Brother Yarit shrugged and reached for the nearest flagon. “When you put it that way, it almost makes sense.”
The chieftain eyed him. “You are a rather strange man.”
Brother Yarit raised his cup in a salute. “I’ve heard worse.”
The women laughed and murmured under their breath, exchanging confidences I couldn’t make out.
Khisan and Brother Merik returned, the latter looking grave and the former looking surprisingly subdued.
“I beg your pardon, Khai.” Khisan’s gaze searched my face, his hawk-winged brows drawing together over the bridge of his nose in a perplexed frown. He blinked a few times, then rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand. “I … there are things I did not know. I drank too much date-palm wine. I understand now that you meant no offense. You fought bravely beside us today, and I am grateful for it.” He paused again, then extended his hand to me. “Ahh … brothers?”
I wasn’t feeling exactly brotherly toward him, but I was happy to keep the peace. “Brothers.”
In the morning, we departed, stopping to say our farewells to Brother Merik’s kin. I was sorry to take my leave of them so soon, and yet it seemed to me that between one day and the next, a door had closed. Ahran and some of the other boys near my age were playing some game of chase around the tents, whipping their heshkrats at each other’s legs, tolerated by the adults with a mixture of indulgence and annoyance.
Today I understood in my heart that I would never be one of those boys. I was the shadow of one of the Sun-Blessed, pledged to Pahrkun the Scouring Wind, and now I was a blooded warrior. It made for a distance between us that could not be bridged; but that was my destiny, and a source of pride and honor, too.
“What did you say to Khisan last night to bring him to his senses?” I asked Brother Merik as we headed into the desert.
“Oh, I merely explained to him that there are no women at the Fortress of the Winds,” he said. “That you didn’t mean to give offense, it was only that you’d never seen women before, or at least not since you were a babe in arms.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell him,” I said. “Only he wouldn’t let me get the words out.”
Brother Merik shrugged. “Men will heed words spoken from one in a position of authority that they disdain from other sources.”
“That’s foolish,” I said with some irritation.
“But true,” Brother Yarit noted. “So what did you think of them?”
“Of what?” I said.
“Women,” he said. “Girls and women.”
“Oh.” I considered the matter. “I thought they would be different. More different, I mean. I thought that men and women would be as different from each other as Pahrkun and Anamuht.”
Brother Yarit snorted. “I take it you didn’t get close enough for a good look at the face of Pahrkun the Scouring Wind when you two came to fetch me back to exile at the fortress last year.”
“No.” I was stung by the reminder of how I’d frozen. “Why?”
“Because you’d never have thought such a thing if you had,” he replied.
“Let him be,” Brother Merik said mildly. “Khai’s day to face the Scouring Wind will come, and no one save Pahrkun truly knows what face Anamuht wears beneath her veils of fire. Or,” he added, “if she wears any face at all. Tradition holds it is so, but no one has ever seen it, and there are some who believe that the flames themselves are her true face.”
Over the course of days, I thought about these things, and wondered what forms the gods of other lands might take. We Zarkhoumi are not adventurers to sail the great currents and bring back tales of far-flung isles and the gods who inhabit them. From the Zarkhoumi history that Brother Ehudan had taught me, I knew of Droth the Great Thunder who held aegis in the nearby realm of Granth—the great dragon whose offspring were the terrible stink-lizards that had once nearly succeeded in conquering Zarkhoum—but even Brother Ehudan was vague on the details of the myriad lands that lay beyond our watery borders.
We might be the people of Zar’s favorite children, but we were an isolated folk here in the uttermost east.
Although Brother Yarit had never left Zarkhoumi soil, at least he had tales of other realms to share; tales garnered from traders and sailors on the docks of Merabaht. On the isle of Therin, he told us, Ilharis the Two-Faced was a marble statue with one face that looked east and one that looked west, and on those rare occasions when Eshen the Wandering Moon was full and visible in the night sky, it wept crystal tears that could change a man’s luck; crystals that were both prized and feared, for one’s luck might change for the worse as easily as the better.
