Honor's Paradox-ARC

by P. C. Hodgell

  Damson pouted. “You almost killed him yourself after Anise died.”

  “But I didn’t. The Commandant brought me to my senses in time. Do you trust his judgment? Yes? Then consider before you act: would he approve?”

  “I’ll . . . try.” A bit resentfully she added, “You do make things hard.”

  Jame sighed. “They often are. The easy thing isn’t always the right thing. We Shanir have to use the Old Blood responsibly or we risk becoming the monsters that some of the lords think us.”

  “You mean, like your brother.”

  “Tori does have that tendency, which is another reason not to abuse your gifts while in his service.”

  With that, Damson trudged off, looking thoughtful and somewhat huffy.

  Jame scanned the dark across the pit, but no one was there. Perhaps there never had been.

  “Why are so many of us monsters?” she asked no one in particular.

  Receiving no answer, she followed Damson back into the cooler, upper air.

  II

  The cadet had disappeared by the time Jame reached the upper hall, but Bran’s tormenters were still there, cheering his successful passage across the rope. One of them saw Jame. In a moment, all had given chase. She dashed up the stairs and soon lost them in the dim hallways of Old Tentir, far from the outer walls. There, let them stay until they either stumbled out or someone heard their piteous cries for help.

  Her feet had taken her near Bear’s quarters as so often they did. She retrieved a candle stub from a niche and followed the rank, animal smell, thinking with a pang of her teacher shut up alone in his stinking den. The question of justice still bothered her. Where did it lie in what had happened to him? To begin with, nowhere, probably. He had been a warrior and had gotten his wounds fairly in battle—yes, fighting for her father in the White Hills, for a man who could not abide such a Shanir as Bear was and had been.

  For that matter, Ganth’s madness had infected the entire Host, and most held him responsible for that day’s brutal outcome. Was he Shanir, to have had such power? She hadn’t thought of that before, but it made sense. What irony, though, given how he had felt about those of the Old Blood, like herself.

  But did everything have a reason? That was hard to believe without some overarching, all-powerful authority, which didn’t seem like a description of the Kencyrath’s Three-Faced God unless he/she/it was far more devious and cruel than Jame had ever supposed. After all, wasn’t that why her people clung so desperately to their labyrinthine code of honor? Without it, what were they? With an absent god, what else held them to account and gave them worth? There must be limits, and personal responsibility.

  Her thoughts circled back to Bear. Surely there was nothing just in his squalid confinement.

  Or was there? Long ago, he had dismembered a cadet foolish enough to taunt him and Lord Caineron had given his brother Sheth a choice: confine his brother or kill him.

  One could argue that Caldane was protecting the other cadets.

  Knowing the man, though, Jame believed that he was setting a test for his war-leader. If the Commandant killed his brother, he could claim that he was only following his lord’s orders, even though he clearly didn’t think that Bear deserved death. At the same time, Caldane believed that the guilt for this unjust act would not be his, because he personally hadn’t carried it out. That was Honor’s Paradox: did one’s honor lie in oneself, or in following orders?

  We are ultimately responsible for our actions, thought Jame, or we are not. That much, in a world of gray values, seemed black or white.

  In this case, though, the result was endless, sordid imprisonment, to the torment of both brothers.

  Perhaps somebody shared her dissatisfaction. Approaching Bear’s door, she saw that someone had been at work on the outward swinging hinges. One pin had been pried half out of its socket and tools lay scattered about the hall floor. Whoever it was would need heavier instruments, though, and perhaps had gone to fetch them.

  Then she heard it again, as she thought she had several times while traversing these dusty corridors: the sound of light, swift feet, following her.

  With a rush, they were upon her and she was sent sprawling. Candle, serpent, and mouse arced away into the darkness. Twizzle yelped as she fell on him. Then a weight crashed down on them both and hot breath roared in her ear. Hands fumbled at her scarf, wrenched it free.

  Jame stumbled to her feet. Turning, she faced Narsa. Oh no. Not again.

