His penance had begun.
Chapter 2
Samsarandev
Kyra woke cold and in pain. The candle had burned down, leaving her in the complete darkness of her cell. She sat up, wincing, and touched the bandage beneath her right breast. Damp again. She would have to ask Elena to change it.
Why would the wound not heal? Kyra could feel every suture that Navroz Lan, the eldest of the elders of Kali, had stitched to close it. Her chest hurt as if she carried live coals within; Tamsyn’s blade had missed her lungs and heart but torn open the muscles of her chest wall. “Rest,” Eldest had advised, “and all will be well.”
Kyra was tired of resting. How long since her duel with Tamsyn in the Hall of Sikandra? A month? Two months? A year had ended, and another had begun. But time lost its meaning in the winter gloom of the caves of Kali. Outside, the Ferghana Valley lay buried in snow—a world of ghostly black and white that yielded nothing. Spring was a distant dream.
She hauled herself up, suppressing a groan. No one rushed to her; Elena must have gone to her own cell to sleep.
No matter, she would go out. Perhaps the cold wind would drive away the remnants of the dreams she’d had. Dreams of doors, blood spilled, and lives brutally cut short. Dreams of a man whose face was hidden from her, but whom she knew with cold certainty was Kai Tau, the butcher of her clan. He waits for you, all these long years, to free him from the evil he has done. Not until you kill him will he know any rest. So Astinsai, the seer and katari mistress of Khur, had told her. The old woman was one of the few people alive who could forge kataris from the kalishium that the Ones had left behind when they went back to the stars. Perhaps that was where her power came from—the power to see truths veiled from others.
Kyra pulled a cloak around her shoulders and stumbled out of the cell, guided by the light of a sconce in the corridor. She inched her way along the passage until she arrived at the vast, torch-lit cavern that formed the heart of the caves of Kali. All the sacred rites were held in this immense, light-filled space. On the walls danced Kali the demon-slayer, brandishing her elongated sword. In the middle was the raised central slab where pupils lay for the ceremony that marked their transition from apprentice to Markswoman. It seemed but a short while ago that Kyra herself had lain on it while the elders surrounded her, murmuring blessings. She had seen a vision of Tara then, the maternal aspect of the Goddess Kali: a blue-skinned four-armed woman with a garland of skulls around her neck, wearing a wolfskin skirt. The same vision had come to her when she lay bleeding in the Hall of Sikandra, Tamsyn’s blade draining her of life.
Her throat tightened at the memory, and she reached for the katari that hung in a scabbard around her neck. Calm warmth emanated from it, and Kyra relaxed. She was going to be all right. She had to believe that.
She made for the tunnel that led out of the caves but hesitated. What if Ria Farad was on guard duty tonight? Her ears were sharper than a vixen’s. She would make Kyra go back to her cell, perhaps even wake one of the elders to make sure that Kyra obeyed. But Kyra didn’t want to lie down again. She was sick of her bed, sick of this restlessness that allowed her no peace.
Her gaze went to the private passage that led to the Mahimata’s cell—the cell that would now be empty.
Mother, I miss you so much.
She needed to see Shirin Mam again. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and ducked into the corridor, hoping none of the elders were up and about. Torches mounted on the wall to her right threw a wavering light on the portraits that hung opposite: each of the Mahimatas who had ruled the Order of Kali since it was founded more than seven hundred years ago. Kyra limped along, ignoring the throbbing in her chest, until she reached the last portrait.
Shirin Mam.
The pain of her wound receded. Kyra reached forward and brushed her fingertips against the cool hardness of the panel.
“Why did you die?” she whispered. Her whisper echoed down the passage—why, why, why.
Because it was time.
Kyra started. The voice of her teacher, silent for so long, filled her with longing and sadness. Shirin Mam was dead. Nothing could change that. She would never teach another class, choose a novice, or train a new Markswoman. There was no one left for Kyra to call Mother. There never would be again.
