Alais said, “We will step away peacefully.”
“Alais–” Tir said.
“We will step away,” she said. “He brings us our dead sons and keeps our youngest with his Oras. Do you see another path? I did not birth my sons, nor raise that of my sisters, to see them slaughtered now.”
“It has always been their decision–”
“Shush,” Alais said.
Ahkio felt Yisaoh’s burning black gaze on him but did not look at her. A single man or woman did not make a decision his family did not support, not in Dhai. There were too many family ties to consider. Kin were too close. Tir had not acted on his own. At the very least, his spouses supported and encouraged the actions their sons and daughter took. That’s why it had to be an exile to the third degree… even if it included people Ahkio wished it did not.
Ahkio nodded to Tir’s apprentice. “I will see you in Osono,” he said.
Ahkio held out his hand to Tir. He could not stop the trembling, and he cursed himself for it, but he held the hand there, a last gesture of goodwill.
“Don’t look at me, boy,” Tir said. “Your mother twisted this country, and your sister was blinded to what’s coming. My family’s known for years what we faced, while you relied on some foreigner to come here and set you right. You march Oras and our own militia into Garika, two forces that have never been given leave to work together. You defile your own Book. I will not speak your name again.”
Tir turned into the council house.
His wives followed. Yisaoh made to do the same, but Ahkio stopped her. “Not yet, Yisaoh.”
“Go soak your head.”
“Would you rather I say this in front of your family?”
She walked down the steps to him. Her mother, Alais, paused in the doorway and watched her.
Ahkio moved away from the house to a barren patch of ground near the rain barrel at the side of the council house. “You know I could have done worse for you.”
“Why? Because I had the heart to stand up to you?”
“Let’s not play. The boy you tried to kill in the temple lived.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The novice you stabbed on the steps of the scullery stair, sneaking around with Ora Almeysia.”
Her look was incredulous. “Don’t insult me.”
“You were in the temple the night my sister died. I have a witness.”
“The night she died?” Yisaoh shook her head. “I wasn’t there. Check the Line records in Garika. I left the next morning, the day I heard word of Kirana’s death. Not before. You think I walked there, attacked some boy, and then walked all the way back – a two-day journey! – only to take the Line the next morning? What, do you think I flew home on the back of a parajista? It’s quite obvious you never taught logic to your little sheep students.”
She made to walk back up the steps.
He grabbed at her sleeve. She jerked her arm away. “Don’t even think about touching me, any part of me. Don’t come within leagues of me.”
“You say you wouldn’t kill a boy, but you were happy to kill me.”
“That wasn’t my preference. Now, if you’ll give me back some measure of my own autonomy, I have things to pack.”
“I’m afraid you can’t go back to your rooms.”
“What?”
“I’ve sent my assistant and a contingent of militia to empty your rooms, and Kirana’s quarters here in Garika as well.”
“You have no right.”
“I have every right. You’ve been exiled.”
She took a pull from her cigarette and regarded him a long moment. “You think you’re clever enough to save this country on your own? You aren’t half so clever as you think. I wish whoever killed Kirana had killed you instead. The country would be better off for it.”
She crushed her cigarette under her heel and walked back into the council house.
Ahkio twisted away stiffly. He paused a moment in front of his bear, then mounted. He looked at the mob in the square. He needed to say something to them. Anything. Instead, he was leaving militia the color of mourning in their square. And he could think of nothing to say to that, nothing that would make it any better.
As he turned his bear about, Liaro rode up beside him. “Could have gone worse,” Liaro said.
“They may kill us yet,” Ahkio said.
“They’ll think about it a lot harder this time.”
“Let’s hope.”
“Did you really mean what you said, about exile to the third degree?” Liaro said.
“Yes.”
“You know who else that means, right?”
“Yes.”
“That includes some of my cousins. It nearly included me,” Liaro said. “And it definitely includes Meyna and Mey-Mey. Rhin and Hadaoh.”
“I know their names, Liaro.”
“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t forgetting.”