  The Ardeth cadet had drawn back a step. She was a handsome Kendar, dark-haired and fine-featured, but by the flickering light of the dropped candle her visage was ghastly and twitching, her breath ragged.

  “You’ve done it again,” she panted, “taken him away from me! This was to be our special day. We were supposed to spend it together.”

  In bed, Jame assumed with a flare of exasperation, just as she assumed that the girl meant Timmon.

  “That isn’t my fault, or his. He was cut off from his own quarters and chased into mine.”

  “You claim that you don’t want him. You could have sent him back.”

  Jame thought about that.

  “I suppose I could have, with a guard. It didn’t occur to me. I had something else on my chest at the time.”

  Where was Addy? Having a poisonous, short-tempered serpent loose somewhere underfoot didn’t seem like a very good idea. For that matter, with Jame’s scarf in one hand and a knife in the other, Narsa didn’t look particularly safe either.

  She tried again. “Timmon is stuck there now, twiddling his thumbs, no doubt missing us both. Join him, with my blessings.”

  The Kendar gave an angry sob. “Oh, so noble, so condescending. Would you throw me to him like a bone to a dog? What good would that do anyway? He prefers you. He always has. And now that I’m p . . . p . . . p . . .” She couldn’t finish the word, but her hand dropped to cradle her stomach.

  “Oh, Narsa, I really am sorry.”

  This was serious. Sexual relations at the college were discouraged, as they were in the field, but one recognized that youth will have youth. To become pregnant while at Tentir, however, was automatically to be expelled. Although Kendar could usually control conception among themselves, they had less luck with Highborn lovers.

  “Does Timmon know?”

  “Would it matter to him if he did? What have I ever been but a pastime to him until he could bed you?”

  “If it’s any comfort, he hasn’t, and isn’t likely to. Please, Narsa. Put away that knife and let’s talk sensibly.”

  “I don’t need sense. I have this.” She brandished Jame’s scarf in her face. “You have to do what I say.” Abruptly she tossed Jame the blade. “And I say, ‘Kill me.’ ”

  Jame nearly fumbled the catch. “What? I can’t!”

  “Come on. It’s easy. My honor is already dead. Should I give the world another bastard? The Ardeth are jealous of their oh-so-pure blood, more than any house except yours. Timmon should have thought about that when he spent his precious seed on me. You Highborn take us and you break us.”

  “Not on purpose. Not usually.”

  “Then let this be different.”

  She flung herself at Jame and cried out with sharp pain as they met breast to breast. Then the Kendar collapsed into the Highborn’s arms sobbing. Jame dropped the knife and held her. Ancestors be praised that she had lowered the point in time. Narsa shuddered in her grip, so strong, so alive, so desperate.

  We take them and we break them, who are so much better than ourselves. What kind of a god gave us such unjust power?

  “No!” Narsa thrust her away, turned, and ran.

  III

  Jame didn’t follow her. Instead, she knelt and listened at the iron bars of Bear’s feeding slot, surprised that the ruckus hadn’t drawn his attention. From inside came stentorian snores. Somehow, he had slept through the whole thing.

  A hiss near her hand made her look down. There was Addy, coiled, angry. She and Narsa must have
nearly trampled the serpent, and the knife had come close to impaling her when Jame had dropped it.

  “It’s all right,” she told the snake, carefully drawing her fallen scarf out from under her.

  Addy took some soothing before she consented to being picked up again, and Jame felt more hesitant this time about draping those restless coils around her neck. Highborn, especially the Randir, had some immunity, but still a strike—especially to the throat—could be dangerous. Adder’s venom dissolved flesh, among other things. Instead, she slipped the serpent inside her jacket to form a slowly slithering belt against her skin.

  Twizzle emerged cautiously from the shadows.

  “Woof?” he said.

  A trembling morsel of white tucked into a corner proved to be Mick. With the mouse again tucked into her hair, Jame set out after the pook.

