“Thank you for the invitation,” said Kyra, torn between amusement and anger. “I will be sure to communicate it to my elders. Is this not the council room?”
They stood at an archway through which Kyra could see a rectangular hall with a long table and map-covered walls. Several women with tense faces stood around the table—the elders of Valavan, Kyra guessed.
She was right; Faran led the way in and introduced her to the council before sitting down at the table and demanding a report from Ishandi, a small, slight woman with a faded air who looked like she might vanish any moment.
“There are more than two hundred fighters, armed and horsed,” whispered Ishandi, her voice so soft that Kyra had to lean forward and strain her ears to hear it. “Two kalashiks, as far as I can judge, and the rest have bows and arrows, spears and clubs. They have set up camp a mile north of us, just beyond the sacred grove.” She paused, and a somber expression crossed her face. “They are cutting the banyan for fuel.”
Faran made a whistling noise between her teeth. “They will pay for this sacrilege with their lives,” she declared. “Each and every one of them.”
“They have posted lookouts, Mother,” said Ishandi in the same barely audible voice. “They will see us approaching in the daylight, but perhaps we can take them down at night, one by one.”
“No,” said Faran. “Not if they have kalashiks. The evil weapons will tell them when we’re close enough to kill. The guns form a bond with their handlers, a sick and twisted version of the bond we ourselves have with our blades.”
Kyra started. How did Faran know so much about the death-sticks? Realization dawned, slow and cold. Rustan had destroyed the Taus’ weapons forge. The only reason Kai Tau would risk dividing his forces at this juncture was if he had the chance to procure more death-sticks. She remembered, now, that Tamsyn had spoken of the dark weapons kept by the Order of Valavan during the Sikandra Fort assembly, just before the duel. How could she have forgotten?
“You have a cache of guns here, don’t you?” she said. “That’s why Kai Tau sent his men to attack the temple.”
“It is not a secret,” said Faran with a cool smile. “We guard the weapons so they do not fall into the wrong hands. Your elders know this, even though they don’t seem to have mentioned it to you.”
The Markswomen turned to stare at her. The weight of their judging looks was crushing, but Kyra refused to bow under it. She sat up straighter and said, “There is much the elders and I have not had time to discuss. I was fighting for my life for several weeks after the duel. There was rather a lot on our minds. But I survived, and I have a plan. A plan that will decimate the outlaws with little danger to you, although the greater danger comes from the guns you hide here.”
“And what is this plan of yours?” asked Faran, ignoring Kyra’s last comment. “Do you propose to decimate the outlaws yourself through some magical strength only you possess?”
Kyra summoned her confidence. “Not by myself,” she said. “But with the help of wyr-wolves.”
There was a small, shocked silence. Help me convince them, Goddess.
“That is the strangest thing I have ever heard,” said a white-haired Markswoman at last. She leaned toward Faran. “I was against going to the Order of Kali from the beginning. They have enough ill luck to poison the whole continent.”
“Such superstition,” said Kyra, keeping her voice calm and cold. “I am surprised at you, Elder. When the time comes to fight, we must use what weapons we have. And I consider the wyr-wolves to be weapons. The kalashiks will ignore their presence. They will sneak up on the guards and overpower them, and that’s when it will be safe for us to move in.”
“And wyr-wolves will do this—why, exactly?” asked Faran, with the air of one who is humoring a child.
“Because I request them to,” said Kyra. “And because you will issue a ban on the hunting and killing of wyr-wolves in your jurisdiction.”
At that, pandemonium broke out across the table. The Valavians leaped to their feet and began to shout at Kyra. One told her she was mad. Another said that she was a demon, in league with evil beasts. Through it all, Faran watched her with thoughtful eyes, not joining the din but not trying to stop it either, as if she was testing Kyra, deciding which side of sanity she was on.