In Barakhar, he said, they worship Lishan the Graceful, who took the form of a tree called a willow which could pull up its roots and wander about the land, showering dew imbued with enduring grace on her chosen.
When I said I could see nothing great or terrible about a wandering tree, Brother Yarit informed me that I was a fool to underestimate any of the children of the heavens or their gifts. “Anything can be a weapon, kid,” he said wryly. “Grace and guile can be deadlier than a stink-lizard’s bile, and luck can change any outcome.”
“What about this business of a darkness arising in the west one day?” I asked him. “What sort of darkness?”
Brother Yarit and Brother Merik exchanged a glance. “No one knows for sure,” the latter admitted. “Only that the earliest origins of the legend can be found in the fall of the children of heaven. But that’s a matter best left to discuss with Brother Saan when he sees fit.”
“Leave it to the Seer,” Brother Yarit agreed. “I daresay he knows more about it than the rest of us. But let me tell you, I once saw a grace-touched Barakhan dancer perform, and every single man in that audience—”
“Enough,” Brother Merit interrupted him in a firm tone. “Khai doesn’t need to hear this.”
“Just trying to pass the time,” Brother Yarit replied with an edge to his voice. “The kid’s got to learn about the world beyond the desert someday.”
“Yes, and as I’ve told you, that day too will come when Brother Saan sees fit,” Brother Merit said impatiently. “Would you see Khai armed against such weapons as grace and guile? His first defense will forever be the lessons of honor and survival learned in the crucible of the desert of Zarkhoum.”
“Spoken like a true—” Brother Yarit halted mid-sentence, staring into the distance.
I followed his gaze and saw nothing but sand and scrub and rocky outcroppings. The sun was riding low in the west, but not so low that we need think of finding shelter for another few hours. “What is it?” I asked, bewildered. “I see nothing.” He gave no answer. I glanced at Brother Merik, who shook his head. “Brother Yarit? Brother Yarit, what is it?”
“Ahhhh!” A terrible cry emerged from Brother Yarit’s throat and he lurched backward as though struck, toppling from the saddle.
“Brother Yarit!” I shouted in alarm, dismounting. “What is it?”
“No, no, no, no, no!” He thrashed and writhed on the ground, tangling the folds of his robe and panicking his mount. His hands rose, fingers clawed, to cover his eyes. “Oh, fuck me! No!”
Squatting beside him, I tried in vain to tug his hands down to see what was wrong. “Are you hurt?”
His mount’s panic infected mine; I heard Brother Merik mutter a curse as he sought to secure two sets of reins before they could bolt.
Brother Yarit kicked at me, scrabbling backward, one hand still clamped over his eyes. “It can’t be it can’t be it can’t be!” he groaned. “Oh, fuck me, fuck me to eternity, no, no, no!”
I followed him. “Brother, what—”
“Khai!”
Something in Brother Merik’s voice stopped me in my tracks. I glanced at him and saw him pointing. Brother Yarit’s thrashing had disturbed the burrow of a banded onyx scorpion. Most of the things that crawl and creep on the floor of the desert will bite or sting; only two are fatal. One is the blind shadow-viper,
a sinuous black-scaled nocturnal snake that hunts by scent.
The other is the banded onyx scorpion.
It had emerged fully from its burrow, less than a foot away from where I crouched, frozen. It was fully as long as my forearm. Its black carapace was shiny, the lower thorax striped with the crimson bands that fairly shouted danger, poison, run away; and oh, believe me, with the blood running cold with instinctual terror in my veins, I would have liked to do nothing more.
“Khai, back away from it,” Brother Merik said quietly. “Slowly, as slowly as you can.”
Brother Yarit was still thrashing and moaning. The banded onyx was poised almost motionless between us on its segmented legs, its tail curved over its back, the deadly stinger quivering.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “Brother Yarit—”
“Khai, get away!”