“I’m not going to forget.”
They were a sodden, downtrodden group filing into Osono four days later, short a dozen militia members who had stayed behind to escort Tir and his family to the harbor. Caisa had returned with her escort, though, driving a cart full of Yisaoh and Kirana’s belongings, unhurt and fairly crowing at the success of her theft.
Clan Leader Saurika met Ahkio in the Osono square. It was not a market day, so there were few people out to greet them.
Saurika reached for Ahkio’s hands. “Are we kissing now?” Saurika said. “I’d like to welcome you as clan family.”
“I accept,” Ahkio said. He kissed both of the old man’s cheeks.
“Welcome home, Kai,” Saurika said. “Fancy a game before we talk business?”
“I’ve had enough games in Garika,” Ahkio said, and he was surprised when Saurika laughed.
“Welcome to the seat, Kai.” His face grew serious. “You’re here to see Meyna and her husbands.”
“I wanted to tell her myself.”
“Too late for that,” he said. “We had a messenger arrive hours before you.”
“Is Meyna still here?”
“I don’t know if they’ll see you.”
“Let me go with you,” Caisa said, sliding off her bear. Ghrasia had issued her a sword along the way, a plain metal blade, not infused. Ahkio worried she didn’t know how to use it, but she insisted she had taken classes at the temple and was very capable.
“I’m going by myself,” Ahkio said.
“I know Meyna,” Liaro said. “That’s not terribly smart.”
“No wiser than anything else I’ve done,” Ahkio said. “Honestly, both of you. Stay here. This is something I need to do on my own.”
“We’ve had enough funeral feasts!” Liaro called after him.
Ahkio started the long walk to Meyna’s house. He had not slept well since he left, and his pace was sluggish. He did not expect to sleep well for some time. He walked up the spongy ramp to the house. Everything looked the same. He cracked open the door and called, “Meyna? Rhin? Are you home, Hadaoh?”
No answer.
Ahkio pushed open the door.
All was in order. He saw row upon row of carved eating sticks laid out on the table where Meyna had left them. Rhin’s boots, caked with mud from the sheep fields, sat by the back door. Ahkio called into the house again.
He walked onto the back porch. Stared down into the community green behind the house. A dozen children played there, shrieking as they pelted one another with sticky thorn flowers. He saw Mey-Mey sitting away from the group, surrounded by a pool of the purple flowers. She smashed their faces into one another and threw them halfheartedly at the other children.
He recognized big, broad-shouldered Hadaoh speaking to a neighbor across the green. But Rhin and Meyna were nowhere to be seen.
Ahkio walked back into the house, calling for Meyna. He heard movement upstairs. A heavy thumping. He went up the stairs that curved around the inner core of the tree, to the second level of the house.
Meyna stood at a long table in the open room at the center of the second floor. Her hands were covered in black soil. On the table, little semi-sentient orb-blood plants squiggled in the piles of dirt. Meyna brought up a hatchet and severed the red cylindrical head from the stem of one of the plants, then tossed both pieces into a foaming bucket of salt water at her feet. Ahkio had seen her cull the plants before but recognized this as something different. She was murdering all of them.
Meyna glanced up at him, hatchet raised, fingers clasping another wriggling plant. “I wondered how long you’d be,” she said, and brought down the hatchet.
“I hoped you’d still be here. I sent you letters. Did you get them?”
“The Soarina sisters are coming for the plates and Rhin’s unsold ceramics,” Meyna said. “You’d be surprised how much Afara Soarina wants them now that they come so cheaply. But the plants… well, no one wants the plants.”
“The letters, Meyna?”
She laughed. The laugh grew louder and deeper, until she doubled over, clutching her belly. She had to set down the hatchet. “Marry you?” she gasped. “After what you just did?”
Despite the hatchet in her hand, he wanted to hold her. He wondered if he was mad for feeling it. But this woman had held him and comforted him. She’d welcomed him into her home, made love to him, done everything but marry him.