What ended the clamor was not an order by the head of Valavan, but a sudden flurry of activity by the archway of the hall. Kyra recognized the young apprentice who had held open the main door of the Deccan Hub as they exited it.
“Ikana is dead,” the apprentice announced, and burst into tears.
Chapter 25
A Burial and a Promise
The Valavians had not lost a Markswoman in decades. Ikana was precious to them—a gifted elder who had taught the art of camouflage to Ishandi. When the apprentice made her terrible announcement, Faran brought her fist down on the wooden table so hard it cracked. The elders gasped and reeled back as if they had been struck. Ishandi rushed to question the girl, gripping her shoulders with impatience and comforting her at the same time.
Kyra was forgotten. She watched the outpouring of grief and anger, feeling small and insignificant and helpless. This was how it had been when Shirin Mam died. When Ishtul died. There were so few of them left with the gift, every death was a blow that weakened the foundations of the Orders of Asiana. And without the Orders, who would uphold the law? Who would keep the peace? Above all, who would remember the past?
From Ishandi’s questions and the girl’s broken answers, Kyra gathered what had happened. Ikana had been shot; she had managed to make her way back to the base of the temple, and there she had breathed her last, bleeding out her life-force onto the stone steps.
Kyra stood. A part of her railed against what she was about to do. Let them grieve, it said. Have you no shame? But another part knew this was exactly the right time to speak.
“Elders of Valavan,” she said, using the barest hint of the Inner Speech to get their attention. It didn’t work. “ELDERS OF VALAVAN,” she repeated, stronger now, and they turned to her, faces blank with shock.
“Elder Ikana will be avenged,” she continued in a normal voice, holding their gazes with her own. “Every one of the outlaws will die, as Faran Lashail has decreed. This I swear as the Mahimata of Kali and a disciple of the Goddess. But why should we risk the lives of more Markswomen? Let the wyr-wolves help us. They are not evil beasts to be hunted. They are intelligent, self-aware beings. Indeed, they are half-human. I know this because I have spoken with them. Two moons ago I issued an edict to ban the killing of wyr-wolves in the Ferghana Valley. In return, they have sworn to help me fight my enemies.”
Faran Lashail found her voice. “How did you manage to speak with them? And what do you mean, they are half-human?”
Kyra hesitated. She could not tell them about Anant-kal. They would not understand her, and what they could not understand, they would not believe.
“Trust me,” she said at last. “I speak to them in dreams, and they answer. In my dreams, they appear as men. If you will but give me one night, I will ask them to help us defeat the killers of Elder Ikana.”
“Have we come this low, that we should seek the help of animals?” said one of the elders. “I am not afraid of the outlaws or their guns.”
“It is not a question of fear, Elder, but logic,” said Kyra, with as much sincerity as she could muster. “It is time to change if we wish to survive. The wyr-wolves will not do much harm in the Deccan, beyond making off with a goat or two, if you enter into an agreement with them. But those who carry kalashiks are beyond reason, beyond redemption. How many innocent villagers have they killed already? Dozens? Hundreds?”
There was an uneasy pause. Kyra held her breath, hoping against hope they would come around.
“Do it,” said Faran at last. “Speak to your wyr-wolves tonight. Tomorrow night, we will move against the outlaws.”
Kyra bowed, filled with jubilation. “Thank you for the trust you have shown
me. I will not let you down.”
Faran nodded. “Derla will take you to a chamber where you can rest and meditate. This evening, you will join us in bidding farewell to Ikana.”
They filed out in somber silence. Derla led Kyra up a flight of stairs and down several turns of a corridor, stopping at last in front of a carved wooden door.
“We hope you find this room comfortable,” she said. “We do not often have guests.” She pushed open the door to reveal a small, neat room with a large window that let in the afternoon sunlight. A narrow bed with a plain white sheet stood beneath the window. Off to one side was a washbasin, and on the other was a table with a pitcher of water and a plate of what looked like rice, lentils, and potatoes. Kyra’s mouth watered. She had forgotten how hungry she was. The frugal breakfast she’d had with Rustan seemed long ago and far away.
