by Ginn Hale
“I’m telling you,” Nestor gazed at Kiram over the rims of his spectacles, “Calixto Tornesal is the one to write about.”
“Everyone writes about Calixto.”
“That’s because everyone wants to pass the class.”
“I know. But honestly, what’s left to say about Calixto? He killed two of his own cousins in duels, opened the white hell, killed every Mirogoth within a hundred miles, fathered a son, and then killed himself. Every other action he took seemed to be killing.”
Nestor shrugged and studied his drawing, then he glanced back up at Kiram. “You think Javier wrote about him when he took the class?”
“No, he probably wrote about the nation’s brief but shining romance with hard-ball candy, or something.”
“You think?” Nestor asked. “That almost sounds…you know…obscene.”
“Yes, then I’m positive that’s what he wrote about.”
Javier loved to provoke the people around him. His jokes could turn quite cruel if he disliked the person, particularly another student. Often Master Ignacio and other instructors turned a blind eye. They expected malice and audacity from Javier; after all, he had no soul.
“Oh, speaking of candy.” Nestor interrupted Kiram’s thoughts. “You don’t have any more of those delicious apple candies left, do you?”
“Dozens.” Kiram handed one of the gold candies to Nestor.
“I’d write an essay on these if I knew anything about them,” Nestor commented as he sucked on the candy.
“I’d tell you everything I know but it isn’t much.” Kiram scanned through a long description of dice tricks Calixto Tornesal could preform. “My mother will only share her recipes with my sister.”
“That’s stupid, isn’t it?” Nestor asked. “You’re the one who will be inheriting the business, aren’t you?”
“No. We Haldiim pass property and businesses through the women. So my eldest sister will take over the candy shop after my mother.”
“Doesn’t that leave you out in the cold, then?”
“My father has money of his own that he gives to us boys but eventually I’ll have to support myself.”
“Or marry a rich wife,” Nestor suggested, though even as he said it he frowned slightly as if the idea sounded wrong even to him.
“I’m planning on supporting myself.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Nestor agreed. “Not that you couldn’t attract a wife, but you know, if it didn’t work out…”
“I understand,” Kiram assured Nestor. “It’s best to be able to take care of yourself.”
Nestor nodded and Kiram returned to his fruitless research. Now and then he glanced up to watch Nestor fill out the details of Calixto Tornesal’s cold expression and shining armor.
It was only later that day, as Kiram watched Javier flip through the pages of hellscript that filled his ancestor’s diary, that Kiram wondered what Javier actually thought of Calixto Tornesal’s decision to bind his bloodline to the white hell.
For the rest of the students, Calixto’s decision was only relevant as history. His defeat of the Mirogoths made dramatic fodder for an essay, probably for hundreds of essays. But for Javier, Calixto’s actions had personal ramifications. They bequeathed both burden and power to him even before he had been conceived. The very core of Javier’s identity seemed forged by the hell-brand his ancestor had taken a hundred years before. Kiram couldn’t imagine what it would be like for Javier to know that there was one man who was so directly responsible for all the power and all of the isolation in his life.
“I have to write another essay for Holy Father Habalan,” Kiram said casually.
Javier glanced at him, then went back to his book.
Kiram added, “We’re studying the era of the Mirogoth invasion.”
“From the year 1242 up until 1250,” Javier said thoughtfully, “the silky native Cadeleonian thickening agent used for most puddings suffered a significant decline and was almost completely replaced by a clumpy foreign imitation. Some of our best desserts might never have been recovered had it not been for the tireless effort of a short, balding cook named Vences Aniparo. Little is remembered about the man himself but his legacy remains with us today, as a variety of viscous gravies and glutinous desserts.”
Kiram laughed and felt oddly sad at the same time. He had known Javier would not mention Calixto.
Even among the Hellions, Javier never spoke of anything that troubled him. Listening to his banter and watching him both bully and amuse the other young men, it would have been easy to believe that Javier lived without a care.