“If you’d just answered-”
“You don’t love me or my husbands. You love power,” she said. She held up one of the wriggling plants. “Do you want one? I have thirty, and thirty more after that. Not much use for them where we’re going. They breed like flies in the woodlands. Beautiful but troublesome little things, liable to bite off a hand at maturity. But so sweet before they become deadly.”
“They killed my sister, Meyna.”
“You know that isn’t true. Is that what Ora Nasaka told you?”
“Yisaoh was seen in the temple–”
She lay down the hatchet. Leaned toward him. Her face softened. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said. “Come with us, Ahkio. Ora Nasaka is turning you into something horrible. I do want to marry you, Ahkio, but I don’t want some Ora’s puppet. Give your title to some other scheming madwoman.”
Ahkio’s heart raced. How long had he waited to hear her propose? Years. The dying plants wriggled on the table. He saw her hand covered in their sap. She knew what he wanted. She had always known. She offered it now because she’d run out of options. The more Dhai talked of love, the more all he could see was politics.
“It’s too late for that, Meyna.”
“Let me give you a piece of advice, Ahkio,” Meyna said. “Your sister had a good many irons in the fire. She was obsessed with that temple and kept you out of it for a reason. She asked me to take you into my home. And I did come to care for you, Ahkio. I did. But I can tell you that whatever she was doing there had nothing to do with the Garikas and everything to do with her own obsessions. Be careful you don’t become just like her.”
“Kai?” someone called from downstairs. Ahkio recognized Caisa’s voice.
“Here,” Ahkio said.
Caisa mounted the steps. She had one hand on the hilt of her sword. She eyed Meyna’s hatchet.
“Is everything all right?” Caisa asked.
“It’s fine,” Ahkio said. “This is a personal matter.”
“You shouldn’t wander around alone,” Caisa said, “especially not now.”
Meyna set down the hatchet. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh, I see,” she said, sparing a long look at Caisa. “I understand now.”
“Meyna–”
“No,” she said. “You’ve done a fine job of ingratiating yourself in the temple and with its… inhabitants. I wish you the best.”
“Caisa, could you please let me–” Ahkio began.
“No, let her hear it,” Meyna said. “Let her know how you treat kin. Family.”
The anger he’d kept so well in check in the temple struck him then. He stopped fighting it. “Family?” he said. “You took me into your home and your bed to tie me to you. And to Kirana, from what you’re saying now. Did you pity me? Did she? If you’d loved me, you’d have married me. You wanted the ear of the Kai’s brother. You’re as bad as the Oras. At least they don’t pretend their interest is affection.”
“You’re monstrous,” Meyna said.
“Only because it’s the truth,” Ahkio said. “You pack up your family and you go. I don’t care where. But you and Tir and all his kin have no place here. I won’t have civil war. Not now. Not ever. And I’ll have justice for Kirana.”
Meyna placed her hands on the table. Her look was icy. “Ora Nasaka has won this bout, Ahkio, but there is a war coming. And I don’t intend to lose that.”
He started down the stairs. He half expected to feel a hatchet in his back. But Caisa came down behind him, blocking him from Meyna’s reach.
Ahkio got halfway out the front door before he realized this was the last he would see of Meyna and Mey-Mey. He wanted to turn back, ask to see Mey-Mey, so he could tell her that whatever Meyna would say about him, it wasn’t true. But that wasn’t something a Kai would do.
He rubbed his eyes with his fists and walked back toward the square.
Caisa trailed behind him. She kept the silence until they were just a few steps from the square.
“That was a very formidable woman,” Caisa said.
“I seem to know a good many of those.”
“And you have a terrible habit of angering them,” she said.