Stay alive, Rustan had told her, but there were times in the past few weeks when she wished she had not. Returning to the Order of Kali had not been the homecoming she’d yearned for. Everything felt wrong. The duel with Tamsyn had not brought her peace. It had accomplished nothing except to fill the Ferghana Valley with rumors of witchcraft and black magic.
And her dear friend Nineth was gone, vanished from the caves of Kali. Tamsyn had claimed to have killed her, to have starved her to death. Nineth of the crumpled robes and cheerful smile, who loved good things to eat and hated being alone.
It was her fault, whatever had happened to Nineth. If she hadn’t taken off with Shirin Mam’s blade, if Nineth had not tried to follow her, if, if, if . . .
Kyra turned away from Shirin Mam’s smiling face. The Mahimata’s cell was dark. Why had no one thought to light a candle in it? Just because Shirin Mam was dead did not mean there should be no light in her cell. She would give the novices an earful tomorrow.
She went inside and felt for the candelabra on Shirin Mam’s massive oak desk, then scrabbled around in a drawer until she found the stubs of three candles. She returned to the passage, sweating and trembling with the exertion, and lit the candles with the help of a torch. Then she inserted them carefully in the candelabra and stepped back into the cell.
In the flickering light, Kyra could see Tamsyn had left no mark of her hateful presence in this place; it was Shirin Mam’s still, from the ebony chest in the corner to the piles of aging, yellowed books and scrolls on the shelves. It gladdened her, which was absurd. It was not as though either woman would ever come back to this room.
She placed the candelabra on the desk and frowned. A single item rested on its surface, and it was a curious one: a slim, rectangular package tied with string. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. It felt like a sheaf of parchment wrapped in linen. A letter of some sort? But there was nothing written on the package, no name to indicate who it was for. Had it been left by Shirin Mam or Tamsyn? Why had no one opened it?
It can be opened only by you.
Kyra dropped the package in shock. After a moment, she managed a smile, even as her pulse raced. “Keep doing that, Mother,” she murmured, “even if it stops my heart each time.” She traced the linen with her fingertips. Did this package contain the answers to some of her questions? It was naive, but she had long clung to the hope that Shirin Mam might have left explanations or instructions, a safeguard in case of her untimely death.
Kyra’s skin prickled with excitement. With shaking hands, she withdrew her katari and sliced open the strings that held the package together.
Two letters slipped out. She laid them on the candlelit desk and read the names written in Shirin Mam’s elegant hand.
The first: Rustan.
The second: Kyra.
Kyra picked up the letter addressed to Rustan and fingered it, resisting the impulse to tear it open. Resisting the emotions that threatened to choke her.
She missed him with an ache that was sharper, deeper than the wound from Tamsyn’s blade. She also hated him for stirring these feelings in her, for not being there when she woke at last in her cell after weeks of being trapped in a fevered delirium.
But why should he be there? His place was with his Order. Even had he wanted to, the elders of Khur would not have allowed him to come to her.
Not that he would have wanted to.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and turned her attention back to the letter. It was bulky, tied with jute string. She burned to know what it said. At least she now had a good excuse to find him. She would throw the letter in his face and punch him in the jaw. No, she would be cold and polite. He woul
d thank her for the letter, and she would thank him for practicing katari-play with her in preparation for the duel with Tamsyn. Then she would turn around to leave and he would say: Wait, Kyra. But she wouldn’t wait, she’d walk away from there, leaving him pleading and desperate.
She shook her head, almost laughing at her foolishness. She was back where she belonged, and so was he. She was not going to Khur. There was no point in thinking about it.
Kyra picked up the other letter. With some trepidation—and not a small degree of anticipation—she slit it open.
A single piece of parchment fell out. She gazed at it, frustration churning and building within her until she thought she would explode.