Yet Kiram knew that something drove him to seek penance nearly every morning. And Kiram couldn’t forget the pain in Javier’s voice when he had spoken of the curse that had killed his father and left Fedeles a half-wit.
There had been one night when Kiram could not sleep and had found himself staring at the white beams of moonlight falling across Javier’s pale body. Then Kiram had seen Javier raise his hands over his face and almost claw at his own skull as if he couldn’t bear the thoughts inside. Javier had opened his mouth as if to scream but no sound escaped.
But the next morning Javier had sat with the Hellions, taunting and inciting them as he always did. He had bitten Morisio’s ear but only hard enough to make the other man flush and sputter. Then Javier and the rest of the Hellions had laughed uproariously. Kiram had realized that Javier would never allow any of them a deeper glimpse of his true self than this.
Elezar aside, Kiram doubted that any of the Hellions would have believed that Javier cared in the slightest about his ancestry. Certainly none of them would have imagined that he spent so many nights pouring over Calixto’s worn leather diary. Kiram imagined that Javier had the entire book memorized by now, and yet he returned to it again and again, the way another man might turn to a consoling scripture.
Kiram sighed. Contemplating Javier wasn’t going to get him any farther with his essay. Kiram stared down at the page of pitiful notes. After three days of searching through old academy records and decayed diaries he had managed to glean little more than was common knowledge about Yassin Lif-Harun.
He had been widely known as the bastard son of Demolia Helio by a Haldiim mistress. At an early age Yassin had shown amazing talents, particularly at mathematics but also in his mother’s holy garden. If his father had not decided to send Yassin to the academy as a study companion for his legitimate son, then Yassin would have become a Bahiim.
As it was, he had charted the courses of the stars while the Mirogoth invasion advanced towards the academy. He finished the last of his calculations only two days before the Mirogoth forces reached the academy walls. They had come intending to seize the last living Sagrada heir and everyone in the academy knew as much.
Yassin had been among the students who volunteered to defend the academy while the war master secreted the young prince to safety. Few of the students survived, though they succeeded in keeping the Mirogoths from discovering that the prince had already fled.
Yassin had died sometime during the second night of the ensuing three-day siege.
Kiram wondered if Yassin had lived long enough to know that Calixto had opened the white hell. Had he seen it happen? Surely someone had documented it, most likely Calixto. And then suddenly Kiram wondered if Calixto might not have also mentioned Yassin in his diary.
Maybe now that they were on good terms he could convince Javier to let him have a look at that book. It was worth a try, anyway.
“Does Calixto’s diary mention Yassin Lif-Harun? He was one of the defenders of the academy,” he said casually.
Javier studied Kiram over the top of the book.
“I believe I already explained the fee I would require for access to my deranged ancestor’s autobiography.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Kiram replied. “I need the information for my history essay.”
Javier leaned back in his chair and stretched out his long legs.
“I im
agine that only increases the value, then.”
“I’m not selling you my soul.”
“What about your body?”
Kiram felt his entire face flush red, not because he was shocked by Javier’s suggestion, but in shame at his own desire to accept. This was just the way Javier played with the people around him. Kiram knew that, but Javier’s slow, suggestive smile still affected him.
Kiram lowered his face, pretending to look over his notes one more time.
“I don’t even know if you have anything of value in the book,” Kiram said primly.
“My God, Kiram.” Javier laughed. “I never expect you to take me up on these things. You seem so demure most of the time.”
“I’m not demure. I just have some self-restraint.”
“But not, it seems, when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge. You’re willing to sell your body for a look at a book.” Javier held the diary up as if it were a shimmering enticement.
“No, I refuse to sell my body.” Kiram was a little amazed to realize that he’d grown used to these kinds of exchanges with Javier. “Unless you can guarantee that your book has any information that would be of use to me.”