23
What impressed Roh most about the Saiduan port city of Anjoliaa was the color; bright streamers of purple, crimson, green, and gold flew from soaring windows and feathered awnings. Saiduans dressed in the same bright colors – billowing robes with wide sleeves, long scarves, and vests with broad collars embroidered in silver. Most men wore long tunics and short coats, and many had their dark ears pierced. Their hair was long and black, knotted with colored ribbons like Dorinahs. There were smaller, paler people dressed in drab colors whose hair was cut short or shaved bald, their faces tattooed in black. They were slaves, ancestors of Dorinahs imported from Dorinah before the Saiduans retreated eight hundred years before. Roh also saw some men decked out in the clothing and markings of slaves who looked completely Saiduan. He knew the Saiduan enslaved others, but for some reason, it had never occurred to him that they might enslave themselves.
Anjoliaa was tucked into a wide bowl cut into a craggy plateau jutting out from the spur of the continent. The land looked immensely old, buffeted by strong wind, scoured clean.
Roh felt as if he had come to the end of the world.
Kihin stood with him one long moment at the end of the pier when they arrived. Great blubbery harbor seals, with toothy snouts and broad, delicate fins that looked more like plumage, pushed themselves off the iron mooring rings where they lay in the sun, entering the sea with a great splash. The smell of dead fish and offal, and something altogether spicier, stranger, filled the air.
Kihin gazed across the busy pier. He shifted his weight forward, as if he wanted to stand on his toes so he could see over the crowd. “My parents are here,” he said.
“What, do you see them?” Roh asked. Passage across the Sea of Haraeo to Saiduan had taken several days. They had left the Temple of Oma in advance of the Kai’s mission to Garika, but Dasai had already told Kihin what was coming.
“No,” Kihin said, “but they’re here. Somewhere. Now the Kai has the power to do whatever he wants.”
“He’s Kai,” Roh said.
“Titles don’t confer power,” Kihin said. “People do.”
Roh was not in the mood to argue. The other scholars disembarked behind them. Big Aramey and soft-eyed Nioni walked together, their heads almost touching as they spoke. Chali had spent much of the trip brushing up on his Saiduan, and carried a book even now down the gangplank. Dasai set the pace with his shuffling walk, moving past Roh and Kihin and calling f
or them to follow. Roh was never sure if he should admire Dasai or fear him, but he did pick up his pace.
At the end of the pier, two black-clad sanisi waited for them. The taller one was a woman with long frizzy hair knotted into a braid that touched the middle of her back. A smattering of freckles bruised her face. She had a dark complexion but not as dark as the man next to her. The other sanisi was a lean man with a massive beak of a nose and hair even longer than the woman’s. His was wound with a fine string of bells that seemed terribly impractical for an assassin.
It wasn’t until the man moved toward them, soundlessly, that Roh realized the bells had no clapper.
Dasai bowed at the waist. It was a strange thing to see. Dasai was a grizzled, petite man with a face like the gnarled confluence of some ancient tree. Roh found it difficult to watch him show deference – even respectful deference – to anyone. The sanisi made no gesture of deference in kind, not even a nod.
The sanisi exchanged pleasantries with Dasai, which Roh decided were boring. So he pushed his way ahead and stood next to Chali.
Chali gave him a stern look. Chali had spent the whole boat ride telling Roh how much he disapproved of Roh’s presence among the group.
“I’m Rohinmey Tadisa Garika,” he told the sanisi. “You can call me Roh.”
The man exchanged a look with the woman. “They’re Dhai,” he said, in Saiduan, as if it were an apology. “I’m Ren Wraisau Kilia,” he said, in very bad Dhai. “This is Shao Driaa Saarik.”
“You’re a woman,” Roh said, “like that other sanisi.”
“Not a woman,” she said, as if disgusted. “I’m ataisa.”
“Oh,” Roh said. “I’m sorry.” The Saiduan had three sexes – male, female, and ataisa. Ataisa were in-between people, those who lived in the seams of things, not quite male and not quite female. There was no equivalent term in Dhai, but it was just as rude to call someone by the wrong pronoun.
“You must be talking about Taigan,” Driaa said. “There are dozens of ataisa among the sanisi, but Taigan is not ataisa and not male, not female. Taigan changes often.” She shrugged. “Taigan is just Taigan. And Taigan will be the first to tell you that.”
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 21
