The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  Another nod.

  “Then your queen is already commonplace?”

  “Commonplace?” If Tau didn’t know better, he’d think her annoyed.

  The annoyance, if he’d read it right, vanished behind that mask of hers. “You said you’ve not seen much like it, meaning you’ve been in rooms like this before?”

  “Not like this,” he said, “but … I’m reminded of the guest rooms in my isikolo.”

  “The … Southern?”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  “But you trained there. It was your home. Why stay in the guest rooms?”

  “Stay? No, my queen. I didn’t stay there. No Lesser could …”

  It was her turn to be confused. “Then?”

  Joining his throat, Tau’s mouth went dry. “I was in the rooms to see a friend.” She tilted her head, waiting, and Tau cleared his throat. “I visited Gifted Zuri Uba in the isikolo’s guest rooms when she rested there a night.”

  Her head untilted. “The Gifted who …” She blinked at him. “You were … close friends?”

  This was not a discussion Tau cared to have. “As you say.”

  Her expression didn’t change, but there it was again. He’d swear it—annoyance.

  “We do not want it to be as we say,” she told him. “We want it to be as it is. How would you name it?”

  “How would I name it? What I have now?” Tau said. “I’d name it grief.”

  His voice broke on the last word, and he was done talking about this. She said nothing, neither did he, and the tension grew thick enough to touch.

  “We’re sorry,” she said finally. “That was unkind.” She paused. “It is not right to pry into your …”

  Tau nodded and kept his head down, trying to keep the way he felt inside.

  “Your leg,” she said, the words bumping into each other in her rush to get them out. “It must hurt?”

  “It all hurts.”

  “Please, you must sit,” she said, drawing his attention to the chairs.

  Tau was supposed to be guarding her and didn’t think guards were supposed to sit, but he was too weary to worry about decorum. He sat in the chair, its cushions feeling softer than clouds must, and kept his eyes on the floor as he heard her moving the sheets on the bed.

  “We are sorry for your loss, Champion Solarin.”

  Unwilling to trust his voice, he looked up. She was in the bed and under the covers, propped up by an army of pillows. She looked small, young, a bit uncertain.

  He wanted to ask her why he was there, in her room. More, he wanted to ask her why she felt she could lead them all to a better future, and what in the Goddess’s name she thought that future would look like. He didn’t. He was there to guard her, not damn her.

  “We want our people to have their proper place,” she said, the words startling him with how closely they matched his thoughts. “We want to undo the mistakes that were made.”

  Perhaps she could do with a little damning. “Mistakes?” he asked.

  “Our treatment of the Lessers, our treatment of the Xiddeen. It’s not what the Goddess wants, and we barely survive because we do not live as we are meant to.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “And you’ll save us?” he asked.

  She had a way with her eyes, a way of looking at and into him. He didn’t like it.

  “We’ll save each other,” she said.

  He grunted as politely as he knew how.

  “The queens before us, they didn’t listen.”

  “To their councillors?”

  She shook her head. “To their Goddess.”

  This talk always made Tau uncomfortable, and he’d begun to regret asking.

  “Without truly listening, we almost took the wrong path,” she said. “But the coup, the broken peace, and even the change in the Lessers, because of what they see in you, all are part of bigger things that will lead to a better world.”

  There couldn’t be a better world without the people he’d lost, he wanted to tell her. “You really believe that?” he asked instead.

  His question seemed to surprise her, too much for her mask to hide. “Yes,” she said. “The world is broken and we must fix it.”

  “For who, my queen? For Nobles? For Lessers?”

  She lowered her voice but kept it steady, as if telling a dangerous secret. “We are more alike than we are different,” she said.

  “What?” Tau asked. Those had been Jayyed’s words.

  “We are here to make things right,” she said.

  He began to shake his head, realized how that would look, and held his head still. He believed she meant the things she said, but that didn’t count for much.

