by Gregory Ashe
Chapter Forty-one
The breath was like fire in his lungs. The pain brought him awake. Dag blinked, gasping in new breath, eyes tearing at the pain, first in his lungs, and, as though the fire he breathed in flowed through his veins, everywhere else.
He lay, cheek on cool tile, in a paneled hall. It took him a moment to recognize the place. Bonacore Coi’s manor. It meant very little to him through the cloud of pain. Rida’s face danced before him, but it was all wrong. Rida’s eyes were not so close together. Her lips were darker, redder. Lips for kissing. He had told her that, when he gave her that first rose, and she had laughed and blushed like a maid. The laugh had faded, and the years turned, but the lips were still for kissing.
The smell of the charnel-houses back home wafted to him. For one blissful moment, Dag thought he had died. It was not so bad—oh, there was pain, to be sure, but to be close to not-Rida, to die wrapped in the memory of the ones he loved, and to let the fire wash away what he had been, what he had become, that was not bad. Small tongues of flame raced up not-Rida’s bed-robe, as though the fine silk were doused with oil.
Fire. Tile. Not-Rida. Ishahb bless me, he prayed. The girl. He remembered her now, her breasts under that too-thin robe, kissed by fire where Dag had once dreamt to kiss himself. Pain, a fire of its own, but one without heat, brought him to himself.
With a whimper, he pushed himself up. One arm would not work right, and the sleeve of his linen shirt was red with blood. He did not want to see the wound. He was too tired. Tired of killing. Tired of the dead, the endless dead, and even more so the living, who suffered and paid the price of tyrants, both petty and great. The charnel-house, the purifying flame of Ishahb, was simple, sweet, an end that, in its purity, made room for new life. Perhaps that would be enough for him.
Limping—one leg was injured, although he could not tell how badly—Dag made his way toward the burning girl. Wrapped in Ishahb’s embrace, she looked like some celestial consort, the moon-bride of the sun, perfect, beyond pain. Dag would have liked to believe she was better off dead than alive. The grisly ruin of her throat, though, told him differently. Death could give way to purity, but it was life that brought joy.
Inside the room, the smell of death had vanished, replaced by that of woodsmoke and burning flesh. Dag leaned heavily against the wall, sucking in the thick, smoky air. He could not think straight, and every breath was like bitter fire down his throat. Just a few more paces, though, and he could lie down next to not-Rida and let the flames consume him, burn away the evil that he was. Evil like Fashim. What else could he be called? Dag the assassin, who would have hunted down the men who had tortured his son and tortured them in turn, who had tortured scores of other men. He was his own son’s torturer, or might as well have been. If I had hunted down Sipir, as I intended, Dag thought, could I have prevented this? Fire, purity, an end. If Ishahb were merciful, there would be oblivion then.
A moan interrupted his thoughts. Against his will, Dag’s eyes sought out the source. The old man, Trenius Evus. His short, white hair was matted with blood. Long, dark stains marred his clothing. Dag had thought the man dead.
“Help me,” Evus said. He coughed, once, and drops of red gathered at his lips.
Dag laughed.
“Bel take you,” Evus said. “Help me out of this. That madman has soldiers in the city. I can’t walk, not on my own.”
“Help you,” Dag said. “I was supposed to kill you. Kill, kill, kill. He said it would bring peace, stability, an end to war. Do you think it would stop, if I killed you?”
Evus, his head propped on one arm, looked almost as though he were lounging. Dark circles traced his eyes, though, and his body trembled and spasmed.
“It will change nothing,” he said.
Dag could barely hear him over the burning corpses.
“It will change nothing,” Dag agreed. He walked over toward Evus. It was hard not to hate the man, not to see him as the source of all of Dag’s problems. One knife blow, let the city fall into ashes. The rains would send them down into the Driptangle in long, inky streams. Revenge could be the fire that gave Dag new life. He was tired, now, that was all. A few days rest, a good healer, and with those names in his ear, he would hunt each man down, make him pay for what he had done to Fawda.
The fire kindled. It felt good to hate. Every bone in his body ached as he lowered himself next to Evus. The old man was too wounded, or too tired, to try to flee. He watched Dag, his brown eyes tracking every movement.
Dag raised his long dagger. Hatred, revenge, anger stirred, the old whirlpool at the bottom of his soul that dragged up, over and over again, the image of his broken son, his weeping wife, his own silent tears in the night, with nothing but cold steel between his teeth to muffle a grief that was unassailable, merciless, eternal.
Kill this man, he told himself. What does it matter that he wasn’t the one who harmed Fawda, that he was only trying to serve his country, the way I have? His death opens the door to revenge. You’ll be able to say that you did something for your son.
His eyes fell on not-Rida’s face. The flames had not yet touched her there. Her dark hair stirred lightly in the superheated air, as though stirred by the breeze all those miles and years ago. Dag wished that she had a name. Her life could have been what Rida’s never was. What Fawda’s could not be.
He threw the dagger away.
With his good arm, he lifted Evus into a sitting position. The wounds were bad, but the old man could yet pull through, if he were strong enough.
Dag was startled to see tears in the other man’s hard brown eyes.
“I can’t carry you,” Dag said. “But I can help you up.”
“That will have to do,” Evus said.
Together, the two men made their way to the front of the house. Evus was losing blood quickly; the wounds were worse than Dag had realized, and the old man tottered on his feet. The Kestrel proved true to his reputation, though. His grip was like iron, and more than once he kept Dag from falling by holding onto a sconce or doorhandle.
At the outer door, Dag paused for a breath. They had left the fire behind, but the air still seemed hot, and the stench of smoke surrounded them. After a moment, Dag opened the door and stepped outside with Evus.
A giant dome of fire rose, illuminating a section of the eastern wall and the houses around it. It looked as though the sun itself had fallen out of the night sky to punish the offending city.
“Ishahb take me,” Dag said. “Looks like I made the wrong choice again.”