Nothing of help was written on the page, no warm words of guidance, or even sharp ones of admonishment. Instead, there was just an ink drawing. It was a strange picture, vaguely familiar. A woman with rippling black hair held a long, slim blade over the bent heads of a row of kneeling men and women. Kyra gritted her teeth. Trust Shirin Mam to leave her with a riddle. She wanted to tear the parchment into tiny bits and fling them at Shirin Mam’s beatific portrait.
She studied the drawing again. The image reminded her of something she had seen once before. But where?
The answer came to Kyra in a flash. This was one of the symbols she had seen in Anant-kal, the world beyond time. After her death, Shirin Mam had summoned Kyra there and given her a last lesson in words of power—words in the ancient tongue that could, when spoken correctly, shape reality to Kyra’s will. They had walked down a vast hall studded with carved pillars. Commit the images on the pillars to memory, Shirin Mam had told her, and the words associated with them will come to mind.
The word of power associated with this image was . . .
“Samsarandev.”
It fell from her lips before she realized she had said it. In an instant, the candles flickered out. Darkness pressed in around her, and then she felt a weight on her head, as of a heavy crown. She stifled a scream, remembering that this was how it had been in Anant-kal too, when she had practiced this word of power. Breathing shallowly, she focused her thoughts. If she could tether herself to the present, she could return to it.
The Mahimata’s cell. The candles on the desk. The letters, one for me and one for Rustan.
Kyra returned to the candlelit cell, bent double and gasping with effort. Her wound throbbed with each beat of her heart. She straightened up, trying to slow her pulse. Nothing moved except the shadows on the walls. Everything was as it had been.
No, not quite. The parchment with the ink drawing had disappeared from Shirin Mam’s desk. All that remained was a smear of ash, a whiff of smoke.
Kyra leaned against the desk. The tearing pain in her chest sharpened and she suddenly felt faint. Now would be a good time to return to her cell. She picked up the letter for Rustan and tucked it into her pocket, then made her way back down the passage, staggering against the wall, concentrating all her energy on staying upright.
But in the central cavern, she stumbled to a stop. The four elders of Kali stood in a row, waiting. When they saw her, they bowed deeply.
It was only then she realized the enormity of what she’d done.
Chapter 3
The Dark of His Mind
He was a Marksman. No, he was not. He had a blade. No, he did not.
Rustan hummed, trying to block out the voices in his mind. They had started their clamoring as soon as he rode out of Khur on his camel, Basil. He had to exert every ounce of self-control to quiet them. It was worst in his unguarded moments: when he was thinking of Kyra, or—like now—trying to sleep.
Above Rustan stretched the dark bowl of the desert sky, pricked with stars. He was alone in the heart of the Empty Place, many miles from the nearest oasis.
He leaned back against Basil’s flank, the sand cold and soft beneath him. It had seemed like a good idea to stop and rest for a while. If only he could sleep for a few hours without dreams of any kind: dreams of Kyra, dreams of his katari . . .
As if he had willed it, his katari was suddenly in his hand. Rustan jerked up and gaped at the familiar old leather scabbard. Fingers trembling, he withdrew the blade from its sheath. It winked and shone in the muted starlight.
He laughed out loud, the sound echoing around the dunes, as he caressed the smooth grip. It had returned to him. And by all that was holy, he would never give it up again.
But as he held it, the blade began to change. Cracks appeared on its surface, dark threads of malevolence spreading along the edges.
No, it was not possible. Kalishium, the alien metal with which the blades of all kataris were forged, was unchangeable, immutable.
The cracks deepened, and the blade broke apart in his hand. The shards crumbled to dust, and the dust blew away in the wind.
Rustan leaped to his feet and scrabbled at the air. Tears burned his eyes.
The voices in his mind rose to an unbearable shriek:
He was a Marksman. No, he was not. He had a blade. No, he did not. He was alive. No, he was not.
Rustan dropped to his knees and pressed his hands to his head. This time there was no controlling them. The voices had taken over his mind, and he had to fight not to scream, not to give in to panic, to madness.
