Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  The supplicant fell heavily to the floor of the cavern, his blade beneath him. He scrabbled at the ground with his elbows and knees, trying to regain his feet, but there was a pool of blood spreading across the stone. I hooked one foot beneath him and rolled him onto his back, which was a good deal harder than it sounds. He was a big man, but he was a dying man now.

  He did not attempt to rise again, only lay breathing in short, quick gasps. The warm breath of the desert whispered in the entrance to the Hall of Proving. “Do you hear that?” I stood over him and placed the point of my kopar on his breastbone. “Pahrkun is calling your name.”

  His only reply was to bare his teeth at me in a grimace. There was blood staining them, too.

  I drove the point home, and he died. Slow blood continued to seep from his wounds, his empty eyes staring.

  It was finished. The Trial of Pahrkun was over.

  I emerged from the Hall of Proving to inform Brother Yarit. The strangeness of the Sight had passed from him, but he still looked unwontedly grave. “Well done, Khai,” he said to me. “The shades of his dead will rest easier tonight.”

  There would be no funeral bier for a supplicant who had failed the Trial of Pahrkun. His body was thrown into a gorge, the distant floor littered with the old bones of other supplicants who had failed over the centuries.

  The king’s guardsmen dined with us that night as they had when Brother Yarit had come to us. Despite what he had said about people covering for their own, none chosen for this escort detail seemed to mourn the passing of their brother-in-arms. Indeed, there were a few who took a certain grim satisfaction in the manner of his passing, especially after they prevailed upon me to recount the details of our brief battle. “Kneed him right in the bollocks!” One of the guards elbowed the fellow next to him. “If that’s not fitting, I don’t know what is, eh?”

  I frowned in confusion, unsure what he meant. “Why?”

  The guard blinked at me. “Well, because he was buggering—”

  “Cease.” Brother Merik’s voice held a warning note. “We do not speak of a man’s sins here. There is only the Trial. If a supplicant succeeds, he is scoured of his sins; if he fails, then we may know Pahrkun the Scouring Wind has passed judgment on him and speak no more of it.”

  “It’s just … Sun-Blessed shadow or not, he’s a kid! That’s fitting, right?” the guard protested. “Isn’t that why you chose him?”

  “Khai was the Seer’s choice to stand first post today,” Brother Merik said. “And the Seer chooses as either wisdom or Pahrkun’s guidance dictates.” He glanced at Brother Yarit, who was paying scant heed to the conversation. “Is that not so, Elder Brother?”

  “What’s that?” Brother Yarit’s head slewed around. “Oh, yes. You know, it’s a funny business, the Sight,” he said in a conversational manner. “It’s not like watching players on a stage act out a story, you see; it comes in bits and pieces. Sometimes images of people and places and things that are happening or might happen, but sometimes nothing more than words and impressions. Sometimes not even that, sometimes just symbols. And it’s hard to tell when you’re Seeing, or whether a thing might actually happen or not, because so much depends on everything else.”

  There was a moment of silence around the table. It was probably a great deal more than any Seer had ever said regarding the gift to outsiders in the history of the brotherhood; it was surely a great deal more candid.

  But then I doubted there had ever been a Seer as conflicted at being chosen as Brother Yarit.

  “So … what did you see, Elder Brother?” one of the guards inquired with cautious curiosity.

  “Dead children.” Brother Yarit fixed him with a bleak look. Atop the table, he drummed and twitched the fingers of his left hand restlessly. “But I’m not supposed to talk about that, am I?”

  Awkward glances were exchanged. I watched Brother Yarit’s left hand and did a surreptitious survey to see if anyone else was doing the same. Although he had not yet taught it to me, I remembered Brother Yarit mentioning that the Shahalim had a secret language of hand signs. I didn’t catch anyone out at it, but I had a strong sense my hunch was right. Brother Yarit wasn’t given to drumming his fingers.

  And if I was right, that meant one of the guards was a member of the Shahalim. It seemed the Seer’s former clan had not forsaken him after all.

  Brother Yarit cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Forgive me, it’s been a trying day. I think it’s best if I retire for the evening.”