  IV

  Twizzle’s clamor drew her to one of the outer second-story, western-facing classrooms. The chamber was full of cadets all crowded against the window to peer down into the training square. Rue separated herself from them and ran to grab Jame’s arm.

  “You’ve got to do something!” she cried, pulling her toward the windows where the others made room for them.

  Below, Brier Iron-thorn staggered back and forth, buffeted by a dozen jeering Caineron, her clothes torn, her face streaked with blood.

  “What in Perimal’s name is going on?” Jame demanded.

  “Higbert called her out as your acting master-ten. I mean, we all know that that’s really your title, but she does most of the work.”

  “I know that. We split duties.” She flinched as a Caineron hit Brier in the stomach and she fell. Several more landed kicks before the Southron could struggle stubbornly to her feet.

  “Why isn’t she defending herself?”

  “She did at first. When Hig called her out, he was only backed by three Caineron. The rest ran out after she’d accepted his challenge. It wasn’t long before they had her scarf. Then they ordered her not to fight back.”

  Two Caineron grabbed the Knorth’s arms and held her while a third lashed out at her face. Blood sprayed. Brier spat out a tooth.

  “This isn’t right.” Jame saw several randon including the Brandan Captain Hawthorn watching from the arcade rail. “Why don’t they stop it?”

  “First off, she told everyone not to interfere. Second, I don’t think the randon can step in, not today.”

  This is a test too, Jame thought. They want to see how we behave, left to ourselves. And Gorbel isn’t here to call his hounds to heel.

  “Well,” she said, “Brier didn’t order me.”

  She clambered out onto the tin roof of the arcade, gave the rathorn battle cry at the top of her lungs, and jumped down onto the back of the nearest Caineron. An answering yell echoed from all sides as Knorth and their allies charged the square.

  Among the uproar came the terrible bell of a Molocar. Tarn’s Torvi rushed onto the scene, shouldering cadets aside left and right. He bowled Higbert over and ripped at his throat. The next moment, incredibly, the cadet was up and running with his cohorts on his heels. All plunged into the Caineron barracks and slammed the door after them.

  “I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?” said Jame, helping Brier to rise. The Southron glowered, then caught her breath sharply and wrapped arms around her bruised ribs.

  Meanwhile, Tarn was prying something black out of Torvi’s jaws—two scarves, one with the Knorth crest embroidered on it, and other with the Caineron. Jame presented both to Brier.

  “Do with them as you will.”

  “With pleasure,” said the Southron grimly and limped after the fled enemy, tying her own sodden scarf around her neck as she went. Rue and the other Knorth rushed to support her.

  “That was well done,” said Hawthorn, coming up to Jame as the assault began on the Caineron barracks.

  Jame glared at her. “Was it? These are mostly children. Would you give them rules and then not hold them to account?”

  “Not entirely. Remember, they won’t always be under our eyes. Nothing they do today will be held against them, short of a blatant breach of honor, but we watch and remember. We also note what their superiors do. What’s that, around your waist?”

  “Something held in trust.” Jame flicked open her jacket to reveal Addy’s triangular head questing upward between her breasts.

  “And you’ve got a mouse sitting on your head. Let me guess: the Falconer’s class.”

  Pink nose in the air, Mick started chittering.

  “At last!” said Jame, adding to Twizzle, “Small thanks to you.”

  Under the randon’s bemused gaze, she revolved to see in which direction the mouse squeaked the loudest, then set off at a run for the Randir barracks.

  V

  She found most of the Falconeers in the Randir basement gathered around a gaping well mouth.

  “She’s down there?”

  “So Mack says.”

  “And my trock,” added Dure.

  “And Torvi.”

  Addy slithered out of Jame’s coat, disconcertingly like a short length of glistening, spilt bowel, and disappeared down the shaft.

  “That settles it. Shade, can you hear me?”

  Her voice echoed hollowly off stone walls, down dank depths, to fall flat on a stone ledge just visible by torchlight.

  “Where’s the water?” asked Tarn.