  How long had things been as they were? Could a queen, a Royal Noble, be the one to change them? And what was a better world without his father, or Zuri, or Jayyed, or his sword brothers who had gone to the Goddess? Too much had been lost, and that hurt most of all.

  Yet, Tau couldn’t help but see the hopes of those he’d lost in this strange queen. She had strength, courage, and passion, and possible or impossible, he wasn’t so callous as to let her chase the fantasy of a better world alone. He couldn’t do that to the brave young queen and he told her so.

  “You should rest,” he said. “So long as I’m champion, I swear I’ll keep you safe, and if there comes a day when I can’t, I’ll have men like me guard you in my stead.”

  He thought the words would comfort her, help her sleep. He even meant them. He’d see her through the siege of Palm. He could do that and thought that saying so would ease her worries. He’d forgotten that he was speaking to a monarch at war.

  “Men like you, Champion Solarin?” Queen Tsiora asked, sitting up. “Can that be?”

  Tau held his tongue, considering what could come from the truth, and then, with the love he held for his father, Zuri, and Jayyed close to heart, he decided to trust the queen and her hopes for a better world. He decided that, if her side was the one he was fighting for, they would smash all who opposed them.

  “It can be done,” he said.

  She leaned forward, her mask of neutrality gone. “How?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHOLE

  I have died more times than the days I’ve lived,” Tau told the queen. “At the isikolo, I learned that …” He wanted to make it palatable for her. “The Goddess told me to go to Isihogo to find my true strength, and in the underworld’s mists, I waited for the demons to come and I fought them.”

  She leaned in.

  “The demons cannot be killed, or in the end, I am unable to kill them, but either way I can return to Isihogo time and time again, doing battle and learning all the ways a man, demon, or any being can seek to harm another. In this way, with time flowing differently in the mists, I could train harder and longer than any man living.”

  The queen had a handful of bedding gripped in one hand. “The Goddess, she sent you to us to be … this.”

  Tau said nothing.

  “Tell us more,” the queen said. “Isihogo takes your spirit but not your body, and the time you spend there will not make your arms or legs stronger here.”

  Tau nodded. “It was my training at the isikolo that honed my body, but the real difference isn’t in my body. It’s in my mind.

  Her eyebrows pinched together. “Your mind?”

  “My head is filled with … violence. Its patterns, its flow, the essence of it, and when I’m fighting”—Tau could feel his blood race as he spoke of it—“I can sense the way things will or should be. It’s like I can remember the words yet to be sung in a familiar song.”

  The queen searched his face. “The Goddess shows you the future?”

  “No, it’s … I’ve lived so much violence it’s become part of who I am,” he said. “I can see its possibilities and their likelihood.” He tried to be more clear. “Imagine you threw a stone to me—”

  “A stone?”

  “It has not yet landed and still has a
distance to travel, but I can go to where it will be and snatch it out of the air, because with enough practice throwing and catching, I know what path the stone must take.”

  “Is there pain?” she asked.

  He knew what she meant. “To do this is to suffer, my queen.”

  “Does the pain diminish? Do you grow … inured?”

  “No.”

  “Then, what could possibly make doing what you do worth it?”

  Tau took his time, thinking about the answer. “There must be consequences,” he said. “Evil must be punished or it will continue undeterred until it consumes all that is good.”

  The queen wasn’t convinced. “You do this as a holy mission to fight evil?”

  Tau let his eyes roam the room, wondering what to say and how much of his truth to give her. “Abasi Odili murdered my father just to make a point,” he said. “He did it with ease, because the life he was ending was not, to him, equally human. The Nobles think that we’re born feeling less, loving less, worth less, but they’re wrong, and I’m going to show them that.”

  “You’ll punish them?”

  “Him, I will,” Tau said, his heart hammering as he told her what he wanted. “I’m going to break him in front of a crowd of Nobles. I’m going to strip him of his dignity and his humanity, because I want everyone to see how easy and vile it is to make a person seem less than fully human.”