  “I think it’s best if we all retire, Elder Brother.” Brother Merik sounded relieved to have an excuse to disperse this particular gathering. “It’s growing late and our guests have a long journey ahead of them.”

  In my chamber, I waited until I could hear neither footsteps nor words carried on the night winds that soughed through the halls and caverns. It was pitch black in the fortress when I slipped out of my chamber and I dared not light a torch, but crept soundlessly in the dark through the labyrinth of halls toward the empty cavern on one of the lower levels where guests bunked. Outside the entrance, I made myself small in a shallow, rocky alcove.

  I could have been wrong, of course; and even if I was right about the hand signs, I could be wrong that they betokened a clandestine meeting. I was only guessing, but it was a guess informed by the training of a man who taught me to be observant.

  I waited.

  By my reckoning, the better part of an hour passed before I heard the faintest scrape of sandy grit displaced by a near-silent footfall. If I hadn’t been straining my ears, I wouldn’t have heard it at all. Although I could not see in the dark, the wind currents in the passageway eddied.

  I rose and stole noiselessly in their wake.

  One turn, then another and another, and I knew that we were bound for the Dancing Bowl. I hung back, letting the stealthy figure precede me. His pace quickened as he glimpsed moonlight beyond the opening before him. I waited until he emerged into the Dancing Bowl, then put my back against the wall of the broad tunnel and sidled through the shadows. Only Eshen the Wandering Moon was full in the night sky overhead, but after the total blackness of the fortress, it was easy to see in the dim bluish light that she shed upon the land, and I made out the shape of Brother Yarit waiting in the moon-shadow of the stone bridge.

  The guard crossed to greet him, and the two of them clasped forearms in a familiar manner. “It’s good to see you, Amal,” Brother Yarit murmured. “Were you able to do as I asked?”

  The other glanced behind him. “The shadows have ears, cousin.”

  With a silent curse, I plastered myself tighter against the wall.

  “Khai!” Brother Yarit called. “It’s all right, you can come out. Come, meet my kinsman.”

  I waited for the space of a few heartbeats before emerging sheepishly into the moonlight. “What was it that gave me away?”

  “Your footwork was excellent.” Brother Yarit’s cousin looked much like him, which was to say ordinary; there was nothing in his features one would remark on, and I could not even recall where he’d been sitting at the dinner table. “But you were careless with your breathing.”

  “You’re Shahalim?” I asked.

  He did not answer.

  “I called in a favor,” Brother Yarit said. “More than one, actually, but I was owed a few. Did it pay off?”

  “Not easily.” His cousin withdrew a small wooden box from a purse hanging from his sash and handed it over. “But yes, it did.”

  “Ah.” Brother Yarit lifted the lid of the box. Soft amber-gold light emanated from it. He beckoned to me. “Do you know what this is, Khai?” I shook my head, peering into the box. There on a cushion of satin rested a single teardrop-shaped gem the rich honey-colored hue of the light it emitted, no bigger than the nail of my littlest finger.

  “No, Elder Brother,” I said honestly. “I’ve no idea. Should I?”

  “I suppose not,” Brother Yarit admitted. “No reason you would. It’s a piec
e of amber from the Lone Tree of the Barren Isle, which produces a single drop of resin every century. It takes another five centuries to harden into stone.”

  “Long ago, it belonged to a famous courtesan-queen of Barakhar,” his cousin Amal added. “According to legend, she once took a thousand lovers over the course of a single year.”

  I was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know.” Brother Yarit replaced the lid, extinguishing the gem’s soft golden glow. Now there was only the lone full moon overhead, Eshen the Wandering Moon, mother of the dark-shrouded Miasmus, her dim blue light making indigo hollows of his eyes. “Khai … there is a thing I must tell you. Our success in procuring this gem, I think, is a sign that it is so. But not here, not tonight.” He took a deep breath. “Tomorrow at midday, we will meet in the Seer’s chamber and speak, you and I. Tell no one what you saw tonight.”

  I saluted him; what else was I to do? “Yes, Elder Brother.”