Javier bounded up from his chair and sat down on the edge of Kiram’s bed, leaning in close. “If that’s the case, then I propose a little demonstration of quality on both our parts.”
“What do you mean?” Kiram tried to sound calm, but Javier’s nearness flustered him.
“I’ll give you a sample; you give me a sample.” Javier slipped behind Kiram, wrapping his arms around his waist and placing the diary on Kiram’s lap. He spread the pages of the book open. “I’ll let you read a page and you let me—”
“—have one kiss.” Kiram didn’t wait to hear what Javier would suggest for fear that he would agree. “One kiss. That’s all.”
“All right.” Javier sounded far too pleased and Kiram suddenly wondered if he’d offered too much. “You drive a hard bargain but I accept.”
Kiram pulled away just slightly. “I want to read a page in the diary first. And it had better say something about Yassin.”
“Don’t worry. It’s all there. You’ll get to give me that kiss.”
Javier flipped back two pages. A diagram of radiant lines illuminated the left side, while crumpled black hellscript filled the right.
“I can’t read it,” Kiram said.
“Not yet.” Javier wrapped his arms around Kiram’s chest, pulling him closer. “Relax a little. Lean into me.”
“Why?” Kiram couldn’t help but suspect that Javier was toying with him.
“You’ll be protected while you’re touching me,” Javier said. “The closer the better.”
Kiram leaned back but tried not to simply melt against Javier. The heat of Javier’s arms and the scent of his body seemed to soak into Kiram. Javier bowed his face close to Kiram’s. His lips almost brushed Kiram’s ear. Kiram felt unreasonably aware of where the fine stubble along Javier’s jaw brushed against his own skin.
“You’re taking advantage—”
Before Kiram could finish his sentence, white bolts of light crackled up from Javier’s chest and burst through his own body. Kiram expected pain and he almost jumped away but Javier held him tightly. A hot, liquid sensation flooded Kiram. He felt lightheaded, almost drunk. Strange, unfocused shadows filled the edges of his sight. He could no longer see his desk or even the corner of his bed. Bright white sparks flickered across his skin. The lights sprang along Kiram’s hands and spread across the open pages of the book.
Before Kiram’s eyes the diagram seemed to spread and rise from the page. What had been flat, straight lines slowly unfolded into the curving, organic form of a stylized tree, with wildly twisting branches and roots connecting through a braided trunk. He had seen a design like this on Bahiim holy books. Across the facing page, the hellscript also stretched out, spreading into beautifully ornate Cadeleonian script.
“Do you see?” Javier’s voice sounded as if it were coming from inside Kiram’s head.
Kiram wanted to respond but he couldn’t think of how to open his mouth, how to move his lips or form words. His entire body seemed lost somewhere between the flickering light and Javier’s hard muscles.
“You shouldn’t stay too long. Read it quickly.” Again Kiram heard Javier as if the thoughts were his own. He felt the urgency and slight worry in them and at once he focused on the diary.
As the weeks pass I pray less and listen to Yassin more. He is not the child I thought him to be. He has seen death firsthand and does not fear it.
Beside him the holy father is a doddering coward. When we speak of death he can only think of the hells and cringe in horror. But I have seen the white void open. I felt its pull at my very soul as I lay bleeding on the dueling field.
Yassin knew what I spoke of at once. He told me that I had been on the threshold of a shajdi. It is a place where death feeds into life and life is devoured by death. It is a place of immense power.
Before Nazario’s rule the Haldiim knew a way to hold these shajdi open, but the wisdom is either lost or hidden. Yassin does not know how it was done. But it is enough to know that it was accomplished. It can be done again. We will continue our attempts.
Kiram wanted to turn the page. He tried to lift his hands but he only managed to spread his fingers across the surface of the page.
“That’s enough, Kiram.”
No, Kiram thought, but he couldn’t say the word.
Javier suddenly lifted his hands away from him and all the warmth and light seemed to be ripped from Kiram. The words and image in the book collapsed to unintelligible scrawls. Then the book itself seemed to go dark. The edges of Kiram’s vision dimmed and then the whole room went black.