But I couldn’t, I couldn’t abandon Brother Yarit in the throes of whatever fit had overcome him, his sandaled heels drumming against the sandy soil; too near, the scorpion’s pincers beginning to twitch …
Gathering my legs beneath me, I dove the length of Brother Yarit’s body, landing gracelessly on my hands and feet and whirling to grab the collar of his robe, digging my own heels into the sand and dragging him a few yards away with fear-driven strength. It was a near thing and it was not over. For the space of a heartbeat, I saw the banded onyx scuttling toward us, impossibly fast, and I despaired in the knowledge that I lacked the strength to haul Brother Yarit out of its path a second time; and then his mount, still loose, crashed between us and the scorpion.
I got a grip under Brother Yarit’s arms. “Help me, damn you!” I shouted at him. “Help me!”
He understood enough to use my grip to lever his body and get his feet under him, pushing at the ground and helping me haul him to a safe distance, where I collapsed in the sand. There was stomping, the sound of Brother Merik shouting, and then an awful equine squeal.
I saw Brother Yarit’s horse go down and fall heavily on its side, squealing and twitching in agony; later, I would learn that the scorpion stung it on the fetlock. I saw Brother Merik draw his yakhan and cut its throat, putting it out of its misery, blood spilling onto the thirsty sand. I saw the banded onyx scorpion retreat backward into its burrow, content that it had defended its territory. Perhaps it had even done Pahrkun’s bidding, for it was one of his creatures to command. If there was a purpose in it, I could not guess at it.
All the while, Brother Yarit bowed his head, covered his eyes, and keened, rocking back and forth on his knees. He would not respond to my worried queries, and I did not know what to do.
It took Brother Merik some doing to collect and calm the surviving horses. He came over limping—one of the horses had stepped on his foot—and squatted before Brother Yarit. “All right now,” he said gently, taking hold of Brother Yarit’s wrists. “Come, let’s have a look. What happened to you? What’s all this fuss about?”
I watched over his shoulder as Brother Yarit suffered him to lower his hands, and lifted his head to meet our gazes. His face was gouged by the marks of his own fingernails and his eyes were wide and wild and strange, his too-large pupils blurred.
My skin prickled.
Brother Yarit drew a long, shuddering breath and laughed; it was a cracked, desperate sound. “Brother Saan … Brother Saan is dead,” he said in a ragged voice, and the lowering light of the sun was reflected like twin flames in his eyes. “And I’m your new Seer.”
NINE
No one knew what to say, least of all me. The enormity and impossibility of it was too great to comprehend.
Brother Saan, dead.
Brother Yarit, the Seer. City-born Brother Yarit with his careless, profane tongue; Brother Yarit the master thief of the Shahalim Clan. Brother Yarit who had killed Brother Jawal through dishonorable means; Brother Yarit who had sought to flee from Pahrkun’s service.
And yet it was so.
I did not doubt it. While Brother Merik and I went about the business of redistributing our supplies so that we might free up a pack-horse for Brother Yarit to ride, he sat mumbling to himself, sketching in the hard-packed sand with the point of his dagger.
“So if this, then that; but if this, then that.” He shook his head and drew a series of sweeping lines that looked like snakes chasing each other’s tails. “I can’t see it all. It’s too big.”
“What is that?” I asked, hoping to draw him out of his vision and back into the world. Seer or not, we needed him fit to ride. “It looks like Brother Ehudan’s map of the four great currents.”
“It’s too big,” he repeated to himself as though I hadn’t spoken, erasing the drawing with an impatient swipe of his left arm, then slashing at the sand, back and forth, up and down, to create a burst of lines radiating from a single point, which he circled violently. “Miasmus,” he muttered. “The Maw, the Abyss that Abides…” He shook his head again. “No, no, no, too soon.” He pressed the heels of his hands against the sockets of his eyes. “Oh, fuck me!”
I gave up and went to ask Brother Merik if we should butcher the dead horse.
“No.” He tightened a girth strap. “We’ve no room to spare and fresh meat’s like to draw predators. Let the desert take it as an offering to Pahrkun.”
I lowered my voice. “I don’t understand, brother. How can it be … him? Brother Yarit?”
Brother Merik cinched the strap. “I wish I knew, little brother,” he said. “And I wish even more that we could ask Brother Saan. But we must trust that Pahrkun has his reasons.”