  TWELVE

  My sleep that night was restless, filled with swords and shadows, glowing gems and the faces of dead boys.

  I awoke feeling strange to myself. The king’s guardsmen took their leave, and neither Brother Yarit nor his cousin gave the slightest indication of knowing each other. It almost seemed I might have dreamed the encounter. Yet I had not, which meant I was keeping a secret from the rest of the brotherhood, and that was an uncomfortable thought. But Brother Drajan had carried letters to Merabaht; surely the appearance of Brother Yarit’s cousin and the mysterious gem he brought could not be unrelated.

  So perhaps the senior members of the brotherhood knew after all, or at least knew more than anyone was saying.

  My mind chased itself in circles trying to guess what Brother Yarit meant to impart to me. Brother Ehudan chided me for inattentiveness during our morning lesson. It made me careless in a sparring match and I ceded first blood to Brother Hakan, who caught me wrong-footing a turn and scored my backside with the central tine of his kopar. He teased me for it until I was very nearly ready to throttle him. Another day, the teasing would not have stung so much, and I understood that Brother Hakan was envious that I’d taken his post yesterday, but today, it was nigh unbearable. Although I had been trained to be patient, it seemed like midday would never come.

  When at last it did, I presented myself at the entrance to the Seer’s chamber. Brother Yarit was there, and Brother Merik, too. Three carpets had been laid out in a formal arrangement, a tea service in the center.

  “Come in,” Brother Yarit said to me, pouring a cup of tea. “Sit.”

  I entered warily and accepted the tea. “Have I done something wrong, Elder Brother?” I hesitated. “Is this about last night?”

  “No.” Brother Yarit folded his hands in his lap. “I thought someone who’d known you since you were a babe should be present for this discussion, so I asked Brother Merik. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I held my tea untasted. “No, of course not.”

  They exchanged a glance, and Brother Merik inclined his head slightly to Brother Yarit, who sighed and rubbed his hands over his face before returning them to his lap. “Khai … do you know what it means to be bhazim?”

  I shook my head. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I’d never heard the word, but a feather of memory brushed my thoughts. Night and the desert, voices heard half-asleep.

  … has he been cut yet?

  Khai is bhazim.

  Does he know?

  No.

  It was midday and wind-still; not a breeze was stirring, and it was hot and stifling in the Seer’s chamber. Nonetheless, I felt a chill, the sweat on my skin turning cold. “What does it mean?” I whispered.

  Brother Merik took pity on Brother Yarit and answered. “It’s a very old practice, Khai. I cannot speak to how it is in the city or the coastal villages, but in the desert, sons are prized above daughters. Sons grow up to become warriors and bestow honor upon the clan. Daughters are expensive; daughters require dowries. A man without sons is to be pitied. A woman without sons is reckoned less than a woman.”

  No.

  I did not understand what he was saying, did not want to understand. “What has this to do with me?”

  They exchanged another glance.

  “Sometimes a couple that has borne no sons will declare one of their daughters to be bhazim, an honorary boy,” Brother Merik said in a gentle tone. “The child will be raised as a boy, dressed as a boy—”

  “It’s much the same in the city,” Brother Yarit interrupted him. “I don’t know about the villages.”

  Brother Merik ignored the interruption. “Sometimes a couple will conceive a son within a few years and declare their bhazim child a girl again. Sometimes—”

  “I don’t care about that!” I shouted at him, slamming down my cup of tea. “What are you saying? Are you telling me that I’m bhazim? Why? I’m pledged to the Brotherhood of Pahrkun! How can I not be a boy? I don’t even know my parents! Why would they care if I were a son or a daughter?”

  “Khai, be calm and listen,” he said.

  “No.” I was on my feet with no memory of having risen, pacing the Seer’s chamber. “No, no, no!”

  “It wasn’t your parents, Khai,” Brother Yarit said to me. “It was Brother Saan’s decision.”

  That brought me up short. “Brother Saan? Why?”

  “All of us men, and none of us blood-kin to you? No one knew how else to raise you without dishonor in the brotherhood,” Brother Merik said simply. “There’s never been a female shadow before; nor a shadow born to a female member of the Sun-Blessed.”