  “Below the shelf, I think,” said Mouse, leading perilously over the edge to peer down. Gari caught her by the belt. “This must be the Randirs’ shallowest well, not always useable.”

  “It’s raining in the mountains,” said Drie.

  Gari snorted. “And dark on the other side of the moon. So?”

  “I think he means that the water level is about to rise.” Jame stripped off her jacket, adding to forestall the others’ protests, “It looks convoluted down there. Which of you is skinnier than I am? Someone, find a rope.”

  A nearby bucket supplied the latter. Anchored at the top, Jame swung over the rim and descended, touching the slimy walls as little as possible. Some twenty feet down she landed on the ledge. It looked as if in excavating this well, the Randir had run into a slab of rock too hard to be easily removed, so they had circumvented it. Running water sounded around its edge. Jame wriggled down a crack and dropped into a lower tunnel extending west to east. Water rushed by on one side in a channel down toward the Silver. On the other, under the overhang, lay a dark, trussed-up figure. Firelight reflecting off wet stone caught Addy’s golden coils looped over it.

  “I sent her to you for safekeeping,” said Shade’s voice out of the shadows.

  “What, not to summon help?” Jame considered this as she probed the other’s bindings: stout chain and rope tight enough to stop the blood. “Maybe that’s also why Twizzle wouldn’t lead me to you. D’you want to die?”

  “Do you know who put me down here?”

  “At a guess, Reef and her cronies.”

  “There you’re wrong. Reef would have saved me as her lady’s granddaughter if the others hadn’t kept her busy all day. Some Randir would follow the rightful heir if they could. To them, I’m the Witch’s freak.”

  Ouch. Shade would also serve Randiroc if she could, but who in her house would believe that? Both sides must see her as the very emblem of the enemy.

  “So, if you escape, that proves you guilty, or so they think. Only death can assure your innocence. And, if they’re lucky, the coming flood will wash your body down to the Silver. I hate double binds. These, on the other hand, you should be able to escape.”

  Shade’s mulish silence was answer enough.

  “All right. Here’s something they didn’t consider: you have friends.”

  “I do?”

  “God’s claws and small, furry fishes, of course you do. Who d’you think tracked you down here and is waiting on top to help pull you out? Half the Falconer’s class, that’s all.”

  Shade stirred for the first time. “I have f
riends,” she repeated dubiously, with an undernote of wonder.

  “And we have company.”

  The shadows rustled. Reflected light glinted off hundreds of beady eyes: wild trocks, scavengers capable of stripping flesh from bone in seconds. Then from up the tunnel came the approaching roar of water. The eyes blinked out and claws scuttled away.

  Jame cut the ropes. To deal with the chains, she hoisted an outraged Addy by her tail and held her twisting over the metal. Venom dripped on iron, ate into it.

  “Too slow. Shade, do something!”

  The nascent changer grunted and flexed her hands. They became long and narrow enough to slip through the chains, likewise her bare feet, leaving scraped skin on the links.

  “That hurts,” she said through her teeth.

  “Would you rather drown?”

  The water beside them was rising, starting to fill the tunnel. Shade wriggled through the gap and started to climb the rope to urgent cries falling from above. Jame followed her. The rushing water nearly plucked her off the rope, but then she emerged from the cleft onto the ledge. From there, it was up the rope with the rising flood lapping at her heels.

  VI

  By now, it was nearly midday and cadets were returning to their barracks for a noon meal prepared by their ten-commanders. At the top of the stair, still well within the Randir precincts, the assorted cadets who made up the Falconeers encountered Reef. The master-ten Randir was gray with dust and fatigue after a morning-long punishment run, but not too tired to notice their presence within her domain. She stopped short, staring.

  “What are you lot doing here?”

  Then she noticed Shade, covered with well-slime.

  “And what happened to you?”

  A Randir ten-commander came up behind her. Jame noted Reef’s scarf tied around her arm. She stopped, stony-eyed, when she saw Shade.

  “So.”

  “Just so,” Shade answered her.

  Reef looked from one to the other. “What in Perimal’s name is going on here?”