I nodded, my throat tightening at the mention of Brother Saan.
“Come,” he said. “We can’t stay here, not atop the burrow of a banded onyx. Help me get Brother Yarit astride.”
It wasn’t easy, but we managed it. Once in the saddle, Brother Yarit sat slumped, his hands lax on the reins, continuing to mutter to himself. Fortunately the pack-horse he now rode was trained to follow and it plodded obediently enough in our wake. In light of what had transpired, Brother Merik pushed us harder than he might have otherwise, anxious to return to the Fortress of the Winds as soon as possible. The night’s chill was not yet so severe that we needed shelter and fire as soon as the sun’s warmth departed, and Nim the Bright Moon was only a week past fullness.
It seemed a great deal longer to me that I had waded into the Eye of Zar and sought the Three-Moon Blessing.
I said as much to Brother Merik when at last we made camp.
“That’s the way of time, Khai,” he said. “According to the marks on a sundial, it all moves apace, but a single heartbeat may seem like an eternity when you’re staring down a banded onyx poised to sting; and a week may pass in the blink of an eye when great events are afoot.”
I wrapped my hands around a battered tin cup filled with mint tea to warm them. Nearby, Brother Yarit tossed and cried out in a restless sleep. He hadn’t acknowledged any offer of food or drink.
“Do you think he’ll be all right?” I asked. “Or has this driven him clean out of his wits?”
“I don’t know, little brother,” Brother Merik murmured. He looked up at the starless sky where Eshen the Wandering Moon now stood overhead, waxing toward half. “They say strange things happen under the Wandering Moon.” He turned his own tin cup in his hands and glanced downward. “You were right. I thought the burden of this gift would fall to me, and I was prepared to bear it. Brother Saan and I did not always agree on your training, but we spoke often of it.”
I was silent a moment. “Before we left … what he said to me, it felt like a farewell blessing. Do you think he knew?”
Brother Merik sighed. “I’m sure of it.” He downed the remains of his tea. “Try to get some sleep.”
I expected Brother Yarit to awaken as strange and addled as he’d been, but somewhere in the small hours of the night he ceased his thrashing and muttering to fall silent, and dawn found him alert and clear-eyed.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he apologized to us, and altho
ugh his clothing was filthy with grime and there were raw gouges on his face, there was something of the bone-deep brightness that had been upon Brother Saan when he descended from the mountain upon him. “It’s just that it came upon me all at once, and … it’s like trying to drink from a torrent in full flood.”
“What did you See?” Brother Merik couldn’t keep a sour note from his voice. “Other than a gift you sought to refuse.”
“You’ve got that right.” Brother Yarit scrubbed at his face with both hands, but in an ordinary way. “Is there tea?” I filled a tin cup and handed it to him. He slurped his tea. “Ah, that’s good.” He took another long drink, his throat working, then lowered the cup. “Look, I know you hoped this gift would pass to you, and believe me, I’d give it to you if I could,” he said to Brother Merik with a hint of undisguised bitterness. “But I can’t. As to what I Saw…” He took a deep breath. “It’s going to take me some time to make sense of it, if that’s even possible. But one thing I do understand is that Elder Brother Saan wasn’t trying to be secretive when he kept his visions to himself. It’s like…” Setting the tin cup on the ground, he raised both hands palm-upward. “Scales.”
“Scales,” Brother Merik echoed.
“Right.” Brother Yarit nodded. “At every crossroads, something hangs in the balance. It might go this way…” He lifted his right palm, then alternated to lift his left. “Or that way.”
Brother Merik frowned. “But surely one outcome is more desirable than another.”
“It may seem that way,” Brother Yarit agreed. “But beyond every crossroad lies another, and another, and another. To use the Sight to attempt to tip the scales in any given instance…” He let both hands fall in a crashing gesture, overturning his cup of tea. “Upsets the balance of everything.”
Spilled tea sank into the sand, making a damp patch.
Brother Saan’s words about my path being filled with strange turns and branchings came back to me. I wished I’d paid greater heed to them.
“Is this…” I cleared my throat. “Is this about me?”
Starless Page 9