  “You’ll expose evil by doing evil?”

  “No,” Tau said. “I’ll reclaim my humanity by destroying a man who would otherwise deny it. You can’t talk people into giving up their hold over you. You have to make them do it.”

  “Tau”—it was unsettling to hear his name, unadorned, from her mouth—“aren’t you simply justifying the right to do harm? And who but those who have succumbed to evil can believe they have that right?”

  She was turning his words around. “You promised me Odili,” he said.

  “And we keep our promises, Champion.”

  “As do I. You have my loyalty,” he told her, wishing the truth didn’t sound so much like a marketplace barter.

  She gave him a look that might have been pity, but it vanished from her face before he could be sure. “Allow us to ask our earlier question another way,” she said. “How can you stand it? The fighting, the deaths, the horrors. How can you stay whole?”

  The question cut too close to the spine, and Tau focused on her face, afraid to let his eyes wander, afraid of the demons he might see if they did. “I’m not sure.”

  “We may know,” she said. “It is the Goddess who keeps you whole, and you need to honor Her faith in you. You say the Nobles want to make you smaller than you are, but in thinking only of revenge, you’re also doing it to yourself. Tau Solarin, you’re not here to kill one man,” Tsiora said. “Ananthi isn’t keeping you whole for that.”

  “Perhaps,” Tau said, hoping to end the conversation.

  “Tell me,” the queen said, allowing the topic to shift, “you think you can take others to Isihogo, to do as you have done?”

  “I do,” Tau said, remembering the old Drudge whom he’d been unable to save from Otobong’s sword. If Tau had more men with his training, then fewer innocents would die, more battles could be won, and together, they could make a difference to the world in a way that he could not on his own.

  “Won’t they break?” Tsiora asked.

  “Not if I choose the right men.”

  “Did the Goddess speak their names?”

  Remaining silent while people talked nonsense about the Goddess was one thing, outright lying about Her speaking names to him was another, and Tau wasn’t about to do that. “I believe I know who to choose,” he said.

  “Do you hear Her voice?”

  Biting the inside of his cheek, he shook his head.

  “Then we cannot allow other men to do this.”

  “My queen—”

  “The risk is too great. Without Her guidance, you could give this power to those unworthy of it. You’d create a group of Ingonyama killers. Imagine what would happen if these men turned away from our cause.”

  “My sword brothers can be trust—”

  She shook her head. “If they understand the power you offer them and they are not worthy, we … you will have released more evil on the world than you could ever punish. The Goddess keeps you whole, Tau Solarin, and even so, there is still a terrible struggle in you. Swear to us that you will not reveal this path to anyone.”

  “Queen Tsiora—”

  “Swear it.”

  Tau couldn’t untangle his emotions fast enough to know if he was frustrated or relieved at the sudden turn. Regardless, the choice had been taken from him.

  “I swear,” he said.

  She leaned toward him, her voice so soft he had trouble hearing her. “You are enough.”

  Not for Aren, he hadn’t been, or Oyibo or Jayyed or—

  “You are enough,” she said.

  —Zuri. His eyes burned and began to water. He wanted to turn away but couldn’t because he was sure he’d see nothing but his demons.

  “Tau,” she said, and Goddess wept, the emotion she put into saying his name felt real and warm and kind. “You are enough.”

  His eyes stung and he lowered his head to wipe at them, thankful that Tsiora was perceptive enough to let him sit in silence awhile.

  Then, after a time, she spoke. “We are sorry for all you’ve lost,” she said.

  Head still down, Tau nodded in thanks.

  “We’re glad you’re here,” she said, moving on the bed to lie down.

  Tau raised his head, and even from across the room, he could see her muscles relax. She’d become at ease in his presence. Their talk, what he’d revealed, and her interpretation of it had done that. She truly believed the Goddess had brought him to her.

