankful. It was going better than they’d ever dared hope – luck, perhaps, but she didn’t believe that; she put it down to their thorough preparations. Now she and Master Puravai were instructing the new magi, while Alaron and Corinea worked on the ambrosia.
This storm was the worst yet. She’d experienced downpours in Baranasi that turned the sky liquid, and sand-storms that stripped stone, but snow was something else entirely. The peaks had turned white, and even the river that normally thrashed through the valley had frozen. Ice hung from balconies, turned into frozen waterfalls larger than a man. Translucent spears hung from the rims of the walkway covers. The air inside, though heated by the fires that burned in every room, was still cold enough to frost her breath.
She’d never seen snow up close, and now she had, she never wanted to again. The bitter, numbing chill made her feel like her toes and fingers were going to snap off. Leaving the guest suite meant braving frigid galleries where the cold was a solid thing. Even the blankets weren’t enough, but using the gnosis to stay warm was tiring and wasteful.
Ramita had always been a pragmatist. She slipped out of bed, ensured Dasra was warm enough in his cradle, then went seeking body-heat in Alaron’s room.
Alaron was sprawled across his bed, still clothed and half-covered by a great pile of blankets, sound asleep. The fire was unbanked, dying in the hearth, and his meal was unfinished; it looked as if he’d succumbed to exhaustion halfway through dinner. She put more logs onto the glowing embers and puffed until they caught, then went to his bedside. His face, earnest at the best of times, looked positively naked when he slept. She smiled fondly as she pulled up his blankets and tucked them in around him properly, then settled more blankets over the top, making a cozy nest. Then she crawled under his left arm and nestled against his side. Alaron groaned dozily as she nuzzled against his chest and put her arm over him. She murmured, ‘Sleep, my Goat,’ appreciating his warmth, and closed her eyes.
When she woke, he was already awake; she could hear it in his breathing, no longer slow and regular. She wriggled against him, feeling tentative, but happy too. ‘Namaste,’ she whispered.
‘Hey.’ He twisted slightly, self-consciously turning his hips slightly away. She could guess why. An excitable body, she and Huriya had used to joke about certain of the young men when they were growing up. But he had a good body, athletic and lean, and pleasing to the eye, for all it was so pale. She put her hand on his chest to keep him close and strained her neck to kiss his cheek, but he was turning to face her and she got his mouth instead. He tasted of spiced meat, strong but good.
She and Alaron had shared a blanket many times while travelling in the windskiff, but that was before they had started kissing. Since then there had been a new awkwardness; the agreement that they would do nothing more intimate than kissing had created tension, it was an almost tangible barrier between them – but to some extent, she knew, that barrier had always been there: she’d been pregnant, or wrapped up in motherhood, or they were somewhere uncomfortable and dangerous, or she was promised to another. It had never just been them, together and free.
She was tired of all that, tired of tiptoeing around each other – and she was tired of waking up cold.
‘Al’Rhon, what are the marital customs of Noros concerning widows?’ she asked.
He blinked at the unexpected question and thought for a moment. ‘Well, widows can marry, same as anyone, I guess. It’s like any other marriage – you have a priest of Kore leading the ceremony, of course – but it’s usually much quicker than first marriages. I think that’s because usually the widow marries another man from the same family as her first husband, so you don’t need to celebrate the merger of two families. We’re big on that sort of thing in the West.’
‘In Lakh most widows don’t ever remarry,’ Ramita said, a little sadly. ‘If they are lucky they will have their dowry to support them – but most never have new suitors, because men want virgin brides with many years of fertility ahead of them. Most widows stay in their husband’s family, but as servants. If they are not allowed to stay, or if there’s a problem, they end up in widow-houses – I think that would be like your Kore convents. They aren’t happy places. Widows are not valued in our land.’
Alaron murmured, ‘You’re valued.’
‘I know.’ She wriggled up to nuzzle his face while surreptitiously pulling the bow fastening her leggings undone. She edged them down, baring a strip of flesh around her belly, then took his hand. ‘Could you do something for me?’
He sensed the change in mood and went very still. ‘Sure . . .’
She kissed him again, while placing his palm against her bared midriff, then pushing it down until his fingers were resting in the thatch of hair beneath. He froze, holding his breath as if trying not to scare this moment away, then moved his fingers over her mound. She sighed happily and guided him to her cleft. His fingers brushed the wetness there and he hesitated, then slid one finger inside her, making her shudder at his touch. ‘Mmm, just there . . .’ she whispered. ‘Small movements, just there.’
He leaned over her and kissed her open mouth while his fingers explored, his member hard against her thigh, until she turned her face away because what he was doing was beginning to make it hard to breathe slowly and instead she pulled her nightshirt up over her breasts and gave him something else to do with his mouth. Dasra was weaned, and they’d receded to their normal size: ornamental again, finally. She cradled his head, enjoyed being suckled, but her awareness was continually drawn lower, to her little pleasure nub, and what he was drawing from it.
It was alarming to be so forward, so wanton, but she’d been so lonely, and wanting him for such a long time. She knew what she was missing – the wonder of having someone trusted and desired in her bed. And she was discovering just how powerful it was to be the experienced one, to know what she wanted and how to get it.
All at once, touching wasn’t enough; she pulled him onto her, opened herself and drew him in.
*
Alaron lay on his side in a state of stunned bliss, cradling Ramita to him, her back against his chest. It was close to dawn, the fire burning low, but his skin gleamed like snow against her darkness. He liked the way they looked together, and how they fit together, far better than he had feared, given the mismatch in height. But it had felt so natural and perfect. Already, she was all he could ever imagine wanting.
A golden thread my love has tied
round her heart-strings and mine<
br />
Betimes it chafes, betimes it cuts
Betimes it feels like chains
But most oft it is a sunbeam,
My lover’s golden thread.
The old Rimoni love song was playing over and over in his head. In that tongue it rhymed. Cym had taught it to him after a gnosis lesson – just to tease him, he could see now, but at the time he’d thought it was all about him and her. It was a little painful to think of Cym now, surely dead, but it was only a passing thought, because all he had to do was look at the girl in his arms and all other thoughts were gone.
Most of the blankets had been cast aside, unneeded after all their exertions. The air in the room was steamy and close. He’d tried to go slowly like she wanted, and sometimes he’d even managed it, but it didn’t really matter. He’d recovered quickly each time, and then the dance started again. He loved the sounds she made, the way she moved when she lost control, the sheer joy of being so close to her. It wasn’t like he’d imagined; it was better – far more earthy and sweaty and human. But most of all it was her.
‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.
‘You know I am.’
‘Was it okay?’
‘What do you want, more praise? It was everything.’
Everything. It had been tumultuous, primal – and all his notions of needing to be gentle, to treat her like a fragile flower, had been quickly discarded as he’d found his need had overcome him, and even more importantly, it’d been Ramita demanding more, harder, faster, until they’d been wrestling fiercely.
He’d felt a little ashamed after that first time, afraid he’d been too rough and uncaring in his urgency, until she’d chuckled earthily, ‘Mmm, so good.’
‘It didn’t hurt?’
‘Ha! That little thing?’
‘Hey!’
She’d giggled. ‘Don’t worry, Goat, you are perfectly perfect.’