  Brother Yarit’s expression was sympathetic. “I can’t tell you what Brother Saan may have Seen, Khai. It’s in the past.”

  I stared at my hands as though they were a stranger’s. They were strong and sinewy and callused, but they were slender. A boy’s hands, I’d thought; hands that would lengthen and broaden into a man’s when I came of age.

  No.

  A girl’s hands.

  I clenched them into fists. “So you’re telling me that I’m a girl?”

  “We are telling you that you’re bhazim, Khai,” Brother Merik said. “In the tribes, yes, most bhazim choose to live as women when they come of age. Not all. Some choose to remain bhazim.”

  I looked at Brother Yarit. “But I’ll never be a grown man.”

  He did not equivocate. “No.”

  Now I was no longer chilled. Instead, it felt hot and claustrophobic in the Seer’s chamber, and my skin was too tight. I plucked at my clothing. “So what … by all the fallen stars, what happens when I do come of age?” I remembered a snatch of their conversation I’d overheard with horror, unwanted tears stinging my eyes. “Ah, no! Will I sprout tits like a milking goat?”

  Brother Merik flushed to the roots of his grizzled hair.

  “No.” Brother Yarit rose and laid firm hands on my shoulders, grounding me. “Your body will change, yes. But I promise, you won’t sprout tits like a milking goat.”

  I gazed at him through my tears. “I don’t want this, Elder Brother! If I won’t grow into a man, I don’t want my body to change!”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, kid. Nature will take its course whether you like it or not. But look, it’s not all bad. If you were born with a boy’s kit and tackle, you wouldn’t be able to serve as the princess’s shadow without having your privy bits lopped off.”

  I looked blankly at him. “What?”

  Brother Yarit gave my shoulders a little shake. “Ah, come on! I know the brotherhood’s been careful about protecting your innocence, but you’ve seen plenty a pizzle and bollocks on livestock, haven’t you? Did you really think human males were any different?”

  “No.” I remembered the sensation of my knee connecting with spongy flesh at the supplicant’s groin yesterday. “I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

  “Well, trust me, if you had ’em, you wouldn’t want to lose ’em,” he said. “Better bhazim than a eunuch.”


  Although I could tell it was meant to comfort me, it did not. I backed away from him, wrapping my arms around myself. “Why did you lie to me? Why did you all lie to me?”

  Brother Yarit angled his head toward Brother Merik, clearly unwilling to take the blame for that decision. “No one meant to lie to you,” the latter said quietly. “Khai … we meant to raise a warrior.”

  “But you did lie to me,” I whispered. “All of you.”

  Brother Yarit took a step toward me. “Khai—”

  “No.” I backed farther away from him toward the entrance. “I’ve heard enough. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Khai, listen—” Brother Merik began.

  Brother Yarit raised his hand. “Let him go.”

  I fled.

  Half-blind with tears of grief and fury, I blundered through the halls of the fortress, emerging from one of the eastern egresses. The sun was high overhead and the sky was a hard blue tinged with bronze, the kind of sky that promised a sandstorm in the offing. I ran along the ridge of the mountain range that held the Fortress of the Winds, ran beneath the hard blue sky, scrambling over crags, up and down peaks, loose rocks sliding beneath my bare feet; ran until my breath was sobbing in my lungs and it felt as though my pounding heart would burst through my ribcage.

  I ran until I could run no farther, and flung myself to the ground atop a high plateau.

  Bhazim.

  I could not run away from the word. I could not run away from the thing I was.

  Bit by bit, my heart ceased its pounding and my breathing slowed. I rolled onto my back and shielded my eyes from the sun’s glare with my right forearm. Behind my closed eyelids, I saw red.

  I was not a boy.

  I would never be a man.

  The unfairness of it was so vast I could not encompass it. I wished Brother Saan were alive, so I might ask him why. Oh, I supposed I could come to understand the decision in time, but why did he not tell me the truth? Why did they lie to me? Now I knew; and yet, I did not know who I was anymore.