  The queen closed her eyes, her breathing slowed, and before long she was asleep. The peace her devotion brought her made Tau wonder if he should take his prayers more seriously. The thought brought a small and sorrowful smile to his face. Prayers wouldn’t bring him what he needed.

  Closing his own eyes, Tau let his spirit spin loose. He’d been gone for far too long. He’d been gone long enough for it to feel as if the demons were seeking him out instead of the other way around.

  He died thirteen times, each worse than the last, and every ending was excruciating. He could usually manage more before becoming hesitant, and he blamed the long night and longer day for his reluctance to keep fighting. But before they could truly sway him, Tau pushed away his fears and closed his eyes.

  The fights that must be won come when they will, without care or concern for how tired, injured, or distracted a warrior might be. Tau knew that. He knew that the difference between the ones who stood and the ones who fell was that the truly triumphant taught themselves to meet all their fights, regardless of circumstance, in spite of the odds, and in defiance of fear.

  So, he let his spirit fly free when, half a reality away, he heard the latch on the queen’s door click. Mind and body protesting the rough treatment, Tau wrenched himself back to Uhmlaba and leapt to his feet, swords drawn, to stand face-to-face with the queen’s vizier.

  LOYAL

  Strangling a yelp, Nyah jumped back, hitting her back against the half-open door she’d just walked through.

  Tau sheathed his swords. “Vizier,” he said, bowing so she wouldn’t see his embarrassment and thinking that he needed to stop pointing blades at his allies.

  “Give a Lesser a sword and before long he’ll cut off his own manhood,” Nyah said, rubbing her back with one hand as she closed the door with the other. “Why are you in here?”

  “The queen asked.”

  “Asked? What did she ask?”

  Tau straightened to his full height but kept his voice low. “I believe that’s between me and the queen,” he said, annoyed that he wasn’t tall enough to look down at the vizier and feeling his face grow hot the moment the words left his mouth.

  �
�How dare you even suggest …,” she spluttered. “Who do you think you are, you—”

  “This is not how we’d have wished to wake,” the queen said, sitting up, stretching, and causing the arms of her nightdress to slip from her wrists to her elbows.

  Tau looked away and stared at the floor, his face growing twice as hot when he realized the queen had probably heard him.

  Schooling her features, Nyah bowed at the neck. “My queen.”

  “How long were we asleep? It can’t be the next day. Is it even evening?”

  “Apologies,” Nyah said. “The sun still shines, and if there was any way I could ensure that you’d be left alone in this room for a few more spans”—Nyah’s eyes slipped to Tau, and he could feel the sharp bronze in her look—“I would have done so, but this news cannot wait.”

  Tau risked a glance at the queen. Thankfully, her sleeves had fallen back around her wrists, but after seeing her face, it wasn’t finding a safe place to look that worried him. Tsiora was exhausted and Nyah had come here to burden her further.

  “The queen needs rest, Vizier,” he said.

  Tau wasn’t afraid of Nyah, but she shot him a look that made him swallow.

  “I have served Queen Tsiora since she was a child. I have been by her side through more than you will ever—”

  “Nyah …,” the queen said.

  Tau could see that “saving” Nyah’s daughter might have softened the vizier’s view of him, but that simply meant that, in her mind, he’d gone from being an inyoka to being an imbecile. He might be less dangerous, but he was still a creature with no proper place in polite company.

  Nyah turned her back to him, as if the quarter turn could erase his existence from the world, and spoke to the queen. “There’s been an edification from the front lines. It’s General Bisi.”

  “Were we too late?” the queen asked. “Did Mirembe and Otobong get word to Bisi?” Her eyes widened. “Is he marching for us?”

  “It wasn’t them,” Nyah said, “and he’s not marching, yet.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s Odili.”

  Tau’s jaw clenched at the name.

  “We see,” the queen said, pulling the covers away and tossing her legs over the side of the bed. “Assemble the Guardian Counc … Champion, will you gather those loyal to our efforts? It seems even an afternoon’s rest is too long to spare before we must fight our next battles.”