When Kiram opened his eyes he was lying back on his bed. Bright gold shafts of late summer sun glowed across the walls. Javier knelt beside him.
“Yassin was part of it.” Kiram’s voice felt rough, as if he’d just woken after a heavy slumber. He cleared his throat. “Yassin helped Calixto open the white hell. He was part of the whole thing.”
“I know. How are you feeling?”
“You knew. You knew all this time and you haven’t told anyone. Why?”
“Calixto never wanted Yassin’s name dragged down by association with the white hell and demonic magic,” Javier said. “He wanted him remembered for his genius.”
Kiram sat up slowly, still feeling off balance.
“So together they found some way not only to open a shajdi, but to keep it open.”
“Exactly so.”
“Is it always like that? I mean, for you. Is everything so—” Kiram wasn’t sure of how to describe what it had felt like to have the shajdi open all around him, “—distant?”
“Nothing about the white hell is distant for me. If you had been directly exposed to it without my protection, it would have burned your senses hollow.”
It sounded so dramatic that Kiram half expected Javier to be joking but his expression was serious.
“You still look a little groggy.” Javier offered Kiram a cup of water and made him drink it all. A few minutes later Kiram’s head began to clear.
The diary lay in its usual spot on Javier’s desk. It seemed deceptively small, almost insignificant. Then Kiram’s gaze fell to the dozens of hellscript markings drawn all across the floor. What larger forms lurked within those simple dark lines? Somehow he couldn’t get the idea of huge sea creatures floating just beneath the ocean’s surface out of his mind.
Then he realized that he was remembering an image from a Bahiim holy book that Alizadeh had read to him when he was a young child. The caption had read: A world deeper than the one we know, where great forces move beneath us like sea serpents coiling below tiny boats.
Kiram had the uneasy feeling that many of the superstitions he had summarily dismissed might be more true than he previously thought.
“Feeling better?” Javier seated himself on the bed beside him.
“I wasn’t expecting the shajdi to be like that.” Kiram noticed his notes lying on his desk and then remembered that he still had a page of equations to go over. The thought was relievingly mundane. Everything was just as it had been. “I’m fine, actually.”
“Good.” Javier moved closer so that his mouth almost brushed Kiram’s lips. “Because I would hate to take advantage of you when you were feeling weak, but you still owe me something.”
Kiram opened his mouth but he knew that there was no point in arguing; he had set his own price for seeing the diary. And it was only one kiss, after all.
He started to lean forward to kiss Javier’s lips but Javier drew back.
“I haven’t decided yet just where it is I want to kiss you,” Javier said. He gently pushed Kiram back down onto the bed. “I want to see what my options are.”
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Kiram protested. Javier placed his finger against Kiram’s lips and gazed down at him with a strange intensity.
“When you deal with a Hellion you should know that he’ll hold you to your word, no matter what you intended.” As much as it embarrassed Kiram, he couldn’t think of anything but the sensation of Javier’s touch.
“I’m going to take the kiss you promised me,” Javier whispered over him. “There’s no point in fighting me about it.”
Kiram closed his eyes. He could only hope to maintain his dignity, to keep from giving Javier a reaction that he could laugh at and taunt him with. He tried to imagine that this was just another day of battle practice, when Javier’s body pressed close against his own, when Javier’s warm hands touched his bare skin. But Javier never would have lingered so long or caressed him so gently in battle practice.
Javier’s fingers traced the curve of Kiram’s lip and then dropped to the base of Kiram’s throat. He unbuttoned Kiram’s shirt to expose his chest and abdomen.
Kiram shivered as Javier stroked the muscles of his bare shoulders and then brushed his fingers over Kiram’s nipples. He hated Javier for dragging this out and at the same time his body ached to feel more than just the gliding hints of Javier’s fingertips.