“Please eat and rest,” said Derla. “I will send someone to escort you when it is time for the last rites.”
Kyra thanked her, relieved. There was no way she could navigate the labyrinthine temple on her own. It must take novices several months to learn how to get around unaided. Maybe that was the first test of a Valavian novice—although, come to think of it, Kyra hadn’t seen any novices so far. Perhaps they dwelled in a different part of the vast temple complex.
When Derla had departed, Kyra took off her cloak and washed herself at the basin as best she could. It would have been nice to be able to change into a clean robe that wasn’t torn, but that was a luxury she didn’t have.
She should contact Menadin as soon as possible, but she didn’t feel up to it, not right now, and definitely not on an empty stomach. She dragged the table to the bed and fell to, eating the food with relish even though it was a tad spicier than Tarshana’s cooking.
After eating and drinking her fill, she lay down to rest. But instead of sleep, her thoughts went immediately to Rustan. Her stomach knotted as she remembered how she had left him unmoving on the stone floor. She hoped he had risen by now and recovered from the ordeal she had put him through.
Would he ever recover, though? She had betrayed his trust in the most personal of ways. Adrenaline had carried her through the past few hours so that she hadn’t dwelled too much on it, but now the full horror of her actions sank in. She knew what it felt like to be under Compulsion. Shurik had misused his powers in the Mental Arts to try to force her to run away with him, to leave her blade and her goal of dueling Tamsyn behind.
Rustan had also been without the protection of his katari in the monastery. He must have felt as helpless, angry, and stunned as she had been when Shurik broke the law, broke the faith with her.
She had known precisely what it felt like, and yet she had done the same to Rustan, Rustan who had loved her.
The tears came in earnest then. I’m sorry, she thought, as if he could hear her. If there’s any way to make it up to you, I will.
But there wasn’t, not for something like this, no matter how many penances she gave herself. All she could do was plow ahead and hope the kalishium was worth the crime she had committed. Rustan might never heal from the hurt she had inflicted on him, and that would be her burden to bear.
But on the matter of wyr-wolves, he would approve of what she was trying to do. Of that she was certain. The Order of Khur already believed them to be half-human. It was but one step further to believe that they had once been people and the Ones had made them as they were.
Perhaps he would be a little less angry if she explained she needed to give the wyr-wolves a piece of kalishium to make them remember their history. And perhaps one day, when this was all over, she’d find a way to atone and regain a piece of his trust. Such a beautiful, precious thing, trust, and how easily she had shattered it. The look in his eyes as she had walked away, leaving him bound—but here Kyra found she could not continue, could not bear to remember any more. She closed her eyes and counted her breaths, emptying her mind until her skin cooled and her thoughts drifted away.
The next thing she knew, it was evening, and someone was knocking at the door. She leaped up, guilty at having fallen asleep. Outside, the sun was about to set; the last dying rays of light slanted through the window, turning the room a dusky gold. Kyra pulled on her robe and smoothed her hair, then opened the door to find no fewer than five Valavian Markswomen. Under this stately escort, Kyra climbed up to the higher levels of the temple.
“Where are the last rites held?” she asked.
“On the ninth level, at the very top,” replied one of the Markswomen.
Kyra couldn’t help thinking this was rather inconvenient; they would have had to carry Ikana’s body up several hundred steep steps to get to the top. And what did they do with the body up there? Burning was out of the question; the risk of fire spreading to the temple rooms was too great. Perhaps they had a special tomb on the top level. She couldn’t remember learning about the last rites of the Valavians in Navroz Lan’s class—but then, she had often not paid much attention in History.