He crawled to his knapsack and groped for the black scabbard he had concealed within it. Yes, there it was. Shirin Mam’s blade. He clutched it to his chest, rocking back and forth. The voices slowly faded, and he exhaled, wiping the sweat from his brow with an unsteady hand.
His mother’s katari was a talisman, a gift of light in the dark insanity of the world, one he did not deserve. But it had passed from Kyra’s guardianship to his own, and he would not relinquish it to anyone. Not until it made its will known.
Meanwhile, he would be grateful it was keeping him alive.
He wrapped himself in a blanket and leaned back once more against Basil’s warm flank. He closed his eyes, but sleep did not come, despite his exhaustion. He breathed deep and slow, trying to relax, focusing on the comforting weight of the ancient katari against his chest.
You will have need of me before you are done.
He had met his mother only once, nearly fifteen years ago, and he remembered the wintry morning with the sharp, painful clarity such memories often acquire. He had been summoned to the courtyard of the fort of Chinoor to meet a visitor. He had grown up in the fort, in the heartland of the Pusht clan that dominated the western foothills of the Hindukush, playing with other children whom he called “cousins.” He’d always known that he was adopted. It had never mattered, until that day.
He had walked to the courtyard in the bitter dawn, when icicles hung from the eaves and snow crunched underfoot. The visitor stood cloaked and hooded in the middle of the space, under the bare branches of an ash tree.
He had come up to her, puzzled and shy and shivering, and made some sort of greeting. She had answered in kind, then thrown back her hood and clasped his hand. When they touched, he had known at once who she was. Perhaps she told him in some way without words.
At first Rustan was too stunned to take it in, to understand what she was saying. “I am so happy to see you,” she’d said, smiling with a warmth and an affection that had pierced him to his core. “But you must be ready to leave. The Maji-khan of Khur will come for you soon, and then our paths may not cross again.”
When he found his voice, it had been to weep, to question why she had left him. She gazed back at him with calm eyes and explained that she had done the right thing and one day he would see that it was so. She wore her serenity like armor that nothing could cut through, not his shouting, not his pleas. She said, quite simply, that she loved him. She leaned down to kiss his cheek, her breath warm on his skin. He turned away from her, silent and full of hate.
“One day,” she said, “I will acknowledge you to the world.” Then she was gone, back to the horse waiting outside.
Mother, I don’t hate you anymore.
Such a foolish thin
g, anger. It had kept him away from the only woman who could have answered the questions that haunted him. Now it was too late.
Rustan fell at last into a troubled and restless sleep. When he woke the next day, his mouth was dry and his tongue swollen. The harsh glare of the sun pierced the leafless branches of the dead, dry trees beneath which he had curled up. All around, the heat rose in shimmering waves from the sands. He took a few careful swallows from the waterskin tied to Basil’s saddle and got to his feet, trying to get his bearings.
To the north was Khur, the home he had left behind. To the east and west lay the open desert, though he would come upon oasis towns sooner or later in both directions.
To the south were the blurred outlines of the distant Kunlun Shan Range. Far, impossibly far. If he hadn’t known of them, he would have thought them a mirage, a trick of the desert light. He had never traveled south before and knew of no oasis town that lay in this direction.
Penance was not about taking the easiest route. Rustan took another swallow from the depleted waterskin and made up his mind. He would go south to Kunlun Shan.
The next day, his water ran out. Desperate, he stopped Basil by one of the thick, spiny plants that dotted the landscape and cut off its top with his mother’s blade. He chewed the pulp, careful not to swallow, while trying to suck out all the moisture he could find before spitting it out.
He repeated the exercise until his mouth was on fire from the acid taste of the thorny plant. It did nothing to quench his thirst.
That night, there was a firestorm that lasted well over an hour, brilliant streaks of white light radiating out from the sky until his wondering eyes ached from watching. A part of Rustan’s mind, the part that was untouched by the heat, the wind, and the raging thirst, thought that it was worth dying to have seen this. The words of an old, unknown song drifted through his mind:
He will ride through a firestorm
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