She soon found out what the Valavians did—and wished she hadn’t. When they pushed through the trapdoor to the circular rooftop—Kyra huffing and puffing and the Valavians not even out of breath—she saw that Ikana’s body had been placed on top of a flat slab of stone. But the body was no longer whole. It had been hacked to pieces. Kyra’s stomach lurched; she averted her eyes from the horrifying sight, but it was not a thing that could be unseen. She swallowed and took her place in the circle around Ikana.
Faran, dressed in mourning white, held a stick of incense in her hand. It gave off a sweet odor that wafted in the breeze. She began to chant in a language Kyra could not understand. It was not the speech she had heard in the Deccan Hub but something older and more melodic. The incense stick was passed from hand to hand as, one by one, the Valavians prayed over Ikana’s remains.
And that was it. At a nod from Faran, the Markswomen lined up to descend through the trapdoor. Kyra contrived to place herself beside Derla and whispered, “What will happen now?”
Derla was unable to conceal her surprise at Kyra’s ignorance. “The vultures will eat the flesh,” she whispered back. “That is why the body has been disassembled. When only the bones are left, we will ground them with flour and offer them to the crows that patiently wait for the vultures to leave.”
Kyra suppressed a shudder. But truly, what did it matter what you did with a body? The spirit had gone, leaving an empty house behind. Bury it or burn it or feed it to the birds—it was all one to the departed soul.
Mulling over this, she found her way back to her chamber with Derla’s assistance. She refused the invitation to join them for the evening meal. She had eaten enough; any more and she may not be able to detach from her physical self and enter Anantkal. As it was, she found it difficult to sink into the second-level meditative trance. It was even harder to find the bridge to Anant-kal. She wandered in the fog of the trance, willing her blade to light the way.
But her blade seemed uncertain and subdued. She bent her mind to it and imagined the door that would take her to the Shining City. At long last, it complied. She rushed through the rectangular opening of light before it could fade and found herself in the familiar landscape of Anant-kal: the grassy cliff, the cobweb bridge curving over the gloomy chasm to the other side, the tall towers, the white domes.
But something was wrong with the once-beautiful city. As Kyra crossed the bridge, taking care not to look down, it seemed to her as if the buildings faded in and out of view, too quickly for her mind to process. From the corner of her eye, they appeared to shimmer, winking in and out of existence. When she looked straight at something, it just hurt, as if she was trying to look at the sun.
It made her head spin, and after a while she gave up trying to observe the shifting landscape. She made her way down the road to one of the walled gardens. Even the flowers and fountains appeared fuzzy at the edges. She sat against a wall that seemed solid enough and hoped Menadin would be along soon. He would be able to tell her wh
at was wrong with Anant-kal . . . although she suspected she knew the answer.
When Menadin finally appeared, she felt a rush of relief. He wasn’t faded at the edges like everything else. But he’d gone thinner, and there was a red scar on his neck that hadn’t been there before.
“What happened?” she blurted out.
“What do you mean? Oh, this little scratch.” He gave a feral grin. “Why, Kyra Veer, one would almost think you were concerned about my well-being.”
Kyra crossed her arms. “Of course I am concerned. You are my ally in the fight against the outlaws of Asiana.”
“Oh, is that all?” he said, mocking her. “And here I was thinking you had finally succumbed to my many charms.” He held up a massive, hairy hand, forestalling her. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “Just putting a cub in his place. As the leader of the Vulon pack, I do get challenged from time to time. Especially now that I have forbidden my pack from going near humans and their herds. My people are hungry, and game is scarce.”
“I don’t think we would begrudge you a sheep or two,” said Kyra, choosing her words with care. “Just don’t hurt any humans.”
“Humans often protect their herds with their lives. They try to fight us with their puny weapons, even though they know how pointless it is.” He shook his shaggy head. “We will try to stay out of sight.”
“I will instruct the clans to offer compensation to those who lose their livestock to wyr-wolves,” said Kyra. “That should reduce the potential for conflict.” She waved a hand around them. “But what is happening here? The city looks like it’s fading.”
Mahimata Page 18